This is for tape storage backup, and 10.1TB backup to tape isn't too bad. I know for connecting to data storage SGI uses 2Gb fibre channel. But, other than that, I'm kinda clueless about data storage centers, in general.
Because you can't buy an opteron system with NUMA link (3.2 GB/s between bricks) and you can't simply build a 500 TB data cluster by purchasing some CAT5, 100 250GB drives, 10 Gigabit ethernet cards and call it a day. SGI thrives because it can put together a clustered supercomputer and has the technology to build a 500TB data center. 20 Altix racks, 128 Altix bricks/rack (4 processors/brick X 128 = 512 proc) and has globally shared memory thanks to numalink. This means that even though each brick can run independently, you can also build a 512 proc system with a single Linux system image that has the combined memory of all the bricks (thanks SHUB and NUMAlink!). So, when you can build a 512 processor, global shared memory system out of Opterons, then you go ahead and sell it. This is a clustered supercomputer where each cluster is a supercomputer.
The parent poster is spot on that debit cards without charges is the future. About a year ago or so either Newsweek/Times/WSJ etc did an article about the fleecing of America when it came to check cards, especially when you consider it against the debit card. What's the big deal?
The costs involved in the back end. Debit cards don't cost nearly as much as check cards do. Why? Because check cards are locked into the credit card system, that's why. It costs the store significantly more to process a credit card than it does to process your debit transaction ($1 versus $.10). Its a matter of using the Visa/MC credit processing or a regional ATM network (Cirrus, Tyme etc) to process funds. Look at this Kiplinger article about it. So why do we use it?
Because Visa has made a HUGE push in the US to convince us that the Visa check card rocks! All those commercials with Marion Jones or the rabbits etc where using your Visa check card is better than using checks. Why? Because its more profitable, until they pissed off Wal-Mart.
Me? I don't use a debit or check card. I use credit cards so I don't have my checking account drained it someone gets a hold of my check card number.
As for using a debit card to pay for a coke? Ehhh...the US is still attached to dollar bill so what hope do getting people to change? =D As for the SMS, I don't think SMS is nearly as big as SMS in Europe/the rest of the world because we get locked into $40 a month plans, so we might as well use our minutes.
but I really had no idea that you were supposed to limit to 80 characters. I skipped intro to cs as an undergrad (thanks AP Comp Sci), so I never had someone deduct points for not following this particular rule, and no one since has asked me about it.
Its more of a Honda IMS hybrid than a full Prius hybrid. What's the difference?
Toyota and Honda have blazed markedly different trails into this hybrid frontier. Honda's Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system in the Insight and Civic Hybrid is mild and elegantly simple in its operation--an electric motor is sandwiched between the traditional engine and transmission--either a five-speed manual or a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Fuel is saved by switching off the engine when stopped or coasting and by downsizing the engine and relying on the electric motor to assist with acceleration. The motor is powered by energy stored during deceleration and braking when the motor functions like a generator, recharging an onboard battery. (Today's hybrids are never plugged in for recharging.) Honda hybrids cannot accelerate on electric power alone.
Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) is more complex. The gas engine is unique, utilizing lightweight, low-friction internal components designed to run at a maximum speed of only 5000 rpm. A mechanical compression ratio of 13.0:1 improves efficiency, but the intake valves close so late that the air-fuel mixture experiences only 9.5:1 compression, permitting the engine to run on regular fuel. A unique planetary automatic transmission allows the car to accelerate from rest up to 30-plus mph on electric power only if the driver accelerates gently, which adds significantly to the fuel savings over what Honda's mild hybrid achieves. Toe in deeper, and the gas engine kicks in. Floor it, and the separate generator switches over to work as an additional motor for even more assist. The fuel savings are far less significant at highway speeds, where the engine must run continuously, which explains why the Prius's EPA results are highest for the city test.
Dang, you beat me to it. I read DetNews Auto section every day and went nuts when I saw the slashdot headline. I also found this over at Bloomberg by Doron Levin (an editor over at detnews as well).
BTW, although hybrids are the new chic-ness in cool rides (and 15 years ago those same people were all diving for SUVs, but whatever) no one's done a careful analysis of the cost to manufacture the batteries as well dispose of them properly, especially on the scales of 17 million new vehicles sold per year (in the US). To me, we're simply trading a "cleaner" car today for an expensive cleanup tomorrow. Everything seems to be a trade off. Diesel has its problems, especially with the U.S.'s sulfur rich diesel. A lot of our advances in cleaning up car emissions come at a price such as expensive and toxic metals in catalytic converters.
There are a couple reasons, most mentioned previously.
1. Uptime on linux/unix is not good enough. Linux/Unix versus Microsoft, sure its got a better uptime, but against a mainframe that hasn't been turned off in 20-30 years? We're not talking commodity hardware here that'll break in a few years, or need constant replacing. Banks, hospitals, etc can't afford any down time.
2. The code is probably long gone, and the software was probably custom. So, how exactly are you going to "port" this software? Oh, I know, tell all those banks to use gnucash.
3. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. All their employees know how it works. All their sys admins know the quirks. If you move to a new system, you've got thousands of employees who have to learn the new system from sys admins who don't know the software.
When it comes to upgrading a mainframe, its not like upgrading your home computer or home file server. You don't simply copy your ~/ over to your new computer and start running firefox.
The other thing is that like the Japanese, Koreans are really loyal to their country and its industries. Even those in countries like Canada buy Korean goods.
This is more out of ignorance and familiarity. Do you know how high tariffs are on imported goods in korea? Buying a BMW 3series basically costs double. Why? To protect the local automakers because 5-10 years ago Hyundai, Kia (now owned by Hyundai), Daewoo (now owned by GM), and Ssangyong (gone) couldn't compete globally. So, these names are everywhere in Korea and are considered the best because they were the best in Korea. So, when someone emmigrates abroad they see Hyundai, Daewoo and its familiar and its the best because there was no local competition, eventhough those companies were/are getting killed by the competition abroad. But, that's mostly for cars. Samsung, LG seem to dominate the CDMA market for phones for instance.
Further, they buy Korean stuff because (duh) its what's familiar. What's that you say? Why can't they eat mcd's like everyone else? Well, I know I enjoy kimchee-jigae and daeji bulgogi, and guess what? You can't go down to the local supermarket and pick-up kimchee. And I haven't met a supermarket butcher who can cut meat well enough to make good bul-gogi. Yes, some part is loyalty, but it seems more like familiarity.
My question is what does this all have to do with Scrabble and too much music? Lets assume the makers of Scrabble heed to the author and remove music and return it to its primary purpose. I'd imagine that there would be people out there who had never played original scrabble, who like the music and then upgraded to a version that no longer has music. Now, they have to sort through all the options to turn it back on, if they can turn it back on. Isn't this the same thing as the author trying to turn the music off? Its a comparison of previous versions, not a primary function problem.
Perhaps this example is flawed, but its one of the examples he gives of something getting in the way of primary purpose. Where do we draw the line? My parents don't use computers and don't own mobiles. My dad used my cell phone once and dialed and waited for the ringing. He got thoroughly confused when there wasn't, and I had to point out to him that he had to press Send. From his perspective, that little change altered the primary purpose of the phone and made it more complicated than it needed to be.
The point of the article is that the simple should be simple. If I want to take a picture, I press a button. When I install a dictionary program, instead of being interviewed by the program, let me quickly look up words.
But this brings up the point, what should be simple? The author and yourself keep doing comparisons to what was previously done. My other camera did this, now my new camera does this and this, obviously the previous camera was SIMPLER. Or, my new cell phone gets text msgs, my previous phone did not. Obviously, my old phone was SIMPLER. Or, in the case of a dictionary, what if it automatically came up with synonyms of the word you looked up. But your previous dictionary didn't do that. So, does that make it more complex? Does this interfere with your ability to work the machine? For some people yes, it confuses them, for others no.
You may laugh about the text msg thing, but for some people that's confusing. Its not simple to check their text messages. Or use a cell phone. Before mobiles, you picked up the phone and dialed. Now you dial, and press send. Or to read a text msg, you hit right top button then 3, then Inbox. Obviously, my old landline was SIMPLER.
The author of the article kept drawing comparisons to what his previous X (cameras, computers, scrabble, chess) did versus what they do now. We seem to be stuck in this repetitive loop of "Well, X did this before, but now X++ does A,B, and C. I don't like A,B, and C, I miss X, so obviously X++ must be more difficult to use. If we got rid of A,B, and C everything would be peachy."
Its bothersome when people assume that their level of technological awareness is the norm (lack of awareness included) The author of the article assumes that everyone is like him and therefore must hate the new chess game for making noises, etc. In otherwords, for being like X++ instead of being X. His analogies were bad in this case because if I received scrabble for my computer I wouldn't mind if it played music especially if I hadn't played the previous version. Instead he should have argued that TVs, dictionaries, cars, etc should have their default set to the easiest possible settings and then users who are technologically literate could ramp up the options to their pleasure.
I worked for an online car parts store, and we refused to ship to Canada. Why? Because when the online store first opened we did ship to Canada, but the package would get held up in customs. On top of that there are additional charges (on top of UPS/FedEX rates) to get it OUT of customs. It became this awful nightmare, getting phone calls from irate Canadians who blamed us when shipping a part from Iowa to Windsor cost $70 and would take 3 weeks. Yes, there are ways around it (I think if you sent it FedEX Air FedEX would take care of customs) but do you know how expensive it is to ship a radiator by air? So, we either stopped offering it or we offered FedEX Air which was extremely expensive.
Metric is cool, for most stuff I don't have to think "Well gee a meter is about a yard and a yard is about 3 feet..." Standard international dialing... ummm, okay how does this hurt YOU?
GSM for mobiles? No. GSM works great in densely populated areas. But, a significant portion of the US population is spread out, because we like living in the suburbs (and that's yet another great debate). And CDMA works better than GSM when your population centers aren't that concentrated. Check out the list of pros and cons of CDMA vs GSM here.
To me, this link has a Euro-centric point of view. It claims the only disadvantage of GSM is lack of access to American markets and international roaming means being able to use your GSM phone in any European country. The article does does convey useful information nonetheless.
But Dov Jacobson, an instructor at the camp and founder of Big Fun Development Corp., wants to shoot down the misconceptions of itchy-thumbed gamesters who don't realize that building a game is often much less enjoyable than playing it.
Less enjoyable? Yes. But, I find building games to be very satisfying from a technical standpoint. I'm also the type of guy who oogles tightly written code rather than flashy graphics, but that's just me.
As an aside, what kind of advanced techniques can you learn in five weeks? Or for that matter, implement? And what constitutes "advanced"? Somehow, I don't think they're talking John Carmack tweaking code advanced, more like here's opengl use it advanced. Or maybe DirectX, but you'll spend your five weeks learning COM programming.
I could see it now:
Students, today we're going to learn an A* path finding algorithm, finite state machines, and I'll teach you linear algebra so you can understand how to shear, rotate, and translate in 3d. We'll break for lunch, and then we'll implement all that in C. Shall we start?
Are you sure its an quote from "The Critic"? Because Jay Sherman did show up on the Simpsons for the Springfield Film Festival and did say those exact words. And here's my proof because the Web never lies.
I know there are more email clients than just Thunderbird. I was trying to emphasize that people don't always use the best tools available, only what they're given.
First Firebird, then Sunbird. Hmmm...did someone on the Mozilla core team work for GM, in particular Pontiac?
All kidding aside, I think this is a good thing because I think there are a lot of people out there using Outlook just as a calendar, which is complete overkill. Likewise, Thunderbird is a good thing because once again people are using Outlook only for email and that's overkill.
I'm confused by the author's comment that Apple replaced the pop-out cd trays with slot load cds on their iBooks because of a school/school district. Are they saying that Apple redesigned the iBook because of the school or that Apple took the iBooks the school already had and replaced the popouts with slot load?
My guess would be its the former and I think the author's full of it. How can this author even lead us to believe that a school district in Virginia affects product design at Apple? Yeah, they buy a lot of laptops, but I think the author's stretching in making that proclamation. When the iBook came out with the slot load drive, it seemed like a natural progression because with the slot load upgrade also came the move to the G4 as well as numerous other changes like moving to Airport Extreme. The iBook was moving closer to the 12" PowerBook which has a slot load drive, G4 chip and Airport Extreme. I'm sure the drive to change the iBook design came more from integration of components across multiple platforms than a desire to prevent 11 years from breaking computers loaned to them.
I've just gone through the same process of learning LaTeX. However, I'm an OS X user and I found Mac-Tex at Penn State to be a very good resource. I chose TexShop for my front end iInstaller to install the LaTeX backend. You can also use Fink to install your backend but I didn't feel like comand line install this time as suggested previously.
Other than getting the software installed, I simply used Google for tutorials on LaTeX and BibTex.
I'm not asking the subject question to poke fun at you or flame. From your description and discerning how you plan to setup Linux on the desktop it sounds like you're missing one of the benefits of Unix because you're looking at it as a Windows admin. But I could be completely wrong.
You can set up desktop as basically a terminal using X. I know, what a waste of a desktop right? But, that's how Unix is built. You can setup a server (or multiple servers of necessary) to act as your main server and each desktop is really logging into the server using XDMCP. Or look at the Linux Terminal Server ProjectYou lock out logging into the local machine and poof! All user files are forced onto the server so there's no pesky phone calls like "Well I saved the file onto c:\pron\pron\pron\pron2\pron2 but the hard disk just went bad! YOU need to get it back for my board meeting in five minutes!" I realize this is a lot of overhead, but you can gain alot of control this way like upgrading OO.org for everyone without having to update every single desktop.
Perhaps XDMCP is too insecure for you or you have so many users that XDMCP would be too difficult. That doesn't mean you can't set it up like I've described. It just gets complicated, which means its beyond my meager expertise, but I've seen it set up that way at school.
Typical thinking in the "here and now". They have 1000 songs now, but what about later? These guys don't think once consumers see how easy it is that their music collection will grow?
As was stated before, Slashdot is not the iPod mini's core audience. I worked with junior and senior high schoolers and lemme tell you, their collection doesn't "grow." Do you think they'd keep on their iPods Nelly's "Hot in Herre" from two summers ago? Or Avril Levigne's "Complicated"? Nope, those get chucked off the iPod to make room for the Black Eyed Peas and Chingy.
Being in Denver right now and having to live with TRex revamping I-25 and adding a lightrail, I couldn't imagine the nightmare of trying to drive to Vail/Breckenridge/Beavercreek/A-Basin/Keystone during the winter while they're building a monorail alongside i-70.
Further, you are in a particular situation when it comes to getting to Steamboat to visit your gf. Most people who travel up to the mountains on I70 are going to go skiing/snowboarding, and many of them will hop from one resort to another. So, they like taking their cars up because they can go to Breckenridge in the morning and hit Vail in the afternoon.
Oh, btw there are shuttles that go from DIA to Vail, but that doesn't really solve our overturned big rig problem. =D
Its called sarcasm. Yes, Ty and the Babe are products of their era, but to call baseball players "illiterates from third world countries" is plain racist, because its an obvious implication against Dominican/Puerto Rican/Cuban baseball players who are, according to white america, ruining baseball.
Its funny though, if someone (a baseball player in particular) came out and said " we should have limits on the number of foreign born players in MLB" people would go nuts screaming racism. Yet, a LPGA pro comes out and says there should be limits on asians in the LPGA and no one blinks. Okay, a few sports commentators blink, but no one else seems to care. Why? Because its the LPGA? Because its asians and we're really not a minority in the same sense as latinos or african americans? Or because we refuse to rally ourselves to causes like this?
No, its not funny, its sarcasm, and it also very sad.
Slashdot Mirror
As always, the answer is "it depends."
SGI Triples Backup and Restore Record, Scalable Technology Protects Large Data Environments
This is for tape storage backup, and 10.1TB backup to tape isn't too bad. I know for connecting to data storage SGI uses 2Gb fibre channel. But, other than that, I'm kinda clueless about data storage centers, in general.
I need the reward points. Oooo...shiny pretty things. =D
Because you can't buy an opteron system with NUMA link (3.2 GB/s between bricks) and you can't simply build a 500 TB data cluster by purchasing some CAT5, 100 250GB drives, 10 Gigabit ethernet cards and call it a day. SGI thrives because it can put together a clustered supercomputer and has the technology to build a 500TB data center. 20 Altix racks, 128 Altix bricks/rack (4 processors/brick X 128 = 512 proc) and has globally shared memory thanks to numalink. This means that even though each brick can run independently, you can also build a 512 proc system with a single Linux system image that has the combined memory of all the bricks (thanks SHUB and NUMAlink!). So, when you can build a 512 processor, global shared memory system out of Opterons, then you go ahead and sell it. This is a clustered supercomputer where each cluster is a supercomputer.
The parent poster is spot on that debit cards without charges is the future. About a year ago or so either Newsweek/Times/WSJ etc did an article about the fleecing of America when it came to check cards, especially when you consider it against the debit card. What's the big deal?
The costs involved in the back end. Debit cards don't cost nearly as much as check cards do. Why? Because check cards are locked into the credit card system, that's why. It costs the store significantly more to process a credit card than it does to process your debit transaction ($1 versus $.10). Its a matter of using the Visa/MC credit processing or a regional ATM network (Cirrus, Tyme etc) to process funds. Look at this Kiplinger article about it. So why do we use it?
Because Visa has made a HUGE push in the US to convince us that the Visa check card rocks! All those commercials with Marion Jones or the rabbits etc where using your Visa check card is better than using checks. Why? Because its more profitable, until they pissed off Wal-Mart.
Me? I don't use a debit or check card. I use credit cards so I don't have my checking account drained it someone gets a hold of my check card number.
As for using a debit card to pay for a coke? Ehhh...the US is still attached to dollar bill so what hope do getting people to change? =D As for the SMS, I don't think SMS is nearly as big as SMS in Europe/the rest of the world because we get locked into $40 a month plans, so we might as well use our minutes.
but I really had no idea that you were supposed to limit to 80 characters. I skipped intro to cs as an undergrad (thanks AP Comp Sci), so I never had someone deduct points for not following this particular rule, and no one since has asked me about it.
Its more of a Honda IMS hybrid than a full Prius hybrid. What's the difference?
Toyota and Honda have blazed markedly different trails into this hybrid frontier. Honda's Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system in the Insight and Civic Hybrid is mild and elegantly simple in its operation--an electric motor is sandwiched between the traditional engine and transmission--either a five-speed manual or a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Fuel is saved by switching off the engine when stopped or coasting and by downsizing the engine and relying on the electric motor to assist with acceleration. The motor is powered by energy stored during deceleration and braking when the motor functions like a generator, recharging an onboard battery. (Today's hybrids are never plugged in for recharging.) Honda hybrids cannot accelerate on electric power alone.
Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) is more complex. The gas engine is unique, utilizing lightweight, low-friction internal components designed to run at a maximum speed of only 5000 rpm. A mechanical compression ratio of 13.0:1 improves efficiency, but the intake valves close so late that the air-fuel mixture experiences only 9.5:1 compression, permitting the engine to run on regular fuel. A unique planetary automatic transmission allows the car to accelerate from rest up to 30-plus mph on electric power only if the driver accelerates gently, which adds significantly to the fuel savings over what Honda's mild hybrid achieves. Toe in deeper, and the gas engine kicks in. Floor it, and the separate generator switches over to work as an additional motor for even more assist. The fuel savings are far less significant at highway speeds, where the engine must run continuously, which explains why the Prius's EPA results are highest for the city test.
Motor Trend
Its more important for GM that the mild hybrid have the ability to produce ample amounts of electricity. Why? So you can plug in tools, that's why!
Dang, you beat me to it. I read DetNews Auto section every day and went nuts when I saw the slashdot headline. I also found this over at Bloomberg by Doron Levin (an editor over at detnews as well).
BTW, although hybrids are the new chic-ness in cool rides (and 15 years ago those same people were all diving for SUVs, but whatever) no one's done a careful analysis of the cost to manufacture the batteries as well dispose of them properly, especially on the scales of 17 million new vehicles sold per year (in the US). To me, we're simply trading a "cleaner" car today for an expensive cleanup tomorrow. Everything seems to be a trade off. Diesel has its problems, especially with the U.S.'s sulfur rich diesel. A lot of our advances in cleaning up car emissions come at a price such as expensive and toxic metals in catalytic converters.
There are a couple reasons, most mentioned previously.
1. Uptime on linux/unix is not good enough. Linux/Unix versus Microsoft, sure its got a better uptime, but against a mainframe that hasn't been turned off in 20-30 years? We're not talking commodity hardware here that'll break in a few years, or need constant replacing. Banks, hospitals, etc can't afford any down time.
2. The code is probably long gone, and the software was probably custom. So, how exactly are you going to "port" this software? Oh, I know, tell all those banks to use gnucash.
3. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. All their employees know how it works. All their sys admins know the quirks. If you move to a new system, you've got thousands of employees who have to learn the new system from sys admins who don't know the software.
When it comes to upgrading a mainframe, its not like upgrading your home computer or home file server. You don't simply copy your ~/ over to your new computer and start running firefox.
The other thing is that like the Japanese, Koreans are really loyal to their country and its industries. Even those in countries like Canada buy Korean goods.
This is more out of ignorance and familiarity. Do you know how high tariffs are on imported goods in korea? Buying a BMW 3series basically costs double. Why? To protect the local automakers because 5-10 years ago Hyundai, Kia (now owned by Hyundai), Daewoo (now owned by GM), and Ssangyong (gone) couldn't compete globally. So, these names are everywhere in Korea and are considered the best because they were the best in Korea. So, when someone emmigrates abroad they see Hyundai, Daewoo and its familiar and its the best because there was no local competition, eventhough those companies were/are getting killed by the competition abroad. But, that's mostly for cars. Samsung, LG seem to dominate the CDMA market for phones for instance.
Further, they buy Korean stuff because (duh) its what's familiar. What's that you say? Why can't they eat mcd's like everyone else? Well, I know I enjoy kimchee-jigae and daeji bulgogi, and guess what? You can't go down to the local supermarket and pick-up kimchee. And I haven't met a supermarket butcher who can cut meat well enough to make good bul-gogi. Yes, some part is loyalty, but it seems more like familiarity.
This is also the same UN that claims Together we can defeat spam in two years.
Yep. I downloaded the DVD iso of Fedora Core 2 off of BT.
My question is what does this all have to do with Scrabble and too much music? Lets assume the makers of Scrabble heed to the author and remove music and return it to its primary purpose. I'd imagine that there would be people out there who had never played original scrabble, who like the music and then upgraded to a version that no longer has music. Now, they have to sort through all the options to turn it back on, if they can turn it back on. Isn't this the same thing as the author trying to turn the music off? Its a comparison of previous versions, not a primary function problem.
Perhaps this example is flawed, but its one of the examples he gives of something getting in the way of primary purpose. Where do we draw the line? My parents don't use computers and don't own mobiles. My dad used my cell phone once and dialed and waited for the ringing. He got thoroughly confused when there wasn't, and I had to point out to him that he had to press Send. From his perspective, that little change altered the primary purpose of the phone and made it more complicated than it needed to be.
The point of the article is that the simple should be simple. If I want to take a picture, I press a button. When I install a dictionary program, instead of being interviewed by the program, let me quickly look up words.
But this brings up the point, what should be simple? The author and yourself keep doing comparisons to what was previously done. My other camera did this, now my new camera does this and this, obviously the previous camera was SIMPLER. Or, my new cell phone gets text msgs, my previous phone did not. Obviously, my old phone was SIMPLER. Or, in the case of a dictionary, what if it automatically came up with synonyms of the word you looked up. But your previous dictionary didn't do that. So, does that make it more complex? Does this interfere with your ability to work the machine? For some people yes, it confuses them, for others no.
You may laugh about the text msg thing, but for some people that's confusing. Its not simple to check their text messages. Or use a cell phone. Before mobiles, you picked up the phone and dialed. Now you dial, and press send. Or to read a text msg, you hit right top button then 3, then Inbox. Obviously, my old landline was SIMPLER.
The author of the article kept drawing comparisons to what his previous X (cameras, computers, scrabble, chess) did versus what they do now. We seem to be stuck in this repetitive loop of "Well, X did this before, but now X++ does A,B, and C. I don't like A,B, and C, I miss X, so obviously X++ must be more difficult to use. If we got rid of A,B, and C everything would be peachy."
Its bothersome when people assume that their level of technological awareness is the norm (lack of awareness included) The author of the article assumes that everyone is like him and therefore must hate the new chess game for making noises, etc. In otherwords, for being like X++ instead of being X. His analogies were bad in this case because if I received scrabble for my computer I wouldn't mind if it played music especially if I hadn't played the previous version. Instead he should have argued that TVs, dictionaries, cars, etc should have their default set to the easiest possible settings and then users who are technologically literate could ramp up the options to their pleasure.
I worked for an online car parts store, and we refused to ship to Canada. Why? Because when the online store first opened we did ship to Canada, but the package would get held up in customs. On top of that there are additional charges (on top of UPS/FedEX rates) to get it OUT of customs. It became this awful nightmare, getting phone calls from irate Canadians who blamed us when shipping a part from Iowa to Windsor cost $70 and would take 3 weeks. Yes, there are ways around it (I think if you sent it FedEX Air FedEX would take care of customs) but do you know how expensive it is to ship a radiator by air? So, we either stopped offering it or we offered FedEX Air which was extremely expensive.
Metric is cool, for most stuff I don't have to think "Well gee a meter is about a yard and a yard is about 3 feet..." Standard international dialing... ummm, okay how does this hurt YOU?
GSM for mobiles? No. GSM works great in densely populated areas. But, a significant portion of the US population is spread out, because we like living in the suburbs (and that's yet another great debate). And CDMA works better than GSM when your population centers aren't that concentrated. Check out the list of pros and cons of CDMA vs GSM here.
To me, this link has a Euro-centric point of view. It claims the only disadvantage of GSM is lack of access to American markets and international roaming means being able to use your GSM phone in any European country. The article does does convey useful information nonetheless.
But Dov Jacobson, an instructor at the camp and founder of Big Fun Development Corp., wants to shoot down the misconceptions of itchy-thumbed gamesters who don't realize that building a game is often much less enjoyable than playing it.
Less enjoyable? Yes. But, I find building games to be very satisfying from a technical standpoint. I'm also the type of guy who oogles tightly written code rather than flashy graphics, but that's just me.
As an aside, what kind of advanced techniques can you learn in five weeks? Or for that matter, implement? And what constitutes "advanced"? Somehow, I don't think they're talking John Carmack tweaking code advanced, more like here's opengl use it advanced. Or maybe DirectX, but you'll spend your five weeks learning COM programming.
I could see it now:
Students, today we're going to learn an A* path finding algorithm, finite state machines, and I'll teach you linear algebra so you can understand how to shear, rotate, and translate in 3d. We'll break for lunch, and then we'll implement all that in C. Shall we start?
Are you sure its an quote from "The Critic"? Because Jay Sherman did show up on the Simpsons for the Springfield Film Festival and did say those exact words. And here's my proof because the Web never lies.
I know there are more email clients than just Thunderbird. I was trying to emphasize that people don't always use the best tools available, only what they're given.
First Firebird, then Sunbird. Hmmm...did someone on the Mozilla core team work for GM, in particular Pontiac?
All kidding aside, I think this is a good thing because I think there are a lot of people out there using Outlook just as a calendar, which is complete overkill. Likewise, Thunderbird is a good thing because once again people are using Outlook only for email and that's overkill.
I'm confused by the author's comment that Apple replaced the pop-out cd trays with slot load cds on their iBooks because of a school/school district. Are they saying that Apple redesigned the iBook because of the school or that Apple took the iBooks the school already had and replaced the popouts with slot load?
My guess would be its the former and I think the author's full of it. How can this author even lead us to believe that a school district in Virginia affects product design at Apple? Yeah, they buy a lot of laptops, but I think the author's stretching in making that proclamation. When the iBook came out with the slot load drive, it seemed like a natural progression because with the slot load upgrade also came the move to the G4 as well as numerous other changes like moving to Airport Extreme. The iBook was moving closer to the 12" PowerBook which has a slot load drive, G4 chip and Airport Extreme. I'm sure the drive to change the iBook design came more from integration of components across multiple platforms than a desire to prevent 11 years from breaking computers loaned to them.
I've just gone through the same process of learning LaTeX. However, I'm an OS X user and I found Mac-Tex at Penn State to be a very good resource. I chose TexShop for my front end iInstaller to install the LaTeX backend. You can also use Fink to install your backend but I didn't feel like comand line install this time as suggested previously.
Other than getting the software installed, I simply used Google for tutorials on LaTeX and BibTex.
I'm not asking the subject question to poke fun at you or flame. From your description and discerning how you plan to setup Linux on the desktop it sounds like you're missing one of the benefits of Unix because you're looking at it as a Windows admin. But I could be completely wrong.
You can set up desktop as basically a terminal using X. I know, what a waste of a desktop right? But, that's how Unix is built. You can setup a server (or multiple servers of necessary) to act as your main server and each desktop is really logging into the server using XDMCP. Or look at the Linux Terminal Server ProjectYou lock out logging into the local machine and poof! All user files are forced onto the server so there's no pesky phone calls like "Well I saved the file onto c:\pron\pron\pron\pron2\pron2 but the hard disk just went bad! YOU need to get it back for my board meeting in five minutes!" I realize this is a lot of overhead, but you can gain alot of control this way like upgrading OO.org for everyone without having to update every single desktop.
Perhaps XDMCP is too insecure for you or you have so many users that XDMCP would be too difficult. That doesn't mean you can't set it up like I've described. It just gets complicated, which means its beyond my meager expertise, but I've seen it set up that way at school.
Typical thinking in the "here and now". They have 1000 songs now, but what about later? These guys don't think once consumers see how easy it is that their music collection will grow?
As was stated before, Slashdot is not the iPod mini's core audience. I worked with junior and senior high schoolers and lemme tell you, their collection doesn't "grow." Do you think they'd keep on their iPods Nelly's "Hot in Herre" from two summers ago? Or Avril Levigne's "Complicated"? Nope, those get chucked off the iPod to make room for the Black Eyed Peas and Chingy.
Being in Denver right now and having to live with TRex revamping I-25 and adding a lightrail, I couldn't imagine the nightmare of trying to drive to Vail/Breckenridge/Beavercreek/A-Basin/Keystone during the winter while they're building a monorail alongside i-70.
Further, you are in a particular situation when it comes to getting to Steamboat to visit your gf. Most people who travel up to the mountains on I70 are going to go skiing/snowboarding, and many of them will hop from one resort to another. So, they like taking their cars up because they can go to Breckenridge in the morning and hit Vail in the afternoon.
Oh, btw there are shuttles that go from DIA to Vail, but that doesn't really solve our overturned big rig problem. =D
Its called sarcasm. Yes, Ty and the Babe are products of their era, but to call baseball players "illiterates from third world countries" is plain racist, because its an obvious implication against Dominican/Puerto Rican/Cuban baseball players who are, according to white america, ruining baseball.
Its funny though, if someone (a baseball player in particular) came out and said " we should have limits on the number of foreign born players in MLB" people would go nuts screaming racism. Yet, a LPGA pro comes out and says there should be limits on asians in the LPGA and no one blinks. Okay, a few sports commentators blink, but no one else seems to care. Why? Because its the LPGA? Because its asians and we're really not a minority in the same sense as latinos or african americans? Or because we refuse to rally ourselves to causes like this?
No, its not funny, its sarcasm, and it also very sad.