Just to further that, surface area and efficient use of that surface area comes into play as well. There is a reason for our brains looking like pruned grapes:D
I'm working my way through a CS degree. The math classes are interesting, but the CS stuff is all 'we'll pretend this is how theory works out in the real world, while pretending to teach you how the theory works in the labs.' Interesting, but not particularly useful except when teaching.
I wanted to get into computer programming and a friend of mine was taking CS and asked me whether I'd rather write code and produce things, or whether I wanted to learn about writing code, and learn about how to produce things. I said the more practical obviously and ended up choosing college over university. (In Canada btw) My friend says CS is so much theory and not enough practicality for him to put it to use outside of academia.
You're definitely not alone sir. I hold almost exactly the same opinion on the CoD Series. CoD 2 didn't live up to being better than CoD/CoD:UO so I lost interest in the franchise. Also, CoD4 just looks like CoD2 on roids, not very good imo.
Over the last few millenia we've chipped away at God's domain until almost nothing remains,
While I do slightly agree with you, this 'chipping' was started in large parts even before Christianity began. Philosophers in ~5-600 B.C. thought lots about whether gods domain was truly eternal, truly immortal, truly pure and good, etc. You should read some Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and Pythagoras as well. I can't say these gentlemen invented what you're eluding to, but they surely did much to make skepticism and the 'usefulness' of god's presence in the general population a large topic. Sure, they were still religious in some sense, but more like most people in North America are religious today. Aristotle, for sure, was focused more on what we might call individual spirituality where God is attributed to something in the individual (e.g. what the mind perceives god to be for them) rather than being the centerpiece of a weekly gathering which demands money, or a god which commands his 'subjects'.
That's insane, my EEE 701(very first generation) boots in ~15-20 seconds to XP, granted it's NLited. I still don't see how your XP would take 3 minutes. I used to lurk around the eeeuser.com forums a lot and haven't ever heard of someone having that long of a boot time. Throw up a video of it taking 3 whole minutes and I'll believe you.
You could have told her to install SSH or x11vnc or something similar and do it all remotely yourself.
Sure it might take a little bit of router work but that stuff is very painless to do over the phone. I've done it myself lots with people who can't figure things out on their own, they get all amazed when they see that I can control their computer via remote desktop hundreds or thousands of miles away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing My understanding of cloud computing is that which is an application or some useful web page for people to use online, none of the data input is stored on the clients computer, it's all on the server. Wikipedia article uses google apps as an example, google docs/spreadsheets/etc have the ability to store everything for you on their servers.
That couldn't have been said better. The collective mind of the public in general is so moldable by marketing I find it hilarious. I've had hundreds of university students (I am one myself) argue with me about how awesome their Mac is, just because it's theirs, and Mac commercials say so. They never get down to discussing the hardware or software, or anything else other than they love their Mac. They love it, with no reasons as to why.
On another note, I'd like to see the price of a laptop bought with Windows, OS/X, Linux and then OS-Free (meaning the drive(s) come blank wtih no OS) compared. Compared properly as well, not like TFA where you go to two brands' websites (Sony and Lenovo) and use their builders. I know it's not the best comparison when looking at the general public because the very large majority would never consider buying a laptop without OS/X or Windows but...
Sounds like Windows Vista was like the new discovery of a pokemon. Wait! [Windows Vista] is evolving! [Windows Vista] has evolved into [Windows Server 2008]! Wait! [Windows Server 2008] is evolving! [Windows Server 2008] has evolved into [Windows 7]!
While XP gets left behind... someone feed it rare candy's plz:(
Try running XP without installing video drivers, try scrolling around in any window (browser or document), it will lag stupidly. Not having lag seems pretty necessary to me, but maybe i'm just spreading more of that FUD.
Most people that I talk to that are the least bit computer savvy that are interested in linux, are often mislead and think that it's very very hard to use, and that they will have to abandon Windows all together into the land of the unknown that is Linux. What I usually advocate is that I can install Linux *inside* Windows for them, using VMwares free stuff. http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization .html/ I've had a few people tell me this is an awesome way of experimenting, because they can turn it on and off whenever they feel like it, and if they have problems inside Linux they have Windows as their dominant OS running, which is their comfort zone for getting help from either you, or sites, etc.
The only problem with this is how well VM's work without 1gb of ram, but almost all PC's and laptop's i've seen in the last year have had at least 768mb of ram, which should be good enough to make it function without being too laggy.
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Just to further that, surface area and efficient use of that surface area comes into play as well. There is a reason for our brains looking like pruned grapes :D
I'm working my way through a CS degree. The math classes are interesting, but the CS stuff is all 'we'll pretend this is how theory works out in the real world, while pretending to teach you how the theory works in the labs.' Interesting, but not particularly useful except when teaching.
I wanted to get into computer programming and a friend of mine was taking CS and asked me whether I'd rather write code and produce things, or whether I wanted to learn about writing code, and learn about how to produce things. I said the more practical obviously and ended up choosing college over university. (In Canada btw) My friend says CS is so much theory and not enough practicality for him to put it to use outside of academia.
You're definitely not alone sir. I hold almost exactly the same opinion on the CoD Series. CoD 2 didn't live up to being better than CoD/CoD:UO so I lost interest in the franchise. Also, CoD4 just looks like CoD2 on roids, not very good imo.
Spartans already did this with no results, haven't you seen 300?
While I do slightly agree with you, this 'chipping' was started in large parts even before Christianity began. Philosophers in ~5-600 B.C. thought lots about whether gods domain was truly eternal, truly immortal, truly pure and good, etc. You should read some Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and Pythagoras as well. I can't say these gentlemen invented what you're eluding to, but they surely did much to make skepticism and the 'usefulness' of god's presence in the general population a large topic. Sure, they were still religious in some sense, but more like most people in North America are religious today. Aristotle, for sure, was focused more on what we might call individual spirituality where God is attributed to something in the individual (e.g. what the mind perceives god to be for them) rather than being the centerpiece of a weekly gathering which demands money, or a god which commands his 'subjects'.
That's insane, my EEE 701(very first generation) boots in ~15-20 seconds to XP, granted it's NLited. I still don't see how your XP would take 3 minutes. I used to lurk around the eeeuser.com forums a lot and haven't ever heard of someone having that long of a boot time. Throw up a video of it taking 3 whole minutes and I'll believe you.
You could have told her to install SSH or x11vnc or something similar and do it all remotely yourself. Sure it might take a little bit of router work but that stuff is very painless to do over the phone. I've done it myself lots with people who can't figure things out on their own, they get all amazed when they see that I can control their computer via remote desktop hundreds or thousands of miles away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing My understanding of cloud computing is that which is an application or some useful web page for people to use online, none of the data input is stored on the clients computer, it's all on the server. Wikipedia article uses google apps as an example, google docs/spreadsheets/etc have the ability to store everything for you on their servers.
That couldn't have been said better. The collective mind of the public in general is so moldable by marketing I find it hilarious. I've had hundreds of university students (I am one myself) argue with me about how awesome their Mac is, just because it's theirs, and Mac commercials say so. They never get down to discussing the hardware or software, or anything else other than they love their Mac. They love it, with no reasons as to why.
On another note, I'd like to see the price of a laptop bought with Windows, OS/X, Linux and then OS-Free (meaning the drive(s) come blank wtih no OS) compared. Compared properly as well, not like TFA where you go to two brands' websites (Sony and Lenovo) and use their builders. I know it's not the best comparison when looking at the general public because the very large majority would never consider buying a laptop without OS/X or Windows but...
Sounds like Windows Vista was like the new discovery of a pokemon. Wait! [Windows Vista] is evolving! [Windows Vista] has evolved into [Windows Server 2008]! Wait! [Windows Server 2008] is evolving! [Windows Server 2008] has evolved into [Windows 7]! While XP gets left behind... someone feed it rare candy's plz :(
Try running XP without installing video drivers, try scrolling around in any window (browser or document), it will lag stupidly. Not having lag seems pretty necessary to me, but maybe i'm just spreading more of that FUD.
Not to mention a half-billion dollars to Google is not really a lot of money, look how much they spent on Youtube.
Most people that I talk to that are the least bit computer savvy that are interested in linux, are often mislead and think that it's very very hard to use, and that they will have to abandon Windows all together into the land of the unknown that is Linux. What I usually advocate is that I can install Linux *inside* Windows for them, using VMwares free stuff. http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization .html/ I've had a few people tell me this is an awesome way of experimenting, because they can turn it on and off whenever they feel like it, and if they have problems inside Linux they have Windows as their dominant OS running, which is their comfort zone for getting help from either you, or sites, etc.
The only problem with this is how well VM's work without 1gb of ram, but almost all PC's and laptop's i've seen in the last year have had at least 768mb of ram, which should be good enough to make it function without being too laggy.