I also don't like Apple's ported software. But although the UI is annoying, the thing that REALLY bothers me is the performance.
Just yesterday my browser froze for 10 seconds while quicktime loaded. Why? Flash does it in an almost unnoticeable amount of time. iTunes sucks more than 50% of my cpu power (amd64 3200) just to download 3 songs - doing nothing else but saving 3 files.
It's becoming fairly obvious that when you buy a video card, a big part of the cost is the incredibly complex driver to make use of that hardware and implement the whole directx|opengl API.
Agreed: there are only a few sensible options for most business or home users.
But how would a new person find this out? Simulating newbie mode, I typed "linux" into Google. The first hit was to linux.org, which tells me the basics but gives me no idea which distribution to use. Indeed, the download page is a huge page of verbosity and links to a rather tricky looking search page.
3rd on the list is Linux.com, which also has a "download linux" link, although not totally obvious; but it too starts talking about distributions, and starts with CentOS (? sounds obscure) and "damn small linux"... hm... Ubuntu is there, but at the bottom after many more obscure options.
#4 Wikipedia has no guide to getting Linux. It's being encylopedic, so that's fine, but it doesn't help a newbie.
Ubuntu's own page comes in at #5. By this stage it's hardly standing out.
Marketing folks! I know it goes against the Linux grain which wants to embrace the newbie with the glorious choices, but to make it easy to get started, Linux.org should have a banner "Get Linux now!" that links straight into Ubuntu's download/ordering page, or perhaps one with a brief intro. "Ubuntu Linux is the simplest and easiest way to get started with Linux. Click here to download. If you've got a special purpose in mind, perhaps you might find another distribution to suit."
There is a whole generation of IT people who grew up knowing nothing outside Microsoft. (By generation I mean some kind of IT generation, say 5 years). They exist in their little ecosystem of microsoft products and anything else makes them uncomfortable. These guys are still largely around, I work with one guy, he automatically assumes Microsoft has the correct answer, even when intellectually he can be convinced there is nothing special about them.
I guess Microsoft deliberately nutured this little ecosystems; not just in the positive sense of focussing on developers, but in the negative sense by their careful marketing and PR speak aimed at FUDding everything else.
This is nothing new to Slashdot. What's perhaps interesting is that there are still lots of techies in this mindset, when people here clearly feel things have moved on...
In the Iraq invasion, it was very obvious the US military had decided to use as much weaponry as possible, at almost any expense, to avoid losing soldiers. Because, it seems the US population don't care about hundreds of billions in debt, but they do care about every last soldier. So in political terms, it's worth spending a hundred million dollars if it saves one soldier's life.
Now this allows them to fight wars without risking soldiers at all, so there is no downside at all to wading into any ridiculous unwinnable situation. Lose a few dozen UAVs, shrug, ask congress for another billion dollars.
Not to mention that this is obviously going to make airstrikes like the best video game ever for those controlling them. Pyschologically, it gives them a free-pass to do whatever they like.
So great... looking forward to a more agressive US.
Yep, I too have been waiting years for them to fix this. Each new Windows version comes out and I try out windows explorer with a CD... same old s**t.
However, at some point they DID multi-thread the folders view so that it first shows + for every folder, then later hides them for folders without subfolders. Probably XP. Windows 2000 still wants to expand everything exactly.
Its not that hard to make a realistic group of guards, soldiers etc, have them spot you visually and attack you. (Sure, there are difficulties but the basics are well solved by now).
What's hard is making a fun game out of that, because you would most likely be killed immediately, without making it ridiculous (enemy weapons doing 1/10th damage of yours)
Yes, I excluded Sony Ericsson phones from consideration, even though they have the best camera. I also ignore them for hifi, projectors, etc. I did buy a clock radio from them:D
I also subscribed for a while (based on good experiences with their OS/2 product). But they were clearly emphasising the eye candy which is my last interest.
The true analog hole is the light coming off the screen. Is it really so impossible to carefully position a HD-camera in front of a monitor, synch them up, and record the analog output? This is done in varying forms with many existing technologies.
Admittedly however, this kind of thing is starting to get expensive, and would greatly reduce the pool of people able to do the "ripping". Which give the movie companies a smaller pool of people to chase.
The words entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen don't exactly fill me with confidence these days. In fact I'd say that the record for such movies is poor, only Sin City really having managed to avoid being bland and dull. Dear filmmakers: yes CGI can save you money, and show you new interesting visions, but you STILL HAVE TO WORK ON THE BASICS like making convincing characters and interactions between them... and actors find it hard to produce that if you make them work in front of a bluescreen.
Yes, pumps use a simple turbine attached to a rotary encoder. They could not afford to have anything more sophisticated and they must keep operating in a environment with little care or calibration.
It would be mostly a waste of money to put something better in anyway.
As far as I know, deliveries of fuel to stations are measured at temperature, and compensated to match. So the stations don't lose out. They are very aware of the potential to lose a few percentage of 50,000 gallons of fuel. Environmental and fiscal regulations might force them to track it accurately anyway.
It really would be rather expensive to install temperature sensors in every pump, because you would also have to change the computer in the pump to be able to read them, and install firmware to use that, and probably change communication back to point-of-sale systems and fuel reconciliation processes. But as people have mentioned that is almost certainly not necessary; the temperature of the fuel will be basically the same as the tank, so just measure the tank.
But it's not as simple as that. Once you've got a temperature, what do you do with it? Fuel pricing is carefully controlled, and setting up a whole new pricing process to cater for end-user temperature would make for a lot of work. Accountants won't just let you calculate a number, it would have to be by a schedule, based on the prices determined originally (e.g. by the oil company). Finally someone or something has to be measuring, calculating/looking up, checking the result, and changing all the prices on the pumps AND on the price signs. For centrally controlled prices, this would likely be a complete nightmare.
In the end it is probably irrelevant. As others have said, the average probably comes out to roughly the same. In any case, it's obvious that the oil companies will have already built the factor (if any) into their pricing, and so forcing them to install sensors will just a) cost them a lot of money (which they will pass on to consumers) and b) result in slightly different APPARENT prices which will not practically be any different, per energy, in the long term.
You love him? Strong words, but good on you for saying them. Can you explain why the president of a country should disregard the very public he is supposed to be representing and leading?
No, despite being GSM and with a sim card, it doesn't accept T-Mobile SIM cards or any others besides AT&T. Do you really think people wouldn't have noticed this?
Indeed... I would add the web forums primary benefit is that because they are just web pages, they are very easy to find for most people, compared to usenet groups (which have a kind of ambiguous identity).
There's no reason that Usenet clients couldn't remember which forums you have posted to and give you a nice notification list of replies to read - it has always annoyed me that they don't. With a lot of mucking around with rules, you can sometimes get them to highlight replies to you in a particular group, and on ProNews/2 (OS/2 client) this could be extended to highlighting groups in the groups list. But this has always been a second-class feature that is not active out of the box.
Of course it's not pushed from the server managing the list and would therefore requiring downloading new headers on every group on every server. Usenet servers could potentially be modified to push notifications, sending "reply notification" emails to members who posted via them (thus retaining the distributed nature).
I guess the single biggest problem with web forums is that they don't separate content from presentation, so presentation is totally dependent on what the server chooses to do. I guess this is where RSS in theory comes in?
Even now, when usent usage has greatly decreased, I still find Google Groups - the usenet archive* - much more helpful for answering specific questions than web search. While there are probably a hundred web forums out there with the answer, they don't get indexed in time by Google, or get indexed but the thread/post can't be referenced anymore, or there is just too much cruft and Google can't find the content, or...
I've been thinking maybe Google should make a "forum search"...
* Google's own "not usenet" groups never seem to contain much of interest.
Not to mention needlessly leaving off capital letters! You have to type exactly the same letter, only pressing shift at the same time. That must collectively save people at least one joule of energy per week!
The SE K800 already had the xenon flash (which is the biggest improvement to the camera, letting you take actually useful photos in darkness) and 3MP. Going to 5MP probably achieves nothing as the sensor is so small.
Slashdot Mirror
I also don't like Apple's ported software. But although the UI is annoying, the thing that REALLY bothers me is the performance.
Just yesterday my browser froze for 10 seconds while quicktime loaded. Why? Flash does it in an almost unnoticeable amount of time. iTunes sucks more than 50% of my cpu power (amd64 3200) just to download 3 songs - doing nothing else but saving 3 files.
It's becoming fairly obvious that when you buy a video card, a big part of the cost is the incredibly complex driver to make use of that hardware and implement the whole directx|opengl API.
Agreed: there are only a few sensible options for most business or home users.
But how would a new person find this out? Simulating newbie mode, I typed "linux" into Google. The first hit was to linux.org, which tells me the basics but gives me no idea which distribution to use. Indeed, the download page is a huge page of verbosity and links to a rather tricky looking search page.
3rd on the list is Linux.com, which also has a "download linux" link, although not totally obvious; but it too starts talking about distributions, and starts with CentOS (? sounds obscure) and "damn small linux"... hm... Ubuntu is there, but at the bottom after many more obscure options.
#4 Wikipedia has no guide to getting Linux. It's being encylopedic, so that's fine, but it doesn't help a newbie.
Ubuntu's own page comes in at #5. By this stage it's hardly standing out.
Marketing folks! I know it goes against the Linux grain which wants to embrace the newbie with the glorious choices, but to make it easy to get started, Linux.org should have a banner "Get Linux now!" that links straight into Ubuntu's download/ordering page, or perhaps one with a brief intro. "Ubuntu Linux is the simplest and easiest way to get started with Linux. Click here to download. If you've got a special purpose in mind, perhaps you might find another distribution to suit."
There is a whole generation of IT people who grew up knowing nothing outside Microsoft. (By generation I mean some kind of IT generation, say 5 years). They exist in their little ecosystem of microsoft products and anything else makes them uncomfortable. These guys are still largely around, I work with one guy, he automatically assumes Microsoft has the correct answer, even when intellectually he can be convinced there is nothing special about them.
...
I guess Microsoft deliberately nutured this little ecosystems; not just in the positive sense of focussing on developers, but in the negative sense by their careful marketing and PR speak aimed at FUDding everything else.
This is nothing new to Slashdot. What's perhaps interesting is that there are still lots of techies in this mindset, when people here clearly feel things have moved on
In the Iraq invasion, it was very obvious the US military had decided to use as much weaponry as possible, at almost any expense, to avoid losing soldiers. Because, it seems the US population don't care about hundreds of billions in debt, but they do care about every last soldier. So in political terms, it's worth spending a hundred million dollars if it saves one soldier's life.
... looking forward to a more agressive US.
Now this allows them to fight wars without risking soldiers at all, so there is no downside at all to wading into any ridiculous unwinnable situation. Lose a few dozen UAVs, shrug, ask congress for another billion dollars.
Not to mention that this is obviously going to make airstrikes like the best video game ever for those controlling them. Pyschologically, it gives them a free-pass to do whatever they like.
So great
Yep, I too have been waiting years for them to fix this.
Each new Windows version comes out and I try out windows explorer with a CD... same old s**t.
However, at some point they DID multi-thread the folders view so that it first shows + for every folder, then later hides them for folders without subfolders. Probably XP. Windows 2000 still wants to expand everything exactly.
Its not that hard to make a realistic group of guards, soldiers etc, have them spot you visually and attack you. (Sure, there are difficulties but the basics are well solved by now).
What's hard is making a fun game out of that, because you would most likely be killed immediately, without making it ridiculous (enemy weapons doing 1/10th damage of yours)
Yes, I excluded Sony Ericsson phones from consideration, even though they have the best camera. I also ignore them for hifi, projectors, etc. :D
I did buy a clock radio from them
I also subscribed for a while (based on good experiences with their OS/2 product). But they were clearly emphasising the eye candy which is my last interest.
The true analog hole is the light coming off the screen.
Is it really so impossible to carefully position a HD-camera in front of a monitor, synch them up, and record the analog output?
This is done in varying forms with many existing technologies.
Admittedly however, this kind of thing is starting to get expensive, and would greatly reduce the pool of people able to do the "ripping". Which give the movie companies a smaller pool of people to chase.
The words entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen don't exactly fill me with confidence these days. In fact I'd say that the record for such movies is poor, only Sin City really having managed to avoid being bland and dull. Dear filmmakers: yes CGI can save you money, and show you new interesting visions, but you STILL HAVE TO WORK ON THE BASICS like making convincing characters and interactions between them ... and actors find it hard to produce that if you make them work in front of a bluescreen.
This would be illegal in most countries. You CANNOT display different prices from what you charge - that's considered fraud.
Yes, pumps use a simple turbine attached to a rotary encoder. They could not afford to have anything more sophisticated and they must keep operating in a environment with little care or calibration.
It would be mostly a waste of money to put something better in anyway.
As far as I know, deliveries of fuel to stations are measured at temperature, and compensated to match. So the stations don't lose out. They are very aware of the potential to lose a few percentage of 50,000 gallons of fuel. Environmental and fiscal regulations might force them to track it accurately anyway.
It really would be rather expensive to install temperature sensors in every pump, because you would also have to change the computer in the pump to be able to read them, and install firmware to use that, and probably change communication back to point-of-sale systems and fuel reconciliation processes. But as people have mentioned that is almost certainly not necessary; the temperature of the fuel will be basically the same as the tank, so just measure the tank.
But it's not as simple as that. Once you've got a temperature, what do you do with it? Fuel pricing is carefully controlled, and setting up a whole new pricing process to cater for end-user temperature would make for a lot of work. Accountants won't just let you calculate a number, it would have to be by a schedule, based on the prices determined originally (e.g. by the oil company). Finally someone or something has to be measuring, calculating/looking up, checking the result, and changing all the prices on the pumps AND on the price signs. For centrally controlled prices, this would likely be a complete nightmare.
In the end it is probably irrelevant. As others have said, the average probably comes out to roughly the same. In any case, it's obvious that the oil companies will have already built the factor (if any) into their pricing, and so forcing them to install sensors will just a) cost them a lot of money (which they will pass on to consumers) and b) result in slightly different APPARENT prices which will not practically be any different, per energy, in the long term.
You love him? Strong words, but good on you for saying them.
Can you explain why the president of a country should disregard the very public he is supposed to be representing and leading?
No, despite being GSM and with a sim card, it doesn't accept T-Mobile SIM cards or any others besides AT&T. Do you really think people wouldn't have noticed this?
Indeed ... I would add the web forums primary benefit is that because they are just web pages, they are very easy to find for most people, compared to usenet groups (which have a kind of ambiguous identity).
There's no reason that Usenet clients couldn't remember which forums you have posted to and give you a nice notification list of replies to read - it has always annoyed me that they don't. With a lot of mucking around with rules, you can sometimes get them to highlight replies to you in a particular group, and on ProNews/2 (OS/2 client) this could be extended to highlighting groups in the groups list. But this has always been a second-class feature that is not active out of the box.
Of course it's not pushed from the server managing the list and would therefore requiring downloading new headers on every group on every server. Usenet servers could potentially be modified to push notifications, sending "reply notification" emails to members who posted via them (thus retaining the distributed nature).
I guess the single biggest problem with web forums is that they don't separate content from presentation, so presentation is totally dependent on what the server chooses to do. I guess this is where RSS in theory comes in?
Even now, when usent usage has greatly decreased, I still find Google Groups - the usenet archive* - much more helpful for answering specific questions than web search. ...
While there are probably a hundred web forums out there with the answer, they don't get indexed in time by Google, or get indexed but the thread/post can't be referenced anymore, or there is just too much cruft and Google can't find the content, or
I've been thinking maybe Google should make a "forum search"...
* Google's own "not usenet" groups never seem to contain much of interest.
That was quoted froma ser_radiation.html
http://www.nikiet.ru/eng/structure/hightemp/dos_l
your own comments would be a lot more interesting. Or is that your team?
Not to mention needlessly leaving off capital letters! You have to type exactly the same letter, only pressing shift at the same time. That must collectively save people at least one joule of energy per week!
They didn't get anything, except of course to keep that multi-billion dollar cash cow monopoly of Windows. Barely noticeable.
Isn't escape velocity something like Mach 30? Which means they are about 1/3 of the required speed. Not what I'd call close...
The SE K800 already had the xenon flash (which is the biggest improvement to the camera, letting you take actually useful photos in darkness) and 3MP. Going to 5MP probably achieves nothing as the sensor is so small.
Except of course it's impossible to use oxygen by itself as a fuel.