Your ultrabook would still fail at administering a remote server while you were on an extended backpacking trip, and even if it had 3g it would run out of batteries.
My iPad charges beautifully from my SunTactics solar panel.
I guess the question is, does the dollar amount paid for an object determine the utility of said object, or are there other considerations?
For me, having a small, light computer with lots of battery life and 3g data is important enough to justify additional expense, especially if it frees me from having to be within reach of Wifi to get to a shell prompt. An Ultrabook might have 3g but it can't charge with any promptness from such a small light solar charger, nor is it as small or light.
The push to ban guns has nothing to do with safety and crime. It's all about clearing out any ability to resist sweeping governmental changes that would be met with armed resistance from gun owners and sane people who love freedom.
Never let the gun grabbers get away with their sanctimonious act that they care about crime. This is something that needs to be emphasized, they don't care about crime, they want to eliminate the rest of the freedoms that the 2nd Amendment protects.
As Moe Szyslak said, "the whole modern world's got a swishifying effect on a young man" and you seem to be proof of it. In the 80's in the upper Midwest, we had a rifle range in the school basement where all e students learned gun safety. It was not uncommon to see kids with guns, but it was uncommon to see then being unsafe.
Guns are part of the American way of life, and this media fear blitz that is current will not change this fact.
We give kids toy cars, too, and by any metric they are far deadlier than guns.
Actually Comcast gives me 5 globally addressable IP addresses, and my iPad is rooted, so I can have my cake and eat it too, both ways. Also, the 3g network is perfectly adequate for shell sessions.
"Here in the 21st century computers have advanced to the point where we don't need to physically prototype things anymore - it can, and has been, done digitally for well over a decade now."
Heh. While digital design has been around for quite some time now, there are ALWAYS test runs of a new processor. At this time, a new CPU is typically tested and manufacturing tweaked for maybe a WHOLE YEAR before it comes to market.
Most everybody with an iPad (everybody I know that has one) also has a "real" computer, and one can easily ssh into the "real" computer from the iPad and run nginx, php, ruby, java, sqlite, mysql, some IDEs and all the unix toolkit. Plus the iPad has a 30+ hour battery life (remember the 10 hour figure is for watching HD video over the network, about the most intensive thing one can do on the iPad).
If you have no stake in the matter you wouldn't be on Slashdot attempting to polish China's image every time something like this comes up, nor would you be attempting to muddy the waters and poison the well by suggesting that it is because of racism.
I support India and Australia because they are not oppressive combloc states, and they have no business putting Chinese military-grade spyware into their infrastructure.
Wikipedia does an interesting breakdown on the devices used to visit their site and Android usage is much lower than one might expect from Google's and that shady ass StatCounter's numbers.
"- sales rates go up when games have less DRM - piracy goes up when games have more DRM independent of sales rate"
Why would they see these things when they aren't true? I mean, yeah, it'd be nice if they were true but they aren't.
The thing is, sure, you might get a few people to abstain from a game because of intrusive DRM as a moral decision, but ultimately they are mere drops in a bucket. The majority of people out there will buy a game because they want it, regardless.
Then the company looks at TPB and sees that their games are being pirated, whether or not they have DRM. One would suppose that this would cause a company like EA to give up on DRM but you don't understand how they think. They *know* that a portion of people pirating that game would have purchased it, had the DRM been strong enough to prevent the piracy, and so the wheel turns.
Ultimately I think sooner or later game companies will make use of trusted computing base type technologies and serve serialized, encrypted binaries from the Internet which will be locked to a given PC. Whether or not this actually increases sales is another question, but clearly EA is going to be the first to try this.
I wonder how much money they were offered to leave Flash as an auto-playing plugin? And by whom - ad networks, Adobe itself, or maybe a shady lobbying group that's a little from column A and a little from column B?
To be fair, we don't even know how many Android devices are even sold to consumers, let alone turned on. Google shovels out its fake, massaged activation numbers but they can not be trusted.
Actually, while many manufacturers offer Mac analogues of their horrid Windows printer driver packages, laden with the typical spyware and ads, you can just add a printer manually using Gutenprint, and the printer will work. Including the Kodak drivers!
"Their current issue is the problem of iOS and Android eating their lunch on casual consumptive computing activities."
Nope. You're seeing what twang to see. The issue that MS has is that iOS and Android are designed specifically as touch environments. They are not bastard half-breed OS environments that were WIMPy with touch added on later.
Many people are now using the iPad and Android tablets as their primary computing devices. I know lots of peo who use their iPads as portable terminals for Unix type systems. I know lots of writers who realized that they could hook up a Bluetooth keyboard to their iPad and have a writing tool with a 30 hour battery life. I know musicians who wouldn't think of using expensive dedicated MIDI knob / slider banks any more, and who use TouchOSC now.
So, no, the tablet is not by design a "consumptive device" but rather a new way interacting with programs, rather than pointing at them with some other device yuse a finger or a stylus. However, yan still use a keyboard and do yr typing just as nicely.
Actually, they're not. Everything they do makes perfect sense when you actually study the situation. The clearly have game theorists informing decisions at the top level.
Now, our yellow media portrays them as insane, but our media is just as reliable as North Korea's.
Bluetooth is not cumbersome to use. It's very simple, dead simple even. And interactive bar code marketing has been tried, and has flopped consistently ever since the CueCat came out. PR codes are just the latest flop, and passive radio tags are set to flop as well other than in inventory control and other logistics.
Marketers are marketers, though, and will try to sell their snake oil to companies, and succeed, despite its worthlessness. Companies want to be hip to technology even if it stupid and so we endure this shit.
The problem with that scenario is that China responds immediately with a full spread, turning our ICBM attack into a suicide bid. We nuke them back, Russia gets involved, etc. total world cinder pile.
A NK ICBM attack on the USA, if successful, would be dealt with militarily but not by an instant launch of another nuke. Anyway, they aren't stupid or insane in NK, they retain nukes as a deterrent, to prevent an invasion.
The NYT is just as bad, what with the Maureen Dowds and the made-up shit about WMDeeeez and countless other overt propaganda pieces. Our media is no more honest than that of North Korea, perhaps less so because while they do not play around and pretend to be anything but government propaganda, our media does.
Slashdot Mirror
Your ultrabook would still fail at administering a remote server while you were on an extended backpacking trip, and even if it had 3g it would run out of batteries.
My iPad charges beautifully from my SunTactics solar panel.
I guess the question is, does the dollar amount paid for an object determine the utility of said object, or are there other considerations?
For me, having a small, light computer with lots of battery life and 3g data is important enough to justify additional expense, especially if it frees me from having to be within reach of Wifi to get to a shell prompt. An Ultrabook might have 3g but it can't charge with any promptness from such a small light solar charger, nor is it as small or light.
The push to ban guns has nothing to do with safety and crime. It's all about clearing out any ability to resist sweeping governmental changes that would be met with armed resistance from gun owners and sane people who love freedom.
Never let the gun grabbers get away with their sanctimonious act that they care about crime. This is something that needs to be emphasized, they don't care about crime, they want to eliminate the rest of the freedoms that the 2nd Amendment protects.
I'm sure the old Hitler Youth tactic of training kids to inform on parents is next on the agenda. Good point.
And you wouldn't take my guns, clearly because you're a disarmed sissy-boy.
As Moe Szyslak said, "the whole modern world's got a swishifying effect on a young man" and you seem to be proof of it. In the 80's in the upper Midwest, we had a rifle range in the school basement where all e students learned gun safety. It was not uncommon to see kids with guns, but it was uncommon to see then being unsafe.
Guns are part of the American way of life, and this media fear blitz that is current will not change this fact.
We give kids toy cars, too, and by any metric they are far deadlier than guns.
Come and take mine. I dare you.
Meanwhile you probably own an automobile, a machine which kills more people than guns every year.
Anyway, I will never give up my assault rifles with 30 round magazines, because FUCK YOU and everybody who has your piss poor attitude.
"So you're saying, "there are a lot of abusive asshats out there." That's true. Are you going to let that keep you from doing things?"
Risky things, yeah, lots of us will avoid risky behavior.
Actually Comcast gives me 5 globally addressable IP addresses, and my iPad is rooted, so I can have my cake and eat it too, both ways. Also, the 3g network is perfectly adequate for shell sessions.
"Here in the 21st century computers have advanced to the point where we don't need to physically prototype things anymore - it can, and has been, done digitally for well over a decade now."
Heh. While digital design has been around for quite some time now, there are ALWAYS test runs of a new processor. At this time, a new CPU is typically tested and manufacturing tweaked for maybe a WHOLE YEAR before it comes to market.
"Software should never be able to do anything irreversible to hardware."
Clearly you've never set the wrong parameters with XFree86 on a CRT. Also the old "printer on fire" message comes to mind.
Java .jar files with AWT, of course!
Most everybody with an iPad (everybody I know that has one) also has a "real" computer, and one can easily ssh into the "real" computer from the iPad and run nginx, php, ruby, java, sqlite, mysql, some IDEs and all the unix toolkit. Plus the iPad has a 30+ hour battery life (remember the 10 hour figure is for watching HD video over the network, about the most intensive thing one can do on the iPad).
Do that with your netbook. Oh wait. You can't.
So get over yourself.
So you do what every serious person does, that wants a portable computer that has a 30 hour battery. You get a Bluetooth keyboard for your iPad.
If you have no stake in the matter you wouldn't be on Slashdot attempting to polish China's image every time something like this comes up, nor would you be attempting to muddy the waters and poison the well by suggesting that it is because of racism.
I support India and Australia because they are not oppressive combloc states, and they have no business putting Chinese military-grade spyware into their infrastructure.
Wikipedia does an interesting breakdown on the devices used to visit their site and Android usage is much lower than one might expect from Google's and that shady ass StatCounter's numbers.
"- sales rates go up when games have less DRM
- piracy goes up when games have more DRM independent of sales rate"
Why would they see these things when they aren't true? I mean, yeah, it'd be nice if they were true but they aren't.
The thing is, sure, you might get a few people to abstain from a game because of intrusive DRM as a moral decision, but ultimately they are mere drops in a bucket. The majority of people out there will buy a game because they want it, regardless.
Then the company looks at TPB and sees that their games are being pirated, whether or not they have DRM. One would suppose that this would cause a company like EA to give up on DRM but you don't understand how they think. They *know* that a portion of people pirating that game would have purchased it, had the DRM been strong enough to prevent the piracy, and so the wheel turns.
Ultimately I think sooner or later game companies will make use of trusted computing base type technologies and serve serialized, encrypted binaries from the Internet which will be locked to a given PC. Whether or not this actually increases sales is another question, but clearly EA is going to be the first to try this.
I wonder how much money they were offered to leave Flash as an auto-playing plugin? And by whom - ad networks, Adobe itself, or maybe a shady lobbying group that's a little from column A and a little from column B?
Shame on you Mozilla Foundation.
To be fair, we don't even know how many Android devices are even sold to consumers, let alone turned on. Google shovels out its fake, massaged activation numbers but they can not be trusted.
Why? Google is the biggest data miner on the planet, and they make more money as they refine their profile of you. They are the Internet Gestapo.
Apple, by comparison, is rather innocent.
Actually, while many manufacturers offer Mac analogues of their horrid Windows printer driver packages, laden with the typical spyware and ads, you can just add a printer manually using Gutenprint, and the printer will work. Including the Kodak drivers!
"Their current issue is the problem of iOS and Android eating their lunch on casual consumptive computing activities."
Nope. You're seeing what twang to see. The issue that MS has is that iOS and Android are designed specifically as touch environments. They are not bastard half-breed OS environments that were WIMPy with touch added on later.
Many people are now using the iPad and Android tablets as their primary computing devices. I know lots of peo who use their iPads as portable terminals for Unix type systems. I know lots of writers who realized that they could hook up a Bluetooth keyboard to their iPad and have a writing tool with a 30 hour battery life. I know musicians who wouldn't think of using expensive dedicated MIDI knob / slider banks any more, and who use TouchOSC now.
So, no, the tablet is not by design a "consumptive device" but rather a new way interacting with programs, rather than pointing at them with some other device yuse a finger or a stylus. However, yan still use a keyboard and do yr typing just as nicely.
Actually, they're not. Everything they do makes perfect sense when you actually study the situation. The clearly have game theorists informing decisions at the top level.
Now, our yellow media portrays them as insane, but our media is just as reliable as North Korea's.
Bluetooth is not cumbersome to use. It's very simple, dead simple even. And interactive bar code marketing has been tried, and has flopped consistently ever since the CueCat came out. PR codes are just the latest flop, and passive radio tags are set to flop as well other than in inventory control and other logistics.
Marketers are marketers, though, and will try to sell their snake oil to companies, and succeed, despite its worthlessness. Companies want to be hip to technology even if it stupid and so we endure this shit.
The problem with that scenario is that China responds immediately with a full spread, turning our ICBM attack into a suicide bid. We nuke them back, Russia gets involved, etc. total world cinder pile.
A NK ICBM attack on the USA, if successful, would be dealt with militarily but not by an instant launch of another nuke. Anyway, they aren't stupid or insane in NK, they retain nukes as a deterrent, to prevent an invasion.
The NYT is just as bad, what with the Maureen Dowds and the made-up shit about WMDeeeez and countless other overt propaganda pieces. Our media is no more honest than that of North Korea, perhaps less so because while they do not play around and pretend to be anything but government propaganda, our media does.
Wake up.
Nobody has any good information on the size of their gadgets. I find it bizarre that you think you do. Could be huge, could be small, who knows.