I think Solaris has got an uphill battle in this one...
I'd bet Solaris 10 is going to be huge in consulting and government work. It's cheap to license and will be open source, yet it still gives the bureaucrats/customers the satisfaction of commercially branded products.
Sun is putting themselves in a unique position between Microsoft and Linux--one that is appealing to both geeks and management. Pure genious or folly God knows, but I'm looking forward to 2005.
There's no such thing as an acceptable number of terrorists greater than zero...
There's also no such thing as an acceptable number of car crashes greater than zero...I don't see a "War on Car Crashes." More people die from drunk drivers (terrorists, in my book) than all of Al Queda combined, yet we don't see a trillion dollars spent on dispensing the earth of them. The War on Terrorism is little more than a pork-barrel money pit for contractors, and they know it (and love it).
Yeah, but your kettle has access to a few thousand watts (several horsepower) through your house circuit. I'd like to see the amount of calcium oxide required to output that kind of heat!
I don't know why the parent post was modded funny, because, for a lot of the food we buy, the packaging weighs nearly as much as the food itself. Doesn't that seem a bit strange? That for every sandwhich you eat in your lifetime there is a plastic bag in a landfill?
Starbucks, while it is not great coffee, is significantly better than the brown water that most of us Americans are used to drinking at home.
I think Starbucks coffee tastes like dirt (only an idiot would think of it as "gourmet"). I very much prefer what comes out of my own coffee pot, and I use generic coffee! Hint: the coffee pot matters more than the coffee itself.
Grocery store checkers around here are 'tarded slow.
Grocery stores also have the absolute worst cashier setup known to mankind. Short queues with many more registers than necessary. It just sucks, and everytime someone calls the manager, or writes a check, or can't find another penny, or whose credit card won't work, I just can't stand it! Why can't they be just a little teeny bit smarter and set up two or three lines, each with three registers!?!?!?!?! Grocery store designers should go fuck themselves with a dump truck, because they deserve it.
If out of every 300 million people there are a couple dozen terrorists...
The problem is that the number of terrorists are within the margin of error for any measurement system. Ask any experimental scientist or statistician about measurements and errors; they will agree. The only thing the government can do is reduce the number of terrorists to an acceptable level. The politicians will never admiit it, but this is exactly how they think (just as long as I can get through this term without any attacks...).
The biggest advances needed would be in speech to text transcription.
And translation. This sort of technology is still bleeding edge in research circles, IIRC. Add in all the cultural nuances in language, and accurate translation might be impossible (e.g., there's nothing like Shakespeare in the original Klingon).
Aren't the calendar and clock very well defined, such that it's only a matter of looking up a spec for making a correct program?
Sure, there are a number of idiot programmers out there who assume 30 day months or whatever, but, really, the data structures required for a full calendar implementation are not that big. Also, it isn't like there aren't a ton of parsing utilities out there.
90% of the problems can be eliminated by enforcing a very simple and intuitive form for data entry, like very clearly labeled date fields that keep the user from having to guess mmddyy or mmddyyyy or ddmmyyyy etc.
BTW, yyyymmdd is correct and all of you are wrong!
Well, to give the VIA laptop some more credit, it uses less power probably than the AMD one....other than that, the AMD system actually looks pretty darn nice (even TV out), but damn those touch-pad mice drive me nuts.
Try reading this, or just look at a Plasma and an LCD.
Try looking at an LCD and a Plasma after a few years. TVs aren't cheap, and only a chump would buy one that has to have its lifespan covered up in marketing materials. One looking better in a showroom does not mean ultimate customer satisfaction (if it did, I'd have bought a better looking car).
Like many people have said: plasma is a temporary technology until other technologies reach plasma's price/inches ratio.
Autos are the one thing CR does well, because the the gargantuan market for such information. For other things, like appliances or audio equipment, CR is much less useful, as it provides just basic screening information and models churn so frequently that the information is often obselete.
It's kinda sad that the Japanese are even out-doing the Germans, now. Why buy German, when you can choose among Subaru (small, sporty, and fast) or Lexus (sporty with nicer toys).
Inefficient: not compared to the minivans it's a smaller replacement for
Actually, pretty much all the minivans get better gas milage. The PT Cruiser is essentially an SUV with a little Neon 4-banger engine. That's a recipe for bad milage, because the little engine has to work so hard. There's a sweet spot for engines for a particular car, and the PT missed it (hearing this from a former PT owner).
Oh, and they required a hugeass expensiveass server to boot and run.
Yes, but once the server and network is set up, the Sun Rays are supposed to be zero-administration, meaning the administrators don't have to waste hours driving or running around for on-site support, unless a Ray is physically broken. Also, the Sun Ray server can be a 24-CPU rack mount deal (only a few hundred grand or so) that'll run at high utilization serving hundreds of clients if sized right. Setting up desktops for hundreds of people for only a few million dollars doesn't seem all that bad, really, considering the absence of spyware, etc., on Solaris/Linux.
40GB would certainly not fill up quickly with the type of things my parents do on a computer...
I host three different complete operating systems for diskless clients plus do all my personal work off of one 36GB drive. I'm still at only 68% utilization. For some things, I agree the article's author did whatever it took to do bias for bias' sake (shock value == entertainment, anymore, it seems).
I've heard that if you stick bad ECC RAM up your ass, the bile acids will clean off the faulty transistors. It sometimes takes four, perhaps five, cleaning attempts before it works. Also, don't come complaining to me if they get stuck!
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I think Solaris has got an uphill battle in this one...
I'd bet Solaris 10 is going to be huge in consulting and government work. It's cheap to license and will be open source, yet it still gives the bureaucrats/customers the satisfaction of commercially branded products.
Sun is putting themselves in a unique position between Microsoft and Linux--one that is appealing to both geeks and management. Pure genious or folly God knows, but I'm looking forward to 2005.
There's no such thing as an acceptable number of terrorists greater than zero...
There's also no such thing as an acceptable number of car crashes greater than zero...I don't see a "War on Car Crashes." More people die from drunk drivers (terrorists, in my book) than all of Al Queda combined, yet we don't see a trillion dollars spent on dispensing the earth of them. The War on Terrorism is little more than a pork-barrel money pit for contractors, and they know it (and love it).
Unions.
After the store designers are done with the dump trucks, they can pass them over to the union bosses. And the dirtier the better.
...a simple cup of coffee at Starbucks is reasonably priced.
Only at an airport, where everything else is jacked-up, too.
My kettle takes about a minute.
Yeah, but your kettle has access to a few thousand watts (several horsepower) through your house circuit. I'd like to see the amount of calcium oxide required to output that kind of heat!
I don't know why the parent post was modded funny, because, for a lot of the food we buy, the packaging weighs nearly as much as the food itself. Doesn't that seem a bit strange? That for every sandwhich you eat in your lifetime there is a plastic bag in a landfill?
Starbucks, while it is not great coffee, is significantly better than the brown water that most of us Americans are used to drinking at home.
I think Starbucks coffee tastes like dirt (only an idiot would think of it as "gourmet"). I very much prefer what comes out of my own coffee pot, and I use generic coffee! Hint: the coffee pot matters more than the coffee itself.
Grocery store checkers around here are 'tarded slow.
Grocery stores also have the absolute worst cashier setup known to mankind. Short queues with many more registers than necessary. It just sucks, and everytime someone calls the manager, or writes a check, or can't find another penny, or whose credit card won't work, I just can't stand it! Why can't they be just a little teeny bit smarter and set up two or three lines, each with three registers!?!?!?!?! Grocery store designers should go fuck themselves with a dump truck, because they deserve it.
If out of every 300 million people there are a couple dozen terrorists...
The problem is that the number of terrorists are within the margin of error for any measurement system. Ask any experimental scientist or statistician about measurements and errors; they will agree. The only thing the government can do is reduce the number of terrorists to an acceptable level. The politicians will never admiit it, but this is exactly how they think (just as long as I can get through this term without any attacks...).
The biggest advances needed would be in speech to text transcription.
And translation. This sort of technology is still bleeding edge in research circles, IIRC. Add in all the cultural nuances in language, and accurate translation might be impossible (e.g., there's nothing like Shakespeare in the original Klingon).
Aren't the calendar and clock very well defined, such that it's only a matter of looking up a spec for making a correct program?
Sure, there are a number of idiot programmers out there who assume 30 day months or whatever, but, really, the data structures required for a full calendar implementation are not that big. Also, it isn't like there aren't a ton of parsing utilities out there.
90% of the problems can be eliminated by enforcing a very simple and intuitive form for data entry, like very clearly labeled date fields that keep the user from having to guess mmddyy or mmddyyyy or ddmmyyyy etc.
BTW, yyyymmdd is correct and all of you are wrong!
I shop Walmart. I also went to private schools until grad school, where I got my Ph.D. in Statistics.
I think you meant to say: "I work at Walmart. How may I help you?"
Windows XP and 2000 can both run fine on 128 megs
ROFL!
Well, to give the VIA laptop some more credit, it uses less power probably than the AMD one.
Actually, each distro has its own little additions and, consequently, quirks.
GNU's not UNIX. I get a bit of a laugh out of that.
Try reading this, or just look at a Plasma and an LCD.
Try looking at an LCD and a Plasma after a few years. TVs aren't cheap, and only a chump would buy one that has to have its lifespan covered up in marketing materials. One looking better in a showroom does not mean ultimate customer satisfaction (if it did, I'd have bought a better looking car).
Like many people have said: plasma is a temporary technology until other technologies reach plasma's price/inches ratio.
"My Chevy Vega actually broke in half going over railroad tracks..."
That's priceless.
Autos are the one thing CR does well, because the the gargantuan market for such information. For other things, like appliances or audio equipment, CR is much less useful, as it provides just basic screening information and models churn so frequently that the information is often obselete.
It's kinda sad that the Japanese are even out-doing the Germans, now. Why buy German, when you can choose among Subaru (small, sporty, and fast) or Lexus (sporty with nicer toys).
Inefficient: not compared to the minivans it's a smaller replacement for
Actually, pretty much all the minivans get better gas milage. The PT Cruiser is essentially an SUV with a little Neon 4-banger engine. That's a recipe for bad milage, because the little engine has to work so hard. There's a sweet spot for engines for a particular car, and the PT missed it (hearing this from a former PT owner).
Or anything American-made from 1970 to 1995.
Oh, and they required a hugeass expensiveass server to boot and run.
Yes, but once the server and network is set up, the Sun Rays are supposed to be zero-administration, meaning the administrators don't have to waste hours driving or running around for on-site support, unless a Ray is physically broken. Also, the Sun Ray server can be a 24-CPU rack mount deal (only a few hundred grand or so) that'll run at high utilization serving hundreds of clients if sized right. Setting up desktops for hundreds of people for only a few million dollars doesn't seem all that bad, really, considering the absence of spyware, etc., on Solaris/Linux.
40GB would certainly not fill up quickly with the type of things my parents do on a computer...
I host three different complete operating systems for diskless clients plus do all my personal work off of one 36GB drive. I'm still at only 68% utilization. For some things, I agree the article's author did whatever it took to do bias for bias' sake (shock value == entertainment, anymore, it seems).
Is there any news about a grammar-checking or style-checking tool?
Don't know.
I've heard that if you stick bad ECC RAM up your ass, the bile acids will clean off the faulty transistors. It sometimes takes four, perhaps five, cleaning attempts before it works. Also, don't come complaining to me if they get stuck!