Ok, so since Laptops were first created, their whole idea was to be a way someone could do work remotely or in areas where having a desktop was hard or near imposibe for one reason or another. in 2003 "November 2003 survey of Penn State University undergraduates found that freshmen were more likely to own laptops than upperclassmen. Of 1,838 respondents, 73.7 percent own a desktop, 32.2 percent own a laptop, 9.2 percent own both, and 3.4 percent own neither." http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stori es/2004/08/23/focus1.html "t). Currently, one-quarter of Americans own a laptop or notebook computer (23 percent)" http://www.thegoodsteward.com/article.php3?article ID=1513
What does this tell us? it says that laptops are becoming more and more popular, and as they become more and more popular, there is a bigger drive towards creating the "ultimite laptop"
As far as i see it, Apple and IBM are the only good laptop companies. i know thats a dramatic statement, but look at it, any laptop over 6LBS is WAY TOO HEAVY to carry around. Most HP/Compaq laptops are 7 to 9 lbs. Most dells are in that same range.
what the laptop industry needs is a re-working of laptops. Sony has just released the X505 VAIO laptop, this laptop is built in the way all laptops should be built. It weighs a mear 1.73lbs WITH battery in it, and has enough power to run almost anything exept games and video editing.( But trying to play games on a laptop is just stupid anyway, small screen and no mouse or full keypad) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=31558&item=6736232824&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
(sorry if i am not suposed to link to auctions, it was the only english page i could find since its a japanese laptop)
The new centrino chips are amazing, to put it simply. If you put a 2ghz Pentium M into a desktop and slap on a liquid cooling system, you can overclock it to be way more powerful then a 3.46EE or even a 3.8ghz P4. The pentium M is just years ahead of its time, and people having figured it out yet! Its kinda like black lotus for all you magic players!
Big rockes are dieing.
NASA is getting their SCRAMJET system to work, if used on the space shuttle, it would drop its weight by 85%! That is a huge amount!
How it works, A scramjet works by extracting the oxygen required from the atmosphere is passes though, as long as it is travling faster then mach two (on earth's atmosphere) it can sustain flight. This gets rid of the need to cary liquid oxygen, allowing spacecraft to be much lighter, and to be able to go faster.
If the shuttle had a fuel tank the size of the moon, it still wouldnt even be able to get up to 1/10th the speed of light! (this is due to the mass of the liquid oxygen)
But dont you see? that is the beauty of this, Privit companies spending money on space exploration! This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that was invisioned when NASA was created. The space industry is likly to be a huge economic forfrount in the coming years, from tourist attractions to manufacturing. The main reason it has not become that yet, is that it takes billions of inital money to start off. Companies cannot risk this amount of money, but if you already have a thriving company like Paypal, you can spend this amount of money without worrying about not having any more money.
It seems to me the original idea of NASA is actualy going to work!
NASA was created in the begining to combine all of the branches of the government's space research in one location, to pionere new technologies, then, after a few decades, transfer the exploration of space over to the privite sector. Needless to say, NASA is stil in existance.
What is impresive about this is the fact that someone from a company is doing a project like this. The problem with the idea of space being exploited by companies is that the inital cost is too great, and the payoffs too little.
So what if it is 60 year old technology? They are still financing something that has little or no consivable payoffs for them in the short OR long run, appart from getting Paypal's name out there.
True, a big rocket isnt that creative or inovative, but its better then nothing right? (also, the comparitive size of the rocket is much smaller then the older ones) Just the fact that he could actualy use that much (1.5 bill)money on something like a space flight is impresive.
Its a good thing money from companies is going towards space, dont complain that its just a rocket, remember, NASA makes the new stuff! (scramjet)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, so since Laptops were first created, their whole idea was to be a way someone could do work remotely or in areas where having a desktop was hard or near imposibe for one reason or another. in 2003 "November 2003 survey of Penn State University undergraduates found that freshmen were more likely to own laptops than upperclassmen. Of 1,838 respondents, 73.7 percent own a desktop, 32.2 percent own a laptop, 9.2 percent own both, and 3.4 percent own neither." http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stori es/2004/08/23/focus1.html
e ID=1513
e gory=31558&item=6736232824&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
(sorry if i am not suposed to link to auctions, it was the only english page i could find since its a japanese laptop)
"t). Currently, one-quarter of Americans own a laptop or notebook computer (23 percent)" http://www.thegoodsteward.com/article.php3?articl
What does this tell us? it says that laptops are becoming more and more popular, and as they become more and more popular, there is a bigger drive towards creating the "ultimite laptop"
As far as i see it, Apple and IBM are the only good laptop companies. i know thats a dramatic statement, but look at it, any laptop over 6LBS is WAY TOO HEAVY to carry around. Most HP/Compaq laptops are 7 to 9 lbs. Most dells are in that same range.
what the laptop industry needs is a re-working of laptops. Sony has just released the X505 VAIO laptop, this laptop is built in the way all laptops should be built. It weighs a mear 1.73lbs WITH battery in it, and has enough power to run almost anything exept games and video editing.( But trying to play games on a laptop is just stupid anyway, small screen and no mouse or full keypad) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
The new centrino chips are amazing, to put it simply. If you put a 2ghz Pentium M into a desktop and slap on a liquid cooling system, you can overclock it to be way more powerful then a 3.46EE or even a 3.8ghz P4. The pentium M is just years ahead of its time, and people having figured it out yet! Its kinda like black lotus for all you magic players!
Big rockes are dieing.
NASA is getting their SCRAMJET system to work, if used on the space shuttle, it would drop its weight by 85%! That is a huge amount!
How it works, A scramjet works by extracting the oxygen required from the atmosphere is passes though, as long as it is travling faster then mach two (on earth's atmosphere) it can sustain flight. This gets rid of the need to cary liquid oxygen, allowing spacecraft to be much lighter, and to be able to go faster.
If the shuttle had a fuel tank the size of the moon, it still wouldnt even be able to get up to 1/10th the speed of light! (this is due to the mass of the liquid oxygen)
But dont you see? that is the beauty of this, Privit companies spending money on space exploration! This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that was invisioned when NASA was created. The space industry is likly to be a huge economic forfrount in the coming years, from tourist attractions to manufacturing. The main reason it has not become that yet, is that it takes billions of inital money to start off. Companies cannot risk this amount of money, but if you already have a thriving company like Paypal, you can spend this amount of money without worrying about not having any more money.
It seems to me the original idea of NASA is actualy going to work! NASA was created in the begining to combine all of the branches of the government's space research in one location, to pionere new technologies, then, after a few decades, transfer the exploration of space over to the privite sector. Needless to say, NASA is stil in existance. What is impresive about this is the fact that someone from a company is doing a project like this. The problem with the idea of space being exploited by companies is that the inital cost is too great, and the payoffs too little. So what if it is 60 year old technology? They are still financing something that has little or no consivable payoffs for them in the short OR long run, appart from getting Paypal's name out there. True, a big rocket isnt that creative or inovative, but its better then nothing right? (also, the comparitive size of the rocket is much smaller then the older ones) Just the fact that he could actualy use that much (1.5 bill)money on something like a space flight is impresive. Its a good thing money from companies is going towards space, dont complain that its just a rocket, remember, NASA makes the new stuff! (scramjet)