No, it wasn't me. Don't believe? Well, that's your problem.
And it was mentioned once or twice here (I don't remember, if it was TFA, or the comments) that some desktop cards are affected, too, and the guys at Nvidia aren't actually completely sure that they fixed the problem. Maybe it was false, maybe not, but it's hard to confirm anything when there's an equal amount of bullshit and actual information floating in the tubes and they look pretty alike. And starting a discussion about an uncertain topic isn't somethin you mod down for.
You can setup the thing completely in-house (you don't have to trust a contractor), or you can opt for a canned solution (for example Jabber, Inc., http://www.jabber.com/, they do provide everything for big and small companies, and are backed by Cisco). It uses SSL/TLS for secure connections both between clients and servers (C2S) and between separate servers (S2S), with full support for certificate authenticity checking, and even PGP/GPG encryption between the users, should they need to exchange really confifental data that even a rogue company server admin shouldn't be able to intercept (message encryption, pretty rare among proprietary protocols, but happens), or be sure that joe.the.boss@company.com is really Joe, their Boss, and not someone who just happend to "borrow" their laptop at the airport (signed presence, something, AFAIK, no other protocol provides). There are XMPP servers and clients for almost every platform possible, open-source or commercial, the protocol is open and approved by IETF for IM-style communication.
I won't give you any specific names, but I believe it wouldn't be very difficult to find a few *very* big companies using XMPP to prove to your boss that it's being used like this by big players in the industry.
And, frankly, that's the only open solution to your problem.
There are tower cases designed for the purpose of swapping parts while in the normal working position, they even have levers to push cards into slots so you don't trip the case over while pushing on a card.
It's very difficult for me to believe that an open-air case with a big fan blowing out of the top (heat rises) will have inferior thermal characteristics to virtually ANY enclosed case. Give me a link to an enclosed, fans-only, case that has better thermal characteristics. Liquid cooling doesn't count.
It's much harder to direct streams of air in an open case. It can be done, but it's an engineering feat an order of magnitude harder than designing a properly cooled enclosed case (take a look at some prebuilt high-end workstations from IBM, they are perfectly quiet yet run cold because the air is directed through dedicated air ducts, everything in its path is carefully designed and there are seals on the side panels to prevent any unwanted inlets or outlets from appearing due to pressure).
This *IS* a desktop-type case. It's an open-air desktop case. It's taller than the normal desktop because of the fan and you can't stack stuff on top of it. A case you can stack stuff on does not define "desktop" case. The iMac is a desktop.
I think it was really damn obvious that I meant the kind of case you can stack stuff on, especially the monitor, as I was talking about the practicality of this case, namely the fact that it takes up a lot of space. And iMacs have the monitor built in, so there's no need to put a monitor on top of them. But you can't put a monitor on top of this Antec case, because there's this huge fan in there. I really hate to mention such stupidly obvious things when discussing something and hate it even more when it turns out that I have to because for someone it wasn't enough...
A big tower would be bigger, heavier, and less accessible than this case. Removing only the left panel wouldn't let you swap drives easily.
There are tower cases with the disk cage swiveling out for easy access, individual disks mounted on rapid-mounting slide rails, and expansion cards locked in place with levers - no need to push on them to insert, that is, no need to put the case on the side, it can still stand vertically, taking much less desk space than a desktop case. And there are some such towers made of aluminum, which are probably just a little heavier than this one.
This case strikes me as being very light and has handles, which makes it very east to move (much moreso than the desktop or tower case you're discussing). For a test rig that people are likely to move around the office it would be very handy.
I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of this case. This case doesn't replace other cases. It replaces "bunch of components sitting on a desktop in a test environment".
I'm absolutely sure such a specialized case could be made much better than that, especially more compact and accessible. Those curved side beams look like they are actually making it harder to fiddle with cables on the mainboard even than with a simple tower case with the side panel removed, exposing the mainboard completely without any weird metal pieces getting in the way. And the sliding motherboard tray in this contraption looks like a complete misunderstanding - it slides out to the back and the card support frame doesn't move with it. Guessing from the photos, you'd need to take out all the expansion cards to actually slide the motherboard out to access it comfortably.
Even if we assume that there are no problems with air circulation and proper cooling (it's Antec, after all), this things takes up much more desk space than a normal tower case, cannot be used like a destop type case (however awkward they are) because of its shape and cannot really be placed under the desk (it negates the whole puprpose of such a design and most computer desks have no place suitable for something like that anyway, except maybe the printer shelf). So it's half a desk for a weird novelty. Not worth the hassle, IMO. Even for someone who likes fiddling with the parts a big tower without the left side panel and placed on the right hand side of the desk would be probably a lot more practical.
I hope you're aiming for a "+1 Funny", because I thought it's quite obvious that by "computer" I meant a shorthand for "the hardware with a basic operating system" and didn't mention it explicitly...
If you have to use a whole bunch of programs that consume a whole chunk of the computer's processing power just so that the computer can function properly, then something is damn wrong with it, on the very basic level.
I mean, wouldn't it be easier to fix the reasons of those common problems if they're so common, than it is to make some bizarre problem-solving applications?
Sure, that's a touchpad with incorrect scale, maximum speed and acceleration presets for the particular screen size and touchpad area combination. Out of many laptops I've tried in the stores, only a few had those settings adjusted properly. Most are too damn slow, requiring constant "rubbing" just to move the cursor across the screen. This is even worse with widescreen laptops and horizontal movements.
A properly configured touchpad maps to at least 2/3 of the screen area (I'd say more than 3/4 is actually good), allowing to move the cursor from the top to the bottom of the screen with a single swipe of the finger and from one side to the other with less than two swipes, yet still has enough precision to point at the smallest typical UI elements (I'd say 10x10px is a good measure) without too much effort.
All Synaptics and Alps touchpads are perfectly capable of that if configured properly, but the laptop makers just install the same touchpad in all the laptops in a single series, big or small screen, and don't bother with changing the factory (that is, the touchpad's) defaults, which are badly inappropriate most of the time.
Read my other posts - I *do* get 12h with 3G, just using two batteries. So that's 6h with a single battery (8 normal Li-ion cells, and there already are cells with a better energy density). The trick is probably that the modem I'm using (PCMCIA GlobeTrotter with Option chipset) is switching between link modes when appropriate - it's on GPRS most of the time, but switches to UMTS as soon as more bandwidth is needed (there is a delay of a few seconds, but it's otherwise completely transparent).
Sometimes I'm working while on a train or waiting for one, sometimes I actually do work in remote locations, usually just because I can and like to (coding while in the middle of a forest, or even just a city park, is a pretty good compromise between needing to finish something and getting out of the basement, really), and I like to have some spare battery time after that, just in case. Maybe I don't actually need it often, more like once every few weeks, or even months, when something like a long power outage or a longer-than-expected trip happens, but it's just the way I prefer it to be.
By the way, what about the fuel cells? Maybe those will be able to provide 12 hours worth of power on a single charge, while keeping the weight reasonable. They're pretty heavy now, but nowhere near the efficiency limit, so there's probably a lot of room for improvement.
Sure, that's some hassle, but it's only about 300g more than I'd be completely comfortable with, much lighter than a normal (around 15") notebook with a single 6-cell battery capable of no more than 4-5h.
I'm much more concerned with the fact that the audio out port is already showing signs of broken solder - they could have mounted it using some kind of a flexible connector instead of a rigid PCB. Still much better, however, than my previous laptop (some Gericom-branded OEM model) that just fell apart after two years.
Not really, X60 is almost there for me - 10-14h of work time with 3G connectivity in under 1.8kg, with two 8-cell batteries. I just had to make a battery-powered (but very small and light) contraption that plugs into the charging port and keeps the notebook up for a few seconds while I switch the main battery for a fresh one. And that's the normal X60, not X60s with a low-voltage processor.
So I'd say the technology for a light 12h+ laptop on a single battery will be there soon if it's not already.
Lightweight (under 1.5kg including the power supply), 12h+ REAL battery life, built-in 3G modem, trackpoint or a *properly* calibrated touchpad, a sturdy case - steel hinges (but NOT steel fastened with screws to a plastic frame), titanium alloy or carbon fiber underside and cover - and proper space utilization (if there's space for a full-sized keyboard because the notebook is widescreen, then put this goddamned full-sized keyboard there, not a "normal" laptop keyboard and 10cm of padding on each side). Oh, and a matte screen. Glossy is OK for desktop monitors in a controller environment, laptops are being used where it's often impossible to eliminate direct, bright sources of light that make using a glossy screen almost impossible.
Actually, I think I've just described something similar to my X60, which is a very good design as far as mobility is concerned, but could be improved anyway. Sadly, I couldn't find anything better yet - Eee is nice but underpowered for my needs (no, not gaming) and too small (12.1" is optimal for me), Vaio feels too delicate and too easy to break, while HP subnotebooks are fine at first, but there's something about them that puts me off.
Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the "desktop replacement" kind of notebook, which definitely has its place (small apartments, dorm rooms etc.), but is, in my opinion, out of scope of this discussion.
I saw the FA five minutes ago and though "I bet the first comment on Slashdot now is 'That's no moon!' this article is there already". How come I'm not surprised at all?
It's KDE. An old version of KDE. 3.2 I think, they dropped that window decoration as a default in 3.3. Or, maybe, someone at LHC is weird enough to like the Keramik style, hell knows. But it's definitely KDE.
basically Debian only discovered their systems were compromised by dumb luck and simplistic checks.
Isn't that how you find security breaches? I mean, using, er "simplistic" checks, that aren't in fact that simplistic because they perform an extensive comparison of lots and lots of little details?
Oh, I know - you don't do any integrity checks because you are *absolutely sure* no one would break into your servers, right? Well, that's an interesting approach to security, indeed. It's a pity it won't actually work.
Nice trolling, but generalizations, "ad hominem" arguments, insults and Red Hat zealotry pretty much uncover it. Go away, troll. Shooo.
Disclaimer: no, I'm not a Debian user. In fact, I don't like using Debian at all because of the dpkg and its frontends, there's not a single one that suited me.
Actually, in the recent years most of the 'bricks' turned into SMPSes. It's no more expensive to produce and less so to ship in cargo containers from China - smaller, lighter = more units in a container = lower shipping fee per unit. That makes a difference when sending out several tons of this junk a day.
As far as the general principle of operation is concerned, your average nuclear (or coal/natural gas/oil, for that matter) power plant is a huge steam engine attached to a generator. Sure, it uses a turbine instead of a piston, but there AFAIK were some attempts at a turbine-based steam engine of a more typical size and use, they just came too late for the techology to be used for transportation. So it got to be used for generating electricity on a massive scale.
The polish EMPIK shop chain (they sell books, press, games etc. and definitely are a big box retailer by the Central European standards) does. I've bought a few games there, installed them and, in some cases, found out that they won't run on the GMA950 in my laptop. I was given a full, no-questions-asked refund, I just had to ask for it within a week of the purchase. They accept the cost (can't just put the thing back on the shelf without the factory-made shrinkwrap seal) for the convenience of the customer. Actually. it's required by the trade law in Poland, but some smaller shops try to weasel out of it using the factory seals as an excuse ("the thing is in used condition, the law is about unused products") - EMPIK, however, doesn't.
Apparently it is. Quoth that EFF dude again: "Universities already pay blanket fees so that student a cappella groups can perform on campus, [...]"
Er, what? I'm not questioning what you said, as you're just citing, but I'm interested in an explanation. What the heck has performing on a campus to do with the university paying someone - and WHO do they pay? If the students are performing as a part of their own initiative, they can do that whereever they please, on the campus, on the top of Mt. Everest, on the lawn in front of the White House or just anywhere else except when it's explicitly forbidden by the landowner. Even if they're performing copyrighted works (doing an artistic interpretation), just in this case they can't do that for profit without obtaining the rightowner's permission. So it looks someone is extorting money from the universities...
So tell me, how the heck do I cross the goddamned US border without agreeing to this madness? It's not like people enter the airport terminals etc. just for the fun of it and then return home. And actually, it's not like we here don't understand all those fancy-shmancy right-waiving loopholes you just described, it's just more logical and convenient to say "I'm offended by the government declining my right to privacy" instead of "I'm offended by the government setting up court-approved signs at every border-crossing point that say they assume that I waive my rights to privacy as soon as I enter, so I can't cross the border without waiving them blah blah blah". Because the latter is assumed to be understood without saying by any reasonable person. Using your logic, it would be perfectly sensible to lock someone up in a room on the 20th story and tell them that they are absolutely free to escape using the window.
Cattledung. I've seen KDE running smoothly on a desktop with specs worse than that, perfectly usable for web browsing, e-mail, programming and text editing - which is exactly what its user, a Comp Sci student, needed on a daily basis.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it wasn't me. Don't believe? Well, that's your problem.
And it was mentioned once or twice here (I don't remember, if it was TFA, or the comments) that some desktop cards are affected, too, and the guys at Nvidia aren't actually completely sure that they fixed the problem. Maybe it was false, maybe not, but it's hard to confirm anything when there's an equal amount of bullshit and actual information floating in the tubes and they look pretty alike. And starting a discussion about an uncertain topic isn't somethin you mod down for.
Are we going to shell out $3,500 for a card that will fail after half a year, or did they correct the problem already?
You can setup the thing completely in-house (you don't have to trust a contractor), or you can opt for a canned solution (for example Jabber, Inc., http://www.jabber.com/, they do provide everything for big and small companies, and are backed by Cisco). It uses SSL/TLS for secure connections both between clients and servers (C2S) and between separate servers (S2S), with full support for certificate authenticity checking, and even PGP/GPG encryption between the users, should they need to exchange really confifental data that even a rogue company server admin shouldn't be able to intercept (message encryption, pretty rare among proprietary protocols, but happens), or be sure that joe.the.boss@company.com is really Joe, their Boss, and not someone who just happend to "borrow" their laptop at the airport (signed presence, something, AFAIK, no other protocol provides). There are XMPP servers and clients for almost every platform possible, open-source or commercial, the protocol is open and approved by IETF for IM-style communication.
I won't give you any specific names, but I believe it wouldn't be very difficult to find a few *very* big companies using XMPP to prove to your boss that it's being used like this by big players in the industry.
And, frankly, that's the only open solution to your problem.
There are tower cases designed for the purpose of swapping parts while in the normal working position, they even have levers to push cards into slots so you don't trip the case over while pushing on a card.
It's very difficult for me to believe that an open-air case with a big fan blowing out of the top (heat rises) will have inferior thermal characteristics to virtually ANY enclosed case. Give me a link to an enclosed, fans-only, case that has better thermal characteristics. Liquid cooling doesn't count.
It's much harder to direct streams of air in an open case. It can be done, but it's an engineering feat an order of magnitude harder than designing a properly cooled enclosed case (take a look at some prebuilt high-end workstations from IBM, they are perfectly quiet yet run cold because the air is directed through dedicated air ducts, everything in its path is carefully designed and there are seals on the side panels to prevent any unwanted inlets or outlets from appearing due to pressure).
This *IS* a desktop-type case. It's an open-air desktop case. It's taller than the normal desktop because of the fan and you can't stack stuff on top of it. A case you can stack stuff on does not define "desktop" case. The iMac is a desktop.
I think it was really damn obvious that I meant the kind of case you can stack stuff on, especially the monitor, as I was talking about the practicality of this case, namely the fact that it takes up a lot of space. And iMacs have the monitor built in, so there's no need to put a monitor on top of them. But you can't put a monitor on top of this Antec case, because there's this huge fan in there. I really hate to mention such stupidly obvious things when discussing something and hate it even more when it turns out that I have to because for someone it wasn't enough...
A big tower would be bigger, heavier, and less accessible than this case. Removing only the left panel wouldn't let you swap drives easily.
There are tower cases with the disk cage swiveling out for easy access, individual disks mounted on rapid-mounting slide rails, and expansion cards locked in place with levers - no need to push on them to insert, that is, no need to put the case on the side, it can still stand vertically, taking much less desk space than a desktop case. And there are some such towers made of aluminum, which are probably just a little heavier than this one.
This case strikes me as being very light and has handles, which makes it very east to move (much moreso than the desktop or tower case you're discussing). For a test rig that people are likely to move around the office it would be very handy.
I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of this case. This case doesn't replace other cases. It replaces "bunch of components sitting on a desktop in a test environment".
I'm absolutely sure such a specialized case could be made much better than that, especially more compact and accessible. Those curved side beams look like they are actually making it harder to fiddle with cables on the mainboard even than with a simple tower case with the side panel removed, exposing the mainboard completely without any weird metal pieces getting in the way. And the sliding motherboard tray in this contraption looks like a complete misunderstanding - it slides out to the back and the card support frame doesn't move with it. Guessing from the photos, you'd need to take out all the expansion cards to actually slide the motherboard out to access it comfortably.
Even if we assume that there are no problems with air circulation and proper cooling (it's Antec, after all), this things takes up much more desk space than a normal tower case, cannot be used like a destop type case (however awkward they are) because of its shape and cannot really be placed under the desk (it negates the whole puprpose of such a design and most computer desks have no place suitable for something like that anyway, except maybe the printer shelf). So it's half a desk for a weird novelty. Not worth the hassle, IMO. Even for someone who likes fiddling with the parts a big tower without the left side panel and placed on the right hand side of the desk would be probably a lot more practical.
I hope you're aiming for a "+1 Funny", because I thought it's quite obvious that by "computer" I meant a shorthand for "the hardware with a basic operating system" and didn't mention it explicitly...
If you have to use a whole bunch of programs that consume a whole chunk of the computer's processing power just so that the computer can function properly, then something is damn wrong with it, on the very basic level.
I mean, wouldn't it be easier to fix the reasons of those common problems if they're so common, than it is to make some bizarre problem-solving applications?
Sure, that's a touchpad with incorrect scale, maximum speed and acceleration presets for the particular screen size and touchpad area combination. Out of many laptops I've tried in the stores, only a few had those settings adjusted properly. Most are too damn slow, requiring constant "rubbing" just to move the cursor across the screen. This is even worse with widescreen laptops and horizontal movements.
A properly configured touchpad maps to at least 2/3 of the screen area (I'd say more than 3/4 is actually good), allowing to move the cursor from the top to the bottom of the screen with a single swipe of the finger and from one side to the other with less than two swipes, yet still has enough precision to point at the smallest typical UI elements (I'd say 10x10px is a good measure) without too much effort.
All Synaptics and Alps touchpads are perfectly capable of that if configured properly, but the laptop makers just install the same touchpad in all the laptops in a single series, big or small screen, and don't bother with changing the factory (that is, the touchpad's) defaults, which are badly inappropriate most of the time.
Read my other posts - I *do* get 12h with 3G, just using two batteries. So that's 6h with a single battery (8 normal Li-ion cells, and there already are cells with a better energy density). The trick is probably that the modem I'm using (PCMCIA GlobeTrotter with Option chipset) is switching between link modes when appropriate - it's on GPRS most of the time, but switches to UMTS as soon as more bandwidth is needed (there is a delay of a few seconds, but it's otherwise completely transparent).
Sometimes I'm working while on a train or waiting for one, sometimes I actually do work in remote locations, usually just because I can and like to (coding while in the middle of a forest, or even just a city park, is a pretty good compromise between needing to finish something and getting out of the basement, really), and I like to have some spare battery time after that, just in case. Maybe I don't actually need it often, more like once every few weeks, or even months, when something like a long power outage or a longer-than-expected trip happens, but it's just the way I prefer it to be.
By the way, what about the fuel cells? Maybe those will be able to provide 12 hours worth of power on a single charge, while keeping the weight reasonable. They're pretty heavy now, but nowhere near the efficiency limit, so there's probably a lot of room for improvement.
Sure, that's some hassle, but it's only about 300g more than I'd be completely comfortable with, much lighter than a normal (around 15") notebook with a single 6-cell battery capable of no more than 4-5h.
I'm much more concerned with the fact that the audio out port is already showing signs of broken solder - they could have mounted it using some kind of a flexible connector instead of a rigid PCB. Still much better, however, than my previous laptop (some Gericom-branded OEM model) that just fell apart after two years.
Not really, X60 is almost there for me - 10-14h of work time with 3G connectivity in under 1.8kg, with two 8-cell batteries. I just had to make a battery-powered (but very small and light) contraption that plugs into the charging port and keeps the notebook up for a few seconds while I switch the main battery for a fresh one. And that's the normal X60, not X60s with a low-voltage processor.
So I'd say the technology for a light 12h+ laptop on a single battery will be there soon if it's not already.
Lightweight (under 1.5kg including the power supply), 12h+ REAL battery life, built-in 3G modem, trackpoint or a *properly* calibrated touchpad, a sturdy case - steel hinges (but NOT steel fastened with screws to a plastic frame), titanium alloy or carbon fiber underside and cover - and proper space utilization (if there's space for a full-sized keyboard because the notebook is widescreen, then put this goddamned full-sized keyboard there, not a "normal" laptop keyboard and 10cm of padding on each side). Oh, and a matte screen. Glossy is OK for desktop monitors in a controller environment, laptops are being used where it's often impossible to eliminate direct, bright sources of light that make using a glossy screen almost impossible.
Actually, I think I've just described something similar to my X60, which is a very good design as far as mobility is concerned, but could be improved anyway. Sadly, I couldn't find anything better yet - Eee is nice but underpowered for my needs (no, not gaming) and too small (12.1" is optimal for me), Vaio feels too delicate and too easy to break, while HP subnotebooks are fine at first, but there's something about them that puts me off.
Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the "desktop replacement" kind of notebook, which definitely has its place (small apartments, dorm rooms etc.), but is, in my opinion, out of scope of this discussion.
I saw the FA five minutes ago and though "I bet the first comment on Slashdot now is 'That's no moon!' this article is there already". How come I'm not surprised at all?
And how do you know that no one used that vulnerability before, without being so kind to inform you?
It's KDE. An old version of KDE. 3.2 I think, they dropped that window decoration as a default in 3.3. Or, maybe, someone at LHC is weird enough to like the Keramik style, hell knows. But it's definitely KDE.
basically Debian only discovered their systems were compromised by dumb luck and simplistic checks.
Isn't that how you find security breaches? I mean, using, er "simplistic" checks, that aren't in fact that simplistic because they perform an extensive comparison of lots and lots of little details?
Oh, I know - you don't do any integrity checks because you are *absolutely sure* no one would break into your servers, right? Well, that's an interesting approach to security, indeed. It's a pity it won't actually work.
Nice trolling, but generalizations, "ad hominem" arguments, insults and Red Hat zealotry pretty much uncover it. Go away, troll. Shooo.
Disclaimer: no, I'm not a Debian user. In fact, I don't like using Debian at all because of the dpkg and its frontends, there's not a single one that suited me.
And I can remember that just fine, as it was last Friday. So what?
If it works for you, great, but don't assume it does for everyone.
Actually, in the recent years most of the 'bricks' turned into SMPSes. It's no more expensive to produce and less so to ship in cargo containers from China - smaller, lighter = more units in a container = lower shipping fee per unit. That makes a difference when sending out several tons of this junk a day.
As far as the general principle of operation is concerned, your average nuclear (or coal/natural gas/oil, for that matter) power plant is a huge steam engine attached to a generator. Sure, it uses a turbine instead of a piston, but there AFAIK were some attempts at a turbine-based steam engine of a more typical size and use, they just came too late for the techology to be used for transportation. So it got to be used for generating electricity on a massive scale.
In Soviet Russia, the government controls the buttheaded bureaucrats.
The polish EMPIK shop chain (they sell books, press, games etc. and definitely are a big box retailer by the Central European standards) does. I've bought a few games there, installed them and, in some cases, found out that they won't run on the GMA950 in my laptop. I was given a full, no-questions-asked refund, I just had to ask for it within a week of the purchase. They accept the cost (can't just put the thing back on the shelf without the factory-made shrinkwrap seal) for the convenience of the customer. Actually. it's required by the trade law in Poland, but some smaller shops try to weasel out of it using the factory seals as an excuse ("the thing is in used condition, the law is about unused products") - EMPIK, however, doesn't.
Apparently it is. Quoth that EFF dude again:
"Universities already pay blanket fees so that student a cappella groups can perform on campus, [...]"
Er, what? I'm not questioning what you said, as you're just citing, but I'm interested in an explanation. What the heck has performing on a campus to do with the university paying someone - and WHO do they pay? If the students are performing as a part of their own initiative, they can do that whereever they please, on the campus, on the top of Mt. Everest, on the lawn in front of the White House or just anywhere else except when it's explicitly forbidden by the landowner. Even if they're performing copyrighted works (doing an artistic interpretation), just in this case they can't do that for profit without obtaining the rightowner's permission. So it looks someone is extorting money from the universities...
So tell me, how the heck do I cross the goddamned US border without agreeing to this madness? It's not like people enter the airport terminals etc. just for the fun of it and then return home. And actually, it's not like we here don't understand all those fancy-shmancy right-waiving loopholes you just described, it's just more logical and convenient to say "I'm offended by the government declining my right to privacy" instead of "I'm offended by the government setting up court-approved signs at every border-crossing point that say they assume that I waive my rights to privacy as soon as I enter, so I can't cross the border without waiving them blah blah blah". Because the latter is assumed to be understood without saying by any reasonable person. Using your logic, it would be perfectly sensible to lock someone up in a room on the 20th story and tell them that they are absolutely free to escape using the window.
Cattledung. I've seen KDE running smoothly on a desktop with specs worse than that, perfectly usable for web browsing, e-mail, programming and text editing - which is exactly what its user, a Comp Sci student, needed on a daily basis.