That it finally has a Windows key is the reason why it's 50% less usable for me. I hope to hold on to pre-60 series Thinkpads as long as possible.
Try typing in a non-English language, where the diacritical marks are accessible via the right Alt key. The previous Thinkpads - including the T43 I am typing this on - were the last holdout laptops which had the full size Alt keys, making touch typing possible.
I view it as the start of the inevitable decline of the Thinkpad, which was bound to have started sometime after the Chinese bought the line from IBM, and the last IBM innovations in the pipeline ran out. I fully expect the Chinese to dilute the brand slowly, making it cheaper and more similar to all the rest of the mediocrity on the market.
This article is a joke. I firmly believe that I got what I paid for so I wouldn't normally complain here. But this is nothing like my experience.
Simplicity of the installation process? Last year I installed a Mandrake 9 on a VM. I had a functional install which I used for 2 weeks and then forgotten. This year I had to dust it off and install some new software for it.
Poof! The installation system is broken, the software repositories don't work, nothing upgrades not only automatically but even most things fail during manual installation due to library dependencies and even the Mandrake websites no longer exist. End result: I cannot install software on a year old Linux system.
Now they made it sucky just like in all the other countless laptops on the market: microscopic Ctrl and Alt keys, useless Windows keys.
The fact that IBM laptops did not give in to Microsoft and always, so far, had normal sized Ctrl and Alt keys was a MAJOR reason why I was buying them.
Also, for all the talk about design, they did not do the one thing that should be really obvious: increase the keyboard width to full-size now that it is possible with the wide-screen format!
I regard this new Z line the first visible mark of predicted decline of the Thinkpad line. The Chinese obviously are going to do what everybody was afraid of: expand into home and consumer markets, milk the brand for all it's worth, quality be damned.
Sad, really. My relationship to my Thinkpads was always quite emotional. Not any longer.
Plant oils as source of fuels are feasible only if you feed a lot of fertilizer to the plants. Guess what fertilizer is made of? Extensive farming also requires a lot of oil for tractors, combines and other equipment.
And you don't want to imagine the environmental disaster if we are forced to farm every available piece of land for fuel.
Read up on the concept of EROEI to understand why biofuels just aren't sustainable.
It really strikes me that nobody evaluates the feasibility of things like Mach 2 air travel in the face of the end of cheap oil era on the horizon. Even as anybody can observe the total failure that today's airlines already are -- due to that very factor.
The lack of Windows keys is the single most important reason why I just bought a new Thinkpad X31.
Why? Because I have to write a lot in Polish, which is a language heavy with diacritical marks and these are obtained via Alt keys. Even on full size desktop keyboards the Windows keys are an obstruction to fast typing. On a huge majority of laptops Alts are minuscule. This renders them practically unusable to me.
If they started using the helicopter cams for the sprints. They're always filming the sprints from ground-based cameras in front of the riders with ridiculous amounts of zoom. You have no chance to see who's in the lead or who's coming up fast or falling behind.
Aside from safety concerns, a heli directly in front of the sprinters would blow huge amount of wind in their direction, slowing them down and effectively changing the rules of the game.
It is possible to distinguish the riders in a sprint simply by their team jerseys. So the only issue is when more than one guy from the same team is going for it - a rather rare situation.
How to market yourself as a developer (preferably independent) so that you can make a nice living doing this kind of localized software?
This is what's on my mind as I contemplate starting my own software company. I noticed the same thing as the author: there's a lot of demand for "small" software which is not being met, or is being met by second- and third tier programming talent, and the quality of results is quite often offensive.
Just wait till the oil ends, or at least gets sufficiently scarce that Western middle class gets a choice: nuclear plants in the backyard, or having your 3000 sq ft home unheated in winter. Alternative energy sources will make you feel good, but as far as meeting demand, they are piddlyshit. Industrial civilization simply can't run on wind & solar alone.
Think it's decades away? Think twice. Oil production has been flat for the last five years or so, while consumption - driven by economic growth in India and China - keeps growing at 5-8% a year. Discoveries of new oil fields are at all-time low. How long do you think this trend can last?
Sure, oil companies and Saudi princes say there's no problem, we have plenty more. Meanwhile: * U.S. invaded Iraq (WMD my ass) * Shell downgrades reserves * prices keep rising
Looks like nuclear plant engineer is going to be a job for the future!
Re:Bruce Sterlings previous work has been weak
on
The Zenith Angle
·
· Score: 1
> Sterling might be viewed as a science fiction Tom Clancy
>(he even seems to share Tom Clancy's right wing political views)
Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. You should have a look at the Viridian newsletter (http://www.viridiandesign.org) to get a fix of Bruce Sterling's political views. They are anything but right wing, maybe not as far left as Ken McLeod but I'd definitely term him at least "progressive".
Except for _The Difference Engine_, I liked everything he wrote. And then some things just blow me apart, like _Schismatrix_. The depth, AND the breadth of the thing!
This sample is just wonderful. It uses more than a page of code to implement something that would take at most five lines in Perl. Actually I think word frequency count is one of the little examples in Perl Cookbook.
And you claim that a page of full blown Java code, complete with classes, initializations, templates etc. is easier to understand than a quasi-functional transformation (as it would have been written in Perl). Well, duh.
Try it out, works quite often for me - beats Google for many queries, not in actual number of pages found, but in the time it takes me to find out whatever I'm looking for.
> maximum sustained human energy output is around > 150-200 W.
In the exercise science (well, some coaches' approaches to it), maximum sustained human energy output is called "critical power".
Typical power outputs of, say, world class cyclists will be on the order of:
1500W for 10 seconds 800W for 1 minute 600W for 5 minutes 500W for an hour 400W for 3 hours... and so on, 300W for 10 hours is not unsustainable for some like Johann Musseeuw.
> It also mentions that Bryan Allen, in > his 1979 English Channel crossing in the > Gossamer Albatross, managed to sustain ~250 W > for 49 minutes, and it wiped him out.
He was dehydrated - didn't take enough water
Any barely competent cyclist should be able to manage 250W for an hour.
Yeah, the problem with standard-sized, manned helicopters in XC racing is that
* they are too big to fit between terrain features, to come close to the riders, and to film something else than their backs from above
* they are too expensive - even in road racing only the biggest races can afford them.
But given a cheap RC that can fit between trees and come really close to the racers to make a side shot, follow the racers on hard technical uphills and downhills, and XC racing could look, in TV, way more interesting than it is now.
For example, cross country bicycle racing.
As a sport - it's fantastic to do it, but extremely boring to watch, because the camera cannot follow riders as it does in road racing.
A heli-mounted camera is what this sport is waiting for.
Tacx I-magic, Computrainer et caetera. The I-Magic even allows people to train and race with others over the Internet! These trainers may not be a hit with the general populace, but they are certainly an object of desire of every bike racer who has to train through winter.
Somehow, for the Open Source arch enemy, Microsoft, "economic downturn" means growth of maybe 20% rather than 30% p.a. Also, considering the sheer number of non-open-source software firms - which in general even in these difficult times are still doing better than the rest of the economy, and comparing it to the number of reported open source failures, shows that there's something fishy about the whole open source "business model". Spend money developing software then make money on services? Fine, what about your competitors who make money on services anyway and don't have the huge money drain of SW development?
Please. Linux/open source need success stories, not rationalizations.
Think about it, Formula One Cars dont go over 5 G, Nascar probably dont even get 1G, being big slow machines an'alll. But 10kG is pretty fast.
Just a nitpick: if you want to use SI units of measure, take some time to get them right. The unit of acceleration you are referring to is "g", equalling about 9.81 meters/sec^2, while "G" is the gravity constant.
Of course, then 10,000 g comes off rather misleadingly as 10 kg, which is why it's a good idea in the first place to use the official UM, meters per second squared.
Re:Deja Vu all over again
on
$1200 Cheap!
·
· Score: 1
So, pray tell, are PCs in Belgium sold with or without the Internet Explorer?
As everybody seems to be deep into religious argument about this and that, I'd like to know just one simple thing. Suppose the judge agrees to release Sklyarov on bail of, whatever, $10k? $50k? $500k?
Who's gonna pay the bail?
Do you actually expect him to show back in the U.S. when the day of his process comes?
By the way, anyone knows what's happening with the next Stephenson's novel, Quicksilver? It's been promised but I couldn't find any new info about it lately (and I have even searched Usenet archives)
Slashdot Mirror
That it finally has a Windows key is the reason why it's 50% less usable for me. I hope to hold on to pre-60 series Thinkpads as long as possible.
Try typing in a non-English language, where the diacritical marks are accessible via the right Alt key. The previous Thinkpads - including the T43 I am typing this on - were the last holdout laptops which had the full size Alt keys, making touch typing possible.
I view it as the start of the inevitable decline of the Thinkpad, which was bound to have started sometime after the Chinese bought the line from IBM, and the last IBM innovations in the pipeline ran out. I fully expect the Chinese to dilute the brand slowly, making it cheaper and more similar to all the rest of the mediocrity on the market.
This article is a joke. I firmly believe that I got what I paid for so I wouldn't normally complain here. But this is nothing like my experience.
Simplicity of the installation process? Last year I installed a Mandrake 9 on a VM. I had a functional install which I used for 2 weeks and then forgotten. This year I had to dust it off and install some new software for it.
Poof! The installation system is broken, the software repositories don't work, nothing upgrades not only automatically but even most things fail during manual installation due to library dependencies and even the Mandrake websites no longer exist. End result: I cannot install software on a year old Linux system.
Just to be exact, the Polish contingent in Iraq was 2500 troops at its maximum and is now about 1500.
Not huge, of course, but a real contribution. What exactly are we there for, though, is another question.
Now they made it sucky just like in all the other countless laptops on the market: microscopic Ctrl and Alt keys, useless Windows keys.
The fact that IBM laptops did not give in to Microsoft and always, so far, had normal sized Ctrl and Alt keys was a MAJOR reason why I was buying them.
Also, for all the talk about design, they did not do the one thing that should be really obvious: increase the keyboard width to full-size now that it is possible with the wide-screen format!
I regard this new Z line the first visible mark of predicted decline of the Thinkpad line. The Chinese obviously are going to do what everybody was afraid of: expand into home and consumer markets, milk the brand for all it's worth, quality be damned.
Sad, really. My relationship to my Thinkpads was always quite emotional. Not any longer.
And you don't want to imagine the environmental disaster if we are forced to farm every available piece of land for fuel.
Read up on the concept of EROEI to understand why biofuels just aren't sustainable.
It really strikes me that nobody evaluates the feasibility of things like Mach 2 air travel in the face of the end of cheap oil era on the horizon. Even as anybody can observe the total failure that today's airlines already are -- due to that very factor.
The lack of Windows keys is the single most important reason why I just bought a new Thinkpad X31. Why? Because I have to write a lot in Polish, which is a language heavy with diacritical marks and these are obtained via Alt keys. Even on full size desktop keyboards the Windows keys are an obstruction to fast typing. On a huge majority of laptops Alts are minuscule. This renders them practically unusable to me.
I'd have thought the correct answer would be "No, I am just happy to see you".
Aside from safety concerns, a heli directly in front of the sprinters would blow huge amount of wind in their direction, slowing them down and effectively changing the rules of the game.
It is possible to distinguish the riders in a sprint simply by their team jerseys. So the only issue is when more than one guy from the same team is going for it - a rather rare situation.
... how to capitalize on that trend?
How to market yourself as a developer (preferably independent) so that you can make a nice living doing this kind of localized software?
This is what's on my mind as I contemplate starting my own software company. I noticed the same thing as the author: there's a lot of demand for "small" software which is not being met, or is being met by second- and third tier programming talent, and the quality of results is quite often offensive.
Just wait till the oil ends, or at least gets sufficiently scarce that Western middle class gets a choice: nuclear plants in the backyard, or having your 3000 sq ft home unheated in winter. Alternative energy sources will make you feel good, but as far as meeting demand, they are piddlyshit. Industrial civilization simply can't run on wind & solar alone.
Think it's decades away? Think twice. Oil production has been flat for the last five years or so, while consumption - driven by economic growth in India and China - keeps growing at 5-8% a year. Discoveries of new oil fields are at all-time low. How long do you think this trend can last?
Sure, oil companies and Saudi princes say there's no problem, we have plenty more. Meanwhile:
* U.S. invaded Iraq (WMD my ass)
* Shell downgrades reserves
* prices keep rising
Looks like nuclear plant engineer is going to be a job for the future!
> Sterling might be viewed as a science fiction Tom Clancy >(he even seems to share Tom Clancy's right wing political views) Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. You should have a look at the Viridian newsletter (http://www.viridiandesign.org) to get a fix of Bruce Sterling's political views. They are anything but right wing, maybe not as far left as Ken McLeod but I'd definitely term him at least "progressive". Except for _The Difference Engine_, I liked everything he wrote. And then some things just blow me apart, like _Schismatrix_. The depth, AND the breadth of the thing!
And you claim that a page of full blown Java code, complete with classes, initializations, templates etc. is easier to understand than a quasi-functional transformation (as it would have been written in Perl). Well, duh.
Try it out, works quite often for me - beats Google for many queries, not in actual number of pages found, but in the time it takes me to find out whatever I'm looking for.
> I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me
> if Allen decided not to carry much water in
> order to keep the weight down.
That was the case, precisely, as far as I can remember from watching a Discovery Channel program on the Gossamer Condor/Albatross.
> How much water does someone like Musseeuw
> consume during a 10-hour stint like that?
That depends mostly on air temperature and humidity, typically it's half a liter to a liter per hour.
> maximum sustained human energy output is around
... and so on, 300W for 10 hours is not unsustainable for some like Johann Musseeuw.
> 150-200 W.
In the exercise science (well, some coaches' approaches to it), maximum sustained human energy output is called "critical power".
Typical power outputs of, say, world class cyclists will be on the order of:
1500W for 10 seconds
800W for 1 minute
600W for 5 minutes
500W for an hour
400W for 3 hours
> It also mentions that Bryan Allen, in
> his 1979 English Channel crossing in the
> Gossamer Albatross, managed to sustain ~250 W
> for 49 minutes, and it wiped him out.
He was dehydrated - didn't take enough water
Any barely competent cyclist should be able to manage 250W for an hour.
HTH
Yeah, the problem with standard-sized, manned helicopters in XC racing is that
* they are too big to fit between terrain features, to come close to the riders, and to film something else than their backs from above
* they are too expensive - even in road racing only the biggest races can afford them.
But given a cheap RC that can fit between trees and come really close to the racers to make a side shot, follow the racers on hard technical uphills and downhills, and XC racing could look, in TV, way more interesting than it is now.
For example, cross country bicycle racing. As a sport - it's fantastic to do it, but extremely boring to watch, because the camera cannot follow riders as it does in road racing. A heli-mounted camera is what this sport is waiting for.
Tacx I-magic, Computrainer et caetera. The I-Magic even allows people to train and race with others over the Internet! These trainers may not be a hit with the general populace, but they are certainly an object of desire of every bike racer who has to train through winter.
How about putting an aero shield over a normal, upright's bar? Like some motorcycles have?
Is there anyone who makes such bikes?
The question is, I guess, whether it would be worth the added weight.
Please. Linux/open source need success stories, not rationalizations.
Just a nitpick: if you want to use SI units of measure, take some time to get them right. The unit of acceleration you are referring to is "g", equalling about 9.81 meters/sec^2, while "G" is the gravity constant. Of course, then 10,000 g comes off rather misleadingly as 10 kg, which is why it's a good idea in the first place to use the official UM, meters per second squared.
So, pray tell, are PCs in Belgium sold with or without the Internet Explorer?
Just curious.
As everybody seems to be deep into religious argument about this and that, I'd like to know just one simple thing. Suppose the judge agrees to release Sklyarov on bail of, whatever, $10k? $50k? $500k?
Who's gonna pay the bail?
Do you actually expect him to show back in the U.S. when the day of his process comes?
By the way, anyone knows what's happening with the next Stephenson's novel, Quicksilver? It's been promised but I couldn't find any new info about it lately (and I have even searched Usenet archives)