Knowing NASA, they probably have some complicated mathematical formula for calculating the confidence level. I wouldn't be suprised if they spent a couple hours coming up with that answer.
I think the author of the article doesn't really understand the relationship between RAM and the hard drive. Yes, hard drives are so, but in exchange for being slow we get a much greater capacity, which is a useful feature. However, to compensate for this RAM is used to cache the most frequently used data. So really, after you start up your computer, and have run all of you programs they are essentially located entirely in RAM, just like a SSD would be.
The problem here is how the OS handle's this data. Right now, most OSs don't really keep track of program usage patterns. An intelligent OS would say, load the programs I'm about to use into memory before I even start them. That's why you'll often see annoying programs in windows have a task bar icon, so they can load themselves into memory before you use them.
The solution is to keep increasing RAM in systems, and also increase the OS's efficiency in utilizing that resource and making it transparent to the user.
Don't buy things based on the rebate price at all. Only think about the retail price. If the retail price is well above other competative items that don't require rebates don't bother with buying the more expensive product. There is no guarantee you'll get the rebate back anyhow.
Too often I'll see something that has a generous rebate be priced well above normal retail level. I simply don't trust the rebate to be fulfilled and even if it is, you're giving the company a free 4-6 month loan.
Oh, and I think that warranty registration cards should be completely unecessary. If you have a companies product with a valid serial number and you call them on the phone they will usually support it.
I'm still waiting for a phone that will actually tell you how many minutes you've used peak/off-peak instead of forcing you to go to there website. It's obvious why they don't have this feature, but still I'd rather have something useful like this than cameras or DRM.
Oh, and why to some companies still charge $0.10 for you to send a 100 byte message when one minute of phone time is several kilobytes?
I've already read the wired magazine article that this "news" post refers too. Mostly the article is talking about the technology being used in the game. I don't remember reading anywhere that it would be an "exclusive" X-box title. Even if it was, this is only for technical reasons because the game requires so much graphics power.
One of the main points of the article was that game engine design itself would no longer be as important as cinema quality graphics come into play. In the future, it will be more like making a movie than making a video game.
I've had my LaserJet4L for almost 10 years too. TEN YEARS! Can you imagine that such a peice of computer technology could last that long? Sure, the toner costs $60-$80 but I've only had to buy a couple of them since I've owned the printer. I still haven't had to install the other one yet.
Inkjet's are scam. I've bought a color Epson printer because I wanted to use it to print photos. I've gotten maybe 20 pictures out of ONE ink cartridge. That's $1/picture.
I'd really like to see cheaper alternatives for photo printing.
You're forgetting that Windows CE isn't just for hand held computers. It's Microsoft's own embedded operating system. They might have used a modified version of it on the X-Box.
What's interesting, Windows CE had a full TCP/IP API way back in version 2.0 on the palm sized systems. So basically, they want to embed Windows CE in things like set top boxes, watches, phones, etc.
You know, it also takes a great deal of research, study, and experience. I wonder if he even used formulas to calculate how much rocket power he would need to accomplish this. What about saftey systems? Tests? I think there are way too many factors that he isn't thinking about. From reading the article, he seems over confident.
The college I go to has a milling machine. I've milled about 4 boards from it. That would be great if I could just have my own though and use it on my own time. However, could a home built milling machine achieve an accuracy of 10 mills for track width? Also, what software (opensource) could be used? I couldn't imagine a homemade machine achieving the same functionality as a $15,000 device, but if it could, a low cost home milling machine for hobby projects would be a great product.
Now they just need to make a low cost device for placing and soldering SMD components on the boards.
Probably because it's engineers and not marketing people naming these things because it's being sold to other firms to be included in there products. I guess Engineers prefer unintelligable acronyms to cool names like GeForce or Radeon.
GDDR2 SDRAM really means -> Graphics Double Data Rate 2 Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
You'd rather have a P4 GHz and a cheap monitor than an LCD that is easier on the eyes? I for one am planning to buy an LCD long before I upgrade my "slow" 1.2GHz CPU. Most consumers can't see the difference between CPU speeds but they can see the difference between a CRT and an LCD even if they don't understand things like resolution or refresh rate.
I do a lot of programming, and having a good quality screen for text would help quite a bit.
Slackware is one of the few major linux distributions that I can install on an old 520MB hard drive.
I haven't tried version 9.0 yet. Have they improved the installation process? I found the text mode one took quite a bit of time to select the individual packages I wanted.
okay now that's just silly. How is someone going to sneak out of a store holding a 17" computer monitor??? "excuse me, can you help me out to my car with this thing? it's kind of heavy"
I really did find a working monitor next to a dumpster. If you lived in an area where people have a lot of money but not a lot of time, you'd realize that many of them simply don't care about just trashing old technology and buying new. The same kind of people who lease new cars every couple years.
I found a 17" monitor next to a dumpster recently. Really, it was better than most of my old ones. It's amazing the useful things people throw out simply because something "better" has come along.
I also noticed a PC in the dumpster one time but I decided to pass on thatt one.
Does this server use multicast over 802.11? I can't imagine it supporting more than a couple dozen clients. And given the limited range of 802.11b how useful is this really?
I've considered graduate school too, but I have no idea which one to choose and that also means adding to the massive debt I already have. I'll also probably have about 6 months after graduating before I could even start.
I'd like to go to graduate school just so I could continue to study computer topics I find interesting. At least to keep me busy for awhile and increase my employability (is that a word?) if the job market gets any better (I doubt it).
are you serious? 40 rejection letters? I'm just about to graduate, I read this paragraph, and I think to myself, did I waste my time studying the in the wrong feild?
I wonder if it's too late to become a lawyer or go into biotech.
I actually bought two of those because it was so cheap. I let my system run continuously for 24hours with a RAM testing program that loads on boot. No errors detected. I figure if it passed that test I don't have anything to worry about and it was a good deal. Still, it's probably slower than my old PC133 RAM, but more ram is usually better than less, slower RAM due to disk caching.
I would still like to bye a gigabyte of name brand memory, but that would cost me well over $150 now.
I wonder when they will start designing hard drives with multiple read heads. I thought I read an article on here awhile back about that. If you have two read heads on a 5,400 RPM drive it would be faster than a 10,000 RPM drive due to the seek time being cut in half. That is, one hard drive head would be closer to the data than the other on average.
The problem with hard drives now is that the seek time is too slow. It takes too long for the disk to spin to where the head is and it takes the head to long to find tracks. There must be some way to speed those two mechanisms up other than just increasing the RPM's. HD access is still in the milliseconds whereas RAM is at nanoseconds. If HD access could even get into the microsecond range it would be a significant improvement in performance.
The screen is harder to read sometimes. Until they have 600dpi LCD's or CRT's that can be viewed in direct sunlight, paper is still superior in some respect.
With laser printing, it's cheap enough not to matter.
I still see people doing this. Putting things in filing cabinets just because they "might" need it someday. And then, 5 years later, they have no idea what the document is, but they are too afraid to throw it out. At least a CDROM is compact.
I'll print things out like crazy just because it's easier to read it, but I don't give printed documents any serious consideration as to importance. I'll just throw a peice a paper out if I can't see an immediate use for it.
My decade old HP LaserJet 4L printer has only needed the toner replaced like twice within that timeframe. I've had an inkjet for not even a year yet, printed no more than 30 pages (photos) and it's out of ink already. Laser is definately the way to go. Color laser is getting cheaper too and I'm considering buying one someday.
Slashdot Mirror
Knowing NASA, they probably have some complicated mathematical formula for calculating the confidence level. I wouldn't be suprised if they spent a couple hours coming up with that answer.
Or they could be just guessing.
http://www.theopencd.org/
It's not the same ISO, but it also seems to include a lot of good open source windows applications.
* OpenOffice.org 1.0.1
* DictInstall 0.9.3.2
* AbiWord 1.0.1
* Beonex Communicator 0.8.1
* FileZilla 2.1.1
* Putty 0.52
* WinVNC 3.3.3r9
* XChat 1.8.10a
* Audacity 1.0
* CDex 1.40
* 7-Zip 2.24
* NetTime 2.0b6
* Win Privacy Tray 0.5.5
* Sokoban YASC 1.53
* Celestia 1.2.4
I think the author of the article doesn't really understand the relationship between RAM and the hard drive. Yes, hard drives are so, but in exchange for being slow we get a much greater capacity, which is a useful feature. However, to compensate for this RAM is used to cache the most frequently used data. So really, after you start up your computer, and have run all of you programs they are essentially located entirely in RAM, just like a SSD would be.
The problem here is how the OS handle's this data. Right now, most OSs don't really keep track of program usage patterns. An intelligent OS would say, load the programs I'm about to use into memory before I even start them. That's why you'll often see annoying programs in windows have a task bar icon, so they can load themselves into memory before you use them.
The solution is to keep increasing RAM in systems, and also increase the OS's efficiency in utilizing that resource and making it transparent to the user.
Don't buy things based on the rebate price at all. Only think about the retail price. If the retail price is well above other competative items that don't require rebates don't bother with buying the more expensive product. There is no guarantee you'll get the rebate back anyhow.
Too often I'll see something that has a generous rebate be priced well above normal retail level. I simply don't trust the rebate to be fulfilled and even if it is, you're giving the company a free 4-6 month loan.
Oh, and I think that warranty registration cards should be completely unecessary. If you have a companies product with a valid serial number and you call them on the phone they will usually support it.
I'm still waiting for a phone that will actually tell you how many minutes you've used peak/off-peak instead of forcing you to go to there website. It's obvious why they don't have this feature, but still I'd rather have something useful like this than cameras or DRM.
Oh, and why to some companies still charge $0.10 for you to send a 100 byte message when one minute of phone time is several kilobytes?
I've already read the wired magazine article that this "news" post refers too. Mostly the article is talking about the technology being used in the game. I don't remember reading anywhere that it would be an "exclusive" X-box title. Even if it was, this is only for technical reasons because the game requires so much graphics power.
One of the main points of the article was that game engine design itself would no longer be as important as cinema quality graphics come into play. In the future, it will be more like making a movie than making a video game.
My guess is that quicktime isn't very well optimized for the Intel platform. Or, maybe it isn't utilizing all the video hardware that's available.
I've had my LaserJet4L for almost 10 years too. TEN YEARS! Can you imagine that such a peice of computer technology could last that long? Sure, the toner costs $60-$80 but I've only had to buy a couple of them since I've owned the printer. I still haven't had to install the other one yet.
Inkjet's are scam. I've bought a color Epson printer because I wanted to use it to print photos. I've gotten maybe 20 pictures out of ONE ink cartridge. That's $1/picture.
I'd really like to see cheaper alternatives for photo printing.
You're forgetting that Windows CE isn't just for hand held computers. It's Microsoft's own embedded operating system. They might have used a modified version of it on the X-Box.
What's interesting, Windows CE had a full TCP/IP API way back in version 2.0 on the palm sized systems. So basically, they want to embed Windows CE in things like set top boxes, watches, phones, etc.
You know, it also takes a great deal of research, study, and experience. I wonder if he even used formulas to calculate how much rocket power he would need to accomplish this. What about saftey systems? Tests? I think there are way too many factors that he isn't thinking about. From reading the article, he seems over confident.
The college I go to has a milling machine. I've milled about 4 boards from it. That would be great if I could just have my own though and use it on my own time. However, could a home built milling machine achieve an accuracy of 10 mills for track width? Also, what software (opensource) could be used? I couldn't imagine a homemade machine achieving the same functionality as a $15,000 device, but if it could, a low cost home milling machine for hobby projects would be a great product.
Now they just need to make a low cost device for placing and soldering SMD components on the boards.
Probably because it's engineers and not marketing people naming these things because it's being sold to other firms to be included in there products. I guess Engineers prefer unintelligable acronyms to cool names like GeForce or Radeon.
GDDR2 SDRAM really means -> Graphics Double Data Rate 2 Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
You'd rather have a P4 GHz and a cheap monitor than an LCD that is easier on the eyes? I for one am planning to buy an LCD long before I upgrade my "slow" 1.2GHz CPU. Most consumers can't see the difference between CPU speeds but they can see the difference between a CRT and an LCD even if they don't understand things like resolution or refresh rate.
I do a lot of programming, and having a good quality screen for text would help quite a bit.
Slackware is one of the few major linux distributions that I can install on an old 520MB hard drive.
I haven't tried version 9.0 yet. Have they improved the installation process? I found the text mode one took quite a bit of time to select the individual packages I wanted.
okay now that's just silly. How is someone going to sneak out of a store holding a 17" computer monitor??? "excuse me, can you help me out to my car with this thing? it's kind of heavy"
I really did find a working monitor next to a dumpster. If you lived in an area where people have a lot of money but not a lot of time, you'd realize that many of them simply don't care about just trashing old technology and buying new. The same kind of people who lease new cars every couple years.
I found a 17" monitor next to a dumpster recently. Really, it was better than most of my old ones. It's amazing the useful things people throw out simply because something "better" has come along.
I also noticed a PC in the dumpster one time but I decided to pass on thatt one.
Does this server use multicast over 802.11? I can't imagine it supporting more than a couple dozen clients. And given the limited range of 802.11b how useful is this really?
I've considered graduate school too, but I have no idea which one to choose and that also means adding to the massive debt I already have. I'll also probably have about 6 months after graduating before I could even start.
I'd like to go to graduate school just so I could continue to study computer topics I find interesting. At least to keep me busy for awhile and increase my employability (is that a word?) if the job market gets any better (I doubt it).
I need to pray more too.
are you serious? 40 rejection letters? I'm just about to graduate, I read this paragraph, and I think to myself, did I waste my time studying the in the wrong feild?
I wonder if it's too late to become a lawyer or go into biotech.
I actually bought two of those because it was so cheap. I let my system run continuously for 24hours with a RAM testing program that loads on boot. No errors detected. I figure if it passed that test I don't have anything to worry about and it was a good deal. Still, it's probably slower than my old PC133 RAM, but more ram is usually better than less, slower RAM due to disk caching.
I would still like to bye a gigabyte of name brand memory, but that would cost me well over $150 now.
I wonder when they will start designing hard drives with multiple read heads. I thought I read an article on here awhile back about that. If you have two read heads on a 5,400 RPM drive it would be faster than a 10,000 RPM drive due to the seek time being cut in half. That is, one hard drive head would be closer to the data than the other on average.
The problem with hard drives now is that the seek time is too slow. It takes too long for the disk to spin to where the head is and it takes the head to long to find tracks. There must be some way to speed those two mechanisms up other than just increasing the RPM's. HD access is still in the milliseconds whereas RAM is at nanoseconds. If HD access could even get into the microsecond range it would be a significant improvement in performance.
I'm sure they'll find better solutions someday.
The screen is harder to read sometimes. Until they have 600dpi LCD's or CRT's that can be viewed in direct sunlight, paper is still superior in some respect.
With laser printing, it's cheap enough not to matter.
I still see people doing this. Putting things in filing cabinets just because they "might" need it someday. And then, 5 years later, they have no idea what the document is, but they are too afraid to throw it out. At least a CDROM is compact.
I'll print things out like crazy just because it's easier to read it, but I don't give printed documents any serious consideration as to importance. I'll just throw a peice a paper out if I can't see an immediate use for it.
My decade old HP LaserJet 4L printer has only needed the toner replaced like twice within that timeframe. I've had an inkjet for not even a year yet, printed no more than 30 pages (photos) and it's out of ink already. Laser is definately the way to go. Color laser is getting cheaper too and I'm considering buying one someday.
Why hasn't this been modded down?