Not that you need a database... they're painted in flourescent yellow FFS. You'd have to be speeding *and* blind to miss them. And all the 'warning speed camera' signs leading up to them.
Also there's a 10%+3mph leeway on the cameras so you don't get hosed if you're a couple of mph over for some reason.
People slowing down is a big problem - the one near us has near permanent skid marks leading up to it as boy racers seem to try to brake at the last minute. Surprisingly there have been comparatively few accidents.
OTOH a car wears out in a few years. An XP install can theoretically run forever doing the same thing provided the underlying hardware can be made to run it - and the PC as a platform isn't going anywhere nor is it in any trouble.
So if MS went bust tomorrow, once the partying had finished the situation would be exactly as it is today with no change. Companies would step in to offer support, and over a period of a few years we would either all transition to a new OS or to 'new windows' once the IP had been sold to the highest bidder.
You could use Win2008 in desktop mode. It's vista from the other end... starts with everything switched off and you enable only what you need.
It's actually quite snappy.. bit of a memory hog but not too bad, and would have made a worthy successor to XP if it had been released in that form in the first place.
There are no intuitive interfaces.. everything it learned.
One thing that doesn't help is hiding options.. the original IBM style guides (that MS prety much stuck to until Vista) were clear that an option shouldn't appear and disappear as it's confusing.
Max. 'oops' points of cours goes to Office 2007 that manages to hide the file menu so successfully I've actually been called in to 'fix' a machine when 5 people in an office couldn't work out how to save a document.
Making the F22 software opensource (apart from the secrecy aspect) wouldn't be a big deal because as you point out you need an F22 to run it on - and they can charge you the cost of the software when they sell you the plane.
On a smaller scale the same is true of things like netgear routers.. they might have linux kernels but you've still got to pay netgear anyway.
A lot of software though exists on its own rather than being dependent on hardware. For that it's *much* harder to opensource.. you need another way to make money. That's why most of the large OSS projects are backed by companies that take the software, add their own proprietary value to it and resell it.. you can't sell the same product everyone else is getting for free so you have to embellish it somewhat.
Who will pay for it? In some limited cases eg. redhat you can get away with it, because putting together a distro is enough work that it's easy to show you're adding value.
For most software that just isn't true. Once something is opensource it's 'free' in the monetary sense, because the first person you sell it to can give it to everyone else for nothing. You might get a few altruistic people to donate a little but without some other hook there's no commercial value there.
Precisely.. let's say I develop a cool app, my company pays me for the time at the standard rate, then opensources it. How do they get a return on their investment? Not possible, since nobody will pay for it. What's more the competitors now have our source code, which saves them having to bid for it in the bankcruptcy court...
Heck even in the slightly warmer UK where we don't get the same extremes due to the gulf stream, the datacentre near us its AC about 2 days a year. We do this terribly technical thing cslled "opening the window" which is much cheaper than AC.
It's actually harder to keep these places warm than cool, even with all the machines in them.
They couldn't sell it at that price. A newspaper costs less than $1. So to be value for money this has to outlast 500 newspapers... at one a day that means it'll be about a year and a half.
If the newspaper costs 50c then double that.
It also has to be as light as a newspaper, be simple to read when commuting and fold up into pocket sized otherwise it's doomed.
The point of advertising is awareness... you bought that beer, so did a lot of other people. A certain %age decided they liked it and kept buying... kerching.
No advert will persuade 100% of people to buy the product, but it might persuade 10% to try it, and maybe 1% to switch brands. If you're advertising to a million people that's a lot of sales.
They already do - those advertising boards on the side? They're electronically generated - have been for years. That's why when you see something played in another country all the adverts are in english.
It also enables the game of 'spot the sponsor' on films. Some of the product placement is hillariously bad.
I won't say I'm not influenced by advertising, but in the generics case I can't recall a time I haven't bought the generic where it's available. I always look at ingredients.. if the cheaper one is the same, I save my money.
Since the US has been sat on its ass gloating for 40 years they're not 40 years behind any more. I'd put them maybe two or three before they go for the moon shot.
It depends on where he committed the crime. He's a german citizen commiting a crime in germany (and he was punished for it under german law) then that FBI can GTFO as far as I'm concerned. If they were that bothered they could have applied for extradition rather that using underhand tricks.
No different from the Dimitri Skylarov case, except he was arrested for something that wasn't even a crime in his home country.
Slashdot Mirror
So there's an emergency and the doctor in the cinema is needed immediately.
Who is going to tell him to break the glass?
Not that you need a database... they're painted in flourescent yellow FFS. You'd have to be speeding *and* blind to miss them. And all the 'warning speed camera' signs leading up to them.
Also there's a 10%+3mph leeway on the cameras so you don't get hosed if you're a couple of mph over for some reason.
People slowing down is a big problem - the one near us has near permanent skid marks leading up to it as boy racers seem to try to brake at the last minute. Surprisingly there have been comparatively few accidents.
Tomtom have been doing this for years.
OTOH a car wears out in a few years. An XP install can theoretically run forever doing the same thing provided the underlying hardware can be made to run it - and the PC as a platform isn't going anywhere nor is it in any trouble.
So if MS went bust tomorrow, once the partying had finished the situation would be exactly as it is today with no change. Companies would step in to offer support, and over a period of a few years we would either all transition to a new OS or to 'new windows' once the IP had been sold to the highest bidder.
You could use Win2008 in desktop mode. It's vista from the other end... starts with everything switched off and you enable only what you need.
It's actually quite snappy.. bit of a memory hog but not too bad, and would have made a worthy successor to XP if it had been released in that form in the first place.
There are no intuitive interfaces.. everything it learned.
One thing that doesn't help is hiding options.. the original IBM style guides (that MS prety much stuck to until Vista) were clear that an option shouldn't appear and disappear as it's confusing.
Max. 'oops' points of cours goes to Office 2007 that manages to hide the file menu so successfully I've actually been called in to 'fix' a machine when 5 people in an office couldn't work out how to save a document.
360k.
370k required hacks (you could push it to 400 on some disks).
OSX is often optimised for speed over successive releases... in fact one of the goals for snow leopard is improved performance.
It's something MS could probably learn from.. OTOH keeping everyone on the upgrade treadmill is worth it to them.
Judging by Hiroshima, it's in the kiloton range.
Making the F22 software opensource (apart from the secrecy aspect) wouldn't be a big deal because as you point out you need an F22 to run it on - and they can charge you the cost of the software when they sell you the plane.
On a smaller scale the same is true of things like netgear routers.. they might have linux kernels but you've still got to pay netgear anyway.
A lot of software though exists on its own rather than being dependent on hardware. For that it's *much* harder to opensource.. you need another way to make money. That's why most of the large OSS projects are backed by companies that take the software, add their own proprietary value to it and resell it.. you can't sell the same product everyone else is getting for free so you have to embellish it somewhat.
Who will pay for it? In some limited cases eg. redhat you can get away with it, because putting together a distro is enough work that it's easy to show you're adding value.
For most software that just isn't true. Once something is opensource it's 'free' in the monetary sense, because the first person you sell it to can give it to everyone else for nothing. You might get a few altruistic people to donate a little but without some other hook there's no commercial value there.
Precisely.. let's say I develop a cool app, my company pays me for the time at the standard rate, then opensources it. How do they get a return on their investment? Not possible, since nobody will pay for it. What's more the competitors now have our source code, which saves them having to bid for it in the bankcruptcy court...
Well technically you can't have a GPL Java, c# or VB app, because you can only link GPL apps with closed libraries if they ship with the OS.
Of course nobody takes it that far, except maybe lawyers.
Voyager was launched in the 1970's. Voyager 2 left the solar system in 2007... so should be picked up by aliens just about now.
I just thought they were able to distinguish cat molecules from dog molecules, or something.
Only an american could describe hitler as left wing....
Which you get about 5 days a year.
Heck even in the slightly warmer UK where we don't get the same extremes due to the gulf stream, the datacentre near us its AC about 2 days a year. We do this terribly technical thing cslled "opening the window" which is much cheaper than AC.
It's actually harder to keep these places warm than cool, even with all the machines in them.
They couldn't sell it at that price. A newspaper costs less than $1. So to be value for money this has to outlast 500 newspapers... at one a day that means it'll be about a year and a half.
If the newspaper costs 50c then double that.
It also has to be as light as a newspaper, be simple to read when commuting and fold up into pocket sized otherwise it's doomed.
On a project I worked on it was less than 0.1% - we even had large well funded companies say 'why should we pay?'.
Relying on human nature is doomed to failure.. you need stick as well as carrot.
The point of advertising is awareness... you bought that beer, so did a lot of other people. A certain %age decided they liked it and kept buying... kerching.
No advert will persuade 100% of people to buy the product, but it might persuade 10% to try it, and maybe 1% to switch brands. If you're advertising to a million people that's a lot of sales.
They already do - those advertising boards on the side? They're electronically generated - have been for years. That's why when you see something played in another country all the adverts are in english.
It also enables the game of 'spot the sponsor' on films. Some of the product placement is hillariously bad.
I won't say I'm not influenced by advertising, but in the generics case I can't recall a time I haven't bought the generic where it's available. I always look at ingredients.. if the cheaper one is the same, I save my money.
Troll? Surely the Simpsons should be required knowledge before you get mod status...
Since the US has been sat on its ass gloating for 40 years they're not 40 years behind any more. I'd put them maybe two or three before they go for the moon shot.
It depends on where he committed the crime. He's a german citizen commiting a crime in germany (and he was punished for it under german law) then that FBI can GTFO as far as I'm concerned. If they were that bothered they could have applied for extradition rather that using underhand tricks.
No different from the Dimitri Skylarov case, except he was arrested for something that wasn't even a crime in his home country.