> Compared what? The 'distro' of Linux someone put >on their box by compiling it from scratch and >deciding exactly what they wanted on that box? Your >question makes no sense, as this is not a standard >distribution.
Actually, I would like to see how much difference optimization makes. I believe Slackware is compiled by default for i386 (feel free to correct me). If I recompile it for i686, and run it on my PII/266, will Mozilla load in a reasonable length of time?
Let's look at the Duron 750 (at 800) I'm using here:
1. KWI brand Socket 7 HSF (local dealers wouldn't recognize AMD approved heatsinks if they sat on them)
2. Taisol CEK733092 (pretty nice)
3. Thermaltake Volcano II (okay sink, leftover from a Thunderbird 1200, and used when I couldn't find the Taisol anymore, but the fan has gotten quite noisy quite fast)
I have a spare copper sink I may bolt on it, because it's tending to sound a little loud lately.
>Yeah I know, there's going to be 100 replies to me >saying "that's not true! I share Linux ISOs!" (as >if you can't just download them from a host of >mirror sites).
Actually, P2P in a way solves a problem with present network design. Much of the time, there's a fairly small amount of traffic, but there are also significant spikes (/. effect, new Slackware release). You have to build capacity (mirror systems, etc.) to handle the spikes gracefully, or tick off users who go away empty-handed.
A P2P system allows anyone who was able to get a copy to become a mirror easily. No need to maintain a reference list of mirrors.
When RH10 comes, woudln't it be better to be able to download it from any one of the first 5,000 users to get a copy, rather than from one of 30 or 40 clogged mirrors?
> What's this about plasticy CGI? I do 3D modeling >and I must say, it's incredibly simple to get >something to look organic. In fact, it's harder to >get something to look plasticy than it is to make >it matte.
Perhaps it's a function of older CGI tech, but a lot of older CGI does look a bit plasticky. I'd think though, still, for something fluid and full of life, using real living things, or at least motion capture on them, would help to avoid the difficulties of making plausible movements.
>I just want to see a Metroid flying around. That would be so awesome!
Then watch the next Jacques Cousteau special on PBS. Metroids look just like jellyfish. And taste like them too.
Actually, I could see them getting pretty good effects by filming real jellyfish and putting them in, than trying to kill the plasticky sheen of CGI metroids.
I'm not sure how much humanity CAN balkanize with genetic engineering.
Assume everyone wants something different. Personally, I want draconic children. Someone else may settle for no diabetes and a 225 IQ. A third person may want chameleon skin.
In all likelihood, each GE faction will wish to differentiate themselves from each other faction, and from industry-standard humans. However, each group will likely be too small in numbers to stand on its own, economically or militarily, so they'll have to align with standard humans and/or each other to survive. I expect that eventually humanity will evolve out of existence, as a generation or six grow up thinking "Wow! I could avoid $COSTLYDISEASE or have $COOLFEATURE for my kids just by dropping a few hundred SpaceRoubles at Uncle Anton's Discount Genetic Engineering Centre!"
I would mod you back into the stone age if I had the points.
>GWB and his rich friends want to run a country with >no murder, no terrorism, where everything's fair >and prosperity benefits all of us directly, in the >pocketbook.
No terrorism? And how exactly do you get to that by ticking off a region that's bred most of our current terrorists?
Moreover, "benefitting us directly in the pocketbook" as the universal mantra is stupid, because of economies of scale and projects beyond the reach of individual consumers. Individuals given a few hundred dollars in tax credits can't buy a quality, affordable health care system with it. The government can combine everyone's $300 and pressure the market into delivering one.
>Yeah, hacking should be illegal. I mean, it's a >fundamental duty to not only be able to have >perfect digital copies of unreleased music, but to >be able to break any and all encryption designed >to protect said music, and then distribute it to >everyone and their brother without any fear of >criminal prosecution.
Distributing copies broadly is illegal under standard copyright. The best logic I've seen to justify the DMCA is the saying that "it should be MORE illegal". Brilliant. Let's ruin DRM research, wrap all our content in boxes we'll never be able to open without the original manufacturer's consent, and pray that our corporate masters are benevolent.
>Er, last I checked the US Welfare system was >still intact, and it was still illegal to not >treat someone who shows up needing care at a >hospital.
Show of hands: Who feels they'd be better off in the US without private health insurance? Now who thinks they'd be better off in Canada. Thank you.
>Yeah. The right to protest the government, >protect yourself from harm, profit from your >work, and be religious in public is SUCH a >horrible thing.
Yeah. How long will that stay up in Iraq, assuming it even gets installed there.
I am an American, and the Great Frozen North seems more appealing by the nanosecond.
Some information benefits the overall public; some doesn't.
If you liberate a work of literature, you can study it and produce better literature or gain a deeper understanding of the human experience.
If you liberate a previously forbidden document, you may reveal a scam or dangerous situation and inform the public.
If you liberate "Bob Smith purchased a box of Froot Loops on 01/07/02 at 21:06 for $3.27", you can write better advertising. As a society, we don't want better advertising. We want advertising to fail so miserably that they stop doing it!
Rather than running fibre to every single house (very high install cost, may have some holdouts), run it to a couple of houses on each block, with an offer like "It's USD 50 a month standard, but if you'll buy us a wireless AP to connect the rest of your block, you can have it for USD 40. It pays for itself after xxx months and you help your neighbours."
>AMD throws just as much marketing hype around as >Intel,
I don't see it. Seriously.
Every large OEM plays the plunk-plonk-ding-ding song at the end of their commercials. What does AMD counter with? Some small local shops have a poster advertising the K6 or original Athlon up.
I almost went for Intel last time (was considering PIV/2000 versus K7/1666) but went AMD because there was a cheaper package.
I've recieved numerous letters from overseas that are much cheaper than their US counterparts.
Several letters from Russia (approx. 15,000km) -- 7 to 8 roubles (about 30 cents US) on them. Also a registered letter with 33 roubles of stamps on it-- about a dollar and a quarter. This was a while back, when it was 28-30 roubles to the dollar.
Letters from Canada (about 3,000km) -- 60 cents (about 40 cents US) on them. The return letter is about 60 cents US.
AT mainboards fit into ATX boxes. I know. I've put FIC 503+ and PCChips M560TGs into them. The issue is PSU; an ATX supply won't run a 486; some Socket 7 boards had connectors for both supply types though.
>That being said, my monitor manufacturer of choice >is Hansol... We don't sell them any more (due to >politics) but their "professional" models are great >quality, and reasonably cheap
Politics? I never really thought of monitors as a very political issue.
OTOH, the monitors I buy tend to be made in Outer Slobavia, come with a big seal on the box announcing "Wow! Made by slave labour to deliver low prices!", and the brand ceases existence about three hours after I plonk down my Franklins.
>1. You should show up to school, it is your >parents responsibility to ensure you do. > 2. You should do your homework, >again your parents should make sure you do.
Call me stupid, but why should he NECESSARILY show up and do the homework?
-Many classes feature large quantities of busywork homework
-In some classes, homework isn't even graded, or only occasionally graded, and/or some assignments are dropped, so it may be perfectly acceptable to take the risk
-Depending on how grading breaks down, it may not be necessary to attend or do the homework to get a passing mark
These situations are not necessarily evident to the parents, so they may think that little Timmy's calculated risk is merely playing hooky.
> C:\my documents\ is the same as/usr on a unix >system. Really - it's the same concept with a more >friendly name: a folder, which every user sees as >his own, in which he is to store his personal >files. It's actually a very good concept on a >multiuser machine, and windows' implementation of >it is much like the unix one: My Documents is >persistent across all machines on a network.
Do you perhaps mean "the same as ~"?
The problems:
1. It's got a long, overly cutesy name. My This, My That... did four year olds design this environment?
2. Not everything saves there. Many apps, particularly older ones, don't store things there by default, so much of the convinence is lost.
3. The name isn't insightful. If I sit down in front of a Windows multiuser machine, is "My Documents" analogous to ~marada, ~root, or ~someoneelse?
4. Unlike ~, it doesn't store everything. Where are my custom settings?
Re:Very Old but Powerful for its time.. & stil
on
Implementing VisiCalc
·
· Score: 1
But it all depends on what you're doing with it.
It doesn't matter if you're running a PC, an Apple II+, or a PET 2001 if your goal is to put up pretty flash cards and teach history by using the Oregon Trail programme (resultant report: "People got many dieases, all of which could be cured by pressing 'Reset' at the right time)
I got hooked on laser printers when I dragged home a Brother HL-645M from a rummage sale. It smeared about a pound of toner on the sheet, but man did the TeX output look good!
Since I didn't want to go out right away and buy a new laser at USD 150-200 or more, esp. when I had a yukky old HP 612C sitting on the desk, I went for used printers. Tried about four of them, altogher spending about USD 45 (coinidentially, almost the same price as a new cartridge for the HP 612C) You'd be amazed what you can get. I've seen plenty of the vaunted HP II and III series at thrift shops (although many lack paper trays, and I'd bet plenty also do a "50 Service" or similar if I had bothered to check them out), and once a very nice NEC PostScript laser (excellent output-- only problem was a very loud feed mechanism and a high operating cost) for $10.
I ended up going for a Samsung 1210 because I wanted a warranty, and have been satisfied, but if you want a tank, just because you can't get a new tank doesn't mean you can't get a tank.
10^100 has 101 characters. You can fit it on one line with a sufficiently narrow fixed-width font (the sort one would use to print 132 chars/line in the good old days)
OTOH, a googolplex is a more interesting proposition. 10^100+1 characters, at about 6000 per page....
Re:RTFa and you find an Intel PR Rant
on
Legacy-Free PCs
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
What I never understood was this:
-Industry is so keen on getting us to abandon our PS/2 keyboard and Centronics parallel ports.
-In theory, fewer connectors and less space taken on the chipset components should be cheaper
-Yet, the only "legacy-free" parts I see are either in OEM systems (and generally not for individual consumption), or sold to enthusiasts as wow special at a high price.
I can get decent full-legacy Athlon mainboards at USD 50-70. Why should I pay twice as much if not more for a legacy-free board, and actually get LESS?
Aside: if you're freeing all that mainboard space, can't you find something better to do with it than 144 USB ports? The whole point of USB is that you can use hubs and daisy-chaining so one or two ports should be enough.
>3) Why *are* there so many different ways of doing >things in Linux? How about one or two *good* ways, >instead of half a dozen not-so-good ones?
Because "good" is context-sensitive. Take wordprocessing. On my slow laptop, I want to write notes and the occasional ASCII art. Fast load times and basic functionality only are important, so AbiWord is "good". On my fast desktop, performance is a non-issue, and I tend to have to deal with.doc files, so OpenOffice is "good". If I want to write something with heavy math usage, TeXmacs is "good". If I want to interchange with a WordPerfect user, I'll use WordPerfect.
The alternative to this is to make one uber-wordprocessor that probably wouldn't do any of the individual tasks as well as the product it replaced.
Slashdot Mirror
> Compared what? The 'distro' of Linux someone put >on their box by compiling it from scratch and >deciding exactly what they wanted on that box? Your >question makes no sense, as this is not a standard >distribution.
Actually, I would like to see how much difference optimization makes. I believe Slackware is compiled by default for i386 (feel free to correct me). If I recompile it for i686, and run it on my PII/266, will Mozilla load in a reasonable length of time?
>CPUs during their useful lifetime? Zero? One?
Let's look at the Duron 750 (at 800) I'm using here:
1. KWI brand Socket 7 HSF (local dealers wouldn't recognize AMD approved heatsinks if they sat on them)
2. Taisol CEK733092 (pretty nice)
3. Thermaltake Volcano II (okay sink, leftover from a Thunderbird 1200, and used when I couldn't find the Taisol anymore, but the fan has gotten quite noisy quite fast)
I have a spare copper sink I may bolt on it, because it's tending to sound a little loud lately.
>Yeah I know, there's going to be 100 replies to me >saying "that's not true! I share Linux ISOs!" (as >if you can't just download them from a host of >mirror sites).
Actually, P2P in a way solves a problem with present network design. Much of the time, there's a fairly small amount of traffic, but there are also significant spikes (/. effect, new Slackware release). You have to build capacity (mirror systems, etc.) to handle the spikes gracefully, or tick off users who go away empty-handed.
A P2P system allows anyone who was able to get a copy to become a mirror easily. No need to maintain a reference list of mirrors.
When RH10 comes, woudln't it be better to be able to download it from any one of the first 5,000 users to get a copy, rather than from one of 30 or 40 clogged mirrors?
> What's this about plasticy CGI? I do 3D modeling >and I must say, it's incredibly simple to get >something to look organic. In fact, it's harder to >get something to look plasticy than it is to make >it matte.
Perhaps it's a function of older CGI tech, but a lot of older CGI does look a bit plasticky. I'd think though, still, for something fluid and full of life, using real living things, or at least motion capture on them, would help to avoid the difficulties of making plausible movements.
>I just want to see a Metroid flying around. That
would be so awesome!
Then watch the next Jacques Cousteau special on PBS. Metroids look just like jellyfish. And taste like them too.
Actually, I could see them getting pretty good effects by filming real jellyfish and putting them in, than trying to kill the plasticky sheen of CGI metroids.
I'm not sure how much humanity CAN balkanize with genetic engineering.
Assume everyone wants something different. Personally, I want draconic children. Someone else may settle for no diabetes and a 225 IQ. A third person may want chameleon skin.
In all likelihood, each GE faction will wish to differentiate themselves from each other faction, and from industry-standard humans. However, each group will likely be too small in numbers to stand on its own, economically or militarily, so they'll have to align with standard humans and/or each other to survive. I expect that eventually humanity will evolve out of existence, as a generation or six grow up thinking "Wow! I could avoid $COSTLYDISEASE or have $COOLFEATURE for my kids just by dropping a few hundred SpaceRoubles at Uncle Anton's Discount Genetic Engineering Centre!"
I would mod you back into the stone age if I had the points.
>GWB and his rich friends want to run a country with >no murder, no terrorism, where everything's fair >and prosperity benefits all of us directly, in the >pocketbook.
No terrorism? And how exactly do you get to that by ticking off a region that's bred most of our current terrorists?
Moreover, "benefitting us directly in the pocketbook" as the universal mantra is stupid, because of economies of scale and projects beyond the reach of individual consumers. Individuals given a few hundred dollars in tax credits can't buy a quality, affordable health care system with it. The government can combine everyone's $300 and pressure the market into delivering one.
>Yeah, hacking should be illegal. I mean, it's a >fundamental duty to not only be able to have >perfect digital copies of unreleased music, but to >be able to break any and all encryption designed >to protect said music, and then distribute it to >everyone and their brother without any fear of >criminal prosecution.
Distributing copies broadly is illegal under standard copyright. The best logic I've seen to justify the DMCA is the saying that "it should be MORE illegal". Brilliant. Let's ruin DRM research, wrap all our content in boxes we'll never be able to open without the original manufacturer's consent, and pray that our corporate masters are benevolent.
>Er, last I checked the US Welfare system was >still intact, and it was still illegal to not >treat someone who shows up needing care at a >hospital.
Show of hands: Who feels they'd be better off in the US without private health insurance? Now who thinks they'd be better off in Canada. Thank you.
>Yeah. The right to protest the government, >protect yourself from harm, profit from your >work, and be religious in public is SUCH a >horrible thing.
Yeah. How long will that stay up in Iraq, assuming it even gets installed there.
I am an American, and the Great Frozen North seems more appealing by the nanosecond.
Some information benefits the overall public; some doesn't.
If you liberate a work of literature, you can study it and produce better literature or gain a deeper understanding of the human experience.
If you liberate a previously forbidden document, you may reveal a scam or dangerous situation and inform the public.
If you liberate "Bob Smith purchased a box of Froot Loops on 01/07/02 at 21:06 for $3.27", you can write better advertising. As a society, we don't want better advertising. We want advertising to fail so miserably that they stop doing it!
Isn't Transmeta (slogan: "We couldn't market our innovative technology out of a paper bag") Allen's current baby?
Here's an idea:
Rather than running fibre to every single house (very high install cost, may have some holdouts), run it to a couple of houses on each block, with an offer like "It's USD 50 a month standard, but if you'll buy us a wireless AP to connect the rest of your block, you can have it for USD 40. It pays for itself after xxx months and you help your neighbours."
>AMD throws just as much marketing hype around as >Intel,
I don't see it. Seriously.
Every large OEM plays the plunk-plonk-ding-ding song at the end of their commercials. What does AMD counter with? Some small local shops have a poster advertising the K6 or original Athlon up.
I almost went for Intel last time (was considering PIV/2000 versus K7/1666) but went AMD because there was a cheaper package.
Isn't it Morbo?
Or are we to be eaten by a very angry Elitegroup product?
>Try sending 2 oz letter 3500 miles for $0.36
.37 + .23 each additional oz.
>US Mail is
I've recieved numerous letters from overseas that are much cheaper than their US counterparts.
Several letters from Russia (approx. 15,000km) -- 7 to 8 roubles (about 30 cents US) on them. Also a registered letter with 33 roubles of stamps on it-- about a dollar and a quarter. This was a while back, when it was 28-30 roubles to the dollar.
Letters from Canada (about 3,000km) -- 60 cents (about 40 cents US) on them. The return letter is about 60 cents US.
AT mainboards fit into ATX boxes. I know. I've put FIC 503+ and PCChips M560TGs into them. The issue is PSU; an ATX supply won't run a 486; some Socket 7 boards had connectors for both supply types though.
Give me a GE AC6000CW any way. Or at least pull the engine and bolt it into a Hyundai.
> Then the devious sellers will find a way to hack the BIOS and not have it display that warning message.
I don't even see why an actual overclock is required. Just write up a custom splash screen that looks like a normal boot sequence for a faster system.
Remember the fake-cache 486 scandal?
>That being said, my monitor manufacturer of choice >is Hansol... We don't sell them any more (due to >politics) but their "professional" models are great >quality, and reasonably cheap
Politics? I never really thought of monitors as a very political issue.
OTOH, the monitors I buy tend to be made in Outer Slobavia, come with a big seal on the box announcing "Wow! Made by slave labour to deliver low prices!", and the brand ceases existence about three hours after I plonk down my Franklins.
Wait until the local $megashop advertises the next larger size monitor from the one you have for $200.
Go to $megashop.
Buy $250 monitor because it has a 3-year warranty.
>1. You should show up to school, it is your >parents responsibility to ensure you do.
> 2. You should do your homework, >again your parents should make sure you do.
Call me stupid, but why should he NECESSARILY show up and do the homework?
-Many classes feature large quantities of busywork homework
-In some classes, homework isn't even graded, or only occasionally graded, and/or some assignments are dropped, so it may be perfectly acceptable to take the risk
-Depending on how grading breaks down, it may not be necessary to attend or do the homework to get a passing mark
These situations are not necessarily evident to the parents, so they may think that little Timmy's calculated risk is merely playing hooky.
> C:\my documents\ is the same as /usr on a unix >system. Really - it's the same concept with a more >friendly name: a folder, which every user sees as >his own, in which he is to store his personal >files. It's actually a very good concept on a >multiuser machine, and windows' implementation of >it is much like the unix one: My Documents is >persistent across all machines on a network.
Do you perhaps mean "the same as ~"?
The problems:
1. It's got a long, overly cutesy name. My This, My That... did four year olds design this environment?
2. Not everything saves there. Many apps, particularly older ones, don't store things there by default, so much of the convinence is lost.
3. The name isn't insightful. If I sit down in front of a Windows multiuser machine, is "My Documents" analogous to ~marada, ~root, or ~someoneelse?
4. Unlike ~, it doesn't store everything. Where are my custom settings?
But it all depends on what you're doing with it.
It doesn't matter if you're running a PC, an Apple II+, or a PET 2001 if your goal is to put up pretty flash cards and teach history by using the Oregon Trail programme (resultant report: "People got many dieases, all of which could be cured by pressing 'Reset' at the right time)
You don't *have* to buy a new printer.
I got hooked on laser printers when I dragged home a Brother HL-645M from a rummage sale. It smeared about a pound of toner on the sheet, but man did the TeX output look good!
Since I didn't want to go out right away and buy a new laser at USD 150-200 or more, esp. when I had a yukky old HP 612C sitting on the desk, I went for used printers. Tried about four of them, altogher spending about USD 45 (coinidentially, almost the same price as a new cartridge for the HP 612C) You'd be amazed what you can get. I've seen plenty of the vaunted HP II and III series at thrift shops (although many lack paper trays, and I'd bet plenty also do a "50 Service" or similar if I had bothered to check them out), and once a very nice NEC PostScript laser (excellent output-- only problem was a very loud feed mechanism and a high operating cost) for $10.
I ended up going for a Samsung 1210 because I wanted a warranty, and have been satisfied, but if you want a tank, just because you can't get a new tank doesn't mean you can't get a tank.
OTOH, a googolplex is a more interesting proposition. 10^100+1 characters, at about 6000 per page....
What I never understood was this:
-Industry is so keen on getting us to abandon our PS/2 keyboard and Centronics parallel ports.
-In theory, fewer connectors and less space taken on the chipset components should be cheaper
-Yet, the only "legacy-free" parts I see are either in OEM systems (and generally not for individual consumption), or sold to enthusiasts as wow special at a high price.
I can get decent full-legacy Athlon mainboards at USD 50-70. Why should I pay twice as much if not more for a legacy-free board, and actually get LESS?
Aside: if you're freeing all that mainboard space, can't you find something better to do with it than 144 USB ports? The whole point of USB is that you can use hubs and daisy-chaining so one or two ports should be enough.
>3) Why *are* there so many different ways of doing >things in Linux? How about one or two *good* ways, >instead of half a dozen not-so-good ones?
.doc files, so OpenOffice is "good". If I want to write something with heavy math usage, TeXmacs is "good". If I want to interchange with a WordPerfect user, I'll use WordPerfect.
Because "good" is context-sensitive. Take wordprocessing. On my slow laptop, I want to write notes and the occasional ASCII art. Fast load times and basic functionality only are important, so AbiWord is "good". On my fast desktop, performance is a non-issue, and I tend to have to deal with
The alternative to this is to make one uber-wordprocessor that probably wouldn't do any of the individual tasks as well as the product it replaced.