The poster obviously forgot the first rule of all non-mainstream desktop OS' (ie; not windows or mac), check for driver support before handing over your cash!
as has been already been pointed out, the sample is sufficiently small that one posting to a distros mailing-list or forum would severely skew the results. that's the fundamental trouble with all surveys of self-selecting participants.
Now, looking at a benchmark sponsored by Microsoft is like reading a study on climate written by an oil company, a study on health by a tobacco company... or even a Linux-Windows benchmark done by RedHat (although I trust RH a bit more than MS).
That's just the thing, the source shouldn't matter at all. I don't care if it's the CEO of Texaco telling me that all alternative fuels are crap. His statement will stand or fall on its own merits, regardless of his vested interest in the matter. His being the CEO of Texaco has zero bearing on the soundess of his argument. Granted this is idealized and as a practical matter it's usually wise to give closer scrutiny to those with a proverbial pony in the race. It is, however, ludicrous to discard their claims on this basis alone as some are wont to do around these parts for anything bearing a MS emblem.
Can we please for once be mature about it and look at their methodology objectively? I'll even grant that because it was commisioned by MS a little extra scrutiny is certainly due; but summarily discarding the study simply for this reason is the intellectual equivalent of sticking our fingers in our ears and screaming "lalalalalala" at the top of our lungs.
Pro-tip for mods: Any post that speaks in generalities about an indeterminate nation and not only diagnoses but draws conclusions from this (possibly hypothetical) nation's economic and political climate in ~50 words, can not possibly be informative or insightful.
seriously. while we're at it, let's talk about percentage with access to running or literacy rates, or hell, any other humanitarian statistic for that matter.
I always wondered what motivation robots have for "learning".
Robots have no "motivation" to do anything. they have a reward function that they try to maximize, but certainly it's not anything like that capricious human thing we call "motivation" (which is actually a very good thing).
Again, it should be mentioned that while it may make us feel very cool and cutting edge to apply human terms like learning, thinking, or motivation to machines; they really are ultimately meaningless in a non-human context and are only useful as analogues and in impressing your grand-mother with how her tivo "learns" her tastes
as Edsger Dijkstra famously said:
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
do we really need a story everytime a new city gets free wifi? It was cool and progressive the first dozen times it happened but now it's just about as exciting as reporting on SBC running fiber optic lines in a new area (which is to say, not very)
As long as the information is equally accessible, preserved with interoperable (read: open) standards and of similar quality I'm grossely indifferent whose flag is waving over the server-farm. Wasn't the internet supposed to do away with this nationalistic bs? *sigh*
Let me jump on the bewildered bandwagon right..... here
I love Gentoo, I run Gentoo, but I have zero delusions about the performance as every benchmark I've ever seen has shown at most a 1-2% improvement over the precompiled distros.
Besides, everyone knows that the real reason to run Gentoo is that having text constantly flying down your term makes people think you're up to some really cool Matrixy shit while in actuality you're recompiling Gaim to add support for the pokemon smiley set
At the same time, a large part of the added value of blog news is the unique perspective of the poster injected into the stories. If I wanted the facts and nothing but the facts I'd stick to FoxNews (joke!). I (and I don't think I'm alone on this) come here for the techie perspective, be it on the front page, or in the bowels of the comments.
Besides, it's very clear where he's opining and where he's reporting facts (you did well enough sorting it out for yourself)
I'm with you. Despite everyone elses cries of lazy parenting, it's just not realistic anymore to expect to have a parent at home at all the same times as the children. If it's good parenting to lock your alcohol/guns/porn away, why not something else which the parents have deemed detrimental in unregulated amounts.
Don't look so surprised, it's politics as usual and when the dems were in power the same nonsense goes on. Remember clinton's pardons for his cohorts in whitewater? he pardoned his own brother for chrissakes! I defy you to tell me that he was trying to represent the interests of the american people in any of those executive orders.
As they say, to the victor go the spoils, so lets not get get bogged down with these trivialities and focus instead on making sure we keep our collective nose out of further foreign civil (for a start).
The safety issues are tremendous. I don't mind when some new OS program dives on my laptop, but I'd rather not have a couple tons of snow-plow do so in my neighborhood.
as opposed to the software that's controlling modern jet-liners, automobiles, and mass-transit systems?
I'm seeing a surprising number of people crying out how fundamentally flawed the PTC is for not representing the will of the common American... well guess what? They don't pretend to, nor should they have to. Activist groups by definition will have a focus way beyond what the common man or woman has. Do you honestly think the ACLU or EFF represent the will of the man on the street? Do you think most people even know what DRM or IP is? The point here is that the PTC isn't bad because the population at large doesn't endorse them, they are bad because they're fruit-cakes with a normative moral agenda based on nothing but their personal beliefs and too much Dr. Phil.
The only thing really holding me back from taking these tablet pc's seriously is this long-held resentment I've harbored ever since wrestling with an original handspring visor. Maybe I have hand-writing so bad that is was literally unfathomable by the engineers at Handspring, but I invariably was relegated to the virtual keyboard for input. So my question to all and sundry is, has the tech improved substantially? Or are those of us with derelict handwriting forever chained to the keyboard?
Slashdot Mirror
so should I hold my breath that XMMS will follow suit?
Self-righteousness aside, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16833130111 + http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main _Page is a winning combination. It's been rock-solid for me on my mythbox under very heavy loads.
Plus the chipset maker (Railink) are good folks and release their specs + drivers to the F/OSS community.
(and yes, I do realize you were being facetious)
looks like they caught the PSP first thing in morning, how embarrassing!
as has been already been pointed out, the sample is sufficiently small that one posting to a distros mailing-list or forum would severely skew the results. that's the fundamental trouble with all surveys of self-selecting participants.
That's just the thing, the source shouldn't matter at all. I don't care if it's the CEO of Texaco telling me that all alternative fuels are crap. His statement will stand or fall on its own merits, regardless of his vested interest in the matter. His being the CEO of Texaco has zero bearing on the soundess of his argument. Granted this is idealized and as a practical matter it's usually wise to give closer scrutiny to those with a proverbial pony in the race. It is, however, ludicrous to discard their claims on this basis alone as some are wont to do around these parts for anything bearing a MS emblem.
Can we please for once be mature about it and look at their methodology objectively? I'll even grant that because it was commisioned by MS a little extra scrutiny is certainly due; but summarily discarding the study simply for this reason is the intellectual equivalent of sticking our fingers in our ears and screaming "lalalalalala" at the top of our lungs.
lowtax of SomethingAwful makes some interesting points amidst all his fuming but I'll have to defer to the /. tech wizards to vet his technical claims.
~AS
seriously. while we're at it, let's talk about percentage with access to running or literacy rates, or hell, any other humanitarian statistic for that matter.
Robots have no "motivation" to do anything. they have a reward function that they try to maximize, but certainly it's not anything like that capricious human thing we call "motivation" (which is actually a very good thing).
Again, it should be mentioned that while it may make us feel very cool and cutting edge to apply human terms like learning, thinking, or motivation to machines; they really are ultimately meaningless in a non-human context and are only useful as analogues and in impressing your grand-mother with how her tivo "learns" her tastes
as Edsger Dijkstra famously said:
~AS
do we really need a story everytime a new city gets free wifi? It was cool and progressive the first dozen times it happened but now it's just about as exciting as reporting on SBC running fiber optic lines in a new area (which is to say, not very)
As long as the information is equally accessible, preserved with interoperable (read: open) standards and of similar quality I'm grossely indifferent whose flag is waving over the server-farm. Wasn't the internet supposed to do away with this nationalistic bs? *sigh*
Let me jump on the bewildered bandwagon right..... here
I love Gentoo, I run Gentoo, but I have zero delusions about the performance as every benchmark I've ever seen has shown at most a 1-2% improvement over the precompiled distros.
Besides, everyone knows that the real reason to run Gentoo is that having text constantly flying down your term makes people think you're up to some really cool Matrixy shit while in actuality you're recompiling Gaim to add support for the pokemon smiley set
~AS (positively gay for quickly scrolling text)
At the same time, a large part of the added value of blog news is the unique perspective of the poster injected into the stories. If I wanted the facts and nothing but the facts I'd stick to FoxNews (joke!). I (and I don't think I'm alone on this) come here for the techie perspective, be it on the front page, or in the bowels of the comments. Besides, it's very clear where he's opining and where he's reporting facts (you did well enough sorting it out for yourself)
I imagine a decade of steaming (sic) would takes its toll on anybody
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/64-bits/index .x?pg=1
I'm with you. Despite everyone elses cries of lazy parenting, it's just not realistic anymore to expect to have a parent at home at all the same times as the children. If it's good parenting to lock your alcohol/guns/porn away, why not something else which the parents have deemed detrimental in unregulated amounts.
next person to make a joke about not openning the chute or dropping the stylus is gonna get stabbed in the throat
As they say, to the victor go the spoils, so lets not get get bogged down with these trivialities and focus instead on making sure we keep our collective nose out of further foreign civil (for a start).
as opposed to the software that's controlling modern jet-liners, automobiles, and mass-transit systems?
so basically, we all owe everyhing to the state, but we are the state, so, whoa... I smoked a fuckload of pot this morning, huh?
I'm seeing a surprising number of people crying out how fundamentally flawed the PTC is for not representing the will of the common American... well guess what? They don't pretend to, nor should they have to. Activist groups by definition will have a focus way beyond what the common man or woman has. Do you honestly think the ACLU or EFF represent the will of the man on the street? Do you think most people even know what DRM or IP is? The point here is that the PTC isn't bad because the population at large doesn't endorse them, they are bad because they're fruit-cakes with a normative moral agenda based on nothing but their personal beliefs and too much Dr. Phil.
The only thing really holding me back from taking these tablet pc's seriously is this long-held resentment I've harbored ever since wrestling with an original handspring visor. Maybe I have hand-writing so bad that is was literally unfathomable by the engineers at Handspring, but I invariably was relegated to the virtual keyboard for input. So my question to all and sundry is, has the tech improved substantially? Or are those of us with derelict handwriting forever chained to the keyboard?