I just bought an LCD monitor, the second that I have ever owned.
VERY easy on the eyes (CRTs be damned); 16ms response time; 35w power-consumption; excellent colour; 4 year manufacturer's warranty.
I don't know how life is where you are, but I find that electricity is becoming quite expensive. And I don't want a CRT firing at my face from less than 0.5m away.
I guess that paragraph kinda speaks for itself and makes it obvious where you are coming from in the, uh, Computer Science landscape.
I come from that part of the, uh, Computer Landscape where folks believe in crop-circles, George Lucas's genius, and the arguments proving that the lunar landings never happened. Oh yeah, and where programmers don't want white-space to have the significance that it does in Python.
It's a real mixed bag in my neighbourhood. But however crazy it gets, we always agree that Aquaman should have found a wife with gills.
I can live with Python's having no statement terminator (";" in C, C++, Perl, Java).
What I find unacceptable in Python is that whitespace (tabs) determine the logical flow. I once wrote a script on Windows and moved it to UNIX; the UNIX editor handled tabs differently, and my script wouldn't work without a few hours of attention just to set the spacing right.
Ruby has Pascal-like blocking. That alone makes it superior to Python. And for all other situations that do not require a good OO implementation, there is Perl.
A distraught Lord Of The Rings fan has climbed Buckingham Palace disguised as Batman to protest the absence of the valley of Tom Bombadil in the popular movie trilogy.
But to say that the true purpose of the American educational system is against education is silly.
It's a conspiracy of folly at very least!
Why isn't critical thinking taught in schools? Ethics? Consumer awareness (a basic defence against suffering in a market economy)?
Too many of so-called "communities" in North America are merely over-populated markets of witless or otherwise helpless consumers.
In order for people to change things, they have to understand. Are we equipping people with knowledge to shake up the system, or merely teaching them how to serve in the temple?
Re:Have it do something worthwhile
on
Palmtop Nirvana?
·
· Score: 1
When was the last time you seriously needed to look at a spread sheet and did not have a laptop or desktop computer handy?:)
It happens! Don't hold it against me. Sometimes while waiting for appointments, I work on spreadsheets.
Which reminds me... Another good use for a PDA is database design.
Note taking and sketching, sure. I totally agree that those are useful things. It's something I can do on a PDA I bought a decade ago with aplomb. It's also something I can do with a piece of paper and a pen:).
Yes, you can do a quick sketch or note with a tree slice and pen... But if you don't have a scanner handy, e-mailing it will prove difficult.:oB
Re:Have it do something worthwhile
on
Palmtop Nirvana?
·
· Score: 1
Worthwhile things that you probably can't do with your telephone:
spreadsheet
efficient note-taking (requires good handwriting system)
More significantly, easy to market. Because of what I will herein refer to as STOUshare.
People stay with M-Windows because most people are STOUs (Simply Task-Orientated Users) not STEVEs (Serious Techies, Engineers Vilipending Enslavement).
STEVEs want an open road, the Mustang GT390 of hardware and the Jacqueline Bisset of algorithms... and, er, hardware.
STOUs want to "send a picture" and "read mail".
- Endless software, including lots of freeware.
A STOU doesn't really buy much software. A STOU doesn't even buy the OS: it comes with the "mail reader" or "picture scanner", or they get it for free from someone. A STOU doesn't care about the implications of anything he needs to do his task. (SUVs are for STOUs.)
In the 90s, MonopoSoft was happy to let piracy go on because it captured STOUshare for them. MonospoSoft understands the economic importance of STOUshare. The first version of M-Windows for which MonopoSoft has seriously tried to control piracy is XP.
It's just much easier for everyone in the retail food-chain to steer and market to STOUs. Why have a variety of foods when this bag of chips -- the brand your neighbours are eating! -- will do just fine. Oh, by the way, you can't eat anything else.
Note that despite all this, Linux can catch up and defeat Windows.
Linux, the STEVE OS, has done most of the catching up that it can with STEVEs. In nations with low per-capita income and a mistrust of the US and MonopoSoft, Linux will probably gain STOUshare.
Until STOUs can talk about Linux without having to know what they are talking about, Linux will not gain STOUshare.
Until STOUs can call a Help Desk and talk to more STOUs about problems neither of them understands, Linux will not gain STOUshare.
Until Linux can do MORE than M-Windows can while supporting all that M-Windows supports and working flawlessly with everything that MonopoSoft controls, Linux can't direct where the market goes and cannot gain STOUshare in North America.
The outlook is bleak. But there is a trump card: any OS that makes Jacqueline Bisset want you is so STEVE that even all the STOUs will fight for it.
What keep bringing me back to open-source applications are (in order of importance):
solutions to specific problems (a person decides to solve a problem so he writes some code and makes it available; I find I need to solve the same problem),
portability (same app running on different boxes with different OSs), and
learning opportunities (I want to understand something better; open-source means Free Information).
I always recommend open-source solutions when making proposals. People may have to learn how to use the tools, but they will be better employees for gaining the knowledge. Any company that systemically refuses OSS doesn't want to empower anyone and (foolishly) feels somehow safer if their figurative balls are in the grasp of Microsoft (for example).
Here's a guy who started from scratch and... got himself killed.
He came from a broken home. Mom married a woodworker and then fooled around on the side with the Holy Spirit. So his biological daddy was powerful but JC never got to be President. Didn't serve in the army, neither.
He tried to do some nice things but only in a naive, small-scale way. Didn't do nothing fer the gross national product. Now Henry Ford... there's an imagination!
Ok, I'll give you that some of his idears helped found some really big monopolies after his death. But then, he wasn't around to enjoy the gravy. What kind of heroism is that?
In other words, countries that distrust the United States will not want to depend on Microsoft -- they will either use OSS or roll their own. Since rolling your own software takes time, they'll use what exists already.
Slashdot Mirror
Here are a few links, thou varlet! ;o)
Safety. LCDs are safer to use because they have no electromagnetic radiation.
The only potential emission from any of them that we know may be hazardous is x radiation from CRT-type monitors. It is fair to say that flat-panel LCD monitors will not emit x radiation under any operating condition whereas CRT monitors have the potential for emitting x radiation if the high voltage is raised higher than the CRT is designed to operate at. One might be able to cause a CRT monitor to emit some x radiation by failing a circuit or component, such as the hold-down safety circuit, and misadjusting user and service controls to raise the high voltage.
What's more, LCD panels draw 40 percent less power than similarly sized CRT monitors, produce less heat, and do not emit electromagnetic interference or X-rays (which CRTs do), making them somewhat safer and cheaper to use in the long run.
I just bought an LCD monitor, the second that I have ever owned.
VERY easy on the eyes (CRTs be damned); 16ms response time; 35w power-consumption; excellent colour; 4 year manufacturer's warranty.
I don't know how life is where you are, but I find that electricity is becoming quite expensive. And I don't want a CRT firing at my face from less than 0.5m away.
Neal Stephenson, here is the title of your next book!
And vote Kerry!
"Still" -- just the same, nevertheless
"Even so" -- just the same, nevertheless
"Even still" -- the whisky-cooker is level
George Lucas responds: It DOES? Enough volumes to make three more films? Woo hoooo!
I come from that part of the, uh, Computer Landscape where folks believe in crop-circles, George Lucas's genius, and the arguments proving that the lunar landings never happened. Oh yeah, and where programmers don't want white-space to have the significance that it does in Python.
It's a real mixed bag in my neighbourhood. But however crazy it gets, we always agree that Aquaman should have found a wife with gills.
I can live with Python's having no statement terminator (";" in C, C++, Perl, Java).
What I find unacceptable in Python is that whitespace (tabs) determine the logical flow. I once wrote a script on Windows and moved it to UNIX; the UNIX editor handled tabs differently, and my script wouldn't work without a few hours of attention just to set the spacing right.
Ruby has Pascal-like blocking. That alone makes it superior to Python. And for all other situations that do not require a good OO implementation, there is Perl.
A distraught Lord Of The Rings fan has climbed Buckingham Palace disguised as Batman to protest the absence of the valley of Tom Bombadil in the popular movie trilogy.
The IBM TransNote didn't sell well. Anyone here own one?
That's what Jar Jar Binks, "Face Dances", and "AI" have in common!
Why isn't critical thinking taught in schools? Ethics? Consumer awareness (a basic defence against suffering in a market economy)?
Too many of so-called "communities" in North America are merely over-populated markets of witless or otherwise helpless consumers.
In order for people to change things, they have to understand. Are we equipping people with knowledge to shake up the system, or merely teaching them how to serve in the temple?
It happens! Don't hold it against me. Sometimes while waiting for appointments, I work on spreadsheets.
Which reminds me... Another good use for a PDA is database design.
Yes, you can do a quick sketch or note with a tree slice and pen... But if you don't have a scanner handy, e-mailing it will prove difficult. :oB
The Cigarette is also a biggy.
With names like "Presper Eckert" and "Mauchly", you just ~know~ that these are the guys who worked through the night and had no social life.
- - -
*NIX rocks. A smooth and uninterfering UI rocks, especially on top of *NIX. In short, OS X rocks.
But MonopoSoft has a huge war-chest. Apple has to keep innovating.
IBM got fat and lazy and didn't see the MonopoSoft threat. IBM survived.
Apple scoffed at the MonopoSoft threat and remained near death for many years.
Sun got fat and lazy and didn't see the Intel and AMD threat.
UNIX vendors got fat and lazy and didn't see the MonopoSoft threat.
UNIX vendors AND MonopoSoft got fat and lazy and didn't see the Linux + Intel/AMD threat.
MonopoSoft didn't count on Jobs reinventing the OS so perfectly.
There can be only strategy for Redmond: BCWEASTHBITC (pronounced BeeKweezTheBit-C).
Break Compatibility With Everything And Steer The Herd Back Into Redmond Corral!
- - -
Odzooks! I bite my thumb at thee, Sir, for thou speakest Elizabethan as well as Sir Ballmer doth prattle Securitarian.
Someone mail a Windows 95 CD to NASA right away!
See my journal for more information. Briefly stated, Simply Task Orientated Users (STOUs) are the market.
Serious Techies, Engineers Vilipending Enslavement (STEVEs) are not the market. But they have plenty of Websites to rant on. (^:
Ain't no use in moanin' and cryin'... Linux has to win STOUshare to become any sort of real desktop competition to MonopoSoft.
But in the meantime, STEVEs drive the wicked hardware and get all the chicks! (Well, perhaps only digitally...)
Pardon me... Time for a crazy car chase!
STEVEs want an open road, the Mustang GT390 of hardware and the Jacqueline Bisset of algorithms... and, er, hardware.
STOUs want to "send a picture" and "read mail".
A STOU doesn't really buy much software. A STOU doesn't even buy the OS: it comes with the "mail reader" or "picture scanner", or they get it for free from someone. A STOU doesn't care about the implications of anything he needs to do his task. (SUVs are for STOUs.)
In the 90s, MonopoSoft was happy to let piracy go on because it captured STOUshare for them. MonospoSoft understands the economic importance of STOUshare. The first version of M-Windows for which MonopoSoft has seriously tried to control piracy is XP.
It's just much easier for everyone in the retail food-chain to steer and market to STOUs. Why have a variety of foods when this bag of chips -- the brand your neighbours are eating! -- will do just fine. Oh, by the way, you can't eat anything else.
Linux, the STEVE OS, has done most of the catching up that it can with STEVEs. In nations with low per-capita income and a mistrust of the US and MonopoSoft, Linux will probably gain STOUshare.Until STOUs can talk about Linux without having to know what they are talking about, Linux will not gain STOUshare.
Until STOUs can call a Help Desk and talk to more STOUs about problems neither of them understands, Linux will not gain STOUshare.
Until Linux can do MORE than M-Windows can while supporting all that M-Windows supports and working flawlessly with everything that MonopoSoft controls, Linux can't direct where the market goes and cannot gain STOUshare in North America.
The outlook is bleak. But there is a trump card: any OS that makes Jacqueline Bisset want you is so STEVE that even all the STOUs will fight for it.
solutions to specific problems (a person decides to solve a problem so he writes some code and makes it available; I find I need to solve the same problem),
portability (same app running on different boxes with different OSs), and
learning opportunities (I want to understand something better; open-source means Free Information).
I always recommend open-source solutions when making proposals. People may have to learn how to use the tools, but they will be better employees for gaining the knowledge. Any company that systemically refuses OSS doesn't want to empower anyone and (foolishly) feels somehow safer if their figurative balls are in the grasp of Microsoft (for example).
Orwell died in 1950. Afterward, he gave fewer and fewer interviews.
He came from a broken home. Mom married a woodworker and then fooled around on the side with the Holy Spirit. So his biological daddy was powerful but JC never got to be President. Didn't serve in the army, neither.
He tried to do some nice things but only in a naive, small-scale way. Didn't do nothing fer the gross national product. Now Henry Ford... there's an imagination!
Ok, I'll give you that some of his idears helped found some really big monopolies after his death. But then, he wasn't around to enjoy the gravy. What kind of heroism is that?
In other words, countries that distrust the United States will not want to depend on Microsoft -- they will either use OSS or roll their own. Since rolling your own software takes time, they'll use what exists already.