E1505 systems with either Ubuntu or Vista. A couple things to note: the Ubuntu laptop comes with an nvidia video card, ati for the Vista system. I bumped the ram, proc, and battery on both systems (still the same for both). The Vista system "wins" by $25. I did this rather quickly, so I may have missed something (coat + Vista - crapware = $25 less?).
Ubuntu system ($867):
My Components PROCESSOR Intel® Core(TM) processor DUO processor T2350 2MB Cache/1.86GHz OPERATING SYSTEM Ubuntu Edition version 7.04 LCD PANEL 15.4 inch UltraSharp(TM) Wide Screen WXGA+ Display with TrueLife(TM) MEMORY 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm HARD DRIVE 80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive OPTICAL DIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7300 TurboCache(TM) My Accessories BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery WIRELESS CARDS Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g My Service WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Free Recycling Kit ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor
Microsoft Vista System ($842):
My Components PROCESSOR Intel® Core(TM) DUO T2350 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB) OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Basic LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife(TM)(glossy) MEMORY 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM HARD DRIVE 80GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI MOBILITY(TM) RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory(TM) SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio My Accessories BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery WIRELESS CARDS Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g My Software PRODUCTIVITY Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD
My Service WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service GETTING-STARTED HELP No Dell On Call DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS 6 Months America Online Internet Access Included ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Free Recycling Kit ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM Network Card and Modem Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0 Miscellaneous E1505 Dual Core Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor Labels Windows Vista(TM) Basic
I think that a lot of high schools that don't gear towards college prep use windows exclusively simply because they assume that's what they'll use out in the work force - they assume no college - straight out into the world of windows when they graduate from high school.
Much like a lot of tech schools will teach niches for businesses in the area (like COBOL for power companies) or using certain drafting software. It feels like the same kind of thing.
Instead of learning a concept, you are simply teaching them a basic job. People complain that college has gone from learning about the world, to how to get a high paying job. It seems from your above example (and my own experience), in the realm of technology, high school isn't any different.
Afaik, all engines - gasoline and electric are turned to have max efficiency at X rpms. With electric engines the max efficiency is near peak rpm's. With gasoline engines it's usually tuned to 2-3000 rpms.
This may be for technical reasons to some extent. But I'm pretty sure most of it deals with how they *expect* you to use the engine - and thus set the peak efficiency accordingly.
People always bring up the crapware as this great monetary leverage that can be used to lower the cost of windows (as you say $100 - easily beyond the cost of windows).
I don't buy it - that they get *that* much money. I'd really like to see some actual figures (or even logical educated guesses).
My *out of my ass* guess would be pennies per crapware. Just guessing the amount payed for google sponsorship * 100.
If this were the case there would never be any incentive for Dell or anyone else to go with an alternate OS. And since Dell will be availing us with the choice of Ubuntu I can Shenanigans!
Nearly all the stuff in the control panel is written by Microsoft devs. If UAC is supposed to force developers to fix their code (an argument I see many commenters making), then why do you get so many UAC prompts in the control panel?
Obviously the Microsoft devs need to fix their code. Apple/Linux doesn't prompt you for everything - as it's been said before - bombarding the user continually isn't security. Not in a meaningful way.
Developers may get rid of some of the UAC prompts, but it appears that it will still have the same basic problem. Perhaps a UAC whitelist would be a good idea (for non-critical but common things). I'm sure there are a bunch of examples of such things.
Sure. I'm not going to skim you for that. And your previous post brings up a good point - where's the instability? And me thinks they simply don't have enough info to adequately describe what is going on... atm. This new upsurge in extrasolar planets over the last decade or so has been really interesting, and this planet seems to be kicking the discovery up a couple notches - I'm really curious to see what info will be discovered about this and other planets in the near term (next few years).
From TFA, it seemed to be that the proximity to the star produced tidal forces that were partly responsible for stripping the gases. We can deduce that (a) the orbit must be significantly elliptical, and (b) there must be significant deformation of the gas envelope, considering that there is also probably a very stong magnetic field (if its anything like Jupiter) for the stars solar corpulscular radiation to overcome.
How can you deduce that it's elliptical orbit would make any difference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD209458b - not sure it's definitive, but that says "Eccentricity (e) 0.00" - a circular orbit, and it's so close (0.045AU) that even (semi-major axis 8.6 times closer to the star than Mecury is to ours) a Mercury like eccentricity would make little difference.
On earth, the magnetic field actually works to prevent the erosion of the atmosphere. The arorae are evidence of the magnetic field battling the solar corpulscular radiation during times of coronal mass ejections. The same must normally occur on a hot Jupiter, unless there is such a deformation of the atmosphere that it rises beyond the protection of the field?
Magnetic fields stop the "slow bleed" of our atmosphere - but we could still survive without it for a long time (millions of years). The magnetic field will pale in comparison to the gravitational forces of the star it's orbiting as well as the heat from the star's radiation. With this 'Hot Jupiter' it may make some difference, but I would guess it's negligable compared to the other forces at work.
Will the star it's orbiting eventually eat it?
Probably not, unless there is a reason for the orbit to be decaying (such as encountering significant nebular material along its orbital path. If it did decay it would probably reach the planet's Roche limit and be pulled apart. It might form a nice ring system around the star, before the radiation blew it away.
Basically, it appears to be on the border of it's Roche limit, and so what you are saying is more or less happening even without it being in a decaying orbit. It's appears to be outside it's Roche limit (going by what Jupiter's is); although with how quickly it's losing mass, it's probably in some sort of gray area between its Roche limit and relative equilibrium.
If it's loosing mass as quickly as stated in TFA (mainly it's atmosphere) it still begs the question: how did this star formed in the first place? The also predict the loss rate is "probably accelerating". I can only make the wild guess that this planet was much larger at some point in time - more able to compete with the star it was so close to; but now over a long period of time with a gradual loss of mass has killed it's ability to compete gravitationally and otherwise.
Does it have a decaying orbit? Will the star it's orbiting eventually eat it? Was it a star itself at one point?
I'm curious why this wasn't even brought up in the article. I mean I suppose information isn't available, but I'm still curious what the physicists thoughts are on this one.
Hmmm... well, Murtha and Pelosi aside (I'll just say I disagree - cut n' run v. stay for eternity) - but I really think it would be very nice to have a computer that can run without power (via the hand crank). If it doesn't have that I probably won't get one.
http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/power_supply/ - I like the fact (if this is the case) that they are using LiFePO4 batteries - these also last a lot longer that the current Lithium-ion batteries.
Most people like it, and it's really what got Linux so popular in the first place (Linus doing multiple kernel releases a day in some cases). And from a developing standpoint this development model is a great way to learn how to code and improve your coding ability. That's why Google has developers work on proprietary as well as FOSS software.
Heh, Gnome.
Well Linus did call them "Interface Nazis" for a reason. Nonetheless, UI bugs can be tricky, because the burden of proof lies with you, and it's often not black and white.
If the guy wants to go off on a Dennis Miller rant, let him.
Nintendo isn't (and hasn't been for a long time) the high end system. Nintendo has decided to go a different route - which I think is pretty cool, and give more choices.
Nonetheless, I'm guessing him (and perhaps other devs) are finding the Wii to be a bit lower-end than they thought.
And remember he's a developer not a game designer - so the "art" for him is pushing the envelope in the technical sense, which I could see that as something worth bitching about (this is slashdot, isn't everything?:).
Interestingly enough a search function is pretty sweet when it comes to programs.
Although searching the start menu only is limiting, I like E17's ability to search all binaries on the system. Works well and fast - imo.
Let's also remember this is a government organization...
They probably have many older computers than a "Pentium M with 1GB RAM" - try, I don't know, P3 with 256MB RAM, maybe less. If such is the case it means many upgrades and such (no idea how their IT budget may work, but this upgrade might be overwhelming).
Also, they *need* backward compatibility. I don't know how Office 2k7 is on this front, but I'm guessing they tested it, and I'll bet they still need older version of office, or even OO.o to open old documents.
Compatibility issues are probably the most irritating things State/Fed Govt. institutions have to deal with; and this doesn't help, and costs a lot of money.
Conspiracy? 1st Amendment means you can bitch about whatever you want. Even if the offender doesn't do something against the law.
What's with this "it's not against the law" B.S?
Why don't you simply not post, don't you have "better things to do"?
I think you are going a bit far...
How about a "NO OS" option. Is that too much to ask?
Dell's arguments of picking the right OS and certification seem designed to stall and perhaps eventually sweep this under the rug.
Your argument seems like a strawman; because the main thing Linux people don't want to do is pay for Windows. Pre-installed Linux is a big step - for end-users it requires support and hardware testing.
Diplomacy a joke? Perhaps when one nations might is so great that it can easily overtake another nation. And even then...
The USA, Britain, France had many treaties with Native Americans - often fighting alongside one another in various situations. Diplomacy by the French gave them many allies in the French and Indian Wars. The Revolutionary War gave Britian many native allies. In point - to get allies you need diplomacy. So obviously it matters. Even later on when the US was breaking treaties (often from over-zealous settlers - AFAIK) - they would temporarily cease fighting, thus making a difference.
Diplomacy matters, one way or another in many conflicts. Your point is so fleeting I'm not going to come up with anymore obvious examples. If you read into specifics into any major conflict you would see diplomacy coming into play.
I'm not sure about the complexity though. A simple 3dMark style utility that generates a performance score (as well as relevant feature info) compared to an online database would probably be the best (because it's simple).
Other issues with Linux for example is glibc ABI breakage - UT anyone? Seriously can you even run that game with current glibc (stable)? Among others. My point is there are still other issues besides performance and features.
I don't think I've been able to run original UT for 2 years. Still works on windows I'm sure.
Slashdot Mirror
E1505 systems with either Ubuntu or Vista. A couple things to note: the Ubuntu laptop comes with an nvidia video card, ati for the Vista system. I bumped the ram, proc, and battery on both systems (still the same for both). The Vista system "wins" by $25. I did this rather quickly, so I may have missed something (coat + Vista - crapware = $25 less?).
Ubuntu system ($867):
My Components
PROCESSOR Intel® Core(TM) processor DUO processor T2350 2MB Cache/1.86GHz
OPERATING SYSTEM Ubuntu Edition version 7.04
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch UltraSharp(TM) Wide Screen WXGA+ Display with TrueLife(TM)
MEMORY 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
HARD DRIVE 80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
OPTICAL DIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7300 TurboCache(TM)
My Accessories
BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WIRELESS CARDS Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g
My Service
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Free Recycling Kit
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio
Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor
Microsoft Vista System ($842):
My Components
PROCESSOR Intel® Core(TM) DUO T2350 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Basic
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife(TM)(glossy)
MEMORY 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM
HARD DRIVE 80GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI MOBILITY(TM) RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory(TM)
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio
My Accessories
BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WIRELESS CARDS Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g
My Software
PRODUCTIVITY Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD
My Service
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
GETTING-STARTED HELP No Dell On Call
DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS 6 Months America Online Internet Access Included
ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Free Recycling Kit
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
Network Card and Modem Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0
Miscellaneous E1505 Dual Core
Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor
Labels Windows Vista(TM) Basic
Or are there still Windows 98 or ME users out there? (wouldn't be surprised) It's unfortunate they don't get a little more specific about that.
And still that category is only 0.1%? I wonder if that is the usual proportion of linux/wine gamers.
Or does wine showup in whatever OS you set it to (e.g. "Windows XP")?
I think that a lot of high schools that don't gear towards college prep use windows exclusively simply because they assume that's what they'll use out in the work force - they assume no college - straight out into the world of windows when they graduate from high school.
Much like a lot of tech schools will teach niches for businesses in the area (like COBOL for power companies) or using certain drafting software. It feels like the same kind of thing.
Instead of learning a concept, you are simply teaching them a basic job. People complain that college has gone from learning about the world, to how to get a high paying job. It seems from your above example (and my own experience), in the realm of technology, high school isn't any different.
Afaik, all engines - gasoline and electric are turned to have max efficiency at X rpms. With electric engines the max efficiency is near peak rpm's. With gasoline engines it's usually tuned to 2-3000 rpms.
This may be for technical reasons to some extent. But I'm pretty sure most of it deals with how they *expect* you to use the engine - and thus set the peak efficiency accordingly.
Ahem ... "I call Shenanigans!"
People always bring up the crapware as this great monetary leverage that can be used to lower the cost of windows (as you say $100 - easily beyond the cost of windows).
I don't buy it - that they get *that* much money. I'd really like to see some actual figures (or even logical educated guesses).
My *out of my ass* guess would be pennies per crapware. Just guessing the amount payed for google sponsorship * 100.
If this were the case there would never be any incentive for Dell or anyone else to go with an alternate OS. And since Dell will be availing us with the choice of Ubuntu I can Shenanigans!
Nearly all the stuff in the control panel is written by Microsoft devs. If UAC is supposed to force developers to fix their code (an argument I see many commenters making), then why do you get so many UAC prompts in the control panel?
Obviously the Microsoft devs need to fix their code. Apple/Linux doesn't prompt you for everything - as it's been said before - bombarding the user continually isn't security. Not in a meaningful way.
Developers may get rid of some of the UAC prompts, but it appears that it will still have the same basic problem. Perhaps a UAC whitelist would be a good idea (for non-critical but common things). I'm sure there are a bunch of examples of such things.
Sure. I'm not going to skim you for that. And your previous post brings up a good point - where's the instability? And me thinks they simply don't have enough info to adequately describe what is going on ... atm. This new upsurge in extrasolar planets over the last decade or so has been really interesting, and this planet seems to be kicking the discovery up a couple notches - I'm really curious to see what info will be discovered about this and other planets in the near term (next few years).
From TFA, it seemed to be that the proximity to the star produced tidal forces that were partly responsible for stripping the gases. We can deduce that (a) the orbit must be significantly elliptical, and (b) there must be significant deformation of the gas envelope, considering that there is also probably a very stong magnetic field (if its anything like Jupiter) for the stars solar corpulscular radiation to overcome.
How can you deduce that it's elliptical orbit would make any difference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD209458b - not sure it's definitive, but that says "Eccentricity (e) 0.00" - a circular orbit, and it's so close (0.045AU) that even (semi-major axis 8.6 times closer to the star than Mecury is to ours) a Mercury like eccentricity would make little difference.
On earth, the magnetic field actually works to prevent the erosion of the atmosphere. The arorae are evidence of the magnetic field battling the solar corpulscular radiation during times of coronal mass ejections. The same must normally occur on a hot Jupiter, unless there is such a deformation of the atmosphere that it rises beyond the protection of the field?
Magnetic fields stop the "slow bleed" of our atmosphere - but we could still survive without it for a long time (millions of years). The magnetic field will pale in comparison to the gravitational forces of the star it's orbiting as well as the heat from the star's radiation. With this 'Hot Jupiter' it may make some difference, but I would guess it's negligable compared to the other forces at work.
Will the star it's orbiting eventually eat it? Probably not, unless there is a reason for the orbit to be decaying (such as encountering significant nebular material along its orbital path. If it did decay it would probably reach the planet's Roche limit and be pulled apart. It might form a nice ring system around the star, before the radiation blew it away.
Basically, it appears to be on the border of it's Roche limit, and so what you are saying is more or less happening even without it being in a decaying orbit. It's appears to be outside it's Roche limit (going by what Jupiter's is); although with how quickly it's losing mass, it's probably in some sort of gray area between its Roche limit and relative equilibrium. If it's loosing mass as quickly as stated in TFA (mainly it's atmosphere) it still begs the question: how did this star formed in the first place? The also predict the loss rate is "probably accelerating". I can only make the wild guess that this planet was much larger at some point in time - more able to compete with the star it was so close to; but now over a long period of time with a gradual loss of mass has killed it's ability to compete gravitationally and otherwise.
Does it have a decaying orbit? Will the star it's orbiting eventually eat it? Was it a star itself at one point?
I'm curious why this wasn't even brought up in the article. I mean I suppose information isn't available, but I'm still curious what the physicists thoughts are on this one.
Re: power requirements - the OLPC laptop is _very_ low.
Much better than standard laptop... this is the clincher for me.
Hmmm... well, Murtha and Pelosi aside (I'll just say I disagree - cut n' run v. stay for eternity) - but I really think it would be very nice to have a computer that can run without power (via the hand crank). If it doesn't have that I probably won't get one.
http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/power_supply/ - I like the fact (if this is the case) that they are using LiFePO4 batteries - these also last a lot longer that the current Lithium-ion batteries.
Weird argument. So Microsoft products are bad because the Linux complainers won't help fix Microsoft software?
That's how I understood you witty witicism.
Fine you win, everything in Linux is beta.
e _Bazaar
That's just the development model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_th
Most people like it, and it's really what got Linux so popular in the first place (Linus doing multiple kernel releases a day in some cases). And from a developing standpoint this development model is a great way to learn how to code and improve your coding ability. That's why Google has developers work on proprietary as well as FOSS software.
Heh, Gnome. Well Linus did call them "Interface Nazis" for a reason. Nonetheless, UI bugs can be tricky, because the burden of proof lies with you, and it's often not black and white.
Genius analogy for a club (Scientology) you have to *pay* to get into.
If the guy wants to go off on a Dennis Miller rant, let him. Nintendo isn't (and hasn't been for a long time) the high end system. Nintendo has decided to go a different route - which I think is pretty cool, and give more choices. Nonetheless, I'm guessing him (and perhaps other devs) are finding the Wii to be a bit lower-end than they thought. And remember he's a developer not a game designer - so the "art" for him is pushing the envelope in the technical sense, which I could see that as something worth bitching about (this is slashdot, isn't everything? :).
Interestingly enough a search function is pretty sweet when it comes to programs. Although searching the start menu only is limiting, I like E17's ability to search all binaries on the system. Works well and fast - imo.
Let's also remember this is a government organization...
They probably have many older computers than a "Pentium M with 1GB RAM" - try, I don't know, P3 with 256MB RAM, maybe less. If such is the case it means many upgrades and such (no idea how their IT budget may work, but this upgrade might be overwhelming).
Also, they *need* backward compatibility. I don't know how Office 2k7 is on this front, but I'm guessing they tested it, and I'll bet they still need older version of office, or even OO.o to open old documents.
Compatibility issues are probably the most irritating things State/Fed Govt. institutions have to deal with; and this doesn't help, and costs a lot of money.
Conspiracy? 1st Amendment means you can bitch about whatever you want. Even if the offender doesn't do something against the law. What's with this "it's not against the law" B.S? Why don't you simply not post, don't you have "better things to do"?
I think you are going a bit far... How about a "NO OS" option. Is that too much to ask? Dell's arguments of picking the right OS and certification seem designed to stall and perhaps eventually sweep this under the rug. Your argument seems like a strawman; because the main thing Linux people don't want to do is pay for Windows. Pre-installed Linux is a big step - for end-users it requires support and hardware testing.
How about no OS, is that that difficult? Really?
Beyond that, it wouldn't be hard to have the basic hardware be stuff that works under Linux in general. The specific OS stuff is just a stall tactic.
The reason people are so pissy is because this got their hopes up, and now it looks like it may be postponed... indefinately.
Diplomacy a joke? Perhaps when one nations might is so great that it can easily overtake another nation. And even then...
The USA, Britain, France had many treaties with Native Americans - often fighting alongside one another in various situations. Diplomacy by the French gave them many allies in the French and Indian Wars. The Revolutionary War gave Britian many native allies. In point - to get allies you need diplomacy. So obviously it matters. Even later on when the US was breaking treaties (often from over-zealous settlers - AFAIK) - they would temporarily cease fighting, thus making a difference.
Diplomacy matters, one way or another in many conflicts. Your point is so fleeting I'm not going to come up with anymore obvious examples. If you read into specifics into any major conflict you would see diplomacy coming into play.
So...
There are supposedly millions of homeless people in this (USA) country, should I stop caring about Microsoft/piracy/etc?
Interesting idea.
I'm not sure about the complexity though. A simple 3dMark style utility that generates a performance score (as well as relevant feature info) compared to an online database would probably be the best (because it's simple).
Other issues with Linux for example is glibc ABI breakage - UT anyone? Seriously can you even run that game with current glibc (stable)? Among others. My point is there are still other issues besides performance and features.
I don't think I've been able to run original UT for 2 years. Still works on windows I'm sure.