For the sake of science, he should've directed all the fans inwards.
The resulting concentrated pressure would compress the computer, resulting in shorter traces and better performance.
Consequently, the increased-performance would drive more power to the fans, increasing the pressure even further... sparking a chain-reaction that compressed and imploded the entire computer to critical mass (resulting in a thermonuclear explosion) or a singularity with an event-horizon the size of his bedroom.
Well you wouldn't logically be doing all those things simultaneously. Sort of like parachuting, reading a book, watching TV, and playing piano all the same time. Heh.
My T3 is something like 400MHz and seems wicked fast to me. I can quickly jump from one application to another and there are utilities (which I don't use) available to give you shortcuts to do so even faster. Apps, games, etc remain where I left them and those things that I DO want to multitask do so just fine. Granted it doesn't have built-in wifi but I have the wifi SD card for when I need it. I wouldn't want it integrated with my phone, but the Bluetooth allows it to link with one.
"Try to draw a vague parallel to some guy writing code for the space shuttle. There's more at stake when you're sending humans up in a rocket, but the mentality can be the same. We want to get this right, on the first try"
You reminded me of an article, which I found with Google:
I have to agree somewhat. Given Firefox's current memory-leak and footprint issues, and the nightmare that has become the effort to trace them down and stomp them out, I would have preferred a bit more emphasis on "perfection" from the Firefox team.
I love Firefox and all, and it's my sole browser on all the platforms I use... but the memory issue is very real, despite what the over-zealous with their blinders might say. And I'm a pretty hardcore advocate myself.
What I have found is that by using browsers tolerant of bad sites (incorrect or IE-only code) I'm only encouraging the propagation of their bad behavior. If we want improvement we need to be squeaky wheels. It's the long tradition of IE-induced apathy that has left us with the mess we have today.
If web browsers had always been as intolerant of bad code as compilers were of bad code, we wouldn't have this problem. Now that the apathetic cat is out of the bag, people expect it without accepting the consequences (or being willing to connect the two) and it's hard to get it back into the proverbial bag.
I have a sign on the door to my office which reads:
"If you don't have the time to do it right the first time...
...how will you have the time to do it over?"
This dovetails with the whole "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure..." one as well.
I'm a big proponent of elegant design and putting in the extra work ahead of time. I've never regretted it and have been giddy at my own forethought long after the original code was written. It makes life sooooo much easier.
The outside coating on the wires will harden and break away after being submerged long enough
Well I'd say that just about nixes it right there. The oil might not conduct, but the insulation in those wire bundles is to keep the wires from touching each other, not just other things. Once the insulation crumbles away and the wires start to short against each other, you're going to have problems. Especially in the power supply.
I really don't understand why so many people spend $2000 on a 42" flat-panel TV when projectors are so cheap. For under $800 you can get a high-quality 1500 lumen 800x600 DLP projector which can give you images as big as 6 FEET or MORE. Not only can you get a HUGE screen, but projectors (especially DLP ones) are TINY compared to big flat-panel TVs, so they're easier and cheaper to ship, easier to mount, easier to move, easier to store, etc etc. DLP rocks over LCD projectors, so if you haven't seen DLP yet don't judge it prematurely. And the whining over bulb cost is just dumb. Sure they're upwards towards $400 sometimes. But they last 2000 hours. Do the math... that's $0.20/hr to watch a fricken 6-FOOT screen in your OWN HOUSE. Guess what? Tires are expensive too and wear out from time to time. But that doesn't stop people from driving (or laying patches).
And when you're NOT watching TV you don't have this big ugly thing looming on the wall. Get a pull-down (or motorized) screen and really go stealth.
Cheaper, bigger screens, easier to store/mount/move... projectors are the way to go.
I haven't really had much problem upgrading FreeBSD. This machine runs 5.3... soon to be 5.4... and it began life at 5.0.
My 2 gripes with upgrading are:
1) mergemaster. This program and the procedure is a a pain as the amount of human-interaction is huge. If you want ALL of the old file or ALL of the new file, you're fine... but if you want SOME, the interface is really clumsy and it's not easy to use. And it takes a fair amount of knowledge to know which files you want what of. There's got to be an easier way... perhaps something that noted what files had been changed from their stock/default version, and could take those diffs and allow you to easily apply them to the new files (instead of an all-or-nothing-or-you're-on-your-own thing).
2) Sometimes enough changes between FreeBSD versions that you need to recompile all your ports. Not difficult, but it takes a few days on my system.
But you still need to restart X to have the new driver take effect in your current display:0
While *nix OSes are better in this regard since the GUI and the OS layers are separate, so a full restart isn't necessary... it's still necessary to restart the layer that uses the graphics driver. In Windows this is all one layer, so a full reboot has been required. If a future version of Windows can apply the updated graphics driver without restarting the current GUI layer, then it actually has an advantage over *nix.
As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows, to be fair... you can't upgrade your video driver in XFree/Xorg without restarting X at least. Granted it's not a full reboot so non-GUI daemons still run... but X needs to be restarted.
With the assumption that "production machines" = servers, not really sure why anyone would need a graphics driver on a server. One of the strengths of unix-type OSes is the lack of a need for a GUI, which allows those CPU cycles to be better spent on being a server.
Re:Why isn't more government stuff open source?
on
NASA Goes SourceForge
·
· Score: 1
I actually agree with you. My tone (which I guess didn't communicate well) was that of stating the status quo of how things tend to be these days, not so much stating my opinion of how things should be.
The Area 51 comment (while also entirely true) was meant to be a hint to my true feelings on the matter... heh.
- Standards. I want a web/internet where you aren't forced to use one specific browser on one specific OS. I want to be able to access the web from my PDA, cell phone, etc. Neither runs an OS that can run IE (nor does my desktop). By increasing the number of people using a non-IE browser we are forcing websites back into the original spirit of the internet: standards and interoperability.
- Cost. Most open-source projects are free and this value is a good-thing to the end-user, who can then spend that money on more-important things. If they WANT to blow tons of money certainly that's their option, but most people feel up against the wall and with no choice but to shell out the $100s for MS Office just so they can write the occasional letter/paper.
- Security. Open-source projects such as Firefox lack the inherantly-insecure technologies of many closed source equivalents (such as IE and ActiveX) because the open-source projects are aimed at and empower the END USER, while all too often the closed-source projects are vehicles for revenue, empowering the corporations and hearding end-users into whatever direction earns the supplying company the most profit. ActiveX is not for end-user best-interest... it is a mechanism that gives WEBSITES (aka companies who are customers of MS who pay MS big $$$) more control over end-user computers, wrapped-up in the sheep's clothing of being some sort of "benefit" to the end-user. In many cases, IE is nothing more than a ad-pumping machine.
- Support and general well-being. The more people using safe, reliable software that doesn't trash their system (due to bugs or being susceptible to viruses, spyware, adware, etc) the more happy computer users there will be. I'd rather earn consulting dollars showing someone how to do cool and useful things in OpenOffice than cleaning spyware off their computer for the umpteenth time.
I checked out HostSite per your recommendation (always interested in saving money), but they are $13.95/yr vs. GoDaddy's $8.95/yr. Doesn't seem cheaper to me...?
Note that I'm just talking about domain-name registrars here, not actual site-hosting with space and all.
I got on-board with GoDaddy before the SuperBowl ad. I had simply heard through the grapevine that they were cheap and offered good service. While I agree that all the hoops and stuff you have to dodge and click "NO" to to just checkout is a tad annoying, the price and service can't be beat. I've been very happy with them and have transferred all my domains there at this point.
Their other services such as webhosting don't offer anything special, but as a domain-name registrar I think they're great.
Re:Why isn't more government stuff open source?
on
NASA Goes SourceForge
·
· Score: 1
Just because we pay for it, doesn't mean we're entitled to open access to it. There are countless guys in-between who decide how our money is spent, and what we can and can't directly reap the benefits of.
Sort of like how when I went to Area 51, they wouldn't let me in. Bastards.
Which makes Microsoft incredibly happy, since such info is used all the time to compound web statistics.
Increasing marketshare statistics increases your marketshare further. What could be nicer that having your competitors fudge the numbers in your favor at the beginning to give you a head start?
This is why I'm against browser user-agent spoofing as well. UAs are like votes. Stand up, be counted, and leave your UA alone so that the stats work in YOUR favor, and not against you.
Slashdot Mirror
From the look of XP's default "Luna" theme, I thought they already had...? ;)
Then there's the XBox... which I suppose is a powerful gaming system but I refuse to own/use one on principle.
For the sake of science, he should've directed all the fans inwards.
The resulting concentrated pressure would compress the computer, resulting in shorter traces and better performance.
Consequently, the increased-performance would drive more power to the fans, increasing the pressure even further... sparking a chain-reaction that compressed and imploded the entire computer to critical mass (resulting in a thermonuclear explosion) or a singularity with an event-horizon the size of his bedroom.
Ok maybe not.
Well you wouldn't logically be doing all those things simultaneously. Sort of like parachuting, reading a book, watching TV, and playing piano all the same time. Heh.
My T3 is something like 400MHz and seems wicked fast to me. I can quickly jump from one application to another and there are utilities (which I don't use) available to give you shortcuts to do so even faster. Apps, games, etc remain where I left them and those things that I DO want to multitask do so just fine. Granted it doesn't have built-in wifi but I have the wifi SD card for when I need it. I wouldn't want it integrated with my phone, but the Bluetooth allows it to link with one.
This is not a flame, but...
I do all that with my Palm. And you don't need a LifeDrive for it... I do it with my Tungsten T3, which has been around for a long time now.
So I don't get why you say you wouldn't find a Palm useful and then list all those things as reasons why...?
"Try to draw a vague parallel to some guy writing code for the space shuttle. There's more at stake when you're sending humans up in a rocket, but the mentality can be the same. We want to get this right, on the first try"
You reminded me of an article, which I found with Google:
They Write the Right Stuff
I have to agree somewhat. Given Firefox's current memory-leak and footprint issues, and the nightmare that has become the effort to trace them down and stomp them out, I would have preferred a bit more emphasis on "perfection" from the Firefox team.
I love Firefox and all, and it's my sole browser on all the platforms I use... but the memory issue is very real, despite what the over-zealous with their blinders might say. And I'm a pretty hardcore advocate myself.
What I have found is that by using browsers tolerant of bad sites (incorrect or IE-only code) I'm only encouraging the propagation of their bad behavior. If we want improvement we need to be squeaky wheels. It's the long tradition of IE-induced apathy that has left us with the mess we have today.
If web browsers had always been as intolerant of bad code as compilers were of bad code, we wouldn't have this problem. Now that the apathetic cat is out of the bag, people expect it without accepting the consequences (or being willing to connect the two) and it's hard to get it back into the proverbial bag.
"If you don't have the time to do it right the first time...
This dovetails with the whole "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure..." one as well.
I'm a big proponent of elegant design and putting in the extra work ahead of time. I've never regretted it and have been giddy at my own forethought long after the original code was written. It makes life sooooo much easier.
The outside coating on the wires will harden and break away after being submerged long enough
Well I'd say that just about nixes it right there. The oil might not conduct, but the insulation in those wire bundles is to keep the wires from touching each other, not just other things. Once the insulation crumbles away and the wires start to short against each other, you're going to have problems. Especially in the power supply.
I really don't understand why so many people spend $2000 on a 42" flat-panel TV when projectors are so cheap. For under $800 you can get a high-quality 1500 lumen 800x600 DLP projector which can give you images as big as 6 FEET or MORE. Not only can you get a HUGE screen, but projectors (especially DLP ones) are TINY compared to big flat-panel TVs, so they're easier and cheaper to ship, easier to mount, easier to move, easier to store, etc etc. DLP rocks over LCD projectors, so if you haven't seen DLP yet don't judge it prematurely. And the whining over bulb cost is just dumb. Sure they're upwards towards $400 sometimes. But they last 2000 hours. Do the math... that's $0.20/hr to watch a fricken 6-FOOT screen in your OWN HOUSE. Guess what? Tires are expensive too and wear out from time to time. But that doesn't stop people from driving (or laying patches).
And when you're NOT watching TV you don't have this big ugly thing looming on the wall. Get a pull-down (or motorized) screen and really go stealth.
Cheaper, bigger screens, easier to store/mount/move... projectors are the way to go.
"he'll have to recompile his kernel to support his sound card"
Actually, that hasn't been the case for quite some time. The sound driver (along with others) is a kernel-loadable module.
I haven't really had much problem upgrading FreeBSD. This machine runs 5.3... soon to be 5.4... and it began life at 5.0.
My 2 gripes with upgrading are:
1) mergemaster. This program and the procedure is a a pain as the amount of human-interaction is huge. If you want ALL of the old file or ALL of the new file, you're fine... but if you want SOME, the interface is really clumsy and it's not easy to use. And it takes a fair amount of knowledge to know which files you want what of. There's got to be an easier way... perhaps something that noted what files had been changed from their stock/default version, and could take those diffs and allow you to easily apply them to the new files (instead of an all-or-nothing-or-you're-on-your-own thing).
2) Sometimes enough changes between FreeBSD versions that you need to recompile all your ports. Not difficult, but it takes a few days on my system.
"since a gui install and gui version of pkg_* utilities would increase the appeal of FreeBSD."
You mean like bpm, portbrowser, or barry?
Yes, you can do that.
:0
But you still need to restart X to have the new driver take effect in your current display
While *nix OSes are better in this regard since the GUI and the OS layers are separate, so a full restart isn't necessary... it's still necessary to restart the layer that uses the graphics driver. In Windows this is all one layer, so a full reboot has been required. If a future version of Windows can apply the updated graphics driver without restarting the current GUI layer, then it actually has an advantage over *nix.
Heh... well considering Wil Wheaton reads Slashdot and posts sometimes, he might leave his own comment.
As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows, to be fair... you can't upgrade your video driver in XFree/Xorg without restarting X at least. Granted it's not a full reboot so non-GUI daemons still run... but X needs to be restarted.
Or am I missing something?
With the assumption that "production machines" = servers, not really sure why anyone would need a graphics driver on a server. One of the strengths of unix-type OSes is the lack of a need for a GUI, which allows those CPU cycles to be better spent on being a server.
I actually agree with you. My tone (which I guess didn't communicate well) was that of stating the status quo of how things tend to be these days, not so much stating my opinion of how things should be.
The Area 51 comment (while also entirely true) was meant to be a hint to my true feelings on the matter... heh.
Ah I see. Well that makes sense then. Wasn't such an issue for me, since I use a dedicated DNS/whois email address and a PO box.
Because:
- Standards. I want a web/internet where you aren't forced to use one specific browser on one specific OS. I want to be able to access the web from my PDA, cell phone, etc. Neither runs an OS that can run IE (nor does my desktop). By increasing the number of people using a non-IE browser we are forcing websites back into the original spirit of the internet: standards and interoperability.
- Cost. Most open-source projects are free and this value is a good-thing to the end-user, who can then spend that money on more-important things. If they WANT to blow tons of money certainly that's their option, but most people feel up against the wall and with no choice but to shell out the $100s for MS Office just so they can write the occasional letter/paper.
- Security. Open-source projects such as Firefox lack the inherantly-insecure technologies of many closed source equivalents (such as IE and ActiveX) because the open-source projects are aimed at and empower the END USER, while all too often the closed-source projects are vehicles for revenue, empowering the corporations and hearding end-users into whatever direction earns the supplying company the most profit. ActiveX is not for end-user best-interest... it is a mechanism that gives WEBSITES (aka companies who are customers of MS who pay MS big $$$) more control over end-user computers, wrapped-up in the sheep's clothing of being some sort of "benefit" to the end-user. In many cases, IE is nothing more than a ad-pumping machine.
- Support and general well-being. The more people using safe, reliable software that doesn't trash their system (due to bugs or being susceptible to viruses, spyware, adware, etc) the more happy computer users there will be. I'd rather earn consulting dollars showing someone how to do cool and useful things in OpenOffice than cleaning spyware off their computer for the umpteenth time.
I checked out HostSite per your recommendation (always interested in saving money), but they are $13.95/yr vs. GoDaddy's $8.95/yr. Doesn't seem cheaper to me...?
Note that I'm just talking about domain-name registrars here, not actual site-hosting with space and all.
I got on-board with GoDaddy before the SuperBowl ad. I had simply heard through the grapevine that they were cheap and offered good service. While I agree that all the hoops and stuff you have to dodge and click "NO" to to just checkout is a tad annoying, the price and service can't be beat. I've been very happy with them and have transferred all my domains there at this point.
Their other services such as webhosting don't offer anything special, but as a domain-name registrar I think they're great.
Just because we pay for it, doesn't mean we're entitled to open access to it. There are countless guys in-between who decide how our money is spent, and what we can and can't directly reap the benefits of.
Sort of like how when I went to Area 51, they wouldn't let me in. Bastards.
Not for long:
Microsoft server crash nearly causes 800-plane pile-up
Which makes Microsoft incredibly happy, since such info is used all the time to compound web statistics.
Increasing marketshare statistics increases your marketshare further. What could be nicer that having your competitors fudge the numbers in your favor at the beginning to give you a head start?
This is why I'm against browser user-agent spoofing as well. UAs are like votes. Stand up, be counted, and leave your UA alone so that the stats work in YOUR favor, and not against you.