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No thanks..I don't feel like making hand signals for keyboard shortcuts:) One hand on keyboard, other on mouse, why try and change what works? Some things are just impractical, regardless of the marvelous tech. This is tech I am interested in http://www.neurosky.com/ Control stuff with your mind:)
Well yes, there is your mind. LOL My mind + computer screen = mess! :P
OMG!!! I'd love seeing you use Neurosky and DAZ Studio/Poser!! Maybe you should call Chuck Lorre and beg him to allow you being a guest-star on "The Big Bang Theory", Richard. :lol:
Has a lot of cool uses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWBfCg91CU
OMG!!! I'd love seeing you use Neurosky and DAZ Studio/Poser!! Maybe you should call Chuck Lorre and beg him to allow you being a guest-star on "The Big Bang Theory", Richard. :lol:
Hahaha.. love that show.
Yea, very very cool stuff there. Notice the date though? 2007.
Imagine driving your car using this stuff, and you get distracted by....
http://www.snp.com.au/media/312793/road_sign_small_with_words_300x512.jpg trying to read the small words...
Exactly.
Prices may come down for a while as manufacturers try to get rid of old stock, but grab them while the getting is good because "desktop" or "tower" PCs will become a limited market item sold to people who can afford the "big iron" (Oy!) of a metal cabinet and wasted space inside and the attendant shipping costs. i.e. businesses will still buy them and perhaps some people with extra discretionary income, but the market for mass numbers & types of 3rd party circuit cards will probably evaporate. And what doesn't evaporate will take on the stink of high prices.
PC towers in the home will go the way of boob tube monitors. Pffffttt gone! 8-o
I can see myself in 10 years at 75 with a room full of old PCs turned on now and then just to heat the room a little in winter. Dreaming of past days of glory. Currently I have a stable of machines of most eras: Win98, WinMe, Win2000, WinXP, Vista, Win7, and even a Win8. The Win95 having passed into the great bit bucket in the sky a few years ago. :-( The older horses in the stable are kept brushed and cleaned and exercised once in a while but are just fading away. Being asexual they can't even enjoy studhood. but may donate a few organs when the time comes.
I plan to get at least one more grand PC before the era ends. I'm going to keep my eyes open for the opportunity to get an ubermemory, hyperdisk, lightning fast USB & enet, TV tuner, three monitor megaGPU machine for $1.98
But even I, the gadget grump who sneers at gizmos and toys will probably end up eventually getting a phone with a screen and even a tablet before I forget how to not drool. Then I will just lay in my geriatric prison thinking of the days when computers were big enough to make a good coffin and had long rows of real buttons, switches, and lights but no screen. Idle musings of a drooling senile old man of the days when computers with less memory than it takes to define a couple characters of a modern font could guide rockets to the moon. (for a few million dollars)
Cool thread. I've enjoyed reading it so far.
It's true that a full desktop computer is and always was to some degree an overkill for the average user. But this is because the average user is not as savvy as they used to be. The way I see it, computers used to be items that only smart people could utilize and employ for the purpose of working. Nowadays, computers are used by complete idiots for completely silly and unproductive ideals which causes people to underestimate what a desktop is supposed to do. It is scary to me to think that the good old desktop PC is on the way out because the average user cannot appreciate what a desktop pc even is anymore. Seems like it was only yesterday that we were hearing that every home will have a PC in it within a few years, but now apparently who needs it if you have a smartphone?
I dont own Win 8 and have no plans to try it out. I know I will hate it because I dont like smartphones or anything built around the idea of them. So for me it is Win7 all the way.
But I am very troubled by what this could mean to the 3d hobbyist like myself. For example, for a long time the idea was to make a cell phone as small as possible. Nowadays they seem to be getting physically larger, which makes sense since these devices need large displays for the increased imaging of today's internet plus all those apps benefit from a little larger screen size. From what I see, smartphones will become increasingly computer-like until we begin to realize again that we need a sit down kind of experience to get any real work done.
If the only programs you use are Word, Facebook, Netflix, and instant messaging then you don't need a computer at all, a smart phone will do the trick. Sadly I think that 90% or more of consumers fall into this category. The other 10% of us might not be worth the attention of developers.
The more I think of it, the more I hate smart phones. I think they are in so many ways ruining our human lives. Not everyone is a big shot and needs 4g data streaming. No one cares what you did last night or plan to do tomorrow. I blame facebook for teaching people that posting to a website is more rewarding than creating a cool render in Daz Studio or anything else for that matter.
Someone needs to get out there and explain to people that computers and the internet are for more than just youtube and facebook. Seriously.
Edit:
Just to add; we need to be careful embracing the "easiness" of these darned smart phones causing us to reject our good old PC. One could argue that a smartphone is a more efficient manner of computing, cutting down lots of overhead. While that sounds good,it misses the point.
Imagine for instance that someone were to invent and mass produce a compact and easy to use artificial womb or uterus. There are those who would argue that females are no longer essential to the human race because these man made wombs can produce children. No need for all the" overhead" that a full featured woman would require such as lungs, arms/legs/, a brain, love, acknowledgement, all that good stuff. No, just go the efficient route and bypass the real women and utilize instead these cleverly optimized "smartwombs." These wombs are convenient, can be taken anyplace you need them, can even be shared with friends like a stupid telephone app!!!!!!!! Sorry, but give me a real woman any day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe she requires some overhead by means of a square meal now and then and a pat on the bum to keep her feeling desired, but to me she is worth it! She is so much more than just a womb. With imagination, she can be all you will ever need.
As the saying goes....you can get with "THIS," or you can get with "THAT!"
I don't like Facebook, because it reduces all human interaction into superficiality. The Facebook-guys were talking about 'mapping' all this, and to me it just sounds like another spyware-app. And the user has absolutely no control over the pictures or what they post. I don't understand why people don't flee away from Facebook!
To me win8 is an appliance os. The appliances are computer run but still are predominently smart phone, cameras or the like. I watch the commecials for 8 with people attaching screens, dancing around swiping, taking pictures and playing the very limited scroller type games you find on tablets or cell phones. I have yet to view one fo those commercials without thinking, "I would fire everyone of those people if they worked for me and wasted time doing what they are doing".
Aside from the fact that the new appliances detract from work time the biggest reason I don't care for 8 is I want things my way not the Metro way. Typically I have 2-3 memory heavy programs running, like poser, DS, Vue or Anime Studio, 6 or more net cites open for access to articles or how to instructional videos and 4 HQ video feeds from security cameras around the place, though I mostly only watch the one on the roving robot thing because the oher images rarely change and almost never spook foxes, deer or the neighbor lady who has been known to flash the bot but only if she has been tanning and drinking a bit to much. I switch back and forth between them by by way of tabs or task bar access. I need a machine with 8-12 gig or ram, one of mine has 24, a good to great graphics card and an environment with good lighting, desk space for papers and drawing space for pencil and paper work and a chair supports me comfortably. When I am done at the computer I shut off the monitor and when I come back and turn it on I want the programs and screens I had open still open in the same spots so I can get back at it. No social sites, no picture dumps, no mindless scrolling hamsters being shot from canons just creativity provided my old brain has enough coffee fueling it.
Im very happy with Windows 7, So if it aint broke......
There is just no need for me to buy windows 8, there are so many other things Id rather spend the money on, like a second monitor or and GFX card upgrade etc.
...for me it's the memory upgrade and Win7Pro to support it.
...this is just one more reason I not only don't have an account there (or with any of those Social media sites) but have it blocked by both FF and my security suite.
...I don't have a Smart Phone, a dumb cell phone, nor even an old fashioned land line. I don't have a telly, heck, I still use a 35mm SLR that I have to put film in to take photographs with.
Since completing my Workstation, my trusty 6+ year old notebook has been retired from the rigors of rendering. However, it continues to be my connection to the outside world. It cost me less when I purchased it then than an iPad (with much more limited capability) does now and I don't have to deal with some multiyear telecom contract that penalises me if I want to quit early.
I still do my postwork on it as those apps are 32 bit. I still do my writing, support for my RPG activities. I also burn DVDs, MP3s for listening to, and watch films using my mini THX surround sound setup (this is primarily why I got it originally as it was designed for multi media use).
...and of course, I use it to hang out here. Yeah, save for the postwork, all that can be done on one of these new gizmos, but why do I need to spend another 600$+ when I have a system that does this all and is already paid for (and ha a full sized, real keyboard which is a lot easier to work on with my clumsy arthritic hands)?
The other nice thing is I can be online viewing a tutorial, discussing issues/techniques, researching, or doing postwork on one scene using the notebook, while working on or rendering another on the workstation.
Now that I'm in agreement with. Even if you hate the OS you can always just install Windows 7 on it instead, so you can't put the blame for decreasing PC sales solely on Win8.
Though I wonder if those statistics include components...
I purpose built my machine. I chose the hard drives, the memory, the motherboard, the case. Every last component that went into my machine was hand picked to deliver the best performance for the best price for me. I'm sure I'm not alone, so perhaps people are wising up and building their systems rather than paying for copy-pasted pre-made ones .
Remember that you are in a small pool of people who understand how to do that. Your world is teeny tiny as compared with the number of casual users, even among most of the people in this forum.
The quote in an earlier post saying that Win8 is software for "consumption" not "production" is spot on. The vast sea of the computer buying public want appliances, not instruments. A toaster, not a cyclotron. I saw this coming a decade ago and am surprised that it took so long to mature. People would ask me whether they should get a computer with 500GB instead of 250GB, when all they really needed was 60GB for how they used the machine.
True, the community in this forum has learned to covet piles of RAM and warehouses of storage but there are probably more aspiring basketball players than there are aspiring 3D artists, and the room at the top is just as small. The 3D community is not going to save the PC market.
The gamers, the addicted gamers will pay anything to feed their addiction so again, they will not keep the prices down.
The casual tweensy gamer tots will stick to their laptops or latest tablet gizmo until the first child arrives at which point the wife "accidentally" knocks the game tablet in the toilet. Game over!
The businesses use software that requires lots of info on the screen, many fields to fill out, many click boxes to check, and lots of typing. but again they will pay what's necessary to keep their businesses running, regardless of how the price keeps floating upward.
Loss of the ubiquitous home computer box will free the manufacturers to relegate that product to the secondary assembly line and slap whatever price they think they can get away with for the few who really need it.
Nope, "big iron" PC towers* in the home will soon be as quaint as great-great grandma's Victrola.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company
Please don't think I approve of this development. I'm just calling it like I see it. If I had my 'druthers (and lots of money), I'd 'druther have a Xerox Sigma5 or PDP11 or IBM1130 in my basement to tinker with in my last days.
http://www.computerhistory.org/VirtualVisibleStorage/artifact_frame.php?tax_id=03.02.03.00
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130
* I hope you realize how ironic it is for a computing pioneer to be talking about PCs as "big iron" (Oy!)
Nice collection of links, thanks for posting :)
Technically, Lenovo was always the chinese company it is now, it just formerly was the actual producer for IBM's laptops and spun off on their own, after IBM killed their laptop division iirc.
I agree that prices for most things have stayed static for a much longer period then they have historically, and would also tend to agree that it plays into the reduction in sales. The point others made about the fact that many users are actually consumers rather then producers of content (to any significant amount) other then their own pictures, e-mail and generalized content that tablets are fine for, also play into it to a large extent I believe. Tablets and other evolving related tech are fine for that type of consumer and yes they will dwarf the previous users in numbers and percent, just like pc users dwarfed mini computer users who dwarfed mainframe computer operators... The current iteration is the final one as a target market for the most part it appears as it addresses the general consumer. All that is left after that will be to evolve/expand to specialized niche market production. Talking about target markets, not specific evolution of the platform's technology.
Ubuntu sends all of your keystrokes back to the parent company. It has the ultimate ET Phone Home code built into it of any OS, which is a travesty. It goes against everything Linux stood for.
VLC will run desktop mode that shows any video you want as your desktop wallpaper.
Windows 7 = true 64bit
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. I have a brother who still works on mainframes, something people predicted would disappear over 20 years ago but are still used extensively in banking and other applications. Yes, they've evolved and now are sometimes more server farms tied together rather then one large machine, but the basic construct is still there. People get the misunderstanding that because a new form of technology dwarfs the old that the old will go away, that doesn't happen near as much as people think. There are still blacksmiths who work much in the same way they did hundreds of years ago.
Ubuntu sends all of your keystrokes back to the parent company. It has the ultimate ET Phone Home code built into it of any OS, which is a travesty. It goes against everything Linux stood for.
Hmmm, well this seems to be the inevitable, unstoppable, ongoing integration of the desktop with the interwebs. I don't personally see this as a problem since I have the option disabled anyway. As far as whether it is "spying," well I suppose that Google 'spies' on you whenever you type text into the search bar, and Google pretty much comes standard with open source Mozilla Firefox. What's the difference, really, between having your web browser or your OS, open source or not, look for relevant information to your search parameters which may include possible commercial solutions and some relevant advertising. That said, if indeed they get 'every keystroke' (which I doubt), that could make for some boring reading as I often use extensive keyboard shortcuts, lol.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/richard-stallman-calls-ubuntu-spyware-because-it-tracks-searches/
What the difference is, is that it takes an already bad trend and extends it further into what was once considered a private space. Think cameras everywhere in public, now put them in peoples home.. no difference having cameras in peoples home vs the public streets? And if you doubt it, do a little research... it is every keystroke that was a statement, not a generalization. The point is that no operating system does this as far as we know other then Ubuntu. And yes, it is a big deal. And no, just because others are doing similar things does not make it ok. Btw, it's not an option you can disable unless you disable their desktop entirely (and some other core components.)
Off to roll my own kernel.
Btw, just did a quick read of your link and I see where some confusion lies. The article points out a misconception that is floating around that it can easily be turned off. It was shown that that does not actually turn it off and that the keystrokes are still being sent to Canonical, just that they aren't forwarding information to Amazon. This is easily verified by 'turning it off' and putting a packet sniffer on your connection.
Ok, so maybe I reacted a bit in the last post. The reality is, that some people don't worry about privacy the same as others and for those, the features of Ubuntu may actually be a good thing. I didn't mean to impose my perspective on the situation, rather what I meant was to offer some information for those that this does matter to but might not have realized. In the spirit of that the information I previously presented was correct but emotionally biased.
Gedd, you seem like a smart fellow. You've apparently read Le Guin's Earthsea after all, so that must be the case! :) I read your linked article. I posted a link to Ars Technica on this same topic (edited in the link a few minutes after the original post, sorry).
Reading between the lines, as it were, I have to believe that someone, somewhere is sensationalizing the 'facts' a bit to promote his side of the story. I won't take Richard Stallman's word for it, not yet anyway. One person's accusation does not constitute proof in my mind. I've had enough experience in life at this point to question the motives of people who hold strong beliefs. I've seen quite a few people lie for their beliefs. (To understand how this is possible you might want to read the book, Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me.) I think Stallman believes so strongly in 'free open source software' that he might insinuate things that aren't really so. It wouldn't be the first time that an 'expert' on some subject has done something like that publicly, not by a long shot.
If Canonical is to be believed, I am not terribly concerned about privacy issues. I do nothing illegal and my online business transactions are extremely limited. That said, I hold no emotional attachment to Ubuntu and could certainly find me another distro to get comfortable with, preferrably something based on Debian, should Stallman's accusations and insinuations, upon further investigation, actually prove to be true.
_________
Edit: Gedd, I just read your following posts and will look into the matter further...
Dave, they are not accusations and insinuations. Just because I didn't inundate you with links does not mean these are one person's opinion. I simply posted the *one* I thought most relevant. You obviously seem to be resistant to this as you responded without doing the minimal research that would clarify these statements as fact. I don't have a problem with you not worrying about privacy. I do object to your minimalizing facts as 'accusation' and 'insinuations.' Do research, state facts.. *do not* dismiss without doing research as if the other side was just a nutter as that is a disservice to everyone. This isn't my feeling about this particular topic, this is my feeling towards an approach to life.
The more I read about 'Ubuntu spying,' the more I see that the issue of information gathering by Canonical is just a feature of the Dash search bar and not every keystroke entered in a user session. Indeed, if that was the case, one could look up the log file of every keystroke entered during a user session. Surely, someone has found that file by now, no?
The Dash does not exist in Xubuntu, Lubuntu, or to my knowledge in Kubuntu. So, is it an issue only for users of the Unity DE? What about Gnome 3 users?
Those are good questions, I heard conflicting information on whether it was limited to the Unity DE or was in core Ubuntu code and I didn't follow up thoroughly as I decided that the trend wasn't one I was interested in so I simply moved away from Ubuntu as a distro. Tbh, it isn't really targeted towards my use as it is meant to be a 'simple' version and I tend towards a more tech oriented use. There was some information about all keystrokes though, not just the search bar as it is in the underlying code base, just exposed through the search functionality supposedly. Having said that, I wouldn't state that authoritatively without more specific references.
We are going through a significant social change where peoples frames of reference are different for different generations and groups. The last time this happened in the US/Western Europe was in the late 1800's when we moved from a farm based society to an urban one. At that point, people had a lot of the same type of privacy issues. In some ways I acknowledge I'm rooted in the past, a bit of a Luddite I guess.
As a side note, just because someone prefers more privacy doesn't mean they are doing anything criminal or underhanded, they often just have a different comfort zone, and that shouldn't be minimalized either.