People who act surprised by things like this don't read Dilbert nearly often enough.
It seems as though corporate America consists of people trying to write as much as possible without actually saying anything. If you don't believe me, go look at the mission statement of any big company. It doesn't read like English. If it did, they might be expected to actually make something concrete.
I've never done any really fancy pages, but many of the nicest websites I have seen have been made in text editors.
It makes me mad when high schools teach 'web development' classes. Using DreamWeaver or something similar. Those students are not learning how to create webpages. They are learning how to use a proprietary product to arrange colorful bits on the screen. The web dev classes should focus on the actual HTML through a text editor. If they still want to use DreamWeaver, they should offer it as a different class, 'advanced web development using DreamWeaver.'
You can't possibly make something good if you don't understand the basics. Then again, maybe I'm just a nut - I also think some playing time on Zork should be a prerequisite for any modern computer game.
Schools are making an attempt to fix this problem. I'm a student in aerospace engineering, and we have to learn to program in FORTRAN, because it's basically the industry standard in the field. However, we have also been working in Matlab. I like Matlab, and it's an excellent program, but it didn't seem to fit in very well with anything else we were doing, so I asked my instructor about it. He said that the goal was to introduce students to a completely different programming language, in order to demonstrate that the concepts were universal. We didn't relearn how to program; we were only shown the new commands. Surprisingly, almost everyone made the jump.
I live in America, but I recently visited a friend in the UK. I was surprised at first, when I realized that there was not a £1 bill. After using the currency for just a day, though, I saw the benefit to the system. Coins are much more durable than bills, and the £1 coin is a hefty thing that's almost fun to carry.
On top of that, it just seems more convenient to use. Most of the time, when you make a small purchase, it's a lot easier to reach into a pocket and pull out a few coins than to get out the wallet and find a bill in there.
This is especially true when you look at just how little you can get for $1 or even £1. We would never dream of having a 25 cent bill, because the money is worth so little that it would be inconvenient to use or carry a reasonable amount in bills. Bills should only be used for more expensive things, because they are less convenient and the more times they trade hands, the more likely they are to be torn or otherwise ruined.
When you go buy a large ice cream cone, and you get $3.50 back from your $5, which is easier? -Put 50 cents in pocket, then juggle cone to put $3 back into wallet and put wallet back into pocket or -Put handful of coins into pocket
Asus only sells to resellers, this is true. I recommend www.leadcomp.com
I got a nice Asus laptop from them, with no OS installed, and my total came to $400 less than a similarly equipped model from Dell.
Unfortunately, mine came with a Toshiba hard drive which failed spectacularly when it was about 8 months old. However, it appears that leadcomp has switched to Hitachi drives since my purchase. So long as they aren't DeathStars.
I agree with your point, but I have to ask: Can Grandma do this with Windows XP?
No, she probably can't. But, if she had to, a tech support worker could walk her through the whole thing, because there are not very many steps that require user involvement.
Even so, maybe a better example would be Dad. He's probably computer-savvy enough to install Windows XP if he needs to. But he still won't be able to install most Linux distributions.
The fact that you are running Gentoo completely ruins the point of your post. Did you actually read the article? Nobody said Linux wouldn't run on a laptop. The article was about running a Linux installer and having everything just work. Your system didn't 'just work' because it's Gentoo. I've installed Gentoo before, and as I recall, THERE IS NO INSTALLER. You copy a bunch of stuff, compile a bunch of stuff, and have a grand old time. It doesn't apply to this article, because Grandma can't go grab a Gentoo CD, pop it in the drive, and come back an hour later with a working system.
A 13" paper plane will have no chance of returning alive if it isn't taking off from a stationary carrier in calm see and no wind. It will have a very short range and speed. Bottom line: will it ever be able to see what a powerful set of binoculars wouldn't be able to see from the carrier anyways? And also, what't the point of having the stealth of a 13" paper plane, when just a few kilometers away is a ginormous aircraft carrier?
First, it's not a paper airplane, it's probably made of a bunch of exotic lightweight plastics and composite materials. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was capable of going faster than 15 knots. Then again, if you are attacking some smugglers, it's unlikely you are going to be doing it with an aircraft carrier - those are not generally used for direct ship-to-ship combat. It's likely you would be on a smaller, more heavily armed ship, and you could float around at a safe distance and go take a peek with your planes. You know, just to make sure they aren't all packing rocket launchers.
As for the binoculars: The key with this plane isn't getting a closer view of the same thing. If that's what we wanted, we could get telescopes big enough to watch the rust spreading on the hull of the other ship. The point of this is to get a view of something from a different direction. I don't care how powerful your binoculars are, they aren't going to be able to see the back of a ship you are approaching from the front.
You're awfully bold when you're posting anonymously, aren't you? The Slashdot forums are here specifically so people can share both opinions and information. On top of that, my post was a legitimate response to the parent post. However, I notice that it's perfectly acceptable for you to share your opinion. Damn hypocrite.
I have never had a problem with Tom's Hardware, even recently. Their site is cluttered with advertisements, sure, and sometimes the advertisements are related to the winning product in a given test. Isn't it possible, though, that some of these are targeted ads, placed on that page precisely because the name of that component occurred multiple times on that page?
Tom's Hardware has always run pretty intense tests. They had a power supply test a while back (unfortunately, I can't find the article, so I'm sure someone will say they don't believe me) where one of the contenders actually caught on fire during a test. Even if they take bribes for the winning product, which I doubt, the results for the other products are still accurate. They didn't make up the story about a power supply catching on fire during a stress test just to make the other supplies look better-that really happened.
I have very little experience with OSX. However, I use computers with Windows XP and several flavors of Linux on them. The XP computer almost never crashes, and the only time I have gotten a BSOD, it was because the hard drive had failed. In that situation, I doubt OSX or Linux would have kept on going, either.
Then again, the Linux computers are even more stable, and they can be left up for much longer without a restart. The XP computer starts to get unresponsive after about a week.
I was doing computer work for my aunt's church not too long ago. The church has a computer lab, open to the public. As I was sitting in the lab, working on a computer in the corner, a couple of little kids, maybe 7 years old, came running in to use a computer. I heard one of them, a little girl, say to the other, "Go to Internet Explorer. The blue one."
It made me sad. I remember thinking that they would be confused if I took IE away from them. It's not a really big deal, since the computers are fully patched and generally work pretty well.
Then again, maybe kids like that are a really good reason to switch those computers. I could install Firefox and get flash, shockwave, and javascript installed, then put up signs telling people to use Firefox. If the little kids got used to Firefox at church, they might decide they wanted to use it at home as well. I could print off some instruction sheets for installing Firefox, and let the conversion begin.
Since computer components run at extremely low power, the radiation shouldn't be an issue.
At the moment, computers do cause some harmful radio interference if you leave the side of the case off. Since this is Slashdot, I assume there are several people reading this who have theirs off. However, even acrylic cases or case windows are enough to stop that radio interference.
Even if the frequency picks up enough that we were getting microwave radiation, an aluminum case would still be able to block it. Even with the case open, the output would be so low that the worst it could do would be to ruin your cell phone reception if you were trying to talk with your head inside the case.
Look, I'm very sorry I hurt all your little feelings. I am fully aware of the difference between the two technologies, and I apologize for my mistake in my first post and my sarcasm in the second.
Here's my first post, rewritten properly: True dual-processor systems have two separate processors, in two separate sockets, cooled independently of each other. Dual systems are nice for number-crunching and multitasking because tasks can be assigned to whichever core is currently doing less work.
Intel's new dual-core places two cores on one chip. It's convenient because it offers some of the advantages of true dual systems, but I am sure they also had to make concessions because of heat and more limited connections (since both cores are connected through the same socket). I also doubt there will be much of a price advantage over a typical dual system, because any technology this new and unique will be extremely expensive.
I would also like to say that I don't know anything about AMD's offering of dual-core, so I can't comment on why their way is better. I'm sure it is, because AMD's way is always better, but I don't actually have proof of that.
Nobody has EVER used the term 'dual-core' to describe dual-processor SMP.
Pretty sure I just did.
A processor is a processing core mounted to a chunk of silicon which contains all the pins to connect the core to the motherboard. Given this, a computer with two processors also contains two cores. Since the word 'dual' has long been accepted to mean two of something, dual-core is a perfectly accurate description of a computer with two cores. It's totally irrelevant whether they are mounted on one silicon wafer or two.
True dual-core systems have two separate processors, in two separate sockets, cooled independently of each other. Dual systems are nice for number-crunching and multitasking because tasks can be assigned to whichever core is currently doing less work.
Intel's new dual-core places two cores on one chip. It's convenient because it offers some of the advantages of true dual systems, but I am sure they also had to make concessions because of heat and more limited connections (since both cores are connected through the same socket). I also doubt there will be much of a price advantage over a typical dual system, because any technology this new and unique will be extremely expensive.
The only solution is user education. It will be solved in 80 years when all the people who haven't had computers for their entire lives are dead.
Hardly. I'm a college student, so the people around me are young enough that they have been surrounded by computers from the day they were born. And yet, many of them are clueless. Just a few weeks ago we had an email virus running amok on campus. I remember when I got the first virus email, my roommate and I laughed as we predicted how many more of those messages we would see in the next week or so. Needless to say, we were not disappointed.
Some of the people in my classes have no idea what to do with their computers. I mean, most are fully capable of using the computer successfully - complexity isn't an issue. But security is. I overhear people talking about their computers, and it's all I can do to stop myself from laughing at them. I've also had a few friends switch from Mac to Windows. Using a Mac, they had never had to deal with anything but the most basic security before, and I think they were a bit overwhelmed when they realized how much attention they needed to pay while using Windows.
The problem is caused by people of any age who treat computers as simple tools. Many people just aren't interested enough in computers to learn what they need to know. User education is key, but we have to find a way to get average people interested in education. A computer isn't just a tool. When was the last time you had to do maintenance on your screwdriver?
Cell phone cpus are slow, and suck up the battery while they're working. But an entire chess board layout is very simple, and it wouldn't take much bandwidth to transmit your entire chess board layout to a remote computer which could then calculate the next move and transmit it back. (And that's assuming that the remote computer keeps no state information. If it kept track of the chess board itself, the bandwidth needed per move would just be a few bytes.)
I think the amount of battery required to power the transmitter long enough to make a connection and transmit data from your phone would be far greater than running the phone CPU to compute that move. I imagine this chess game would be doing something similar to sending a bunch of text messages in the background, and my experience with those shows them to be slow and fairly power-consuming, even if they are reliable (my phone will text message accurately even if it doesn't have enough service to carry on a voice conversation).
Re:No matter how careful you are, you aren't enoug
on
ID Theft Made Easy
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· Score: 1
Ok, I reread the parent and he did mention paying inside. Nevertheless, if you are going to complain that they now have your credit card and license plate, then you should also complain that they have you on camera from the time you pulled into the parking lot to the time you leave again, with the possible exception of any time spent in the restroom.
Re:No matter how careful you are, you aren't enoug
on
ID Theft Made Easy
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
But I don't display my CC # right next to it.
Nor do you display your credit card number right next to it at the gas station. You'll notice that parent specified when you drive off without paying. In this case, you have given the gas station no more than you give all the people you drive past during the day. If you're going to get upset about this, then you also need to yell at everyone who uses security cameras. Given the number of times security cameras have been used to solve crimes, I'm placated.
Re:No matter how careful you are, you aren't enoug
on
ID Theft Made Easy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
How about the gas station that writes down your license plate information when you purchase gas w/o paying at the pump. It's just for their economic safety they say. Do you know how much information you can get on the owner of a car from their license plate?
They can get very little, actually, without access to police computers. Even if they could, it's no different from just driving around. You proudly display your license plate to hundreds of people each day. In light of this, it's not very easy to get much information from them, and it requires police cooperation. That gas station doesn't punch in the plate and go vigilante on you, they call the police and give the plate numbers to the police.
The gas station writing down your information is totally different from someone scanning your ID. Scanning your ID is a much more private process, and it requires your cooperation. However, anyone can write down a plate number. It's not even remotely the same, and it's definately not a security risk.
It's an interesting idea, but they would still need to keep two distinct styles. In my experience, KDE is rather Windows-like, while GNOME is rather similar to Mac OS. Sure, they can both be customized quite a bit, but it's still something to think about. I'm much more comfortable in KDE. If you tried to combine the two, you would have issues with the way certain things are done and how stuff looks. So, even if they combined to use the same resources, they would need to maintain two completely separate styles to appease all the fans.
I used to use a Heathkit alarm clock that skipped the noise entirely and woke me by turning on the lamp near my bed. It worked really well, and was infinitely nicer than waking up to some hideous alarm noise.
I've used Western Digital, Maxtor, and Seagate for years and never had a problem. However, I'm in the middle of an RMA on a Toshiba drive for my laptop (it was a generic computer, bought with nothing preinstalled, and it ran Debian. The drive came with it, else I would have bought a WD). The drive failed spectacularly when it was only 8 months old. Toshiba quotes a 10-30 day turnaround time for RMAs, but today is the 28th business day since the drive was delivered to them, and still hasn't shown up. Getting the drive replaced in advance would have been a $350 deposit.
A bit of time on Google shows that this is typical of Toshiba hard drives. Given this and my past experience, it seems to me that no matter which big brand (WD, Maxtor, Seagate) you prefer, you will be getting an extremely reliable drive as compared to some of the other brands
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People who act surprised by things like this don't read Dilbert nearly often enough.
It seems as though corporate America consists of people trying to write as much as possible without actually saying anything. If you don't believe me, go look at the mission statement of any big company. It doesn't read like English. If it did, they might be expected to actually make something concrete.
I've never done any really fancy pages, but many of the nicest websites I have seen have been made in text editors.
It makes me mad when high schools teach 'web development' classes. Using DreamWeaver or something similar. Those students are not learning how to create webpages. They are learning how to use a proprietary product to arrange colorful bits on the screen. The web dev classes should focus on the actual HTML through a text editor. If they still want to use DreamWeaver, they should offer it as a different class, 'advanced web development using DreamWeaver.'
You can't possibly make something good if you don't understand the basics. Then again, maybe I'm just a nut - I also think some playing time on Zork should be a prerequisite for any modern computer game.
Schools are making an attempt to fix this problem. I'm a student in aerospace engineering, and we have to learn to program in FORTRAN, because it's basically the industry standard in the field. However, we have also been working in Matlab. I like Matlab, and it's an excellent program, but it didn't seem to fit in very well with anything else we were doing, so I asked my instructor about it. He said that the goal was to introduce students to a completely different programming language, in order to demonstrate that the concepts were universal. We didn't relearn how to program; we were only shown the new commands. Surprisingly, almost everyone made the jump.
I live in America, but I recently visited a friend in the UK. I was surprised at first, when I realized that there was not a £1 bill. After using the currency for just a day, though, I saw the benefit to the system. Coins are much more durable than bills, and the £1 coin is a hefty thing that's almost fun to carry.
On top of that, it just seems more convenient to use. Most of the time, when you make a small purchase, it's a lot easier to reach into a pocket and pull out a few coins than to get out the wallet and find a bill in there.
This is especially true when you look at just how little you can get for $1 or even £1. We would never dream of having a 25 cent bill, because the money is worth so little that it would be inconvenient to use or carry a reasonable amount in bills. Bills should only be used for more expensive things, because they are less convenient and the more times they trade hands, the more likely they are to be torn or otherwise ruined.
When you go buy a large ice cream cone, and you get $3.50 back from your $5, which is easier?
-Put 50 cents in pocket, then juggle cone to put $3 back into wallet and put wallet back into pocket
or
-Put handful of coins into pocket
Asus only sells to resellers, this is true. I recommend www.leadcomp.com
I got a nice Asus laptop from them, with no OS installed, and my total came to $400 less than a similarly equipped model from Dell.
Unfortunately, mine came with a Toshiba hard drive which failed spectacularly when it was about 8 months old. However, it appears that leadcomp has switched to Hitachi drives since my purchase. So long as they aren't DeathStars.
I agree with your point, but I have to ask: Can Grandma do this with Windows XP?
No, she probably can't. But, if she had to, a tech support worker could walk her through the whole thing, because there are not very many steps that require user involvement.
Even so, maybe a better example would be Dad. He's probably computer-savvy enough to install Windows XP if he needs to. But he still won't be able to install most Linux distributions.
The fact that you are running Gentoo completely ruins the point of your post. Did you actually read the article? Nobody said Linux wouldn't run on a laptop. The article was about running a Linux installer and having everything just work. Your system didn't 'just work' because it's Gentoo. I've installed Gentoo before, and as I recall, THERE IS NO INSTALLER. You copy a bunch of stuff, compile a bunch of stuff, and have a grand old time. It doesn't apply to this article, because Grandma can't go grab a Gentoo CD, pop it in the drive, and come back an hour later with a working system.
A 13" paper plane will have no chance of returning alive if it isn't taking off from a stationary carrier in calm see and no wind. It will have a very short range and speed. Bottom line: will it ever be able to see what a powerful set of binoculars wouldn't be able to see from the carrier anyways? And also, what't the point of having the stealth of a 13" paper plane, when just a few kilometers away is a ginormous aircraft carrier?
First, it's not a paper airplane, it's probably made of a bunch of exotic lightweight plastics and composite materials. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was capable of going faster than 15 knots. Then again, if you are attacking some smugglers, it's unlikely you are going to be doing it with an aircraft carrier - those are not generally used for direct ship-to-ship combat. It's likely you would be on a smaller, more heavily armed ship, and you could float around at a safe distance and go take a peek with your planes. You know, just to make sure they aren't all packing rocket launchers.
As for the binoculars: The key with this plane isn't getting a closer view of the same thing. If that's what we wanted, we could get telescopes big enough to watch the rust spreading on the hull of the other ship. The point of this is to get a view of something from a different direction. I don't care how powerful your binoculars are, they aren't going to be able to see the back of a ship you are approaching from the front.
who the fuck asked for your opinion anyways????
You're awfully bold when you're posting anonymously, aren't you? The Slashdot forums are here specifically so people can share both opinions and information. On top of that, my post was a legitimate response to the parent post. However, I notice that it's perfectly acceptable for you to share your opinion. Damn hypocrite.
I have never had a problem with Tom's Hardware, even recently. Their site is cluttered with advertisements, sure, and sometimes the advertisements are related to the winning product in a given test. Isn't it possible, though, that some of these are targeted ads, placed on that page precisely because the name of that component occurred multiple times on that page?
Tom's Hardware has always run pretty intense tests. They had a power supply test a while back (unfortunately, I can't find the article, so I'm sure someone will say they don't believe me) where one of the contenders actually caught on fire during a test. Even if they take bribes for the winning product, which I doubt, the results for the other products are still accurate. They didn't make up the story about a power supply catching on fire during a stress test just to make the other supplies look better-that really happened.
I have very little experience with OSX. However, I use computers with Windows XP and several flavors of Linux on them. The XP computer almost never crashes, and the only time I have gotten a BSOD, it was because the hard drive had failed. In that situation, I doubt OSX or Linux would have kept on going, either.
Then again, the Linux computers are even more stable, and they can be left up for much longer without a restart. The XP computer starts to get unresponsive after about a week.
I was doing computer work for my aunt's church not too long ago. The church has a computer lab, open to the public. As I was sitting in the lab, working on a computer in the corner, a couple of little kids, maybe 7 years old, came running in to use a computer. I heard one of them, a little girl, say to the other, "Go to Internet Explorer. The blue one."
It made me sad. I remember thinking that they would be confused if I took IE away from them. It's not a really big deal, since the computers are fully patched and generally work pretty well.
Then again, maybe kids like that are a really good reason to switch those computers. I could install Firefox and get flash, shockwave, and javascript installed, then put up signs telling people to use Firefox. If the little kids got used to Firefox at church, they might decide they wanted to use it at home as well. I could print off some instruction sheets for installing Firefox, and let the conversion begin.
Since computer components run at extremely low power, the radiation shouldn't be an issue.
At the moment, computers do cause some harmful radio interference if you leave the side of the case off. Since this is Slashdot, I assume there are several people reading this who have theirs off. However, even acrylic cases or case windows are enough to stop that radio interference.
Even if the frequency picks up enough that we were getting microwave radiation, an aluminum case would still be able to block it. Even with the case open, the output would be so low that the worst it could do would be to ruin your cell phone reception if you were trying to talk with your head inside the case.
Yes, thank you for reading all the replies before posting. Good work.
Look, I'm very sorry I hurt all your little feelings. I am fully aware of the difference between the two technologies, and I apologize for my mistake in my first post and my sarcasm in the second.
Here's my first post, rewritten properly:
True dual-processor systems have two separate processors, in two separate sockets, cooled independently of each other. Dual systems are nice for number-crunching and multitasking because tasks can be assigned to whichever core is currently doing less work.
Intel's new dual-core places two cores on one chip. It's convenient because it offers some of the advantages of true dual systems, but I am sure they also had to make concessions because of heat and more limited connections (since both cores are connected through the same socket). I also doubt there will be much of a price advantage over a typical dual system, because any technology this new and unique will be extremely expensive.
I would also like to say that I don't know anything about AMD's offering of dual-core, so I can't comment on why their way is better. I'm sure it is, because AMD's way is always better, but I don't actually have proof of that.
Nobody has EVER used the term 'dual-core' to describe dual-processor SMP.
Pretty sure I just did.
A processor is a processing core mounted to a chunk of silicon which contains all the pins to connect the core to the motherboard. Given this, a computer with two processors also contains two cores. Since the word 'dual' has long been accepted to mean two of something, dual-core is a perfectly accurate description of a computer with two cores. It's totally irrelevant whether they are mounted on one silicon wafer or two.
True dual-core systems have two separate processors, in two separate sockets, cooled independently of each other. Dual systems are nice for number-crunching and multitasking because tasks can be assigned to whichever core is currently doing less work.
Intel's new dual-core places two cores on one chip. It's convenient because it offers some of the advantages of true dual systems, but I am sure they also had to make concessions because of heat and more limited connections (since both cores are connected through the same socket). I also doubt there will be much of a price advantage over a typical dual system, because any technology this new and unique will be extremely expensive.
The only solution is user education. It will be solved in 80 years when all the people who haven't had computers for their entire lives are dead.
Hardly. I'm a college student, so the people around me are young enough that they have been surrounded by computers from the day they were born. And yet, many of them are clueless. Just a few weeks ago we had an email virus running amok on campus. I remember when I got the first virus email, my roommate and I laughed as we predicted how many more of those messages we would see in the next week or so. Needless to say, we were not disappointed.
Some of the people in my classes have no idea what to do with their computers. I mean, most are fully capable of using the computer successfully - complexity isn't an issue. But security is. I overhear people talking about their computers, and it's all I can do to stop myself from laughing at them. I've also had a few friends switch from Mac to Windows. Using a Mac, they had never had to deal with anything but the most basic security before, and I think they were a bit overwhelmed when they realized how much attention they needed to pay while using Windows.
The problem is caused by people of any age who treat computers as simple tools. Many people just aren't interested enough in computers to learn what they need to know. User education is key, but we have to find a way to get average people interested in education. A computer isn't just a tool. When was the last time you had to do maintenance on your screwdriver?
Cell phone cpus are slow, and suck up the battery while they're working. But an entire chess board layout is very simple, and it wouldn't take much bandwidth to transmit your entire chess board layout to a remote computer which could then calculate the next move and transmit it back. (And that's assuming that the remote computer keeps no state information. If it kept track of the chess board itself, the bandwidth needed per move would just be a few bytes.)
I think the amount of battery required to power the transmitter long enough to make a connection and transmit data from your phone would be far greater than running the phone CPU to compute that move. I imagine this chess game would be doing something similar to sending a bunch of text messages in the background, and my experience with those shows them to be slow and fairly power-consuming, even if they are reliable (my phone will text message accurately even if it doesn't have enough service to carry on a voice conversation).
Ok, I reread the parent and he did mention paying inside. Nevertheless, if you are going to complain that they now have your credit card and license plate, then you should also complain that they have you on camera from the time you pulled into the parking lot to the time you leave again, with the possible exception of any time spent in the restroom.
But I don't display my CC # right next to it.
Nor do you display your credit card number right next to it at the gas station. You'll notice that parent specified when you drive off without paying. In this case, you have given the gas station no more than you give all the people you drive past during the day. If you're going to get upset about this, then you also need to yell at everyone who uses security cameras. Given the number of times security cameras have been used to solve crimes, I'm placated.
How about the gas station that writes down your license plate information when you purchase gas w/o paying at the pump. It's just for their economic safety they say. Do you know how much information you can get on the owner of a car from their license plate?
They can get very little, actually, without access to police computers. Even if they could, it's no different from just driving around. You proudly display your license plate to hundreds of people each day. In light of this, it's not very easy to get much information from them, and it requires police cooperation. That gas station doesn't punch in the plate and go vigilante on you, they call the police and give the plate numbers to the police.
The gas station writing down your information is totally different from someone scanning your ID. Scanning your ID is a much more private process, and it requires your cooperation. However, anyone can write down a plate number. It's not even remotely the same, and it's definately not a security risk.
It's an interesting idea, but they would still need to keep two distinct styles. In my experience, KDE is rather Windows-like, while GNOME is rather similar to Mac OS. Sure, they can both be customized quite a bit, but it's still something to think about. I'm much more comfortable in KDE. If you tried to combine the two, you would have issues with the way certain things are done and how stuff looks. So, even if they combined to use the same resources, they would need to maintain two completely separate styles to appease all the fans.
I used to use a Heathkit alarm clock that skipped the noise entirely and woke me by turning on the lamp near my bed. It worked really well, and was infinitely nicer than waking up to some hideous alarm noise.
I've used Western Digital, Maxtor, and Seagate for years and never had a problem. However, I'm in the middle of an RMA on a Toshiba drive for my laptop (it was a generic computer, bought with nothing preinstalled, and it ran Debian. The drive came with it, else I would have bought a WD). The drive failed spectacularly when it was only 8 months old. Toshiba quotes a 10-30 day turnaround time for RMAs, but today is the 28th business day since the drive was delivered to them, and still hasn't shown up. Getting the drive replaced in advance would have been a $350 deposit.
A bit of time on Google shows that this is typical of Toshiba hard drives. Given this and my past experience, it seems to me that no matter which big brand (WD, Maxtor, Seagate) you prefer, you will be getting an extremely reliable drive as compared to some of the other brands