We've already got tens of thousands of software patents in the hand of large corporations, EULAs that essentially substitute buying for leasing/renting software, Cloud services rapidly replace existing freer and more distributed solutions (Usenet, email, etc.), and a more oppressive copyright law passes every few years ( DMCA, SOPA, what will be next?). What if GNU/Linux distributors and FOSS developers are starting to get sued successfully? What if they don't have large enough patent portfolios to defend themselves? Fast-forward twenty years and general purpose computer programming or even just owning a general purpose computer could be prohibited. You think that's impossible? Who will prevent it? The Government?
Besides, the less general purpose computers are used, the more they will cost, so even if they don't go away anybody who likes these machines has reasons to be concerned.
I'd have no problem with self-proclaimed UI designers as long as they'd respect the following very basic "rules of thumb":
* Every command can have a keyboard shortcut.
* Issuing a command immediately provides visual feedback (always and with absolutely no visible delay, even menu items should blink).
* While a command is issued or visual feedback is given other commands can be issued without delay, provided that processing has not become very slow and the queue becomes long (the latter must be avoided at all costs by using suitable programming techniques and data structures but of course sometimes a machine is just doing too much work).
* Important commands are no more than one mouse click away, less important ones 2 or a maximum 3. There is really no need for an UI where you need to click or open 3 different menus/views/buttons/windows to get anywhere.
* All visible GUI elements such as toolbars, panels, buttons are freely configurable both in their content and their spacing and place.
* All interface elements can be selected and used with the keyboard or there are equivalent keyboard commands.
* Windows and interface elements always remember their settings such as position, size, etc.
* Modal dialogs are avoided as much as possible.
* Instant/live update of the results of search fields is welcome, but then it must be instant--no delay.
There is a hidden fallacy in your argument and in many other posts about GUI design here. The majority does not count at all, what counts is the objective measurements of productivity of users of different UIs for features these users actually use. Most users only use extremely few features. It obviously doesn't make sense to base your GUI design decisions on the opinion of users who don't actually use the features you write part of the GUI for.
For example: I'm not using tabs in Browsers at all, I've never used Spotlight on OS X and barely used the file search function, I've never used "clean up desktop" on Mac OS X, I've used the "remove unused desktop icons" wizard only once in my life in Windows XP (that sucked...), I'm not using work spaces on Ubuntu and barely know any Gnome 2 keyboard shortcuts. Other people use all these features. Obviously, my opinion about these features and how they could be improved is insignificant in comparison to those of the people who use them. In other words, everybody is a power-user of some feature, even if it's just the Google search bar, but almost nobody is a power-user of the GUI as a whole. A good GUI design must take this into account.
The "main audience" is a complete myth. There are clusters of users of features, say type A uses b, c, d type B uses c, d, g,and so on, with only partial overlap. If you build the intersection of these sets you'll not end up with the GUI the "main audience" wants, you'll end up with a shitty, dumbed-down GUI nobody likes. That's what happened to Gnome 3 and Unity and might happen to OS X and Windows 8 soon. That's what I have learned from my users, and I'm also in the firing line for over a decade.
Exactly. And the best way to defend yourself is forward defense. I learned this from a self-defense book by Bruce Lee that I studied in a book store when I was a kid. The method is not as easy as it might seem, though. It requires a constantly vigilant attitude and sharp senses. Basically, what you need to do first is train a lot of Jet Ki Do, Kit-tu, wing-chuck and all this shit. Then, you have to constantly watch your surroundings. If you see someone who looks suspicious or like a mugger, it's time for action. Suppose, for example, there is a suspiciously looking guy walking behind you. Forward defense means that you spot this guy early, and before he can do anything you kick the living daylight out of him without a warning. Since you have the initiative you will quickly overwhelm him---and you are safe and unharmed and can go on with your daily business. (Just make sure you kick him a few additional times while he's lying on the floor, so he cannot get after you.)
Thank you Bruce Lee, for this marvelous book! And you, dear fellow/. readers, may thank me for this valuable information! I salute you!
All joking aside, there's a definite shift in consumer behavior. This "overblown hype" isn't making something up out of thin air.
I disagree. That's exactly what is happening---it's a hype made out of thin air. The real reason why these tablet technologies are pushed so aggressively onto the market---with the resulting shift in consumer behavior---is simply that companies have figured out that making faster and faster desktop machines will create problems in the near future. Physical limits are hit and software and developers are by far not ripe enough for taking real advantage of multicore. Worse, people have finally figured out that for everyday computing like web surfing and writing emails, they don't need to buy a new computer every 3 years. Add gaming consoles to this and it's clear that the traditional desktop model became a problem.
PC manufacturers were horrified by the idea that computers could become like tube TV sets in the 70ies and 80ies which worked for 10-20 years or longer without breaking and without a need for getting a new one, so they had to come up with some bullshit. Consequently, managers all over the world have gotten really enthusiastic about the idea to shove smartphones and tablets down the throats of their customers. These devices have almost no real use, they are nothing more than playtoy gadgets very much like applications on social networks. That doesn't mean customers cannot be herded into buying them---and they are guaranteed to be be basically non-functional within 2-3 years after release.
Well, the desktop in general, Windows included, is rapidly becoming inconsequential other than for business use.
I really don't think that this is true at all---you're just repeating like a parrot what you have been trained to say by sales people and advertisement. People use both phones/tablets and a desktop computer (laptop or stationary), and none of these can or will ever replace the other. (At least not in the next 10-20 years. If nearly perfect, speaker-independent speech recognition under background noise ever becomes available, we can talk about this again.)
Computers are primarily used for two things: content consumation (web surfing, audio and video streaming) and content production (=writing). Try to do the latter on your tablet or phone. And yes, even Joe the fucking Plumber does write a lot and not just at work. In other words, the percentage of tablet or phone users that do not also have and use a personal desktop computer (laptop or stationary, but with large screen) is rather small, and this is not going to change anytime soon.
Difficult to describe. There seems to be some lag when it tries to interpolate the future position of the moving truck, or something like that, at 0:35 in the first video. The heli is floating too long above the target and backwards relative to it. A good pilot (trained in doing this) will match the speed before reaching the target and then land "less tentatively" on the spot, like you would land on the ground. To be fair, I was assuming that the truck kept very constant speed, though. If it has changed speed at around 0:35, I'd say a human wouldn't do much better. They should display the target's speed in the movies.
Anyway, I'm not an expert, just a flight simmer. Real pilots please correct me if I'm wrong.
In India, showing your bare feet to someone is extremely offensive. There are similar traditions in Pakistan so it probably is part of an insult of some sort. Just a guess though.
Islam is an evil religion that tells them to kill non muslims. They would use it if teh could get away with it.
Sorry, whatever protection you have against terrorists is highly inefficient. The only reason you aren't dead is because no-one rellay wants to kill you. So no, you are wrong. Most muslims are good people that doesn't want to kill anyone.
Exactly. Chrisq's commentary is based on utter ignorance. There was a large Gallup study about the Muslim community, the largest ever conducted about this topic, published as a book in 2008. In a nutshell, the study shows that Muslims are as peaceful as other people and share amazingly many views with e.g. most Americans. And, not very surprisingly, the very small militant minority among them is primarily motivated by political -- not religious -- reasons just like most other militants.
Having had my fair share of "cool" nightlife for many years in a major European city that is very popular everywhere in the world, I can hereby attest that people who think of themselves as being "cool" tend to be morons.
Here is a little anecdote. While I was slacking around not finishing my studies I've once met a mathematician who was working on the mathematics of string theory and told me he was for many years getting up every morning at 8 o'clock, had a cup of tea (not coffee...bad for concentration), learned math the whole day long, and didn't have any social life (bad for concentration). He was incredibly smart but also really happy to finally have a beer with someone. I wouldn't say he was cool then. However, I'm pretty sure he is cool in another sense now, because he likely does something really interesting nowadays--something that halfway mature people will probably find "cool" although they cannot understand it.
So basically, what I want to say is: forget about the instant gratification of "coolness" and do what really interests you.
(Well, to be honest I never checked what this guy is doing now, so he could also just have become a cab driver.... hehhehe)
What has slowed them down is a fairly clever bit of sabotage and perhaps killing a few people in key positions.
Yes, and slowing down plus creating a lot of additional hatred is the only thing these measures will ever achieve. Unless you continually bomb their universities and research facilities, a developed country that wants to build a nuclear weapon will at one day or another be able to build one. (Of course, it also doesn't help that the US and Israel already have many more nuclear weapons than Iran, it's neighboring country has recently been attacked and conquered by the US, and the US and Israel have de facto waged more attack wars than Iran.)
This paper is about program language syntax, and frankly speaking I think it's a shame that after so many decades of programming language research syntax is still being discussed and people constantly come up with new ways of writing down the same. Why do people invent a new syntax every time they invent a new language as if it mattered at all? Who the fuck cares about syntax?
However, if we must talk about syntax, I'm really wondering whether there is anyone out there who honestly believes that there is anything wrong with LISP style S-expressions, which is about the simplest syntax you can get, after actually having completed several large projects in a prefix LISP-style language with standard reader. For it seems that most if not all people ranting about parentheses and s-expressions have never really used any such language. I'm fine with being wrong about this, so I'd like to know: Is there anyone on/. who has actually programmed a lot with a LISP-style language and didn't like for its syntax or had problems with its syntax? What was the problem with it? (Parentheses? Well, then use Algol-68 instead.)
In brief, shouldn't the discussion be about programming language semantics instead? There is still lots of work to do regarding parallel programming constructs.
It's still amazing, since the case illustrates that one or both of the judges do not base their decisions on facts, or at least that the facts are weighted in contradictory ways by differing jurisdictions -- something which a layman wouldn't readily expect.
Is this the common trend of Lisp usage: language of extension and customization?
No, Lua, Scheme, and probably also Javascript have become more popular for that purpose over the years. LISP is mostly CommonLisp nowadays. It's very complete, standardized, and some CL implementations like SBCL are very fast, but CL is not very well-suited for extension and customization (at least not for lightweight one). It depends on how you define it, of course; if you include all Scheme dialects and non-standard LISPs out there LISP is definitely alive and used a lot.
The main problem of CommonLisp is the lack of a truly portable, cross-platform, free, and cross-implementation GUI library. There are some libraries and standards out there but most CL implementations don't fully support them, and nothing is worse than half-backed glue code with improper documentation. Moreover, commercial CL implementations are expensive and tend to lock their customers in by introducing small incompatibilities or extensions to standards.
I'm a philosopher---by education and in my current job, not self-proclaimed or as a dubious honorary title---and I can hardly imagine anything philosophers could ever universally agree upon.
Apple's design process: let's do lots of research as to what works and doesn't, both in software and hardware. Samsung's design process: let's copy Apple's.
You're totally right. Here is an excerpt from a forthcoming Steve Jobs biography that backs up your insight with a little anecdote from the time the iPhone was invented:
Apple developed a triangular prototype first but Steve Jobs rejected it with the commentary "holy trinity, that's just too Christian for my taste---I"m a satanist". So they had to come up with other designs: apple-shaped ("nice try but impractical"), banana-shaped ("no more fruits, please!"), octahedral ("hmm...this might actually work"), round ("good, good...looks familiar enough...bring it on..."), dodecahedral ("na...looks to much as if we were trying to square the circle"), a line ("could someone fire this idiot, please?"), pentagonal ("perhaps a military version against RIM, but not now, they are their own worst enemy already"), heptagonal ("WTF, this looks like the other one, this octa-thing, what's the fucking difference??"), square ("I like this, I like this, but something is wrong with it, I just can't pin it down yet...")
Finally, when the Apple designers couldn't come up with new shapes anymore and were already starting to fear their bosses' wrath, Steve Jobs looked out of the window, then at his table, then out of the window again....now back at the table, and with a stroke of genius declared:
"This is how we do it! We make it like this window! Or, this table. Whatever."
Everybody was going "Aaaahhhhh!" They couldn't believe how simple and at the meantime ingenious this idea was, but Jobs continued:
"Anyway, how this weird shape called?"
"Uhhh, we don't know, sir. It's not in our catalog yet."
"Then fucking go find out and do what you're paid for, you morons!", the congenial marketeer replied in his truly unforgettabe style.
However, one young guy---one of the brightest designers at Apple whose talent had not been properly recognized yet at this time, though---had the guts to voice his opinion:
"Ah, sir, I think it's called a rectangle. Uh...with a black frame around the window glass for what it's worth. Sorry sir."
"Good man," Jobs replied enthusiastically. "Gentlemen, this guy is promoted. Now go and patent this shit."
That's really a pitty---what an injustice! I think that all alleged patent violations should lead to an immediate stop of sales. Moreover, to serve justice, patent laws must be adjusted such that all patent violations have to be investigated and punished, no matter whether the patent holder wants to or not. For the sake of innovation and the protection of "intellectual property rights" all companies that violate any patent must pay hefty fines in the range of millions or billions!
Why don't they allow only signed software that is on a whitelist to run on their computers?
Sure, whitelists are highly undesirable for ordinary consumers (to say the least..), but for the military or other domains with high security demands they seem to make sense to me. Shouldn't their software be audited and signed first anyway? Shouldn't they run a custom BIOS and an operating system that can check signatures before running code? Are there technical reasons against this?
Slashdot Mirror
Open computers won't go away
What makes you so sure of that?
We've already got tens of thousands of software patents in the hand of large corporations, EULAs that essentially substitute buying for leasing/renting software, Cloud services rapidly replace existing freer and more distributed solutions (Usenet, email, etc.), and a more oppressive copyright law passes every few years ( DMCA, SOPA, what will be next?). What if GNU/Linux distributors and FOSS developers are starting to get sued successfully? What if they don't have large enough patent portfolios to defend themselves? Fast-forward twenty years and general purpose computer programming or even just owning a general purpose computer could be prohibited. You think that's impossible? Who will prevent it? The Government?
Besides, the less general purpose computers are used, the more they will cost, so even if they don't go away anybody who likes these machines has reasons to be concerned.
I'd have no problem with self-proclaimed UI designers as long as they'd respect the following very basic "rules of thumb":
* Every command can have a keyboard shortcut.
* Issuing a command immediately provides visual feedback (always and with absolutely no visible delay, even menu items should blink).
* While a command is issued or visual feedback is given other commands can be issued without delay, provided that processing has not become very slow and the queue becomes long (the latter must be avoided at all costs by using suitable programming techniques and data structures but of course sometimes a machine is just doing too much work).
* Important commands are no more than one mouse click away, less important ones 2 or a maximum 3. There is really no need for an UI where you need to click or open 3 different menus/views/buttons/windows to get anywhere.
* All visible GUI elements such as toolbars, panels, buttons are freely configurable both in their content and their spacing and place.
* All interface elements can be selected and used with the keyboard or there are equivalent keyboard commands.
* Windows and interface elements always remember their settings such as position, size, etc.
* Modal dialogs are avoided as much as possible.
* Instant/live update of the results of search fields is welcome, but then it must be instant--no delay.
Voila! A working GUI...at least in my opinion.
Right. If the police aren't allowed to use this laser then they will have to shoot protesters. There is just no other way.
There is a hidden fallacy in your argument and in many other posts about GUI design here. The majority does not count at all, what counts is the objective measurements of productivity of users of different UIs for features these users actually use. Most users only use extremely few features. It obviously doesn't make sense to base your GUI design decisions on the opinion of users who don't actually use the features you write part of the GUI for.
For example: I'm not using tabs in Browsers at all, I've never used Spotlight on OS X and barely used the file search function, I've never used "clean up desktop" on Mac OS X, I've used the "remove unused desktop icons" wizard only once in my life in Windows XP (that sucked...), I'm not using work spaces on Ubuntu and barely know any Gnome 2 keyboard shortcuts. Other people use all these features. Obviously, my opinion about these features and how they could be improved is insignificant in comparison to those of the people who use them. In other words, everybody is a power-user of some feature, even if it's just the Google search bar, but almost nobody is a power-user of the GUI as a whole. A good GUI design must take this into account.
The "main audience" is a complete myth. There are clusters of users of features, say type A uses b, c, d type B uses c, d, g ,and so on, with only partial overlap. If you build the intersection of these sets you'll not end up with the GUI the "main audience" wants, you'll end up with a shitty, dumbed-down GUI nobody likes. That's what happened to Gnome 3 and Unity and might happen to OS X and Windows 8 soon. That's what I have learned from my users, and I'm also in the firing line for over a decade.
Exactly. And the best way to defend yourself is forward defense. I learned this from a self-defense book by Bruce Lee that I studied in a book store when I was a kid. The method is not as easy as it might seem, though. It requires a constantly vigilant attitude and sharp senses. Basically, what you need to do first is train a lot of Jet Ki Do, Kit-tu, wing-chuck and all this shit. Then, you have to constantly watch your surroundings. If you see someone who looks suspicious or like a mugger, it's time for action. Suppose, for example, there is a suspiciously looking guy walking behind you. Forward defense means that you spot this guy early, and before he can do anything you kick the living daylight out of him without a warning. Since you have the initiative you will quickly overwhelm him---and you are safe and unharmed and can go on with your daily business. (Just make sure you kick him a few additional times while he's lying on the floor, so he cannot get after you.)
Thank you Bruce Lee, for this marvelous book! And you, dear fellow /. readers, may thank me for this valuable information! I salute you!
All joking aside, there's a definite shift in consumer behavior. This "overblown hype" isn't making something up out of thin air.
I disagree. That's exactly what is happening---it's a hype made out of thin air. The real reason why these tablet technologies are pushed so aggressively onto the market---with the resulting shift in consumer behavior---is simply that companies have figured out that making faster and faster desktop machines will create problems in the near future. Physical limits are hit and software and developers are by far not ripe enough for taking real advantage of multicore. Worse, people have finally figured out that for everyday computing like web surfing and writing emails, they don't need to buy a new computer every 3 years. Add gaming consoles to this and it's clear that the traditional desktop model became a problem.
PC manufacturers were horrified by the idea that computers could become like tube TV sets in the 70ies and 80ies which worked for 10-20 years or longer without breaking and without a need for getting a new one, so they had to come up with some bullshit. Consequently, managers all over the world have gotten really enthusiastic about the idea to shove smartphones and tablets down the throats of their customers. These devices have almost no real use, they are nothing more than playtoy gadgets very much like applications on social networks. That doesn't mean customers cannot be herded into buying them---and they are guaranteed to be be basically non-functional within 2-3 years after release.
Well, the desktop in general, Windows included, is rapidly becoming inconsequential other than for business use.
I really don't think that this is true at all---you're just repeating like a parrot what you have been trained to say by sales people and advertisement. People use both phones/tablets and a desktop computer (laptop or stationary), and none of these can or will ever replace the other. (At least not in the next 10-20 years. If nearly perfect, speaker-independent speech recognition under background noise ever becomes available, we can talk about this again.)
Computers are primarily used for two things: content consumation (web surfing, audio and video streaming) and content production (=writing). Try to do the latter on your tablet or phone. And yes, even Joe the fucking Plumber does write a lot and not just at work. In other words, the percentage of tablet or phone users that do not also have and use a personal desktop computer (laptop or stationary, but with large screen) is rather small, and this is not going to change anytime soon.
"...stealing secrets worth millions of dollars in intellectual property”, said committee chairman Mike Rogers
I stopped reading there. Shove your intellectual property up your ass.
Difficult to describe. There seems to be some lag when it tries to interpolate the future position of the moving truck, or something like that, at 0:35 in the first video. The heli is floating too long above the target and backwards relative to it. A good pilot (trained in doing this) will match the speed before reaching the target and then land "less tentatively" on the spot, like you would land on the ground. To be fair, I was assuming that the truck kept very constant speed, though. If it has changed speed at around 0:35, I'd say a human wouldn't do much better. They should display the target's speed in the movies.
Anyway, I'm not an expert, just a flight simmer. Real pilots please correct me if I'm wrong.
Impressive but still by far not as good as an experienced human pilot.
In India, showing your bare feet to someone is extremely offensive. There are similar traditions in Pakistan so it probably is part of an insult of some sort. Just a guess though.
Islam is an evil religion that tells them to kill non muslims. They would use it if teh could get away with it.
Sorry, whatever protection you have against terrorists is highly inefficient. The only reason you aren't dead is because no-one rellay wants to kill you.
So no, you are wrong. Most muslims are good people that doesn't want to kill anyone.
Exactly. Chrisq's commentary is based on utter ignorance. There was a large Gallup study about the Muslim community, the largest ever conducted about this topic, published as a book in 2008. In a nutshell, the study shows that Muslims are as peaceful as other people and share amazingly many views with e.g. most Americans. And, not very surprisingly, the very small militant minority among them is primarily motivated by political -- not religious -- reasons just like most other militants.
Maybe we could see more animated boobs.
Speaking of which....animating boobs seems to be incredibly hard. Does anyone have good resources on realistically animated boobs?
Having had my fair share of "cool" nightlife for many years in a major European city that is very popular everywhere in the world, I can hereby attest that people who think of themselves as being "cool" tend to be morons.
Here is a little anecdote. While I was slacking around not finishing my studies I've once met a mathematician who was working on the mathematics of string theory and told me he was for many years getting up every morning at 8 o'clock, had a cup of tea (not coffee...bad for concentration), learned math the whole day long, and didn't have any social life (bad for concentration). He was incredibly smart but also really happy to finally have a beer with someone. I wouldn't say he was cool then. However, I'm pretty sure he is cool in another sense now, because he likely does something really interesting nowadays--something that halfway mature people will probably find "cool" although they cannot understand it.
So basically, what I want to say is: forget about the instant gratification of "coolness" and do what really interests you.
(Well, to be honest I never checked what this guy is doing now, so he could also just have become a cab driver.... hehhehe)
What has slowed them down is a fairly clever bit of sabotage and perhaps killing a few people in key positions.
Yes, and slowing down plus creating a lot of additional hatred is the only thing these measures will ever achieve. Unless you continually bomb their universities and research facilities, a developed country that wants to build a nuclear weapon will at one day or another be able to build one. (Of course, it also doesn't help that the US and Israel already have many more nuclear weapons than Iran, it's neighboring country has recently been attacked and conquered by the US, and the US and Israel have de facto waged more attack wars than Iran.)
It's not a flaw, it's a feature!
This paper is about program language syntax, and frankly speaking I think it's a shame that after so many decades of programming language research syntax is still being discussed and people constantly come up with new ways of writing down the same. Why do people invent a new syntax every time they invent a new language as if it mattered at all? Who the fuck cares about syntax?
However, if we must talk about syntax, I'm really wondering whether there is anyone out there who honestly believes that there is anything wrong with LISP style S-expressions, which is about the simplest syntax you can get, after actually having completed several large projects in a prefix LISP-style language with standard reader. For it seems that most if not all people ranting about parentheses and s-expressions have never really used any such language. I'm fine with being wrong about this, so I'd like to know: Is there anyone on /. who has actually programmed a lot with a LISP-style language and didn't like for its syntax or had problems with its syntax? What was the problem with it? (Parentheses? Well, then use Algol-68 instead.)
In brief, shouldn't the discussion be about programming language semantics instead? There is still lots of work to do regarding parallel programming constructs.
It's still amazing, since the case illustrates that one or both of the judges do not base their decisions on facts, or at least that the facts are weighted in contradictory ways by differing jurisdictions -- something which a layman wouldn't readily expect.
Is this the common trend of Lisp usage: language of extension and customization?
No, Lua, Scheme, and probably also Javascript have become more popular for that purpose over the years. LISP is mostly CommonLisp nowadays. It's very complete, standardized, and some CL implementations like SBCL are very fast, but CL is not very well-suited for extension and customization (at least not for lightweight one). It depends on how you define it, of course; if you include all Scheme dialects and non-standard LISPs out there LISP is definitely alive and used a lot.
The main problem of CommonLisp is the lack of a truly portable, cross-platform, free, and cross-implementation GUI library. There are some libraries and standards out there but most CL implementations don't fully support them, and nothing is worse than half-backed glue code with improper documentation. Moreover, commercial CL implementations are expensive and tend to lock their customers in by introducing small incompatibilities or extensions to standards.
I'm a philosopher---by education and in my current job, not self-proclaimed or as a dubious honorary title---and I can hardly imagine anything philosophers could ever universally agree upon.
Perhaps you ought to relax your criterion a bit?
It's a Wolpertinger!
Apple's design process: let's do lots of research as to what works and doesn't, both in software and hardware.
Samsung's design process: let's copy Apple's.
You're totally right. Here is an excerpt from a forthcoming Steve Jobs biography that backs up your insight with a little anecdote from the time the iPhone was invented:
Apple developed a triangular prototype first but Steve Jobs rejected it with the commentary "holy trinity, that's just too Christian for my taste---I"m a satanist". So they had to come up with other designs: apple-shaped ("nice try but impractical"), banana-shaped ("no more fruits, please!"), octahedral ("hmm...this might actually work"), round ("good, good...looks familiar enough...bring it on..."), dodecahedral ("na...looks to much as if we were trying to square the circle"), a line ("could someone fire this idiot, please?"), pentagonal ("perhaps a military version against RIM, but not now, they are their own worst enemy already"), heptagonal ("WTF, this looks like the other one, this octa-thing, what's the fucking difference??"), square ("I like this, I like this, but something is wrong with it, I just can't pin it down yet...")
Finally, when the Apple designers couldn't come up with new shapes anymore and were already starting to fear their bosses' wrath, Steve Jobs looked out of the window, then at his table, then out of the window again....now back at the table, and with a stroke of genius declared:
"This is how we do it! We make it like this window! Or, this table. Whatever."
Everybody was going "Aaaahhhhh!" They couldn't believe how simple and at the meantime ingenious this idea was, but Jobs continued:
"Anyway, how this weird shape called?"
"Uhhh, we don't know, sir. It's not in our catalog yet."
"Then fucking go find out and do what you're paid for, you morons!", the congenial marketeer replied in his truly unforgettabe style.
However, one young guy---one of the brightest designers at Apple whose talent had not been properly recognized yet at this time, though---had the guts to voice his opinion:
"Ah, sir, I think it's called a rectangle. Uh...with a black frame around the window glass for what it's worth. Sorry sir."
"Good man," Jobs replied enthusiastically. "Gentlemen, this guy is promoted. Now go and patent this shit."
I'll be the first to buy a banana laptop once they are out.
That's really a pitty---what an injustice! I think that all alleged patent violations should lead to an immediate stop of sales. Moreover, to serve justice, patent laws must be adjusted such that all patent violations have to be investigated and punished, no matter whether the patent holder wants to or not. For the sake of innovation and the protection of "intellectual property rights" all companies that violate any patent must pay hefty fines in the range of millions or billions!
Why don't they allow only signed software that is on a whitelist to run on their computers?
Sure, whitelists are highly undesirable for ordinary consumers (to say the least..), but for the military or other domains with high security demands they seem to make sense to me. Shouldn't their software be audited and signed first anyway? Shouldn't they run a custom BIOS and an operating system that can check signatures before running code? Are there technical reasons against this?
Just wondering.