We ought to.call you Scotty. "Ye cannie change the laws of physics captain."
Clearly there is no such law of physics, since there already is a technology that packs the required energy density. A fuel tank. We're looking for an alternative to something that already exists, not something impossible.
It doesn't lose edit ability, because fax isn't editable. Indeed for typical uses of fax you don't want it to be in a format that invites editing. Contract, invoices etc should remain the way they were sent.
Documents that are intended to be editable are already sent via email or other file transfer mechanisms. That isn't what's being talked about here.
And what the fuck has MS Office got to do with fax replacement preview or sending emails? The obvious format is still PDF. MS Word format is not supported on a variety of devices. Only Windows and Mac Personal computers. A document scanner that allows sending via email isn't going to have MS Office. Neither are mobile phones.
You make a good point that shoebox powered mobile phones were still and practical useful for certain markets. Whilst ultra short flight helicopter's aren't. And yet you're comparing an early shipping product to a hobbyists first prototype.
Back then, sure, batteries weren't quite as good, but that wasn't the biggest problem, it was the phone technology itself.
Well yes. And also the fact that cell towers are a lot closer today, so lower power is needed. And yet those two don't completely explain the progress from a shoe box sized battery to today's tiny batteries.
The batteries back then were Ni-Cd. Now they're Li-ion or Li-Po. In current versions of those batteries lithium have 5 times more energy density than Ni-Cd. I'm guessing that improvement is even greater compared to 30 year old designs.
Also Ni-Cds are AFAIK always made up of batteries of cylindrical cells in metal cases. Lithium batteries can be made in flatpacks to specifically fit it's application. And that adds to the practical energy density difference.
As to electric car batteries, I on't have, and can't be bothered to research the specifics, but I was listening to a 30 min interview with the CEO of Renault other day, specifically on the topic of EVs. And he was talking about how much batteries have improved over the past few years, and the expectations of improvement over the next few. Not just in chemistry, but in battery management, where software is monitoring the performance an selectively using each of the individual cells in the battery. Today they are designing batteries specifically for EVs, rather than making use of generics.
The end of your post seems to have veered off topic into an anti EV rant. Lets leave that debate for another time. I'll just say this: predicting the limits of how products will improve over time is a fools errand. When the most advanced computers filled a large room, no-one envisaged that people would be carrying a far more powerful computer in their pockets in 50 years time. And when talking about the limits of physics, they'd be referring to how small you can make each individual vacuum tube valve, not how tightly you can pack transistors on a semiconductor. EVs are already practical for some people's needs. All that's required is that they continue to improve each year, and they will eventually become the preferred option for most people. One has to remember of course that ICE is becoming a worse option as time goes by as oil becomes more scarce and thus expensive.
The requirements for aircraft and car batteries are different. Aircraft motors run at a pretty constant speed. Cars are constantly accelerating, decelerating and braking (which on the more advanced EVs means a little recharging). Also if a car battery fails, that's annoying. If an aircraft battery fails, that may be fatal.
In both cases you want the lightest battery given the usage profile. And that means different for those two applications.
And mobile phone and laptop batteries are different again.
Sure, the Tesla Roadster is built with laptop batteries. But that's because they are a small manufacturer who designed their car in a hurry, used a tiny and light body-shell (from the Lotus Elise) and were in a market that could stand expensive batteries. They could afford to compromise. The mass market of family cars at affordable prices and with decent ranges requires specialist batteries designed specifically for cars.
If they'd have waited for suitable batteries to be developed for mobile phones, before building phones, then we wouldn't have anywhere near as good mobile phones right now.
Instead they just used the batteries that were available at the time, and accepted the fact that a mobile phone needed a battery-pack the size of a shoebox.
It was the fact that there was an actual demand for better mobile phone batteries that spurred development. That demand wouldn't have been their had phone manufacturers waited.
Same goes for electric cars. Development of suitable batteries for cars is now progressing at a fast rate. But that's only happened because car manufacturers have actually stared producing electric cars.
It's chicken and egg. If the product manufacturers wait for the battery manufacturers, then the battery manufacturers will wait for the product designers. To get progress, both have to move forward at the same time.
Ah, that makes sense. Someone else asked about the circular logic where a web site creator used Google translate to create the alternative language versions of their site, and Google Translate then incorporated that as a corpus for future translations...
If Google limit their multiple-lingual corpuses to sites where they know there are professional human translators, then the quality is far higher. Though as you say rather lacking in the ability to translate slang.
We're not talking about personal messages to you. We're talking about what people post on their wall. They may well be able to talk to you in English, but when posting on their wall, they'll often post in their native language, that the majority of their friends and family speak.
I went to an international school. All of my friends CAN speak English. But when posting on facebook they often post in their various native languages. Depending on who it is I already manually put some of this through Google translate. It'd be great for me to have a translate button there.
How have they got a corpus of multi-lingual slang? For sure there are many different languages posted on facebook. But where do you get the very same text in more than one language?
Interesting question. Google translate doesn't understand words in any kind of dictionary way. It relies on examining pages in it's index that exist in more than one language. It then applies probabilistic algorithms to guess at translations for stuff that you input.
So in theory slang and abbreviations would be no more difficult to translate than dictionary words. However, the sites that have text like that repeated on different language pages are probably few and far between, so it might be difficult.... OK just tested it. Google isn't able to translate those words.
For some people it means that and nothing more. For more people it means an X86 IBM PC compatible family machine. Neither usage is the absolute correct one.
Best not to use "PC" unless you really do mean a PC architecture machine and not a personal computer.
It's fast user switching. One user at a time, not multi-user like a mini-computer.
Headlines (such as "Details About Raspberry Pi Foundation's $25 PC") are also limited in length.
And would be less of a problem if "personal computer" was spelled out in the summary. But the real mistake was made by whoever wrote TFA, not the slashdot submitter that merely repeated the text.
No. Minicomputers are multi-user systems. There's no room for confusion there. It's not a "Mac minicomputer".
That'd be fine if comment subject lengths were unlimited.
What are comment subjects to do with it? It was "PC" in the summary text.
For one thing, not everybody who posts comments to Slashdot agrees with Apple's assertion in the "Get a Mac" ad campaign that "Mac" is not a subset of "PC".
It's just one example. PC means IBM PC compatible family in most contexts.
On the basis that the new architecture is X86 PC compatible family and it could now run Windows. It rather helps my point. Before that and other than that, a Mac is not considered to be a PC by most people.
Again it's not that people that say any single user computer is a PC is wrong. It's that to use the term "PC" when you don't mean X86 IBM PC compatible family causes pointless confusion, and time-wasting arguments, such as this one. So it's just bad practice.
Who needs a kernel? A kernel keeps a user away from the raw hardware. Why would we want to keep a kid who's learning how to program away from the hardware on his own computer?
So long as the computer has a reset button to take it back to a known stable condition, let him go wild with accessing the hardware ports directly.
As I said, if "computers" is too generic for your taste, there's also "microcomputer" that doesn't have either of the areas of confusion. Or even "personal computer" spelled out rather than abbreviated to "PC". It's specifically "PC" that is associated purely with IBM PC compatibles. As for example in the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" adverts. No one is objecting because a Mac is also a "PC". Everyone understands that "PC" generally means IBM PC compatible, and most will also assume Windows.
Yeah, I've already replied *twice* that I'd since watched the video and found out it was an ARM. And once explaining that stupidity of using the term PC when you don't mean a computer in the X86 IBM PC compatible family.
Sometimes PC means "Personal Computer" sometimes it means "IBM PC compatible". For an example of the latter if someone says "You'll need a PC to run this software." then you're certainly not going to assume that means that it's going to work on a Mac, let alone a Raspberry Pi.
The long form "Personal Computer", "Microcomputer" or even just "Computer" can all have been used to describe the Raspberry Pi without anyone wondering which meaning of the term "PC" was being used.
No, Arduino doesn't fit the bill because it requires another computer to program it with, and doesn't as standard come with video.
Linux is way too complicated. Even the basics: "How do you edit a file?" depending on who you ask the answer is Vi, Vim, Emacs. All too complicated. Even Pico is too complicated. I certainly wouldn't want kids subjected to the editing by line number that we had to do, but whilst unwieldy it was at least conceptually simple.
As to internet access, people have written browsers even for the 8 bit machines of yesteryear. They're limited, but mostly because of lack of memory. Given an ARM and a reasonable amount of memory, internet access can be provided without having Linux.
Low-res screen is an advantage, not a hinderance. It means if you light a pixel on purpose, or one you didn't intend to, then you can see it. It also lowers the bar on what acceptable graphics look like, so it's easier for the kids to design their own screen elements. Even the Raspberry Pi guy on the video was saying they hoped the TV out would be the primary way of using it. Low res and all.
I'm not at all convinced by the argument that they will see familiar apps, then be convinced to start programming. They don't have a hope of producing anything like those apps, so they are more likely to just continue using them, and not do programming at all. Better that they just see some simple programs on the system and understand that they can create things like that.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't see any reason why such a sign would be difficult for you to get past. Unless it made the door too narrow for your head to pass.
What's up? You couldn't afford an iPhone?
I didn't, and obviously wouldn't, say or "get the idea that" TIFF isn't editable. Are you illiterate?
We ought to.call you Scotty. "Ye cannie change the laws of physics captain."
Clearly there is no such law of physics, since there already is a technology that packs the required energy density. A fuel tank. We're looking for an alternative to something that already exists, not something impossible.
It doesn't lose edit ability, because fax isn't editable. Indeed for typical uses of fax you don't want it to be in a format that invites editing. Contract, invoices etc should remain the way they were sent.
Documents that are intended to be editable are already sent via email or other file transfer mechanisms. That isn't what's being talked about here.
And what the fuck has MS Office got to do with fax replacement preview or sending emails? The obvious format is still PDF. MS Word format is not supported on a variety of devices. Only Windows and Mac Personal computers. A document scanner that allows sending via email isn't going to have MS Office. Neither are mobile phones.
not get into arguments about which Microsoft Word versions are currently emulated on Macs
Huh? MS Word isn't "emulated" on Macs. Microsoft release a native version of MS Word for the Mac.
Though what the fuck you think MS Word has to do with a fax replacement standard I can't imagine. PDF is the obvious format.
You make a good point that shoebox powered mobile phones were still and practical useful for certain markets. Whilst ultra short flight helicopter's aren't. And yet you're comparing an early shipping product to a hobbyists first prototype.
Back then, sure, batteries weren't quite as good, but that wasn't the biggest problem, it was the phone technology itself.
Well yes. And also the fact that cell towers are a lot closer today, so lower power is needed. And yet those two don't completely explain the progress from a shoe box sized battery to today's tiny batteries.
The batteries back then were Ni-Cd. Now they're Li-ion or Li-Po. In current versions of those batteries lithium have 5 times more energy density than Ni-Cd. I'm guessing that improvement is even greater compared to 30 year old designs.
Also Ni-Cds are AFAIK always made up of batteries of cylindrical cells in metal cases. Lithium batteries can be made in flatpacks to specifically fit it's application. And that adds to the practical energy density difference.
As to electric car batteries, I on't have, and can't be bothered to research the specifics, but I was listening to a 30 min interview with the CEO of Renault other day, specifically on the topic of EVs. And he was talking about how much batteries have improved over the past few years, and the expectations of improvement over the next few. Not just in chemistry, but in battery management, where software is monitoring the performance an selectively using each of the individual cells in the battery. Today they are designing batteries specifically for EVs, rather than making use of generics.
The end of your post seems to have veered off topic into an anti EV rant. Lets leave that debate for another time. I'll just say this: predicting the limits of how products will improve over time is a fools errand. When the most advanced computers filled a large room, no-one envisaged that people would be carrying a far more powerful computer in their pockets in 50 years time. And when talking about the limits of physics, they'd be referring to how small you can make each individual vacuum tube valve, not how tightly you can pack transistors on a semiconductor. EVs are already practical for some people's needs. All that's required is that they continue to improve each year, and they will eventually become the preferred option for most people. One has to remember of course that ICE is becoming a worse option as time goes by as oil becomes more scarce and thus expensive.
The requirements for aircraft and car batteries are different. Aircraft motors run at a pretty constant speed. Cars are constantly accelerating, decelerating and braking (which on the more advanced EVs means a little recharging). Also if a car battery fails, that's annoying. If an aircraft battery fails, that may be fatal.
In both cases you want the lightest battery given the usage profile. And that means different for those two applications.
And mobile phone and laptop batteries are different again.
Sure, the Tesla Roadster is built with laptop batteries. But that's because they are a small manufacturer who designed their car in a hurry, used a tiny and light body-shell (from the Lotus Elise) and were in a market that could stand expensive batteries. They could afford to compromise. The mass market of family cars at affordable prices and with decent ranges requires specialist batteries designed specifically for cars.
If they'd have waited for suitable batteries to be developed for mobile phones, before building phones, then we wouldn't have anywhere near as good mobile phones right now.
Instead they just used the batteries that were available at the time, and accepted the fact that a mobile phone needed a battery-pack the size of a shoebox.
It was the fact that there was an actual demand for better mobile phone batteries that spurred development. That demand wouldn't have been their had phone manufacturers waited.
Same goes for electric cars. Development of suitable batteries for cars is now progressing at a fast rate. But that's only happened because car manufacturers have actually stared producing electric cars.
It's chicken and egg. If the product manufacturers wait for the battery manufacturers, then the battery manufacturers will wait for the product designers. To get progress, both have to move forward at the same time.
Ah, that makes sense. Someone else asked about the circular logic where a web site creator used Google translate to create the alternative language versions of their site, and Google Translate then incorporated that as a corpus for future translations...
If Google limit their multiple-lingual corpuses to sites where they know there are professional human translators, then the quality is far higher. Though as you say rather lacking in the ability to translate slang.
I bet they know how to say "Happy birthday!" in many languages though.
We're not talking about personal messages to you. We're talking about what people post on their wall. They may well be able to talk to you in English, but when posting on their wall, they'll often post in their native language, that the majority of their friends and family speak.
I went to an international school. All of my friends CAN speak English. But when posting on facebook they often post in their various native languages. Depending on who it is I already manually put some of this through Google translate. It'd be great for me to have a translate button there.
How have they got a corpus of multi-lingual slang? For sure there are many different languages posted on facebook. But where do you get the very same text in more than one language?
Interesting question. Google translate doesn't understand words in any kind of dictionary way. It relies on examining pages in it's index that exist in more than one language. It then applies probabilistic algorithms to guess at translations for stuff that you input.
So in theory slang and abbreviations would be no more difficult to translate than dictionary words. However, the sites that have text like that repeated on different language pages are probably few and far between, so it might be difficult. ... OK just tested it. Google isn't able to translate those words.
For some people it means that and nothing more. For more people it means an X86 IBM PC compatible family machine. Neither usage is the absolute correct one.
Best not to use "PC" unless you really do mean a PC architecture machine and not a personal computer.
Then what's fast user switching?
It's fast user switching. One user at a time, not multi-user like a mini-computer.
Headlines (such as "Details About Raspberry Pi Foundation's $25 PC") are also limited in length.
And would be less of a problem if "personal computer" was spelled out in the summary. But the real mistake was made by whoever wrote TFA, not the slashdot submitter that merely repeated the text.
Oh dear, you've got egg on your face now. I did read TFA. It says "PC" and says nothing to indicate it's not from the X86 IBM PC compatible family.
It seem you DIDN'T read the article before bitching.
The information that it's ARM based is (as I said) in the video.
So there needs to be a system that doesn't use a kernel. A non-Linux system. Whether or not you can also run Linux is neither here nor there.
Answer me this: "Is the Mac mini a minicomputer?"
No. Minicomputers are multi-user systems. There's no room for confusion there. It's not a "Mac minicomputer".
That'd be fine if comment subject lengths were unlimited.
What are comment subjects to do with it? It was "PC" in the summary text.
For one thing, not everybody who posts comments to Slashdot agrees with Apple's assertion in the "Get a Mac" ad campaign that "Mac" is not a subset of "PC".
It's just one example. PC means IBM PC compatible family in most contexts.
I seem to remember the "Touché" ad in which the Mac character stated "and I'm a PC too".
On the basis that the new architecture is X86 PC compatible family and it could now run Windows. It rather helps my point. Before that and other than that, a Mac is not considered to be a PC by most people.
Again it's not that people that say any single user computer is a PC is wrong. It's that to use the term "PC" when you don't mean X86 IBM PC compatible family causes pointless confusion, and time-wasting arguments, such as this one. So it's just bad practice.
Who needs a kernel? A kernel keeps a user away from the raw hardware. Why would we want to keep a kid who's learning how to program away from the hardware on his own computer?
So long as the computer has a reset button to take it back to a known stable condition, let him go wild with accessing the hardware ports directly.
As I said, if "computers" is too generic for your taste, there's also "microcomputer" that doesn't have either of the areas of confusion. Or even "personal computer" spelled out rather than abbreviated to "PC". It's specifically "PC" that is associated purely with IBM PC compatibles. As for example in the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" adverts. No one is objecting because a Mac is also a "PC". Everyone understands that "PC" generally means IBM PC compatible, and most will also assume Windows.
Yeah, I've already replied *twice* that I'd since watched the video and found out it was an ARM. And once explaining that stupidity of using the term PC when you don't mean a computer in the X86 IBM PC compatible family.
Sometimes PC means "Personal Computer" sometimes it means "IBM PC compatible". For an example of the latter if someone says "You'll need a PC to run this software." then you're certainly not going to assume that means that it's going to work on a Mac, let alone a Raspberry Pi.
The long form "Personal Computer", "Microcomputer" or even just "Computer" can all have been used to describe the Raspberry Pi without anyone wondering which meaning of the term "PC" was being used.
No, Arduino doesn't fit the bill because it requires another computer to program it with, and doesn't as standard come with video.
Linux is way too complicated. Even the basics: "How do you edit a file?" depending on who you ask the answer is Vi, Vim, Emacs. All too complicated. Even Pico is too complicated. I certainly wouldn't want kids subjected to the editing by line number that we had to do, but whilst unwieldy it was at least conceptually simple.
As to internet access, people have written browsers even for the 8 bit machines of yesteryear. They're limited, but mostly because of lack of memory. Given an ARM and a reasonable amount of memory, internet access can be provided without having Linux.
Low-res screen is an advantage, not a hinderance. It means if you light a pixel on purpose, or one you didn't intend to, then you can see it. It also lowers the bar on what acceptable graphics look like, so it's easier for the kids to design their own screen elements. Even the Raspberry Pi guy on the video was saying they hoped the TV out would be the primary way of using it. Low res and all.
I'm not at all convinced by the argument that they will see familiar apps, then be convinced to start programming. They don't have a hope of producing anything like those apps, so they are more likely to just continue using them, and not do programming at all. Better that they just see some simple programs on the system and understand that they can create things like that.