Why can't we make a better engine? Have we hit the ceiling on this tech?
We did make better engines! In fact, they're about twice as efficient as they used to be 30 years ago. However, they're also twice as powerful and/or pushing vehicles that are twice as heavy, so it cancels out.
(Example: a '60s VW Beetle, one of the smallest and cheapest cars you could buy, got about 30 MPG, had about 50 HP, and took about 20 seconds to accelerate to 60 MPH. My 2003 Hyundai Accent, also one of the cheapest and smallest cars you could buy, gets about the same 30 MPG but has 103 HP, accelerates to 60 MPH in 10 seconds flat, and weighs considerably more.)
For all that is good and right in this world, please don't [buy a used SUV that the idiot who bought it new is now trying to unload because of high gas prices].
What, would you rather the still-drivable SUVs fill up the junkyards, and everybody waste resources building new cars instead?
However, in rural areas a truck can be quite useful for dealing with roads rendered difficult by either weather or neglect (despite the residents having payed their taxes).
You do realize that Suzuki and Subaru make AWD compact cars that would do just as well in those cases, right?
...where I can find an eight-bike rack for a Prius?
You're not thinking hard enough. The solution is to get two four-bike racks, one for the roof and one for a trailer hitch. Or speaking of hitches, you could just get a trailer and put the bikes on that. Or you could fold the rear seats down and shove some of the bikes in the trunk (I can fit at least two, and possibly three, in my Hyundai Accent hatchback; I have no doubt whatsoever that you could fit four in a Prius). Or you could rent a truck whenever you needed to carry that many bikes, if it wasn't that often. Or you could get a minivan instead of a Prius -- I had an old Ford Aerostar that was capable of carrying a sheet of plywood flat on the floor with the seats removed, and the long wheel base Chrysler vans can do it too (although, now that I think about it, a minivan might not get that much better fuel economy than your truck).
...the Astra, which is similar class to the Accord...
Not in America, it isn't. Here, the (Saturn) Astra is considered to be a compact car, while the Honda Accord (which is different and larger than the European Accord) is considered to be a large (not midsize) car. (On the same scale, by the way, your Corsa would be a subcompact.)
Also, an MX-5 doesn't come anywhere close to 35 MPG (and "fairly careful driving" is worthless for comparison; if you're going to start doing that, I might as well claim the Accord gets 60 MPG). For comparable numbers, I use fueleconomy.gov, which obviously doesn't have your Corsa in the database as it's not sold here, but lists 24, 27, and 23 MPG for the Accord, Astra, and MX-5 (all with auto transmissions, because Americans are pussies) respectively.
Don't you think that the quality of teachers would improve tremendously if it was a job that paid more?
You're presupposing that the quality of teachers is bad and that the quality of programmers is good, neither of which is necessarily true.
It just means that open source software is not good for business.
I guess IBM, Google, et al. didn't get that memo...
Or maybe you're thinking specifically of companies with the business model of selling per-unit copies of software (which really are doomed, whether they try to "go against OSS" or not), and confusing that with all software business even though it's only a rather segment of it?
What is the incentive in becoming a programmer then if you know that your skills are only going to be worth less with time[?]
Doing it because you like it, not because it makes you money (same reason people become teachers and other low-paid professionals).
You can make money by keeping ahead of the curve. CAD software, for example, is an area where Free Software has made very little progress and isn't likely to for a long time yet.
So next time my management refuse to buy a $200 tool and I lose a week of working time with an inferior FOSS equivalent...
If that happens, then it's your own damn fault for doing a shitty job of communicating your needs, and the consequences of not having them met, to management. Any competent manager would instantly see that the cost-benefit ratio is in favor of buying the tool, if you're competent enough to provide them the right data.
Is an author entitled to make a living of his books? What's so wrong about a part-time job?
I don't think the author ought to be "entitled" to anything. However, I think the royalties ought to be structured so that if it sold a "reasonable" number of copies* and thus was not total crap to begin with, that the author could at least make the equivalent of minimum wage. And as far as writing "part-time" goes, the book would take the same amount of time either way; what's the difference between writing full-time to produce a book in 2 years, and writing half-time to produce a book in 4 years?
* The number of copies considered to be "reasonable" would vary depending on genre: an "Oprah book club" sort of thing would have a much higher benchmark for "reasonable" than, say, a textbook in an esoteric field, and so would have much lower per-copy royalties.
I think the hinge is just a problem. If I need a keyboard I can carry a snazzy folding one in my pocket - I have big pockets.
The problem with that is that it becomes harder to use it as a laptop: what do you prop up the screen with?
I think Linux is fine for a pen-based system, at least potentially.
"Potential" solutions are useless. I've actually tried using Linux on my tablet. The digitizer itself works great; that's not the problem. The problem is that there are no apps! There is no open-source continuous handwriting recognition, for example. It simply doesn't exist. There is no Free equivalent for OneNote. There is no clipping tool. The state-of-the-art in tablet apps for Linux is Xournal, and not only does it have even fewer features than Windows Journal (such as lack of the aforementioned handwriting recognition), but it's buggy to boot!
The situation for tablets in Linux is pathetic. It's unusable. There's no point in it; forget about it. And it's not going to change any time soon, because what little interest in writing Free software for alternative input devices there is, is pretty much entirely focused on small touchscreen devices like PDAs and smartphones, which use an entirely different paradigm.
It seems like the GP is either ignorant of the existence of the tablet PC, or just wants a giant PDA (tablet PC, no keyboard.)
I own a tablet PC, and no, I don't think he wants one in its current form, because no tablet PC is small or cheap. They're all expensive, and even the ones with small screens are absurdly thick and heavy. No, what he's asking for -- and what I'd want, too -- would be a convertible tablet (i.e., including keyboard) with about a 6" by 8" 1024x768 screen, <= 2lbs, <= $500, <= 1/2" thick, and running Windows XP Tablet Edition (because Vista is too CPU-hungry, Linux doesn't have any tablet apps, and it should have a PC OS, not a PDA one.
And before you say "you're asking for too much!" what I want almost already existed years ago: namely, the Sharp Actius MM10. You could literally add only a Wacom digitizer and a swiveling hinge to that, and it'd be perfect (but, of course, somewhat updated performance would be good too; maybe use an Intel Atom or Via chip -- whatever would be fastest while still keeping the price below $500).
I do miss the days when games had 128 multiplayer maps, ran on cheap $200 video cards well and had more story
I run The Orange Box games and Oblivion on a ~$100 GeForce 8600 GT just fine at high settings and 1680x1050 resolution (although without antialiasing); what's the problem?
Actually, Handbrake used to be cross-platform between Mac and BeOS. Apparently the BeOS version has been dropped in favor of Linux and Windows (a reasonable decision, I must say), but it could very well have been the original version.
Really, how many people need to dink with the kernel... Sharing code is useful at the application level.
That's a bad example to use in this case, because for Mac OS the kernel is actually one of the Free Software bits! In fact, it is the application-level libraries (e.g. Cocoa) that are not Free.
I expected something more along the lines of an Elder Scrolls style "go anywhere, do anything" openness. Not that I think such non-linearity necessarily would have worked for an FPS
What's the difference between an Elder Scrolls game and a FPS, anyway? I almost always play Oblivion in first-person view, and if you've equipped a bow and arrows you can shoot people.
And what about Grand Theft Auto? That, likewise, can be first person, and it sure as Hell is a shooter!
Swim out too far, and you are eaten by sharks.
Is that any worse than the situation in TES or GTA, where you just end up swimming across a featureless, flat-bottomed ocean forever?
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Smart cars are not impressive. My girlfriend's 10-year-old Beetle TDI gets better fuel economy.
We did make better engines! In fact, they're about twice as efficient as they used to be 30 years ago. However, they're also twice as powerful and/or pushing vehicles that are twice as heavy, so it cancels out.
(Example: a '60s VW Beetle, one of the smallest and cheapest cars you could buy, got about 30 MPG, had about 50 HP, and took about 20 seconds to accelerate to 60 MPH. My 2003 Hyundai Accent, also one of the cheapest and smallest cars you could buy, gets about the same 30 MPG but has 103 HP, accelerates to 60 MPH in 10 seconds flat, and weighs considerably more.)
What, would you rather the still-drivable SUVs fill up the junkyards, and everybody waste resources building new cars instead?
You do realize that Suzuki and Subaru make AWD compact cars that would do just as well in those cases, right?
I don't believe that. Full-suspension bikes aren't that special; can't you just use any rack that doesn't attach to the downtube?
You're not thinking hard enough. The solution is to get two four-bike racks, one for the roof and one for a trailer hitch. Or speaking of hitches, you could just get a trailer and put the bikes on that. Or you could fold the rear seats down and shove some of the bikes in the trunk (I can fit at least two, and possibly three, in my Hyundai Accent hatchback; I have no doubt whatsoever that you could fit four in a Prius). Or you could rent a truck whenever you needed to carry that many bikes, if it wasn't that often. Or you could get a minivan instead of a Prius -- I had an old Ford Aerostar that was capable of carrying a sheet of plywood flat on the floor with the seats removed, and the long wheel base Chrysler vans can do it too (although, now that I think about it, a minivan might not get that much better fuel economy than your truck).
Not in America, it isn't. Here, the (Saturn) Astra is considered to be a compact car, while the Honda Accord (which is different and larger than the European Accord) is considered to be a large (not midsize) car. (On the same scale, by the way, your Corsa would be a subcompact.)
Also, an MX-5 doesn't come anywhere close to 35 MPG (and "fairly careful driving" is worthless for comparison; if you're going to start doing that, I might as well claim the Accord gets 60 MPG). For comparable numbers, I use fueleconomy.gov, which obviously doesn't have your Corsa in the database as it's not sold here, but lists 24, 27, and 23 MPG for the Accord, Astra, and MX-5 (all with auto transmissions, because Americans are pussies) respectively.
What's your point? Honda Accords suck gas too!
...or a fixed barrier, in which case the inertia of your huge-ass SUV works against you.
You're presupposing that the quality of teachers is bad and that the quality of programmers is good, neither of which is necessarily true.
I guess IBM, Google, et al. didn't get that memo...
Or maybe you're thinking specifically of companies with the business model of selling per-unit copies of software (which really are doomed, whether they try to "go against OSS" or not), and confusing that with all software business even though it's only a rather segment of it?
And QCad isn't even really Free Software anyway!
Why not "root for communism" in this case? The whole point of the article is showing how it (a.k.a. Free Software) is beating capitalism!
If that happens, then it's your own damn fault for doing a shitty job of communicating your needs, and the consequences of not having them met, to management. Any competent manager would instantly see that the cost-benefit ratio is in favor of buying the tool, if you're competent enough to provide them the right data.
I don't think the author ought to be "entitled" to anything. However, I think the royalties ought to be structured so that if it sold a "reasonable" number of copies* and thus was not total crap to begin with, that the author could at least make the equivalent of minimum wage. And as far as writing "part-time" goes, the book would take the same amount of time either way; what's the difference between writing full-time to produce a book in 2 years, and writing half-time to produce a book in 4 years?
* The number of copies considered to be "reasonable" would vary depending on genre: an "Oprah book club" sort of thing would have a much higher benchmark for "reasonable" than, say, a textbook in an esoteric field, and so would have much lower per-copy royalties.
The problem with that is that it becomes harder to use it as a laptop: what do you prop up the screen with?
"Potential" solutions are useless. I've actually tried using Linux on my tablet. The digitizer itself works great; that's not the problem. The problem is that there are no apps! There is no open-source continuous handwriting recognition, for example. It simply doesn't exist. There is no Free equivalent for OneNote. There is no clipping tool. The state-of-the-art in tablet apps for Linux is Xournal, and not only does it have even fewer features than Windows Journal (such as lack of the aforementioned handwriting recognition), but it's buggy to boot!
The situation for tablets in Linux is pathetic. It's unusable. There's no point in it; forget about it. And it's not going to change any time soon, because what little interest in writing Free software for alternative input devices there is, is pretty much entirely focused on small touchscreen devices like PDAs and smartphones, which use an entirely different paradigm.
I own a tablet PC, and no, I don't think he wants one in its current form, because no tablet PC is small or cheap. They're all expensive, and even the ones with small screens are absurdly thick and heavy. No, what he's asking for -- and what I'd want, too -- would be a convertible tablet (i.e., including keyboard) with about a 6" by 8" 1024x768 screen, <= 2lbs, <= $500, <= 1/2" thick, and running Windows XP Tablet Edition (because Vista is too CPU-hungry, Linux doesn't have any tablet apps, and it should have a PC OS, not a PDA one.
And before you say "you're asking for too much!" what I want almost already existed years ago: namely, the Sharp Actius MM10. You could literally add only a Wacom digitizer and a swiveling hinge to that, and it'd be perfect (but, of course, somewhat updated performance would be good too; maybe use an Intel Atom or Via chip -- whatever would be fastest while still keeping the price below $500).
Even on an EEE-size screen, I'd still want more pixels. It's 2008, for crying out loud; why can't we finally get 300DPI?!
Wouldn't it make more sense to put the Wacom digitizer where the screen is?
Also, I second the motion for a cheap, small tablet PC!
If and only if the games in question don't use fancy shaders and whatnot that the 4200 doesn't have hardware support for, that is.
I run The Orange Box games and Oblivion on a ~$100 GeForce 8600 GT just fine at high settings and 1680x1050 resolution (although without antialiasing); what's the problem?
Actually, Handbrake used to be cross-platform between Mac and BeOS. Apparently the BeOS version has been dropped in favor of Linux and Windows (a reasonable decision, I must say), but it could very well have been the original version.
That's a bad example to use in this case, because for Mac OS the kernel is actually one of the Free Software bits! In fact, it is the application-level libraries (e.g. Cocoa) that are not Free.
Does anything other than Mac OS use launchd?
What's the difference between an Elder Scrolls game and a FPS, anyway? I almost always play Oblivion in first-person view, and if you've equipped a bow and arrows you can shoot people.
And what about Grand Theft Auto? That, likewise, can be first person, and it sure as Hell is a shooter!
Is that any worse than the situation in TES or GTA, where you just end up swimming across a featureless, flat-bottomed ocean forever?