is technology mostly wasted??

[billdotson]

think about it. Most people buy a laptop to go to college. What are these laptops really even used for? Word processing, listening to music, surfing the internet. Many people just have computers at home to use an IM program, do their work and check their e-mail.

Even my system:
Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair XMS2 PC6400C4 DDR2 800MHz dual channel RAM
nVidia 7800GT 256MB PCI Express x16
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 soundcard
Asus P5B Deluxe/Wi-Fi AP (LGA775)
250GB SATA 7200RPM harddrive
Floppy Drive
5-in-1 media card reader
SATA DVD/CD burner
IDE DVD/CD burner
external 300GB HDD with Ubuntu loaded onto it

seems to go to waste quite often. my 250GB harddrive is filled up with about 10 PC games, Windows XP, some other programs and media files (ie: music, recorded TV shows)
Half the time I am doing something as simple as typing in the ubuntu forums, surfing the web, reading PDF books, cutting out commercials and encoding the video files.

My CPU barely goes over 10% utilization ( I don't know how much it uses when I am playing a Windows game) but I feel that often the power of my PC is wasted. The only intensive programs that my PC runs are avidemux or some other video editing platform and a PC game.

Do you often feel that the power of your PC and the power of the majority of PCs goes to waste? Is this why some people use clustering with a bunch of old PCs?

[maniacmusician]

think about it. Most people buy a laptop to go to college. What are these laptops really even used for? Word processing, listening to music, surfing the internet. Many people just have computers at home to use an IM program, do their work and check their e-mail.

Even my system:
Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair XMS2 PC6400C4 DDR2 800MHz dual channel RAM
nVidia 7800GT 256MB PCI Express x16
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 soundcard
Asus P5B Deluxe/Wi-Fi AP (LGA775)
250GB SATA 7200RPM harddrive
Floppy Drive
5-in-1 media card reader
SATA DVD/CD burner
IDE DVD/CD burner
external 300GB HDD with Ubuntu loaded onto it

seems to go to waste quite often. my 250GB harddrive is filled up with about 10 PC games, Windows XP, some other programs and media files (ie: music, recorded TV shows)
Half the time I am doing something as simple as typing in the ubuntu forums, surfing the web, reading PDF books, cutting out commercials and encoding the video files.

My CPU barely goes over 10% utilization ( I don't know how much it uses when I am playing a Windows game) but I feel that often the power of my PC is wasted. The only intensive programs that my PC runs are avidemux or some other video editing platform and a PC game.

Do you often feel that the power of your PC and the power of the majority of PCs goes to waste? Is this why some people use clustering with a bunch of old PCs?
yup. I use a powerful PC simply because I love working with more advanced hardware. I have a similar system to yours, just because I can. there's no particular reason for it. I enjoy having a powerful system if I ever need it. I also want it to last a while. So, in a few years, my system will still be usable, even when it's not top of the line.

[dyous87]

Well in my opinion I always feel that I could use as much processing power as possible especially when I'm doing something like ripping a dvd, while listening to music while chatting online while doing some graphics and web design work. I have a pretty fast system with a core duo processor and 2 gigs of ram but sometimes i stil find it getting overexausted.

[izanbardprince]

I do some light gaming, listen to quite a bit of music, surf the web, etc.

My system has:

AMD Sempron 3100+
1 GB DDR400 RAM
Nvidia Geforce 6200LE video card 128 MB on the card + 128 from the system
160 gig hard disk
Ubuntu Edgy 64-bit

It's more than enough system for my needs, it can run most of the games I play just fine, it's not top notch or anything, but there's really no point in trying to be, as fast as everything changes.

[unbargained]

yes, and it's a crying shame. lol

[Shay Stephens]

Is technology mostly wasted? Depends on who is using it I suppose, just like with everything else from food to time.

My own example, I am a photographer, and about 50% of the time, the computer is running full tilt. The other half, it's normal web, email, light gaming, etc. But it's that first 50% of the time where I really need a fast computer. I am going to be upgrading soon to a dual core system so I can get even more performance out of it. As they say, time is money.

If it were not for the photography, I would probably have a 1ghz system and be plenty happy until it broke and I had to buy something new.

[aysiu]

My current specs are perfect for what I do. I never have more than four apps open at any given time, and I mainly use a web browser and an email client. 512 MB of RAM is probably the most I'll ever need.

[23meg]

The majority of non-technical computer users could do everything they do with the technologies from eight years ago.

If only the "you must have the latest and greatest" frenzy and their crappy operating systems allowed.

[izanbardprince]

My current specs are perfect for what I do. I never have more than four apps open at any given time, and I mainly use a web browser and an email client. 512 MB of RAM is probably the most I'll ever need.

And I remember thinking that 128 megs of RAM was practically a bottomless pit. :P

Programs get more bloated as more and more people buy better hardware.

[aysiu]

And I remember thinking that 128 megs of RAM was practically a bottomless pit. :P

Programs get more bloated as more and more people buy better hardware.
Actually, I'm not sure it's the programs. It seems to be the environment surrounding those programs.

After all, Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) can run on 16 MB or RAM, and it includes Firefox by default.

Aren't Vista's specification requirements are so demanding because of all the eye candy in the operating system and not the applications it runs?

[izanbardprince]

Actually, I'm not sure it's the programs. It seems to be the environment surrounding those programs.

After all, Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) can run on 16 MB or RAM, and it includes Firefox by default.

Aren't Vista's specification requirements are so demanding because of all the eye candy in the operating system and not the applications it runs?

Even if you turn off all the eye candy, it's still a lot slower than XP.

And as for Firefox, it often takes up in the ball park of 100 megs or more, just by itself, under normal use,

[teet]

think about it. Most people buy a laptop to go to college. What are these laptops really even used for? Word processing, listening to music, surfing the internet. Many people just have computers at home to use an IM program, do their work and check their e-mail.

That is exactly the reason why I'm still using my P3 1.06 Ghz laptop with 512 mb of RAM. I bought the laptop about 5 years ago before I went to college and I still use it today as my "work" laptop. I thought about getting a new one before I started grad school this year, but I couldn't really justify it. I mean, all I really needed the laptop for was to use the internet and microsoft office. I moved all my fun computing (games, music, videos, mythtv) over to a cheap desktop machine.

I will admit that Office 2007 does feel a bit heavy on my laptop, but it is still very usable. The only reason I would have to buy a new laptop is if a part failed or if I just wanted a snappier machine.

-teet

[The Noble]

When I was younger and more naive (15), more power was always better, but now all I want is enough of a system that won't lag too much when I run a few programs. I am actually migrating to lighter applications, as I am learning that I really like the quicker load times. It's actually relaxing to not have to worry about upgrading my system anymore. Thank you so much linux.

[jfinkels]

With all that fancy dual-core power just sitting around, we should all donate to BOINC http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ or Folding@Home http://folding.stanford.edu/.

:D

[Henry Rayker]

I actually need more power. RAM is probably the biggest concern (512MB for doing my VLSI assignments just isn't enough) with harddrive space coming in a close second.

I will build a new desktop sometime this summer (finances permitting) and I plan to go as big and powerful as I can, just because.

[hardyn]

With all that fancy dual-core power just sitting around, we should all donate to BOINC http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ or Folding@Home http://folding.stanford.edu/.

:D

Agreed! i used to do alot of a grinding for SETI@home

but im on notebook now and things get pretty warm, even when heavily throttled.

[public_void]

I do Folding@Home on a laptop, just leave it on during the day.

[billdotson]

I agree that the newer OSes use far more hardware than they need to.. but as RAM, HDD space and processing power gets cheaper and cheaper OSes and programs are inevitably going to be programmed less efficiently. You can easily tell this is true in most cases.. look at Puppy Linux or DSL.. they have some useful (although not huge,mind-blowing) applications and they can run all in today's modern RAM. But commercial companies like Microsoft have deals with hardware manufacturers like Intel and thus when Intel makes a newer, better processor available Microsoft is going to make their software more bloated to help out Intel by getting them more new hardware sold.

btw what is BOINC and Folding@Home??

[kko1]

My take on this:
- Often, yes.
- I'm seriously amazed at what some people even on these forums consider to be an "old" machine... just wanting to junk it and get something newer, and (usually) more power-hungry.

About power-saving:
- At least I'm glad I got my processor to save electricity and run cooler (with 'athcool') when it's not being pushed to do work. (Makes the machine run quieter too.)
- I just wish more machines were built with processors that run with 10 watts as opposed to ~70 watts. It's technically not too hard, it's just done too rarely. (Just look at the processors in laptop machines, even those usually consume around a third of their desktop counterparts, plus laptops usually have more power-friendly overall designs too.)
- Not to talk about some ridiculously power-hungry graphics cards that make you "need" a 500 or 750-watt power supply... :shock:

[/rant]

One more thing that reminds me of something - my display goes to power-save when I'm not looking at it, unless I turn the machine off. This makes me think that "technology going to waste" isn't only what you have, it's also how you use it. (This is only when you have the choice though. If your machine really can't save power when it could, it's not really helping prevent the wastage.)

kko1

[izanbardprince]

My take on this:
- Often, yes.
- I'm seriously amazed at what some people even on these forums consider to be an "old" machine... just wanting to junk it and get something newer, and (usually) more power-hungry.

About power-saving:
- At least I'm glad I got my processor to save electricity and run cooler (with 'athcool') when it's not being pushed to do work. (Makes the machine run quieter too.)
- I just wish more machines were built with processors that run with 10 watts as opposed to ~70 watts. It's technically not too hard, it's just done too rarely. (Just look at the processors in laptop machines, even those usually consume around a third of their desktop counterparts, plus laptops usually have more power-friendly overall designs too.)
- Not to talk about some ridiculously power-hungry graphics cards that make you "need" a 500 or 750-watt power supply... :shock:

[/rant]

One more thing that reminds me of something - my display goes to power-save when I'm not looking at it, unless I turn the machine off. This makes me think that "technology going to waste" isn't only what you have, it's also how you use it. (This is only when you have the choice though. If your machine really can't save power when it could, it's not really helping prevent the wastage.)

kko1

If you want to talk power hungry and running HOT, try an Intel Pentium or Celeron, yuck!

[doobit]

I'm using a VIA C7 1GHZ machine right now as my main home machine. It only uses about 25 watts.

[billdotson]

I do not know how much wattage my PC actually uses when it is running but I have a 550watt PSU.. to accommodate for that big stupid videocard.. the newer videocards are ridiculous requiring you to have a 550watt PSU to use it..

[hardyn]

btw what is BOINC and Folding@Home??

its an application by U of Berkley that allows you to donate your processor time to various distributed computing projects.

distributed computing has become very popular... instead of buying super computer time, users may donate the idle time of their home computers to help the researchers do whatever it is that they are doing.

folding@home - is for protein and cancer stuff.
seti@home - looking for aliens in space radio noise.
and many others...

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

[kko1]

I'm using a VIA C7 1GHZ machine right now as my main home machine. It only uses about 25 watts.

Kudos to you, and I take off my virtual hat. :KS

[justin whitaker]

think about it. Most people buy a laptop to go to college. What are these laptops really even used for? Word processing, listening to music, surfing the internet. Many people just have computers at home to use an IM program, do their work and check their e-mail.

Even my system:
Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair XMS2 PC6400C4 DDR2 800MHz dual channel RAM
nVidia 7800GT 256MB PCI Express x16
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 soundcard
Asus P5B Deluxe/Wi-Fi AP (LGA775)
250GB SATA 7200RPM harddrive
Floppy Drive
5-in-1 media card reader
SATA DVD/CD burner
IDE DVD/CD burner
external 300GB HDD with Ubuntu loaded onto it

seems to go to waste quite often. my 250GB harddrive is filled up with about 10 PC games, Windows XP, some other programs and media files (ie: music, recorded TV shows)
Half the time I am doing something as simple as typing in the ubuntu forums, surfing the web, reading PDF books, cutting out commercials and encoding the video files.

My CPU barely goes over 10% utilization ( I don't know how much it uses when I am playing a Windows game) but I feel that often the power of my PC is wasted. The only intensive programs that my PC runs are avidemux or some other video editing platform and a PC game.

Do you often feel that the power of your PC and the power of the majority of PCs goes to waste? Is this why some people use clustering with a bunch of old PCs?

Every time I use DSL or Puppy Linux, I know the answer to this: heck yeah!

[billdotson]

so how exactly does folding@home work? that sounds like a worthy endeavour but I wonder am I putting my home network, system, privacy or all of the above at risk? I might be willing to do such a thing if I knew it was safe and had no potential to risk any of my personal info, etc.

[bastiegast]

Actually, I'm not sure it's the programs. It seems to be the environment surrounding those programs.

After all, Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) can run on 16 MB or RAM, and it includes Firefox by default.

Aren't Vista's specification requirements are so demanding because of all the eye candy in the operating system and not the applications it runs?

Actually I was negatively surprised by the performance of puppy and dsl on low end system. I remember trying to run both on a 300 MHz Pentium Pc with 32 MB ram. Puppy was pig slow(unusable) and DSL did boot, I even managed to install it but it was unstable as hell, even trying to start firefox would crash the system. Ubuntu livecd's didn't boot at all(both dapper and edgy), After upgrading the system to 128 MB's of RAM everything ran fine and I was able to install Xubuntu without problems.

[jenhsun]

It depends on what domain and job you have.
My brother always complain to me about the time on 3D architecture modeling ,rendering and animation. It really takes too long to done his works, no matter how fast his computer is.
Contrarily, my only laptop, 750Hz, P3 still run smoothly in edgy. Ya, I only take the old baby for traveling and some simple task. :popcorn:

[hardyn]

so how exactly does folding@home work? that sounds like a worthy endeavour but I wonder am I putting my home network, system, privacy or all of the above at risk? I might be willing to do such a thing if I knew it was safe and had no potential to risk any of my personal info, etc.

well you will have to read folding's mission statement, i haven't. they doing biology at the physics level. (isn't it neat now chem, and bio all physics all become physics at some point)

there is the potential to exploit anything, but give the web page a read, i don't do anything mission critical, so i have never been super concerned about security; but i understand that not everybody shares my view.

Berkley does not audit the projects that use BOINC, they make that very clear, it is up to you to accept the terms of each project.

[tbroderick]

I'm using a VIA C7 1GHZ machine right now as my main home machine. It only uses about 25 watts.

What's your home setup? I'm thinking about getting a mini-itx setup next time around.

[tigerpants]

But commercial companies like Microsoft have deals with hardware manufacturers like Intel and thus when Intel makes a newer, better processor available Microsoft is going to make their software more bloated to help out Intel by getting them more new hardware sold.


Actually, its the other way around - MS retarded desktop PC architecture for years, by refusing to support 64-bit for ages and ages and ages. Hence there was no point Intel or any other HW manufacturer making any products for it. When MS finally decided to support 64-bit, everyone could jump to it. Macs have be 64-bit for ages.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

I, for one, love efficient and small hardware. That' s the aspect of the Wii that I really like, that it can run on a tiny amount of power and it makes effectively no noise. It is simple, quiet and does its own thing well -- a lot like Gnome :)

Laptops are strange. They all seem way to keen on having specs that match desktop PCs, so they never really get more efficient. The operating systems, even, are hardly optimized for laptops. They just run OSs in a slower and more power-draining way than desktops. They have fewer wires and are usually a joy to set up, so I think that is why lots of people buy them instead of desktop PCs (and if I could do away with upgradability and my 19" monitor, I would too!). If there was a laptop that used lower specs hardware with improved efficiency thanks to newer technology, it would be a lot more interesting. (1 gHz, maybe? It's not that bad. I'm typing this on a sub 500 mHz Celeron machine running an in development operating system and it all works).
Alas, they are hardly "laptop" computers anymore. People are either too afraid to put them on their laps for fear of the things exploding or they just aren't sitting anywhere that it is really convenient to operate a computer of such size!
Carrying around a laptop is a lot like carrying around an ant farm. You could take it with you everwhere you go so that when you happen to bump into an ant expert it will come in handy, but is it practical?

I was tempted to get a laptop once, but I've decided instead to just patiently wait for a good, clean and preferably open PDA without any spaces wasted by one of those blasted miniature keyboards. For notes on the go they generally work just as well as laptops, for power efficiency they often are way nicer and they are a lot smaller (thus easier to work with). Just pull it out, turn it on if it isn't already and *boom* an interface that was actually designed for work on the go. Since smaller scale PDAs tend to have their own special software, they are significantly nicer to batteries and to startup times!
That, and they're cheaper :P

The OpenMoko project is looking really good with the nearing completion Neo1973, so if I can stand waiting for another year or two I'm sure they'll have a nice, open and pocket-sized computer that suits my own wishes perfectly (without unnecessary cell phone features; I hate phones and I refuse to pay for them to further invade on my time).

[billdotson]

tigerpants: sorry I did not know that it was the other way around with Microsoft and Intel. Although why did MS not support 64-bit for so long?

[tbroderick]

Actually, its the other way around - MS retarded desktop PC architecture for years, by refusing to support 64-bit for ages and ages and ages. Hence there was no point Intel or any other HW manufacturer making any products for it. When MS finally decided to support 64-bit, everyone could jump to it. Macs have be 64-bit for ages.

HP started develoment of what would become the Itanium processor in 1988. HP and Intel officially partnered on 1994. The Itanium was delayed, delayed and delayed. Pretty much everyone was on board supporting the chip, Solaris, IBM partnered with Santa Cruz Operation to create a Unix solution called Monterey (that's where the current lawsuit of the SCO group and IBM started), Windows 2000, and Project Trillion was Linux's answer to Monterey. Guess what, the chip was delayed in coming out until 2001 and when it did it was outperformed by x86 chips. Then the support stopped. Intel did not delever what they promised. It had absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft. AMD-64 came out in 2003. Microsoft announced they would create a 64-bit edition in 2003. EM64T came out in 2004. Microsoft released their 64-bit version in 2005. I think it safe to say Microsoft waited to make sure the AMD-64 and EM64T chips were successful.

[izanbardprince]

tigerpants: sorry I did not know that it was the other way around with Microsoft and Intel. Although why did MS not support 64-bit for so long?

Microsoft was the same way about 32-bit support, the Intel 386 (circa 1986) was a 32-bit processor, but it wasn't until 1995 that they cranked out a consumer operating system that used most 32-bit features.

They don't embrace the transition much because there are still a LOT of 32-bit CPU's out there and they want to sell boxed copies of Windows Vista for people to upgrade to, it really won't be til Windows Vienna is released in 2011 or 2012, when Microsoft will start pushing 64-bit operating systems.

[kko1]

Laptops are strange. [meaningful words here]
Alas, they are hardly "laptop" computers anymore. People are [--] too afraid to put them on their laps for fear of ...

... burning their lap, with the amount of heat some machines produce. #-o

So no, you can hardly call that sort of machines laptops anymore.

[EdThaSlayer]

Just think about when you actually need that processing power. I mean, I would love to rip a cd in a second but it takes around 7 hours with my current cpu. It is true that we don't need all of the processing power that we have at the moment, might as well check into one of those research projects that uses processing power from pcs all over the world.

[WindowWasher]

With all that fancy dual-core power just sitting around, we should all donate to BOINC http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ or Folding@Home http://folding.stanford.edu/.

:D
Ditto. If you have unused potential consider joining TeamUbuntu and fold for science.

[m.musashi]

^^Just follow my sig if you want to put your extra juice to use.