Tried to buy a netbook with Linux recently? I have, and I can only find two retailers, with one rather low-end model each.
I'm still trying to wade through the FUD and determine how much pressure Microsoft has put on retailers to only offer Windows on netbooks. I suppose I'll never know.
But I do know this;
Netbooks are selling like hotcakes, but are only offered with spinning hardrives and WIndows XP.
From TFA, "...Microsoft is trying to discourage the production of inexpensive computers where Windows becomes the most expensive component because it can't make as much money on Windows on these devices, and they could drive down the price of Windows."
Solid state drives (SSDs) are the obvious choice for netbooks, for obvious reasons.
And since SSDs cost more, XP has acknowledged problems with wear-leveling on SSDs, and the unknown Microsoft influence factor, manufacturers end up selling thousands of netbooks with WIndows and old-fashioned, spinning hard drives.
A sad byproduct of this is that according to economies of scale, cheap SSDs should by now be ubiquitous.
Once again, progress is stifled; we should have cheap netbooks with solid state drives and Linux, but we're stuck with Microsoft's version of How Things Should Be.
...tech stuff always made me happier.
I went through a 20 year Aero Engineering career, and it seemed like every time I moved up, ie - more management, I was less happy.
The dirty little secret (AFAIC) with management is that you end up dealing more with people problems than with tech problems.
Tech problems are much better defined than people problems.
And I was always much happier with well-defined problems I could DO something about, rather than having to deal with the idiosyncrasies of human nature, which very few managers ever get a handle on.
The Wall Street Journal article oversimplifies the problem with the Airbus design philosophy. In effect; Too Damn Much reliance on the automated flight control system for basic safety-of-flight.
A prime example?
Rudder hinges.
Airbus has notoriously http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587 underbuilt the rudder hinges on the A300 (and, no doubt, the A330) in the interest of lightness and efficiency. They have chosen to rely on the automated flight control system to limit loads on the structure, instead of building the necessary robustness into that structure.
This is great when flight conditions are all peachy, but in a thunderstorm, at night, with sensors (iced-up pitot tubes?) that are prone to failure, well then you have a failure scenario that the designers never built into their simulations, and the rescue/recovery teams in the south Atlantic find the rudder 37 miles from the rest of the wreckage.
Forwarded from a colleague (names redacted);
>> This from a friend and NWA pilot I flew the B-757 >> with out of our Tokyo base.........Now obviously on the A-330 >> >> >> Well, I'm sure you have all heard of the Air France accident. I fly >> the same plane, the A330. >> >> >> >> Yesterday while coming up from Hong Kong to Tokyo , a 1700nm >> 4hr. flight, we experienced the same problems Air France had while >> flying thru bad weather. >> I have a link to the failures that occurred on AF 447. My list is >> almost the same. >> http://www.eurocockpit.com/images/acars447.php >> >> The problem I suspect is the pitot tubes ice over and you >> loose your airspeed indication along with the auto pilot, auto >> throttles and rudder limit protection. The rudder limit protection >> keeps you from over stressing the rudder at high speed. >> >> Synopsis; >> Tuesday 23, 2009 10am enroute HKG to NRT. Entering Nara Japan >> airspace. >> >> FL390 mostly clear with occasional isolated areas of rain, >> clouds tops about FL410. >> Outside air temperature was -50C TAT -21C (your not supposed to get >> liquid water at these temps). We did. >> >> As we were following other aircraft along our route. We >> approached a large area of rain below us. Tilting the weather radar >> down we could see the heavy rain below, displayed in red. At our >> altitude the radar indicated green or light precipitation, most >> likely ice crystals we thought. >> >> Entering the cloud tops we experienced just light to moderate >> turbulence. (The winds were around 30kts at altitude.) After about >> 15 sec. we encountered moderate rain. We thought it odd to have >> rain streaming up the windshield at this altitude and the sound of >> the plane getting pelted like an aluminum garage door. It got very >> warm and humid in the cockpit all of a sudden. >> Five seconds later the Captains, First Officers, and standby >> airspeed indicators rolled back to 60kts. The auto pilot and auto >> throttles disengaged. The Master Warning and Master Caution >> flashed, and the sounds of chirps and clicks letting us know these >> things were happening. >> The Capt. hand flew the plane on the shortest >> vector out of the rain. The airspeed indicators briefly came back >> but failed again. The failure lasted for THREE minutes. We flew the >> recommended 83%N1 power setting. When the airspeed indicators came >> back. we were within 5 knots of our desired
Yes, but in times of poor propagation (geomagnetic storm, etc) there's a very good chance that side-band voice communications would not have gotten through on 80 meters. Morse Code is the most basic level of communications (un?)commonly available - the combination of slow bit-rate and the concentration of all available power into a narrow bandwidth will get through when no other form of communication will suffice.
73s de KD6TDF
From page four of the article;
"For six months the team even bought its own servers. Gaining clearance to run
and monitor the project on the corporate server farm would have been too
time-consuming..."
And;
"A headache for Payne is that Microsoft isn't as nimble as smaller, younger
rivals like Google and Yahoo. For example, at Google, engineers are
responsible for the software that they write-period. They don't hand it off
to a "system operations" team to deal with bugs. When something goes awry,
the team that wrote the software and knows it best is responsible for fixing
it."
Slashdot Mirror
...I wouldn't have any activity at all!
Or perhaps they thought they were in DC, watching members of Congress?!?
Upgrade to Firefox!!!
Get rid of that Microsoft Virus masquerading as an operating system!
Working great over here - all I had to do was run sa-update.
Thanks for the hard work!
Sooo...we're currently laying the groundwork for Louie Wu's addiction?
Or, in the immortal words of Billy Gibbons; "Surf's Up!!!"
"crash way too often to blame it all on Microsoft"?!?
WTF? Over.
Tried to buy a netbook with Linux recently? I have, and I can only find two retailers, with one rather low-end model each.
I'm still trying to wade through the FUD and determine how much pressure Microsoft has put on retailers to only offer Windows on netbooks. I suppose I'll never know.
But I do know this;
Netbooks are selling like hotcakes, but are only offered with spinning hardrives and WIndows XP.
From TFA, "...Microsoft is trying to discourage the production of inexpensive computers where Windows becomes the most expensive component because it can't make as much money on Windows on these devices, and they could drive down the price of Windows."
Solid state drives (SSDs) are the obvious choice for netbooks, for obvious reasons.
And since SSDs cost more, XP has acknowledged problems with wear-leveling on SSDs, and the unknown Microsoft influence factor, manufacturers end up selling thousands of netbooks with WIndows and old-fashioned, spinning hard drives.
A sad byproduct of this is that according to economies of scale, cheap SSDs should by now be ubiquitous.
Once again, progress is stifled; we should have cheap netbooks with solid state drives and Linux, but we're stuck with Microsoft's version of How Things Should Be.
Thanks again, Redmond.
Hah! That was a GGGGGREAT Calvin and Hobbes!!! http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/calvin-father-on-black-and-white-pictures.gif
...tech stuff always made me happier. I went through a 20 year Aero Engineering career, and it seemed like every time I moved up, ie - more management, I was less happy. The dirty little secret (AFAIC) with management is that you end up dealing more with people problems than with tech problems. Tech problems are much better defined than people problems. And I was always much happier with well-defined problems I could DO something about, rather than having to deal with the idiosyncrasies of human nature, which very few managers ever get a handle on.
Thinkpad Netbook Trackpoint
Thinkpad Netbook Trackpoint
Thinkpad Netbook Trackpoint
Thinkpad Netbook Trackpoint
Repeat Ad Infinitum
When Oh WHEN Lenovo?!?
I should live forever!!!
Scary stuff.
The Wall Street Journal article oversimplifies the problem with the Airbus
design philosophy. In effect; Too Damn Much reliance on the automated flight
control system for basic safety-of-flight.
A prime example?
Rudder hinges.
Airbus has notoriously
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
underbuilt the rudder hinges on the A300 (and, no doubt, the A330) in the
interest of lightness and efficiency. They have chosen to rely on the
automated flight control system to limit loads on the structure, instead of
building the necessary robustness into that structure.
This is great when flight conditions are all peachy, but in a thunderstorm, at
night, with sensors (iced-up pitot tubes?) that are prone to failure, well
then you have a failure scenario that the designers never built into their
simulations, and the rescue/recovery teams in the south Atlantic find the
rudder 37 miles from the rest of the wreckage.
Forwarded from a colleague (names redacted);
>> This from a friend and NWA pilot I flew the B-757
>> with out of our Tokyo base.........Now obviously on the A-330
>>
>>
>> Well, I'm sure you have all heard of the Air France accident. I fly
>> the same plane, the A330.
>>
>>
>>
>> Yesterday while coming up from Hong Kong to Tokyo , a 1700nm
>> 4hr. flight, we experienced the same problems Air France had while
>> flying thru bad weather.
>> I have a link to the failures that occurred on AF 447. My list is
>> almost the same.
>> http://www.eurocockpit.com/images/acars447.php
>>
>> The problem I suspect is the pitot tubes ice over and you
>> loose your airspeed indication along with the auto pilot, auto
>> throttles and rudder limit protection. The rudder limit protection
>> keeps you from over stressing the rudder at high speed.
>>
>> Synopsis;
>> Tuesday 23, 2009 10am enroute HKG to NRT. Entering Nara Japan
>> airspace.
>>
>> FL390 mostly clear with occasional isolated areas of rain,
>> clouds tops about FL410.
>> Outside air temperature was -50C TAT -21C (your not supposed to get
>> liquid water at these temps). We did.
>>
>> As we were following other aircraft along our route. We
>> approached a large area of rain below us. Tilting the weather radar
>> down we could see the heavy rain below, displayed in red. At our
>> altitude the radar indicated green or light precipitation, most
>> likely ice crystals we thought.
>>
>> Entering the cloud tops we experienced just light to moderate
>> turbulence. (The winds were around 30kts at altitude.) After about
>> 15 sec. we encountered moderate rain. We thought it odd to have
>> rain streaming up the windshield at this altitude and the sound of
>> the plane getting pelted like an aluminum garage door. It got very
>> warm and humid in the cockpit all of a sudden.
>> Five seconds later the Captains, First Officers, and standby
>> airspeed indicators rolled back to 60kts. The auto pilot and auto
>> throttles disengaged. The Master Warning and Master Caution
>> flashed, and the sounds of chirps and clicks letting us know these
>> things were happening.
>> The Capt. hand flew the plane on the shortest
>> vector out of the rain. The airspeed indicators briefly came back
>> but failed again. The failure lasted for THREE minutes. We flew the
>> recommended 83%N1 power setting. When the airspeed indicators came
>> back. we were within 5 knots of our desired
Slow news day?
Hell yes there's a Linux version - spread by /.
Apparently he can't understand the tax code. And he runs the treasury...
Amen Brother - pass the ammunition.
Instead of a modified DeLorean, maybe Mr Noel needs a Moller Skycar!!!
All your packets are belong to US!!!
Yes, but in times of poor propagation (geomagnetic storm, etc) there's a very good chance that side-band voice communications would not have gotten through on 80 meters. Morse Code is the most basic level of communications (un?)commonly available - the combination of slow bit-rate and the concentration of all available power into a narrow bandwidth will get through when no other form of communication will suffice. 73s de KD6TDF
From page four of the article; "For six months the team even bought its own servers. Gaining clearance to run and monitor the project on the corporate server farm would have been too time-consuming..." And; "A headache for Payne is that Microsoft isn't as nimble as smaller, younger rivals like Google and Yahoo. For example, at Google, engineers are responsible for the software that they write-period. They don't hand it off to a "system operations" team to deal with bugs. When something goes awry, the team that wrote the software and knows it best is responsible for fixing it."
Sounds like Nissan is making too much money!
So....will the resulting toilet paper be used in the Iloo?!?