So I guess that means you'll have to pee in a bottle like the guy who works 2 jobs and still can't afford food, clothing, and shelter at the same time.
They are granted exemptions on various taxes to encourage the associated actions (or at least that's the excuse).
But if it will make you happier, we can just set the cost of food to zero for anyone earning below the poverty line. That way, they're just getting to keep their money rather than getting a subsidy.
You can still verify the OS, you just can't verify the BIOS. That's more than enough for most use cases. The only time it isn't adequate is when someone like MS wants to retain authority over your hardware (mostly so you can't load a driver that copies out decrypted media) or in cloak and dagger scenarios.
Personally, I wouldn't want a machine with Secure Boot that I couldn't disable in the configuration. YMMV
I definitely do not want a setup where someone might re-flash my BIOS from half way around the world and doesn't even have to reboot to do it.
Older schemes where the BMC couldn't access the system memory were safer. One safety feature would be to replace memory access with specific interfaces (serial and a general access port used by SMM) and their own independent network interface (allowing effective vlan isolation with no need for the honor system). To complete the picture, the BMC could emulate a USB device connected on the MB to an actual USB chip. At least that way they would need to compromise 2 firmware images to get anywhere.
In practice, they do well with heavy parallel computation, especially when measured on a cost per performance basis. It helps that quad socket designs are cheaper for AMD as well.
Don't forget, AMD brought us x86_64. Otherwise, Intel would probably still be pushing 32 bit Xeon to the masses and ultra expensive Itanic for 64 bit.
AMD CPUs perform well as long as you don't use the Intel compiler. Unfortunately, most benchmarks are compiled with Icc complete with the built in sandbag code.
The tool was very simple. It was a very long Allen wrench with a better handle than they usually have (because only one end was supposed to be functional). Why did it take so long to be available?
Because nothing else called for a tool with a shaft that long, and for any other application such a tool would be too awkward to use, so it wasn't made. So Apple contracted to have that tool made exclusively for them on their spec. That would require special tooling since nobody manufactured a tool with a shaft that long otherwise. That includes tooling for the assembly line. All expensive.
It took a while to become available because first, the need for it had to be established and they needed to know there would be enough demand to justify the tooling cost, then they had to come up with the up-front costs (for tooling), and get the first run done. Then, of course, they had to advertise it's availability. This was all pre-www, so that actually takes some time.
Note, the screws were Torx, not hex (Allen). Torx was uncommon at the time and under patent, further slowing clone tools. The first clones were probably infringing. So they couldn't just take a longer piece of hex stock and interference fit a handle on it.
How could Apple have changed that without moving the screws? And how would have using a different head have improved things, given the need for the very long shaft?
Longer screws. As an added benefit, the screws would have been stronger than the plastic tubes. A different head would have removed patent problems and made it easier to get the tool manufactured. Had the heads been bugger and Phillips or flat, there were existing screwdrivers that would work. Or longer screws in Philips or flat, common household screwdrivers would have worked (and the case would be overall stronger.
I suspect but cannot prove that the defect rate of the molded cases would have been lower without the long tubes for the screwdriver.
Had they been willing to compromise a bit on the shape, they could have used easy to reach recessed screws, but Apple is too well known for form over function, so I'm not even considering that. Alternatively, they could have moved the screws so that the back was screwed on from the bottom and tipped back for removal.
Imagine if there were lanes you could only use if you were going to see a movie at a theater that paid the DOT under the table. Otherwise, only the bike lane is available for going to a movie. That's the internet without neutrality. Fair queuing and prioritizing at the individual household level based on type of service is fine under net neutrality.
In fact, I do design hardware. I live in a major metro area where the RAM was plentiful but the mac tool was still mail order and only available a year or 2 after the Mac came out. No , they wouldn't have had to move the screw.
Perhaps you lack historical perspective. Back at that time, I don't think there were very many people who had any doubt that Apple's choice was anything but an attempt to make things harder for anyone wanting to do their own service on the Mac. No amount of bending over backwards to excuse them will change that.
According to reports the guy has been an angry but not terribly devout nutball for a long time. If anything radicalized him, it was 2 FBI investigations and zero mental health interventions.
Yes, that's just it. You had to mail order the special tool. It was a special tool. Well after the Mac came out, a number of vendors independantly had such a tool put in to production and sold them by mail order.
Apple could have easily specified a more usual arrangement and it would have even reduced their costs to do so. Their choice was deliberate and the only logical explanation was to make it harder to open the things up.
Some brands of TVs used similar tactics for the same reason.
It may actually be a correction of banana republic behavior. They should have been putting the brakes on this well before now. I would be heartened by this except I don't believe any actual correction has taken place in government, it's just that Apple is no longer on the special friends list.
Typically the planning phase comes before a contract signing or something
That's the giant failure right there. Essentially that work is done speculatively and for free. This means it's goal is to get the contract signed even though it is supposed to be get the software designed. Anything not directly contributing to getting the contract signed will be half-assed at best. Then once the contract is signed, since the analysis and design is "done", everyone jumps into coding to a woefully inadequate design and it devolves to cowboy coding.
It's all iteration. Waterfall is a special case where the iteration count is one. Agile is a special case where the iterations are arbitrarily short. In some of the most successful projects, the length of an iteration is determined informally in the planning phase based on logical stopping points. The rest is largely window dressing based on the principle that all teams and all programmers are exactly alike.
Managers (especially the MBAs that have never programmed) tend to like waterfall and Agile because it lets them stick to hard fast rules. Managers that came up through the ranks and kept current will be more open to variable iteration.
NOW you can buy them everywhere. In the mid 80's, you could not. Why do you think the thing was called a special mac tool if it was at all likely to be be in general use around the shop/house? Care to explain why they went with pentalobe once Torx became common?
What is the point of torquing the bolts down hard when you have those long plastic tubes ready to break off under stress? A regular phillips screw can easily be torqued more than enough that the plastic will break before the screw lets go. That's why everything else of that era actually did go with the long ass screw solution. It provided the needed strength for the cases when such an attachment was actually necessary.
That's exactly it. They gratuitously used a rare screw head requiring an unusually long shaft just to meke things harder. Meanwhile, the PC could be opened up by a standard Phillips available in any household at the time.
In more recent years, now that everyone has torx and they tend to be included in standard tool sets, they are using pentalobe.
As you point out, it doesn't actually make opening it up impossible, but clearly Apple intended to discourage it to the extent possible and still does.
Slashdot Mirror
Make the directors and execs pee.
So I guess that means you'll have to pee in a bottle like the guy who works 2 jobs and still can't afford food, clothing, and shelter at the same time.
They are granted exemptions on various taxes to encourage the associated actions (or at least that's the excuse).
But if it will make you happier, we can just set the cost of food to zero for anyone earning below the poverty line. That way, they're just getting to keep their money rather than getting a subsidy.
And under the new law, the poor will equally have to undergo a drug test if they take $150,000 in deductions or benefit from capital gains.
Besides, they want to make tablets thin enough to chop vegetables so they can break easily.
I used to be decent at it, but I haven't played Chess in quite a while.
You can still verify the OS, you just can't verify the BIOS. That's more than enough for most use cases. The only time it isn't adequate is when someone like MS wants to retain authority over your hardware (mostly so you can't load a driver that copies out decrypted media) or in cloak and dagger scenarios.
Personally, I wouldn't want a machine with Secure Boot that I couldn't disable in the configuration. YMMV
I definitely do not want a setup where someone might re-flash my BIOS from half way around the world and doesn't even have to reboot to do it.
Older schemes where the BMC couldn't access the system memory were safer. One safety feature would be to replace memory access with specific interfaces (serial and a general access port used by SMM) and their own independent network interface (allowing effective vlan isolation with no need for the honor system). To complete the picture, the BMC could emulate a USB device connected on the MB to an actual USB chip. At least that way they would need to compromise 2 firmware images to get anywhere.
In practice, they do well with heavy parallel computation, especially when measured on a cost per performance basis. It helps that quad socket designs are cheaper for AMD as well.
Don't forget, AMD brought us x86_64. Otherwise, Intel would probably still be pushing 32 bit Xeon to the masses and ultra expensive Itanic for 64 bit.
AMD CPUs perform well as long as you don't use the Intel compiler. Unfortunately, most benchmarks are compiled with Icc complete with the built in sandbag code.
The tool was very simple. It was a very long Allen wrench with a better handle than they usually have (because only one end was supposed to be functional). Why did it take so long to be available?
Because nothing else called for a tool with a shaft that long, and for any other application such a tool would be too awkward to use, so it wasn't made. So Apple contracted to have that tool made exclusively for them on their spec. That would require special tooling since nobody manufactured a tool with a shaft that long otherwise. That includes tooling for the assembly line. All expensive.
It took a while to become available because first, the need for it had to be established and they needed to know there would be enough demand to justify the tooling cost, then they had to come up with the up-front costs (for tooling), and get the first run done. Then, of course, they had to advertise it's availability. This was all pre-www, so that actually takes some time.
Note, the screws were Torx, not hex (Allen). Torx was uncommon at the time and under patent, further slowing clone tools. The first clones were probably infringing. So they couldn't just take a longer piece of hex stock and interference fit a handle on it.
How could Apple have changed that without moving the screws? And how would have using a different head have improved things, given the need for the very long shaft?
Longer screws. As an added benefit, the screws would have been stronger than the plastic tubes. A different head would have removed patent problems and made it easier to get the tool manufactured. Had the heads been bugger and Phillips or flat, there were existing screwdrivers that would work. Or longer screws in Philips or flat, common household screwdrivers would have worked (and the case would be overall stronger.
I suspect but cannot prove that the defect rate of the molded cases would have been lower without the long tubes for the screwdriver.
Had they been willing to compromise a bit on the shape, they could have used easy to reach recessed screws, but Apple is too well known for form over function, so I'm not even considering that. Alternatively, they could have moved the screws so that the back was screwed on from the bottom and tipped back for removal.
Well, I'm not going to vote for Trump or Clinton...
Imagine if there were lanes you could only use if you were going to see a movie at a theater that paid the DOT under the table. Otherwise, only the bike lane is available for going to a movie. That's the internet without neutrality. Fair queuing and prioritizing at the individual household level based on type of service is fine under net neutrality.
Personally, I intend to write-in Sanders.
In fact, I do design hardware. I live in a major metro area where the RAM was plentiful but the mac tool was still mail order and only available a year or 2 after the Mac came out. No , they wouldn't have had to move the screw.
Perhaps you lack historical perspective. Back at that time, I don't think there were very many people who had any doubt that Apple's choice was anything but an attempt to make things harder for anyone wanting to do their own service on the Mac. No amount of bending over backwards to excuse them will change that.
I'll second that!
According to reports the guy has been an angry but not terribly devout nutball for a long time. If anything radicalized him, it was 2 FBI investigations and zero mental health interventions.
Yes, that's just it. You had to mail order the special tool. It was a special tool. Well after the Mac came out, a number of vendors independantly had such a tool put in to production and sold them by mail order.
Apple could have easily specified a more usual arrangement and it would have even reduced their costs to do so. Their choice was deliberate and the only logical explanation was to make it harder to open the things up.
Some brands of TVs used similar tactics for the same reason.
None of this is exactly arcane knowledge.
You should check your browser, there were a lot more (and far more recent). I found them following your link.
It may actually be a correction of banana republic behavior. They should have been putting the brakes on this well before now. I would be heartened by this except I don't believe any actual correction has taken place in government, it's just that Apple is no longer on the special friends list.
Typically the planning phase comes before a contract signing or something
That's the giant failure right there. Essentially that work is done speculatively and for free. This means it's goal is to get the contract signed even though it is supposed to be get the software designed. Anything not directly contributing to getting the contract signed will be half-assed at best. Then once the contract is signed, since the analysis and design is "done", everyone jumps into coding to a woefully inadequate design and it devolves to cowboy coding.
It's all iteration. Waterfall is a special case where the iteration count is one. Agile is a special case where the iterations are arbitrarily short. In some of the most successful projects, the length of an iteration is determined informally in the planning phase based on logical stopping points. The rest is largely window dressing based on the principle that all teams and all programmers are exactly alike.
Managers (especially the MBAs that have never programmed) tend to like waterfall and Agile because it lets them stick to hard fast rules. Managers that came up through the ranks and kept current will be more open to variable iteration.
Just some quacks. No racism in pointing out that Chinese medicine has it's quacks just like western medicine.
Guess.
Or be brainless. Your choice.
NOW you can buy them everywhere. In the mid 80's, you could not. Why do you think the thing was called a special mac tool if it was at all likely to be be in general use around the shop/house? Care to explain why they went with pentalobe once Torx became common?
What is the point of torquing the bolts down hard when you have those long plastic tubes ready to break off under stress? A regular phillips screw can easily be torqued more than enough that the plastic will break before the screw lets go. That's why everything else of that era actually did go with the long ass screw solution. It provided the needed strength for the cases when such an attachment was actually necessary.
That's exactly it. They gratuitously used a rare screw head requiring an unusually long shaft just to meke things harder. Meanwhile, the PC could be opened up by a standard Phillips available in any household at the time.
In more recent years, now that everyone has torx and they tend to be included in standard tool sets, they are using pentalobe.
As you point out, it doesn't actually make opening it up impossible, but clearly Apple intended to discourage it to the extent possible and still does.