And here I hoped this would be new technology...
on
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... to eliminate the harmful effects of Spin Doctors on their environment. Ehhh, well... can't have everything.
*Goes back to surfing the web on his Sit-N-Spin*
Mnem
Ch-Ya! That'd like... Totally screw the pooch, babe!
Okay... I'm a believer. Not in The Hype, that mystical creature born of American Commerce which pilfers unrecoverable minutes of my one and only mortal existence every time I do anything more interactive than sleeping, but in the power of writing and imagination upon a developing mind. As much as I despise The Hype, particularly that sleazy, used car salesman in a plaid jacket kind of hype with which Harry Potter is marketed in this country... which screams from every window and the corner of every aisle (even the cold remedy aisle in the pharmacy... no lie, there is a Harry Potter endorsed cough syrup) of every store that your child's life is incomplete without THIS particular Potter product... that s/he will grow up somehow deficient, that you are neglecting that child if you don't BUY IT NOW... as much as I hate the ads all over my TV, inescapable, and the ads forced upon my eyes every time I get online, and the noise all over my radio on the drive to work, that no matter how many times I change the station IS STILL THERE... as much as I hate all these things... I believe that Harry Potter is a good thing. Not because of the message it imparts, I feel it does reinforce the inability to differentiate reality from fantasy which all children have... not because of the characters, which are often two dimensional and boring as frell... and certainly not because of the immersion in escapism, that "Sleeping Beauty" syndrome which offers salvation from the horrible tedium and diappointment of real life by some supernatural power if one is just patient enough and does as one is told... no, not because of any of these things. I believe because however she does it, JK Rowling has found a means of captivating the hearts of children, and engrossing them in her stories, and GETTING THEM TO READ. For me it was Lester Del Rey's The Runaway Robot... followed by Roger Zalazny's Amber series... but it doesn't matter WHO... it matters that the children (And the grownups, for that matter... you know who you are;) are reading... and are looking for more. The world needs more such authors, and if you're wondering how to get them... with money, of course. Great gobs of it, and this article from The New York Times proves it is possible at the same time as it provides one of the best examples I've ever seen of that all too rare triumph of substance over style.
...Where all restaurants are Taco Bell, and Intel STILL holds the marketplace at gunpoint.
Intel has taken its position of two decades ago as the chosen processor manufacturer for IBM and leveraged it into a position of market dominance, holding back the newest technology until they've made their fortunes on the old stuff, this is not news. Like MicroShaft, they rode IBM's coattails until they insidiously developed worldwide ties in the industry, using IBM's name recognition to make themselves a power and then turning on the hand that fed them. At this point they began making demands of not only their parent company, but the industry in general, and a world of computer megalopolies was born. Each segment of the industry now has its superpowers, and no matter how much we argue and fight, for the most part they drive the industry, by making inside deals and holding back new technology, or by using their corporate power as a club to beat the competition to death in the courts. Even the federal government is no match for them; they have more money at their disposal than the fed does, and ironocally, the very people who might take them on in court are working on computers made with Intel chips and running MicroShaft software, thereby feeding those megacorporations with our taxpayer money. Now don't get me wrong; I don't feel a bit sorry for IBM, hell, in a way, MicroSoft and Intel are IBM's children. Those predatory business practices we all revile were learned from IBM, and learned well. No, it is the consumer I feel bad for, shelling out thousands of dollars for a computer using a processor that is 10 years behind state of the art, running a (sic) OS that could have been written by monkeys... the old joke (its been this way so long it IS an old joke) about "What is MicroSoft's latest Beta... errr, OS?" and "Which version of the 386 is Intel releasing this week?" still hold nauseatingly true, and the only satisfaction I get from all of it is seeing IBM standing in line with all the other computer manufacturers waiting to be doled out the same technology as the rest of us. Now I know that real business machines run on other hardware and software, and we can hold these computer equivalents of a Lamborghini or a TEREX earth mover (depending on their intended purpose) up as shining examples of what technology CAN be, but the truth is it doesn't filter down to the consumer for far too long, and by the time we see it, it's been diluted to the point of being comparatively the same as a Yugo. In a world driven by free enterprise, we should expect to get a little more for our hard won dollars than a machine that was actually obsolete before our LAST machine was built.
Mnem *Goggles at the error message he just got*
-ERROR 1313- Your request could not be processed. Requested process *GET A LIFE* has caused an invalid page fault in MODULE:INTERNET at address 3NO:HELLNO
Let's be realistic here - the "Space Program" is already effectively dead. Ever since Challenger, it has been entirely under the purview of the military, and the occasional non-military mission here and there (the doomed Columbia mission was the first in 3 years) have been entirely for PR and damage control. We hear a lot of rhetoric about the international space station, how critical the shuttle is for that, yet the truth is that much of its construction has been effected via other means. We are not the only country on the planet with the ability to hurl iron into space, and if these last 3 shuttles last as long as Columbia did, then they'll be dropping out of the sky over the next decade or so - far short of the current plans for these craft to be our only means of spaceflight into the year 2030. It boggles the mind that people assume something had to have HAPPENED to Columbia; this was a 23 year old airframe, and not your ordinary everyday transatlantic puddlejumper - it had to exceed 17,000 mph to escape gravity's pull, and return to the earth at a screaming 13,000 mph, glowing like the Phoenix herself... that by 2030, would have been 50 years old. It's foolish to imagine those craft being serviceable after only 20 years; metal fatigues from simply holding up the weight of a craft, aluminum crystallizes and becomes brittle with age. I know, the original design specifications called for a life of 100 flights each, and it was far short of that... but be realistic, we have NOTHING to use as a comparison for those specifications, and they were never intended to be in service for 25 years, much less the 50 now in mind by those in charge. And those in charge will not permit those precious few remaining craft to be wasted on frivolous scientific experimentation; they will reserve them for their much more important work like spy satellites and orbital weapons platforms, and don't forget the third reincarnation of Star Wars... No, the space program as you and I think of it has long been a secondary concern, and now will be even less of a priority.
Ummm... for the same money, Grandma and Grandpa can have an X-Book with a DVD-ROM, a real processor, and a 14" screen they can actually see. Of course they would be giving up the battery power, but as you suggest, they're unlikely to get involved in wireless networking, so would probably be tied to a wire anyhow.
Mnem
*Still really isn't impressed with either*
At first, upon looking at this unit, I said - "Oh, its just a downsized X-Book... but after looking into it - more details can be seen here -
http://idot.com/TheStore/Desktop/787Spec.asp?Pro du ct.id=787&Cate.id=2
I see it's quite a bit worse. Unlike the X-Book, they do include a battery, so it is REALLY a notebook computer, and the list of features is actually not too bad, until you notice that the CDRW/DVD drive that is built into an X-Book for around $700-$800 is not only external, but optional as well. Further investigation into the C3 processor they "compare" to other laptops revealed why they made sure the DVD drive was not included. See these reviews at Tom's Hardware -
With benchmarks showing actual computing power somewhere in the neighborhood of a Celeron 500 or less, it probably lacks the power to play a DVD worth a damn, and I'd guess that's why they don't include the drive - Joe Numbnutz buys this $800 tinkertoy, pops in his favorite WWF DVD, and it plays like crap - they'll be getting them back as fast as they can ship them out. However, at 12W total dissipation, this VIA C3 should be fairly stingy with battery power, and should provide Joe with plenty of power for surfing his favorite porn sites. The built-in CF socket is a nice touch, though I'd rather have a Type 3 PCMCIA slot, and I for one am not willing to trade my DVD Drive for a battery.
Overall, the major offense is the marketing of a (guesses) $4 933 MHZ VIA C3 processor as if it were in any way comparable to the processors in those real notebooks. Essentially, its an Internet Appliance with a battery - and at $800, Joe is definitely getting hosed.
My two bits worth,
Mnem "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - PT Barnum
Batteries do seem to be quite a bone of contention amongst those of us living the mobile computing lifestyle; and most will agree, no matter how long they actually last, its never long enough. I have however, owned numerous different models, and its true that certain practices do help, some a holdover from the stone age when all things rechargeable used NiCd packs, and some a simple adaptation to the fact that the most popular OSes out there really are frelled when it comes to power management.
Once upon a time, power management was provided almost exclusively by the hardware; specialized circuits designed explicitly for one machine based on current draw, battery type and capacity, and a predefined minimum supply voltage were used, and for the most part, all one had to do was be sure to remove the battery while on AC and remember to occasionally discharge the battery completely and recharge it to get the most life out of it. This arrangement was good up to a point, but it was usually static, your anticipated run time and reserve power level were based on hardware which made no allowances for aging batteries and which would, if permitted to, eventually cook cells which were unable to come up to a certain level. Later developments in the hardware permitted them to monitor and learn the changing discharge curves of aging batteries, these worked well, as they were still custom designed to work with the machine and the batteries installed in the machine. Witness to this is one old Toshiba 420 CDT I use for a semiconductor cross-reference database and tech tips - after almost 8 years, the original Li-Ion pack is still good for over an hour, and when new it was only good for an hour and a half. With the advent of the APM battery slot, and OSes allegedly designed to use them, came the need for a "one-size-fits-all" approach to provide compatibility. This would have been a good idea I suppose, having the OS deal with all that, but as most of us have found out, the OS isn't very good at it. Running a background process to monitor and maintain battery voltage via a generic controller embedded in the battery pack does take away a lot of hassles in the design department, but in turn it means that what is monitored may very well be erroneous - Win98/XP APM will mislearn a power curve if you short cycle the batteries - so badly that in one laptop I own, it tells me my fully charged battery is dead after about 20 minutes, but will continue (since I permit it ONLY to warn me, not go into standby or hibernate) to run for 2 hours with 0% battery. Now I know this machine does in fact have a weak battery; when new it would run happily for 4 hours on a charge, and APM problems were minor - about once every couple I would have to disable standby modes and let the machine run until it shut down and wouldn't start up again, and then my battery meter would be right on again. Leaving the unit plugged in with the battery installed causes most of this; the battery doesn't experience a normal charge/discharge cycle over a number of boots, and the OS learns an erroneous discharge curve. I know this - I find ways to work around it - but it IS a pain in the ass. I've found LINUX APM support to be utterly horrendous on this machine; it does in fact eat up the battery in an hour or less, but it doesn't give me erroneous battery readings - when it sez I have 5% battery, I go looking for the umbilical. A new battery would be a good idea, and I'd happily do it but for the fact of finding a retailer who sells them. But this machine appears to be the bastard child at ASUS (Yes - ASUS does in fact manufacture laptops - and aside from the battery issue, I've been pleased - I've done nothing but pound this auction-bought machine for 2 years and it still does everything I want it to) but I am at the point now of seriously considering buying a new battery pack for another machine just to rob the cells out of... anyhow - a few things I have learned...
When you plug it in, remove the battery once it is fully charged. Once it becomes habit, you don't even notice, and it helps avoid all those APM/Cell Memory, etc issues. And your battery WILL have a much longer useful life. PERIOD.
Use the frelling Battery once in a while. You don't have to use it every day, but using it, and depleting it down to the last few percent keeps it healthy. Running the machine until it shuts down completely will not hurt the battery. The power supply circuitry in the laptop itself will shut down long before the voltage on the battery gets low enough for cell inversion to be a problem.
If you are getting what seems to be unusually short runtime, try turning off the standby and hibernate modes in your power management, then let the machine run on battery until it just plain dies.(Preferably doing something non-critical; it WILL crash and you don't want to damage files) then recharge the battery with the laptop turned off. I have found this method to work reasonably well at resetting the learning curve in '98,XP,and 2000 Pro. It seems to have no effect with LINUX.
Sorry about the length of this reply... there just seemed to be a lot of points I wanted to get out there.
Mnementh
15-year Veteran Electronics Tech & Personal Confuser Addict
No, Farscape is not still kicking - the episodes you see listed are merely the last half of season 4, which we should have gotten 5 months ago. Season 4 ends in a traditional Farscape cliffhanger, and after that, it's still byebye unless we pull off some miracle... Gee, why am I not grateful for the bone they tossed our way in the form of a Farscape Chain Reaction just before they kick off the last dozen eps? SciFi still remains in the top ranks of my dren list. FRELLING DRANNITS!!!
Slashdot Mirror
... to eliminate the harmful effects of Spin Doctors on their environment. Ehhh, well... can't have everything. *Goes back to surfing the web on his Sit-N-Spin* Mnem Ch-Ya! That'd like... Totally screw the pooch, babe!
Hmmm... sounds like just a long-winded way of saying TP...
Ah say we sandpaper 'is nutsack and set 'im down in turpytine!!!
"YIPPE-KI-YAY, Motherfu**er !!!" John McLane - Die Hard
Okay... I'm a believer. Not in The Hype, that mystical creature born of American Commerce which pilfers unrecoverable minutes of my one and only mortal existence every time I do anything more interactive than sleeping, but in the power of writing and imagination upon a developing mind. ;) are reading... and are looking for more. The world needs more such authors, and if you're wondering how to get them... with money, of course. Great gobs of it, and this article from The New York Times proves it is possible at the same time as it provides one of the best examples I've ever seen of that all too rare triumph of substance over style.
As much as I despise The Hype, particularly that sleazy, used car salesman in a plaid jacket kind of hype with which Harry Potter is marketed in this country... which screams from every window and the corner of every aisle (even the cold remedy aisle in the pharmacy... no lie, there is a Harry Potter endorsed cough syrup) of every store that your child's life is incomplete without THIS particular Potter product... that s/he will grow up somehow deficient, that you are neglecting that child if you don't BUY IT NOW... as much as I hate the ads all over my TV, inescapable, and the ads forced upon my eyes every time I get online, and the noise all over my radio on the drive to work, that no matter how many times I change the station IS STILL THERE... as much as I hate all these things... I believe that Harry Potter is a good thing.
Not because of the message it imparts, I feel it does reinforce the inability to differentiate reality from fantasy which all children have... not because of the characters, which are often two dimensional and boring as frell... and certainly not because of the immersion in escapism, that "Sleeping Beauty" syndrome which offers salvation from the horrible tedium and diappointment of real life by some supernatural power if one is just patient enough and does as one is told... no, not because of any of these things.
I believe because however she does it, JK Rowling has found a means of captivating the hearts of children, and engrossing them in her stories, and GETTING THEM TO READ. For me it was Lester Del Rey's The Runaway Robot... followed by Roger Zalazny's Amber series... but it doesn't matter WHO... it matters that the children (And the grownups, for that matter... you know who you are
Mnem
*Steps off his soapbox*
...Where all restaurants are Taco Bell, and Intel STILL holds the marketplace at gunpoint.
Intel has taken its position of two decades ago as the chosen processor manufacturer for IBM and leveraged it into a position of market dominance, holding back the newest technology until they've made their fortunes on the old stuff, this is not news. Like MicroShaft, they rode IBM's coattails until they insidiously developed worldwide ties in the industry, using IBM's name recognition to make themselves a power and then turning on the hand that fed them. At this point they began making demands of not only their parent company, but the industry in general, and a world of computer megalopolies was born. Each segment of the industry now has its superpowers, and no matter how much we argue and fight, for the most part they drive the industry, by making inside deals and holding back new technology, or by using their corporate power as a club to beat the competition to death in the courts. Even the federal government is no match for them; they have more money at their disposal than the fed does, and ironocally, the very people who might take them on in court are working on computers made with Intel chips and running MicroShaft software, thereby feeding those megacorporations with our taxpayer money. Now don't get me wrong; I don't feel a bit sorry for IBM, hell, in a way, MicroSoft and Intel are IBM's children. Those predatory business practices we all revile were learned from IBM, and learned well. No, it is the consumer I feel bad for, shelling out thousands of dollars for a computer using a processor that is 10 years behind state of the art, running a (sic) OS that could have been written by monkeys... the old joke (its been this way so long it IS an old joke) about "What is MicroSoft's latest Beta... errr, OS?" and "Which version of the 386 is Intel releasing this week?" still hold nauseatingly true, and the only satisfaction I get from all of it is seeing IBM standing in line with all the other computer manufacturers waiting to be doled out the same technology as the rest of us.
Now I know that real business machines run on other hardware and software, and we can hold these computer equivalents of a Lamborghini or a TEREX earth mover (depending on their intended purpose) up as shining examples of what technology CAN be, but the truth is it doesn't filter down to the consumer for far too long, and by the time we see it, it's been diluted to the point of being comparatively the same as a Yugo. In a world driven by free enterprise, we should expect to get a little more for our hard won dollars than a machine that was actually obsolete before our LAST machine was built.
Mnem
*Goggles at the error message he just got*
-ERROR 1313- Your request could not be processed.
Requested process *GET A LIFE* has caused an invalid page fault in MODULE:INTERNET at address 3NO:HELLNO
OMIGAWD ! I BROKE THE INTERNET!!!
Let's be realistic here - the "Space Program" is already effectively dead. Ever since Challenger, it has been entirely under the purview of the military, and the occasional non-military mission here and there (the doomed Columbia mission was the first in 3 years) have been entirely for PR and damage control. We hear a lot of rhetoric about the international space station, how critical the shuttle is for that, yet the truth is that much of its construction has been effected via other means. We are not the only country on the planet with the ability to hurl iron into space, and if these last 3 shuttles last as long as Columbia did, then they'll be dropping out of the sky over the next decade or so - far short of the current plans for these craft to be our only means of spaceflight into the year 2030. It boggles the mind that people assume something had to have HAPPENED to Columbia; this was a 23 year old airframe, and not your ordinary everyday transatlantic puddlejumper - it had to exceed 17,000 mph to escape gravity's pull, and return to the earth at a screaming 13,000 mph, glowing like the Phoenix herself... that by 2030, would have been 50 years old. It's foolish to imagine those craft being serviceable after only 20 years; metal fatigues from simply holding up the weight of a craft, aluminum crystallizes and becomes brittle with age. I know, the original design specifications called for a life of 100 flights each, and it was far short of that... but be realistic, we have NOTHING to use as a comparison for those specifications, and they were never intended to be in service for 25 years, much less the 50 now in mind by those in charge. And those in charge will not permit those precious few remaining craft to be wasted on frivolous scientific experimentation; they will reserve them for their much more important work like spy satellites and orbital weapons platforms, and don't forget the third reincarnation of Star Wars... No, the space program as you and I think of it has long been a secondary concern, and now will be even less of a priority.
My 2 bits worth,
Mnem
Ummm... for the same money, Grandma and Grandpa can have an X-Book with a DVD-ROM, a real processor, and a 14" screen they can actually see. Of course they would be giving up the battery power, but as you suggest, they're unlikely to get involved in wireless networking, so would probably be tied to a wire anyhow. Mnem *Still really isn't impressed with either*
At first, upon looking at this unit, I said - "Oh, its just a downsized X-Book... but after looking into it - more details can be seen here -
o du ct.id=787&Cate.id=2
x .h tml
http://idot.com/TheStore/Desktop/787Spec.asp?Pr
I see it's quite a bit worse. Unlike the X-Book, they do include a battery, so it is REALLY a notebook computer, and the list of features is actually not too bad, until you notice that the CDRW/DVD drive that is built into an X-Book for around $700-$800 is not only external, but optional as well. Further investigation into the C3 processor they "compare" to other laptops revealed why they made sure the DVD drive was not included. See these reviews at Tom's Hardware -
http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020605/inde
With benchmarks showing actual computing power somewhere in the neighborhood of a Celeron 500 or less, it probably lacks the power to play a DVD worth a damn, and I'd guess that's why they don't include the drive - Joe Numbnutz buys this $800 tinkertoy, pops in his favorite WWF DVD, and it plays like crap - they'll be getting them back as fast as they can ship them out. However, at 12W total dissipation, this VIA C3 should be fairly stingy with battery power, and should provide Joe with plenty of power for surfing his favorite porn sites. The built-in CF socket is a nice touch, though I'd rather have a Type 3 PCMCIA slot, and I for one am not willing to trade my DVD Drive for a battery.
Overall, the major offense is the marketing of a (guesses) $4 933 MHZ VIA C3 processor as if it were in any way comparable to the processors in those real notebooks. Essentially, its an Internet Appliance with a battery - and at $800, Joe is definitely getting hosed.
My two bits worth,
Mnem
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - PT Barnum
Batteries do seem to be quite a bone of contention amongst those of us living the mobile computing lifestyle; and most will agree, no matter how long they actually last, its never long enough. I have however, owned numerous different models, and its true that certain practices do help, some a holdover from the stone age when all things rechargeable used NiCd packs, and some a simple adaptation to the fact that the most popular OSes out there really are frelled when it comes to power management. Once upon a time, power management was provided almost exclusively by the hardware; specialized circuits designed explicitly for one machine based on current draw, battery type and capacity, and a predefined minimum supply voltage were used, and for the most part, all one had to do was be sure to remove the battery while on AC and remember to occasionally discharge the battery completely and recharge it to get the most life out of it. This arrangement was good up to a point, but it was usually static, your anticipated run time and reserve power level were based on hardware which made no allowances for aging batteries and which would, if permitted to, eventually cook cells which were unable to come up to a certain level. Later developments in the hardware permitted them to monitor and learn the changing discharge curves of aging batteries, these worked well, as they were still custom designed to work with the machine and the batteries installed in the machine. Witness to this is one old Toshiba 420 CDT I use for a semiconductor cross-reference database and tech tips - after almost 8 years, the original Li-Ion pack is still good for over an hour, and when new it was only good for an hour and a half. With the advent of the APM battery slot, and OSes allegedly designed to use them, came the need for a "one-size-fits-all" approach to provide compatibility. This would have been a good idea I suppose, having the OS deal with all that, but as most of us have found out, the OS isn't very good at it. Running a background process to monitor and maintain battery voltage via a generic controller embedded in the battery pack does take away a lot of hassles in the design department, but in turn it means that what is monitored may very well be erroneous - Win98/XP APM will mislearn a power curve if you short cycle the batteries - so badly that in one laptop I own, it tells me my fully charged battery is dead after about 20 minutes, but will continue (since I permit it ONLY to warn me, not go into standby or hibernate) to run for 2 hours with 0% battery. Now I know this machine does in fact have a weak battery; when new it would run happily for 4 hours on a charge, and APM problems were minor - about once every couple I would have to disable standby modes and let the machine run until it shut down and wouldn't start up again, and then my battery meter would be right on again. Leaving the unit plugged in with the battery installed causes most of this; the battery doesn't experience a normal charge/discharge cycle over a number of boots, and the OS learns an erroneous discharge curve. I know this - I find ways to work around it - but it IS a pain in the ass. I've found LINUX APM support to be utterly horrendous on this machine; it does in fact eat up the battery in an hour or less, but it doesn't give me erroneous battery readings - when it sez I have 5% battery, I go looking for the umbilical. A new battery would be a good idea, and I'd happily do it but for the fact of finding a retailer who sells them. But this machine appears to be the bastard child at ASUS (Yes - ASUS does in fact manufacture laptops - and aside from the battery issue, I've been pleased - I've done nothing but pound this auction-bought machine for 2 years and it still does everything I want it to) but I am at the point now of seriously considering buying a new battery pack for another machine just to rob the cells out of... anyhow - a few things I have learned... When you plug it in, remove the battery once it is fully charged. Once it becomes habit, you don't even notice, and it helps avoid all those APM/Cell Memory, etc issues. And your battery WILL have a much longer useful life. PERIOD. Use the frelling Battery once in a while. You don't have to use it every day, but using it, and depleting it down to the last few percent keeps it healthy. Running the machine until it shuts down completely will not hurt the battery. The power supply circuitry in the laptop itself will shut down long before the voltage on the battery gets low enough for cell inversion to be a problem. If you are getting what seems to be unusually short runtime, try turning off the standby and hibernate modes in your power management, then let the machine run on battery until it just plain dies.(Preferably doing something non-critical; it WILL crash and you don't want to damage files) then recharge the battery with the laptop turned off. I have found this method to work reasonably well at resetting the learning curve in '98,XP,and 2000 Pro. It seems to have no effect with LINUX. Sorry about the length of this reply... there just seemed to be a lot of points I wanted to get out there. Mnementh 15-year Veteran Electronics Tech & Personal Confuser Addict
No, Farscape is not still kicking - the episodes you see listed are merely the last half of season 4, which we should have gotten 5 months ago. Season 4 ends in a traditional Farscape cliffhanger, and after that, it's still byebye unless we pull off some miracle... Gee, why am I not grateful for the bone they tossed our way in the form of a Farscape Chain Reaction just before they kick off the last dozen eps? SciFi still remains in the top ranks of my dren list.
FRELLING DRANNITS!!!
Mnementh