I am the desktop user who needs more than 2GB of RAM, and I don't game. I'm using OS X, but I think similar applications would have a similar effect if I were running XP (or Linux, in the paradise where similar apps actually exist).
I compose music and occasionally do design work. Either a single complex project in Logic Pro or the combination of Photoshop, InDesign, and Acrobat (even working on my very simple attempts at design) will push my 2GB to its limits.
And that doesn't even take virtualization into account. If I'm running Vista Business and OS X at the same time, even for very simple purposes, 2GB is not enough. Unfortunately, my current machine won't accept more than 2GB, and a new machine will have to wait about a year.
I'm more sophisticated than your average home user, but in no way am I not a "desktop" user. 4GB would be adequate for me. I could occasionally use more.
Agreed... a laptop display would need to have higher resolution. I'm sure it will before too long.
But the larger point was that an 11" display is not a "fatally flawed" product, but something that sees lots of applications. In my first post I forgot integrated displays in fridges and custom kitchens, specialty equipment, the list goes on...
Seconded! At first I read the summary and thought 'SHIT THIS SOUNDS FUCKING AMAZING'
Also at only 11" what use is it to anyone? Do you have a single brain cell? The summary quite clearly said the display was 11".
They will have to film everything really zoomed in to compensate for this appalling oversight. Its typical Sony this, they design something thats good on paper, but when the final product comes out it is blighted by a terrible design flaw
Since there's obviously no use for a gorgeous 11" display anywhere, you're obviously right. All those people installing displays in airplanes, cars, and, um, LAPTOPS must have overlooked something fundamental.
I haven't seen a more moronic post on Slashdot in years. That includes the goatse trolls.
A friend of mine just replaced an old 512MB Dell with a super-encrufted XP installation with a 2GB MacBook. He was amazed: "When I click on something it happens!" He's used to waiting seconds for absolutely everything. Any responsive computer is magic to him.
Whereas if my own MBP so much as hesitates for a split-second, I go crazy and dig around trying to find what's wrong. (And I get frustrated by the lack of RAM from time to time; more specifically, whenever even a single pageout happens for any reason.)
Based on my experiences with a 512MB box running Ubuntu 6.04, I'd be very, very surprised if I found any Ubuntu build remotely usable in 384MB. But your brother is probably used to slow computers and finds it an improvement.
And my point would be that, given the complexity of any modern OS (not just Vista), 2GB RAM is not comparable to a 5.0L V8. More like your basic pushrod V6: moves an average car just fine, but not with a lot of power (space) to spare.
Want a machine that performs like a modern V8 car? Get 4 (or 8) GB.
Even if it pushes back the dates, MS WILL eventually stop supporting XP, as they have all previous Windows variants. Businesses will have no choice but to upgrade at that point, as they already have from 98SE, NT4, and (mostly) 2k.
Vista really won't be that painful an upgrade once 1) much more is understood about application compatibility and 2) even bargain-basement office-bot PCs ship with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor. (No need for fancy graphics if you turn off Aero.) Two years from now, no one will remember all of this Sturm und Drang. We had exactly the same things happen when XP replaced 2k.
In this age of cheap RAM, why wouldn't 2 GB be appropriate for a home PC?
Other desktop OSes aren't happy in 512MB either. I used to have an XP machine with 512MB. It didn't perform well. If I had had any interest in keeping it around, I would have upgraded. The box didn't run Ubuntu well either, once I added enough visual goodies to make Ubuntu look sorta-kinda-mostly as good as OS X. My current primary machine is a MacBook Pro with 2GB. With any less, it would be a drag. I would upgrade to 4GB if the machine would allow it.
Both RAM prices and market reality have passed your purist position by.
Developers require the latest version of OS X because each successive version of OS X makes their lives easier. The user-level changes from Panther to Leopard have been evolutionary. Under the hood, it's a different story. If Apple didn't include new whiz-bang technologies for developers from time to time, its existing disadvantage in attracting developers (because of OS X's smaller user base) would be severely exacerbated.
Your friend with the iMac can run Firefox to access Gmail. And you should have no problem finding a copy of Mac OS 9.2 so she can upgrade her iMac, if it's even worth running OS X on (hint: if it has less than 512MB RAM, no way.) She's out of luck with the iPod... Apple should have either released those iPods after Leopard or supported 10.3.9; I can't defend their decision there.
And, yet again, it's $130, not $150 (and that's if you can't find a rebate and have no edu discount available).
They don't have enough RAM. If you do more than one thing at once Tiger will die with 512MB, while Panther has more room for error. If you have enough RAM to avoid swapping Tiger is snappier (once the Spotlight index is done and Dashboard is loaded).
I'm sorry when I can type faster than the fucking shell that's a problem, and one problem I haven't had since like 91-92 on dialup:P
When does this happen to you? I've never experienced this, and I use Terminal all the time.
Not to say it couldn't use some extra features, but I've never found it unresponsive. Are you using transparent windows or antialiased fonts on a slow machine?
That will take awhile, given that Apple just killed the last 32-bit Mac mini two months ago. (And I want it to take awhile, given that I'm running a fast but 32-bit Core Duo MBP and won't be able to upgrade it for about a year...)
I would expect that over the life of 10.5 we will gradually start to see apps that will run only on 64-bit systems.
For its part, AltiVec support will disappear only when PPC support disappears. All PPC processors supported by Leopard feature AltiVec. It seems reasonable that PPC support would disappear in 10.6 (likely 2009) and virtually impossible that 10.7 (likely 2011) would support any PPC machines.
While they're not as dramatic as new Windows versions (and not as expensive), OS X releases are not comparable to service packs.
Service packs don't add new features. On the rare occasions when they do, the features tend to be related only to stability or security. That is comparable to OS X 10.x.x releases, not the major "big cat" releases. Those minor releases occur far more frequently than Windows service packs (which has its pluses and minuses).
"Big cat" releases add many, many features, both visible and under the hood. Assuming you accept the model of paying for an OS in the first place, they should be paid upgrades, because they fundamentally change the product you're buying.
And the last paragraph of your reply shows your only experience of Apple is through its Windows software (which could be better). Try actually using a Mac before pontificating about it.
Not everyone does nothing but share music all day... for me, the following features of iTunes 7 are easily more worthwhile than better sharing (since there is currently only one iTunes-capable computer on my network anyway):
- "Grouping" tag
- The extensive array of sorting tags
- Video handling features
- Podcast managing features
- Album (and, I suppose, the useless Cover Flow) view
- Additional smart playlist criteria
- and the big one: GAPLESS PLAYBACK. Did I say GAPLESS PLAYBACK? I hated iTunes until it had GAPLESS PLAYBACK.
I think it's a little misleading to make the blanket statement that 4.7.0 is better than all subsequent versions just because it doesn't have one little limitation that likely affects very few users besides college kids in dorms.
You need more than 512MB RAM... you need 1GB of RAM on a PPC, or 2GB on an Intel, to make Tiger happy. Dashboard and a number of Tiger's hidden processes are RAM hogs. On Intel, Rosetta is an even more dramatic RAM hog, often increasing (active+wired) RAM usage by 300MB or more when a Rosetta application first runs, and not giving all of it back when the application quits.
My experience is that with sufficient RAM Tiger performs significantly better than Panther on the same PPC machine. I've found this to be true on multiple PowerBooks G4 and my former dual G5 machine, all with at least 1GB RAM.
That's not just true of libertarian economics; it's true of nearly all economics. (Recent work in behavioral economics holds out a glimmer of hope that economics and empiricism may yet be reunited.)
First, your "Lockerbie" link discusses TWA 800, which was blamed on mechanical failure, not the Lockerbie crash, which was caused by a Libyan bomb. (The irony here is that lots of conspiracy theorists claim TWA 800 was brought down by terrorism, not mechanical failure...)
Second, carbon fiber is far more fatigue-resistant than aluminum. I can think of only one plane crash where failure of a carbon-fiber part was implicated: AA 587. And, in that crash, the vertical stabilizer was stressed far beyond design limits by the control inputs from the F/O. An aluminum part would have failed too. By contrast, aluminum fatigue has caused numerous crashes over the years, including some ghastly ones (although in modern years the aluminum structure, like other airplane systems, has gotten far safer).
I will fly on the 787 the first chance I get, and I'll have way more confidence in an old 787 than an old aluminum airliner.
Welcome to Slashdot. Someone civilly expressing his desire for people to pay the taxes they are legally required to pay is "flamebait."
The reaction to this article exposes geek libertarianism for what it is: the law of the jungle. Instead of an argument to help us determine whether Larry and Sergey's $1.3 million is actually covering the government's costs here, or to determine whether anyone with a large private aircraft could get the same treatment, we have a whole bunch of posters blindly getting on their knees for the silverback geek.
Every 20-30 minutes? Try every few seconds at peak times. The more wireless networks are around, the more I need my wires.
I'm in a building where I can see about 30 802.11g networks. The only way I can get my wireless network to work reliably at high-usage times (the evening) is to be at my desk about 4' from the WAP. When I'm 4' from the WAP (and router), why bother with wireless?
If all pollution were black and nasty and easy to spot (and everyone had time to spend all day in court), that might work. In the real world, it's laughable, like most market-based solutions to true tragedies of the commons.
Even leaving the climate change/CO2 issue out of this for now, NOx and CO are colorless and odorless. You won't notice them crossing your land, and so you won't be inspired to sue over them. Furthermore, even if you did sue, everyone you sue will just argue that they did not produce the particular CO and NOx you are complaining about, since (not being able to see its movements) you have no evidence of where it actually originated. Questions of proof like that quickly result in extraordinarily difficult and expensive litigation -- not worth it for the small amount of pollution caused by only one road.
But the effects of CO and NOx on all of us are just as severe as those of the black sooty stuff. And for the reasons above, the market provides no incentives for people not to emit them.
Market outcomes often correlate with social good. But the most frequent libertarian fallacy I see is that they always do. The market is just a tool, and sometimes its operations are detrimental to society. In those cases (and in cases where a market cannot work properly, such as health care or employment with very large employers) regulation is required. That's not the end of the world.
I find it amusing that an AC is calling me afraid.
People have been desperately trying to find concrete empirical evidence supporting religion's claims for thousands of years. Despite this effort, they have found no such evidence whatsoever. In the same period of time, whenever empirical evidence has been collected that bears on a religious claim, it has debunked the religious claim. It is astonishing, even to me, that religion has turned out to be so spectacularly wrong, but it has. (Note that I am speaking here of factual, not ethical, claims... as wise people throughout history were unable to express their wisdom in any forum but a religious one without being persecuted, some religions have managed to pick up a few sensible ethical ideas over the years, although I think most religions still promote more bad ethical ideas than good ones.)
Nevertheless, people continue not only to believe such snake oil in large numbers, but to try doggedly to impose it on the rest of us, and to end relationships and start deadly wars over dogmatic differences. The human capacities for rationalization and for believing ideas that feel good, regardless of their truth, appear to be endless. Especially in today's world of easy access to comprehensive information, I think applying the label "nutball" to those who persist in religious belief is completely appropriate.
OK, I'll bite. What would an intellectually consistent libertarian say to establish that the act of not wearing a helmet, which he defends as an act individuals should have the right to perform, does not affect the rights of others? You attacked my formulation as inadequate; now you need to offer an adequate one.
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I am the desktop user who needs more than 2GB of RAM, and I don't game. I'm using OS X, but I think similar applications would have a similar effect if I were running XP (or Linux, in the paradise where similar apps actually exist).
I compose music and occasionally do design work. Either a single complex project in Logic Pro or the combination of Photoshop, InDesign, and Acrobat (even working on my very simple attempts at design) will push my 2GB to its limits.
And that doesn't even take virtualization into account. If I'm running Vista Business and OS X at the same time, even for very simple purposes, 2GB is not enough. Unfortunately, my current machine won't accept more than 2GB, and a new machine will have to wait about a year.
I'm more sophisticated than your average home user, but in no way am I not a "desktop" user. 4GB would be adequate for me. I could occasionally use more.
Agreed... a laptop display would need to have higher resolution. I'm sure it will before too long.
But the larger point was that an 11" display is not a "fatally flawed" product, but something that sees lots of applications. In my first post I forgot integrated displays in fridges and custom kitchens, specialty equipment, the list goes on...
Since there's obviously no use for a gorgeous 11" display anywhere, you're obviously right. All those people installing displays in airplanes, cars, and, um, LAPTOPS must have overlooked something fundamental.
I haven't seen a more moronic post on Slashdot in years. That includes the goatse trolls.
People have very different standards...
A friend of mine just replaced an old 512MB Dell with a super-encrufted XP installation with a 2GB MacBook. He was amazed: "When I click on something it happens!" He's used to waiting seconds for absolutely everything. Any responsive computer is magic to him.
Whereas if my own MBP so much as hesitates for a split-second, I go crazy and dig around trying to find what's wrong. (And I get frustrated by the lack of RAM from time to time; more specifically, whenever even a single pageout happens for any reason.)
Based on my experiences with a 512MB box running Ubuntu 6.04, I'd be very, very surprised if I found any Ubuntu build remotely usable in 384MB. But your brother is probably used to slow computers and finds it an improvement.
Apparently I showed off my American education in my rush to post something funny.
My remaining here after the Rapture is, of course, no surprise whatsoever. But drama and chaos are OK with me, so I look forward to coming events.
And my point would be that, given the complexity of any modern OS (not just Vista), 2GB RAM is not comparable to a 5.0L V8. More like your basic pushrod V6: moves an average car just fine, but not with a lot of power (space) to spare.
Want a machine that performs like a modern V8 car? Get 4 (or 8) GB.
Even if it pushes back the dates, MS WILL eventually stop supporting XP, as they have all previous Windows variants. Businesses will have no choice but to upgrade at that point, as they already have from 98SE, NT4, and (mostly) 2k.
Vista really won't be that painful an upgrade once 1) much more is understood about application compatibility and 2) even bargain-basement office-bot PCs ship with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor. (No need for fancy graphics if you turn off Aero.) Two years from now, no one will remember all of this Sturm und Drang. We had exactly the same things happen when XP replaced 2k.
In this age of cheap RAM, why wouldn't 2 GB be appropriate for a home PC?
Other desktop OSes aren't happy in 512MB either. I used to have an XP machine with 512MB. It didn't perform well. If I had had any interest in keeping it around, I would have upgraded. The box didn't run Ubuntu well either, once I added enough visual goodies to make Ubuntu look sorta-kinda-mostly as good as OS X. My current primary machine is a MacBook Pro with 2GB. With any less, it would be a drag. I would upgrade to 4GB if the machine would allow it.
Both RAM prices and market reality have passed your purist position by.
The Rapture happened? I'm still here? Wow, that's strange. I insult God all the time.
Developers require the latest version of OS X because each successive version of OS X makes their lives easier. The user-level changes from Panther to Leopard have been evolutionary. Under the hood, it's a different story. If Apple didn't include new whiz-bang technologies for developers from time to time, its existing disadvantage in attracting developers (because of OS X's smaller user base) would be severely exacerbated.
Your friend with the iMac can run Firefox to access Gmail. And you should have no problem finding a copy of Mac OS 9.2 so she can upgrade her iMac, if it's even worth running OS X on (hint: if it has less than 512MB RAM, no way.) She's out of luck with the iPod... Apple should have either released those iPods after Leopard or supported 10.3.9; I can't defend their decision there.
And, yet again, it's $130, not $150 (and that's if you can't find a rebate and have no edu discount available).
They don't have enough RAM. If you do more than one thing at once Tiger will die with 512MB, while Panther has more room for error. If you have enough RAM to avoid swapping Tiger is snappier (once the Spotlight index is done and Dashboard is loaded).
When does this happen to you? I've never experienced this, and I use Terminal all the time.
Not to say it couldn't use some extra features, but I've never found it unresponsive. Are you using transparent windows or antialiased fonts on a slow machine?
That will take awhile, given that Apple just killed the last 32-bit Mac mini two months ago. (And I want it to take awhile, given that I'm running a fast but 32-bit Core Duo MBP and won't be able to upgrade it for about a year...)
I would expect that over the life of 10.5 we will gradually start to see apps that will run only on 64-bit systems.
For its part, AltiVec support will disappear only when PPC support disappears. All PPC processors supported by Leopard feature AltiVec. It seems reasonable that PPC support would disappear in 10.6 (likely 2009) and virtually impossible that 10.7 (likely 2011) would support any PPC machines.
Not this $#!+ again...
While they're not as dramatic as new Windows versions (and not as expensive), OS X releases are not comparable to service packs.
Service packs don't add new features. On the rare occasions when they do, the features tend to be related only to stability or security. That is comparable to OS X 10.x.x releases, not the major "big cat" releases. Those minor releases occur far more frequently than Windows service packs (which has its pluses and minuses).
"Big cat" releases add many, many features, both visible and under the hood. Assuming you accept the model of paying for an OS in the first place, they should be paid upgrades, because they fundamentally change the product you're buying.
And the last paragraph of your reply shows your only experience of Apple is through its Windows software (which could be better). Try actually using a Mac before pontificating about it.
Not everyone does nothing but share music all day... for me, the following features of iTunes 7 are easily more worthwhile than better sharing (since there is currently only one iTunes-capable computer on my network anyway):
- "Grouping" tag
- The extensive array of sorting tags
- Video handling features
- Podcast managing features
- Album (and, I suppose, the useless Cover Flow) view
- Additional smart playlist criteria
- and the big one: GAPLESS PLAYBACK. Did I say GAPLESS PLAYBACK? I hated iTunes until it had GAPLESS PLAYBACK.
I think it's a little misleading to make the blanket statement that 4.7.0 is better than all subsequent versions just because it doesn't have one little limitation that likely affects very few users besides college kids in dorms.
You need more than 512MB RAM... you need 1GB of RAM on a PPC, or 2GB on an Intel, to make Tiger happy. Dashboard and a number of Tiger's hidden processes are RAM hogs. On Intel, Rosetta is an even more dramatic RAM hog, often increasing (active+wired) RAM usage by 300MB or more when a Rosetta application first runs, and not giving all of it back when the application quits.
My experience is that with sufficient RAM Tiger performs significantly better than Panther on the same PPC machine. I've found this to be true on multiple PowerBooks G4 and my former dual G5 machine, all with at least 1GB RAM.
If web apps are the future of computing, I'm going to shoot myself.
Even over a fast connection, the performance is reminiscent of a P3 with 64MB RAM running Vista (if it could).
The interfaces are typically reminiscent of Windows 3.1.
If true platform independence means regressing 10-15 years in usability, I'll stick with my (non-Windows) proprietary platform.
That's not just true of libertarian economics; it's true of nearly all economics. (Recent work in behavioral economics holds out a glimmer of hope that economics and empiricism may yet be reunited.)
You have no idea what you're talking about.
First, your "Lockerbie" link discusses TWA 800, which was blamed on mechanical failure, not the Lockerbie crash, which was caused by a Libyan bomb. (The irony here is that lots of conspiracy theorists claim TWA 800 was brought down by terrorism, not mechanical failure...)
Second, carbon fiber is far more fatigue-resistant than aluminum. I can think of only one plane crash where failure of a carbon-fiber part was implicated: AA 587. And, in that crash, the vertical stabilizer was stressed far beyond design limits by the control inputs from the F/O. An aluminum part would have failed too. By contrast, aluminum fatigue has caused numerous crashes over the years, including some ghastly ones (although in modern years the aluminum structure, like other airplane systems, has gotten far safer).
I will fly on the 787 the first chance I get, and I'll have way more confidence in an old 787 than an old aluminum airliner.
Welcome to Slashdot. Someone civilly expressing his desire for people to pay the taxes they are legally required to pay is "flamebait." The reaction to this article exposes geek libertarianism for what it is: the law of the jungle. Instead of an argument to help us determine whether Larry and Sergey's $1.3 million is actually covering the government's costs here, or to determine whether anyone with a large private aircraft could get the same treatment, we have a whole bunch of posters blindly getting on their knees for the silverback geek.
Every 20-30 minutes? Try every few seconds at peak times. The more wireless networks are around, the more I need my wires.
I'm in a building where I can see about 30 802.11g networks. The only way I can get my wireless network to work reliably at high-usage times (the evening) is to be at my desk about 4' from the WAP. When I'm 4' from the WAP (and router), why bother with wireless?
On the Internet, no one knows you're a god.
If all pollution were black and nasty and easy to spot (and everyone had time to spend all day in court), that might work. In the real world, it's laughable, like most market-based solutions to true tragedies of the commons.
Even leaving the climate change/CO2 issue out of this for now, NOx and CO are colorless and odorless. You won't notice them crossing your land, and so you won't be inspired to sue over them. Furthermore, even if you did sue, everyone you sue will just argue that they did not produce the particular CO and NOx you are complaining about, since (not being able to see its movements) you have no evidence of where it actually originated. Questions of proof like that quickly result in extraordinarily difficult and expensive litigation -- not worth it for the small amount of pollution caused by only one road.
But the effects of CO and NOx on all of us are just as severe as those of the black sooty stuff. And for the reasons above, the market provides no incentives for people not to emit them.
Market outcomes often correlate with social good. But the most frequent libertarian fallacy I see is that they always do. The market is just a tool, and sometimes its operations are detrimental to society. In those cases (and in cases where a market cannot work properly, such as health care or employment with very large employers) regulation is required. That's not the end of the world.
I find it amusing that an AC is calling me afraid.
People have been desperately trying to find concrete empirical evidence supporting religion's claims for thousands of years. Despite this effort, they have found no such evidence whatsoever. In the same period of time, whenever empirical evidence has been collected that bears on a religious claim, it has debunked the religious claim. It is astonishing, even to me, that religion has turned out to be so spectacularly wrong, but it has. (Note that I am speaking here of factual, not ethical, claims... as wise people throughout history were unable to express their wisdom in any forum but a religious one without being persecuted, some religions have managed to pick up a few sensible ethical ideas over the years, although I think most religions still promote more bad ethical ideas than good ones.)
Nevertheless, people continue not only to believe such snake oil in large numbers, but to try doggedly to impose it on the rest of us, and to end relationships and start deadly wars over dogmatic differences. The human capacities for rationalization and for believing ideas that feel good, regardless of their truth, appear to be endless. Especially in today's world of easy access to comprehensive information, I think applying the label "nutball" to those who persist in religious belief is completely appropriate.
OK, I'll bite. What would an intellectually consistent libertarian say to establish that the act of not wearing a helmet, which he defends as an act individuals should have the right to perform, does not affect the rights of others? You attacked my formulation as inadequate; now you need to offer an adequate one.