If we think about the team here, Jony Ive can design the computers, Phil Schiller can market them and Tim Cook can make sure the financials come out all right.
I think we will all miss Steve but Apple itself will do just fine.
I wish Steve joy in relaxation - he has had one of the busiest lives I could ever think of - and a speedy recovery and return to the helm.
This is true, but intriguingly, Apple also sells iPhones and iPod Touches, which many people can use as substitute computers. A friend of mine got iPod Touch for his birthday and pecks out his documents with the Notes application and emails them around, instead of using a computer.
iPhones are cheaper than any computers, even netbooks, and are not significantly different in price from other smartphones.
Apple has a pretty big iPhone developer community now, and they are compensated pretty well through the App Store. What do those nice folks who made $100,000 do with their well-deserved gains? Buy 17" MacBook Pros, of course. Tax deductible and all that. And as lovely as a well-designed sports car, just a lot cheaper.
The one huge advantage Apple has is that people love their products, so they will scrimp and save and suffer to buy them. For this reason, I expect them to gain market share, especially in tough times. The enthusiasts still buy, while the pragmatists stop buying. Thus, the total market shrinks but Apple's market share is likely to increase.
I wanted to point this out as well and you put it very well. Another thing worth mentioning is that if it really took 750-odd watts (1,500 watt coffee maker / 2) to run a search it would be very expensive to run the computers involved. You are only talking to one computer at Google and you are talking to it for a tiny fraction of a second. So if it uses 100 watts an hour you are going to be using a tiny fraction of a watt, too.
Here's another problem with this theory. The odds are that you would be running your PC whether you were using Google to search or not.
Furthermore, Google has excess capacity in their search system. Every computer that's running at Google's data centers is going to run whether there are 1,000,000 searches going on or 1,000,002.
Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that the impact of our Google searches on the environment is precisely zero. The only way to make a significant difference in the environment is a mass boycott of Google, in which case they might turn off a few servers. But if you just transfer your search business to ask.com, you simply become responsible for the use of more ask.com capacity and less Google capacity.
As others have said, if you stop using Google, you start using resources, such as transportation to the book store or library, that take far more energy and thus far more carbon.
I'm trying to learn OpenGL so I can program in Open GL ES for my iPhone, and it seems like you need a book specifically for ES, because OpenGL ES eliminated most of the features used in beginning OpenGL tutorials!
But the iPhone supports only 1.1 and so I'm wondering if this book would even work for me. I'm thinking its rival, Mobile 3D Graphics... might be better.
Any thoughts from those who have checked out both books? It would be nice to have good information before I blow $50.
However, these notices were issued by " American Rights Counsel LLC".
See that "LLC"? That means limited liability company, meaning that if you sue them, all you can get is their assets.
Which amount to rented office space, a $299 Dell computer and a battered desk and table lamp.
If that.
But wait... Presumably American Rights Counsel has to be licensing the rights from someone to have standing to sue. So if you countersue them you might be able to retrieve their rights, whatever they were.
Trouble is, you're not going to be particularly interested in selling L Ron Hubbard stuff, right?
ARC probably sublicensed the rights on a non-exclusive basis, so they can sue but if they are sued all you could get is a license to display these glorious works of L Ron Hubbard.
Which, come to think of it, might make all Youtube videos legal. Just sublicense it to them for $1.
But that's only if you could countersue and win.
Which would take a really, really good lawyer.
Or maybe they have time-limited rights, only to sue right now.
Of course if someone sold/provided those rights, those people are the people who have liability.
So it all goes round and round and would take millions of dollars in legal fees to unravel.
Scientology already pays millions in legal fees so this is not a problem for them. But for you?
I'm quite curious to hear how you were treated by Apple's representatives as well as the store customer base as a whole.
I think you might be protesting against the wrong guys, seeing that Microsoft has integrated DRM into the deepest reaches of their OS, and Apple has not.
Microsoft has also double-crossed its customers by building music players incompatible with their initial DRM scheme, and they are planning to shut down DRM servers in the future so that music purchased at their stores will be unplayable.
Apple has always treated its DRM customers fairly and that's a lot more than you can say for most of their competitors. I suppose that makes them doubly bad in your eyes, because people are willing to defend them, while I would say few will defend Microsoft PlaysForSure or Zune.
Richard M Stallman should be proud that he has protected the freedom to tinker and I would go so far as to say that he has saved its relevance in the computing world single-handedly with his role in the creation of Linux and the FSF command line tools that were, and are, required to make it work. I would even call his role in this heroic.
I knew him personally when I hung out at the MIT AI Lab in the late 1970s. Nice fellow but a bit intense was my verdict. I admired him, and still do, for his deep integrity and principled opposition to what he saw as oppressors.
But, perhaps sadly, computers are now products. And products that require a genius like RMS to work on them are not products, they're experiments. Experiments in computing will live forever, but so will products. And let's face it, nobody does products like Apple.
So much so that even many tinkerers use and love Apple computers, because the careful design of the OS and interface makes them more fun to tinker with.
If they take up 20 slots, and nobody appears to fill up 19 of them, the empty slots will be processed quickly and people will be served at close to the ordinary speed.
Usually there are plenty of people who just show up hoping for a slot, and they will be the main beneficiaries of the plan.
The people who lose from it will be those who find the genius bar booked and will be unable to get an appointment. Those people will not be around to wreak revenge on the FSF guy.
I was under the impression from reading the tutorial that guards were the only way to create an IF style conditional in the languge and so no user defined functions in guards meant no user defined function in the IF statement (which I did notice exists) as well. Did I get this wrong?
Oh, it's definitely easy to learn. I could certainly learn the language, in the sense of being able to write small programs with it, in a short time.
But the methods needed to create more complex software seem very alien to me. The way it looks right now is that problems are broken into tiny steps and it seems like it would be very hard to get it to do something at all complex. And yet as you say entire complex telephone systems are written in it.
Are there CGI or web form programs written in it anywhere? Seeing something like that would be a good way for me to understand the language a bit better, although I suppose it makes little sense in terms of concurrency.
Since strings are just sequences of ordinary numbers, it would seem like you could develop Unicode by just using numbers in unicode character code range. A string could be a tuple with the encoding and the sequence, like this:
{ utf8, [ character1, character2... ] }
After reading through the documentation, my main gripe is that it's a totally different way of thinking, and so I have no clue of the first way to do what is accomplished with routine ease in other languages. The Erlang getting started guide admits that there are many things that would be, by their own admission, "impossible".
For example, the tutorial says that "guards" (conditional execution for you and me) cannot use user defined functions, to guarantee there are no side effects. Great in theory but what if you want to develop a regular expression library? How would it even be possible to do?
So what's the advantage of this language over, say, using threads in a language like Ruby or Perl? It seems to me that it's extremely difficult to master and lacks features that exist in virtually every interpreted language in existance today.
Actually, with high-end cars you don't have a choice either, since the radio/GPS/etc is tightly integrated with the car. I own a 2000 S-Class Mercedes with the COMND integrated stereo/phone/trip computer/navigation system, which was much hated by reviewers until they checked out iDrive, which was truly loathed. I had to laugh a bit at this.
COMND is actually a very good system, but if for the sake of argument I wanted to swap it out, say for a newer system that used DVDs, I could not. COMND takes up the entire center console including the big LCD and there is no drop-in replacement as there is with older cars with standard stereo mounts.
You could easily replace the stereo in my 1991 S-Class, but it's impossible in the 2000 S-Class and other newer cars.
As for Apple's pricing, I have noticed that for memory it's gone down a lot. The 4GB memory upgrade is $200, which is at least within screaming distance of what it would cost to replace my old RAM. I found out Crucial would charge a bit over $100 for the RAM and it's arguably worth the extra $100-odd to have RAM specifically installed, tested for the computer and included in the warranty.
Needless to say, this was not the case (at least for me) in previous years when the same upgrade cost $400!
As for the other upgrades, basically the cost of upgrades forces me to buy the base system and upgrade myself. No really big deal. Nobody's forcing you to buy those overpriced upgrades. I'm about to buy a Macbook Pro and it's going to be the cheapest model. There's really surprisingly little differentiation between the cheapest model and the middle one for $500 more.
Are we not experimenting on "pre-life" creatures here, though?
Every time I ejaculate millions of potential lives are briefly born, live and die. Every month, a woman has an egg and most months that egg dies. Life is full of mini lives and mini deaths. If we wanted to make sure every potential life lived, we would have to marry at puberty and whenever the wife was not pregnant hurry up and impregnate her so that lives would not go away. In 10 years we'd have 15 kids.
For better or worse I don't think that's how we live in modern society; kids are an enormous burden nowadays, costing unbelievable amounts and 15 kids would bankrupt all but the wealthiest among us.
So what's wrong with using technology to choose the "right" egg and sperm that will come together with the least possibility of disease or problems? I would certainly want to check all the boxes and make sure my child had no serious diseases, no mental illness, no Downs Syndrome, etc.
After all, I'm not going to have many kids, if I even have any. Being able to ensure that my kids would not be defective and would be born well prepared to face the world seems like a very good idea indeed.
If there is a God, after all, why was Down's Syndrome or Autism created? I say if we could cause kids with those diseases not to be born, it would be a very good thing indeed.
From my point of view, God either doesn't exist, or is such a cruel entity I don't see any reason to respect His, Her or Its wishes on this matter.
Don't knock this technique. It really works and Steve is only one case in point.
Jim Jannard, founder of the Oakley Sunglass company, founded RED Digital Cinema to develop the digital cinema camera he wanted when major camera makers just weren't meeting the grade.
He had a novel marketing approach. He said: "I don't need the money but I do need the enthusiasm. Put down a $1,700 deposit and if I get enough of them I'll build the camera. If I don't get enough, I'll return your money with interest."
It worked. He had about 1,500 orders for the $17,500 + really expensive accessories camera and he started work on it. Two years later he came up with a camera. His customers love it and they worship him even more than Apple users worship Steve. Jim responds personally to customer questions over on the RED forums.
So really, if you think you want something other people want, and you know you can build it cost-effectively, it's a pretty good strategy. Jim doesn't get much sleep, but you get the feeling he's having a blast.
Not a bad role model at all I would say. Of course he did sell his $2 billion Oakley Sunglasses Company to pursue RED full time. No shortage of capital over at RED, and I have a hunch that's a huge advantage for him.
There's a subtle difference that's more about good taste than knowledge - Non-technical Apple users tend to be artists, video editors, graphic designers and so on, and of course they appreciate quality aesthetics.
In that kind of environment, bouncing smiley faces and the like just are not as appealing. I don't expect the girl I worked with years ago who liked HotBar [an early spyware program] because it was "Pink" to ever become an Apple customer:-).
The odd thing about Apple is that it seems to appeal to people who barely know how to turn on a computer and people who are computer experts of many years standing, but the great in between masses have not really been moved to try it. As long as Apple proportionately attracts tech rubes and tech elites I don't know if the problem will increase much, since tech rubes are not particularly adventurous in how they use their computer.
The in-betweens, who think they know more than they do, may be the real danger. We'll see how well Apple does with them in the future.
I think it's simpler than that. The people on this site are conditioned to be cynical and negative about just about anything. They can't understand positive emotions in favour of a product, especially when that product is made by big business.
This is why you see so many people who are contemptuous of "Apple Fanbois" and slaves to Steve Jobs, without thinking that there might be valid reasons for people to like and appreciate Apple.
People are especially cynical about corporations, which is a little sad since Linux probably would have been litigated out of existence if IBM hadn't spent tens of millions of dollars litigating the SCO cases.
Steve is not God, and Apple has some policies that are far from praiseworthy, but if you pick up the big picture he's tried very hard to satisfy his customers, and you can't say that of Gates and Ballmer.
I can guarantee you that iTunes DRM will function for eternity, and Steve would never promise that his systems would work well with an upgrade and then break that promise. Gates and Ballmer have violated both of those principles, in publically embarassing ways, and they don't even seem to feel they've done anything wrong.
Or it might just be that few people saw the post. It's buried at the end of a long string and if you read messages in the usual threaded format you will never see it.
And eventually it did get modded up, but I think those two factors are why that didn't happen earlier.
Apple users, including myself, should worry about this because Apple's market share has been growing substantially in the last year or so. If it continues to increase, and if vunerabilities are as you say, malware may become a real problem.
I have always been under the impression that Microsoft's security problem is ActiveX, which allows IE to do software updates on its own.
As far as I know, Apple has never done anything like ActiveX and that alone makes it far more secure than IE.
What specific vulnerabilities in Safari are you referring to?
Unfortunately, I live in Pittsburgh, which is an area where most people like the tried and true and don't think much of being up to date. So the problems you mention are still very much alive here, and pretty much every PC I see is encrusted with enormous amounts of spyware and invasive software.
Since Apple's user base skews towards better educated individuals in general, and creative artists and writers specifically, I suspect that fewer of them have the bad taste to download the "Incredimail" and smiley face software that are common spyware vectors. However, in all fairness, I think that software is not available for the platform in any event. If and when it becomes available, it will be interesting to see how much spyware proliferates.
From what I understand, there are two basic ways: Drive by downloads and host programs that carry spyware with their installation.
Drive by downloads under Windows are installed thanks to Internet Explorer bugs. IE is capable of installing operating system updates and so it automatically has the access needed to do so.(*) Safari has no special operating system privileges and so it cannot install software on its own without user intervention.
As far as I can tell, other spyware vectors such as commercially developed BitTorrent clients and "smiley face" silliness have not taken off on the Mac.
So as far as I know, the major ways to distribute spyware don't exist on the Mac and probably never will. Thus, Apple is likely to be spared the spyware phenomenon, at least to the dreadful extent it occurs on Windows machines.
D
(*) I think Vista was supposed to fix this but I don't know if that is the case or not. In any event, most Windows users continue to use XP.
I've always thought there's a slightly different phenomenon at work for Mac users.
See, Mac users really like what they're using. If you go to the trouble of buying a Mac, you're joining a group of people that is generally supportive of their computing platform.
So I think there are a lot fewer people who are really interested in breaking into Macs and damaging their computing platform's reputation.
To show this principle in action, take a look at the iPhone hacking community and how quickly they found exploits. The difference? The motivation for breaking iPhone's security was to be able to write software for the device. They were not trying to be destructive and did not see themselves as destructive.
So it would appear that there are fewer "destructive hackers" for Apple products than there are for other platforms. People are only really interested in breaking into Apple systems when there is some kind of hacking challenge, or when a product like iPhone or Apple TV is preventing them from using the devices as they wish.
I do believe that Apple has better security overall than Windows, but at the same time I also think the overall software environment is far more benign.
Steve really cares whether you love the product. Yes, he needs you to buy it, but he's not happy unless you love it.
The Microsoft way has created strange creations like Windows Vista Capable which got people to buy products through highly misleading and confusing practices, leading to which (in my opinion) is a highly justified lawsuit.
The rise in Apple's market share of late seems to indicate that Steve's approach is gaining in popularity.
But I will admit that since most people are hyper-cheap, Windows is always going to be more popular. Your business is to support the hyper cheap of the world with barely adequate products, and sadly that's what the world needs much of the time.
This review seems so inconclusive that I'm not even sure if the device really works, or is something faked up by a charlatan.
A remarkable idea, but if it winds up killing off gamers instead of being their salvation, its life as a product would appear to be nasty, brutish and short.
It seems almost like the Ouija board of computing.
Darn, I missed the fact that it was for a barcode scanning system. I think some people are hard at work getting iPhone to do its own barcode scanning, so perhaps that will be possible in the future, but it's still not a ruggedized device like a Symbol.
It's actually quite amusing that Apple itself uses those Symbol devices or something very like them in their infamous chic retail stores. Must drive Steve nuts since they are impressive devices but look more like something the Army would buy than an iPhone.
With the 3G iPhone coming soon, it may be that 2.5G iPhones will get to a more reasonable price, or people will try to sell their antiquitated 2.5G phones used. So maybe you'll get your wish and see cheap iPhones soon.
I would think that as a Mac guy, you would prefer developing for the iPhone.
I'm developing a product for their new iPhone SDK and so far it's going better than I'd dared hope in terms of my learning the environment easily and getting up to speed. The first week was pretty baffling and then it started to come together and by the third week I was feeling very comfortable.
I was using a conventional text editor before I started using Xcode and I can say xcode seems to be pretty easy to learn, straightforward and quick.
One thing I really like about the iPhone development system is that it's a compiled language and so it runs very fast compared to other environments I've used.
While some Slashdotters like Windows Mobile, I have noticed that its market share seems to be shrinking thanks to iPhone, and certainly in terms of design and overall attractiveness there is no comparison. I checked out a Windows Mobile magazine about a month ago, and it was worryingly thin and there were a lot of complaints about it crashing and about iPhone being less versatile but a great deal more fun to use.
With the SDK iPhone will be nearly as versatile as Windows Mobile and I think WM's market share will continue to skid. If you want to develop for a non-Apple platform I'd make it Blackberry since it is similar to iPhone in that it has a large number of very loyal users.
Well, this is a robot, so it wouldn't feel the waves.
You can technically sail the ocean on a Pacific Seacraft Flicka 20. You probably won't enjoy the experience, but if you could substitute a robot for you, it should do just fine in such a boat.
One question I have about this is that I believe it has already been done. There are systems available now that integrate an autopilot with GPS and radar, and automatically sail a specific course until a specific position is reached, and then change course until the next position is reached and so on. There are also devices that automatically use the wind to set the boat on an optimal course based on getting the maximum speed within certain parameters (these are called windvanes). With so many of the pieces already together this doesn't sound like a project that would be all that difficult.
That maximum speed of 4 knots certainly doesn't make it seem worth it, though. Might be more practical to use a diesel.
Avoiding obstacles would be an interesting question, though. To be a true solution you would have to change course automatically if the system saw a freighter. A lot of single-handed cruising sailors take the risk of running autopilots overnight but they are playing roulette with their boats and lives.
The kind of computing related to finding the obstacles considering a boat crashing up and down with the waves might indeed be tough.
I'm a software-oriented Slashdotter - I open up my hardware as infrequently as possible, and buy new hardware when I can afford to pay cash for it.
I'd rather have a completely new machine where every single part is upgraded and improved over the old version than upgrading an old machine incrementally.
A brand new machine works well under those conditions, but I can understand your point of view about upgrades. I would simply ask the question of how often you upgrade your machine, and how much you pay versus the cost of a new machine with all new components?
Slashdot Mirror
If we think about the team here, Jony Ive can design the computers, Phil Schiller can market them and Tim Cook can make sure the financials come out all right.
I think we will all miss Steve but Apple itself will do just fine.
I wish Steve joy in relaxation - he has had one of the busiest lives I could ever think of - and a speedy recovery and return to the helm.
D
This is true, but intriguingly, Apple also sells iPhones and iPod Touches, which many people can use as substitute computers. A friend of mine got iPod Touch for his birthday and pecks out his documents with the Notes application and emails them around, instead of using a computer.
iPhones are cheaper than any computers, even netbooks, and are not significantly different in price from other smartphones.
Apple has a pretty big iPhone developer community now, and they are compensated pretty well through the App Store. What do those nice folks who made $100,000 do with their well-deserved gains? Buy 17" MacBook Pros, of course. Tax deductible and all that. And as lovely as a well-designed sports car, just a lot cheaper.
The one huge advantage Apple has is that people love their products, so they will scrimp and save and suffer to buy them. For this reason, I expect them to gain market share, especially in tough times. The enthusiasts still buy, while the pragmatists stop buying. Thus, the total market shrinks but Apple's market share is likely to increase.
D
I wanted to point this out as well and you put it very well. Another thing worth mentioning is that if it really took 750-odd watts (1,500 watt coffee maker / 2) to run a search it would be very expensive to run the computers involved. You are only talking to one computer at Google and you are talking to it for a tiny fraction of a second. So if it uses 100 watts an hour you are going to be using a tiny fraction of a watt, too.
Here's another problem with this theory. The odds are that you would be running your PC whether you were using Google to search or not.
Furthermore, Google has excess capacity in their search system. Every computer that's running at Google's data centers is going to run whether there are 1,000,000 searches going on or 1,000,002.
Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that the impact of our Google searches on the environment is precisely zero. The only way to make a significant difference in the environment is a mass boycott of Google, in which case they might turn off a few servers. But if you just transfer your search business to ask.com, you simply become responsible for the use of more ask.com capacity and less Google capacity.
As others have said, if you stop using Google, you start using resources, such as transportation to the book store or library, that take far more energy and thus far more carbon.
D
People always seem to focus on what's lost by environmental change and ignore what's gained. That seems unfortunate
For example, are there not recreational opportunities in the lakes created by dams?
Are there not more fish in those lakes than in the equivalent rivers?
Since you mention fewer land based predators, how about more water birds eating the fish?
D
I'm trying to learn OpenGL so I can program in Open GL ES for my iPhone, and it seems like you need a book specifically for ES, because OpenGL ES eliminated most of the features used in beginning OpenGL tutorials!
But the iPhone supports only 1.1 and so I'm wondering if this book would even work for me. I'm thinking its rival, Mobile 3D Graphics ... might be better.
Any thoughts from those who have checked out both books? It would be nice to have good information before I blow $50.
Thanks!
D
You are, of course, correct.
However, these notices were issued by " American Rights Counsel LLC".
See that "LLC"? That means limited liability company, meaning that if you sue them, all you can get is their assets.
Which amount to rented office space, a $299 Dell computer and a battered desk and table lamp.
If that.
But wait ... Presumably American Rights Counsel has to be licensing the rights from someone to have standing to sue. So if you countersue them you might be able to retrieve their rights, whatever they were.
Trouble is, you're not going to be particularly interested in selling L Ron Hubbard stuff, right?
ARC probably sublicensed the rights on a non-exclusive basis, so they can sue but if they are sued all you could get is a license to display these glorious works of L Ron Hubbard.
Which, come to think of it, might make all Youtube videos legal. Just sublicense it to them for $1.
But that's only if you could countersue and win.
Which would take a really, really good lawyer.
Or maybe they have time-limited rights, only to sue right now.
Of course if someone sold/provided those rights, those people are the people who have liability.
So it all goes round and round and would take millions of dollars in legal fees to unravel.
Scientology already pays millions in legal fees so this is not a problem for them. But for you?
D
And what were the results?
I'm quite curious to hear how you were treated by Apple's representatives as well as the store customer base as a whole.
I think you might be protesting against the wrong guys, seeing that Microsoft has integrated DRM into the deepest reaches of their OS, and Apple has not.
Microsoft has also double-crossed its customers by building music players incompatible with their initial DRM scheme, and they are planning to shut down DRM servers in the future so that music purchased at their stores will be unplayable.
Apple has always treated its DRM customers fairly and that's a lot more than you can say for most of their competitors. I suppose that makes them doubly bad in your eyes, because people are willing to defend them, while I would say few will defend Microsoft PlaysForSure or Zune.
Richard M Stallman should be proud that he has protected the freedom to tinker and I would go so far as to say that he has saved its relevance in the computing world single-handedly with his role in the creation of Linux and the FSF command line tools that were, and are, required to make it work. I would even call his role in this heroic.
I knew him personally when I hung out at the MIT AI Lab in the late 1970s. Nice fellow but a bit intense was my verdict. I admired him, and still do, for his deep integrity and principled opposition to what he saw as oppressors.
But, perhaps sadly, computers are now products. And products that require a genius like RMS to work on them are not products, they're experiments. Experiments in computing will live forever, but so will products. And let's face it, nobody does products like Apple.
So much so that even many tinkerers use and love Apple computers, because the careful design of the OS and interface makes them more fun to tinker with.
Imagine that.
D
If they take up 20 slots, and nobody appears to fill up 19 of them, the empty slots will be processed quickly and people will be served at close to the ordinary speed.
Usually there are plenty of people who just show up hoping for a slot, and they will be the main beneficiaries of the plan.
The people who lose from it will be those who find the genius bar booked and will be unable to get an appointment. Those people will not be around to wreak revenge on the FSF guy.
D
I was under the impression from reading the tutorial that guards were the only way to create an IF style conditional in the languge and so no user defined functions in guards meant no user defined function in the IF statement (which I did notice exists) as well. Did I get this wrong?
Oh, it's definitely easy to learn. I could certainly learn the language, in the sense of being able to write small programs with it, in a short time.
But the methods needed to create more complex software seem very alien to me. The way it looks right now is that problems are broken into tiny steps and it seems like it would be very hard to get it to do something at all complex. And yet as you say entire complex telephone systems are written in it.
Are there CGI or web form programs written in it anywhere? Seeing something like that would be a good way for me to understand the language a bit better, although I suppose it makes little sense in terms of concurrency.
Thanks for your response!
D
Since strings are just sequences of ordinary numbers, it would seem like you could develop Unicode by just using numbers in unicode character code range. A string could be a tuple with the encoding and the sequence, like this:
{ utf8, [ character1, character2 ... ] }
After reading through the documentation, my main gripe is that it's a totally different way of thinking, and so I have no clue of the first way to do what is accomplished with routine ease in other languages. The Erlang getting started guide admits that there are many things that would be, by their own admission, "impossible".
For example, the tutorial says that "guards" (conditional execution for you and me) cannot use user defined functions, to guarantee there are no side effects. Great in theory but what if you want to develop a regular expression library? How would it even be possible to do?
So what's the advantage of this language over, say, using threads in a language like Ruby or Perl? It seems to me that it's extremely difficult to master and lacks features that exist in virtually every interpreted language in existance today.
D
Actually, with high-end cars you don't have a choice either, since the radio/GPS/etc is tightly integrated with the car. I own a 2000 S-Class Mercedes with the COMND integrated stereo/phone/trip computer/navigation system, which was much hated by reviewers until they checked out iDrive, which was truly loathed. I had to laugh a bit at this.
COMND is actually a very good system, but if for the sake of argument I wanted to swap it out, say for a newer system that used DVDs, I could not. COMND takes up the entire center console including the big LCD and there is no drop-in replacement as there is with older cars with standard stereo mounts.
You could easily replace the stereo in my 1991 S-Class, but it's impossible in the 2000 S-Class and other newer cars.
As for Apple's pricing, I have noticed that for memory it's gone down a lot. The 4GB memory upgrade is $200, which is at least within screaming distance of what it would cost to replace my old RAM. I found out Crucial would charge a bit over $100 for the RAM and it's arguably worth the extra $100-odd to have RAM specifically installed, tested for the computer and included in the warranty.
Needless to say, this was not the case (at least for me) in previous years when the same upgrade cost $400!
As for the other upgrades, basically the cost of upgrades forces me to buy the base system and upgrade myself. No really big deal. Nobody's forcing you to buy those overpriced upgrades. I'm about to buy a Macbook Pro and it's going to be the cheapest model. There's really surprisingly little differentiation between the cheapest model and the middle one for $500 more.
D
Are we not experimenting on "pre-life" creatures here, though?
Every time I ejaculate millions of potential lives are briefly born, live and die. Every month, a woman has an egg and most months that egg dies. Life is full of mini lives and mini deaths. If we wanted to make sure every potential life lived, we would have to marry at puberty and whenever the wife was not pregnant hurry up and impregnate her so that lives would not go away. In 10 years we'd have 15 kids.
For better or worse I don't think that's how we live in modern society; kids are an enormous burden nowadays, costing unbelievable amounts and 15 kids would bankrupt all but the wealthiest among us.
So what's wrong with using technology to choose the "right" egg and sperm that will come together with the least possibility of disease or problems? I would certainly want to check all the boxes and make sure my child had no serious diseases, no mental illness, no Downs Syndrome, etc.
After all, I'm not going to have many kids, if I even have any. Being able to ensure that my kids would not be defective and would be born well prepared to face the world seems like a very good idea indeed.
If there is a God, after all, why was Down's Syndrome or Autism created? I say if we could cause kids with those diseases not to be born, it would be a very good thing indeed.
From my point of view, God either doesn't exist, or is such a cruel entity I don't see any reason to respect His, Her or Its wishes on this matter.
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Don't knock this technique. It really works and Steve is only one case in point.
Jim Jannard, founder of the Oakley Sunglass company, founded RED Digital Cinema to develop the digital cinema camera he wanted when major camera makers just weren't meeting the grade.
He had a novel marketing approach. He said: "I don't need the money but I do need the enthusiasm. Put down a $1,700 deposit and if I get enough of them I'll build the camera. If I don't get enough, I'll return your money with interest."
It worked. He had about 1,500 orders for the $17,500 + really expensive accessories camera and he started work on it. Two years later he came up with a camera. His customers love it and they worship him even more than Apple users worship Steve. Jim responds personally to customer questions over on the RED forums.
So really, if you think you want something other people want, and you know you can build it cost-effectively, it's a pretty good strategy. Jim doesn't get much sleep, but you get the feeling he's having a blast.
Not a bad role model at all I would say. Of course he did sell his $2 billion Oakley Sunglasses Company to pursue RED full time. No shortage of capital over at RED, and I have a hunch that's a huge advantage for him.
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There's a subtle difference that's more about good taste than knowledge - Non-technical Apple users tend to be artists, video editors, graphic designers and so on, and of course they appreciate quality aesthetics.
In that kind of environment, bouncing smiley faces and the like just are not as appealing. I don't expect the girl I worked with years ago who liked HotBar [an early spyware program] because it was "Pink" to ever become an Apple customer :-).
The odd thing about Apple is that it seems to appeal to people who barely know how to turn on a computer and people who are computer experts of many years standing, but the great in between masses have not really been moved to try it. As long as Apple proportionately attracts tech rubes and tech elites I don't know if the problem will increase much, since tech rubes are not particularly adventurous in how they use their computer.
The in-betweens, who think they know more than they do, may be the real danger. We'll see how well Apple does with them in the future.
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I think it's simpler than that. The people on this site are conditioned to be cynical and negative about just about anything. They can't understand positive emotions in favour of a product, especially when that product is made by big business.
This is why you see so many people who are contemptuous of "Apple Fanbois" and slaves to Steve Jobs, without thinking that there might be valid reasons for people to like and appreciate Apple.
People are especially cynical about corporations, which is a little sad since Linux probably would have been litigated out of existence if IBM hadn't spent tens of millions of dollars litigating the SCO cases.
Steve is not God, and Apple has some policies that are far from praiseworthy, but if you pick up the big picture he's tried very hard to satisfy his customers, and you can't say that of Gates and Ballmer.
I can guarantee you that iTunes DRM will function for eternity, and Steve would never promise that his systems would work well with an upgrade and then break that promise. Gates and Ballmer have violated both of those principles, in publically embarassing ways, and they don't even seem to feel they've done anything wrong.
Or it might just be that few people saw the post. It's buried at the end of a long string and if you read messages in the usual threaded format you will never see it.
And eventually it did get modded up, but I think those two factors are why that didn't happen earlier.
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Apple users, including myself, should worry about this because Apple's market share has been growing substantially in the last year or so. If it continues to increase, and if vunerabilities are as you say, malware may become a real problem.
I have always been under the impression that Microsoft's security problem is ActiveX, which allows IE to do software updates on its own.
As far as I know, Apple has never done anything like ActiveX and that alone makes it far more secure than IE.
What specific vulnerabilities in Safari are you referring to?
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Unfortunately, I live in Pittsburgh, which is an area where most people like the tried and true and don't think much of being up to date. So the problems you mention are still very much alive here, and pretty much every PC I see is encrusted with enormous amounts of spyware and invasive software.
Since Apple's user base skews towards better educated individuals in general, and creative artists and writers specifically, I suspect that fewer of them have the bad taste to download the "Incredimail" and smiley face software that are common spyware vectors. However, in all fairness, I think that software is not available for the platform in any event. If and when it becomes available, it will be interesting to see how much spyware proliferates.
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Think about how spyware gets on a computer.
From what I understand, there are two basic ways: Drive by downloads and host programs that carry spyware with their installation.
Drive by downloads under Windows are installed thanks to Internet Explorer bugs. IE is capable of installing operating system updates and so it automatically has the access needed to do so.(*) Safari has no special operating system privileges and so it cannot install software on its own without user intervention.
As far as I can tell, other spyware vectors such as commercially developed BitTorrent clients and "smiley face" silliness have not taken off on the Mac.
So as far as I know, the major ways to distribute spyware don't exist on the Mac and probably never will. Thus, Apple is likely to be spared the spyware phenomenon, at least to the dreadful extent it occurs on Windows machines.
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(*) I think Vista was supposed to fix this but I don't know if that is the case or not. In any event, most Windows users continue to use XP.
I've always thought there's a slightly different phenomenon at work for Mac users.
See, Mac users really like what they're using. If you go to the trouble of buying a Mac, you're joining a group of people that is generally supportive of their computing platform.
So I think there are a lot fewer people who are really interested in breaking into Macs and damaging their computing platform's reputation.
To show this principle in action, take a look at the iPhone hacking community and how quickly they found exploits. The difference? The motivation for breaking iPhone's security was to be able to write software for the device. They were not trying to be destructive and did not see themselves as destructive.
So it would appear that there are fewer "destructive hackers" for Apple products than there are for other platforms. People are only really interested in breaking into Apple systems when there is some kind of hacking challenge, or when a product like iPhone or Apple TV is preventing them from using the devices as they wish.
I do believe that Apple has better security overall than Windows, but at the same time I also think the overall software environment is far more benign.
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In a nutshell, that's why I'm a big Apple fan.
Steve really cares whether you love the product. Yes, he needs you to buy it, but he's not happy unless you love it.
The Microsoft way has created strange creations like Windows Vista Capable which got people to buy products through highly misleading and confusing practices, leading to which (in my opinion) is a highly justified lawsuit.
The rise in Apple's market share of late seems to indicate that Steve's approach is gaining in popularity.
But I will admit that since most people are hyper-cheap, Windows is always going to be more popular. Your business is to support the hyper cheap of the world with barely adequate products, and sadly that's what the world needs much of the time.
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This review seems so inconclusive that I'm not even sure if the device really works, or is something faked up by a charlatan.
A remarkable idea, but if it winds up killing off gamers instead of being their salvation, its life as a product would appear to be nasty, brutish and short.
It seems almost like the Ouija board of computing.
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Darn, I missed the fact that it was for a barcode scanning system. I think some people are hard at work getting iPhone to do its own barcode scanning, so perhaps that will be possible in the future, but it's still not a ruggedized device like a Symbol.
It's actually quite amusing that Apple itself uses those Symbol devices or something very like them in their infamous chic retail stores. Must drive Steve nuts since they are impressive devices but look more like something the Army would buy than an iPhone.
With the 3G iPhone coming soon, it may be that 2.5G iPhones will get to a more reasonable price, or people will try to sell their antiquitated 2.5G phones used. So maybe you'll get your wish and see cheap iPhones soon.
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I would think that as a Mac guy, you would prefer developing for the iPhone.
I'm developing a product for their new iPhone SDK and so far it's going better than I'd dared hope in terms of my learning the environment easily and getting up to speed. The first week was pretty baffling and then it started to come together and by the third week I was feeling very comfortable.
I was using a conventional text editor before I started using Xcode and I can say xcode seems to be pretty easy to learn, straightforward and quick.
One thing I really like about the iPhone development system is that it's a compiled language and so it runs very fast compared to other environments I've used.
While some Slashdotters like Windows Mobile, I have noticed that its market share seems to be shrinking thanks to iPhone, and certainly in terms of design and overall attractiveness there is no comparison. I checked out a Windows Mobile magazine about a month ago, and it was worryingly thin and there were a lot of complaints about it crashing and about iPhone being less versatile but a great deal more fun to use.
With the SDK iPhone will be nearly as versatile as Windows Mobile and I think WM's market share will continue to skid. If you want to develop for a non-Apple platform I'd make it Blackberry since it is similar to iPhone in that it has a large number of very loyal users.
Hope that was of interest.
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Well, this is a robot, so it wouldn't feel the waves.
You can technically sail the ocean on a Pacific Seacraft Flicka 20. You probably won't enjoy the experience, but if you could substitute a robot for you, it should do just fine in such a boat.
One question I have about this is that I believe it has already been done. There are systems available now that integrate an autopilot with GPS and radar, and automatically sail a specific course until a specific position is reached, and then change course until the next position is reached and so on. There are also devices that automatically use the wind to set the boat on an optimal course based on getting the maximum speed within certain parameters (these are called windvanes). With so many of the pieces already together this doesn't sound like a project that would be all that difficult.
That maximum speed of 4 knots certainly doesn't make it seem worth it, though. Might be more practical to use a diesel.
Avoiding obstacles would be an interesting question, though. To be a true solution you would have to change course automatically if the system saw a freighter. A lot of single-handed cruising sailors take the risk of running autopilots overnight but they are playing roulette with their boats and lives.
The kind of computing related to finding the obstacles considering a boat crashing up and down with the waves might indeed be tough.
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I'm a software-oriented Slashdotter - I open up my hardware as infrequently as possible, and buy new hardware when I can afford to pay cash for it.
I'd rather have a completely new machine where every single part is upgraded and improved over the old version than upgrading an old machine incrementally.
A brand new machine works well under those conditions, but I can understand your point of view about upgrades. I would simply ask the question of how often you upgrade your machine, and how much you pay versus the cost of a new machine with all new components?
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