"you'll end up paying probably $350-$400 to make the iPod mini really usable."
How is the Mini-iPod not usable when you first open the $250 box? It comes with connecting cables. It comes with a whopping 4gb disk built in (you do don't even have to buy extra cards like digital cameras or other flash mp3 players). It comes with a handy belt clip. It comes with decent headphones (I concede, they're not audiophile quality). It even comes with a rechargable battery!
In short, you do NOT need to spend $350 to $400 to make this player usable. It is extremely usable right out of the box!
"There was a Family Guy episode with some radio making Soviet Russia jokes - I don't remember the details"
Peter makes a deal with the mob to get a new car. When he is showing it to Lois for the first time they get in and turn on the radio. Over the speakers comes, "In Soviet Russia, car drives you!"
"My guess is that it is not yet ready for 10.3"
Interesting, MacGIMP seems to work just fine, even with very large images, on my TiBook 550 running 10.3.1.
"Has OS-X killed the long lifespan of Apple computers?"
No it has not, OSX just raised the minimum bar of hardware requirements. Once you meet that bar, your computer will age just fine. On my TiBook 400 10.0 was slow, 10.1 was reasonable, 10.2 was impressive, and 10.3 is now just a dream to use. At this point I don't even miss Quartz Extreme.
Since Panthers runs just fine now, there is no reason that I can't run it until the LCD finally gives out several years down the road.
>>there are a lot of fantastic but groundless claims he >>[Tesla] made such as earthquake machines etc.
Actually, the earthquake machine was a reality. It was a small box that would be attached to a structural I-beam in a building. It had a small hammer that would tap the beam, then wait for the crest of the vibration wave to pass under the hammer at which point it would tap again. This process repeated until the beam was shaking quite violently. Police were actually called to his workshop at one point because he was distrubing the neighborhood with the ground tremors (earthquake) that the vibrating beam caused.
See "Tesla: Man out of Time" by Margaret Cheney for a fascinating biography of Tesla.
The article stated that the reboots were for subsystems, not the fly-by-wire systems or the navigational system. The main problems have been in the sensor-weapon integration. This is one reason why the plane is not yet in full-scale production.
If you had read the article you would have realized that the company did offer a $199 refund, with a complimentary gag order included. In other words, he would get his money back but couldn't tell anyone. He decided that since he wanted the story to get out he would sue and get his money that way, with no restrictions afterwards.
Actually, that figure comes from the advertised fact that G5s are approximately 1.3 to 1.5x faster (on the low end) than the current G4s at any given clock speed.
I have done quite a bit of research about cluster building as I am going to be designing/installing one with a $100,000 hardware budget. The G4 Xserve cluster node was actually very price competitive for performance.
In short, the %30 figure is an estimation based on my G4 research. Not thin air.
30000/1500=20 Are you telling me you can put together a 800Mhz Celeron with a gigabit card (to reduce network latency) for $20 a pop? Try $300 for a bare minimum cluster node at 800Mhz with a decent amount of ram, HD storage space, and a decent network interconnect. That reduces your node count to 100. Now we are comparing 100 Celerons vs 20 G5s. A 2Ghz is more than 5x faster than a 800Mhz Celeron, plus you will not be simply adding processor performance, which will have a much larger detrimental effect on the Celeron cluster versus the G5 cluster.
You will in fact come out at least %30 faster with the G5 cluster for the same dollar amount. Not only will it be faster, but use less electricity, require much less cooling, and be much easier to administer. You also don't have to deal with nearly as many hardware failures.
In short, Apples actually are pretty good clustering machines!
"while a Ferrari is known for its speed more than anything else"
A Ferrari is not known for speed more than anything else. They made a deliberate decision to ignore the top speed record with the Enzo and concentrate on OVERALL performance. It is a machine that excells in all areas, including user interface.
The current generation macs also excell in all areas, but the user interface is the crown jewel. I would prefer a computer that is enjoyable to use over one that just has raw speed.
Not only is the wear and tear of idling negligable compared to the million plus miles of driving the engine will provide, but the biggest killer of diesel engines is starting and stopping them frequently. A diesel will run practically forever if left running all the time. I've heard of taxi drivers in Europe that would use an oil pump in order to change the oil without stopping the engine for just this reason.
This has progressed a little beyond simple research. The new BMW 745Li and 760Li use infinite-variable intake valves that take the place of the throttle body. In this configuration, each cylinder has it's own oxygen regulator that is independent of the other cylinders. This leads to a significant increase in both efficiency and power.
I am a little ignorant on this, so please enlighten me. Can instructions for the PowerPC 970 be migrated to the Power4 chips without too much trouble? The point being, is there the prospect that Apple will put the Power4s in some new, really high end Xserves?
If so, that could let Apple break out of just the 1U market and compete with 2U and 4U servers with more than just two processors.
My roommates and I are quite pleased with our Comcast cable connection.
5Mbit Downloading, 384Kb uploading, 5 static IPs, all for $95 a month. This is a great connection for you Linux guys out there that just have to SSH into all of your home machines.
Running a server is technically forbidden, but I've talked to their reps extensively on this matter. They don't mind a personal mail server (Mine has been up for a year now), FTP, or Web. (ProFTPD and Apache on OpenBSD here!)
What they DO mind is more than 20 or 30 simultaneous connections on those servers. For most all of us, that is just fine.
IMHO, this deals just beats up on any ADSL package out there (I can't get SDSL where I'm at).
1935 will go down in History! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead to the future!
-Adolph Hitler
A little scary, isn't it? National ID Cards are just one more step down a quite similar road. Please Vote!
The article states that this new device will replace all of those little battery eater remotes.
Excuse me, but doesn't a 6.4" Color Touchscreen and an Intel XScale processor use more juice than a simple IC with an IR LED attached? I know it will have a LiIon battery, but still, they don't quote any runtimes between charges here.
Sorry, but $1700 is a bit much for a remote. Especially one that probably will only get an hour or two of runtime between charges!
"The windshield washer pump sprays fluid on to the glass, but what causes it to start the next stage?"
This is an advertisement for more than just the car. The ad demonstrates the premium stereo, remote activated tailgate, and rain sensors in the windshield that start the wipers automatically!
Slashdot Mirror
"you'll end up paying probably $350-$400 to make the iPod mini really usable."
How is the Mini-iPod not usable when you first open the $250 box? It comes with connecting cables. It comes with a whopping 4gb disk built in (you do don't even have to buy extra cards like digital cameras or other flash mp3 players). It comes with a handy belt clip. It comes with decent headphones (I concede, they're not audiophile quality). It even comes with a rechargable battery!
In short, you do NOT need to spend $350 to $400 to make this player usable. It is extremely usable right out of the box!
"There was a Family Guy episode with some radio making Soviet Russia jokes - I don't remember the details"
Peter makes a deal with the mob to get a new car. When he is showing it to Lois for the first time they get in and turn on the radio. Over the speakers comes, "In Soviet Russia, car drives you!"
"My guess is that it is not yet ready for 10.3" Interesting, MacGIMP seems to work just fine, even with very large images, on my TiBook 550 running 10.3.1.
"Has OS-X killed the long lifespan of Apple computers?"
No it has not, OSX just raised the minimum bar of hardware requirements. Once you meet that bar, your computer will age just fine. On my TiBook 400 10.0 was slow, 10.1 was reasonable, 10.2 was impressive, and 10.3 is now just a dream to use. At this point I don't even miss Quartz Extreme.
Since Panthers runs just fine now, there is no reason that I can't run it until the LCD finally gives out several years down the road.
Long live the old Mac!!
>> Show me where I can get a G4 for $100 or less.
Perhaps you should look around a bit. XLR8.com has 366Mhz G4 upgrades for $89.
http://daystar-store.com/product/msg4z366
>>there are a lot of fantastic but groundless claims he >>[Tesla] made such as earthquake machines etc.
Actually, the earthquake machine was a reality. It was a small box that would be attached to a structural I-beam in a building. It had a small hammer that would tap the beam, then wait for the crest of the vibration wave to pass under the hammer at which point it would tap again. This process repeated until the beam was shaking quite violently. Police were actually called to his workshop at one point because he was distrubing the neighborhood with the ground tremors (earthquake) that the vibrating beam caused.
See "Tesla: Man out of Time" by Margaret Cheney for a fascinating biography of Tesla.
The article stated that the reboots were for subsystems, not the fly-by-wire systems or the navigational system. The main problems have been in the sensor-weapon integration. This is one reason why the plane is not yet in full-scale production.
If you had read the article you would have realized that the company did offer a $199 refund, with a complimentary gag order included. In other words, he would get his money back but couldn't tell anyone. He decided that since he wanted the story to get out he would sue and get his money that way, with no restrictions afterwards.
Actually, that figure comes from the advertised fact that G5s are approximately 1.3 to 1.5x faster (on the low end) than the current G4s at any given clock speed.
I have done quite a bit of research about cluster building as I am going to be designing/installing one with a $100,000 hardware budget. The G4 Xserve cluster node was actually very price competitive for performance.
In short, the %30 figure is an estimation based on my G4 research. Not thin air.
"A 2Ghz is more than 5x faster than a 800Mhz Celeron"
I meant to say that a 2Ghz G5 performs more than 5x faster than a 800Mhz Celeron on any task you can throw at it.
I really need to proofread more.
You are sadly mistaken.
30000/1500=20 Are you telling me you can put together a 800Mhz Celeron with a gigabit card (to reduce network latency) for $20 a pop? Try $300 for a bare minimum cluster node at 800Mhz with a decent amount of ram, HD storage space, and a decent network interconnect. That reduces your node count to 100. Now we are comparing 100 Celerons vs 20 G5s. A 2Ghz is more than 5x faster than a 800Mhz Celeron, plus you will not be simply adding processor performance, which will have a much larger detrimental effect on the Celeron cluster versus the G5 cluster.
You will in fact come out at least %30 faster with the G5 cluster for the same dollar amount. Not only will it be faster, but use less electricity, require much less cooling, and be much easier to administer. You also don't have to deal with nearly as many hardware failures.
In short, Apples actually are pretty good clustering machines!
"while a Ferrari is known for its speed more than anything else" A Ferrari is not known for speed more than anything else. They made a deliberate decision to ignore the top speed record with the Enzo and concentrate on OVERALL performance. It is a machine that excells in all areas, including user interface. The current generation macs also excell in all areas, but the user interface is the crown jewel. I would prefer a computer that is enjoyable to use over one that just has raw speed.
Not only is the wear and tear of idling negligable compared to the million plus miles of driving the engine will provide, but the biggest killer of diesel engines is starting and stopping them frequently. A diesel will run practically forever if left running all the time. I've heard of taxi drivers in Europe that would use an oil pump in order to change the oil without stopping the engine for just this reason.
This has progressed a little beyond simple research. The new BMW 745Li and 760Li use infinite-variable intake valves that take the place of the throttle body. In this configuration, each cylinder has it's own oxygen regulator that is independent of the other cylinders. This leads to a significant increase in both efficiency and power.
Well, I think this drive (10MB) is a little bigger than a toaster!
Yes, MPlayer plays *nearly everything. I am having trouble with Quicktime files in RedHat 8.0. Any suggestions from the Slashdot crowd?
Is there really no news at all? Wow, astonishing!
I am a little ignorant on this, so please enlighten me. Can instructions for the PowerPC 970 be migrated to the Power4 chips without too much trouble? The point being, is there the prospect that Apple will put the Power4s in some new, really high end Xserves?
If so, that could let Apple break out of just the 1U market and compete with 2U and 4U servers with more than just two processors.
My roommates and I are quite pleased with our Comcast cable connection.
5Mbit Downloading, 384Kb uploading, 5 static IPs, all for $95 a month. This is a great connection for you Linux guys out there that just have to SSH into all of your home machines.
Running a server is technically forbidden, but I've talked to their reps extensively on this matter. They don't mind a personal mail server (Mine has been up for a year now), FTP, or Web. (ProFTPD and Apache on OpenBSD here!)
What they DO mind is more than 20 or 30 simultaneous connections on those servers. For most all of us, that is just fine.
IMHO, this deals just beats up on any ADSL package out there (I can't get SDSL where I'm at).
1935 will go down in History! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead to the future!
-Adolph Hitler
A little scary, isn't it? National ID Cards are just one more step down a quite similar road. Please Vote!
The article states that this new device will replace all of those little battery eater remotes.
Excuse me, but doesn't a 6.4" Color Touchscreen and an Intel XScale processor use more juice than a simple IC with an IR LED attached? I know it will have a LiIon battery, but still, they don't quote any runtimes between charges here.
Sorry, but $1700 is a bit much for a remote. Especially one that probably will only get an hour or two of runtime between charges!
"The windshield washer pump sprays fluid on to the glass, but what causes it to start the next stage?"
This is an advertisement for more than just the car. The ad demonstrates the premium stereo, remote activated tailgate, and rain sensors in the windshield that start the wipers automatically!
-clbyjack81
Now I really CAN be root on your toaster. Isn't technology wonderful?