Thing is, that digital hoarding isn't really a major issue in terms of space, given the way that storage has grown (and still is growing). It's only a problem if it's important data and you want to keep it backed up or you can't find what you want.
And "every application / utility installer file dating back to 1988"? If you can store on some arbitrary medium- rather than being tied to the original disc or whatever- then some of those older files are going to take a miniscule amount of space by modern standards. I mean, you could store in the ballpark of a million 3.5" floppies' worth on a modern terabyte hard drive, and they're not always full.
I don't keep every email purely and simply because I know that I'll never need most of it and it's easier if I just keep what's important rather than searching. But if I *was* inclined that way, I'd probably be able to get away with a half decent method of searching my emails.
Amiga multitasking was pre-emptive, not cooperative.
Oops, yeah- I meant pre-emptive, sorry. That's why I used the PC telnet example- to demonstrate the limitations of co-operative multitasking vs. the Amiga's genuine pre-emptive multitasking.
If you think you can manufacture it in a less expensive manner, go for it.
Mmm, uh huh. Never mind the prohibitive cost of entry into a field of this sort and the ability of established players (as a general principle of markets) to shut down new competition by sheer might. In fact, they don't even need to be actively hostile, as their size dictates that merely acting in a "fair" competitive manner will kill new entrants before they grow into anything like a threat.
That's capitalism folks.
Your obviously intended implication here being "suck it up and accept it", but an equally obvious and valid implication (depending on one's view) could be that this demonstrates a serious flaw with free-market capitalism.
I don't *entirely* disagree with your implication that people should or shouldn't buy the products if they do or don't want to- within reason- but your silly rambling of context-free libertarian/free-market nonsense that implies any random Joe Public could- or should- compete with such massive operations is drivel.
According to Moore's law the process size decreases like clockwork [etc]
That last part borders on putting words in Moore's mouth and holding him to a higher standard than he ever claimed originally.
In fact, you're generally reading way more into Moore's "Law"'s predictive power than was ever likely originally intended. It's not, and never was a law, merely an observation and a prediction that progress at the then-current rate would continue for "at least 10 years", i.e. until 1975.
The fact that it's broadly held up for 35 years longer than that is pretty astounding.
Also, Dude..."Chinaman" is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
It's hard to tell which parts of this comments are tongue-in-cheek and which are sincere.
Given this, I'll point out that many- well, actually the vast majority of- "chinamen" (whether that's an acceptable term or not) are not and have never been "American" in any sense.
Also, while it might be *your* (i.e. Americans') socially accepted term, it's still pretty stupid- such usage of "Asian" is neither accurate nor universal. Asia is a large continent with many different peoples, and I don't see how "Asian" referring specifically to East Asians is helpful. At least the now-disliked term "oriental" was more specific in that respect.
Also, in Britain, "Asian" typically means South Asian ethnicity, i.e. from the Indian subcontinent. No more inclusive, but no less valid than the American usage- while being totally different.
It's not even like the nitpicky discussions over the term "American" that erupt periodically on Slashdot- English usage has standardised on that (cf. "North America"/"North American" and "The Americas"), which just isn't the case with "Asian".
It was over northeast Scotland before it ever reached London, and the sunset here was... pretty normal, to be honest. Perhaps slightly more orange than normal, but the light is often very warm-looking shortly before sunset, and if the sky looked slightly dusty at dusk, it's probably only because I was paying close attention.
I propose that anyone living in Britain who was seriously considering seeing a chiropractor- and still is- avoid any members of the British Chiropractors' Association, and lets them know exactly why.
Though I suspect most people who would be willing to support this boycott wouldn't be planning on seeing a chiropractor now, if they ever were.
Trust me on this. There will be *way* more data than anyone needs to reconstruct "typical" expamples of this information, even if 99% of the data created from present-day society disappears.
The obsessives worrying that we're about to enter a digital dark age forget about the massive amount of loss of data, information, photos, etc. from the past, and also underestimate the stupid amount we're archiving (intentionally or otherwise) nowadays.
Modern society is fast approaching the point where the major problem will be archiving too much, not too little. Every digital transaction leaves a footprint, and data storage is becoming so cheap that it's going to get harder not to leave traces of that data *somewhere*, if only via some cache or whatever.
Since it's "twitter", surely that should be "cheep"?
Uh, sorry.:-(
Anyway, if Twitter messages are 140 bytes and we assume the overhead averages 30% per message, that's 187 bytes per message.
5.5 tweets per metric kilobyte.
5475 tweets per megabyte.
5,475,935 tweets per gigabyte.
5,475,935,828 tweets per terabyte.
Which isn't far short of the earth's population. Figure out the average number of tweets per person on earth, and you know how many $60 1TB hard drives you need to store them all.
The question is the average- do the self-absorbed, narcissistic, twitter-spewing 14-year olds push that up to the point where the large number of people who don't want to or can't use Twitter don't matter?
Re:Why not bring back Amiga OS?
on
Is OS/2 Coming Back?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That's correct; the Amiga came out in mid-1985, a matter of months before Windows 1.0. But my point was that the Amiga still had an advanced version of this functionality before even the most crude version of Windows was available. More significantly is that Windows took 8 (with NT) or 10 years (with Windows 95) to get "real" pre-emptive multitasking, even when it had long overtaken the Amiga in terms of raw power.
So, if ISPs got their respective "microblogging" servers, the worldwidedness of it all should be worked out somehow, through some sort of collaboration.
Usenet worked out quite well before it was left behind for centralised forums and seen solely as a source of dodgy binaries.
Well, I could argue about semantics and the connotations of "grateful" or how I meant it, but the bottom line was the sense of entitlement that some people have about free services.
Just as the users don't owe Twitter anything for the use of the free, un-advertised service, they have no right to expect this free service to even continue for free, let alone "as is".
Yet, while Twitter aren't continuing entirely "as is", they *are* continuing to have the service for free, making your comment about charging irrelevant or disingenuous.
Yes, I'm well aware that we're paying with our eyeballs when shown advertising, but that's another issue. And the bottom line is that no-one has to continue using Twitter. You "might stop using it"? Fine.
If you get the impression that I like Twitter, or that I'm mad keen on everything "free" being funded through advertising, I'm not- on either count.
However, the criticism is of those who have a sense of entitlement over something they previously paid nothing for- either in money or ad views. It's the same as the unpaid Flickr users who bleated when the Yahoo branding was slapped on the site. Get a grip!
The fact that a checkered ball could bounce around a screen while a floppy was formatting was awe-inspiring to them for almost three decades
25 years ago that sort of stuff *was* impressive. The Amiga had proper co-operative multitasking around a decade(!) before Windows. Matter of fact, it was doing this before Windows 1.0 was out at all!
I remember using Windows 3.1 circa *1994*- almost ten years after the Amiga came out- trying to telnet to an Internet BBS that was down and having the whole desktop lock up until the failed connection timed out because telnet's co-operative multitasking evidently wasn't *that* co-operative.
The Amiga had 32 colour register and 4096 colour "HAM" graphics at a time when your best hope from the PC was some expensive 16-colour EGA graphics. Four channel sampled sound knocked the spots off the typical rudimentary or nonexistent PC sound.
Yes, the PC caught up and eventually passed the Amiga in the early to mid 90s, and things have moved on too far since its demise for it to make sense to bring it back now. But frankly, the Amiga *was* a damned impressive machine 25 years ago.
No, they mean that while most people don't particularly like ads, they'll accept them- as much out of passiveness and lazyness as the understanding that they're funding the site- but that a disproportionately noisy minority will whine and bitch about it, thinking that because they've enjoyed a free and adless service for so long that they're entitled to that forever, rather than being grateful that they got it for nothing for so long.
Slashdot Mirror
just saying.
From what I've heard, the problem with the iDiet is that it's a little too effective.
Latest Update: After another couple of years on the diet, Steve finally gets the well-defined cheekbones he was after.
Given that you usually have to pay for a paper and pencil, even if it's a nominal amount, I don't quite get you?
I think he was implying that fresh air doesn't meet the minimum requirements for most Linux distros, you need a computer or something.
Damn bloatware.
Thing is, that digital hoarding isn't really a major issue in terms of space, given the way that storage has grown (and still is growing). It's only a problem if it's important data and you want to keep it backed up or you can't find what you want.
And "every application / utility installer file dating back to 1988"? If you can store on some arbitrary medium- rather than being tied to the original disc or whatever- then some of those older files are going to take a miniscule amount of space by modern standards. I mean, you could store in the ballpark of a million 3.5" floppies' worth on a modern terabyte hard drive, and they're not always full.
I don't keep every email purely and simply because I know that I'll never need most of it and it's easier if I just keep what's important rather than searching. But if I *was* inclined that way, I'd probably be able to get away with a half decent method of searching my emails.
****ronix
Mantronix?
Mantronix?!
Amiga multitasking was pre-emptive, not cooperative.
Oops, yeah- I meant pre-emptive, sorry. That's why I used the PC telnet example- to demonstrate the limitations of co-operative multitasking vs. the Amiga's genuine pre-emptive multitasking.
If you think you can manufacture it in a less expensive manner, go for it.
Mmm, uh huh. Never mind the prohibitive cost of entry into a field of this sort and the ability of established players (as a general principle of markets) to shut down new competition by sheer might. In fact, they don't even need to be actively hostile, as their size dictates that merely acting in a "fair" competitive manner will kill new entrants before they grow into anything like a threat.
That's capitalism folks.
Your obviously intended implication here being "suck it up and accept it", but an equally obvious and valid implication (depending on one's view) could be that this demonstrates a serious flaw with free-market capitalism.
I don't *entirely* disagree with your implication that people should or shouldn't buy the products if they do or don't want to- within reason- but your silly rambling of context-free libertarian/free-market nonsense that implies any random Joe Public could- or should- compete with such massive operations is drivel.
According to Moore's law the process size decreases like clockwork [etc]
That last part borders on putting words in Moore's mouth and holding him to a higher standard than he ever claimed originally.
In fact, you're generally reading way more into Moore's "Law"'s predictive power than was ever likely originally intended. It's not, and never was a law, merely an observation and a prediction that progress at the then-current rate would continue for "at least 10 years", i.e. until 1975.
The fact that it's broadly held up for 35 years longer than that is pretty astounding.
And what happened to privacy? What would Washington think about the library publishing what books he borrowed and how much he owes in fees?
Too shay.
George Washington was too shay, shay?
Also, Dude..."Chinaman" is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
It's hard to tell which parts of this comments are tongue-in-cheek and which are sincere.
Given this, I'll point out that many- well, actually the vast majority of- "chinamen" (whether that's an acceptable term or not) are not and have never been "American" in any sense.
It reminds me of this article.
Also, while it might be *your* (i.e. Americans') socially accepted term, it's still pretty stupid- such usage of "Asian" is neither accurate nor universal. Asia is a large continent with many different peoples, and I don't see how "Asian" referring specifically to East Asians is helpful. At least the now-disliked term "oriental" was more specific in that respect.
Also, in Britain, "Asian" typically means South Asian ethnicity, i.e. from the Indian subcontinent. No more inclusive, but no less valid than the American usage- while being totally different.
It's not even like the nitpicky discussions over the term "American" that erupt periodically on Slashdot- English usage has standardised on that (cf. "North America"/"North American" and "The Americas"), which just isn't the case with "Asian".
We said "Send *cash*"!
Brilliant, but I have no mod points :-)
Meanwhile, the economy of the country as a whole is dependent on fishing, and that will be generally unaffected by this eruption.
Personally, I can't stand smoked fish. :-6
It was over northeast Scotland before it ever reached London, and the sunset here was... pretty normal, to be honest. Perhaps slightly more orange than normal, but the light is often very warm-looking shortly before sunset, and if the sky looked slightly dusty at dusk, it's probably only because I was paying close attention.
I was expecting more, to be honest...
If you're seriously considering seeing a chiropractor for the types of diseases they've already won. Here's they quote they sued over [snip]
That's why I added the second paragraph.
I propose that anyone living in Britain who was seriously considering seeing a chiropractor- and still is- avoid any members of the British Chiropractors' Association, and lets them know exactly why.
Though I suspect most people who would be willing to support this boycott wouldn't be planning on seeing a chiropractor now, if they ever were.
Let the anti-semetism begin!
I don't know that many people have anything against SeMet, but whatever...
Trust me on this. There will be *way* more data than anyone needs to reconstruct "typical" expamples of this information, even if 99% of the data created from present-day society disappears.
The obsessives worrying that we're about to enter a digital dark age forget about the massive amount of loss of data, information, photos, etc. from the past, and also underestimate the stupid amount we're archiving (intentionally or otherwise) nowadays.
Modern society is fast approaching the point where the major problem will be archiving too much, not too little. Every digital transaction leaves a footprint, and data storage is becoming so cheap that it's going to get harder not to leave traces of that data *somewhere*, if only via some cache or whatever.
Disk space is cheap...
Since it's "twitter", surely that should be "cheep"?
:-(
Uh, sorry.
Anyway, if Twitter messages are 140 bytes and we assume the overhead averages 30% per message, that's 187 bytes per message.
5.5 tweets per metric kilobyte.
5475 tweets per megabyte.
5,475,935 tweets per gigabyte.
5,475,935,828 tweets per terabyte.
Which isn't far short of the earth's population. Figure out the average number of tweets per person on earth, and you know how many $60 1TB hard drives you need to store them all.
The question is the average- do the self-absorbed, narcissistic, twitter-spewing 14-year olds push that up to the point where the large number of people who don't want to or can't use Twitter don't matter?
Hi, @librarycongress! I just took a shit. I am honored that you will be archiving this momentous occasion for future generations.
Obligatory.
That's correct; the Amiga came out in mid-1985, a matter of months before Windows 1.0. But my point was that the Amiga still had an advanced version of this functionality before even the most crude version of Windows was available. More significantly is that Windows took 8 (with NT) or 10 years (with Windows 95) to get "real" pre-emptive multitasking, even when it had long overtaken the Amiga in terms of raw power.
So, if ISPs got their respective "microblogging" servers, the worldwidedness of it all should be worked out somehow, through some sort of collaboration.
Usenet worked out quite well before it was left behind for centralised forums and seen solely as a source of dodgy binaries.
Well, I could argue about semantics and the connotations of "grateful" or how I meant it, but the bottom line was the sense of entitlement that some people have about free services.
Just as the users don't owe Twitter anything for the use of the free, un-advertised service, they have no right to expect this free service to even continue for free, let alone "as is".
Yet, while Twitter aren't continuing entirely "as is", they *are* continuing to have the service for free, making your comment about charging irrelevant or disingenuous.
Yes, I'm well aware that we're paying with our eyeballs when shown advertising, but that's another issue. And the bottom line is that no-one has to continue using Twitter. You "might stop using it"? Fine.
If you get the impression that I like Twitter, or that I'm mad keen on everything "free" being funded through advertising, I'm not- on either count.
However, the criticism is of those who have a sense of entitlement over something they previously paid nothing for- either in money or ad views. It's the same as the unpaid Flickr users who bleated when the Yahoo branding was slapped on the site. Get a grip!
The fact that a checkered ball could bounce around a screen while a floppy was formatting was awe-inspiring to them for almost three decades
25 years ago that sort of stuff *was* impressive. The Amiga had proper co-operative multitasking around a decade(!) before Windows. Matter of fact, it was doing this before Windows 1.0 was out at all!
I remember using Windows 3.1 circa *1994*- almost ten years after the Amiga came out- trying to telnet to an Internet BBS that was down and having the whole desktop lock up until the failed connection timed out because telnet's co-operative multitasking evidently wasn't *that* co-operative.
The Amiga had 32 colour register and 4096 colour "HAM" graphics at a time when your best hope from the PC was some expensive 16-colour EGA graphics. Four channel sampled sound knocked the spots off the typical rudimentary or nonexistent PC sound.
Yes, the PC caught up and eventually passed the Amiga in the early to mid 90s, and things have moved on too far since its demise for it to make sense to bring it back now. But frankly, the Amiga *was* a damned impressive machine 25 years ago.
No, they mean that while most people don't particularly like ads, they'll accept them- as much out of passiveness and lazyness as the understanding that they're funding the site- but that a disproportionately noisy minority will whine and bitch about it, thinking that because they've enjoyed a free and adless service for so long that they're entitled to that forever, rather than being grateful that they got it for nothing for so long.
...and you have to blow it up first.
gap is being closed, though.
A sad decline since their late-1990s heyday...