Comment Re:new ending? (Score 1) 256
Doh, didn't log in. Not sure how I didn't catch that earlier...
Comment Re:b/c of the processor.. (Score 1) 348
1. Core 2 Duo > Atom. For reference see: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dual-core-atom-330,2141.html
That review only covers the 1.6GHz version, but without architecture changes a 1.8GHz atom processor won't be making up much ground. So the Macbook Air offers a (substantially) faster processor with comparable battery life to many netbooks (though not a replaceable battery, I miss those).
2. This one has me stumped, you really think a plastic case beats a metal case in sturdiness? Have you ever seen an aluminum case Macbook Pro or Air from the past few years other than photos online? It's not thin like a beer can, it's more comparable to an aluminum desktop case (and thicker in some places). I have had no issues with mine, and I've not heard any complaints of the case falling apart under normal conditions.
3. http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html, or, you know, google it or read any of the previews.
The price is what makes this not a netbook in my opinion. Whenever anyone has asked me in the past what a netbook was (compared to any other laptop) I used the definition that seemed to be the industry standard: small, cheap.
This one isn't quite small enough to compare to netbooks (with screen sizes between 7-10"), and it certainly isn't cheap enough.
Comment Re:Solution (Score 2, Informative) 1140
BTW one of my chief annoyances with the Mac OS is the inability to quickly and easily switch between windows. You have to juggle windows around on the screen.
What do you mean by this? Command-Tab lets you switch between applications and Command-` lets you switch between windows within an application. Personally, since switching to Macs a few years ago I've found this to be a much nicer way of managing windows and applications than the every-window-for-itself approach of Windows.
Comment Re:Wasn't Windows 95 and 98 built from the ground (Score 1) 106
Not to be an MS apologist, but IronScheme runs on the
Comment Re:Tied to a card (Score 4, Informative) 134
But OpenCL is a specification, not an implementation. The only 3 implementations I'm currently aware of is Apple's (with Snow Leopard), AMD demoed implementation back in March, and Nvidia's beta implementation. So far none of those are open source. If you're aware of an open source implementation, please let me know I'm actually very interested in it, but have yet to locate one.
Comment Re:Tied to a card (Score 1) 134
OpenCL is not open source, OpenCL is a specification for a CUDA-equivalent language and API. Drivers are still necessary, and will likely be produced by the makers of the graphics hardware (ATI, Nvidia, Intel). Open source drivers and compilers are certainly possible, but I wouldn't expect them to be equivalent to the closed source stuff for sometime yet.
Comment Re:I wanted Science Fiction, not Social Commentary (Score 1) 799
* In real life, to my knowledge, all US fighter pilots are required to have college degrees. Assuming this holds true for the Galactica world then it makes sense that, when faced with a lack of trained lawyers in a ~40,000 person population of mostly military personnel, he may be one of the most educated people available to fill the role. Also, most people couldn't have been trusted to give Baltar an honest defense or, more likely, would never have been willing to be his lawyer in the first place.
This and the episode with the fuel production crew going on strike pretty much killed any positive opinion I had of the show. Let's examine the situation: 40k people, mostly civilian. A handful of highly trained military including fighter pilots, a necessary component of warfare as conducted in the series. Training new pilots is an expensive and time consuming proposition, you have to spend a substantial amount of time at each location to train, I'm not saying days, but at least a day to plan and then execute training sorties. You have to have the resources to fuel them, which given how they spent a whole episode hunting down a source for fuel seems to make it rather rare. Now, take the second best pilot (as I recall he's the best technical pilot, and Starbuck is the best pilot) in the fleet, and tell him, "Yeah, it's ok to quit now, we don't really need you." Then you have to waste weeks to train someone else to fill his slot, of course they won't even be close to his skill level so it won't really be a replacement. The only thing keeping the remaining human population (at this time in the series) from extinction was the military and the fuel. Why would you throw it all away because you have daddy issues?
Comment Re:Literate programming... (Score 1) 567
I think that you're misunderstanding the example provided, and literate programming as a result. Literate programming is a language agnostic technique of writing a program essentially as a paper or book, where the book provides a fairly complete description of the behavior of the code, algorithms used, expected input formats, etc. For instance, if you were to use this technique when writing a compiler you could detail the language you'll be compiling alongside the code that will handle that portion of the parsing/interpreting/translating. On his website (Knuth's programs page) he presents a number of programs written using CWEB, C combined with TeX to generate both compilable C code and a fully documented program. He's also written books using this technique, specifically "TeX: The Program" and "METAFONT: The Program", both make use of Literate programming, and both programs are written in Pascal.
Asus Crams Three GPUs onto a Single Graphics Card 115
Barence writes "PC Pro has up a look at Asus' concept triple-GPU graphics card. It's a tech demo, so it's not going to see release at any point in the future, but it's an interesting look at how far manufacturers can push technology, as well as just how inefficient multi-GPU graphics cards currently are. 'Asus has spaced [the GPUs] out, placing one on the top of the card and two on the underside. This creates its own problem, though: attaching heatsinks and fans to both sides of the card would prevent it from fitting into some case arrangements, and defeat access to neighbouring expansion slots. So instead, Asus has used a low-profile heat-pipe system that channels the heat to a heatsink at the back of the card, from where it's dissipated by externally-powered fluid cooling pipes.'"
Experts Hack Power Grid in Less Than a Day 302
bednarz writes "Cracking a power company network and gaining access that could shut down the grid is simple, a security expert told an RSA audience, and he has done so in less than a day. Ira Winkler, a penetration-testing consultant, says he and a team of other experts took a day to set up attack tools they needed then launched their attack, which paired social engineering with corrupting browsers on a power company's desktops. By the end of a full day of the attack, they had taken over several machines at the unnamed power company, giving the team the ability to hack into the control network overseeing power production and distribution."
Adults Too Quick to Dismiss Educational Gaming? 255
netbuzz writes "A new survey finds that more than half of K-12 students believe that educational video games in school would help them learn (no surprise), although only 15% of teachers and 19% of parents agree. Adults might not want to scoff, however, because 11% of teachers are already using video games in class and they report great results. 'Only 3% of elementary school students say they do not play video games of any kind. Students surveyed say learning via video games would help them better understand difficult concepts, become more engaged in the subject matter and practice skills. There's no mention of the games being fun, but that goes without saying.'"
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