Seriously though, what happens when you don't use the dns provider of the ISP (either running your own, or using a 3pd DNS provider)? Would that make anyone running their own DNS server (or an alternate third party) a suspicious person? They would only be able to log IP addresses then, and given the proliferation of mass shared hosts, how is this helpful? If a child porn site was on a godaddy server, and you go to another site on the same server, would you have to prove you went to the other site? More guilty until proven innocent...
So basically, GPS is only as accurate as the clocks that form its backbone. That's one of the reasons why unaugmented GPS is limited in accuracy to a few meters. Improving the accuracy of the clocks (by orders of magnitude) has the potential to cut down a few meters to potentially tens of centimeters...
I did acknowledge that it's not the only part of the accuracy equation. However, since it (as you say) accounts for somewhere "less than" 33% of the error, it's indeed blocking the progression to sub-meter resolution. Currently, GPS is limited to around 3 meters or so (IIRC). So 33% of that 3 meter "error" would be 1 meter... So that implies, that unless we improve the accuracy of the clocks, sub-meter accuracy would be impossible (using unaugmented systems). Installing these clocks on the GPS satellites won't in itself increase the accuracy to 10cm, but it would make it technically possible (which it would not be without them)...
There's a simple answer. The speed of light (in a vacuum) is the absolute speed limit. The red and blue shifts you are talking about are when an object with mass goes faster through a specific medium than light can. But the key point there is that it's through a specific medium. Even if you were inside of a space ship that was going through a dense cloud faster than light could go through it, you'd still be going far less than C. Plus, the light that's measured here is presumably passing through a vacuum inside of the clock... That's without taking relativity into account. Once you add special relativity, the effect that time slows as you approach C causes everything to work itself out. Note that there's no absolute clock. There is no such thing as absolute time. There's only time relative to a reference frame. So while the clock on a space ship going 0.5*C relative to earth will go significantly slower than one on earth, it'll still be just as accurate within that reference frame (So two ships with the exact same velocity (vector) which have these clocks will be as accurate as they would be if sitting on earth).
Even if time did stand still or go backwards, you wouldn't be able to tell since our perception is dependent on time going forwards. Since time must be constant in any non-accelerated reference frame (gravity asside), if a clock was stopped by the slowing of time, so would your heart, and cells, and brain, and electrical impulses, etc...
I would recommend a pair of books for you written by Richard Feynman. Six easy pieces and Six Not so easy pieces... They provide a good "foundation" if you've never had a college level calculus based physics series before...
Correct, which is why I said in my post that ILS and radar altitude are needed at the present time. Radar altitude systems are prohibitively expensive and big (pretty much only usable on commercial airliners and in military applications). ILS is good for approach, but you can't land off it. It'll get you down to 50 feet AGL (or less in certain areas), but it won't get you though the flare. That's because the glideslope portion of the ILS signal is set a 3 degrees. So it can only tell you your relation to the 3* slope, not distance above the ground (which is what's really needed when you're over the threashold). ILS gets you aligned with the runway, and onto the proper approach path. It's an approach system, not a landing system (and was never designed as such)... For an ILS system without a radar altimiter, the pilot always must handle the actual landing. (hence the classes of autopilot, and existence of a decision height -- The height which you need to either be able to proceed visually, or abort the approach)... That's why autoland based on GPS is such an interesting thing. It would enable cheaper autoland systems which are a lot smaller than present systems (Basically business jets and light aircraft could potentially be equipped) and don't depend on airport infrastructure. So you could theoretically autoland on a small General Aviation airport...
I do have my Private Pilots license with Instrument rating, but I also love physics...
You need that kind of precision to do it from several hundred miles away (As is what happens with GPS). The Satellites all have clocks on board that are synchronized and constantly transmit the time. A GPS receiver simply needs to listen to a few of the satellites, and compute the difference between their times to determine the location. The kicker of it is that since the satellites are moving at fast speeds (relative to us), the time of their clocks are different from "our" time. So special relativity is used to counter those relativistic effects. So basically, GPS is only as accurate as the clocks that form its backbone. That's one of the reasons why unaugmented GPS is limited in accuracy to a few meters. Improving the accuracy of the clocks (by orders of magnitude) has the potential to cut down a few meters to potentially tens of centimeters... You'd need that level of accuracy to land a plane... Planes "flare" during landing (slowing the rate of decent to nearly 0 just as the wheels touch down). Plus or minus even one meter in any direction (up, down, forward, back, side to side) could be catastrophic. So current "autoland" autopilots use radar altitude and ground based ILS (radio based navigation) to gain the necessary precision. If GPS accuracy gets good enough to where you don't need those aux systems (or need them as primary at least), complexity of autopilots would drop significantly...
Because it's a selling point for the app. Take "Bump" for example... Simply stating it's compatible with Android and iPhone is a huge selling point (if they charged for the app). Especially as more and more apps are letting you interact with other people, it's definitely a good selling point that you can interact with non iPhone users.
Is this type of advertising hurting Apple? Not in the least. In fact, I'd argue that it's doing the exact opposite. With the rejection of an app because it said "Android" in it, it makes me wonder if there's any commitment on their part to support device interoperability (even if just on the app level)... And that question COULD hurt them on the business end (and the power users who are on the fence)...
True, but also look at the scale of the effort. In theory, you'd only need 10% of the number of transistors to achieve the same level of throughput (ignoring interconnects), so the production yields of each wafer could be as high as 10 times that of silicon wafers to produce the same "chip". So if the Si Carbide wafer costs 8 times as much to produce, you have a net reduction in chip cost. Plus, this allows you to scale the chips up in transistor size depending on application need (and hence cost). So a 100ghz network appliance using SiC may cost significantly more than the 5ghz Si counterpart, but also gives you so much higher throughput, that it's worth it in applications that need that much bandwidth. While I do agree that it's not likely to see the next generation mobile processors using the technology in the near future, the applications that can justify the extra cost most definitely do exist...
I think that your calling the ThinkPad a "piece of shit" is more a testament about you than the machine. Note: I'm not calling you a "piece of shit", I'm saying that you're not able to leverage what the ThinkPad has to offer (Just like I'm not able to leverage what the MacBook has to offer). It doesn't mean that the device itself is flawed. Just your relationship to the device is flawed. Let me explain (I own a ThinkPad T61p):
- First off, you say that the battery life is better on the mac. My thinkpad gets around 4.5 hours out of a battery, and I can swap that out if I need more time. Plus, if I really want, I can swap my CD drive for a battery which will net me about another 2 to 3 hours. So with 2 main batteries and 1 cd drive battery, I can get around 11 hours of run time without going into standby or sleep...
- Multi-touch trackpad. I do admit, it is quite cool what you can do with that trackpad. However, realize that I can do just about everything it can do without moving my hand from the keyboard. Go back or forward in the browser? There are keys for that above the directional keys. Scroll? PageUp/Down. Go to "expose" style app switcher? Alt-Win-Tab... Is it for everyone? No, but I found that once I got used to the keyboard, my productivity went through the roof, while wrist strain went away (not moving hands as much)...
- Built in camera/mic. The thinkpads do have a built in mic. The camera is an option. To me, this isn't a big deal, since I don't use the camera that much.
- Nice display. My T61 has a 1920x1200 WUXGA screen which is capable of displaying native 1080p. The only MacBook that could do that is a 17" pro (mine's a 15"). The screen I have is amazing. Not saying that there aren't better screens, but why should I pay more of something that I don't need?
- Fingerprint Scanner. I've NEVER had a mis-read. It has always read my fingerprints correctly the first time, every time. Perhaps you're using an inconsistent technique?
- No OSX. This is my favorite argument. People say that Mac hardware is better because it can run OSX. Using that as an argument is like saying that a Ferrari is better than a Lamborghini because Red is sexier than Yellow. If Apple wanted to make OSX available for non-Mac computers, they could and this argument would be non-existent. But to detract from the HARDWARE of one manufacturer because it won't run the software of another is silly. That's the fault of Apple, so if anything it should be a detraction of Apple, not IBM...
- Magsafe. I like to move around with my laptop. I'm not stupid about it. I don't just grab and run with it. I can tell if its still plugged in. However, if I turn in my chair, I would rather have the slight tug of a chord telling me not to go any further than to have to keep finding the chord and plugging it back in. I'm not saying Magsafe is bad for everyone. Just that I would rather have a firm, secure connection to the wall rather than something that'll pop out every time I sneeze...
The only thing in your list which I would concede is weight. But that's why I have an X200 at work. The x200 is small (12" screen), portable and light. Yet it still has most of the qualities of the T61. To me, weight doesn't matter with a desktop replacement laptop. Ease of portability just isn't one of my criteria...
I'm not saying that Apple hardware sucks (it's very good actually). I'm also not saying that the Thinkpads are better than the Apple ones in an absolute manor. What I am saying is that it comes down to your interaction with the hardware that makes it right for you. Saying that Thinkpads are "pieces of shit" is exactly the same as the issue I have with most Mac fanatics. Because you like it better doesn't make it better... It makes it better for YOU.
Well, if 1000 people downloaded it (And 100% of them would have purchased it otherwise), the damage would be ~$17k. If 3k people downloaded it, damages would be == to actual losses. Now, assuming that a small fraction of users would have purchased it if they didn't download it (Let's for arguments sake say 1%), then 300k downloads would be needed to inflict around $50k of damages...
Do I believe this? No, but this is the kind of math that would be used. Of course, you'd need to justify not only how many people downloaded, but also the percentage of those that would have otherwise purchased the album. Since that's not trivial at best (And not possible at worst), they settle on gross estimations (not even educated guesses)...
Personally, $2k per song is still high, but a whole lot better than $200k... And perhaps that's what they want. Get the figure low enough that it's not worth fighting so people just give up and pay it... Sad, really...
Well, tapes use a multi-pass write method (At least LTO, which I am familiar with does). The largest generation tape now (LTO5) takes 56 passes (both directions) to write. So it's not a trivial calculation... (I have no idea the number of passes that they use, hence why it's an important factor. They could have increased the tracks per pass, or increased the passes, or both)...
I didn't say it wouldn't improve. What I did say is that I would like to know HOW/IF it did improve this time... LTO5 can only achieve around 180 MBps... At that speed, you're looking at somewhere around 54 hours to write to these tapes... Hardly inconsequential...
Perhaps this proves that "electrosensitivity" is more mental than tangible....
The issue that remains is if a company can be held responsible for the mental anguish that it indirectly caused. (I mention indirectly, because the act of constructing a tower isn't directly changing peoples mental condition, it's simply "turning on" something that may have been there)... Either way, it should be interesting to see how this pans out...
Well you have to define the term stable. There's a big difference between "doesn't need new features" and "is bug free" and "has no security issues"... There's also different methods to deal with the deprecation. I'd HATE to see them stop support entirely on those branches simply because there's little activity. So many sites rely on them that upgrading would be a non-trivial act. What I would rather see is a "staged" deprecation. Basically reduce 2.0 and 1.3 to "security and mission critical bug fixes only". That way if a major security issue is found, it can be fixed (same with a major bug, but at this point what's the chance of that)... After a set amount of time in that phase, support would be dropped entirely. So say the security support for a branch lasts 3 years. That way it gives admins a chance to upgrade the software without putting themselves at undue risk...
I couldn't find anything on it quickly before I head home from work. I'll look around when I get home. It's been 4 or 5 years since I saw the video, so I'll have to do some digging. If I find anything, I'll post it back here...
Yes, gasoline can burn. But it's exceptionally rare for gasoline to explode (Quick bit of trivia. A full gas tank won't explode. There's not enough O2. One that's just about empty has a higher chance of going boom)... Not to mention that AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) firefighting foam can usually stop a gasoline fire quite effectively. How do you stop a battery fire? Put water on it (AFFF is mostly water)? A dry chemical fire extinguisher? More likely, just let it burn out... I've seen more than a few car fires, and most of the time unless the passengers are entrapped, they can get out quite easily before there's significant danger to them. That's why you don't hear many people dieing in car fires (well, ok, Not many relative to how many car fires there are)... When a battery goes up, there's little time to do anything since at the energies that are involved the fire can progress extremely rapidly (if not explosively).
I don't buy that. One of the biggest gripes that I have with the GPL (and I have released a fair amount of code under it) is that it promotes compliance through ignorance. Let me explain:
So long as whatever you do is released GPL, you're fine (well, under 99% of the cases anyway). If you want to release under any other license, determining if it's allowable is a nightmare. Try to interface a non-gpl plugin with an application. There's no "easy" answer as to if you can do that. Every lawyer will say something different. There's no legal precedent with regards to how non-gpl code can interact with gpl code. So the "easy" way to comply is to just license your code GPL... Sure, there are black and white compliance cases, but the vast majority that I've looked at are well in the gray area. Can you dynamically link a non-GPL lib into a GPL program? Can you dynamically link a GPL lib into a non-GPL program? What about statically? More importantly, WHY? Now, explain that to a judge who has no technical background.
Again, I'm not arguing with the ideals of the GPL, I'm arguing the ambiguity when it comes to interfacing with non-GPL code (At least from discussions and conversations I've had with lawyers and other prominent developers)...
Forget crush (It's not that difficult to armor the batteries)... What happens when you short one out? I remember seeing a video of a firefighter cutting someone out of a hybrid. They went to cut the seat supports, and accidentally cut the 400v DC positive line that was running under the center console (It runs in a tunnel from the trunk up to the engine compartment)... It instantly welded the cutting tool to the ground, and proceeded to destroy (rather catastrophically) the batteries. The firefighter suffered some minor burns, and the victim was taken out of the car quick enough (Using a rapid extrication technique) to avoid further injury... The car was, needless to say, a total loss.
Between airbags and these large battery packs, cars are becoming more and more dangerous (Airbags do save lives, but have you ever seen the aftermath when a firefighter accidentally cuts the nitrogen cylinder to one? Or gets in the way when one accidentally goes off?)... I remember another video where a firefighter was holding C-Spine traction (Holding the victims head still, to prevent spinal injuries from causing more damage) on a 2 seat BMW. One that had explosive actuated rollbars that came up only in the event of an accident (I assume to maintain the aesthetics of the car). Well, while they were freeing the victim from the wreckage, the rollbars were somehow triggered. When it came up, it hit him in the neck right below his jaw and killed him on the spot.
Don't forget, safety is always a trade-off. Usually it's between safe and usable. Sometimes it's between safe under normal conditions for more dangerous in edge cases. Still others, it's safe vs practicality (which is where these home batteries probably fall). I'd imagine that building code would be altered shortly after these things start popping up in homes to mandate fire suppression systems where they are installed (or at least a fireproof compartment that they get stored it). Would that alter their usability? No. Would it make them less worth it? Well, that's for consumers to decide...
Simple. For the test to really provide any meaningful data, it would have to be performed on more than just AT&T's network... Perhaps an Android App, an iPhone App and a WinMo App would do it. The more data, the better the result set would be.
But there's another logistical challenge... Running a 3g modem and a GPS receiver at the same time at a fast enough rate to get the kind of data coverage we're talking about would be hell on a battery. Which is why I don't know if an App would cut it (it would almost necessitate "someone" doing it with all 4 or 5 phones at the same time, while connected to a charger (to negate battery effects)...
Breaking News! Company plans on updating a successful product line!
Seriously, why is this news? We all know that a new revision will come down the road at some point. The only "new" information here (for me at least) is the ordering of the 5mp cameras...
What I found more interesting than what's posted here, is what Engadget reported yesterday:
The most interesting word, however, comes out of the Silicon Alley Insider, who is quoting a "plugged-in source in the mobile industry" who says that Apple is working with some select app makers on prepping high-res apps to demo on a "new, larger mobile device."
I'd be curious to see the results of a test conducted as follows:
Setup a test rig that automatically tests download speed and latency from a few different servers (globally dispersed) every 30 seconds. Have it geotag each result.
Drive around each of the cities (and metro area surrounding them), and gather the data over a few days for each city.
Then, compute a few different metrics. First, for each carrier, generate a heat map of download speeds (It would wind up looking something like Verizon's 3g Map, but with different colors denoting speed ranges). If there are multiple readings in a given area (Say 100m^2), average them.
Second, figure out the peak speed, minimum speed, average speed (Both mean and RMS) as well as the standard deviation for each carrier.
There's so much focus on peak speed these days (well, at least that's what gets the press), that I think people forget that what matters is the average experience. It's like with stereo amplifiers: Peak wattage tells you nothing about overall power output, RMS wattage (Root Mean Square) tells you about power output...
Just my idea. Feel free to steal or rip it to shreds...
Actually, it's quite different. Exchange and Zimbra are, for all practical purposes, equivalent systems. They both act as an MTA. They both can run on one server. They both offer support contracts. They both support push notifications and so on. The significant differences are minimum cost (Since you can download one for free, and the other you cannot) and open vs closed (There are others I know, but these should suffice for the purposes of this discussion)...
The point I was making, is that the Android Push/WinMo Active Sync/Iphone Push solutions are fundamentally different from the RIM architecture in that all services that the BB uses are pushed through a proxy server first. My question was if there is a significant reason behind the proxy server (which, judging from the replies, there looks to be) enough to justify that added layer of complexity/failure point (Other than as a revenue generating service)... I fully understand that everyone has reasons for their choices. I honestly wanted to know what those reasons were (I didn't understand the benefits of the choice, so how could I understand its purpose?). After reading the answers, I don't think I need that service, but I can fully understand why so many businesses use them...
That promotes good programmers. Assuming an even amount on everyone's "Todo list", an average programmer would have 40 hours of work per week. A very skilled programmer may be able to finish their list in say 30. An unskilled programmer may take 80 (if at all). Should the company be punished for its employees' abilities (or lack of)? Of course this is theoretical, but the point stands.
What happens in the real world, is the company does one of two things. They see the skilled programmer "slacking off" or leaving early, and fire him. Or they give him more work to do (for the same money as everyone else) until he has an average of 40 hours per week (or so)...
Slashdot Mirror
The three most valuable things to a pilot are 10 gallons more fuel, 1000 feet more altitude and 5 minutes ago...
Welcome to the world of politics...
Seriously though, what happens when you don't use the dns provider of the ISP (either running your own, or using a 3pd DNS provider)? Would that make anyone running their own DNS server (or an alternate third party) a suspicious person? They would only be able to log IP addresses then, and given the proliferation of mass shared hosts, how is this helpful? If a child porn site was on a godaddy server, and you go to another site on the same server, would you have to prove you went to the other site? More guilty until proven innocent...
I did acknowledge that it's not the only part of the accuracy equation. However, since it (as you say) accounts for somewhere "less than" 33% of the error, it's indeed blocking the progression to sub-meter resolution. Currently, GPS is limited to around 3 meters or so (IIRC). So 33% of that 3 meter "error" would be 1 meter... So that implies, that unless we improve the accuracy of the clocks, sub-meter accuracy would be impossible (using unaugmented systems). Installing these clocks on the GPS satellites won't in itself increase the accuracy to 10cm, but it would make it technically possible (which it would not be without them)...
There's a simple answer. The speed of light (in a vacuum) is the absolute speed limit. The red and blue shifts you are talking about are when an object with mass goes faster through a specific medium than light can. But the key point there is that it's through a specific medium. Even if you were inside of a space ship that was going through a dense cloud faster than light could go through it, you'd still be going far less than C. Plus, the light that's measured here is presumably passing through a vacuum inside of the clock... That's without taking relativity into account. Once you add special relativity, the effect that time slows as you approach C causes everything to work itself out. Note that there's no absolute clock. There is no such thing as absolute time. There's only time relative to a reference frame. So while the clock on a space ship going 0.5*C relative to earth will go significantly slower than one on earth, it'll still be just as accurate within that reference frame (So two ships with the exact same velocity (vector) which have these clocks will be as accurate as they would be if sitting on earth).
Even if time did stand still or go backwards, you wouldn't be able to tell since our perception is dependent on time going forwards. Since time must be constant in any non-accelerated reference frame (gravity asside), if a clock was stopped by the slowing of time, so would your heart, and cells, and brain, and electrical impulses, etc...
I would recommend a pair of books for you written by Richard Feynman. Six easy pieces and Six Not so easy pieces... They provide a good "foundation" if you've never had a college level calculus based physics series before...
Correct, which is why I said in my post that ILS and radar altitude are needed at the present time. Radar altitude systems are prohibitively expensive and big (pretty much only usable on commercial airliners and in military applications). ILS is good for approach, but you can't land off it. It'll get you down to 50 feet AGL (or less in certain areas), but it won't get you though the flare. That's because the glideslope portion of the ILS signal is set a 3 degrees. So it can only tell you your relation to the 3* slope, not distance above the ground (which is what's really needed when you're over the threashold). ILS gets you aligned with the runway, and onto the proper approach path. It's an approach system, not a landing system (and was never designed as such)... For an ILS system without a radar altimiter, the pilot always must handle the actual landing. (hence the classes of autopilot, and existence of a decision height -- The height which you need to either be able to proceed visually, or abort the approach)... That's why autoland based on GPS is such an interesting thing. It would enable cheaper autoland systems which are a lot smaller than present systems (Basically business jets and light aircraft could potentially be equipped) and don't depend on airport infrastructure. So you could theoretically autoland on a small General Aviation airport...
I do have my Private Pilots license with Instrument rating, but I also love physics...
You need that kind of precision to do it from several hundred miles away (As is what happens with GPS). The Satellites all have clocks on board that are synchronized and constantly transmit the time. A GPS receiver simply needs to listen to a few of the satellites, and compute the difference between their times to determine the location. The kicker of it is that since the satellites are moving at fast speeds (relative to us), the time of their clocks are different from "our" time. So special relativity is used to counter those relativistic effects. So basically, GPS is only as accurate as the clocks that form its backbone. That's one of the reasons why unaugmented GPS is limited in accuracy to a few meters. Improving the accuracy of the clocks (by orders of magnitude) has the potential to cut down a few meters to potentially tens of centimeters... You'd need that level of accuracy to land a plane... Planes "flare" during landing (slowing the rate of decent to nearly 0 just as the wheels touch down). Plus or minus even one meter in any direction (up, down, forward, back, side to side) could be catastrophic. So current "autoland" autopilots use radar altitude and ground based ILS (radio based navigation) to gain the necessary precision. If GPS accuracy gets good enough to where you don't need those aux systems (or need them as primary at least), complexity of autopilots would drop significantly...
Because it's a selling point for the app. Take "Bump" for example... Simply stating it's compatible with Android and iPhone is a huge selling point (if they charged for the app). Especially as more and more apps are letting you interact with other people, it's definitely a good selling point that you can interact with non iPhone users.
Is this type of advertising hurting Apple? Not in the least. In fact, I'd argue that it's doing the exact opposite. With the rejection of an app because it said "Android" in it, it makes me wonder if there's any commitment on their part to support device interoperability (even if just on the app level)... And that question COULD hurt them on the business end (and the power users who are on the fence)...
True, but also look at the scale of the effort. In theory, you'd only need 10% of the number of transistors to achieve the same level of throughput (ignoring interconnects), so the production yields of each wafer could be as high as 10 times that of silicon wafers to produce the same "chip". So if the Si Carbide wafer costs 8 times as much to produce, you have a net reduction in chip cost. Plus, this allows you to scale the chips up in transistor size depending on application need (and hence cost). So a 100ghz network appliance using SiC may cost significantly more than the 5ghz Si counterpart, but also gives you so much higher throughput, that it's worth it in applications that need that much bandwidth. While I do agree that it's not likely to see the next generation mobile processors using the technology in the near future, the applications that can justify the extra cost most definitely do exist...
I think that your calling the ThinkPad a "piece of shit" is more a testament about you than the machine. Note: I'm not calling you a "piece of shit", I'm saying that you're not able to leverage what the ThinkPad has to offer (Just like I'm not able to leverage what the MacBook has to offer). It doesn't mean that the device itself is flawed. Just your relationship to the device is flawed. Let me explain (I own a ThinkPad T61p):
- First off, you say that the battery life is better on the mac. My thinkpad gets around 4.5 hours out of a battery, and I can swap that out if I need more time. Plus, if I really want, I can swap my CD drive for a battery which will net me about another 2 to 3 hours. So with 2 main batteries and 1 cd drive battery, I can get around 11 hours of run time without going into standby or sleep...
- Multi-touch trackpad. I do admit, it is quite cool what you can do with that trackpad. However, realize that I can do just about everything it can do without moving my hand from the keyboard. Go back or forward in the browser? There are keys for that above the directional keys. Scroll? PageUp/Down. Go to "expose" style app switcher? Alt-Win-Tab... Is it for everyone? No, but I found that once I got used to the keyboard, my productivity went through the roof, while wrist strain went away (not moving hands as much)...
- Built in camera/mic. The thinkpads do have a built in mic. The camera is an option. To me, this isn't a big deal, since I don't use the camera that much.
- Nice display. My T61 has a 1920x1200 WUXGA screen which is capable of displaying native 1080p. The only MacBook that could do that is a 17" pro (mine's a 15"). The screen I have is amazing. Not saying that there aren't better screens, but why should I pay more of something that I don't need?
- Fingerprint Scanner. I've NEVER had a mis-read. It has always read my fingerprints correctly the first time, every time. Perhaps you're using an inconsistent technique?
- No OSX. This is my favorite argument. People say that Mac hardware is better because it can run OSX. Using that as an argument is like saying that a Ferrari is better than a Lamborghini because Red is sexier than Yellow. If Apple wanted to make OSX available for non-Mac computers, they could and this argument would be non-existent. But to detract from the HARDWARE of one manufacturer because it won't run the software of another is silly. That's the fault of Apple, so if anything it should be a detraction of Apple, not IBM...
- Magsafe. I like to move around with my laptop. I'm not stupid about it. I don't just grab and run with it. I can tell if its still plugged in. However, if I turn in my chair, I would rather have the slight tug of a chord telling me not to go any further than to have to keep finding the chord and plugging it back in. I'm not saying Magsafe is bad for everyone. Just that I would rather have a firm, secure connection to the wall rather than something that'll pop out every time I sneeze...
The only thing in your list which I would concede is weight. But that's why I have an X200 at work. The x200 is small (12" screen), portable and light. Yet it still has most of the qualities of the T61. To me, weight doesn't matter with a desktop replacement laptop. Ease of portability just isn't one of my criteria...
I'm not saying that Apple hardware sucks (it's very good actually). I'm also not saying that the Thinkpads are better than the Apple ones in an absolute manor. What I am saying is that it comes down to your interaction with the hardware that makes it right for you. Saying that Thinkpads are "pieces of shit" is exactly the same as the issue I have with most Mac fanatics. Because you like it better doesn't make it better... It makes it better for YOU.
Well, if 1000 people downloaded it (And 100% of them would have purchased it otherwise), the damage would be ~$17k. If 3k people downloaded it, damages would be == to actual losses. Now, assuming that a small fraction of users would have purchased it if they didn't download it (Let's for arguments sake say 1%), then 300k downloads would be needed to inflict around $50k of damages...
Do I believe this? No, but this is the kind of math that would be used. Of course, you'd need to justify not only how many people downloaded, but also the percentage of those that would have otherwise purchased the album. Since that's not trivial at best (And not possible at worst), they settle on gross estimations (not even educated guesses)...
Personally, $2k per song is still high, but a whole lot better than $200k... And perhaps that's what they want. Get the figure low enough that it's not worth fighting so people just give up and pay it... Sad, really...
Well, tapes use a multi-pass write method (At least LTO, which I am familiar with does). The largest generation tape now (LTO5) takes 56 passes (both directions) to write. So it's not a trivial calculation... (I have no idea the number of passes that they use, hence why it's an important factor. They could have increased the tracks per pass, or increased the passes, or both)...
I didn't say it wouldn't improve. What I did say is that I would like to know HOW/IF it did improve this time... LTO5 can only achieve around 180 MBps... At that speed, you're looking at somewhere around 54 hours to write to these tapes... Hardly inconsequential...
So what about speed? What good is the ability to store 35TB of data, if it takes you a week to write/read it?
Perhaps this proves that "electrosensitivity" is more mental than tangible....
The issue that remains is if a company can be held responsible for the mental anguish that it indirectly caused. (I mention indirectly, because the act of constructing a tower isn't directly changing peoples mental condition, it's simply "turning on" something that may have been there)... Either way, it should be interesting to see how this pans out...
Well you have to define the term stable. There's a big difference between "doesn't need new features" and "is bug free" and "has no security issues"... There's also different methods to deal with the deprecation. I'd HATE to see them stop support entirely on those branches simply because there's little activity. So many sites rely on them that upgrading would be a non-trivial act. What I would rather see is a "staged" deprecation. Basically reduce 2.0 and 1.3 to "security and mission critical bug fixes only". That way if a major security issue is found, it can be fixed (same with a major bug, but at this point what's the chance of that)... After a set amount of time in that phase, support would be dropped entirely. So say the security support for a branch lasts 3 years. That way it gives admins a chance to upgrade the software without putting themselves at undue risk...
Just my $0.02...
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers...
I couldn't find anything on it quickly before I head home from work. I'll look around when I get home. It's been 4 or 5 years since I saw the video, so I'll have to do some digging. If I find anything, I'll post it back here...
Yes, gasoline can burn. But it's exceptionally rare for gasoline to explode (Quick bit of trivia. A full gas tank won't explode. There's not enough O2. One that's just about empty has a higher chance of going boom)... Not to mention that AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) firefighting foam can usually stop a gasoline fire quite effectively. How do you stop a battery fire? Put water on it (AFFF is mostly water)? A dry chemical fire extinguisher? More likely, just let it burn out... I've seen more than a few car fires, and most of the time unless the passengers are entrapped, they can get out quite easily before there's significant danger to them. That's why you don't hear many people dieing in car fires (well, ok, Not many relative to how many car fires there are)... When a battery goes up, there's little time to do anything since at the energies that are involved the fire can progress extremely rapidly (if not explosively).
I don't buy that. One of the biggest gripes that I have with the GPL (and I have released a fair amount of code under it) is that it promotes compliance through ignorance. Let me explain:
So long as whatever you do is released GPL, you're fine (well, under 99% of the cases anyway). If you want to release under any other license, determining if it's allowable is a nightmare. Try to interface a non-gpl plugin with an application. There's no "easy" answer as to if you can do that. Every lawyer will say something different. There's no legal precedent with regards to how non-gpl code can interact with gpl code. So the "easy" way to comply is to just license your code GPL... Sure, there are black and white compliance cases, but the vast majority that I've looked at are well in the gray area. Can you dynamically link a non-GPL lib into a GPL program? Can you dynamically link a GPL lib into a non-GPL program? What about statically? More importantly, WHY? Now, explain that to a judge who has no technical background.
Again, I'm not arguing with the ideals of the GPL, I'm arguing the ambiguity when it comes to interfacing with non-GPL code (At least from discussions and conversations I've had with lawyers and other prominent developers)...
Forget crush (It's not that difficult to armor the batteries)... What happens when you short one out? I remember seeing a video of a firefighter cutting someone out of a hybrid. They went to cut the seat supports, and accidentally cut the 400v DC positive line that was running under the center console (It runs in a tunnel from the trunk up to the engine compartment)... It instantly welded the cutting tool to the ground, and proceeded to destroy (rather catastrophically) the batteries. The firefighter suffered some minor burns, and the victim was taken out of the car quick enough (Using a rapid extrication technique) to avoid further injury... The car was, needless to say, a total loss.
Between airbags and these large battery packs, cars are becoming more and more dangerous (Airbags do save lives, but have you ever seen the aftermath when a firefighter accidentally cuts the nitrogen cylinder to one? Or gets in the way when one accidentally goes off?)... I remember another video where a firefighter was holding C-Spine traction (Holding the victims head still, to prevent spinal injuries from causing more damage) on a 2 seat BMW. One that had explosive actuated rollbars that came up only in the event of an accident (I assume to maintain the aesthetics of the car). Well, while they were freeing the victim from the wreckage, the rollbars were somehow triggered. When it came up, it hit him in the neck right below his jaw and killed him on the spot.
Don't forget, safety is always a trade-off. Usually it's between safe and usable. Sometimes it's between safe under normal conditions for more dangerous in edge cases. Still others, it's safe vs practicality (which is where these home batteries probably fall). I'd imagine that building code would be altered shortly after these things start popping up in homes to mandate fire suppression systems where they are installed (or at least a fireproof compartment that they get stored it). Would that alter their usability? No. Would it make them less worth it? Well, that's for consumers to decide...
Simple. For the test to really provide any meaningful data, it would have to be performed on more than just AT&T's network... Perhaps an Android App, an iPhone App and a WinMo App would do it. The more data, the better the result set would be.
But there's another logistical challenge... Running a 3g modem and a GPS receiver at the same time at a fast enough rate to get the kind of data coverage we're talking about would be hell on a battery. Which is why I don't know if an App would cut it (it would almost necessitate "someone" doing it with all 4 or 5 phones at the same time, while connected to a charger (to negate battery effects)...
Seriously, why is this news? We all know that a new revision will come down the road at some point. The only "new" information here (for me at least) is the ordering of the 5mp cameras...
What I found more interesting than what's posted here, is what Engadget reported yesterday:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/apple-planning-event-for-january-with-high-res-iphone-or-small/
I'd be curious to see the results of a test conducted as follows:
Setup a test rig that automatically tests download speed and latency from a few different servers (globally dispersed) every 30 seconds. Have it geotag each result.
Drive around each of the cities (and metro area surrounding them), and gather the data over a few days for each city.
Then, compute a few different metrics. First, for each carrier, generate a heat map of download speeds (It would wind up looking something like Verizon's 3g Map, but with different colors denoting speed ranges). If there are multiple readings in a given area (Say 100m^2), average them.
Second, figure out the peak speed, minimum speed, average speed (Both mean and RMS) as well as the standard deviation for each carrier.
There's so much focus on peak speed these days (well, at least that's what gets the press), that I think people forget that what matters is the average experience. It's like with stereo amplifiers: Peak wattage tells you nothing about overall power output, RMS wattage (Root Mean Square) tells you about power output...
Just my idea. Feel free to steal or rip it to shreds...
Actually, it's quite different. Exchange and Zimbra are, for all practical purposes, equivalent systems. They both act as an MTA. They both can run on one server. They both offer support contracts. They both support push notifications and so on. The significant differences are minimum cost (Since you can download one for free, and the other you cannot) and open vs closed (There are others I know, but these should suffice for the purposes of this discussion)...
The point I was making, is that the Android Push/WinMo Active Sync/Iphone Push solutions are fundamentally different from the RIM architecture in that all services that the BB uses are pushed through a proxy server first. My question was if there is a significant reason behind the proxy server (which, judging from the replies, there looks to be) enough to justify that added layer of complexity/failure point (Other than as a revenue generating service)... I fully understand that everyone has reasons for their choices. I honestly wanted to know what those reasons were (I didn't understand the benefits of the choice, so how could I understand its purpose?). After reading the answers, I don't think I need that service, but I can fully understand why so many businesses use them...
That promotes good programmers. Assuming an even amount on everyone's "Todo list", an average programmer would have 40 hours of work per week. A very skilled programmer may be able to finish their list in say 30. An unskilled programmer may take 80 (if at all). Should the company be punished for its employees' abilities (or lack of)? Of course this is theoretical, but the point stands.
What happens in the real world, is the company does one of two things. They see the skilled programmer "slacking off" or leaving early, and fire him. Or they give him more work to do (for the same money as everyone else) until he has an average of 40 hours per week (or so)...