You won't get rid of me that easily.:) I've had several ALPS-switch keyboards in the (distant) past at work. I've had multiple Apple Extended Keyboards 2 at home. Well-designed laptop-style keyboards are more comfortable for me than all of the above... because of the short key travel. While you don't get a neato clack-clack sound typing is suddenly effortless.
I'm still not sure how well I'll deal with flat keys, though. My laptop is a MBP with contoured keys. My very limited experience typing on MacBooks has been a little disconcerting because of the flat keys. I don't know if I'd get used to it.
Personally, I think short key travel is more ergonomic, although I'd prefer to see contoured keys (as on MBP and most other laptops) rather than the flat MacBook-style keys. After typing mostly on laptops for the last couple years, the long travel on desktop keyboards makes my hands hurt.
You're absolutely right. That was a bad choice of words on my part. I should have said "it's pretty unhelpful when some members of the community are rude and condescending."
This sort of comment is exactly what he's complaining about, and a very good reason for someone without an extensive *x bacground to avoid desktop Linux. You just undid all the goodwill that the previous, very informative reply might have generated.
He isn't a computing n00b. If he wants something comparable to Photoshop, and similarly easy to use, don't smugly point him to a kids' drawing program. Just because a program is arcane and difficult to use (GIMP, although it's *slowly* getting better) doesn't automatically mean it's more powerful. Likewise, just because a user seeks a usable program doesn't mean that user is stupid or doesn't need serious functionality.
Given that Linux users needing support have no alternative but to turn to the community, it's pretty unhelpful when the community is rude and condescending.
You can't have it both ways. Either 1) you want Linux to stay the domain of a few self-satisfied, smug nerds, and accordingly never become important on the desktop, or 2) you need to realize there will be users who are new to Linux but, somehow, nevertheless manage to be smart and competent people.
After years of experimentation I settled on amber text on a black background for my terminals. I also like the retro feel and find it very easy on the eyes.
The funny part is that I still like my GUI to be as light as possible (e.g. I run Saft to change my Safari title bars/toolbars to light gray, and my desktop background is an abstract light grey pattern).
So you miss out on Google Maps (won't run on mini-safari)
Have you ever even looked at an iPhone? Google Maps is built-in. You don't need to run it in the browser.
Two words: maximizing windows
Maximizing windows makes no sense. Why should a window be the arbitrary size of the screen, which has nothing to do with the content in the window? People don't maximize to have a window the size of the screen, they maximize to hide the other open windows. OS X's "Hide Others" function makes much more sense for this purpose, since the open window can still be a reasonable size for the content inside it (allowing for toolbars, etc. to be present and not overlap with the content).
Apple does not sell enough macs that it would cut that much in their revenue streams
Apple derives a majority of their overall revenue from Mac sales. They already tried licensing the OS. It nearly killed them, because the competition selectively went after the high end where Apple profits the most from hardware sales.
As much as I'd like to see OS X sold separately, I know it would kill Apple. Instead, what they should do is selectively license it to certain hardware manufacturers who make certain configurations that Apple is not interested in selling itself... most notably a cheap mini-desktop with 2 hard drive bays, 4 DIMM slots, a decent graphics card, and a desktop Core 2 Duo, or something like the Sony TZ micro-laptops. I would pay $200 extra -- pure profit for Apple -- for a Sony TZ running OS X; Apple wouldn't lose a hardware sale from the transaction.
You are still more likely to be involved in a fatal car crash that you can't do anything about than you are to be involved in an air accident. To think more clearly about it, think *only* of the probability of dying in a crash you can't control -- you're still in more danger in a car.
You're right about the appeal (although I have my doubts about any appeal process that, as this one does, follows a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach and requires "written documentation" as proof of innocence).
I should just note that my mistake was also made by both the summary and TFA, and was not corrected by "multiple previous posts." To figure out that you were right I had to find KU's DMCA page, which is not linked from any of the above.
There are no parachutes on airliners for the following reasons:
1. Parachutes are heavy, so a plane equipped with them could carry less cargo or passengers and ticket prices would go up.
2. Parachutes are very complex to pack, and would have to be unpacked, inspected, and repacked at regular maintenance intervals, at considerable expense (not to mention increased time out of service for the plane).
3. If the plane is high enough that parachutes will be of any use, it's impossible to open most exit doors as pressure seals them against the inside of the fuselage.
4. Only a tiny fraction of passengers would understand how to use parachutes. When all the others slam into the ground at terminal velocity -- especially if the plane somehow survives -- it's a brave new world of stupendously huge liability for the airline.
PItch motions are usually pretty gentle in airliners. Roll motions can be more severe, especially in widebodies. Sit closer to the centerline. On a one-aisle plane, sit in an aisle seat; on a two-aisle plane, sit in the middle bank of seats (a center seat is best). That said, sitting close to the wing isn't a bad idea either.
OK, air travel can be unpleasant and unpredictable, but it's still *way* safer than driving. Saying you'll drive because you're afraid of an air crash is like saying you'll run Windows 98 because you're afraid of the security holes in Vista.
Obviously I'm not the one who downmodded you, but I completely understand the downmod.
Your post was inflammatory because you flat ignored multiple previous posts that explained the problem with your logic. I'll say it again: This policy doesn't ban those who infringe copyright. It bans, without any sort of appeal rights, those whom any arbitrary party accuses of infringing copyright. You can "not download copywritten [sic] material" and still get kicked off if someone decides to accuse you of downloading... when, for example, you were downloading excerpts for a recognized fair use, or the person who had your dynamic IP after you was downloading, or the accuser just had it out for you for some reason.
That is a gross oversimplification. Especially where (as in this case) a rule is vague and open to multiple interpretations, the intent of the rule is very often considered when the rule is interpreted.
Aside from the tinker factor for those who love endless tinkering, the most substantial functional advantage of Linux over OS X is substantially better random I/O performance. (Linux slaughters OS X on the same hardware at serving lots of small web pages, for example.)
That's not really a factor for typical desktop uses, especially of the sort you'd do on a laptop. Given hit-or-miss hardware support and the inability to change hardware components, I'm not sure Linux on the laptop really makes sense at this point, unless the user is driven by ideological factors. OS X has 99% of the advantages of Linux (vs. Windows) that are applicable to a desktop user, yet an OS X notebook works completely seamlessly. (There's also the benefit of native Microsoft Office and Adobe CS3 support for those of us who live in the real commercial world and have to deal with the files it throws at us.)
That's where Apple's single, large hinge proves useful. Much, much harder to wear out or break (although my ever-clever gf managed to break one by repeatedly picking a MacBook up by its screen). Through three PowerBooks and a MacBook Pro, used every day for hours, I've never managed to break or weaken a hinge.
The flip side is that with its unique hinge Apple can't put any ports on the back of the laptop, making a sensible docking station a near-impossibility.
I only know a couple of people who have more than one computer. Among those people (of which I'm one) there's usually one desktop, or possibly two.
Among the vast majority of my friends/acquaintances, each person only owns one computer. In every case where someone only owns one computer, it's a laptop. Many of those people had desktops five years ago. None of them does anymore.
My conclusion is that laptops are replacing desktops for those people (i.e. the vast majority) who don't need something only a desktop can do. The desktop will increasingly be relegated to the office (unless laptop volume gets so much higher that the extra cost of a laptop goes away), hobbyists, and specialized uses.
Shouldn't be a problem. I think it is true that the desktop parts market will start to restrict itself to the stuff you *can't* do with laptops -- that is, the high end, especially big monitors, gamer video, and big and/or fast storage. Fortunately, yesterday's high end is today's low end for most computer components, so cheaper components should always be available.
I do expect the number of suppliers of desktop components to go down.
At least for me, storage is the only area in which desktop components are still necessary. CPU performance, video performance, and peripheral connectivity have all gotten good enough on high-end laptops for any use I have. But just two (or one, on my MacBook Pro) 2.5" 7200rpm disks won't cut it, at least until each disk grows to about 500GB.
Agreed on the monitor... but scissor-action, laptop-style keys should have taken over the desktop a long time ago. Both faster and ergonomically more effective, because you don't have to move your fingers nearly as far for each keystroke.
There are a few scissor-action desktop keyboards out there but I'm constantly surprised they're not mainstream. Maybe the next iMac keyboard -- rumored to be based on the current MacBook keyboard -- will finally change the situation.
I am also legally free to buy 45 Bentley Continentals. That doesn't mean I can afford to do it.
The whole reason for opening up already-built infrastructure to competition is that the immense capital cost of building new infrastructure 1) makes it impossible for new entrants and 2) makes it unprofitable even for entrants who can afford it, unless it's a dramatic technological step like POTS to fiber.
Econ 101 should have also taught you that regulation of public goods is necessary to prohibit their being abused by whatever private interest has the most power.
Because of the extreme expense of installing telco infrastructure, it makes essentially no business sense for a company to install infrastructure to compete with existing infrastructure unless the new installation is a big technological step forward. For the duration of each technological step, then, if we don't treat the infrastructure as a public good, we are essentially granting whoever built it a monopoly until new technology comes along.
Intellectual honesty would then seem to demand that the public pay for building the infrastructure. But that won't ever happen. So what we need is a regulatory middle ground that will prevent monopolies but allow the builders to recover their investments. For all its flaws, that was essentially what we had with POTS/DSL infrastructure. Now, with the fiber, we're just conceding the monopoly. Doing that in the name of capitalism is pretty ironic.
Like everyone else is saying, the problem isn't that they're replacing copper with fiber. It's that you no longer have any prospect of enjoying the benefits of telco competition. Verizon has you, and whoever moves in, by the short hairs.
Dream on if you think Joe's Coalition of Tiny Phone and Internet Startups has the lobbying muscle to require Verizon to open up that fiber.
From personal experience I will say that Verizon is worse than the IRS.
I've had similar experiences with Comcast.
I don't know how the telcos can argue with a straight face that they're engaging in ordinary market competition when they are providing worse service than the one entity that by definition doesn't have to compete.
We should have built latest-generation network infrastructure publicly, and then allowed any network service provider to provide service over it. Then the problem of enormous capital costs, which is the one semi-cogent argument Verizon has to justify its noncompetitive behavior, would have been a non-issue. And telco service might even be as good as... airline service. (I'm not asking for much, here...)
when EVERYTHING from your computer to your refrigerator to your TV will run off a wireless network?
Please, God, no. I'll shoot myself. Let me keep my anti-competitive and extortionate, but wired, network.
Have you ever lived in an apartment building full of MIT geeks? I have routinely had up to 41 802.11g networks visible in my apartment, operating on all 11 channels, over the last year. The interference is so bad during peak times (anytime in the evening) that sitting 3 feet from my WRT54G I get transfer rates as low as 500b/sec with 90% packet loss. (At 3 am my network works perfectly.) I understand the higher signal strength of 802.11n will make it worse. Wireless technology is just not yet ready to be deployed in physically dense environments.
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You won't get rid of me that easily. :) I've had several ALPS-switch keyboards in the (distant) past at work. I've had multiple Apple Extended Keyboards 2 at home. Well-designed laptop-style keyboards are more comfortable for me than all of the above... because of the short key travel. While you don't get a neato clack-clack sound typing is suddenly effortless.
I'm still not sure how well I'll deal with flat keys, though. My laptop is a MBP with contoured keys. My very limited experience typing on MacBooks has been a little disconcerting because of the flat keys. I don't know if I'd get used to it.
I'm not really into all-in-ones either, but you can plug your screen into an iMac and use both at once (up to 1920x1200).
Personally, I think short key travel is more ergonomic, although I'd prefer to see contoured keys (as on MBP and most other laptops) rather than the flat MacBook-style keys. After typing mostly on laptops for the last couple years, the long travel on desktop keyboards makes my hands hurt.
You're absolutely right. That was a bad choice of words on my part. I should have said "it's pretty unhelpful when some members of the community are rude and condescending."
This sort of comment is exactly what he's complaining about, and a very good reason for someone without an extensive *x bacground to avoid desktop Linux. You just undid all the goodwill that the previous, very informative reply might have generated.
He isn't a computing n00b. If he wants something comparable to Photoshop, and similarly easy to use, don't smugly point him to a kids' drawing program. Just because a program is arcane and difficult to use (GIMP, although it's *slowly* getting better) doesn't automatically mean it's more powerful. Likewise, just because a user seeks a usable program doesn't mean that user is stupid or doesn't need serious functionality.
Given that Linux users needing support have no alternative but to turn to the community, it's pretty unhelpful when the community is rude and condescending.
You can't have it both ways. Either 1) you want Linux to stay the domain of a few self-satisfied, smug nerds, and accordingly never become important on the desktop, or 2) you need to realize there will be users who are new to Linux but, somehow, nevertheless manage to be smart and competent people.
After years of experimentation I settled on amber text on a black background for my terminals. I also like the retro feel and find it very easy on the eyes.
The funny part is that I still like my GUI to be as light as possible (e.g. I run Saft to change my Safari title bars/toolbars to light gray, and my desktop background is an abstract light grey pattern).
Have you ever even looked at an iPhone? Google Maps is built-in. You don't need to run it in the browser.
Two words: maximizing windowsMaximizing windows makes no sense. Why should a window be the arbitrary size of the screen, which has nothing to do with the content in the window? People don't maximize to have a window the size of the screen, they maximize to hide the other open windows. OS X's "Hide Others" function makes much more sense for this purpose, since the open window can still be a reasonable size for the content inside it (allowing for toolbars, etc. to be present and not overlap with the content).
Apple derives a majority of their overall revenue from Mac sales. They already tried licensing the OS. It nearly killed them, because the competition selectively went after the high end where Apple profits the most from hardware sales.
As much as I'd like to see OS X sold separately, I know it would kill Apple. Instead, what they should do is selectively license it to certain hardware manufacturers who make certain configurations that Apple is not interested in selling itself... most notably a cheap mini-desktop with 2 hard drive bays, 4 DIMM slots, a decent graphics card, and a desktop Core 2 Duo, or something like the Sony TZ micro-laptops. I would pay $200 extra -- pure profit for Apple -- for a Sony TZ running OS X; Apple wouldn't lose a hardware sale from the transaction.
You are still more likely to be involved in a fatal car crash that you can't do anything about than you are to be involved in an air accident. To think more clearly about it, think *only* of the probability of dying in a crash you can't control -- you're still in more danger in a car.
You're right about the appeal (although I have my doubts about any appeal process that, as this one does, follows a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach and requires "written documentation" as proof of innocence).
I should just note that my mistake was also made by both the summary and TFA, and was not corrected by "multiple previous posts." To figure out that you were right I had to find KU's DMCA page, which is not linked from any of the above.
There are no parachutes on airliners for the following reasons:
1. Parachutes are heavy, so a plane equipped with them could carry less cargo or passengers and ticket prices would go up.
2. Parachutes are very complex to pack, and would have to be unpacked, inspected, and repacked at regular maintenance intervals, at considerable expense (not to mention increased time out of service for the plane).
3. If the plane is high enough that parachutes will be of any use, it's impossible to open most exit doors as pressure seals them against the inside of the fuselage.
4. Only a tiny fraction of passengers would understand how to use parachutes. When all the others slam into the ground at terminal velocity -- especially if the plane somehow survives -- it's a brave new world of stupendously huge liability for the airline.
PItch motions are usually pretty gentle in airliners. Roll motions can be more severe, especially in widebodies. Sit closer to the centerline. On a one-aisle plane, sit in an aisle seat; on a two-aisle plane, sit in the middle bank of seats (a center seat is best). That said, sitting close to the wing isn't a bad idea either.
OK, air travel can be unpleasant and unpredictable, but it's still *way* safer than driving. Saying you'll drive because you're afraid of an air crash is like saying you'll run Windows 98 because you're afraid of the security holes in Vista.
Obviously I'm not the one who downmodded you, but I completely understand the downmod.
Your post was inflammatory because you flat ignored multiple previous posts that explained the problem with your logic. I'll say it again: This policy doesn't ban those who infringe copyright. It bans, without any sort of appeal rights, those whom any arbitrary party accuses of infringing copyright. You can "not download copywritten [sic] material" and still get kicked off if someone decides to accuse you of downloading... when, for example, you were downloading excerpts for a recognized fair use, or the person who had your dynamic IP after you was downloading, or the accuser just had it out for you for some reason.
That is a gross oversimplification. Especially where (as in this case) a rule is vague and open to multiple interpretations, the intent of the rule is very often considered when the rule is interpreted.
Aside from the tinker factor for those who love endless tinkering, the most substantial functional advantage of Linux over OS X is substantially better random I/O performance. (Linux slaughters OS X on the same hardware at serving lots of small web pages, for example.)
That's not really a factor for typical desktop uses, especially of the sort you'd do on a laptop. Given hit-or-miss hardware support and the inability to change hardware components, I'm not sure Linux on the laptop really makes sense at this point, unless the user is driven by ideological factors. OS X has 99% of the advantages of Linux (vs. Windows) that are applicable to a desktop user, yet an OS X notebook works completely seamlessly. (There's also the benefit of native Microsoft Office and Adobe CS3 support for those of us who live in the real commercial world and have to deal with the files it throws at us.)
That's where Apple's single, large hinge proves useful. Much, much harder to wear out or break (although my ever-clever gf managed to break one by repeatedly picking a MacBook up by its screen). Through three PowerBooks and a MacBook Pro, used every day for hours, I've never managed to break or weaken a hinge.
The flip side is that with its unique hinge Apple can't put any ports on the back of the laptop, making a sensible docking station a near-impossibility.
Just as anecdotal, but...
I only know a couple of people who have more than one computer. Among those people (of which I'm one) there's usually one desktop, or possibly two.
Among the vast majority of my friends/acquaintances, each person only owns one computer. In every case where someone only owns one computer, it's a laptop. Many of those people had desktops five years ago. None of them does anymore.
My conclusion is that laptops are replacing desktops for those people (i.e. the vast majority) who don't need something only a desktop can do. The desktop will increasingly be relegated to the office (unless laptop volume gets so much higher that the extra cost of a laptop goes away), hobbyists, and specialized uses.
Shouldn't be a problem. I think it is true that the desktop parts market will start to restrict itself to the stuff you *can't* do with laptops -- that is, the high end, especially big monitors, gamer video, and big and/or fast storage. Fortunately, yesterday's high end is today's low end for most computer components, so cheaper components should always be available.
I do expect the number of suppliers of desktop components to go down.
At least for me, storage is the only area in which desktop components are still necessary. CPU performance, video performance, and peripheral connectivity have all gotten good enough on high-end laptops for any use I have. But just two (or one, on my MacBook Pro) 2.5" 7200rpm disks won't cut it, at least until each disk grows to about 500GB.
Agreed on the monitor... but scissor-action, laptop-style keys should have taken over the desktop a long time ago. Both faster and ergonomically more effective, because you don't have to move your fingers nearly as far for each keystroke.
There are a few scissor-action desktop keyboards out there but I'm constantly surprised they're not mainstream. Maybe the next iMac keyboard -- rumored to be based on the current MacBook keyboard -- will finally change the situation.
I am also legally free to buy 45 Bentley Continentals. That doesn't mean I can afford to do it.
The whole reason for opening up already-built infrastructure to competition is that the immense capital cost of building new infrastructure 1) makes it impossible for new entrants and 2) makes it unprofitable even for entrants who can afford it, unless it's a dramatic technological step like POTS to fiber.
Econ 101 should have also taught you that regulation of public goods is necessary to prohibit their being abused by whatever private interest has the most power.
Because of the extreme expense of installing telco infrastructure, it makes essentially no business sense for a company to install infrastructure to compete with existing infrastructure unless the new installation is a big technological step forward. For the duration of each technological step, then, if we don't treat the infrastructure as a public good, we are essentially granting whoever built it a monopoly until new technology comes along.
Intellectual honesty would then seem to demand that the public pay for building the infrastructure. But that won't ever happen. So what we need is a regulatory middle ground that will prevent monopolies but allow the builders to recover their investments. For all its flaws, that was essentially what we had with POTS/DSL infrastructure. Now, with the fiber, we're just conceding the monopoly. Doing that in the name of capitalism is pretty ironic.
Like everyone else is saying, the problem isn't that they're replacing copper with fiber. It's that you no longer have any prospect of enjoying the benefits of telco competition. Verizon has you, and whoever moves in, by the short hairs.
Dream on if you think Joe's Coalition of Tiny Phone and Internet Startups has the lobbying muscle to require Verizon to open up that fiber.
I've had similar experiences with Comcast.
I don't know how the telcos can argue with a straight face that they're engaging in ordinary market competition when they are providing worse service than the one entity that by definition doesn't have to compete.
We should have built latest-generation network infrastructure publicly, and then allowed any network service provider to provide service over it. Then the problem of enormous capital costs, which is the one semi-cogent argument Verizon has to justify its noncompetitive behavior, would have been a non-issue. And telco service might even be as good as... airline service. (I'm not asking for much, here...)
Please, God, no. I'll shoot myself. Let me keep my anti-competitive and extortionate, but wired, network.
Have you ever lived in an apartment building full of MIT geeks? I have routinely had up to 41 802.11g networks visible in my apartment, operating on all 11 channels, over the last year. The interference is so bad during peak times (anytime in the evening) that sitting 3 feet from my WRT54G I get transfer rates as low as 500b/sec with 90% packet loss. (At 3 am my network works perfectly.) I understand the higher signal strength of 802.11n will make it worse. Wireless technology is just not yet ready to be deployed in physically dense environments.