> - batteries. You can run a heavy, hot laptop for about 2-3 hours before needing a lengthy recharge. You can run a handheld PDA for roughly the same amount of time; current drain scales up proportionately. You are going to need a couple of orders of magnitude better power sources to replace a desktop; 12 hours of continuous use per day for several days, I would guess.
Laptops can connect to outlets too, but unlike desktops, they have their own battery in case no external power supplies are available, and that's an advantage, because no matter how bad a laptop's battery is, desktops don't even have one to compete.
> - data input. The desktop/laptop has this amazing invention, the full size keyboard, that lets us enter tons of information more quickly and accurately than any other method. Having used a Palm handheld and mobile phone for years I can safely conclude that the keyboard is in no danger of being replaced. Speech recognition still sucks and that's the one possible alternative.
Laptops can connect to desktop keyboards and mice too, but unlike desktops, they have their own input devices in case nothing better is available, and that's an advantage, because no matter how bad the builtin laptop's keyboard or touchpad is, desktops don't have them to compete.
> - display. Desktops have awesome displays; it's not uncommon to have 19" or 24" displays these days, nice crisp LCD screens. Nothing compares to this. Teeny little 3" screens are not going to replace these any time soon.
Laptops can connect to desktop displays and televisions too, but unlike desktops, they have their own displays in case nothing better is available, and that's an advantage for two reasons: 1 - no matter how bad the laptop's builtin display is, desktops don't have even have one to compete, and 2 - with a desktop monitor or television, the laptop's display can be used as a second monitor for a dual head setup, so you can drag the least important applications there and use the desktop display or television as your primary display while a desktop would require you to buy a second monitor to achieve the same functionality.
> - storage. Desktops start at 40G of permanent storage and go up to terabytes. Nothing else can compare. What's more, our storage needs are growing, not shrinking. We're not going to switch to Pocket PC/Phone/consoles that have maybe a 10G memory card or a 30G hard disk and give up our 250 giggers.
Portable hard drives are the solution for your storage problem, and unlike desktop hard drives, they are portable.
> - connectivity. A desktop is on DSL or Cable or T1 or dial-up and is a reliable way to access the internet. Handheld devices have to be in range of a wireless hub or in network for cellular connections. The widely available connectivity for broadband handheld devices simply doesn't exist yet. My previous apartment was in some kind of Verizon dead zone, in a big suburb next to Boston so it would have been impossible to have handheld broadband or even handheld slow dialup. THere's a tremendous amount of infrastructure to be built, just to displace an existing infrastructure that works pretty well.
Laptops can connect to DSL, Cable, ISDN, and Dial-Up too, but unlike desktops, they also have the ability to connect to the Internet from anywhere as long as wireless services are available. and this is an advantage, because it doesn't matter how bad their connectivity outdoors is, desktops have nothing to compete.
In the end laptops win, because they do everything desktops do and more. At the moment my laptop is replacing at least 2 desktops: one at work and another at home, with the added advantages of having my work desktop at home, my home desktop at work, and a usable computer at meetings, holidays, etc.
I agree that the modularity of desktops makes them better in some cases, but since you didn't mention that I can only disagree with evertything you said.
> If there is a vanilla plain-jane non-souped-up installation of a Perl interpreter that allows you access to Layer 2, then it's going against the Java security model.
Just don't run the perl-script as root and you are good to go. I just can't see why Perl would ever have to follow that Java security model. Operating systems come with privilege systems for a reason.
Fully integrated with MySQL Server, the InnoDB storage engine maintains its own buffer pool for caching data and indexes in main memory. InnoDB stores its tables and indexes in a tablespace, which may consist of several files (or raw disk partitions). This is different from, for example, MyISAM tables where each table is stored using separate files. InnoDB tables can be of any size even on operating systems where file size is limited to 2GB.
Ever since the Inktome engine (which allowed one to search for files by extension) disappeared from HotBot that I've been looking for a replacement service. Thumbs up for Yahoo for this achievement, they have really beaten Google to it this time.
> I wouldn't want to come up with an actual good policy solution that will let parents and kids both keep their freedom and also reduce the harm that some of this stuff causes when it inevitably gets into their hands.
Can you prove by any means that the crime rate is in any way related with video games?
> Rather, I think I'll just lobby the government to allow porn, liquor, and drugs to flow through the streets, then jail the parents of any kid who reaches out and touches it.
I don't think anyone has suggested arresting parents for allowing their kids to play violent videogames either, you are the one implicitly suggesting such a thing. What the parent poster meant was that parents are responsible for the content they allow their children to interact with. Rockstar produces games and rates them accordingly. If parents choose to ignore those ratings and allow their children to play, whose fault is it?
My ASUS motherboard can also flash itself from a bootable CD. In fact it's the only way to revert to the original BIOS in case your flash doesn't go so well and you end up with a blank screen after rebooting.
For me there are two kinds of people in the world, one kind feels the need to have the things done but they lack the potential, the other kind has he potential but they lack the need to have things done, their skills are only useful to serve others, not themselves, and this is the way it has to be, one has to learn to cooperate.
In moments of boredom when no challenges are made, people of the second kind will just do anything to improve their skills, this includes aiming at virtual objectives with the sole purpose of learning with the development process. They don't care much whether they accomplish their virtual objectives successfully or not as long as they feel that they have learned enough with them. Those virtual objectives are the so called bad ideas. Let the people of the first kind (the ones with the need) lead the people of the second kind (the ones with the potential) and you get amazing results.
> Also, isn't it peculiar that when you complete a complex or lengthy game you rarely want to replay it
I finished GTA Vice City (*) 3 times, the original Deus Ex 9 times, and Deus Ex - Invisible War 5 times. All of them are extremely long games, especially Vice City, and I still want to finish them a couple more times.
Finally I am not even a gamer, just play for fun when I feel like doing it, but the games I like are games for life.
Eheh, I noticed it was sarcasm right after pressing submit when I finally read your signature, but it was already too late and I'm sorry for that.
The PDA is a Yopy YP-3700. Unfortunately G.Mate has discontinued the international production line two weeks ago, therefore the project in which I am involved is nolonger as relevante as it used to be.
> All those Mac and Linux fanboys acting like their systems don't crash every day?
Never had my Linux desktops crashed irreversibly without knowing the reason. Programs do crash sometimes, Firefox starts eating resources like mad after a few weeks of use, but unlike on a certain operating system we all know about, it doesn't take everything with it.
About my Linux servers I only remember having a problem years ago with a Linux 2.4.10 kernel that suddenly began leaving processes in uninterruptable sleeps after about 200 days of uptime and I never managed to figure out why, but besides that, all the Linux machines I left on my previous job are still running with almost a year and a half of uptime without any maintenance at all.
My PDA also runs Linux, and I happen to be the one developing its kernel, which means that not only it's as stable as I want it to be, but I also have my problems fixed when I need to.
Given all the above, I am sorry to inform you that no, our systems don't crash every day.
PS: I am not a Linux zealot, don't get me wrong, I recognize that Windows has its uses and merits, but security and stability are not among them.
Nintendo World Cup and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles were both heavy games with regular slowdowns and flickering sprites. I don't know whether or not the flickering sprites are in any way related to the slowdowns, but it always seemed so to me.
I don't know how screen is performing today, but it surely didn't compare to a true Xterm compatible terminal back when I needed it (a year ago). For example: try the following escape strings with and without screen and compare the differences: "\e[4mHello world!\e[m" (shall be underlined on terminals capable of rendering underlined characters), "\e[5mHello world!\n[m" (shall blink or have a bright background on ANSI terminals), and "\e[7mHello world!\e[m" (shall be reversed on ANSI terminals), and I won't even mention the ability to receive mouse events, create buffered windows, and many other things that an Xterm compatible terminal has to offer!
Screen also has a few irritating keyboard issues with some of the "gray keys" which can only be fixed by hacking through stty and/or termcap, rather anti-productive when you are in a hurry.
Well... I do not use to block any ads mostly because I've learned to ignore them (the least intrusive ones), and Slashdot ads are among those ads that I can simply ignore. Even though I usually ignore most ads, I've found the ServerBeach Slashdot ad interesting because the advertisers were offering exactly the kind of service I was looking for for exactly the price I was willing to pay, and they were advertising it exactly on the second website I most visit (right after Google). I also checked out the RackSpace ad, but their steep prices as well as their intrusive operator popups telling me what I needed simply pissed me off. Anway you can see by these examples that I was looking for server hosting services and Slashdot ads came in handy!
Ads do not need to be intrusive to be successful, they just need to be published in the right placess and advertise things that people might be looking for.
PS: ServerBeach and RackSpace were only examples of ads I clicked on. I am not in any way or form affiliated with those companies.
> You want iTunes integrated into the Linux kernel?
No, but having a binary format (like ELF) and using native system calls that the kernel could actually understand without further interpretation (AKA emulation) would be a start. Since iTunes is not directly supported by the kernel you can't claim it runes on the kernel, and make sure you read it well, I said on, not in. The way you put things even windows runs on Linux (with a "little" help from VMware of course).
> Yeah, good luck on that one, seeing how all major releases from the major labels are going to be DRM'd. When your choices are ridiculous DRM (CD) and easily-circumvented DRM (FairPlay on AAC), which one are you going to choose brainiac?
About DRM my opinion is exactly the same as most of the Slashdot crowd, except for that I won't think about it until it becomes a real problem for me (evolution theory).
There is no point in continuing with this discussion, therefore I am giving up on any further arguments.
> Does it work on Linux? Yes? Stop flapping your dick holster then.
No, it works on WinE, I thought I had already clarified that point. WinE (a userspace program) is not in anyway or form linked to Linux (a kernel).
> Yeah, try that out with the new "CDs" that the RIAA is gushing about. Put them in a PC you can easily mount the ISO track that contains DRM'd.WMA files. Want to play the CD audio tracks? Read errors ahoy! Some component/car CD players don't work with them either. That's our future.
If they do not respect the Orange Book specifications they are not CDs and should not be labelled COMPACT DISCS. I was talking about CDs, you are not. If I ever bought one of those discs I would simply return it under the argument that they are not playable on my COMPACT DISC devices because they do not even conform to the minimum quality requirements.
Last time I read about the Microsoft's buffer overflow protection implementation in Windows PX Service Pack 2, they were talking about the NX bit present in page entries when the PAE mode was active in AMD x86-64 processors. Even though that protection exists in the new AMD x86-64 processors' MMUs, Intel P4 as well as older AMD processors do not yet support that bit, which means that processes running over them do not get any page-based protection against code execution, even while running SP2.
However I see many people trusting their lives on SP2's protection even without processor support, and I don't see Microsoft willing to clarify this issue either, so I'm starting to believe that probably there is something else that I am not aware of in SP2 which simulates the same kind of protection on processors without hardware support.
Is SP2 really protecting against stack smashing (for example) on processors without hardware support for non-executable pages? Or is it just general ignorance that Microsoft exploits for their own profit?
> I've got a couple ideas: Professioal gamer or spyware/virus tester.
Man, I know you'r kidding, but I've already been paid to play games (for a quality assurance department). The idea was to test and benchmark the latest hardware, and that included playing games on it, and no, it couldn't be done without Windows.
No, that's iTunes And Codeweavers Wine (which provides a Windows framework), not Linux.
> As for restrictions, to each his own, I personaly don't find it any more restrictive than buying a CD.
CDs can be played almost everywhere as they do not require a speicific brand and device to be played on. Additionally, I have all my CDs ripped off to MP3 for commodity purposes. How can I do that with AAC without sacrificing quality? Even MP3 is more portable than Apple's AAC since everyone is allowed to unencode it. The only issue with MP3 is that encoders need to be licensed. Keeping on the compatibility issue: how much software supports MP3 and how much software supports AAC?
Last (and the article really begs for this question): since when is iPod an MP3 player?
After playing for a while there I changed my mind about the place. That place is really nice. Games to play (at least one), vehicles to drive (to compensate from the lost fly ability), free clothing, and people all over the place.
Think I'm gonna try that Cop/Thief game as soon as I get more free time to play Second Life.
Slashdot Mirror
> - batteries. You can run a heavy, hot laptop for about 2-3 hours before needing a lengthy recharge. You can run a handheld PDA for roughly the same amount of time; current drain scales up proportionately. You are going to need a couple of orders of magnitude better power sources to replace a desktop; 12 hours of continuous use per day for several days, I would guess.
Laptops can connect to outlets too, but unlike desktops, they have their own battery in case no external power supplies are available, and that's an advantage, because no matter how bad a laptop's battery is, desktops don't even have one to compete.
> - data input. The desktop/laptop has this amazing invention, the full size keyboard, that lets us enter tons of information more quickly and accurately than any other method. Having used a Palm handheld and mobile phone for years I can safely conclude that the keyboard is in no danger of being replaced. Speech recognition still sucks and that's the one possible alternative.
Laptops can connect to desktop keyboards and mice too, but unlike desktops, they have their own input devices in case nothing better is available, and that's an advantage, because no matter how bad the builtin laptop's keyboard or touchpad is, desktops don't have them to compete.
> - display. Desktops have awesome displays; it's not uncommon to have 19" or 24" displays these days, nice crisp LCD screens. Nothing compares to this. Teeny little 3" screens are not going to replace these any time soon.
Laptops can connect to desktop displays and televisions too, but unlike desktops, they have their own displays in case nothing better is available, and that's an advantage for two reasons: 1 - no matter how bad the laptop's builtin display is, desktops don't have even have one to compete, and 2 - with a desktop monitor or television, the laptop's display can be used as a second monitor for a dual head setup, so you can drag the least important applications there and use the desktop display or television as your primary display while a desktop would require you to buy a second monitor to achieve the same functionality.
> - storage. Desktops start at 40G of permanent storage and go up to terabytes. Nothing else can compare. What's more, our storage needs are growing, not shrinking. We're not going to switch to Pocket PC/Phone/consoles that have maybe a 10G memory card or a 30G hard disk and give up our 250 giggers.
Portable hard drives are the solution for your storage problem, and unlike desktop hard drives, they are portable.
> - connectivity. A desktop is on DSL or Cable or T1 or dial-up and is a reliable way to access the internet. Handheld devices have to be in range of a wireless hub or in network for cellular connections. The widely available connectivity for broadband handheld devices simply doesn't exist yet. My previous apartment was in some kind of Verizon dead zone, in a big suburb next to Boston so it would have been impossible to have handheld broadband or even handheld slow dialup. THere's a tremendous amount of infrastructure to be built, just to displace an existing infrastructure that works pretty well.
Laptops can connect to DSL, Cable, ISDN, and Dial-Up too, but unlike desktops, they also have the ability to connect to the Internet from anywhere as long as wireless services are available. and this is an advantage, because it doesn't matter how bad their connectivity outdoors is, desktops have nothing to compete.
In the end laptops win, because they do everything desktops do and more. At the moment my laptop is replacing at least 2 desktops: one at work and another at home, with the added advantages of having my work desktop at home, my home desktop at work, and a usable computer at meetings, holidays, etc.
I agree that the modularity of desktops makes them better in some cases, but since you didn't mention that I can only disagree with evertything you said.
> If there is a vanilla plain-jane non-souped-up installation of a Perl interpreter that allows you access to Layer 2, then it's going against the Java security model.
Just don't run the perl-script as root and you are good to go. I just can't see why Perl would ever have to follow that Java security model. Operating systems come with privilege systems for a reason.
test on a filesystem against MySQL.
Repeat with me: I don't need a filesystem for my InnoDB tables! Guess that pretty much kills your argument.
>> no-one uses it when native alternatives are available anyway
Aren't hundreds of Linux distributions out there enough to prove that assumtion wrong? Gcc is used regardless of its speed because it's free.
Ever since the Inktome engine (which allowed one to search for files by extension) disappeared from HotBot that I've been looking for a replacement service. Thumbs up for Yahoo for this achievement, they have really beaten Google to it this time.
> I wouldn't want to come up with an actual good policy solution that will let parents and kids both keep their freedom and also reduce the harm that some of this stuff causes when it inevitably gets into their hands.
Can you prove by any means that the crime rate is in any way related with video games?
> Rather, I think I'll just lobby the government to allow porn, liquor, and drugs to flow through the streets, then jail the parents of any kid who reaches out and touches it.
I don't think anyone has suggested arresting parents for allowing their kids to play violent videogames either, you are the one implicitly suggesting such a thing. What the parent poster meant was that parents are responsible for the content they allow their children to interact with. Rockstar produces games and rates them accordingly. If parents choose to ignore those ratings and allow their children to play, whose fault is it?
My ASUS motherboard can also flash itself from a bootable CD. In fact it's the only way to revert to the original BIOS in case your flash doesn't go so well and you end up with a blank screen after rebooting.
For me there are two kinds of people in the world, one kind feels the need to have the things done but they lack the potential, the other kind has he potential but they lack the need to have things done, their skills are only useful to serve others, not themselves, and this is the way it has to be, one has to learn to cooperate.
In moments of boredom when no challenges are made, people of the second kind will just do anything to improve their skills, this includes aiming at virtual objectives with the sole purpose of learning with the development process. They don't care much whether they accomplish their virtual objectives successfully or not as long as they feel that they have learned enough with them. Those virtual objectives are the so called bad ideas. Let the people of the first kind (the ones with the need) lead the people of the second kind (the ones with the potential) and you get amazing results.
> Also, isn't it peculiar that when you complete a complex or lengthy game you rarely want to replay it
I finished GTA Vice City (*) 3 times, the original Deus Ex 9 times, and Deus Ex - Invisible War 5 times. All of them are extremely long games, especially Vice City, and I still want to finish them a couple more times.
Finally I am not even a gamer, just play for fun when I feel like doing it, but the games I like are games for life.
(*) = Killed Sonny Forelly.
Eheh, I noticed it was sarcasm right after pressing submit when I finally read your signature, but it was already too late and I'm sorry for that.
The PDA is a Yopy YP-3700. Unfortunately G.Mate has discontinued the international production line two weeks ago, therefore the project in which I am involved is nolonger as relevante as it used to be.
> All those Mac and Linux fanboys acting like their systems don't crash every day?
Never had my Linux desktops crashed irreversibly without knowing the reason. Programs do crash sometimes, Firefox starts eating resources like mad after a few weeks of use, but unlike on a certain operating system we all know about, it doesn't take everything with it.
About my Linux servers I only remember having a problem years ago with a Linux 2.4.10 kernel that suddenly began leaving processes in uninterruptable sleeps after about 200 days of uptime and I never managed to figure out why, but besides that, all the Linux machines I left on my previous job are still running with almost a year and a half of uptime without any maintenance at all.
My PDA also runs Linux, and I happen to be the one developing its kernel, which means that not only it's as stable as I want it to be, but I also have my problems fixed when I need to.
Given all the above, I am sorry to inform you that no, our systems don't crash every day.
PS: I am not a Linux zealot, don't get me wrong, I recognize that Windows has its uses and merits, but security and stability are not among them.
Nintendo World Cup and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles were both heavy games with regular slowdowns and flickering sprites. I don't know whether or not the flickering sprites are in any way related to the slowdowns, but it always seemed so to me.
I don't know how screen is performing today, but it surely didn't compare to a true Xterm compatible terminal back when I needed it (a year ago). For example: try the following escape strings with and without screen and compare the differences: "\e[4mHello world!\e[m" (shall be underlined on terminals capable of rendering underlined characters), "\e[5mHello world!\n[m" (shall blink or have a bright background on ANSI terminals), and "\e[7mHello world!\e[m" (shall be reversed on ANSI terminals), and I won't even mention the ability to receive mouse events, create buffered windows, and many other things that an Xterm compatible terminal has to offer!
Screen also has a few irritating keyboard issues with some of the "gray keys" which can only be fixed by hacking through stty and/or termcap, rather anti-productive when you are in a hurry.
Well... I do not use to block any ads mostly because I've learned to ignore them (the least intrusive ones), and Slashdot ads are among those ads that I can simply ignore. Even though I usually ignore most ads, I've found the ServerBeach Slashdot ad interesting because the advertisers were offering exactly the kind of service I was looking for for exactly the price I was willing to pay, and they were advertising it exactly on the second website I most visit (right after Google). I also checked out the RackSpace ad, but their steep prices as well as their intrusive operator popups telling me what I needed simply pissed me off. Anway you can see by these examples that I was looking for server hosting services and Slashdot ads came in handy!
Ads do not need to be intrusive to be successful, they just need to be published in the right placess and advertise things that people might be looking for.
PS: ServerBeach and RackSpace were only examples of ads I clicked on. I am not in any way or form affiliated with those companies.
About FOV, Deus Ex had a low FOV of 75 too, and I don't recall people getting sick because of that.
> I believe his point was that none of these people read Slashdot
;-)
You mean those people are productive?
> You want iTunes integrated into the Linux kernel?
No, but having a binary format (like ELF) and using native system calls that the kernel could actually understand without further interpretation (AKA emulation) would be a start. Since iTunes is not directly supported by the kernel you can't claim it runes on the kernel, and make sure you read it well, I said on, not in. The way you put things even windows runs on Linux (with a "little" help from VMware of course).
> Yeah, good luck on that one, seeing how all major releases from the major labels are going to be DRM'd. When your choices are ridiculous DRM (CD) and easily-circumvented DRM (FairPlay on AAC), which one are you going to choose brainiac?
About DRM my opinion is exactly the same as most of the Slashdot crowd, except for that I won't think about it until it becomes a real problem for me (evolution theory).
There is no point in continuing with this discussion, therefore I am giving up on any further arguments.
> Does it work on Linux? Yes? Stop flapping your dick holster then.
.WMA files. Want to play the CD audio tracks? Read errors ahoy! Some component/car CD players don't work with them either. That's our future.
No, it works on WinE, I thought I had already clarified that point. WinE (a userspace program) is not in anyway or form linked to Linux (a kernel).
> Yeah, try that out with the new "CDs" that the RIAA is gushing about. Put them in a PC you can easily mount the ISO track that contains DRM'd
If they do not respect the Orange Book specifications they are not CDs and should not be labelled COMPACT DISCS. I was talking about CDs, you are not. If I ever bought one of those discs I would simply return it under the argument that they are not playable on my COMPACT DISC devices because they do not even conform to the minimum quality requirements.
Last time I read about the Microsoft's buffer overflow protection implementation in Windows PX Service Pack 2, they were talking about the NX bit present in page entries when the PAE mode was active in AMD x86-64 processors. Even though that protection exists in the new AMD x86-64 processors' MMUs, Intel P4 as well as older AMD processors do not yet support that bit, which means that processes running over them do not get any page-based protection against code execution, even while running SP2.
However I see many people trusting their lives on SP2's protection even without processor support, and I don't see Microsoft willing to clarify this issue either, so I'm starting to believe that probably there is something else that I am not aware of in SP2 which simulates the same kind of protection on processors without hardware support.
Is SP2 really protecting against stack smashing (for example) on processors without hardware support for non-executable pages? Or is it just general ignorance that Microsoft exploits for their own profit?
> I've got a couple ideas: Professioal gamer or spyware/virus tester.
Man, I know you'r kidding, but I've already been paid to play games (for a quality assurance department). The idea was to test and benchmark the latest hardware, and that included playing games on it, and no, it couldn't be done without Windows.
Misinformation from me then, I thought it only played AAC! :-)
> iTunes: And Linux too
No, that's iTunes And Codeweavers Wine (which provides a Windows framework), not Linux.
> As for restrictions, to each his own, I personaly don't find it any more restrictive than buying a CD.
CDs can be played almost everywhere as they do not require a speicific brand and device to be played on. Additionally, I have all my CDs ripped off to MP3 for commodity purposes. How can I do that with AAC without sacrificing quality? Even MP3 is more portable than Apple's AAC since everyone is allowed to unencode it. The only issue with MP3 is that encoders need to be licensed. Keeping on the compatibility issue: how much software supports MP3 and how much software supports AAC?
Last (and the article really begs for this question): since when is iPod an MP3 player?
RealPlayer doesn't support SHOUTcast AFAIK, which is the reason for which I use WinAMP under Windows. Under Linux I use Zinf.
Reply to myself.
After playing for a while there I changed my mind about the place. That place is really nice. Games to play (at least one), vehicles to drive (to compensate from the lost fly ability), free clothing, and people all over the place.
Think I'm gonna try that Cop/Thief game as soon as I get more free time to play Second Life.
Been there for a while, but for some reason I couldn't fly, and walking is rather boring...