If you're really desperate, you could use Mono, but I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm curious why you say that? I am extremely new to programming anything but embedded stuff, but c# has been super easy to learn. I started about a month ago and i just released my first software utility to a few customers yesterday. I admit knowing very little about the alternatives, but c# works great for me. I'm not doing driver development or anything complex, just simple apps to access small databases etc, and c# shows no signs of being limited in anything i intend to do. I also played with Mono in Ubuntu and it seemed fine. Not as full-featured as VC# for windows, but not bad. If he's already learning c# as he said, it seems worthwhile to me to learn how to use mono.
Your examples are horrible: Do i want a doctor leaving anything abnormal behind in my body? Fuck no. Do i care if a piece of software i use has an easter egg that shows the dev team when i hold Shift+F8 and click on some logo? No, i don't care at all, they are completely different things!
Now i know you say you worked on mission-critical software for the police, etc, and if there was a place i might omit an egg, it would be there, but that doesn't mean that easter eggs are universally horrible, and you don't seem to get that.
And i get paid on salary, which means i get paid to get my work done. I already work over 8hrs every day, and if i have already gotten my work done and I decide to stay an extra half hour and screw around, that's MY decision, on MY time. That's not "screwing the pooch and exploiting [my] employer" as you put it (which i would say borders on stupidity, given the possible situation i just described). Of course i know someone else is paying for the software and i know that my screwing around would never be okay if it was detrimental to the final work, but i don't consider easter eggs detrimental, if they are simple and harmless.
Simple and harmless may seem like an innocent and uniformed concept, but honestly, unlike what another commenter said, i just don't agree that software is infinitely complex. It's SOFTWARE for christ's sake, it's made to run on a machine that only understands two states, 0 or 1. Software is absolute, and it is one of the simplest things you can encounter, when correctly designed. If i write code that checks for keypresses by running some function in every portion of my program just to have an egg, that could very well lead problem, but if there is a reasonable place to deal with keypresses and i am already using that input for legitimate things, adding one more case is is in most situations going to be completely harmless. I would never encourage a novice to add an egg, but i can't say it's horrible if you know it won't cause damage.
And ultimately, yes, it is unprofessional, in the sense that the ideal professional never has fun, and only does their job, but don't you think you should lighten up just a bit? I do. -Taylor
"you just can't know what is a distortion from the lens and what is part of the scene. Unless, like, the scene happened to be a highly accurate checkerboard pattern."
It need not be a checker board. ANy straight lines will do. For example if the horizon is in the frame or (better) parts of buildings. Whaen I correct out geometric distortion I never use a lens profile. I only correct out what I see.
Hmm, interesting. I figured that something like a wood building wouldn't be straight enough, because after painting it is kind of lumpy, but i guess you're probably not looking for small distortions, but larger ones? -Taylor
Put another way, it's easy to put soda in your mouth and have yellow stuff come out of your underbits, but very difficult to do the reverse.
I'm never drinking Mountain Dew again.
And you're probably better off. I think Mountain Dew is the byproduct of people who never quite realized that you can't make soda from pee... Well, unless you're NASA I suppose... -Taylor
When I am traveling, I do not want work colleagues calling me up - I work at work and the rest of my time is my own.
Ah, so no friends then? I don't know if you realize this but cell phones are excellent for, you know, interacting with friends. You seem to think they are work-only devices? If you have a cell and your work colleagues keep calling, you could always just, um, *ask* them to stop. I keep my phone on me so i can call a friend and stop by for dinner, or so that someone can reach me if they'd like to do something - without having to drive all the way home only to find out that my friend wanted to get dinner near my work, but was unable to reach me before i left the office.
Man, that sounds pretty terrible, i can see why you wouldn't want a cell. -Taylor
...Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the distortion uniquely identifies the lens used...
Nah, not likely. Unless you knew exactly what the scene was supposed to look like, from that exact angle and everything (and even then it would likely be impossible), you just can't know what is a distortion from the lens and what is part of the scene. Unless, like, the scene happened to be a highly accurate checkerboard pattern. Then you can look and see what lines aren't quite straight and get some distortion information, but that would be tough.
I know software can correct for lens distortion if it has a distortion profile for a certain lens (which is probably made by shooting a checkerboard type pattern...), but knowing to move every pixel to the left one is a lot easier than knowing if every pixel was moved to the left one by the lens, if that makes any sense.
Put another way, it's easy to put soda in your mouth and have yellow stuff come out of your underbits, but very difficult to do the reverse. -Taylor
Can a program be written to notify if it's information is being 'given' out? Anyway, this is one more reason to NOT get one (cell phone). I was finally going to break down, and get one. With this report, it one more reason to just say no.
What? No, this is a reason not to vote for people that don't understand basic civil rights. The cell phones are not the problem. Do you also not have any bank accounts, a car, any credit/bank cards, or any taxable income? Because if someone wants to track you, there are plenty of ways.
You seriously don't own a cell phone? On purpose? I mean, i know some people can't afford them, but you're telling me that you can afford one (i'm assuming that part) but you choose not to buy one because... what? Because the government could be tracking you?
I know that tracking people against their will is absolutely NOT okay, and we need to vote for people who will help put a stop to things like that, but realistically, do you ACTUALLY think someone has any reason to track you? I have a huge respect for civil rights and i very much think we should vote for people who do too, and we need to fix all of the laws that trample over these rights that have been passed lately, but when it comes down to it, for day to day stuff i'm not worried. Realistically, i can ditch my phone and buy a handful of prepaid phones, or stop using them at all, when i decide to overthrow the government. Till then, day to day, i absolutely don't think it's a reason to avoid owning a phone... what the hell do you do that you think is so important? -Taylor
Just as RFID tags do not require batteries to give disclose their location and unique identifiers, modern cell phones also have similar functionality batteries or not...
I'm sorry. I never would have replied to you if I knew you had such a profound emotional involvement.
Where is the distrust coming from? You're perfectly right... the poor telecom companies, most especially the mobile providers, have NEVER done anything that would justify anything but the utmost trust and dedication! Why, I'm sure they'll be delighted to surrender much of their revenue stream!
I'm just getting irritated at all the people making all these BS statements when the facts show that the opposite of what they're saying is true.
From the beginning i've thought Android was an awesome idea, and maybe i'm just optimistic but i see no reason to think otherwise today, yet everyone else seems so pessimitic. Telecom companies have been shitty but Android belongs to google, not the telecom companies. All i need is a nice open handset and i can run Android on it all day long. The G1 is their first foray and they may have been a bit reserved, but if the operating system exists, eventually there should be totally open hardware to put it on.
The CEO of T-Mobile did not say how much he's going to charge Android users for data...
And to be clear, he SPECIFICALLY said users could use any program on their unlimited data plans, as long as it wasn't malicious, so there is definetely NOT some clause or something that says the unlimited plan is only for "certain" programs or anything like that. After your unlimited plan is paid for, they charge NOTHING for data, period.
The CEO of T-Mobile did not say how much he's going to charge Android users for data, or how certain data might just be given a low priority.
Now assume the position.
WTF? They PUBLISH how much their data plans cost, what the hell are you talking about?
And no he didn't say if they'd throttle their data or not, but i also never heard YOU say you weren't a douchebag, so i'm going to assume that's the case. Google would flip out if T-Mobile started throttling certain Apps, if anyone is FOR net neutrality it's Google.
Where the hell is all this mistrust coming from! What is wrong with you people?
"Assume the position"? Yes, your random baseless suggestions about android really did show me... -Taylor
It's BS, and none of the blogs seem to get is. So far as we can tell, google only fixed the root exploit because it was a serious security concern, because of how it worked. I don't think they are going to make a real effort to stop people from hacking their device aside from fixing security flaws.
We'll see. The fact is that the only root exploit discovered thus far was closed within a few days. I really don't think Google has that much to do with it - let's look at what they actually do: provide an open source software stack to the telcos. T-Mobile control their network and the devices using it, they control the cryptographic keys for the G1, so if an OTA update is rolled out that fixes some issue, obviously T-Mobile didn't like that issue. What power does Google actually have in this arrangement? They're just an upstream provider of source code.
Bottom line: if Google wanted the G1 to ship with root access, and they had the power to do so, they it would've happened already.
It was closed because it was a huge security hole! Did you never read the description of the issue? EVERYTHING that was EVER typed on the device also went to a command line as root. That is not good. Just because google closed that has nothing to do with whether or not they *want* you to have root. The point of being open is not to give you everything, but just to make it possible for you to do anything. They don't need to ship the device with root, but everything that runs Android has source code published for it, so anyone with sufficient knowledge of code should be able to make it happen.
Google and T-Mobile have said over and over that they won't stop people from doing non-malicious things, yet no one believes them. I have a feeling that if it hadn't been for Steve Jobs holding every iphone user by the balls for the last year and a half, people would be more inclined to believe them, but the point is Google is NOT Apple, and they said they will keep it open. Why is a security fix making everyone freak out?
Most articles fail to mention HOW the root exploit was a problem, and i think that is the real issue here - people read the article and don't realize it was an honest issue that needed to be fixed, they think google is fighting back against the hackers and they just arent.
You only pay for it to rent it while you use it, and then pay a monthly fee for network access on top of that.
And this is open, how?
--Toll_Free
Umm... it's open because the entire OS is released under the Apache or GLPv3 (depending on which part of the OS) licenses. I'm not well versed in which licenses are or are not "really" open, but i am under the impression that both of those are supposed to be. Android is based on version 2.6 of the linux kernel, and the framework on top of that was written by google, and the source code was released under Apache and heavily documented.
That's way more open than any other successful phone out there.
And I don't know if you're exaggerating or if it's different in your country, but in the U.S. you OWN your cell phone. And i fail to see how paying a monthly fee to access a network has anything to do with whether or not the phone is open - no one is going to let you use their multi-billion dollar network for free, and i'm fine with that.
Why is everyone so bent on hating android, even with no facts to back up what they say? Google fixes a security bug and everyone flips out, but the countless times google and the t-mobile CEO have said they will keep the device open? No one seems to remember or care. -Taylor
One needs to be aware of where the money is made. The actual phone manufacturer makes money by selling a locked version to a telecom, the telecom makes money by selling the phone and the phone service to retail clients.
If you get a free phone with a low monthly service charge and then you hack it, you could make expensive calls over IP and pay the telecom, nothing more than the monthly rent.
Thus the telecom needs the phone to be locked to make (more) money and the manufacturer has to lock the phone in order to please the telecom, who is, after all, its client.
Yes, there will be an arms race because its about controlling the money making process.
The CEO of T-Mobile straight up said they will allow VOIP apps, and will do nothing to stop them. That's the entire point of android being open, but everyone keeps assuming it will be more and more locked down.
In that same interview the CEO also said they won't stop unlockers. Why would they anyway? You agreed to a contract and they can charge you an ETF if you leave, so if you want to unlock it and use it on business, there is no reason not to let you.
The _ENTIRE_ point of android is that it is open, and i wholeheartedly believe that google will stick to that. -Taylor
Why on earth is there a "manufacturer-hacker arms race"?
There isn't, it's BS, and none of the blogs seem to get is. So far as we can tell, google only fixed the root exploit because it was a serious security concern, because of how it worked. I don't think they are going to make a real effort to stop people from hacking their device aside from fixing security flaws. Even if they do, this is so far not an indication of that, contrary to what most sites say. -Taylor
Given the flowcharts (not the shiny video that catches your attention first) it appears that instead of shutting down, they simply reboot the system and once it reaches the state where the OS has finished loaded it then goes to sleep or hibernate. Once you power it back on it just returns to the freshly loaded OS. So it appears that while it starts up faster, you should end up spending more time shutting down (actually rebooting and reloading the OS). You could also do this manually by rebooting Windows and once it gets to the desktop/login screen go into hibernate/sleep.
It would rock if they could load all this information up in a virtualized environment during idle time while the computer is booted, and then save that image to the hard drive before you even try to reboot. It would need to coordinate itself with windows/program updates to keep that image correct, but it would be the ideal way i think. This could actually really catch on if it's done that way. -Taylor
Hmm... I "booted" windows a few weeks ago. Took a little longer than 4 seconds, but i haven't had any windows trouble since... There's a link with more info here: http://www.ubuntu.com/ -Taylor
You people. First you complain that Idle isn't any good, and now you're complaining that it shouldn't be any good?
No, I'm complaining that there is already a section for this article, it's called "Science", and that i feel people are artificially putting this in the wrong category to make it seem more legitimate.
The idea behind the idle section is to have articles that are sort of pointless - that's just the point, i'm not ragging on it. Thing is, i don't like that idea, i think it's stupid. -Taylor
And one more thing... Trying to make Idle legitimate by putting real articles on it too is lame. Put real articles where they belong, banish idle to hell. -Taylor
It doesn't predict anything reliably. Too many variables.
Simply put: If you're looking for help online for flu symptoms, that doesn't correlate with an 'outbreak' of flu.
And what defines outbreak anyway?
Well, the way flu works, if you have it, you're likely to give it to someone else. You may google about it when you don't actually have it, but how often does that happen? The number of false positive searches would probably be somewhat low, and either way they would be constant. Google serves millions of search results a day, if not more. Almost everything "random" would, over time, look constant. When non-random things happen, like people from a certain region (remember, google knows your IP) getting the flu, even a 1% increase in flu related searches is extremely significant, if it otherwise doesn't vary that much.
YOU googling for flu symptoms doesn't necessarily indicate if you have the flu, but a large increase in the number of people googling it probably does. Especially if you can compare your data to the CDC data, to check your theories.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're really desperate, you could use Mono, but I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm curious why you say that? I am extremely new to programming anything but embedded stuff, but c# has been super easy to learn. I started about a month ago and i just released my first software utility to a few customers yesterday. I admit knowing very little about the alternatives, but c# works great for me. I'm not doing driver development or anything complex, just simple apps to access small databases etc, and c# shows no signs of being limited in anything i intend to do. I also played with Mono in Ubuntu and it seemed fine. Not as full-featured as VC# for windows, but not bad. If he's already learning c# as he said, it seems worthwhile to me to learn how to use mono.
check out their success stories here: http://www.mono-project.com/Companies_Using_Mono
-Taylor
I am using that! Just started with databases last week and MAN is SQLite easy to use!
-Taylor
Your examples are horrible: Do i want a doctor leaving anything abnormal behind in my body? Fuck no. Do i care if a piece of software i use has an easter egg that shows the dev team when i hold Shift+F8 and click on some logo? No, i don't care at all, they are completely different things!
Now i know you say you worked on mission-critical software for the police, etc, and if there was a place i might omit an egg, it would be there, but that doesn't mean that easter eggs are universally horrible, and you don't seem to get that.
And i get paid on salary, which means i get paid to get my work done. I already work over 8hrs every day, and if i have already gotten my work done and I decide to stay an extra half hour and screw around, that's MY decision, on MY time. That's not "screwing the pooch and exploiting [my] employer" as you put it (which i would say borders on stupidity, given the possible situation i just described). Of course i know someone else is paying for the software and i know that my screwing around would never be okay if it was detrimental to the final work, but i don't consider easter eggs detrimental, if they are simple and harmless.
Simple and harmless may seem like an innocent and uniformed concept, but honestly, unlike what another commenter said, i just don't agree that software is infinitely complex. It's SOFTWARE for christ's sake, it's made to run on a machine that only understands two states, 0 or 1. Software is absolute, and it is one of the simplest things you can encounter, when correctly designed. If i write code that checks for keypresses by running some function in every portion of my program just to have an egg, that could very well lead problem, but if there is a reasonable place to deal with keypresses and i am already using that input for legitimate things, adding one more case is is in most situations going to be completely harmless. I would never encourage a novice to add an egg, but i can't say it's horrible if you know it won't cause damage.
And ultimately, yes, it is unprofessional, in the sense that the ideal professional never has fun, and only does their job, but don't you think you should lighten up just a bit? I do.
-Taylor
"you just can't know what is a distortion from the lens and what is part of the scene. Unless, like, the scene happened to be a highly accurate checkerboard pattern."
It need not be a checker board. ANy straight lines will do. For example if the horizon is in the frame or (better) parts of buildings. Whaen I correct out geometric distortion I never use a lens profile. I only correct out what I see.
Hmm, interesting. I figured that something like a wood building wouldn't be straight enough, because after painting it is kind of lumpy, but i guess you're probably not looking for small distortions, but larger ones?
-Taylor
I'm never drinking Mountain Dew again.
And you're probably better off. I think Mountain Dew is the byproduct of people who never quite realized that you can't make soda from pee... Well, unless you're NASA I suppose...
-Taylor
When I am traveling, I do not want work colleagues calling me up - I work at work and the rest of my time is my own.
Ah, so no friends then? I don't know if you realize this but cell phones are excellent for, you know, interacting with friends. You seem to think they are work-only devices? If you have a cell and your work colleagues keep calling, you could always just, um, *ask* them to stop. I keep my phone on me so i can call a friend and stop by for dinner, or so that someone can reach me if they'd like to do something - without having to drive all the way home only to find out that my friend wanted to get dinner near my work, but was unable to reach me before i left the office.
Man, that sounds pretty terrible, i can see why you wouldn't want a cell.
-Taylor
...Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the distortion uniquely identifies the lens used...
Nah, not likely. Unless you knew exactly what the scene was supposed to look like, from that exact angle and everything (and even then it would likely be impossible), you just can't know what is a distortion from the lens and what is part of the scene. Unless, like, the scene happened to be a highly accurate checkerboard pattern. Then you can look and see what lines aren't quite straight and get some distortion information, but that would be tough.
I know software can correct for lens distortion if it has a distortion profile for a certain lens (which is probably made by shooting a checkerboard type pattern...), but knowing to move every pixel to the left one is a lot easier than knowing if every pixel was moved to the left one by the lens, if that makes any sense.
Put another way, it's easy to put soda in your mouth and have yellow stuff come out of your underbits, but very difficult to do the reverse.
-Taylor
Can a program be written to notify if it's information is being 'given' out? Anyway, this is one more reason to NOT get one (cell phone). I was finally going to break down, and get one. With this report, it one more reason to just say no.
What? No, this is a reason not to vote for people that don't understand basic civil rights. The cell phones are not the problem. Do you also not have any bank accounts, a car, any credit/bank cards, or any taxable income? Because if someone wants to track you, there are plenty of ways.
You seriously don't own a cell phone? On purpose? I mean, i know some people can't afford them, but you're telling me that you can afford one (i'm assuming that part) but you choose not to buy one because... what? Because the government could be tracking you?
I know that tracking people against their will is absolutely NOT okay, and we need to vote for people who will help put a stop to things like that, but realistically, do you ACTUALLY think someone has any reason to track you? I have a huge respect for civil rights and i very much think we should vote for people who do too, and we need to fix all of the laws that trample over these rights that have been passed lately, but when it comes down to it, for day to day stuff i'm not worried. Realistically, i can ditch my phone and buy a handful of prepaid phones, or stop using them at all, when i decide to overthrow the government. Till then, day to day, i absolutely don't think it's a reason to avoid owning a phone... what the hell do you do that you think is so important?
-Taylor
Just as RFID tags do not require batteries to give disclose their location and unique identifiers, modern cell phones also have similar functionality batteries or not...
Umm... no they don't? That's BS.
-Taylor
I'm sorry. I never would have replied to you if I knew you had such a profound emotional involvement.
Where is the distrust coming from? You're perfectly right... the poor telecom companies, most especially the mobile providers, have NEVER done anything that would justify anything but the utmost trust and dedication! Why, I'm sure they'll be delighted to surrender much of their revenue stream!
I'm just getting irritated at all the people making all these BS statements when the facts show that the opposite of what they're saying is true.
From the beginning i've thought Android was an awesome idea, and maybe i'm just optimistic but i see no reason to think otherwise today, yet everyone else seems so pessimitic. Telecom companies have been shitty but Android belongs to google, not the telecom companies. All i need is a nice open handset and i can run Android on it all day long. The G1 is their first foray and they may have been a bit reserved, but if the operating system exists, eventually there should be totally open hardware to put it on.
Why do people not see this?
-Taylor
The CEO of T-Mobile did not say how much he's going to charge Android users for data...
And to be clear, he SPECIFICALLY said users could use any program on their unlimited data plans, as long as it wasn't malicious, so there is definetely NOT some clause or something that says the unlimited plan is only for "certain" programs or anything like that. After your unlimited plan is paid for, they charge NOTHING for data, period.
Check your damn facts.
-Taylor
The CEO of T-Mobile did not say how much he's going to charge Android users for data, or how certain data might just be given a low priority.
Now assume the position.
WTF? They PUBLISH how much their data plans cost, what the hell are you talking about?
And no he didn't say if they'd throttle their data or not, but i also never heard YOU say you weren't a douchebag, so i'm going to assume that's the case. Google would flip out if T-Mobile started throttling certain Apps, if anyone is FOR net neutrality it's Google.
Where the hell is all this mistrust coming from! What is wrong with you people?
"Assume the position"? Yes, your random baseless suggestions about android really did show me...
-Taylor
We'll see. The fact is that the only root exploit discovered thus far was closed within a few days. I really don't think Google has that much to do with it - let's look at what they actually do: provide an open source software stack to the telcos. T-Mobile control their network and the devices using it, they control the cryptographic keys for the G1, so if an OTA update is rolled out that fixes some issue, obviously T-Mobile didn't like that issue. What power does Google actually have in this arrangement? They're just an upstream provider of source code.
Bottom line: if Google wanted the G1 to ship with root access, and they had the power to do so, they it would've happened already.
It was closed because it was a huge security hole! Did you never read the description of the issue? EVERYTHING that was EVER typed on the device also went to a command line as root. That is not good. Just because google closed that has nothing to do with whether or not they *want* you to have root. The point of being open is not to give you everything, but just to make it possible for you to do anything. They don't need to ship the device with root, but everything that runs Android has source code published for it, so anyone with sufficient knowledge of code should be able to make it happen.
Google and T-Mobile have said over and over that they won't stop people from doing non-malicious things, yet no one believes them. I have a feeling that if it hadn't been for Steve Jobs holding every iphone user by the balls for the last year and a half, people would be more inclined to believe them, but the point is Google is NOT Apple, and they said they will keep it open. Why is a security fix making everyone freak out?
Most articles fail to mention HOW the root exploit was a problem, and i think that is the real issue here - people read the article and don't realize it was an honest issue that needed to be fixed, they think google is fighting back against the hackers and they just arent.
-Taylor
And that's the problem.
You pay for the "device".
Google OWNS the operating system.
Duetch Telecom OWNS the device.
You only pay for it to rent it while you use it, and then pay a monthly fee for network access on top of that.
And this is open, how?
--Toll_Free
Umm... it's open because the entire OS is released under the Apache or GLPv3 (depending on which part of the OS) licenses. I'm not well versed in which licenses are or are not "really" open, but i am under the impression that both of those are supposed to be. Android is based on version 2.6 of the linux kernel, and the framework on top of that was written by google, and the source code was released under Apache and heavily documented.
That's way more open than any other successful phone out there.
And I don't know if you're exaggerating or if it's different in your country, but in the U.S. you OWN your cell phone. And i fail to see how paying a monthly fee to access a network has anything to do with whether or not the phone is open - no one is going to let you use their multi-billion dollar network for free, and i'm fine with that.
Why is everyone so bent on hating android, even with no facts to back up what they say? Google fixes a security bug and everyone flips out, but the countless times google and the t-mobile CEO have said they will keep the device open? No one seems to remember or care.
-Taylor
One needs to be aware of where the money is made. The actual phone manufacturer makes money by selling a locked version to a telecom, the telecom makes money by selling the phone and the phone service to retail clients.
If you get a free phone with a low monthly service charge and then you hack it, you could make expensive calls over IP and pay the telecom, nothing more than the monthly rent.
Thus the telecom needs the phone to be locked to make (more) money and the manufacturer has to lock the phone in order to please the telecom, who is, after all, its client.
Yes, there will be an arms race because its about controlling the money making process.
The CEO of T-Mobile straight up said they will allow VOIP apps, and will do nothing to stop them. That's the entire point of android being open, but everyone keeps assuming it will be more and more locked down.
In that same interview the CEO also said they won't stop unlockers. Why would they anyway? You agreed to a contract and they can charge you an ETF if you leave, so if you want to unlock it and use it on business, there is no reason not to let you.
The _ENTIRE_ point of android is that it is open, and i wholeheartedly believe that google will stick to that.
-Taylor
It's not Google's device. It's T-Mobile's device.
It's Google's OS though.
-Taylor
Why on earth is there a "manufacturer-hacker arms race"?
There isn't, it's BS, and none of the blogs seem to get is. So far as we can tell, google only fixed the root exploit because it was a serious security concern, because of how it worked. I don't think they are going to make a real effort to stop people from hacking their device aside from fixing security flaws. Even if they do, this is so far not an indication of that, contrary to what most sites say.
-Taylor
I use the one in your link, and it takes 2 minutes to boot on my AMD Duron 850MHz web server.
Hmm, funny, that's less than it takes my Vista machine to boot, with an AMD Athalon 6000+ Processor and 2GB ram!
-Taylor
Given the flowcharts (not the shiny video that catches your attention first) it appears that instead of shutting down, they simply reboot the system and once it reaches the state where the OS has finished loaded it then goes to sleep or hibernate. Once you power it back on it just returns to the freshly loaded OS.
So it appears that while it starts up faster, you should end up spending more time shutting down (actually rebooting and reloading the OS). You could also do this manually by rebooting Windows and once it gets to the desktop/login screen go into hibernate/sleep.
It would rock if they could load all this information up in a virtualized environment during idle time while the computer is booted, and then save that image to the hard drive before you even try to reboot. It would need to coordinate itself with windows/program updates to keep that image correct, but it would be the ideal way i think. This could actually really catch on if it's done that way.
-Taylor
Hmm... I "booted" windows a few weeks ago. Took a little longer than 4 seconds, but i haven't had any windows trouble since...
There's a link with more info here: http://www.ubuntu.com/
-Taylor
You people. First you complain that Idle isn't any good, and now you're complaining that it shouldn't be any good?
No, I'm complaining that there is already a section for this article, it's called "Science", and that i feel people are artificially putting this in the wrong category to make it seem more legitimate.
The idea behind the idle section is to have articles that are sort of pointless - that's just the point, i'm not ragging on it. Thing is, i don't like that idea, i think it's stupid.
-Taylor
And one more thing... Trying to make Idle legitimate by putting real articles on it too is lame. Put real articles where they belong, banish idle to hell.
-Taylor
Why is this even Idle? This is actually somewhat interesting.... I hate Idle, Btw.
-Taylor
Why do you think he hates to admit it? /eliza
Eliza: Oh, i think he hates to admit it.
It doesn't predict anything reliably. Too many variables.
Simply put: If you're looking for help online for flu symptoms, that doesn't correlate with an 'outbreak' of flu.
And what defines outbreak anyway?
Well, the way flu works, if you have it, you're likely to give it to someone else. You may google about it when you don't actually have it, but how often does that happen? The number of false positive searches would probably be somewhat low, and either way they would be constant. Google serves millions of search results a day, if not more. Almost everything "random" would, over time, look constant. When non-random things happen, like people from a certain region (remember, google knows your IP) getting the flu, even a 1% increase in flu related searches is extremely significant, if it otherwise doesn't vary that much.
YOU googling for flu symptoms doesn't necessarily indicate if you have the flu, but a large increase in the number of people googling it probably does. Especially if you can compare your data to the CDC data, to check your theories.
-Taylor