Too heavy, too short battery life, and not as readable as a dedicated eBook reader for reading, not powerful enough, screen too small to be a decent laptop, and not as portable as a 3G cell phone if all you need to do is get directions or something. The problem with all the 'touch pad' like products is that they fill a much needed gap in the computer products. landscape.
An Unmanned areal vehicle. This much closer to wood model than it is to something like, say, a Cessna 154. They aren't armored, they fly really, really slow, and they are built to be ultra light so they can fly a long time. It is totally unsurprising that a relatively low powered laser could shoot down a UAV.
I bought a copy of Vista 64 for my last build to run legacy software, roughly translated 'games', and it doesn't run a lot of them. I would have preferred to run 32 bit XP, but it wouldn't install. I'm doing everything I need to do on Linux these days, so I can't see ever buying another copy of Windows. At those prices, it is a very poor value proposition.
I personally find getting anything done on Windows vastly more time consuming than on Linux, and that's even after you have installed cygwin and everything else you need to get it up to the 'barely adequate' state. Microsoft really doesn't what OSS to compete on 'value' because by any reasonable standard of 'value', Microsoft products lose. FWIW, I typically get 2 or 3 times as much real, productive work done as most of the rest of the folks at my shop, and it isn't because I'm a super genius or anything. It's just that everybody else is stuck with the 'corporate standard' desktop (ie Windows) and spend most of their time pushing that rock uphill.
They are the victim of an attempted extortion racket over a couple of bogus patents. Why on earth should extortion victims have to explain why they didn't just pay up instead of taking the bastards to court?
Net neutrality is the idea that all packets on the net are treated at the same priority.
Feinstein's amendment apparently is intended to allow ISP's to block traffic that teh MPAA or RIAA claim is copyright infringement. It is still a bad idea, but has nothing to do with net neutrality. FWIW, in nothern califronia, Feinstein is generally considered to be a Democrat in name only. She has been solidly pro-war, pro-torture, and pro copyright holders for quite some time.
That's more or less my feeling as well. Of course, Matthew Paul Thomas misses the forest for the trees; free software has usability problems for roughly the same reasons as proprietary software has usability problems. One size doesn't fit all, and the more optional features there are, the less well it works for the people that only really needed size 'medium'. IMHO, Fedora is now much more 'usable' than Windows, and has been for quite a while. For example, Nautilus does things 'out of the box' that requires 2 or 3 additional 'add ons' on Windows and most of those are free software too.
The problem is that his boss, the President of the United States, has decided that the vast bulk of NASA's money should be spent on a welfare program for giant aerospace companies (i.e. "the base"), not on science missions. If the 'man on mars' fantasy, the shuttle, and the to date absolutely useless ISS project were shut down, there would be plenty of money to do science under NASA's current budget. Which isn't to say that NASA management shouldn't be tight with each dollar. They should. However as long as NASA is primarily a vehicle for rewarding campaign contributors and companies in key congressional districts, they are never going to do much science. Sending people into space just isn't cost effective. If the Mars rovers haven't proven anything else, they have conclusively shown that robots can do space research far better than humans can, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
[If you're not a gamer, you have -no- reason to buy a card at all.]
One reason might be to get dual-DVI outputs. I would guess that most monitors are now sold with DVI, but on board video seems to be lagging behind in this area. Maybe next year. That said, you certainly don't need to spend $250 to get a dual-DVI card.
[one gang switched to hitting tourist in rental cars, on the assumption they'd be unarmed - both by airport regs and lack of a permit.]
This is a total fantasy. The were hitting tourist in cars because the road signs was bad and the tourists got lost, and tourists typically carry more loot than the average folk being on vacation and all. It was mitigated by removing the tourist markings from cars, improving the signs around the airport, and arresting the people responsible. The CGW law came in to effect at least a decade later, so it is hard to fathom how it had anything to do with resolving the issue. I was living in South Florida at the time the tourists were being targeted.
I'd like Mr. McConnell to explain how eavesdropping on American citizens in America lead to the break up of a plot by Arabs living in Germany who were plotting to blow up things in Germany. Because the first thing I do when I'm planning on committing a crime is to call up somebody in another country and spill the beans.
[4. Outlooks+Exchange are a better Enterprise calendering system than anything I have seen from FOSS. 5. Sharepoint. I haven't seen anything as easy to use from the FOSS community.]
You're kidding, right? We have sharepoint here, and it is the biggest pile of web based application crap that I have ever used. Horrid in every respect. As for Outlooks+Exchange, I'm using Thunderbird/Lightening with our Exchange server because it works a lot better. I don't particularly care if other users can't see my calendar.
[So, while the extremely low end chips do well with this analysis, they make much less sense when you consider total system costs.]
Maybe, maybe not. On Newegg right now (and other similar sites) an AMD 3800+ 65W goes for about $67. A 4600+ 65W goes for about $113.00, a difference of about $45. That $45 will buy an extra GB of memory and most people will benefit more from a 100% jump in memory from 1GB to 2GB than they will from the 25% jump in clock rate, though it probably won't show up in these benchmarks at all. Like the article points out, 'best value' depends a lot on what you plan on doing with the computer.
Just what you would expect from Microsoft. How about Slashdot adopt a policy that it will *never* publish an article which refers to an article in which Vendor A says Vendor A's products are better than all the competing products? I know, that would eliminated 90% of the so called 'news' out there, but if there was ever a case where Sturgeon's Law applied, it is to PR fluff pieces like this one. For the most part, on a single user system, the only thing that matters is 'How many remote exploits allow an attacker to modify the system?'. In 10 years of running Linux, I've had that happen once (the old wu-ftpd teardrop attack. God knows how many Windows systems have had to clean up. I have to admit, I have no idea how secure Vista is or isn't. I don't plan to find out. Even without security flaws Vista is an extremely poor value.
This looks like a mistake in the numbers. Steam turbines are extremely efficient, much more efficient than internal combustion engines. Most of the world's electricity is generated by steam turbines. The problem with steam is that you either need to condense the steam back to water, or run a total loss system. Either one is problematic for a motor vehicle.
My wife use to do response rate modeling for targeted advertising for a credit card company. The response rate is really, really low. You can't afford to pay very much per impression because otherwise, the numbers don't work out. They really don't work out for a Symantec who doesn't know who the buyer is, and there is a pretty good chance that the buyer is already a customer. What Dell ought to do is label certain models as 'Linux certifed' and allow you to buy those machines without Windows and the price of Windows deducted. The *ONLY* reason Dell (or any other Windows OEM) doesn't do this is that Microsoft threatened to retaliate in some way that would increase Dell's price for Windows and or MS Office. We don't know what form that threat took, but I guarantee you that this stupidity was dictated by Microsoft.
Your experience is the opposite of mine. I have a dual boot machine here at work running Windows XP and CentOS4, and one at home running dual boot WindowsXP and Fedora Core 5, and I pretty much run 99% Linux. Why? Because for me, it simply works better. If I was using wireless, I might feel differently, but I doubt it.
Geeze, this guy has to be a shill because it is impossible to be that clueless and still operating a computer keyboard. Let me lay it out for this clown the real top 6 reasons that people continue to pay for windows:
1) It came preinstalled on their computer.
2) They want to run some program that only runs on Windows
3) People send them documents in formats that can only be read on Windows.
4) They never had the option to not pay for it. Unlike every other component on their machine, they can not configure a system without Windows and have the price deducted.
5) If they had any 'computer training' the only thing they were taught is how to use Microsoft Office.
6) Did I mention that it came pre-installed and they had to pay for it whether they wanted it or not?
Microsoft doesn't have any interest in suing current Linux users for patent infringement. They are small potatoes. Microsoft just wants to keep current Windows users under their thumb, and they really want to keep the vassals like Dell in line. It's pretty clear that Microsoft has come down from the mountain with the One Commandment for OEMs: 'Thou shall not sell a desktop or notebook system without a Microsoft tax'. Since for Microsoft OEMs, disobeying their lord and master means nearly instant death, they play along. You would think that the USDOJ or Congress might take an interest, but apparently not. Their attitude seems to be "move along, nothing to see here" while Microsoft beats the brains out of anybody that might consider buying from another vendor.
[I mean even ME was eventually profitable, but I think that with vista that it will take less time.]
this is the key point; Microsoft is an extremely successful abusive monopolist. Vista could be just a rebranded Windows ME, and if Microsoft decided it was in Microsoft's best interest to have that be their flagship operating system, that's what their customers would get. Microsoft has decided that their customers will get Vista, and that's what will happen as soon as MSFT ends support for XP. Windows customers aren't going to have anything to say about it one way or another.
The programs that make up SPEC *are* real world programs that have been selected by the SPEC committee as representative of typical workloads. The mix of programs that make up SPEC change over time to reflect the fact that CPU's become more capable. In particular, many older benchmarks in the SPEC suite have been dropped because they now fit entirely in L2 cache.
All that said, this is the hardware equivalent of Fredrick Brooks maxim that 'the Paper tiger is always better than the actual one unless reality is required'. What matters is what AMD is actually delivering at what price at what volume. A chip that you can't buy has an effective real world SPEC_int and SPEC_fp of 0.
Slashdot Mirror
Too heavy, too short battery life, and not as readable as a dedicated eBook reader for reading, not powerful enough, screen too small to be a decent laptop, and not as portable as a 3G cell phone if all you need to do is get directions or something. The problem with all the 'touch pad' like products is that they fill a much needed gap in the computer products. landscape.
An Unmanned areal vehicle. This much closer to wood model than it is to something like, say, a Cessna 154. They aren't armored, they fly really, really slow, and they are built to be ultra light so they can fly a long time. It is totally unsurprising that a relatively low powered laser could shoot down a UAV.
I bought a copy of Vista 64 for my last build to run legacy software, roughly translated 'games', and it doesn't run a lot of them. I would have preferred to run 32 bit XP, but it wouldn't install. I'm doing everything I need to do on Linux these days, so I can't see ever buying another copy of Windows. At those prices, it is a very poor value proposition.
I personally find getting anything done on Windows vastly more time consuming than on Linux, and that's even after you have installed cygwin and everything else you need to get it up to the 'barely adequate' state. Microsoft really doesn't what OSS to compete on 'value' because by any reasonable standard of 'value', Microsoft products lose. FWIW, I typically get 2 or 3 times as much real, productive work done as most of the rest of the folks at my shop, and it isn't because I'm a super genius or anything. It's just that everybody else is stuck with the 'corporate standard' desktop (ie Windows) and spend most of their time pushing that rock uphill.
They are the victim of an attempted extortion racket over a couple of bogus patents. Why on earth should extortion victims have to explain why they didn't just pay up instead of taking the bastards to court?
Net neutrality is the idea that all packets on the net are treated at the same priority. Feinstein's amendment apparently is intended to allow ISP's to block traffic that teh MPAA or RIAA claim is copyright infringement. It is still a bad idea, but has nothing to do with net neutrality. FWIW, in nothern califronia, Feinstein is generally considered to be a Democrat in name only. She has been solidly pro-war, pro-torture, and pro copyright holders for quite some time.
That's more or less my feeling as well. Of course, Matthew Paul Thomas misses the forest for the trees; free software has usability problems for roughly the same reasons as proprietary software has usability problems. One size doesn't fit all, and the more optional features there are, the less well it works for the people that only really needed size 'medium'. IMHO, Fedora is now much more 'usable' than Windows, and has been for quite a while. For example, Nautilus does things 'out of the box' that requires 2 or 3 additional 'add ons' on Windows and most of those are free software too.
The problem is that his boss, the President of the United States, has decided that the vast bulk of NASA's money should be spent on a welfare program for giant aerospace companies (i.e. "the base"), not on science missions. If the 'man on mars' fantasy, the shuttle, and the to date absolutely useless ISS project were shut down, there would be plenty of money to do science under NASA's current budget. Which isn't to say that NASA management shouldn't be tight with each dollar. They should. However as long as NASA is primarily a vehicle for rewarding campaign contributors and companies in key congressional districts, they are never going to do much science. Sending people into space just isn't cost effective. If the Mars rovers haven't proven anything else, they have conclusively shown that robots can do space research far better than humans can, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
The Sun Calendar server had this feature back around 1990 or so, maybe earlier.
[If you're not a gamer, you have -no- reason to buy a card at all.] One reason might be to get dual-DVI outputs. I would guess that most monitors are now sold with DVI, but on board video seems to be lagging behind in this area. Maybe next year. That said, you certainly don't need to spend $250 to get a dual-DVI card.
[one gang switched to hitting tourist in rental cars, on the assumption they'd be unarmed - both by airport regs and lack of a permit.]
This is a total fantasy. The were hitting tourist in cars because the road signs was bad and the tourists got lost, and tourists typically carry more loot than the average folk being on vacation and all. It was mitigated by removing the tourist markings from cars, improving the signs around the airport, and arresting the people responsible. The CGW law came in to effect at least a decade later, so it is hard to fathom how it had anything to do with resolving the issue. I was living in South Florida at the time the tourists were being targeted.
I'd like Mr. McConnell to explain how eavesdropping on American citizens in America lead to the break up of a plot by Arabs living in Germany who were plotting to blow up things in Germany. Because the first thing I do when I'm planning on committing a crime is to call up somebody in another country and spill the beans.
[4. Outlooks+Exchange are a better Enterprise calendering system than anything I have seen from FOSS.
5. Sharepoint. I haven't seen anything as easy to use from the FOSS community.]
You're kidding, right? We have sharepoint here, and it is the biggest pile of web based application crap that I have ever used. Horrid in every respect.
As for Outlooks+Exchange, I'm using Thunderbird/Lightening with our Exchange server because it works a lot better. I don't particularly care if other users can't see my calendar.
[So, while the extremely low end chips do well with this analysis, they make much less sense when you consider total system costs.]
Maybe, maybe not. On Newegg right now (and other similar sites) an AMD 3800+ 65W goes for about $67. A 4600+ 65W goes for about $113.00, a difference of about $45. That $45 will buy an extra GB of memory and most people will benefit more from a 100% jump in memory from 1GB to 2GB than they will from the 25% jump in clock rate, though it probably won't show up in these benchmarks at all. Like the article points out, 'best value' depends a lot on what you plan on doing with the computer.
Just what you would expect from Microsoft. How about Slashdot adopt a policy that it will *never* publish an article which refers to an article in which Vendor A says Vendor A's products are better than all the competing products? I know, that would eliminated 90% of the so called 'news' out there, but if there was ever a case where Sturgeon's Law applied, it is to PR fluff pieces like this one. For the most part, on a single user system, the only thing that matters is 'How many remote exploits allow an attacker to modify the system?'. In 10 years of running Linux, I've had that happen once (the old wu-ftpd teardrop attack. God knows how many Windows systems have had to clean up. I have to admit, I have no idea how secure Vista is or isn't. I don't plan to find out. Even without security flaws Vista is an extremely poor value.
This looks like a mistake in the numbers. Steam turbines are extremely efficient, much more efficient than internal combustion engines. Most of the world's electricity is generated by steam turbines. The problem with steam is that you either need to condense the steam back to water, or run a total loss system. Either one is problematic for a motor vehicle.
We would like to make a profit from open source software and not return anything to the community.
My wife use to do response rate modeling for targeted advertising for a credit card company. The response rate is really, really low. You can't afford to pay very much per impression because otherwise, the numbers don't work out. They really don't work out for a Symantec who doesn't know who the buyer is, and there is a pretty good chance that the buyer is already a customer. What Dell ought to do is label certain models as 'Linux certifed' and allow you to buy those machines without Windows and the price of Windows deducted. The *ONLY* reason Dell (or any other Windows OEM) doesn't do this is that Microsoft threatened to retaliate in some way that would increase Dell's price for Windows and or MS Office. We don't know what form that threat took, but I guarantee you that this stupidity was dictated by Microsoft.
Your experience is the opposite of mine. I have a dual boot machine here at work running Windows XP and CentOS4, and one at home running dual boot WindowsXP and Fedora Core 5, and I pretty much run 99% Linux. Why? Because for me, it simply works better. If I was using wireless, I might feel differently, but I doubt it.
Geeze, this guy has to be a shill because it is impossible to be that clueless and still operating a computer keyboard. Let me lay it out for this clown the real top 6 reasons that people continue to pay for windows: 1) It came preinstalled on their computer.
2) They want to run some program that only runs on Windows
3) People send them documents in formats that can only be read on Windows.
4) They never had the option to not pay for it. Unlike every other component on their machine, they can not configure a system without Windows and have the price deducted.
5) If they had any 'computer training' the only thing they were taught is how to use Microsoft Office.
6) Did I mention that it came pre-installed and they had to pay for it whether they wanted it or not?
Microsoft doesn't have any interest in suing current Linux users for patent infringement. They are small potatoes. Microsoft just wants to keep current Windows users under their thumb, and they really want to keep the vassals like Dell in line. It's pretty clear that Microsoft has come down from the mountain with the One Commandment for OEMs: 'Thou shall not sell a desktop or notebook system without a Microsoft tax'. Since for Microsoft OEMs, disobeying their lord and master means nearly instant death, they play along. You would think that the USDOJ or Congress might take an interest, but apparently not. Their attitude seems to be "move along, nothing to see here" while Microsoft beats the brains out of anybody that might consider buying from another vendor.
What a surprise. In other news, dog bites man.
[What keeps the most important and powerful communication tool since the telephone from being universally embraced?] Windows.
[I mean even ME was eventually profitable, but I think that with vista that it will take less time.] this is the key point; Microsoft is an extremely successful abusive monopolist. Vista could be just a rebranded Windows ME, and if Microsoft decided it was in Microsoft's best interest to have that be their flagship operating system, that's what their customers would get. Microsoft has decided that their customers will get Vista, and that's what will happen as soon as MSFT ends support for XP. Windows customers aren't going to have anything to say about it one way or another.
The programs that make up SPEC *are* real world programs that have been selected by the SPEC committee as representative of typical workloads. The mix of programs that make up SPEC change over time to reflect the fact that CPU's become more capable. In particular, many older benchmarks in the SPEC suite have been dropped because they now fit entirely in L2 cache.
All that said, this is the hardware equivalent of Fredrick Brooks maxim that 'the Paper tiger is always better than the actual one unless reality is required'. What matters is what AMD is actually delivering at what price at what volume. A chip that you can't buy has an effective real world SPEC_int and SPEC_fp of 0.