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Microsoft's astroturfing has been a blight on Slashdot for a long time now. I wonder if this decision http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061221-8480 .html will cut down the shilling a little...

Care to explain how companies like Apple get away with violating US labor laws?. If companies can outsource my job to China, taking advantage of lax labor laws, I can import their products from Russia, under Russian copyright laws.

The upgrade also includes large beige junction boxes, which is causing the predictable uproar among the affluent, yard-obsessed yuppies who live in the suburb in question.

What does NFS have to do with anything?
We are talking about UNIX not one of many Network File Systems.

NFS is a SERVICE. In the same way that CIFS is the Windows analogue. We are talking about file permissions not outdated file networking.

OSX uses HFS+ as it's preferred file system. Windows NT4+ uses NTFS.
Notice I did not mention NFS. Unix does not use NFS in the OS any more than Windows has a CIFS partition.

Perhaps it was a typo, but apples to apples please.

Now that we have that out of the way. allow me to elaborate on my previous post.

A group is a CONTAINER for USERS.
A shamoo bottle is a container. A FedEx truck is a container.
how you layer them is irrelevant to the operating system.

if you absolutley need ACLs,
Open Mouth insert hyperlink: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/ 8

a nifty tidbit from said article:
"Tiger also does away with the 16-group limit from Panther and earlier versions of Mac OS X. Now a user can belong to any number of groups. More interestingly, groups can be nested, creating a hierarchy of groups. For example, the "staff" group could encompass all employees, while the "managers" group could be a subset of "staff," and "executives" could be a subset of "managers," and so on."

Please get your facts straight.

So back to you original post, what "standard" Unix Filesystem were you referring to. From what I understand, you choose the filesystem to meet the needs. The fact that you can use a specialized filesystem when you need to is a strength if you ask me.

Hell, use UFS for some stuff, Ext* for other stuff, HFS(+) for still others. How many Filesystems can Windows use? 4 out of the box? (Fat, Fat32, NTFS, CIFS)

Quality journalism, right. From the same source that, when faced with the Sony rootkit, said that LAME is an MP3 player.

If this were not a tech news site I would have excused an error like that. From a site like Ars it is not excusable. And it hasn't even been corrected, even though a year has passed and comments indicated the error.

The System Rating tool is still buggy and can use some work like there may a game that needs a 4 cpu but only a 2 gpu or there may be a game that needs a 2 cpu but a 4 gpu and this tool makeing the part that has the lowest number the number for your entire system.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060529-6934 .html
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/16/vista_computers_ to_have_5_performance_tiers/
http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/2006/05/v ista_system_ra.html

What I'd really like to see is both that kind of functionality along with NTFS's really excellent ACL permission system implemented. ACL permissions are a godsend for people responsible for running a file store that's used by humans as opposed to automated processes.

"For Mac geeks of a certain persuasion, the first mention of a soon-to-be-revealed feature of Leopard during the WWDC keynote set off a mental chain-reaction. That feature was Time Machine, and the name alone was enough to cause one particular phrase to hammer in the mind of many people, including me: "New file system in Leopard!" It was even a bingo square. In fact, it was my personal favorite bingo square, and the one that I most looked forward to marking.

But let's back up a bit. Why should the mere name "Time Machine" scream "new file system" to anyone? And why the excitement about a new file system in the first place? What's wrong with HFS+, Mac OS X's current file system? It's got journaling. It supports arbitrarily extensible metadata. It can even be case-sensitive to satisfy the Unix geeks. Does Mac OS X really need a new file system?

In a word, yes. HFS was a state-of-the-art personal computer file system when it was first released...twenty-one years ago. HFS+ is only eight years old, but it's built on many of the design decisions of HFS. Progress marches on. Today, there are new capabilities that the best modern file systems have, but that HFS+, even with all of its recent additions, does not. Here's a short list.

• Efficient storage and handling of very small files.
• Logical volume management through a pooled storage model.
• Improved data integrity using checksums on all data.
• Snapshots.

So it's about the snapshot ability of ZFS, and that's exactly what will be needed for Time Machine.

ZFS = snapshoots = Time Machine
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/8/15 /4995/

Gus Mueller, who was asked to participate but did not, was offered a flat fee of 5000 US$ (see comments). FotoMagico dev Oliver Breidenbach implies that his deal was similar in this oreilly thread. In this interview, Will Shipley of Delicious Monster clearly says that he's getting a very low amount of money, but does it for upgrades and publicity.

Other developers came out and were more explicit about how much they were getting or were offered, but I'm not going to search for those right now. I think it's quite obvious what the deal MacHeist offered was.

But can you make Windows run on a PowerPC?

Also, show me proof that it is illegal.

From one of NUMEROUS posts citing the delay in the Consumer release:

Windows Vista delayed into January 2007

"We needed just a few more weeks," Allchin said in a conference call. In a press release, he said "the industry requires greater lead time to deliver Windows Vista on new PCs during holiday. We must optimize for the industry, so we've decided to separate business and consumer availability."

Allchin's comments indicated that the company wanted time to address the last remaining security enhancements to the OS, and that the delay would allow time for all of Microsoft's partners to get on board.

"We're trying to crank up the security level higher than ever," he said. "This came down to a few weeks. We are trying to do the responsible thing here... Maybe in the past we would have just gone ahead but now we're not going to do that."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060321-6433 .html

So explain to me why security enhancements are critical to home users and not to commercial users? Also explain to me where you are correct in stating that Vista is done - as opposed to there being more changes (per Allchin himself) slated to be added BEFORE the consumer release is pressed for January?

Sorry, I guess you have just misread MSs own posts regarding this? Or maybe I have? But I dont think it can be spelled out any better than it has been.

And if you want to see a *real* example of inconsistent user interface on OS X, click the white pill on a Finder window and use it for a while. Notice how the Finder suddenly doesn't behave anything like the way it used to when you have the menu bar hidden?

You're switching the Finder over to "spacial" mode -- it behaves more like the Mac OS 9 Finder in that mode.

I pretty much came to the same conclusions as to what I think Microsoft should do, but I'm not sure if that's what they will do. It may not be the same, but there's the whole Xbox Media Center thing that Microsoft has not taken advantage of. I have this app installed on my softmodded Xbox.

As one legend goes, somebody showed XBMC to Bill Gates, and he said "Why the hell don't we have anything like this?" (Although this is probably closer to reality.) It would be super simple to make an app like this for the Xbox360, but none has appeared. Instead, Microsoft tries to leverage XP Media Center and hardware addons to the Xbox360. This is bullshit. Give me a simple app, loaded with codecs, with the ability to connect to a Windows/Samba share. That's it. Many are already connected to a network for Live and we don't need a computer to "stream" from; just a slow computer with enough disk space and I/O. Microsoft doesn't seem to realize just how close it could come to being the central hub of the living room if they offered this. I would be getting an Xbox360 in a heartbeat, but instead, I'm looking for another used Xbox for the living room and debating over getting a Wii.

But what could their reasons possibly be? Most likely extraordinary pressure from the MPAA-like organizations that want to make sure DRM is included and all sorts of fail-safes are there to ensure the continuation of their business model, so Microsoft instead . Their XNA studio ultimately may come to pass in a similar fashion, although there are differences. Microsoft does not want to upset the traditional publishers into abandoning its console when the players suddenly choose a $10 downloadable game from Live Arcade, which may offer the better gameplay per buck over a $60 store bought game.

In the end, it comes down to risks. Microsoft could easily create (or hire someone to create) an exact XBMC work-alike for the Xbox360. Would more people buy the Xbox360? Probably. But will enough people buy the XBMC clone (and indirectly, additional games/content) to make up for lost revenue in other areas? My guess is "yes", but Microsoft may not want to risk royally pissing off media companies with such a figurative middle finger. We all see how they are trying to appease them with the associated Zune actions.

That said, I think Microsoft does see the potential here with the homebrew community for themselves and the consumer and I hope they decide to take the risks to bring such choices to the their customers.

Some guy who doesn't like me steals my ID card...

That's why you'll need to get it either implanted in, or tattooed on your body.

:p

Aren't newer x86 processors essentially CISC that convert the instructions down to RISC? And RISC processors, like G4/G5, that use instruction sets such as Altivec are actually using some aspects of CISC?

That was my understanding, after reading articles like this one on Ars Technica. If true, it would make fighting over CISC vs. RISC not make a lot of sense.

I find on the best comparisons of Bill Gates to be with Andrew Carnegie. Unfortunately, everyone sees only the "Carnegie libraries," etc. as his legacy. It's easy to forget the strong arm tactics and violence at Homestead. Likewise, if Gates' (and Buffett's) money cure AIDS or malaria, then that may whitewash over public opinion, and sweep the abuses of the monopolist under the rug.

Personally, I won't forget the throttling of the competition (cutting of the air supply) of MS vs. Netscape. I won't forget the Allchin video in US vs. DOJ. I won't forget the backroom deals which sent money to SCO which were designed to put an end to competition once and for all.

It's frustrating that in this environment, people are so dumb (and governments will do nothing to protect them.) Joe XP-User would rather keep paying for the same thing over and over again, rather than think. How many times have you heard of people throwing out the hardware just because the software is infected with viruses and spyware? Just go down to Best Buy and ante up for another complete system with bundled OS. It the "just reboot" mentality magnified. There is no real harm, as long as the XBox works. BTW, these people know Linux's value; it's the tool used to "hack the XBox."

The only hope is that people will eventually notice how expensive Microsoft products are. If not in initial price, but in constantly starting over.

Some masochist at Arstechnica decided to review the thing: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/games/leftbehind.ar s

Now they will have to include backdoors for phone line tapping under US laws if they operate inside the USA. Sure they may be based outside the US and have global customers. Think that makes a whoot of difference to the Justice department?

Ars Technica covers this story in detail about both Cairo and Acid2 issues. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061212-8409 .html

I understand Intel and nVidia resenting that their next gen chips were not selected for the 360, but not allowing the old chips to be used? Maybe I'm old fashioned, but it seems like some profit is better than no profit.

Apparently Intel and nVidia were dumped in favor of IBM and ATI because the former would not release their IP to Microsoft. The upshot of this is that Microsoft could not take advantage of economies of scale to reduce prices (thus no Xbox-on-a-chip, without which it's impossible to include the old hardware in a new console). At the same time, at least nVidia was unwilling to lower their licensing costs. To them, it was either all of the pie or none of it, rather than at least getting some slice rather than no slice at all. It actually got to the point of legal action, though the two apparently settled out of court.

And given their symbiotic relationship in the PC arena, you'd think they would have been able to work something out for the console.

The relationship has always seemed more adversarial than symbiotic, at least to me.

Okay, everybody say it with me now ... what do you never, ever want to do? Upgrade any Apple product to a point-zero version. Ever.

They almost always suck, and sometimes they suck badly enough to take your data down with them. Mac OS 10.0? Major problems. iTunes 5.0? A disaster. Aperture 1.0? Sucked (well, at least for $300 it sucked).

In almost every case, Apple has followed up with a point release that's made the software usable. Mac OS 10.0.4 was the first version I'd say wasn't actually dangerous to use; iTunes 5.0.1 stopped eating people's music libraries for lunch; Aperture 1.5 could have been a whole different program (but thankfully was a free upgrade).

Anything from Apple that ends in a zero should get treated like a public beta. It's obnoxious, and I don't know what the deal is with their QA, but they've been doing it for years, and with nearly absolute consistency. Anytime a major upgrade of a product comes out, you can count on there being a bug-fix point release in the next few weeks. This was my major reason for holding off on iTunes 7.0; I didn't have to go online to know that it was going to suck, they always do. 7.0.2 though, seems reasonable, although admittedly the interface is questionable.

Apple as a company, seems to work best when it's under the gun. Sometimes I think they put themselves there, by releasing a product that's just not ready for prime-time and pushing it out as an upgrade to unwitting users; but yet they always seem to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with an emergency patch. It's like they really don't start working until the pressure is really on and the users are screaming for blood.

This report is apparently from Forester and Ars Technica have a savage review http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/12/ 11/6249 of it.

Briefly, Forester just do a simple average of songs-sold-this-year against ipods-ever-sold and come up with 22 songs per iPod this year versus 20 songs per iPod last year.

Two problems:

1. that's actually a 10% increase, not a "collapse"
2. "ipods-ever-sold" loosely means the entire installed base assuming no breakages or
        upgrades (we all know iPods break, and lots of people upgrade them), so the increase
        per customer is probably greater.

So what does it all mean?

* averages are deceptive, especially in maturing markets
* iTunes growth appears to be slowing (or maybe not growing at the same rate as iPod sales)
* customers have other sources of music to rip (CD's for example), and maybe Apple doesn't care that much - they're still selling hardware

ie. not a collapse.

They could. But that would be wrong.

Yes, and so was whatever crime they commited that made them a sex offender. Those that will try to do it again are the ones least likely to comply with the law in full. All this will do is help ostracize the ones trying to do things right from now on.

Ars Technica had an article about this also, here's a quote from it:

While we understand his concern, Ars has received e-mails from sex offenders who feel completely rejected from society by such restrictions, especially when they have been put on the list for statutory reasons (generally, having consensual sex with a minor).

That brings up two of the major problems with all this. 1. Many states have gone nuts with what they consider a sex offender, pretty minor things can land you on one, so the lists aren't useful any longer. Do you really worry that the guy living down the street was a year too old to have sex with his girlfriend and got hit with a statutory rape charge? 2. People who feel completely rejected by society often end up feeling they have nothing to lose. People who feel they have nothing to lose are more likely to commit a crime.

We need some sanity in all this, this proposal simply isn't going to work, it's way too easy to get new E-mail accounts and IM accounts. We also should be worried about the unintended consequences the law may cause. Iowa passed a law not too long ago (I can't find the exact date, but the news articles are from March 2006, article at FindArticles, same article at the NYT) that restricted sex offenders who had committed crimes with children from living within 2000 feet of a school or day-care center. This sounds somewhat reasonable at first doesn't it, they even restricted the class of sex offenders it applied to. Well it backfired, let me just quote this bit from the article:

A new state law barring those convicted of sex crimes involving children from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day-care center has brought unintended and disturbing consequences. It has rendered some offenders homeless and left others sleeping in cars or in the cabs of their trucks.

And the authorities say that many have simply vanished from their sight, with nearly three times as many registered sex offenders considered missing since before the law took effect in September.

"The truth is that we're starting to lose people," said Don Vrotsos, chief deputy for the Dubuque County sheriff's office and the man whose job it is to keep track of that county's 101 sex offenders.

So now they've lost track of many sex offenders they had track of prior to the law going into affect. Even if you think the sex offender registries actually help prevent sex crimes this is bad news.

You have to ask yourself, what unforeseen side-effects will this Virgina law have? Might it make registered sex offenders purposely use multiple accounts and only report one? Might it make them more cautious about what they do and say online, making it harder to catch them before they commit another crime? We don't know, but I don't see how there's any benefits to this law, at best only the ones who are trying to not commit another crime will fully comply.

While the actual flash technology might be capable of that kind of speed, the entire stack isn't. Compare the MB/s throughput of several hard drives here with the throughput of several USB flash drives here (both benchmarks done with SiSoft's Sandra).

Bottom line: The USB drives are topping out at an average of 8 MB/s, the hard drives are in the 60 MB/s range. That alone puts hard drives an average of 7.5 times faster.

Flash drives have great single block seek times because they don't have to move a head, but most benchmarks show that their ability to move large quantities of data quickly sucks.

I think this sucks.
Note that this was reported months ago, August 7, 2006, to be exact.
Microsoft kills VirtualPC, VB for Mac

Here's the arstechnica.com forum discussion about it (started on August 7, 2006), with lots of pissed off users:
MS Killing VB in Next Version of Office for Mac

Here are two blogs (Aug 8 and 9) by MacBU devs Erik Schwiebert and Rick Schaut, trying to explain this decision.
Erik Schwiebert - Saying goodbye to Visual Basic
Rick Schaut - Virtual PC and Visual Basic

Its a open format and does not have any licensing fees associated with it.

Can you find a link that says that?

The only hint on the fee or not issue I've been able to find is this Ars Technica article, which states:

iHD is an XML-based interactivity specification currently used by HD DVD. It is not "Microsoft's iHD," but rather a specification developed jointly by Microsoft, Disney, and the DVD Forum. For the moment, Blu-ray uses an alternative specification, the Java-based BD-J. The exact issues of debate between the camps supporting each specification isn't entirely clear. For instance, iHD supporters argue that iHD integration into Windows means that iHD will be cheaper to license than BD-J...

I may have been wrong about Microsoft being the only beneficiary of licence fees (being jointly developed), but that paragraph makes it sound as though iHD incurs some licence fees which are greater than BD-J.

meanwhile the firefox team still hasn't fixed the password manager vulnerability...

> I do think that the rule of law is our crown jewel, and is the bedrock of our democracy, and that in our common law system the law evolves in part through judicial decisionmaking.

I used to be a law student (so: IANAL) and I agree with this statement. If nothing else, my years studying law made me aware of the cultural influence and importance of a well functioning judicial system and a 'cultural law', as we call it. This is in the Netherlands.

> Respect for law, to my mind, suggests that we should respect the courts

And here is where my beef lies: when a judge upholds a screenshot of an IP address as evidence, I don't think that particular court deserves any respect. It appears that at least some of the judges around need to be visited by the man with the cluestick, if you know what I mean. The big cluestick.

Hmm, after reading this: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060803-7416 .html I don't know how much of my accusations are true, so I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong (then again, this is /. so there's no doubt about that.)

I've just had my fifth iPod die of hard-drive failure.

...I don't think it's the iPod. I think that certain people generate iPod destroying fields, and I'm one of them...

I may risk buying a Shuffle - it's cheaper, with no moving parts.

It is actually sub-$300, better specced than an OLPC, several *gigs* of memory (512M in the OLPC) and a faster processor.

a)"The Classmate PC is also now being labeled as "sub $300," From your link. (My bold)

b)"Although the final price has not yet been determined, Intel says that it will probably start selling them at about $250, and reduce the price to $200 as the volume of orders increases." (My bold) My link

c)It has 256MB RAM as standard and 1GB Flash. Intels product brief [4 page pdf warning]

It looks to me as if they are designed for completely different markets, Intels aim is to get developing nations on the "Upgrade" treadmill, whereas the OLPC project is actually trying to help out in as inexpensive and unobtrusive way as possible. Plus you need mains power for this Classmate PC, whereas the OLPC has a hand charger.

Oh, it does have a faster processor, so give yourself a consolation point.

This device might fit you needs:

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nokia770.a rs/5

LoB

* Intel will become, pretty much overnight, what all of these routers have to interoperate with,
* Everyone else tweaks their chipsets to work with Intel,
* Intel's interpretation of the draft standard becomes the standard.

More importantly, Intel will in all likelyhood be using draft 2.0 of the 802.11n spec, which is much closer to the final spec than today's crappy "pre-N" stuff (draft 1.0). Draft 2.0 equipment will even be tested and certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance for interoperability.

Draft 2.0 is due to be ratified in March 2007. Next-gen Centrino (Santa Rosa) is due in April 2007. In the unlikely event that draft 2.0 is not ratified, the Wi-Fi Alliance will put together de-facto standards, which will still be much better than today's current draft 1.0. Any respectable article would mention this very important information.

I have no pity for EA. All they've been doing is complaining lately. Heck, two months ago EA was complaining that the PSP is a horrible platform! They seem to be the only ones having an issue with it, however, as all their games have either been buggy on release or just plain slow and choppy (Sims 2 I'm looking at you). I say stop complaining about costs, shrink your development team sizes, get your products under control, and release some quality games and you'll see your costs decrease. EA really annoyed me with their support of the PSP to the point where I'm not buying any of their games at this point. The only exception I might make is Spore, but that's it.

"PC = a computer standard started by IBM around 1982."

As somebody who was involved in computing before and during that time, I can assure you that this is utter balderdash. The term "personal computer" was commonly used during the 1970s and early 1980s to describe a business computer designed for use by a single person, hence the fact that IBM used it as a name for their offering to distinguish it from their larger systems.

"You might want to check the magazines and catalogs of the time, such as Mac Mall and PC Mall, Mac World, PC World, etc. They knew the difference, even if you do not."

I have a large collection of computer publications from that period (including a several that review the original IBM PC, first Mac, etc.) and can therefore categorically state that you are utterly wrong. But don't take my word for it -- have a look at these links:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/personal_computer. html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-shar e.ars

Or perhaps you might simply like to consider the fact that "Personal Computer World", a British publication, was founded in 1978, when the IBM PC wasn't even being thought about, let alone sold.

Recent reports show that Microsoft is making ~$75 profit for each Xbox 360 Premium sold and losing ~$25 on each Xbox 360 Core system sold (I can't find the link to that part). More Premiums are sold than Cores, so they're making money on the hardware already. They have a ways to go to make up for the R they're targeting 2008 for that.

Probably because the Amiga was, in its past, one of the most popular computing platforms in the world.

Uh no, it has never been anywhere close to 'one of the most popular computing platforms in the world', see http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html and http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-shar e.ars

4.8% in July, with a strong upwards trend.

6.1 % US market

multiple sources report the share of the notebook market at 12%.

Questions?

It's also worth looking at MIT's RoboTuna and RoboPike, robotic fish, and the penguin boat Proteus. These projects demonstrate that fish-like fins or flippers substantially improve propulsion efficiency vs. propellers, because they generate vortices of water that actually push a vehicle forward. MIT sees these vortices as the answer to Gray's paradox, which said that a dolphin would have to be stronger than it is to swim as fast as it does. (That article disagrees.)

A flapping drive would also have the advantage of looking cool.

Read this interview and then tell me if you'd play anything recommended by "analysts". These people are paid to analyze industries and trends, not games and consoles. It's like asking a commodities broker which grocer has the best bananas! I'd far sooner trust a gaming journalist. They're far less likely to judge a game based on "genre coverage" as opposed to actual gameplay...

The death toll is catastrophic!

The death toll is catastrophic!

The thing that is interesting to me is looking at not just the market share, but the market sales.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061019-8028 .html

It goes DELL, HP, GATEWAY, then APPLE.

People tend to buy into the whole branding thing. People aren't as clear as Mac or PC users. People are either a DELL user or GATEWAY or HP or APPLE or IBM or Toshiba or ETC. Apple has always been the leader in the creative world. Technology of today is allowing even average people to become more creative. With more average people thinking they're creative, this will drive people to buy the 'creative platform of choice'. A mac.

It would seem a few years ago I was the only mac user in my group of friends. It now seems every single one of my friends has either a mac in ADDITION to their PC or have exchanged their PCs for Macs. These are interesting times. I only HATE microsoft because I used to lead a life of tech support for my job and friends and family. Friends and family always used to come to me to help them with their myrid of problems. Every incompetent windows user has a somewhat savey techie behind them formating their drive, installing windows, cleaing up viruses, installing programs, fixing things, etc. I got sick of being that person. I tell people now to buy macs. They buy a mac and generally just use their computer to get things done. No more fuss.

[rant]

If microsoft can ever prove to me that their applications can do what they promise then I will jump on the microsoft bandwagon. Prove to me that updates will no longer crash my machine, prove to me that re-installing my operating system (which seems to occur frequently with microsoft) isn't going to take 2 hours of loading and 4 more hours of installing fixes -- patches -- updates -- combined with 35 reboots. It's the reboots that are so dang painful. To click on a patch and watch all the other patches you just clicked all go 'grey' and have a dialog box pop up that says, "Sorry, this patch has to be installed individually." BUT EVERY PATCH has to be installed individually. What the hell? Prove to me that your operating system can run for 2 years without having to be reinstalled for some random reason to get the speed of the machine back to what it used to be.

[sigh] . . . [/sigh]

My beef with microsoft is real and valid. I have now been running a mac exclusively for just around 4 years now. My latest mac is about 1 or 2 years old. I got it from the apple store pre-loaded with OSX 10.4. I have yet to re-install it. Has run perfect just as expected this whole time. Sure, a mac has it's qwerks, but if you're sick of microsoft, the apple qwerks are much fewer and far between than dealing with microsoft's.

[/rant]

It's an interesting article, but a little short on real details. For example, I've wondered ever since hearing about the thing: what is the battery life like, with and without the wireless enabled?

I was looking for a real review. Neither the one you cite nor the one cited from the Chicago Sun-Times is particularly fulfilling on the technical side, though they provide a few tantalizing bits of information, and lots of opinions.

Here's my opinion. There's a much better Zune review, on ars technica. They talk about the good things and the warts. The conclusion at the end has a nice list of the good, bad, and ugly. It's pretty clear this product is a mixed bag in its current incarnation, and therefore I wouldn't take seriously any review that is entirely negative or entirely positive.

To return to your original question, from what I've read, a positive Zune review won't get far on /. because an entirely positive review simply isn't realistic.

Actually the sensor bar does not "sense" anything. It is simply a set of IR LEDs that are located by the remote. That tiny cable is just a 5V power source, and can be replaced with a 9V battery and resistor.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/11 /22/6063
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTGSkYRDpWY&eurl=
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/24/diy-wireless-wi i-sensor-bar/

According to a Chinese government official, 221 people have been arrested, and almost 600 web sites have been shut down since March in a crackdown on "obscene" Internet content.

I call bullshit on your bullshit.

Yes, you *can* run an ancient version of X11 with twm on little RAM; it wasn't very snappy, it didn't offer modern features you expect (like lots of colors), and it offered basically no features (even hardcore Linux geeks today don't run twm).

X11 takes less memory than Aqua if you run it in monochrome mode with a window manager that can barely manage windows. Is that news? I don't think "monochrome X11 with twm" is what he was asking about.

OTOH, I'm using right now the slowest/cheapest Mac you can buy (1.66GHz Core Duo -- the only 32-bit Mac you can buy! -- with Intel GMA950 graphics) and it absolutely screams at graphics. What with doing almost all graphics work on the graphics card these days, it's fast. Really fast. I've never seen a stable X11 setup so fast.

(For starters, most X11 setups still need to redraw a window when it's exposed -- even with a fast CPU, it's noticable. Yes, I know you're running a fancy new compositing manager and it looks just as slick as Aqua. I tried the latest code a couple weeks ago, and it was marginally stable, and completely unusable. Come back when it's the default install for all setups.)

For another example, look again at that ArsTechnica page: Quartz2D is now much faster than QuickDraw (and will become even faster when they flip the switch on Quartz2D Extreme). Not only is that impressive by itself, but I don't see those kind of performance improvements from X11.