From: Robert Rothenberg Date: 16:36 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Thoughtful operating system It's so nice to know how thoughtful OS/X is. Often when I am doing something trivial like scrolling down to read the rest of a document or opening a folder in Finder that it stops to think deep thoughts for a moment or two. I know that when the mouse pointer transforms into a spinning psychedelic mandala that the computer has been struck by a wave of nirvana which a mere unenlightened novice like myself cannot ever hope to understand. I only wish that I had the patience not to try to do anything else with the computer, but surrender to the void and stare at the pretty swirly little disk while OS/X contemplates the deeper things in life.... ... like if the machine weren't so damn expensive, I'd smash it into tiny little bits while screaming like a maniac.
From: sabrina downard Date: 16:51 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system > It's so nice to know how thoughtful OS/X is. Often when I am doing > something trivial like scrolling down to read the rest of a document or > opening a folder in Finder that it stops to think deep thoughts for a moment > or two. I know that when the mouse pointer transforms into a spinning > psychedelic mandala that the computer has been struck by a wave of nirvana > which a mere unenlightened novice like myself cannot ever hope to > understand. I only wish that I had the patience not to try to do anything > else with the computer, but surrender to the void and stare at the pretty > swirly little disk while OS/X contemplates the deeper things in life.... you should see how thoughtful mine gets when i try to install printer drivers on it. it took me 45 minutes just to find the thing to download it last night, then it took about another two hours to get to the point where i could print things without complaints about cartridge changes or alignment of cartridges... ...and the little printer helper background app thingy gets so deeply embroiled in a mental debate with itself that it starts out with 6% of my cpu and gradually increases over time until it's got 60% or more. i think it'd be easier in the long run to actually buy a new printer, one that didn't have such existential angst.
From: Andy Armstrong Date: 16:52 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system On 17 Apr 2007, at 16:36, Robert Rothenberg wrote: > I know that when the mouse pointer transforms into a spinning > psychedelic mandala that the computer has been struck by a wave of > nirvana > which a mere unenlightened novice like myself cannot ever hope to > understand. It's thinking "I wish I had more memory. I wish he'd disable that Dashboard shite."
From: Jonathan Katz Date: 16:58 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system ------=_Part_7300_25440843.1176825521917 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Yeah, I'm top-posting... blame google mail. At least you can turn off Spotlight. You have to edit /etc/hostconfig and change "SPOTLIGHT=-YES-" to "SPOTLIGHT=-NO-". No Mac at my office (only at home.) I wonder if it has something for Dashboard, too? On 4/17/07, Andy Armstrong <andy@xxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > On 17 Apr 2007, at 16:36, Robert Rothenberg wrote: > > I know that when the mouse pointer transforms into a spinning > > psychedelic mandala that the computer has been struck by a wave of > > nirvana > > which a mere unenlightened novice like myself cannot ever hope to > > understand. > > It's thinking "I wish I had more memory. I wish he'd disable that > Dashboard shite." > ------=_Part_7300_25440843.1176825521917 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Yeah, I'm top-posting... blame google mail.<br><br>At least you can turn off Spotlight. You have to edit /etc/hostconfig and change "SPOTLIGHT=-YES-" to "SPOTLIGHT=-NO-".<br><br>No Mac at my office (only at home.) I wonder if it has something for Dashboard, too?<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 4/17/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Andy Armstrong</b> < <a href="mailto:andy@xxxxxx.xxx">andy@xxxxxx.xxx</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">On 17 Apr 2007, at 16:36, Robert Rothenberg wrote: <br>> I know that when the mouse pointer transforms into a spinning<br>> psychedelic mandala that the computer has been struck by a wave of<br>> nirvana<br>> which a mere unenlightened novice like myself cannot ever hope to <br>> understand.<br><br>It's thinking "I wish I had more memory. I wish he'd disable that<br>Dashboard shite."<br></blockquote></div> ------=_Part_7300_25440843.1176825521917--
From: Bill Page Date: 17:03 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system ------=_Part_62166_16120448.1176825832517 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline i use this with quicksilver when i want to kill the dash for a bit or you can just not be lazy and type the whole thing, but sheesh really i mean typing who can be fucked with that top posting is the way of the future On 4/18/07, Jonathan Katz <jon@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > Yeah, I'm top-posting... blame google mail. > > At least you can turn off Spotlight. You have to edit /etc/hostconfig and > change "SPOTLIGHT=-YES-" to "SPOTLIGHT=-NO-". > > No Mac at my office (only at home.) I wonder if it has something for > Dashboard, too? > > > On 4/17/07, Andy Armstrong < andy@xxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > On 17 Apr 2007, at 16:36, Robert Rothenberg wrote: > > > I know that when the mouse pointer transforms into a spinning > > > psychedelic mandala that the computer has been struck by a wave of > > > nirvana > > > which a mere unenlightened novice like myself cannot ever hope to > > > understand. > > > > It's thinking "I wish I had more memory. I wish he'd disable that > > Dashboard shite." > > > ------=_Part_62166_16120448.1176825832517 Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="kill dock.scpt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 X-Attachment-Id: f_2spe9 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="kill dock.scpt" RmFzZFVBUyAxLjEwMS4xMA4AAAAED///AAEAAgADAf//AAANAAEAAmwAAgAAAAoABP/+DQAEAAJP AAEAAAAKAAUABg0ABQADSQACAAQACf/9//z/+wr//QAYLmFldnRxdWl0bnVsbP//gAD//5AAbnVs bAH//AAAAv/7AAANAAYAAW0AAAAAAAEABw8ABwHECG51bGwAAAAAAAHfgP+cAAGDzQhEb2NrLmFw cNi//+KwAEgwAJC8YhCQuUGcAAAAAQAAAAGgAQIIkARkmL//4uC//+TxkARk5Jlozti//+Lgv/9k b2NrAAARAGFsaXMAAAAAAWYAAgABC0hhcmR5IERyaXZlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL74HexIKwAA AAGDzQhEb2NrLmFwcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYgVvulqswAAAAAAAAAA/////wAACSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMQ29yZVNl cnZpY2VzABAACAAAvveYVAAAABEACAAAvujlGwAAAAEADAABg80AAW4NAAFuDAACADBIYXJkeSBE cml2ZTpTeXN0ZW06TGlicmFyeTpDb3JlU2VydmljZXM6RG9jay5hcHAADgASAAgARABvAGMAawAu AGEAcABwAA8AGAALAEgAYQByAGQAeQAgAEQAcgBpAHYAZQASACRTeXN0ZW0vTGlicmFyeS9Db3Jl U2VydmljZXMvRG9jay5hcHAAEwABLwD//wAAAf/+AAAOAAIAAA8QAAMAA//6AAgACQH/+gAAEAAI AAH/+Qr/+QAYLmFldnRvYXBwbnVsbAAAgAAAAJAAKioqKg4ACQAHEP/4AAr/9//2AAsADP/1Cv/4 ABguYWV2dG9hcHBudWxsAACAAAAAkAAqKioqDQAKAAFrAAAAAAAKAA0CAA0AAgAB//QC//QAAAH/ 9wAAAv/2AAAQAAsAABAADAACAAf/8wr/8wAYLmFldnRxdWl0bnVsbP//gAD//5AAbnVsbBH/9QAL 4BIABypqDAABVQ8AYXNjcgABAA363t6t ------=_Part_62166_16120448.1176825832517--
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 17:10 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system Andy Armstrong <andy@xxxxxx.xxx> writes: > It's thinking "I wish I had more memory. I wish he'd disable that > Dashboard shite." Why is it that we have "nice" for our mostly-idle CPUs, but no way to say "sorry, Dashboard, you only get 30 megs -- deal with it"? It's only been, what, a decade since CPU speed has been all but meaningless? I'm normally a big fan of the best technology of the 70s and 80s, but in this case... /s
From: jrodman Date: 20:02 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 09:10:51AM -0700, Sean O'Rourke wrote: > Andy Armstrong <andy@xxxxxx.xxx> writes: > > It's thinking "I wish I had more memory. I wish he'd disable that > > Dashboard shite." > > Why is it that we have "nice" for our mostly-idle CPUs, but no > way to say "sorry, Dashboard, you only get 30 megs -- deal with > it"? It's only been, what, a decade since CPU speed has been all > but meaningless? I'm normally a big fan of the best technology > of the 70s and 80s, but in this case... I've "achieved" this on unix (linux) with ulimit. MacOSX may offer same. Of course the usual result is the gui app exits (or crashes) when it exceeds the limit, although in rare cases (some java apps, since the jvm has so much wasted space to begin with) I've seen it just live with it, if only for a finite time. For a while I ran Mozilla/Firefox this way, if only to force a restart of the program periodically but eventually found I preferred to restart it when I wasn't in the middle of something I cared about. -josh
From: Sean O'Rourke Date: 20:15 on 17 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx writes: > I've "achieved" this on unix (linux) with ulimit. MacOSX may offer > same. Yep -- setrlimit(2) ("ulimit -m" in zsh), specifically RLIMIT_RSS The maximum size (in bytes) to which a process's resident set size may grow. This imposes a limit on the amount of physical memory to be given to a process; if memory is tight, the system will prefer to take memory from pro- cesses that are exceeding their declared resident set size. I'll have to do some experimenting to see how Safari responds to being put on a diet. Hate software? Don't get mad, get even! /s
From: Peter da Silva Date: 13:59 on 18 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system I don't have any Dashboard widgets, I played with them briefly but when I saw how my CPU time jumped when I brought up Dashboard I switched back to Konfabulator. It's a little more complex to create widgets since you don't have all of Webkit to play with, but on the other hand you don't have all of Webkit to weigh you down... so when some idiot writes a widget that refreshes every 30ms it doesn't actually try and do do 33 HTML page refreshes a second. Not that I'm happy with doing that many updates but at least it's just a single statically positioned control it's beating on.
From: Yossi Kreinin Date: 14:40 on 18 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system Sean O'Rourke wrote: > > Why is it that we have "nice" for our mostly-idle CPUs, but no > way to say "sorry, Dashboard, you only get 30 megs -- deal with > it"? It's only been, what, a decade since CPU speed has been all > but meaningless? I'm normally a big fan of the best technology > of the 70s and 80s, but in this case... > An even simpler feature I miss is a way to say "please always leave me 5% of the CPU and 5% of RAM so that when a process decides it needs all the system resources and then some I can kill it without killing everything else". For example, recently I had to kill this kind of process. After several minutes Alt-F-something worked and I got a shell. It took the shell about 15 minutes to interpret the following sequence I apparently typed: $ toptop # mmmm, how do I say there's no such thing in a polite way?.. $ ls # mmmm, there are so many files here... $ top # wow, THAT'S ONE HUGE PROGRAM TO RUN. wait... wait... At least top was responsive. Except for a somewhat stupid question ("which signal do you want to use in order to kill the process?" - COME ON, don't you see that we have AN EMERGENCY here?? Just KILL IT!!), it was the perfect assassin...
From: John Tobin Date: 15:27 on 18 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Thoughtful operating system On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 04:40:17PM +0300, Yossi Kreinin wrote: > Sean O'Rourke wrote: > > > >Why is it that we have "nice" for our mostly-idle CPUs, but no > >way to say "sorry, Dashboard, you only get 30 megs -- deal with > >it"? It's only been, what, a decade since CPU speed has been all > >but meaningless? I'm normally a big fan of the best technology > >of the 70s and 80s, but in this case... > > > > An even simpler feature I miss is a way to say "please always leave me 5% > of the CPU and 5% of RAM so that when a process decides it needs all the > system resources and then some I can kill it without killing everything > else". Don't forget the magic which allows the OS to know that certain programs are allowed to use that reserved 5% of RAM and CPU, otherwise you'll just have reduced your RAM and CPU rather than reserved it. A combination of "Don't allow any process to use more than 75% or RAM and don't page in from swap for any process at a rate greater than 50% of available IO" would be a pretty good combination I reckon. Obviously it would need to be configurable, but at least it would be a start.
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