OS X has yet to be owned remotely. Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'd like to heat about it.
You are wrong.
The original jailbreaking of the iPhone was based on a tiff handling vulnerability in the Safari browser - this could be exploited remotely until the hole was fixed, simply by visiting a website.
I would be surprised if there are not more holes in the Safari browser which ships with the iPhone (and its desktop equivalent), indeed I've read about a few more since (can't be bothered to look them all up just now) and expect to see the iPhone compromised.
Here's another more recent which could be costly by calling unknown numbers :
Now OS X has been less vulnerable to worms spreading automatically compared to Windows historically (not so much compared to Vistia), has some good security policies in place like the lack of services on by default, firewall and a sane use of password dialogs, but that doesn't make it immune. Apple has not been as vigilant or communicative in this area as they should be.
Western civilisation (a nebulous and misleading term, but let's run with it) has been successful over the same sort of period (say 3 centuries) as the Assyrian, Persian , Song, Ming or Roman empires, or possibly less in the case of the Romans - it is not the pinnacle of civilisation, it is not the final word in empire building, and it is not the apotheosis of innovation or even pragmatism. It will soon fade away like other empires before it.
That's taking 'Western civilisation' to mean the current hegemony of the West in world affairs, since perhaps the time of the colonies, culminating in the dominance of one of those colonies - The United States. There has been no even tenuous perception of unbroken world hegemony of western interests before then, so I assume that's what you mean. I suspect history will see the period in a more fragmented way, with a dominance of European powers giving way to that of the US, which lasted for perhaps a century. The centres of wealth have clearly been moving east in the last few decades, and that is not going to slow down.
Many empires before the US one have made the mistake of telling themselves that they are something new in the history of the world, something more civilised and refined than those around them, and will change everything due to unique trait 'x'.
PS It's interesting that empires often use 'the civilised world' to mean the world under their dominion, and barbarians to refer to those who live beyond the pale. The phrase Western civilisation is presumably born of that impulse.
Being without health insurance doesn't doom us, but it does change what we have to do. I would rather have the choice of insurance, and pay when I need healthcare, than no choice to pay for everyone's insurance and a compulsory 'safety net' for myself.
Would you prefer this choice even if it costs you more money in the long run and delivers inferior healthcare? Is this an ideological decision or a practical one?
I don't know about you but I feel more confident in my ability to spend some of that $9,000 for my own benefit than I do in the ability of some government bureaucrat to spend it for me.
You're deluding yourself then. With the current system, the US spends more on *public* healthcare alone than the UK does. Add the sums spent on private healthcare and the totals are mindboggling.
Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 15.2% of GDP, second only to the tiny Marshall Islands among all United Nations member nations.
That's almost double the UK GDP spend, and double most other western countries, and yet the US system is worse on many metrics, and only better in some. See Wikipedia for UN statistics.
The current US system is unfair, inefficient, and overpriced.
Your grandmother will buy a computer with a bundled OS, with a web browser included (Windows, Linux, OS X, whatever).
What should be questioned here is the underhand practice of secret OEM contracts, which force OEMs to accept exactly the bundle that MS dictates is acceptable. For example they're not allowed to bundle other browsers. Those same contracts forbid bundling another operating system like Linux with MS products, etc etc. While I understand the reasoning for MS to want to control their distribution and the software that goes with it, but they have forfeited that right by their persistent use of it for anti-competitive ends.
If OEMs are allowed to bundle their choice of browser, and remove the built in IE exec (leaving the rendering libraries in place for any other apps that use it), everyone (apart from a certain anti-competitive monopolist) would be happy.
This would let them coast for a year or two, then what? After that there are some hard choices to be made about direction for the company (Should they make CE, Macs or Software for PCs, or all 3?). Put Sculley or some other cookie cutter CEO in his place and see how long Apple last - they'd be haemorrhaging employees very quickly.
While I think this morbid obsession with his illness is nasty and pointless, you understate the importance to Apple of having one person dedicated to making beautiful, functional objects who is the ultimate arbiter and demands huge commitments and loyalty from the employees you listed.
So, nothing the protocol and other browsers don't provide then? Bandwidth limiting is the only thing that offers on top, and it wouldn't hurt to offer a simple link for those who don't choose to use IE right up front.
I suspect the real reason is to try to encourage the perception that IE is somehow necessary to access the Internet amongst users who should know better.
A democracy which tries to impose racial/religious segregation is not sustainable. The Jewish state will fail eventually (as a *jewish* state), because of demographics, so they'd be better to integrate those territories into a new democratic nation they have some input and control over. Israel really can't win this fight without offering some hope to the palestinians, and their own people, of eventual peace.
As you say, this will never happen, but the alternative is that Israel fades away and is eventually destroyed/subsumed - they're already massively dependent on US military support, and the US has problems of its own.
Taking this guy's distribution of memtest as an example, there is nothing in the GPL which prevents you from charging a reasonable fee for distribution costs (hosting costs money). If $1.40 is going to break the bank for you, I guess you'll be happy to spend the time to compile it yourself? For me, that's worth about 5 minutes of my time, so it's a toss-up.
As memtest is GPL, you should be able to ask that guy for the source if you want it. I suspect he hasn't changed it significantly and is just charging for hosting, so he'd point you back to the developers' site.
If that's really too much for you, here is a free version, ready compiled, for os x, with a GUI -
took approx 2 minutes to find that. But perhaps you can't be bothered, and would rather call people jerks who have the temerity to charge for their time/hosting costs and rail about how all software should be free.
If you had ever produced/distributed free software you'd know that supporting it sucks up time, hosting it costs money, and dealing with all the real jerks on the internet takes up the most time (the ones who think they're owed free binaries forever by birthright and demand new features and bug fixes *right now dammit*).
Have you ever distributed any free software yourself?
Whoosh - the concept of OpenID passes right over your head, and the head of those who modded you insightful.
Please look into it then explain how a security breach on some forum you post to can lead to someone cracking your openID security and thus having access to your email or 'credit cards site' (whatever that is).
Note also that OpenID does not mandate that you put all your eggs into one basket, and I wouldn't personally use the same login system for banking and other sites no matter what login system it was, but for sites like slashdot, and a million other comment systems around the internet, a single identity which I control is infinitely preferable to a multitude of identities controlled via inherently insecure email and with questionable security.
As a user, that is one thing I really hate about the Mac. It's not that I don't believe in paying for software, just that I don't think every little file management tool or MP3 player needs to ask $20. Put up a donation page and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already.
As a user, that's one thing I hate about other computer users - they expect people to do lots of work for them for free, and feel entitled to it somehow. You should be grateful many people are producing software for you, not coming out with bullshit like 'and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already'.
Your attitude leads directly to plentiful releases of low-quality, just-good-enough software, many with bundled advertising and malware, much like the Windows software scene in fact. TINSTAAFL.
There is plenty of free open-source software on OS X if that's what you're looking for, it isn't magically turned into shareware - there's tons of Unix software available for free via macports for example, there's also GUI apps like Cyberduck, Audacity, Handbreak, GIMP, etc etc. Then OS X itself bundles tons of open-source software (apache, gcc, etc).
There is also some quality software (like TextMate, or BBEdit) which should continue to charge for development, because development takes time, effort and money.
Ahah. Sorry, I thought they meant a service which you have to text to find the song (if it knows which radio station you're texting about it can tell you) - these exist too. Didn't realise there are/were services which you can phone and hold the phone up to the sound source to get a text reply. My mistake.
Plans with iPhones have free data, so it's not an issue - they'd be cheaper than the suggested way of calling a number (what's the charge on that number usually?) and waiting for a text or voice reply. The user experience is the same, except you don't have to wait for a text or call a number.
I worked in a small shop that used rails, we found that rails is... constricting, just for the reasons you posted to slashdot for. We looked at our options and switched to django+python. Maintenance wasn't a problem after that. I'd suggest investigating a switch now while you have an opportunity.
Out of interest, what did you find constricting about Rails? Your comment here (and the article, such as it was) are not very illuminating on this score.
I've found it fairly easy to modify, very easy to add plug-ins to, and very easy to add custom SQL queries to if necessary for performance reasons (though most of the time that's not necessary). The only area I can see it being constricting would be when trying to interface with a legacy db structure which can't be changed, in which case Django would have similar problems.
Because the article is not specific enough on the problems they'd like to work around, it asks an unanswerable question - there is no magic formula for trading off convention and performance, no magic bullet; at a certain point you have to stop relying on a framework and add something yourself if it doesn't do what you want or perform to your satisfaction. The same holds true for any framework, and though the received wisdom on Slashdot is that Rails is difficult to work with, or doesn't scale, many companies don't find that to be the case (yellow pages, etc etc).
He's talking about an app like Pandora, which records any sound source, sends it to a sever, and attempts to recognise the song. You can't do that or anything similar via SMS. SMS services require a radio station or place to have an agreement with the service, it's not the same thing.
Genes don't 'go extinct', and tend to hang around and change rather than disappearing or being introduced. Your question does lead to other questions about how genes work though, so I suppose the answer to your question is:
How would one go about determining this?
Learn more about the complex and only partly understood world of genetic reproduction, and then you will understand you were asking the wrong question.
But the app store's catalog remains completely useless unless they come up with a way for resolution to upscale. Granted, I've not written anything for it, but I'm guessing most apps are written with a 480x320 assumption and no scaling, no multi-resolution icons, graphics, etc. bundled in to the downloads, etc. Apple would need to get the means for updating apps to support that out to developers way in advance of a larger Touch release if they wanted the app store to carry any value beyond to show off how bad apps could look... something that would harm the reputation of the device far more than help it.
By default apps are laid out with buttons etc tied to one edge in interface builder and sometimes with flexible spaces in between, so interfaces would just expand. They'd probably need a bit of tweaking but not as much as you imply.
Games would be the main area which might have problems if they assume a certain screen width or need to upsize their textures. If they do this right and pre-announce then give developers a few months lead time, they could easily get most content from the app store working at a higher resolution.
Take the example of the google maps app - toolbars at top and bottom will just be wider, with bigger gaps between buttons. Perhaps they could move some stuff from that god-awful miscellany page accessed with the little page curl onto the main toolbar, but otherwise, it would function perfectly well, just drawing more map at a time. They're unlikely to have hardcoded in screen-sizes, because you can ask for the screen size, and often the view is given a rect to draw into, rather than specifically requesting a rect. Buttons on the auxiliary functions screen might be too wide, depending on how they have them set - probably not though.
Or take the mail app - the mail rows would just be a bit wider, probably the same height and just showing more in the screen. Toolbars and nabar will just expand and have more blank space.
That's with no extra work on the developers' part - these apps would work pretty well, with only a few minor tweaks required depending on how they're set up.
This isn't such a big issue if the transition is handled right.
Some have claimed resolution issues mean iPhoneOS and UIxxx won't be used for a tablet , and they'd have to use OS X and AppKit, but I think UIKit shows signs of being flexible enough to cope with many screen sizes - most of it could be used fine on a desktop OS and reads like a clean-up of the desktop APIs (it may be that later cocoa is relegated to a compatability layer, along with all those other APIs before it).
The really important feature for a tablet would be reading - reading websites, reading email, reading newspapers (though those are really a subset of websites nowadays), and reading books. I'd buy it just for that, but it worries me that Apple would try to be the single gatekeeper for data as Amazon have done with the Kindle.
If they keep to an iTunes music model of allowing users to copy their own books on there via iTunes, and tie in with someone like gutenberg for classics, they could have this sewn up in no time. But I'd rather they just opened it up and let developers copy data into their sandbox - then we won't be stuck with one app for a vital function (mail.app, I'm looking at you).
The big thing that the iPhone OS is missing at the moment is a way to get arbitrary user data onto the device for sandboxed apps - if they address that (and the bluetooth issue you mentioned), it'd be a great reading device, and perhaps even one for writing on.
It wasn't a mistake; IE (and the internet with it) languished for years for a reason.
They want Chrome to replace Firefox as the alternative to IE, so they will have complete control over the market.
Or perhaps they just want anyone but Microsoft to control the market, because Microsoft's MO has been to attempt to undermine and destroy their competitors utterly, by any means they can. Having a company like that with a monopoly of the browser market must make Google very nervous - browsers are the only conduit for users to reach Google and see their ads and use their online office suites etc.
Did you consider that their motivation might be to replace IE as the default browser with something else? Google do not have to control this market, or even come close to doing that, to win. They just need someone other than MS to control it.
If the purpose is to hand it out to someone else, it's theft. If the purpose, however, is to protect our collective rights to the defense of our individual liberties (such as a police force), then it's not.
So you disagree with the redistribution of wealth, and yet agree with the government spending money, which is by definition a redistribution of wealth. They take from individuals as tax and give to others (as pay for police force members for example, or repairs to their roads which you will never use, or legal representation, or to judges to enforce laws etc etc). Your characterisation of government which taxes and then pays for anything other than your chosen services as criminal or theft is simplistic hyperbole.
Yes. He wasn't very bright.
Bright enough to see the logical conclusions of his line of argument.
If you don't care about features, and just want a phone to work, why not pick up a dirt cheap phone?
I didn't say I don't care about features, I said I don't care about having the latest features no one else has and 'innovation'. I do care about the way it's designed, the UI, the ecosystem that goes with it, how it syncs with my computer etc. All other phones I've tried before have had an awful design and confusing UI (Motorola Razr, various Nokias, etc), and syncing with a computer is an afterthought. Their software is appalling, and obviously tacked on to hardware which was the main focus. Nokia is the best of a bad bunch.
I'm not sure what you mean by "thoughtful design" - well great, but that's a subjective opinion, and lots of people have different opinions on what design of phone looks nicest. It also seems surprising to me that this is something considered of sole importance on a place like Slashdot (OMG Ponies?) Personally I think you can get cheap phones that look pretty cute too.
I really couldn't care less if it looks cute. Your confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what design is (hint, it is not making things look nice).
I think taking from one person by force, against his will -- just because you can -- in order to give it to others, is a criminal act.
If you really believed this sound-bite, you wouldn't agree with any tax at all (as Thoreau), nor with property (which is enforced by state violence) - are you sure you want to go there? As it is, you're being hypocritical proposing a flat tax, and frankly a lot of your statements in this thread are meaningless sophistry. While that may amuse you, it's not actually discussion, just puffery.
You should read a real libertarian like Thoreau - in order to be consistent in his views that government should be restricted to a very basic social contract (and perhaps eventually fade away), he notably did not support authoritarian government and unjust laws (like secret wiretapping, which would have appalled him). In fact he didn't really believe in government at all. At least he was consistent.
You're supporting some bits of government (harassment of this suspect, and evidently some sort of secret police like the FBI), while claiming that other fundamental duties of government (levying taxes) are 'criminal'. You can't have fire brigades, hospitals, secret police (which you seem to want) without having a huge tax infrastructure to fund them.
Not having income taxes makes it very difficult to have any sort of government at all, and while Thoreau would say that's just fine, would you?
Don't get me wrong, I think their interface is kind of cool, it definitely shook up the existing players, but the technology is neither new, nor as profound as people are saying. Even the multi-touch is not new, I was using military hardware in 1995 that did this. I'm not American, so my view is perhaps not the same as yours, the iPhone may well be unusual in your (their) markets, but in my stores, it's kind of crippled up against what I can get at a cheaper price point. (I live in Asia)
You're missing the point. No one claimed their technology is new, innovative, groundbreaking etc etc.
Design is what makes this device better than any alternatives I've seen, in Europe or Asia. It's nothing to do with spec and wedging things into a piece of plastic.
Perhaps you require your phones to be groundbreaking and full of exciting features no-one else has - I just want mine to work, and have a thoughtful design.
I frequently find myself away from a computer but wanting to refer to some piece of information out of a Word document that's attached to some email I got.
I'm mystified as to why people still think storing important stuff in formats that can only be read by one program from one manufacturer is a good idea.
If I made a document in (say) InDesign, Quark, Wordperfect or Illustrator, and then complained I couldn't view it on the road or others couldn't view it, people would rightly suggest that I just saved it as something the recipient program could understand - pdf, rtf, jpg, png, or even txt.
However for word documents people seem to have this idea that everything must open word, and if it doesn't, it's somehow not capable enough. It's a masterstroke by Microsoft really, because if those are your expectations, you're going to be unhappy with anything but Microsoft products, for the rest of your life.
I would honestly reconsider why you store/interchange documents in a format that nothing but MS products can read fully. It may be a reality that colleagues send you stuff in that format, but it is worth trying to shift the status-quo sometimes.
PS The iPhone does read word attachments to emails (probably falls down on complex docs, I haven't tried it much). There are also some third party programs for reading docs.
Slashdot Mirror
OS X has yet to be owned remotely. Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'd like to heat about it.
You are wrong.
The original jailbreaking of the iPhone was based on a tiff handling vulnerability in the Safari browser - this could be exploited remotely until the hole was fixed, simply by visiting a website.
http://www.iphone-hacks.com/2007/10/10/iphone-111-jailbroken-again-using-tiff-exploit/
I would be surprised if there are not more holes in the Safari browser which ships with the iPhone (and its desktop equivalent), indeed I've read about a few more since (can't be bothered to look them all up just now) and expect to see the iPhone compromised.
Here's another more recent which could be costly by calling unknown numbers :
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=10113
Or another, allowing access to data :
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-macs-vulnerable-to-safari-hack-attack-154585
Now OS X has been less vulnerable to worms spreading automatically compared to Windows historically (not so much compared to Vistia), has some good security policies in place like the lack of services on by default, firewall and a sane use of password dialogs, but that doesn't make it immune. Apple has not been as vigilant or communicative in this area as they should be.
Western civilization is so successful
Western civilisation (a nebulous and misleading term, but let's run with it) has been successful over the same sort of period (say 3 centuries) as the Assyrian, Persian , Song, Ming or Roman empires, or possibly less in the case of the Romans - it is not the pinnacle of civilisation, it is not the final word in empire building, and it is not the apotheosis of innovation or even pragmatism. It will soon fade away like other empires before it.
That's taking 'Western civilisation' to mean the current hegemony of the West in world affairs, since perhaps the time of the colonies, culminating in the dominance of one of those colonies - The United States. There has been no even tenuous perception of unbroken world hegemony of western interests before then, so I assume that's what you mean. I suspect history will see the period in a more fragmented way, with a dominance of European powers giving way to that of the US, which lasted for perhaps a century. The centres of wealth have clearly been moving east in the last few decades, and that is not going to slow down.
Many empires before the US one have made the mistake of telling themselves that they are something new in the history of the world, something more civilised and refined than those around them, and will change everything due to unique trait 'x'.
PS It's interesting that empires often use 'the civilised world' to mean the world under their dominion, and barbarians to refer to those who live beyond the pale. The phrase Western civilisation is presumably born of that impulse.
Being without health insurance doesn't doom us, but it does change what we have to do. I would rather have the choice of insurance, and pay when I need healthcare, than no choice to pay for everyone's insurance and a compulsory 'safety net' for myself.
Would you prefer this choice even if it costs you more money in the long run and delivers inferior healthcare? Is this an ideological decision or a practical one?
I don't know about you but I feel more confident in my ability to spend some of that $9,000 for my own benefit than I do in the ability of some government bureaucrat to spend it for me.
You're deluding yourself then. With the current system, the US spends more on *public* healthcare alone than the UK does. Add the sums spent on private healthcare and the totals are mindboggling.
Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 15.2% of GDP, second only to the tiny Marshall Islands among all United Nations member nations.
That's almost double the UK GDP spend, and double most other western countries, and yet the US system is worse on many metrics, and only better in some. See Wikipedia for UN statistics.
The current US system is unfair, inefficient, and overpriced.
Your grandmother will buy a computer with a bundled OS, with a web browser included (Windows, Linux, OS X, whatever).
What should be questioned here is the underhand practice of secret OEM contracts, which force OEMs to accept exactly the bundle that MS dictates is acceptable. For example they're not allowed to bundle other browsers. Those same contracts forbid bundling another operating system like Linux with MS products, etc etc. While I understand the reasoning for MS to want to control their distribution and the software that goes with it, but they have forfeited that right by their persistent use of it for anti-competitive ends.
If OEMs are allowed to bundle their choice of browser, and remove the built in IE exec (leaving the rendering libraries in place for any other apps that use it), everyone (apart from a certain anti-competitive monopolist) would be happy.
I fully expect nothing to change in his absence.
This would let them coast for a year or two, then what? After that there are some hard choices to be made about direction for the company (Should they make CE, Macs or Software for PCs, or all 3?). Put Sculley or some other cookie cutter CEO in his place and see how long Apple last - they'd be haemorrhaging employees very quickly.
While I think this morbid obsession with his illness is nasty and pointless, you understate the importance to Apple of having one person dedicated to making beautiful, functional objects who is the ultimate arbiter and demands huge commitments and loyalty from the employees you listed.
So, nothing the protocol and other browsers don't provide then? Bandwidth limiting is the only thing that offers on top, and it wouldn't hurt to offer a simple link for those who don't choose to use IE right up front.
I suspect the real reason is to try to encourage the perception that IE is somehow necessary to access the Internet amongst users who should know better.
Until their machine comes with Chrome bundled as the default browser - that's the end game Google are aiming for here.
Then you'll see IE user-share decline rapidly.
I'm curious, why does a simple download of an ISO require IE running on Windows to work?
democratic Jewish state
A democracy which tries to impose racial/religious segregation is not sustainable. The Jewish state will fail eventually (as a *jewish* state), because of demographics, so they'd be better to integrate those territories into a new democratic nation they have some input and control over. Israel really can't win this fight without offering some hope to the palestinians, and their own people, of eventual peace.
As you say, this will never happen, but the alternative is that Israel fades away and is eventually destroyed/subsumed - they're already massively dependent on US military support, and the US has problems of its own.
Taking this guy's distribution of memtest as an example, there is nothing in the GPL which prevents you from charging a reasonable fee for distribution costs (hosting costs money). If $1.40 is going to break the bank for you, I guess you'll be happy to spend the time to compile it yourself? For me, that's worth about 5 minutes of my time, so it's a toss-up.
As memtest is GPL, you should be able to ask that guy for the source if you want it. I suspect he hasn't changed it significantly and is just charging for hosting, so he'd point you back to the developers' site.
If that's really too much for you, here is a free version, ready compiled, for os x, with a GUI -
http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/
took approx 2 minutes to find that. But perhaps you can't be bothered, and would rather call people jerks who have the temerity to charge for their time/hosting costs and rail about how all software should be free.
If you had ever produced/distributed free software you'd know that supporting it sucks up time, hosting it costs money, and dealing with all the real jerks on the internet takes up the most time (the ones who think they're owed free binaries forever by birthright and demand new features and bug fixes *right now dammit*).
Have you ever distributed any free software yourself?
Whoosh - the concept of OpenID passes right over your head, and the head of those who modded you insightful.
Please look into it then explain how a security breach on some forum you post to can lead to someone cracking your openID security and thus having access to your email or 'credit cards site' (whatever that is).
Note also that OpenID does not mandate that you put all your eggs into one basket, and I wouldn't personally use the same login system for banking and other sites no matter what login system it was, but for sites like slashdot, and a million other comment systems around the internet, a single identity which I control is infinitely preferable to a multitude of identities controlled via inherently insecure email and with questionable security.
As a user, that is one thing I really hate about the Mac. It's not that I don't believe in paying for software, just that I don't think every little file management tool or MP3 player needs to ask $20. Put up a donation page and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already.
As a user, that's one thing I hate about other computer users - they expect people to do lots of work for them for free, and feel entitled to it somehow. You should be grateful many people are producing software for you, not coming out with bullshit like 'and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already'.
Your attitude leads directly to plentiful releases of low-quality, just-good-enough software, many with bundled advertising and malware, much like the Windows software scene in fact. TINSTAAFL.
There is plenty of free open-source software on OS X if that's what you're looking for, it isn't magically turned into shareware - there's tons of Unix software available for free via macports for example, there's also GUI apps like Cyberduck, Audacity, Handbreak, GIMP, etc etc. Then OS X itself bundles tons of open-source software (apache, gcc, etc).
There is also some quality software (like TextMate, or BBEdit) which should continue to charge for development, because development takes time, effort and money.
Ahah. Sorry, I thought they meant a service which you have to text to find the song (if it knows which radio station you're texting about it can tell you) - these exist too. Didn't realise there are/were services which you can phone and hold the phone up to the sound source to get a text reply. My mistake.
Plans with iPhones have free data, so it's not an issue - they'd be cheaper than the suggested way of calling a number (what's the charge on that number usually?) and waiting for a text or voice reply. The user experience is the same, except you don't have to wait for a text or call a number.
I worked in a small shop that used rails, we found that rails is... constricting, just for the reasons you posted to slashdot for. We looked at our options and switched to django+python. Maintenance wasn't a problem after that. I'd suggest investigating a switch now while you have an opportunity.
Out of interest, what did you find constricting about Rails? Your comment here (and the article, such as it was) are not very illuminating on this score.
I've found it fairly easy to modify, very easy to add plug-ins to, and very easy to add custom SQL queries to if necessary for performance reasons (though most of the time that's not necessary). The only area I can see it being constricting would be when trying to interface with a legacy db structure which can't be changed, in which case Django would have similar problems.
Because the article is not specific enough on the problems they'd like to work around, it asks an unanswerable question - there is no magic formula for trading off convention and performance, no magic bullet; at a certain point you have to stop relying on a framework and add something yourself if it doesn't do what you want or perform to your satisfaction. The same holds true for any framework, and though the received wisdom on Slashdot is that Rails is difficult to work with, or doesn't scale, many companies don't find that to be the case (yellow pages, etc etc).
He's talking about an app like Pandora, which records any sound source, sends it to a sever, and attempts to recognise the song. You can't do that or anything similar via SMS. SMS services require a radio station or place to have an agreement with the service, it's not the same thing.
Genes don't 'go extinct', and tend to hang around and change rather than disappearing or being introduced. Your question does lead to other questions about how genes work though, so I suppose the answer to your question is :
How would one go about determining this?
Learn more about the complex and only partly understood world of genetic reproduction, and then you will understand you were asking the wrong question.
But the app store's catalog remains completely useless unless they come up with a way for resolution to upscale. Granted, I've not written anything for it, but I'm guessing most apps are written with a 480x320 assumption and no scaling, no multi-resolution icons, graphics, etc. bundled in to the downloads, etc. Apple would need to get the means for updating apps to support that out to developers way in advance of a larger Touch release if they wanted the app store to carry any value beyond to show off how bad apps could look... something that would harm the reputation of the device far more than help it.
By default apps are laid out with buttons etc tied to one edge in interface builder and sometimes with flexible spaces in between, so interfaces would just expand. They'd probably need a bit of tweaking but not as much as you imply.
Games would be the main area which might have problems if they assume a certain screen width or need to upsize their textures. If they do this right and pre-announce then give developers a few months lead time, they could easily get most content from the app store working at a higher resolution.
Take the example of the google maps app - toolbars at top and bottom will just be wider, with bigger gaps between buttons. Perhaps they could move some stuff from that god-awful miscellany page accessed with the little page curl onto the main toolbar, but otherwise, it would function perfectly well, just drawing more map at a time. They're unlikely to have hardcoded in screen-sizes, because you can ask for the screen size, and often the view is given a rect to draw into, rather than specifically requesting a rect. Buttons on the auxiliary functions screen might be too wide, depending on how they have them set - probably not though.
Or take the mail app - the mail rows would just be a bit wider, probably the same height and just showing more in the screen. Toolbars and nabar will just expand and have more blank space.
That's with no extra work on the developers' part - these apps would work pretty well, with only a few minor tweaks required depending on how they're set up.
This isn't such a big issue if the transition is handled right.
Some have claimed resolution issues mean iPhoneOS and UIxxx won't be used for a tablet , and they'd have to use OS X and AppKit, but I think UIKit shows signs of being flexible enough to cope with many screen sizes - most of it could be used fine on a desktop OS and reads like a clean-up of the desktop APIs (it may be that later cocoa is relegated to a compatability layer, along with all those other APIs before it).
The really important feature for a tablet would be reading - reading websites, reading email, reading newspapers (though those are really a subset of websites nowadays), and reading books. I'd buy it just for that, but it worries me that Apple would try to be the single gatekeeper for data as Amazon have done with the Kindle.
If they keep to an iTunes music model of allowing users to copy their own books on there via iTunes, and tie in with someone like gutenberg for classics, they could have this sewn up in no time. But I'd rather they just opened it up and let developers copy data into their sandbox - then we won't be stuck with one app for a vital function (mail.app, I'm looking at you).
The big thing that the iPhone OS is missing at the moment is a way to get arbitrary user data onto the device for sandboxed apps - if they address that (and the bluetooth issue you mentioned), it'd be a great reading device, and perhaps even one for writing on.
Microsoft won't make the same mistake twice
It wasn't a mistake; IE (and the internet with it) languished for years for a reason.
They want Chrome to replace Firefox as the alternative to IE, so they will have complete control over the market.
Or perhaps they just want anyone but Microsoft to control the market, because Microsoft's MO has been to attempt to undermine and destroy their competitors utterly, by any means they can. Having a company like that with a monopoly of the browser market must make Google very nervous - browsers are the only conduit for users to reach Google and see their ads and use their online office suites etc.
Did you consider that their motivation might be to replace IE as the default browser with something else? Google do not have to control this market, or even come close to doing that, to win. They just need someone other than MS to control it.
If the purpose is to hand it out to someone else, it's theft. If the purpose, however, is to protect our collective rights to the defense of our individual liberties (such as a police force), then it's not.
So you disagree with the redistribution of wealth, and yet agree with the government spending money, which is by definition a redistribution of wealth. They take from individuals as tax and give to others (as pay for police force members for example, or repairs to their roads which you will never use, or legal representation, or to judges to enforce laws etc etc). Your characterisation of government which taxes and then pays for anything other than your chosen services as criminal or theft is simplistic hyperbole.
Yes. He wasn't very bright.
Bright enough to see the logical conclusions of his line of argument.
If you don't care about features, and just want a phone to work, why not pick up a dirt cheap phone?
I didn't say I don't care about features, I said I don't care about having the latest features no one else has and 'innovation'. I do care about the way it's designed, the UI, the ecosystem that goes with it, how it syncs with my computer etc. All other phones I've tried before have had an awful design and confusing UI (Motorola Razr, various Nokias, etc), and syncing with a computer is an afterthought. Their software is appalling, and obviously tacked on to hardware which was the main focus. Nokia is the best of a bad bunch.
I'm not sure what you mean by "thoughtful design" - well great, but that's a subjective opinion, and lots of people have different opinions on what design of phone looks nicest. It also seems surprising to me that this is something considered of sole importance on a place like Slashdot (OMG Ponies?) Personally I think you can get cheap phones that look pretty cute too.
I really couldn't care less if it looks cute. Your confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what design is (hint, it is not making things look nice).
I think taking from one person by force, against his will -- just because you can -- in order to give it to others, is a criminal act.
If you really believed this sound-bite, you wouldn't agree with any tax at all (as Thoreau), nor with property (which is enforced by state violence) - are you sure you want to go there? As it is, you're being hypocritical proposing a flat tax, and frankly a lot of your statements in this thread are meaningless sophistry. While that may amuse you, it's not actually discussion, just puffery.
You should read a real libertarian like Thoreau - in order to be consistent in his views that government should be restricted to a very basic social contract (and perhaps eventually fade away), he notably did not support authoritarian government and unjust laws (like secret wiretapping, which would have appalled him). In fact he didn't really believe in government at all. At least he was consistent.
You're supporting some bits of government (harassment of this suspect, and evidently some sort of secret police like the FBI), while claiming that other fundamental duties of government (levying taxes) are 'criminal'. You can't have fire brigades, hospitals, secret police (which you seem to want) without having a huge tax infrastructure to fund them.
Not having income taxes makes it very difficult to have any sort of government at all, and while Thoreau would say that's just fine, would you?
You have of course tried plugging it in and syncing contacts from your computer?
Works from OS X Address book or Outlook (since Windows doesn't have an address book).
Don't get me wrong, I think their interface is kind of cool, it definitely shook up the existing players, but the technology is neither new, nor as profound as people are saying. Even the multi-touch is not new, I was using military hardware in 1995 that did this. I'm not American, so my view is perhaps not the same as yours, the iPhone may well be unusual in your (their) markets, but in my stores, it's kind of crippled up against what I can get at a cheaper price point. (I live in Asia)
You're missing the point. No one claimed their technology is new, innovative, groundbreaking etc etc.
Design is what makes this device better than any alternatives I've seen, in Europe or Asia. It's nothing to do with spec and wedging things into a piece of plastic.
Perhaps you require your phones to be groundbreaking and full of exciting features no-one else has - I just want mine to work, and have a thoughtful design.
I frequently find myself away from a computer but wanting to refer to some piece of information out of a Word document that's attached to some email I got.
I'm mystified as to why people still think storing important stuff in formats that can only be read by one program from one manufacturer is a good idea.
If I made a document in (say) InDesign, Quark, Wordperfect or Illustrator, and then complained I couldn't view it on the road or others couldn't view it, people would rightly suggest that I just saved it as something the recipient program could understand - pdf, rtf, jpg, png, or even txt.
However for word documents people seem to have this idea that everything must open word, and if it doesn't, it's somehow not capable enough. It's a masterstroke by Microsoft really, because if those are your expectations, you're going to be unhappy with anything but Microsoft products, for the rest of your life.
I would honestly reconsider why you store/interchange documents in a format that nothing but MS products can read fully. It may be a reality that colleagues send you stuff in that format, but it is worth trying to shift the status-quo sometimes.
PS The iPhone does read word attachments to emails (probably falls down on complex docs, I haven't tried it much). There are also some third party programs for reading docs.