Most people don't remove songs from their iPod, they just add new songs, and with 25 gigs that can hold maybe 5000 songs. Plus, with cost being much reduced, just by a new one (or replace the storage) when you run out of room and have lots of songs to remove. They'll probably be something better out by that time anyways...
For your OS, right now they take up maybe 1 Gig. If you have one of these with lots of room (20 Gigs or more), just append changes to the storage. This has the added advantage of being able to boot to different versions of your OS (or different OSes), and if you upgrade/patch your OS, the old files are still around. If you do run out of room, just replace it (they're cheep), but you'll probably want a new computer by that time.
Does anyone have any numbers for power consumption?
With no moving parts, and needing no power to maintain the storage state, this could have very low power consumption. If so, it could have some interesting applications:
- An iPod (approx. 5x5x1 cm = 25 gig) with a battery that lasts many days, and probably no need for much normal memory, so the price would be much lower.
Presumably these would be much faster than disk drives (maybe close to memory speeds?):
- put your OS on one of these in you computer, then boot time is vastly reduced (you can hear your HD thrashing at boot time, that's why boot times have been increasing; OS sizes are larger so you have to load more stuff into memory on boot).
Normally I'd have more examples, but my brain isn't working well today.
I have the following theory on why the Canadian accent is easier to understand:
When people sing you often can't place their accent. This is because singing regulates the tempo, pitch, etc of the words. I think that the Canadian accent is very similar (pitch, tempo, etc) to singing. Since singing is (mostly) universal, most people can understand the Canadian accent (or perhaps 'lack of accent' is a better descriptor).
Why write the notes on the laptop, when you can just record the lecture, and capture the white/chalk board with software (hopefully soon, see http://news.com.com/1601-2-997711.html).
Society has brainwashed us into thinking success can only be had by gaining money, power, friends, possessions, etc. This brainwashing keeps the people functioning as the cogs in the machine that is our society; isn't self perpetuation great. The real definition of success is individual, it can only be defined by a person for himself; it boils down to you doing what you think is important. If being social and having lots of friends is important to you, then do it, if not, then stop whining about not having lots of friends.
I agree that the (perceived) lack of demand means 'big box' companies are not likely to introduce Linux desktop or laptop machines, but what about smaller PDA style devices? Most of them have very simple OS's, but the hardware is moving into useful levels of performance. The simple OS's (PalmOS, RIM's proprietary OS, Windows CE, etc) aren't well suited to take advantage of this better hardware, but Linux sure could.
Linux is saturating the market of users willing (and/or able) to install their own OS. To get to the next level it must come preinstalled on new hardware. Why can't you go to your local 'big box' store and get a Linux PC or Laptop?
Linux does more with less hardware, so why aren't there more Linux laptops/mini-laptops/PDAs/etc?
Most people don't remove songs from their iPod, they just add new songs, and with 25 gigs that can hold maybe 5000 songs. Plus, with cost being much reduced, just by a new one (or replace the storage) when you run out of room and have lots of songs to remove. They'll probably be something better out by that time anyways...
For your OS, right now they take up maybe 1 Gig. If you have one of these with lots of room (20 Gigs or more), just append changes to the storage. This has the added advantage of being able to boot to different versions of your OS (or different OSes), and if you upgrade/patch your OS, the old files are still around. If you do run out of room, just replace it (they're cheep), but you'll probably want a new computer by that time.
Does anyone have any numbers for power consumption?
With no moving parts, and needing no power to maintain the storage state, this could have very low power consumption. If so, it could have some interesting applications:
- An iPod (approx. 5x5x1 cm = 25 gig) with a battery that lasts many days, and probably no need for much normal memory, so the price would be much lower.
Presumably these would be much faster than disk drives (maybe close to memory speeds?):
- put your OS on one of these in you computer, then boot time is vastly reduced (you can hear your HD thrashing at boot time, that's why boot times have been increasing; OS sizes are larger so you have to load more stuff into memory on boot).
Normally I'd have more examples, but my brain isn't working well today.
I have the following theory on why the Canadian accent is easier to understand:
When people sing you often can't place their accent. This is because singing regulates the tempo, pitch, etc of the words. I think that the Canadian accent is very similar (pitch, tempo, etc) to singing. Since singing is (mostly) universal, most people can understand the Canadian accent (or perhaps 'lack of accent' is a better descriptor).
Why write the notes on the laptop, when you can just record the lecture, and capture the white/chalk board with software (hopefully soon, see http://news.com.com/1601-2-997711.html).
How do you define 'success in life'?
Society has brainwashed us into thinking success can only be had by gaining money, power, friends, possessions, etc. This brainwashing keeps the people functioning as the cogs in the machine that is our society; isn't self perpetuation great. The real definition of success is individual, it can only be defined by a person for himself; it boils down to you doing what you think is important. If being social and having lots of friends is important to you, then do it, if not, then stop whining about not having lots of friends.
I agree that the (perceived) lack of demand means 'big box' companies are not likely to introduce Linux desktop or laptop machines, but what about smaller PDA style devices? Most of them have very simple OS's, but the hardware is moving into useful levels of performance. The simple OS's (PalmOS, RIM's proprietary OS, Windows CE, etc) aren't well suited to take advantage of this better hardware, but Linux sure could.
Linux is saturating the market of users willing (and/or able) to install their own OS. To get to the next level it must come preinstalled on new hardware. Why can't you go to your local 'big box' store and get a Linux PC or Laptop?
Linux does more with less hardware, so why aren't there more Linux laptops/mini-laptops/PDAs/etc?
Linux + powerful handhelds + Wi-Fi = useful
Is the Linux crowd missing the boat here?