A floppy disk drive salvaged out of an old 286/386/486 computer will likely be more durable and last longer than one new off the shelf (provided it's not completely full of dust...). The new ones aren't built anywhere near the quality they were 15 years ago. Even better if you can find a box of unopened diskettes from that era that were stored in a cool dry place.
I agree that the low-end computer market will consist of HDDs for a long time to come. HDDs will not go away as long as they provide cost effectiveness. However, once the next generation drives are out and hit the 5USD/GB mark everyone with a buck will want one especially when their IT friends will be all over them.
I wouldn't be so sure with that. Harddrives are mechanically complicated devices, and that establishes a floor for harddrive prices, as it still costs a certain amount to create all the mechanical bits and put them together, no matter how small of capacity the drive is (you can ask Microsoft about this in regards to the XBox). Flash drives on the other hand, are very simple devices in comparison. Once you get a flash drive large enough to house the OS plus a bit of room left over for cheaper than the cheapest harddrive of any capacity (seems to be about $40-$50 or so), you'll see flash drives start to take over the low end. It'll probably happen fairly soon too, as you can get 16GB of flash for about $50 now if you shop around. Another couple of doublings of capacity for the same price and you'll be there.
They probably slapped a EULA on the installer for the updated firmware along the lines of "By installing this upgrade you agree to...." in which I would assume they attempted to cover their asses with a bunch of lawyerly speech that no one paid any attention to. While it's certainly very shady, it's probably not illegal.
Could you please explain how pumping billions of dollars of taxpayer money BACK into American Companies (hello Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin) is "breaking the back of the American Economy"?
Maybe because it's money we don't have? You might be right about it boosting the economy a bit, but that's only the short term outlook. It's also running up the national debt and weakening the dollar. Our children/grandchildren are going to pay dearly for it.
And even so, it reeks of the broken window fallacy. If we wanted to invest in America, we would be much better off if we pumped that kind of money into things like infrastructure, education, and research rather than war and destruction.
When you are using ssh to access a server you are in no way exercising the GUI on the remote system so it remains swapped out, dormant, and thus cannot really cause any issues. Or would you care to postulate just what an application always swapped out is going to do, exactly, to take out a system? Obviously by asking about using SSH to access systems, I am pointing out a way to administer OS X boxes that eliminates GUI instability from the equation.
For all you know, that's what he was doing. Anyone who actually knows anything about computers would know that the GUI is never completely dormant, even if you never use it. It still has to constantly check for user input from the keyboard/mouse, redraw elements on the screen, and things like that. Then there are processes like the Finder, Dashboard, Bonjour, and a bunch of other crap that is part of the GUI which would be the more likely thing to fail, but who knows.
Your comment had to do with using SSH to remote into the Macs, whereas his complaint was about the GUI crashing and taking down the entire OS on his servers. Way to be on the mark there with your "insight". Of course you had to throw the insult in there, further completing what I see as a typical response from a typical elitist Apple fan (as personified in the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads - is there any wonder why there are Apple haters?). But then again he stuck a few jabs in there about Mac users so I guess fair is fair.
Well, a true Apple fan wouldn't be running kit that old. You've got to keep up with the latest fashions. I mean, some of that stuff is BIEGE for god's sake.
I'm still wondering when Apple is going to figure out that in the Intel world, things move. They just can't sell the same basic laptop at the same price for years like they could with the G4.
Considering that they are full spectrum bulbs, they ought to work pretty well as grow lights. Plants don't care where the light comes from, so long as it's the proper wavelengths.
It works just fine. Controlling the amount of heat generated causes the flow of the steam to change, which then affects the power generated by the turbine. Though the large plants obviously can't react quickly, and most nuclear plants are run at full capacity 24/7 anyway, letting other plants regulate their output in response to demand.
I assume you mean IE7, not IE8 which is still a beta. When the IE7 update came through the pipeline, I unchecked it from the list, told Windows Update not to notify me about that update again, and that was the end of it. How is that any different from the behavior from Apple that you are defending?
While it isn't forced, it seems that the Apple updater will hound you about it everytime it updates until you finally let it have it's way. Atleast with Microsoft's Windows Update, when I told it "no" for IE7, it hasn't bothered me again about it.
You have to have some trust. There just isn't enough time to for most people to throughly check all the updates for all the software they run, no matter if they run Windows, OSX, or Linux. You have to either start trusting that some updaters are not going to burn you, or simply not update your computer. As such, I trust things like the Firefox updater when it asks to install a new version. I trust that KB94mumble in Windows Update does not harbor some payload I don't want, and that Microsoft labels things like IE7 and WGA clearly so I can uncheck them from the list, etc.
...as you couldn't possibly be more incorrect. If you install Firefox, you will most likely start at this page. There is no mention of Thunderbird, no mention of add-ons, no mention of any other Mozilla product at all. The default home page for Firefox is here and contains no mention of add-ons, or other programs.
Maybe it's been a while since you've looked at the default Firefox pages, but both of the ones you linked to mention Add-ons (I'm assuming they mean extensions though, not other applications like Thunderbird).
It's also true that for the price of a microwave, I can get a nice laptop, that connects to the internet and all that. But it kinda sucks at heating food, doesn't it?
It'll probably end up like cell phones. At some point, most models will have that feature by default and you won't have much of a choice, unless you want the stripped down model that lacks other features you probably want like DVR capability or something like that.
Well, there is always the roommate aspect of it. Get a roommate for that one bedroom apartment and you just cut the rent in half right there, and you would get $15 back towards the internet too. That's an extra $390 per month to throw around right there. Yeah, a roommate in a one bedroom apartment would suck (unless it's your significant other, and even then it would still be cramped), but it doesn't break any rules and I did it for three years in the dorms and I could do it again if I had to.
Also, $175 per month for heat averaged over a year? I can heat a 1 bedroom apartment here in Minnesota to 60 degrees with natural gas and the worst bill I had was just over $55 one January. Electric bill in the same period was about $40, so it's not like the computer was generating a ton of waste heat either. Or you could try to seek out a building where the heat is included (generally older buildings with a radiator and a boiler). Generally the rent will be a bit higher, but economies of scale kick in since the boiler is more efficient and the landlord now has an interest in things like insulation and double-paned windows too.
Most of the ricers aren't going to go to the expense of converting their Civics and Subarus to HID lights. Almost all of them are regular, extra bright halogen bulbs with some kind of blue coating on them to make them look like HID bulbs (which is all the typical ricer really cares about anyway). The fact that many of them tend to "flicker" between blue and yellow is a dead giveaway, as that's what happens when the blue coating starts to crack and peel, letting the yellowish halogen light through.
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A floppy disk drive salvaged out of an old 286/386/486 computer will likely be more durable and last longer than one new off the shelf (provided it's not completely full of dust ...). The new ones aren't built anywhere near the quality they were 15 years ago. Even better if you can find a box of unopened diskettes from that era that were stored in a cool dry place.
I agree that the low-end computer market will consist of HDDs for a long time to come. HDDs will not go away as long as they provide cost effectiveness. However, once the next generation drives are out and hit the 5USD/GB mark everyone with a buck will want one especially when their IT friends will be all over them.
I wouldn't be so sure with that. Harddrives are mechanically complicated devices, and that establishes a floor for harddrive prices, as it still costs a certain amount to create all the mechanical bits and put them together, no matter how small of capacity the drive is (you can ask Microsoft about this in regards to the XBox). Flash drives on the other hand, are very simple devices in comparison. Once you get a flash drive large enough to house the OS plus a bit of room left over for cheaper than the cheapest harddrive of any capacity (seems to be about $40-$50 or so), you'll see flash drives start to take over the low end. It'll probably happen fairly soon too, as you can get 16GB of flash for about $50 now if you shop around. Another couple of doublings of capacity for the same price and you'll be there.
They probably slapped a EULA on the installer for the updated firmware along the lines of "By installing this upgrade you agree to ...." in which I would assume they attempted to cover their asses with a bunch of lawyerly speech that no one paid any attention to. While it's certainly very shady, it's probably not illegal.
Could you please explain how pumping billions of dollars of taxpayer money BACK into American Companies (hello Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin) is "breaking the back of the American Economy"?
Maybe because it's money we don't have? You might be right about it boosting the economy a bit, but that's only the short term outlook. It's also running up the national debt and weakening the dollar. Our children/grandchildren are going to pay dearly for it.
And even so, it reeks of the broken window fallacy. If we wanted to invest in America, we would be much better off if we pumped that kind of money into things like infrastructure, education, and research rather than war and destruction.
When you are using ssh to access a server you are in no way exercising the GUI on the remote system so it remains swapped out, dormant, and thus cannot really cause any issues. Or would you care to postulate just what an application always swapped out is going to do, exactly, to take out a system? Obviously by asking about using SSH to access systems, I am pointing out a way to administer OS X boxes that eliminates GUI instability from the equation.
For all you know, that's what he was doing. Anyone who actually knows anything about computers would know that the GUI is never completely dormant, even if you never use it. It still has to constantly check for user input from the keyboard/mouse, redraw elements on the screen, and things like that. Then there are processes like the Finder, Dashboard, Bonjour, and a bunch of other crap that is part of the GUI which would be the more likely thing to fail, but who knows.
Your comment had to do with using SSH to remote into the Macs, whereas his complaint was about the GUI crashing and taking down the entire OS on his servers. Way to be on the mark there with your "insight". Of course you had to throw the insult in there, further completing what I see as a typical response from a typical elitist Apple fan (as personified in the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads - is there any wonder why there are Apple haters?). But then again he stuck a few jabs in there about Mac users so I guess fair is fair.
Way to not read the parent post and to throw an insult in there to boot. Have you considered the possibility that TFA might be about you?
Well, a true Apple fan wouldn't be running kit that old. You've got to keep up with the latest fashions. I mean, some of that stuff is BIEGE for god's sake.
Wow, talk about totally not getting the point. Be careful, the RDF is strong with this one.
I'm still wondering when Apple is going to figure out that in the Intel world, things move. They just can't sell the same basic laptop at the same price for years like they could with the G4.
I think the big fuss is that accessing the passport was ILLEGAL, not the actual information accessed.
Considering that they are full spectrum bulbs, they ought to work pretty well as grow lights. Plants don't care where the light comes from, so long as it's the proper wavelengths.
It works just fine. Controlling the amount of heat generated causes the flow of the steam to change, which then affects the power generated by the turbine. Though the large plants obviously can't react quickly, and most nuclear plants are run at full capacity 24/7 anyway, letting other plants regulate their output in response to demand.
I assume you mean IE7, not IE8 which is still a beta. When the IE7 update came through the pipeline, I unchecked it from the list, told Windows Update not to notify me about that update again, and that was the end of it. How is that any different from the behavior from Apple that you are defending?
While it isn't forced, it seems that the Apple updater will hound you about it everytime it updates until you finally let it have it's way. Atleast with Microsoft's Windows Update, when I told it "no" for IE7, it hasn't bothered me again about it.
You have to have some trust. There just isn't enough time to for most people to throughly check all the updates for all the software they run, no matter if they run Windows, OSX, or Linux. You have to either start trusting that some updaters are not going to burn you, or simply not update your computer. As such, I trust things like the Firefox updater when it asks to install a new version. I trust that KB94mumble in Windows Update does not harbor some payload I don't want, and that Microsoft labels things like IE7 and WGA clearly so I can uncheck them from the list, etc.
...as you couldn't possibly be more incorrect. If you install Firefox, you will most likely start at this page. There is no mention of Thunderbird, no mention of add-ons, no mention of any other Mozilla product at all. The default home page for Firefox is here and contains no mention of add-ons, or other programs.
Maybe it's been a while since you've looked at the default Firefox pages, but both of the ones you linked to mention Add-ons (I'm assuming they mean extensions though, not other applications like Thunderbird).
And it's still an underhanded tactic no matter how you try to rationalize it.
anyone here no where i can find a good priced lcd? 15-17"
Thanks.
Have you tried Froogle*?
*Hey, it's on topic!
It's also true that for the price of a microwave, I can get a nice laptop, that connects to the internet and all that. But it kinda sucks at heating food, doesn't it?
You've obviously never used a P4-based laptop.
There's a saying, that 3 out of every 2 stars are in a binary star system.
Look, I think this is a stupid idea and there's no way I'd let one into my house, but it's not like 1984. Hardly anything compared to it actually is.
It's a TV that watches you, and you don't see the similarity to 1984?
It'll probably end up like cell phones. At some point, most models will have that feature by default and you won't have much of a choice, unless you want the stripped down model that lacks other features you probably want like DVR capability or something like that.
Well, there is always the roommate aspect of it. Get a roommate for that one bedroom apartment and you just cut the rent in half right there, and you would get $15 back towards the internet too. That's an extra $390 per month to throw around right there. Yeah, a roommate in a one bedroom apartment would suck (unless it's your significant other, and even then it would still be cramped), but it doesn't break any rules and I did it for three years in the dorms and I could do it again if I had to.
Also, $175 per month for heat averaged over a year? I can heat a 1 bedroom apartment here in Minnesota to 60 degrees with natural gas and the worst bill I had was just over $55 one January. Electric bill in the same period was about $40, so it's not like the computer was generating a ton of waste heat either. Or you could try to seek out a building where the heat is included (generally older buildings with a radiator and a boiler). Generally the rent will be a bit higher, but economies of scale kick in since the boiler is more efficient and the landlord now has an interest in things like insulation and double-paned windows too.
Most of the ricers aren't going to go to the expense of converting their Civics and Subarus to HID lights. Almost all of them are regular, extra bright halogen bulbs with some kind of blue coating on them to make them look like HID bulbs (which is all the typical ricer really cares about anyway). The fact that many of them tend to "flicker" between blue and yellow is a dead giveaway, as that's what happens when the blue coating starts to crack and peel, letting the yellowish halogen light through.