His point wasn't that IE8 was available, but rather people will just use their computer in the default configuration until they buy a new one. Since many other tech sites (including slashdot) gave Vista bad PR, most people at the stores wouldn't buy a new PC because they heard "vista was bad". So contrary to "use linux" and "use mac" campaigns as well as "use firefox" or "use chrome" campaigns, an actual viable solution to upgrading everyone to new browsers is actually just upgrade to something newer including Windows 7.
If you want an analogy, what should be done is to tell everyone Windows XP and older is "out of style" and anything else (OSX, Linux, Win7) is the new thing. They may be reluctant at first, but when they show up to the stores nothing in their minds will hold them back from buying a new machine that probably has a better browser.
Everyone is misunderstanding something. The phone hardware comes with GPS functionality. Android is just the OS and it just so happens google is now going to bundle a GPS aware google maps with directions. This doesn't mean that you can't have an android device with GPS and GPS software that doesn't require google maps or any network connectivity for that matter. In fact you can go on the android market today and find many GPS apps that do not require google maps to function.
I own a mytouch 3G android phone and while I was in Japan I didn't have cell phone functionality (locked SIM card). However, I was still able to use the wifi and GPS functions on the device. You can also set your phone to NOT roam when you reach an area without service. Android is a lot more configurable out of the box than people here imply.
I don't agree with option 1. He said under $300 and Mac Minis go for much higher than that even for the older ones.
His best option is laptop hardware or wait for a netbook deal. Personally I prefer the netbook since there's so many of them, the hardware is generally supported by linux, the power draw will be very low, and it is easy to find a replacement. The netbook will also have keyboard, mouse, and display included where as with a mini you would have to ssh in or connect external devices. With the netbook you pretty much just plug it in, configure, and you're off. No other crap attached.
The only good uses of the mini IMO are a home theatre system or for the sake of having actual mac hardware to run osx. For a home server I think it is way over priced. And yes, I own a mini as well as a netbook.
Yeah, because a magnitude 7 quake wouldn't have the same effect on a major interstate junction or a large building. I love how everyone loves to "poo poo" alternative transportation other than Autos in the U.S. It is like everyone here is brainwashed by Detroit.
I tell you what. I live in southern california and I already know that driving sucks. I can't fall asleep, I have to buy and maintain a car, and cops get randomly pull over people and tag them for DUIs if they wanted to at the right times. The only viable travel is by car and don't tell me "move next to work" or "move next to the bar". The bar is located in one area and the office is located in another area. Unless I work at the bar, I'm SOL.
The other thing is I'm currently visiting Tokyo, Japan. The metro system they have built is amazing. People sleep on the trains. People read books on the trains. People text on the trains. And they don't get others killed for riding the train. Their culture also makes it so that there are no "crazies" on the trains. When you get on a train, it is generally pretty quiet and none of the people yelling into their bluetooth headsets like in the states. That may never fly in the states because people would get all worked up if you told them to shutup no matter what they're doing. Americans just can't stop talking.
But the other major difference Japan has compared to the states is that a huge percentage of normal people use public transit. Kids, adults, families. They all can be seen on the trains.
Sure, the density of Tokyo is really high. The trains aren't free and they aren't nearly as convenient as cars. But you tell me how else we're going to keep growing out cities into the higher densities without implementing such a system? The system works and cities will be forced to build it to keep growing. If people are willing to sit in traffic for hours, they probably won't mind sitting on a train for an hour either.
The other interesting thing about Tokyo is that although there are a ton of people here, the roads generally don't have that many cars. In fact it is the other way around. When I was leaving Akihabara, the police had to control pedestrian traffic just so a couple cars could leave a parking garage. But the benefits are obvious. I walk no more than a block (or what would be a few houses away) to get to a convenience store. I walk for maybe 5 to 10 minutes to get to the subway station. Now if only they'd figure out that their system of Wards instead of street names is the dumbest thing ever, then people wouldn't get lost nearly as much, but that's another topic.
Since I'm on the topic, the other interesting thing is tokyo is there are signs to help control the flow of pedestrian traffic. I'm not just talking about cross walks but some signs and implied rules to allow people to get around faster. For example in many subway and train stations, there will be signs and lines showing you on what side you should walk to keep pedestrian traffic flowing. Generally you walk on the left side such that people going through hallways and up and down stairs don't run into each other. Another implied rule is that if you're standing on an escalator, but you aren't walking up the steps, then you stand to the left. This leaves the right side of the escalator open so that people who do want to walk up the steps (to get around a little faster) can. There are also rarely sidewalks (except for large roads) but it doesn't matter much because the roads are dominated by foot traffic, not car traffic.
The current interface presents a nice CLEAN list of commands, which can be quickly and easily scanned. The new ribbon interface presents a confusing mess of pictures and words that make a "quick scan" very difficult.
Yeah, but there's a trade off here. In the old office menu system, you'd often find what you're looking for buried in a menu somewhere with a half-assed dialog box to go along with it. Sure, you could scan each menu every time fairly quickly, and it was easy on the eyes. But once you found what you were looking for, repeating the path there really sucked.
One thing the new system does get right is that everything now has a keyboard short cut and everything is supposedly quicker to get to with less mouse acrobatics. The only reason you're used to the menu system is you've been trained since windows 95 to get good at navigating menus so you don't notice anymore.
I'm sure if you took two people, started one up with a ribbon, started the other with a menu, and then switched them after about a year, they'd both immediately complain. But that's obvious. The real question is after a month or so of training and learning, who will be performing better and is that performance change (if any) worth it?
Without the handset manufacturers having to bend over backwards to please the carriers, there might have been fewer, lower-cost, higher-quality handsets available.
There's no reason for this. In the current arrangement, the carrier is the customer to the handset manufacturer. If the handset manufacturer did not have to bend-over backwards for the carrier, guess who becomes the customer? The consumers purchasing the cell phones. Just because the customer changed doesn't mean that there would be fewer low cost handsets. In fact, as long as there are multiple players (competition) and there is demand (customers), the manufacturers will have an incentive to provide cheap phones. In fact, they've already been doing it for other markets.
The file menu is replaced by that giant round office button in the top left corner. You can also access it using the old "alt+f" shortcut or alt, f.
If you want the buttons to appear like a toolbar, there is a "quick access toolbar" which places buttons on the window title bar right next to the giant round menu button but on top of the "home, insert, etc" tabs for the ribbon. If you click the little down arrow thing, it lets you customize the buttons that show up.
Why is this modded up? The quoted numbers from the parent are for maximum load power, not typical power. I have a machine sitting right here with a 500W PSU, but does that mean it uses all 500W? Of course not, when hooked up to a "kill-a-watt" the readings are around 80w during normal loads.
I doubt both the mac mini and this "green" pc use the maximum power offered by the power supplies.
The web developers are often just working with what's there and are told what to do otherwise they won't get paid. The real driver for the IE6 cancer is large corporations with old web apps they don't want to bother to upgrade to newer standards. The web apps were developed for IE6 and work in IE6, but nobody wants to pay the money to have them tested and upgraded to IE7,8 or Firefox.
There's good verbosity and bad verbosity. Let's take for example java's System.out.println. This is bad because it is such a common function that you are bound to use it over and over again but good of course because you know it is not a keyword (it comes from the System.out library). The result is something twice as long as it needs to be and chews up screen space. As a human reader of the source, this becomes cumbersome and harder to read the full program.
Languages that can allow you to pull in identifiers from other scopes can solve this issue while reducing the bad kind of verbosity. For example in perl there is something called Exporter which allows defined symbols by the source package to be imported into the current scope through syntax like:
use Some::Package qw( someFunction );
Now instead of Some::Package::someFunction, for the rest of the file I can just do someFunction since I've already declared I'm importing it at the top. If the reader is interested in knowing where someFunction comes from, searching from the top of the file will reveal the use Some::Package qw( someFunction ); line.
Yet it still can't beat having a beer or a glass of wine with your friends, or a good vacation, or that certain girl/guy with a twinkle in their eye. It can't beat watching your kid run the wrong way on the soccer field.
I replaced my gaming addiction with sports, specifically tennis. Just like any game, there are levels of skill to be achieved and plays to be learned. Just like an MMO, there's plenty of social interaction. But the sport tends to beat the game on all fronts because the learning rate is much more difficult. Your body will often reach it's physical limits far before your brain does, so it is vital that you get things right the first time otherwise it is almost time wasted. In a game, you sit there and when you fail you just do it all over again. If there are boring parts you just fall asleep or do something else simultaneously.
The great thing about sports is physically and mentally, I'm a better person. With an MMO it is likely I'll struggle at both of those and the skills gained in MMOs don't apply anywhere else. Knowing a certain play specific to tennis will obviously be useless in other cases, but I still get exercise and sunshine; my body will only get more physically attractive. After the match, if we're good friends, there's the occasional drink or dinner which is a hell of a lot better than a message board or a chat-room. Since it is in person too, there tends to be a hell of a lot less flaming and a lot more apologizing.
The funny thing is I would never have the confidence in taking up tennis as I would have before the MMO. I remember picking up a tennis racquet is high school physical education class and failing miserably. I thought each sport was too hard; nobody bothered to tell me the secret was just that the "talented" kids spent more time hitting balls or doing drills and that I was just late in picking up the sport.
Instead I was always intrigued by video games and in college inevitably got sucked into an MMO. I stuck with it for years and reached a level high enough to be respected by the "elite" players in the game. I reached that point where you could "feel" what the other player was thinking and predict the next move to beat them. It was almost like "rock star" status in a virtual world. Other players would try to group me just because they knew I was that good. I would get random messages in game asking for my advice. It was ridiculous.
I may never reach "pro" status in tennis (for that you have to start as a kid). But the concepts are the same, the adrenaline is the same, and the learning process is the same. For example it is not uncommon for me to just stand in front of a wall and hit the ball for an hour or so or stand on a tennis court and serve a 100 balls one right after the other. I'm starting to get back to the same point in the MMO where I can start to feel what other players are thinking and I can start to predict their shots. I'm starting to play on the same level as other players who have played far longer than I have.
The important thing is: there's nothing magical about reaching the level. All it was was grinding away at tennis balls instead of sitting in front of a computer. Sure after the first month of tennis, most people will still get smoked by most other tennis players. But the funny thing is after a 3 month or so night tennis class, at least half of the players are already playing "watchable" tennis (they have rallies). There's no cheating either. A $1000 racquet isn't going to give you a pro level shot. It is all up to you to learn the technique and perfect it through practice.
In what way is the netbook a "lucrative market"? The profit margins must be almost non-existent.
What's lost in margin can be recovered in turnover or volume. With such a low price of around $300 for a netbook, customers can easily justify purchasing one.
Besides, the PC market is already saturated. I regularly see deals on Dells and HPs well below $500 and this doesn't even include netbook level parts. If you go on Dell's website, the base configuration for an Inspiron desktop is 2.2ghz celeron with 2gb of ram and a 360gb hard disk. The upgrade to dual core Pentium E5200 2.5ghz is only $40 more. Or go to Inspiron 15 laptop base configuration for $399. That includes celeron 2.16ghz, 2gb ram, and a 160gb hard disk. Upgrade to dual core pentium T4200 is only $25.
Me and my friends were addicted to MMOs for a while. It probably wasn't a true addiction since we were able to get on with our lives and eventually leave the game(s).
For myself, to stop playing the game it came from within. I started to feel that the game was becoming my life and that the rest of my priorities were starting to suffer. It gradually became harder to socialize with others. I felt I was investing enormous amounts of time into something that likely had no future return or value other than small amounts of fun. As I began to see I could do more productive things and more "fun" things outside of the game, I eventually made the decision to quit and cancel. My friends weren't too happy and even tried dragging me into other MMOs. But I refused because after years of playing those games I realized there just wasn't a strong enough purpose.
My other friends sorta follow a similar path where they "outgrow" the MMO and eventually move on with their lives. But some people lack the self-control to mature. They get trapped in the endless circle and don't know any better. For these people it is just as you say, there's nothing you can do because their world only revolves around their addiction. They won't break out until they realize through some magical event or interaction that what they're doing is useless or detrimental to their health.
There is hope for this guy. Throughout history no MMO has been able to live forever. Each grows and then shrinks until they finally are closed out due to lack of participation. So this guy's best bet is the game changes too much or shrinks to the point where it is no longer "fun". At that point, ideally he'll stop playing MMOs or he won't play another one as much. But he could also just get addicted to a newer MMO and fall into the same trap.
For me my new addiction is tennis. It is much better for my health (except one's arm and shoulder if technique is poor) and much more "in-person" social. There's also a good percentage of females that participate in the sport and also females that are willing to try/learn. I'm quickly making new real-life friends and having cheap fun (only have to pay for tennis balls and stringing) while staying fit. The extra vitamin D from the sun also helps and if you get good enough you can start to "show off" to non-tennis players.
On linux, if your Xwindows or windows managers crashes, no big deal, you usually don't have to bring the whole system down to get it back up and started.
On vista, if the display driver crashes it is restarted and none of the applications are affected. For example you could have an MP3 player in the background and if your display driver crashed, the screen would freeze for a second, and then black out, and come back while your MP3 continues to play perfectly. The user then gets a little popup notification in the system tray area stating that the display driver crashed and has been restarted.
I used to have a certain version of the ati driver that would often crash and the only time the system became unusable was during the display driver crash and if the driver crashed repetitively. But Vista makes it pretty clear to the user that the culprit is the display driver, and not the OS.
On something like linux, you'd have to have the command line skills to survive a driver or X crash. When the screen freezes, most users aren't going to do ctrl+alt+F1 get to a terminal, and restart X or unload and reload their display driver module. The fact that Microsoft attempts to do that entire process for you automatically (restart crashed driver or explorer) is what earns them the profits.
B is debatable - at least 90% of drivers are auto detected and auto installed in Linux.
That's still a failure. The key here isn't necessarily "easy" or "it just works". The key here is the manufacturer sets up an easy enough process to get the device to work with the supported OS.
Take a step back and think for a second what really happens in the linux world versus the windows/mac world. In the windows/mac world, the customers goes to an electronics store, finds a "Random Gizmo" he finds interesting from "Unheard of Gizmo Corp". On the box it says "works with Windows and Mac". He takes the product home and in the box is a cd with "drivers" and a "quick start guide" detailing every step of the installation process.
In the linux world, the geek goes to the electronics store, looks on the back of the box, and if you're lucky the box says "linux supported". Otherwise it might be supported, it might not be. But the geeks says that linux supports 90% of the hardware out there so clearly the odds are in my favor! So you take the device home and find out it doesn't work. You go on the internet and once you get past all the RTFM or "buy an open gizmo" responses, someone has a detailed set of instructions that might work. Included in those instructions is probably downloading the kernel sources, recompiling the kernel and the driver module, and configuring the system to load the module on startup. And then, if you're lucky everything works. But most likely something is broken because the driver was based on knowledge from reverse engineering the proprietary version. So you put up with this frustration for maybe a year when finally every feature of your gizmo finally works. But by then, there will be Gizmo+1 out which again doesn't have proper driver support in linux. Rinse and repeat.
When people say "lots of stuff works on windows" they aren't talking about the default install. They are talking about manufacturer's willingness to support the platform. In other words: if a customer goes with windows, he is likely to get most gadget makers to support his OS. If he goes with linux, the community might claim support for most things, but few if any manufacturers will be willing to support his OS. What linux needs is not more devs writing drivers. What linux needs is an agreement with manufacturers to get the manufacturers to support linux.
In all my studies, I REALLY liked to take notes in margins, highlight sections, and draw diagrams/charts/figures/etc.
I liked to not write on the hand-outs or books because often they were not mine or I was planning on reselling them. Instead I just reference the section/page on my ruled notepad. The kindle shouldn't be seen as a replacement for handwritten notes. It should be seen as a tool for storing, distributing, and viewing published information without the bulk of paper.
I think the kindle would be a good device because it will alleviate more of the rote memorization of the learning process and allow students to focus more on the concepts. It will likely be similar to calculators and arithmetic. Arithmetic while a useful skill is not necessarily the most important skill to learn when understanding calculus. The answer of course may come out incorrect, but if the application of calculus was correct, the student learned the objective.
For the kindle what would be useful is full text search or referencing a library of books instead of just the physical books available. There are plenty of times when I want to reference an old math text for a method of calculating something only to find out the book is buried in the closet or worse...I sold it. The kindle would also make it much quicker to access references (assuming the references are translated into links). I have gotten annoyed many times when a paper or book will say "see figure X.Y" yet figure X.Y is 5 pages back.
I would think ebook readers like the kindle would be a much better choice for schools. Notes and hand outs could be distributed as PDFs, students could easily have access to many more books, and simple yet necessary tools like a dictionary or full text search would always be available. For an even better deal, work out a simple educational discount on books and get the kids reading whatever they want. When I was growing up all we had were libraries and your parents had to drop you off. Then of course the book you wanted was checked out so you had to settle for something not so great.
On the other hand, in my car I can mostly control the noise level, can choose my route to route around traffic or construction areas, and I don't have to be near annoying people.
Oh yes, this funny argument. Do you really think that driving in a giant metal/glass bubble will magically reduce the number of annoying people in the world? Those same people need to get to work too and you will share the same road. Except now when you have an "encounter" with said annoying person, they leave you dead, injured, or with significant vehicle damage.
You forgot depreciation and lack of protection from the elements (other cars, rain, snow). Now I'll give you that a pedestrian must pack an umbrella and a pedestrian can get hit by a car, but most of their commute will be done via public transit (bus/train/subway) assuming a good public transit system.
Oh, I love you linux fanatics on slashdot. Here's what you sound like:
Slashdot Linux Nerd: Hey Joe, you know linux is way better than that windows crap and it is FREE! Joe: Oh, okay. How do I get it? Do they sell it at BestBuy? SLN: You have to use the interwebs to download it or order the FREE cd! Joe: Okay, cool. But can I still play my Fighter Ultra Captain Kain game? SLN: Uh, no. But don't worry, linux has got the Captain Richard Anderson Propeller game! Joe: But I want to keep playing my Fighter Ultra Captain Kain game because I paid $50 and all my friends play it. SLN: Well you should try linux because it's FREE! Joe: Ok ok, how long is this gonna take? SLN: Since you have DSL the download is gonna be 5 hours. Then we gotta backup all your old stuff so that's another 2 hours. Then we gotta install that'll be like.5 hours. Then its gotta update and that... Joe: Hey! That's like a whole day. I could get like 5 sessions of Fighter Ultra Captain Kain in that time!
why would they give up the money? they'd still charge you for the textbooks AND you won't be able to lend them
They'd eventually give up their profits because some professors would be willing to do away with the textbook and distribute the PDF. No publisher middle man necessary.
I have seen some manga/anime and, maybe because Japanese culture is so different from my own, find myself often annoyed with some of what seems absurd to me. Why do they have to SAY what they are doing ALL THE TIME? ("I'll use flaming arrow fart to confuse him while I kick high in the air to thwart his dragon breath insticts" (wat the hell?)).
Some anime/manga are targeted at kids while others are targeted at older audiences. You're certainly not going to find that in something like Ghost in the Shell, but Dragonball...sure.
This is no different from The Power Rangers and other kid shows in the US.
I do think a lot of the recent stuff coming out from Japan is crap. It has mostly been loli shows about little school girls and harems. But once in a while you can find a good show suitable for adults.
The main cultural difference between the States and Japan as far as content goes (this includes Japanese "live action" shows) is that things over in Asian tend to be plot driven while in the States things tend to be character driven. So in Japanese shows it isn't uncommon to have stupid characters with no purpose or have little character development. In the States, however, nothing can happen in an entire season yet people fall in love with the characters.
Slashdot Mirror
His point wasn't that IE8 was available, but rather people will just use their computer in the default configuration until they buy a new one. Since many other tech sites (including slashdot) gave Vista bad PR, most people at the stores wouldn't buy a new PC because they heard "vista was bad". So contrary to "use linux" and "use mac" campaigns as well as "use firefox" or "use chrome" campaigns, an actual viable solution to upgrading everyone to new browsers is actually just upgrade to something newer including Windows 7.
If you want an analogy, what should be done is to tell everyone Windows XP and older is "out of style" and anything else (OSX, Linux, Win7) is the new thing. They may be reluctant at first, but when they show up to the stores nothing in their minds will hold them back from buying a new machine that probably has a better browser.
Everyone is misunderstanding something. The phone hardware comes with GPS functionality. Android is just the OS and it just so happens google is now going to bundle a GPS aware google maps with directions. This doesn't mean that you can't have an android device with GPS and GPS software that doesn't require google maps or any network connectivity for that matter. In fact you can go on the android market today and find many GPS apps that do not require google maps to function.
I own a mytouch 3G android phone and while I was in Japan I didn't have cell phone functionality (locked SIM card). However, I was still able to use the wifi and GPS functions on the device. You can also set your phone to NOT roam when you reach an area without service. Android is a lot more configurable out of the box than people here imply.
I don't agree with option 1. He said under $300 and Mac Minis go for much higher than that even for the older ones.
His best option is laptop hardware or wait for a netbook deal. Personally I prefer the netbook since there's so many of them, the hardware is generally supported by linux, the power draw will be very low, and it is easy to find a replacement. The netbook will also have keyboard, mouse, and display included where as with a mini you would have to ssh in or connect external devices. With the netbook you pretty much just plug it in, configure, and you're off. No other crap attached.
The only good uses of the mini IMO are a home theatre system or for the sake of having actual mac hardware to run osx. For a home server I think it is way over priced. And yes, I own a mini as well as a netbook.
Yeah, because a magnitude 7 quake wouldn't have the same effect on a major interstate junction or a large building. I love how everyone loves to "poo poo" alternative transportation other than Autos in the U.S. It is like everyone here is brainwashed by Detroit.
I tell you what. I live in southern california and I already know that driving sucks. I can't fall asleep, I have to buy and maintain a car, and cops get randomly pull over people and tag them for DUIs if they wanted to at the right times. The only viable travel is by car and don't tell me "move next to work" or "move next to the bar". The bar is located in one area and the office is located in another area. Unless I work at the bar, I'm SOL.
The other thing is I'm currently visiting Tokyo, Japan. The metro system they have built is amazing. People sleep on the trains. People read books on the trains. People text on the trains. And they don't get others killed for riding the train. Their culture also makes it so that there are no "crazies" on the trains. When you get on a train, it is generally pretty quiet and none of the people yelling into their bluetooth headsets like in the states. That may never fly in the states because people would get all worked up if you told them to shutup no matter what they're doing. Americans just can't stop talking.
But the other major difference Japan has compared to the states is that a huge percentage of normal people use public transit. Kids, adults, families. They all can be seen on the trains.
Sure, the density of Tokyo is really high. The trains aren't free and they aren't nearly as convenient as cars. But you tell me how else we're going to keep growing out cities into the higher densities without implementing such a system? The system works and cities will be forced to build it to keep growing. If people are willing to sit in traffic for hours, they probably won't mind sitting on a train for an hour either.
The other interesting thing about Tokyo is that although there are a ton of people here, the roads generally don't have that many cars. In fact it is the other way around. When I was leaving Akihabara, the police had to control pedestrian traffic just so a couple cars could leave a parking garage. But the benefits are obvious. I walk no more than a block (or what would be a few houses away) to get to a convenience store. I walk for maybe 5 to 10 minutes to get to the subway station. Now if only they'd figure out that their system of Wards instead of street names is the dumbest thing ever, then people wouldn't get lost nearly as much, but that's another topic.
Since I'm on the topic, the other interesting thing is tokyo is there are signs to help control the flow of pedestrian traffic. I'm not just talking about cross walks but some signs and implied rules to allow people to get around faster. For example in many subway and train stations, there will be signs and lines showing you on what side you should walk to keep pedestrian traffic flowing. Generally you walk on the left side such that people going through hallways and up and down stairs don't run into each other. Another implied rule is that if you're standing on an escalator, but you aren't walking up the steps, then you stand to the left. This leaves the right side of the escalator open so that people who do want to walk up the steps (to get around a little faster) can. There are also rarely sidewalks (except for large roads) but it doesn't matter much because the roads are dominated by foot traffic, not car traffic.
The current interface presents a nice CLEAN list of commands, which can be quickly and easily scanned. The new ribbon interface presents a confusing mess of pictures and words that make a "quick scan" very difficult.
Yeah, but there's a trade off here. In the old office menu system, you'd often find what you're looking for buried in a menu somewhere with a half-assed dialog box to go along with it. Sure, you could scan each menu every time fairly quickly, and it was easy on the eyes. But once you found what you were looking for, repeating the path there really sucked.
One thing the new system does get right is that everything now has a keyboard short cut and everything is supposedly quicker to get to with less mouse acrobatics. The only reason you're used to the menu system is you've been trained since windows 95 to get good at navigating menus so you don't notice anymore.
I'm sure if you took two people, started one up with a ribbon, started the other with a menu, and then switched them after about a year, they'd both immediately complain. But that's obvious. The real question is after a month or so of training and learning, who will be performing better and is that performance change (if any) worth it?
Apple doesn't care if you jailbreak your own phone. That poses no risk.
Wrong. They do care, they just don't have a good way of enforcing it.
But we have Hollywood. That is +50% culture and +1 happy citizen.
Without the handset manufacturers having to bend over backwards to please the carriers, there might have been fewer, lower-cost, higher-quality handsets available.
There's no reason for this. In the current arrangement, the carrier is the customer to the handset manufacturer. If the handset manufacturer did not have to bend-over backwards for the carrier, guess who becomes the customer? The consumers purchasing the cell phones. Just because the customer changed doesn't mean that there would be fewer low cost handsets. In fact, as long as there are multiple players (competition) and there is demand (customers), the manufacturers will have an incentive to provide cheap phones. In fact, they've already been doing it for other markets.
The file menu is replaced by that giant round office button in the top left corner. You can also access it using the old "alt+f" shortcut or alt, f.
If you want the buttons to appear like a toolbar, there is a "quick access toolbar" which places buttons on the window title bar right next to the giant round menu button but on top of the "home, insert, etc" tabs for the ribbon. If you click the little down arrow thing, it lets you customize the buttons that show up.
Why is this modded up? The quoted numbers from the parent are for maximum load power, not typical power. I have a machine sitting right here with a 500W PSU, but does that mean it uses all 500W? Of course not, when hooked up to a "kill-a-watt" the readings are around 80w during normal loads.
I doubt both the mac mini and this "green" pc use the maximum power offered by the power supplies.
The web developers are often just working with what's there and are told what to do otherwise they won't get paid. The real driver for the IE6 cancer is large corporations with old web apps they don't want to bother to upgrade to newer standards. The web apps were developed for IE6 and work in IE6, but nobody wants to pay the money to have them tested and upgraded to IE7,8 or Firefox.
There's good verbosity and bad verbosity. Let's take for example java's System.out.println. This is bad because it is such a common function that you are bound to use it over and over again but good of course because you know it is not a keyword (it comes from the System.out library). The result is something twice as long as it needs to be and chews up screen space. As a human reader of the source, this becomes cumbersome and harder to read the full program.
Languages that can allow you to pull in identifiers from other scopes can solve this issue while reducing the bad kind of verbosity. For example in perl there is something called Exporter which allows defined symbols by the source package to be imported into the current scope through syntax like:
Now instead of Some::Package::someFunction, for the rest of the file I can just do someFunction since I've already declared I'm importing it at the top. If the reader is interested in knowing where someFunction comes from, searching from the top of the file will reveal the use Some::Package qw( someFunction ); line.
Yet it still can't beat having a beer or a glass of wine with your friends, or a good vacation, or that certain girl/guy with a twinkle in their eye. It can't beat watching your kid run the wrong way on the soccer field.
I replaced my gaming addiction with sports, specifically tennis. Just like any game, there are levels of skill to be achieved and plays to be learned. Just like an MMO, there's plenty of social interaction. But the sport tends to beat the game on all fronts because the learning rate is much more difficult. Your body will often reach it's physical limits far before your brain does, so it is vital that you get things right the first time otherwise it is almost time wasted. In a game, you sit there and when you fail you just do it all over again. If there are boring parts you just fall asleep or do something else simultaneously.
The great thing about sports is physically and mentally, I'm a better person. With an MMO it is likely I'll struggle at both of those and the skills gained in MMOs don't apply anywhere else. Knowing a certain play specific to tennis will obviously be useless in other cases, but I still get exercise and sunshine; my body will only get more physically attractive. After the match, if we're good friends, there's the occasional drink or dinner which is a hell of a lot better than a message board or a chat-room. Since it is in person too, there tends to be a hell of a lot less flaming and a lot more apologizing.
The funny thing is I would never have the confidence in taking up tennis as I would have before the MMO. I remember picking up a tennis racquet is high school physical education class and failing miserably. I thought each sport was too hard; nobody bothered to tell me the secret was just that the "talented" kids spent more time hitting balls or doing drills and that I was just late in picking up the sport.
Instead I was always intrigued by video games and in college inevitably got sucked into an MMO. I stuck with it for years and reached a level high enough to be respected by the "elite" players in the game. I reached that point where you could "feel" what the other player was thinking and predict the next move to beat them. It was almost like "rock star" status in a virtual world. Other players would try to group me just because they knew I was that good. I would get random messages in game asking for my advice. It was ridiculous.
I may never reach "pro" status in tennis (for that you have to start as a kid). But the concepts are the same, the adrenaline is the same, and the learning process is the same. For example it is not uncommon for me to just stand in front of a wall and hit the ball for an hour or so or stand on a tennis court and serve a 100 balls one right after the other. I'm starting to get back to the same point in the MMO where I can start to feel what other players are thinking and I can start to predict their shots. I'm starting to play on the same level as other players who have played far longer than I have.
The important thing is: there's nothing magical about reaching the level. All it was was grinding away at tennis balls instead of sitting in front of a computer. Sure after the first month of tennis, most people will still get smoked by most other tennis players. But the funny thing is after a 3 month or so night tennis class, at least half of the players are already playing "watchable" tennis (they have rallies). There's no cheating either. A $1000 racquet isn't going to give you a pro level shot. It is all up to you to learn the technique and perfect it through practice.
In what way is the netbook a "lucrative market"? The profit margins must be almost non-existent.
What's lost in margin can be recovered in turnover or volume. With such a low price of around $300 for a netbook, customers can easily justify purchasing one.
Besides, the PC market is already saturated. I regularly see deals on Dells and HPs well below $500 and this doesn't even include netbook level parts. If you go on Dell's website, the base configuration for an Inspiron desktop is 2.2ghz celeron with 2gb of ram and a 360gb hard disk. The upgrade to dual core Pentium E5200 2.5ghz is only $40 more. Or go to Inspiron 15 laptop base configuration for $399. That includes celeron 2.16ghz, 2gb ram, and a 160gb hard disk. Upgrade to dual core pentium T4200 is only $25.
Me and my friends were addicted to MMOs for a while. It probably wasn't a true addiction since we were able to get on with our lives and eventually leave the game(s).
For myself, to stop playing the game it came from within. I started to feel that the game was becoming my life and that the rest of my priorities were starting to suffer. It gradually became harder to socialize with others. I felt I was investing enormous amounts of time into something that likely had no future return or value other than small amounts of fun. As I began to see I could do more productive things and more "fun" things outside of the game, I eventually made the decision to quit and cancel. My friends weren't too happy and even tried dragging me into other MMOs. But I refused because after years of playing those games I realized there just wasn't a strong enough purpose.
My other friends sorta follow a similar path where they "outgrow" the MMO and eventually move on with their lives. But some people lack the self-control to mature. They get trapped in the endless circle and don't know any better. For these people it is just as you say, there's nothing you can do because their world only revolves around their addiction. They won't break out until they realize through some magical event or interaction that what they're doing is useless or detrimental to their health.
There is hope for this guy. Throughout history no MMO has been able to live forever. Each grows and then shrinks until they finally are closed out due to lack of participation. So this guy's best bet is the game changes too much or shrinks to the point where it is no longer "fun". At that point, ideally he'll stop playing MMOs or he won't play another one as much. But he could also just get addicted to a newer MMO and fall into the same trap.
For me my new addiction is tennis. It is much better for my health (except one's arm and shoulder if technique is poor) and much more "in-person" social. There's also a good percentage of females that participate in the sport and also females that are willing to try/learn. I'm quickly making new real-life friends and having cheap fun (only have to pay for tennis balls and stringing) while staying fit. The extra vitamin D from the sun also helps and if you get good enough you can start to "show off" to non-tennis players.
On linux, if your Xwindows or windows managers crashes, no big deal, you usually don't have to bring the whole system down to get it back up and started.
On vista, if the display driver crashes it is restarted and none of the applications are affected. For example you could have an MP3 player in the background and if your display driver crashed, the screen would freeze for a second, and then black out, and come back while your MP3 continues to play perfectly. The user then gets a little popup notification in the system tray area stating that the display driver crashed and has been restarted.
I used to have a certain version of the ati driver that would often crash and the only time the system became unusable was during the display driver crash and if the driver crashed repetitively. But Vista makes it pretty clear to the user that the culprit is the display driver, and not the OS.
On something like linux, you'd have to have the command line skills to survive a driver or X crash. When the screen freezes, most users aren't going to do ctrl+alt+F1 get to a terminal, and restart X or unload and reload their display driver module. The fact that Microsoft attempts to do that entire process for you automatically (restart crashed driver or explorer) is what earns them the profits.
B is debatable - at least 90% of drivers are auto detected and auto installed in Linux.
That's still a failure. The key here isn't necessarily "easy" or "it just works". The key here is the manufacturer sets up an easy enough process to get the device to work with the supported OS.
Take a step back and think for a second what really happens in the linux world versus the windows/mac world. In the windows/mac world, the customers goes to an electronics store, finds a "Random Gizmo" he finds interesting from "Unheard of Gizmo Corp". On the box it says "works with Windows and Mac". He takes the product home and in the box is a cd with "drivers" and a "quick start guide" detailing every step of the installation process.
In the linux world, the geek goes to the electronics store, looks on the back of the box, and if you're lucky the box says "linux supported". Otherwise it might be supported, it might not be. But the geeks says that linux supports 90% of the hardware out there so clearly the odds are in my favor! So you take the device home and find out it doesn't work. You go on the internet and once you get past all the RTFM or "buy an open gizmo" responses, someone has a detailed set of instructions that might work. Included in those instructions is probably downloading the kernel sources, recompiling the kernel and the driver module, and configuring the system to load the module on startup. And then, if you're lucky everything works. But most likely something is broken because the driver was based on knowledge from reverse engineering the proprietary version. So you put up with this frustration for maybe a year when finally every feature of your gizmo finally works. But by then, there will be Gizmo+1 out which again doesn't have proper driver support in linux. Rinse and repeat.
When people say "lots of stuff works on windows" they aren't talking about the default install. They are talking about manufacturer's willingness to support the platform. In other words: if a customer goes with windows, he is likely to get most gadget makers to support his OS. If he goes with linux, the community might claim support for most things, but few if any manufacturers will be willing to support his OS. What linux needs is not more devs writing drivers. What linux needs is an agreement with manufacturers to get the manufacturers to support linux.
2) Regularly verify your restore process and backups work.
In all my studies, I REALLY liked to take notes in margins, highlight sections, and draw diagrams/charts/figures/etc.
I liked to not write on the hand-outs or books because often they were not mine or I was planning on reselling them. Instead I just reference the section/page on my ruled notepad. The kindle shouldn't be seen as a replacement for handwritten notes. It should be seen as a tool for storing, distributing, and viewing published information without the bulk of paper.
I think the kindle would be a good device because it will alleviate more of the rote memorization of the learning process and allow students to focus more on the concepts. It will likely be similar to calculators and arithmetic. Arithmetic while a useful skill is not necessarily the most important skill to learn when understanding calculus. The answer of course may come out incorrect, but if the application of calculus was correct, the student learned the objective.
For the kindle what would be useful is full text search or referencing a library of books instead of just the physical books available. There are plenty of times when I want to reference an old math text for a method of calculating something only to find out the book is buried in the closet or worse...I sold it. The kindle would also make it much quicker to access references (assuming the references are translated into links). I have gotten annoyed many times when a paper or book will say "see figure X.Y" yet figure X.Y is 5 pages back.
I would think ebook readers like the kindle would be a much better choice for schools. Notes and hand outs could be distributed as PDFs, students could easily have access to many more books, and simple yet necessary tools like a dictionary or full text search would always be available. For an even better deal, work out a simple educational discount on books and get the kids reading whatever they want. When I was growing up all we had were libraries and your parents had to drop you off. Then of course the book you wanted was checked out so you had to settle for something not so great.
On the other hand, in my car I can mostly control the noise level, can choose my route to route around traffic or construction areas, and I don't have to be near annoying people.
Oh yes, this funny argument. Do you really think that driving in a giant metal/glass bubble will magically reduce the number of annoying people in the world? Those same people need to get to work too and you will share the same road. Except now when you have an "encounter" with said annoying person, they leave you dead, injured, or with significant vehicle damage.
You forgot depreciation and lack of protection from the elements (other cars, rain, snow). Now I'll give you that a pedestrian must pack an umbrella and a pedestrian can get hit by a car, but most of their commute will be done via public transit (bus/train/subway) assuming a good public transit system.
Oh, I love you linux fanatics on slashdot. Here's what you sound like:
Slashdot Linux Nerd: Hey Joe, you know linux is way better than that windows crap and it is FREE! .5 hours. Then its gotta update and that...
Joe: Oh, okay. How do I get it? Do they sell it at BestBuy?
SLN: You have to use the interwebs to download it or order the FREE cd!
Joe: Okay, cool. But can I still play my Fighter Ultra Captain Kain game?
SLN: Uh, no. But don't worry, linux has got the Captain Richard Anderson Propeller game!
Joe: But I want to keep playing my Fighter Ultra Captain Kain game because I paid $50 and all my friends play it.
SLN: Well you should try linux because it's FREE!
Joe: Ok ok, how long is this gonna take?
SLN: Since you have DSL the download is gonna be 5 hours. Then we gotta backup all your old stuff so that's another 2 hours. Then we gotta install that'll be like
Joe: Hey! That's like a whole day. I could get like 5 sessions of Fighter Ultra Captain Kain in that time!
why would they give up the money? they'd still charge you for the textbooks AND you won't be able to lend them
They'd eventually give up their profits because some professors would be willing to do away with the textbook and distribute the PDF. No publisher middle man necessary.
I have seen some manga/anime and, maybe because Japanese culture is so different from my own, find myself often annoyed with some of what seems absurd to me. Why do they have to SAY what they are doing ALL THE TIME? ("I'll use flaming arrow fart to confuse him while I kick high in the air to thwart his dragon breath insticts" (wat the hell?)).
Some anime/manga are targeted at kids while others are targeted at older audiences. You're certainly not going to find that in something like Ghost in the Shell, but Dragonball...sure.
This is no different from The Power Rangers and other kid shows in the US.
I do think a lot of the recent stuff coming out from Japan is crap. It has mostly been loli shows about little school girls and harems. But once in a while you can find a good show suitable for adults.
The main cultural difference between the States and Japan as far as content goes (this includes Japanese "live action" shows) is that things over in Asian tend to be plot driven while in the States things tend to be character driven. So in Japanese shows it isn't uncommon to have stupid characters with no purpose or have little character development. In the States, however, nothing can happen in an entire season yet people fall in love with the characters.