Original Kubuntu fan

[dibl]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

I agree the technology moves pretty fast, but I also have noted that the design of human beings is probably going to be a limiting factor, at least with respect to the I/O interface (which WON'T be going into my sinus, btw). For example, the Dell QWERTY keyboard that I'm typing this on is not very different than the keyboard on the IBM card punch machine that I used in my 1972 COBOL class. And that one was pretty much the same as the QWERTY keyboard on my electric typewriter, which was from the mid-1960s. The design of our hands and fingers, and manual dexterity, is pretty fixed.

Likewise, our ability to speak and hear language isn't going to change, although training can speed up the average person's rate of speech and hearing comprehension a bit. And we remain strongly visual creatures -- and our eyesight, focal range, and reading comprehension is fixed (within a range around the average). So probably advancements such as those envisioned by GG will be largely oriented to efficient accommodation of the average person's "I/O" capabilities, in addition to the sheer computational speed.

IMHO.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

I guess it's true ... prophets are without honor in their own country.

[kyonides]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

No problem, dibl, they could also implant it in your right hand since there's also a cavity where they can install it he he he

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

And we remain strongly visual creatures

Barely.

We can't see into the UV nor IR, or in low or very bright light levels, and we cannot resolve objects that a Hawk can easily discern at a mile. We can only see ahead of us, barely to the side and not at all behind us.

Our hearing is no better. From 100 to 16,000 c/s, if that. Dogs and cats easily hear to 20,000 c/s and can hear sounds way beneath our db limit of detection.

We can't hold our breath very long nor run very fast and we can't fly ...

UNTIL we employ our BIG brain, then we can do ALL of those, most better than although some not as well as our animal friends.

Yet, despite our BIG brain, we seem not to be able to learn from our mistakes.

We are a strange creature indeed, and we believe ourselves to be in the image of God.

Obviously a poor image.

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Don't forget sense of smell. Humans have the worse of that as well.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Don't forget sense of smell. Humans have the worse of that as well.

Our sense of smell is so bad compared to most animals that I forgot to include it as a viable sense.

At least I am a very poor image ....

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Most animals can sense vibrations better as well.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Rats, I missed another one.

Let me add telepathy before someone else does. Telepathic we are not, but my Miniture Toy Poodle KNOWS what I am thinking before I tell her.

[Snowhog]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

...but my Miniture Toy Poodle KNOWS what I am thinking before I tell her.

I knew that.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

ROL, LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL -- I got water running out my nose --- glad I wasn't drinking milk! (But, I'll bet you knew that, too!)

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

...but my Miniture Toy Poodle KNOWS what I am thinking before I tell her.

I knew that.

ROFL....

[ScottyK]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Oh the days of the 8Mhz CPU. 640K of RAM. 9-pin dot-matrix printers. Parallel ports. 300 baud external 'cradle' modems. BBSs (yes children, there was a time, long a go, when there were no websites). No USB. No CDs. No 2.5" floppies. Compared to what is available today, we lived in the time of dinosaurs!

Sounds exactly what my first computer was, and is now sitting up in the closet.

Back in 1979 my dad called the family around the table to introduce what he had building down in his workshop for the previous two months.

It was a Heathkit H89 computer, with the whopping 64K memory, and 128K disk drive. We had the new fangled 300 baud modem with it, and the dot-matrix printer (I think it was an Okidata printer).

[img width=400 height=300]http://www.scottyk.net/DSCN3887.JPG[/img]

My brother could care less (he was the jock), but I was hooked. At 10 years old I was dialing Denver area BBS and loving it. Didn't need an Internet filter back then!

To this day I enjoy hearing the sound of two modems handshaking.

Became the first person in 8th grade to use a computer to forge progress reports. I would have gotten away with it had I not given myself straight A's.

I high school I spend many a lunch period in the apple computer lab, and begged my dad for a Apple IIe, but he refused. "DOS is the future son, not Apple" he would say.

My freshman year in college (1989) I had a screaming IBM XT, with the 640K memory and a huge 20MB hard drive (I'll never fill that!). If my grades were good the first semester, my dad would replace the orange monochrome monitor with the four color CGA monitor. "You can't play games on this orange monitor!" my dad would say. Little did he know that I had that figured out within 30 minutes of them driving off.

In 1993 I bought a new top of the line Packard-Bell 486 SX25, 170 MB hard drive (I'll never fill that!) and 1MB of RAM. Played around with Win 3.1, and got introduced to the “Internet” in 1994. Miss the days of loading up Trumpet Winsock to get a connection over the 33.6K modem.

Then the games were starting to slow down, so upgraded the CPU to a 66 MHz. Kept the old 25 MHz CPU.

1995 I bought my first 1GB hard drive (I'll never fill that!) for $200. Now one can get a 2TB drive for under $100. Amazing.

Fast forward to 1999, was at a UNIX class for the Air Force, and was fascinated that there was another OS out there. Once I was done with the class I grabbed a copy of Red Hat Linux 7 and played around it it.

Played with Linux off and on since 2000, really got interested in 2007 when I purchased my first dual-core computer, and could now run a decent Virtual computer in VM Workstation.

Last year went the route of dual booting, and played around with several distros before I found Kubuntu, and been dual-booting to this day.

Now the only thing that is keeping me from running Linux full time is games. Can't get Civilization 4 to run under WINE, so I still boot back to Windows.

[Ole Juul]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Very cool Scotty! I encourage you to get that H89 out of the closet. Vintage stuff is lots of fun. Remember that whatever you're using now will look like a dinosaur in a few years - so computers are all the same from that perspective. Check out the Society of Eight-Bit Heathkit Computerists. If nothing else, try the emulator they have for download. You might also like to come and visit us at the Vintage Computer Forum.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

I'll never fill that!

Been there, said that! More than once.

Around 1983 I was writing software for a parts store. He bought an external Corvus HD because his requirements out grew the two 5.25 floppies. My first thought was "He'll never fill that up"! He'd have to turn on the Corvus and wait 15 MINUTES before he turned on the Apple, to allow time for the Corvus to temperature stabilize. To back up the Corvus they supplied software to connect the Corvus to a VHS tape recorder. It would take several hours during the night to make the backup on tape and verify it. Now, two hundred copies of that 5 MB of data would fit on a single 1GB USB memory stick.

Now, it's no big deal to have an application executable larger than 5 MB.

[Snowhog]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Now, it's no big deal to have an application executable larger than 5 MB.

Back during the 'dawn of PCs' when memory was incredibly expensive, small RAM and memory storage is what you got. Back then, programming was a real art, requiring true understanding and creative use of code to get the maximum bang into the smallest footprint you could. Code back then was elegant. It had real class.

Now, with RAM being cheap, programmers don't have to be creative, let alone really very good. Most code today, especially commercial code, is bloated and sloppily written.