So Apple is charging a nominal fee ($30) for their beta. Get over it. Call it a media charge or a handling charge. Apple is not going to make lots of money from this beta release.
The author seems to think OS X is going to require a 1 GHz G4 with 256M. Like most beta releases, the current beta is a memory and CPU hog. The release version should be noticeably smaller and faster. I don't see why it wouldn't run at a reasonable speed on an iMac with a memory upgrade.
Windows NT will run on a 486 or Pentium with 16M of RAM, but it is so slow that you will slit your wrists while waiting for a program to load and start running. It really needs 64M and 128M is what gets installed in NT systems where I work.
OS X is not going to run well, or at all, on some older Macs. Fine, stick with your current version of MacOS. Nobody is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to upgrade your system.
Try reading the article again. The message is only sent to the mail server if the recipient is not on-line. If the recipient is on-line, the message is delivered directly to the recipient.
Even if you have infinite resolution lithography, what about all of the other problems that become important when devices get smaller? I've read about several, such as quantum tunneling, higher noise, lower breakdown voltages and increased susceptibility to damage and electromigration. Not everything scales in a linear fashion.
The problem is that a PC operating system has to support all of the hardware, both good and bad, plus there are too many variations in the hardware. This caused many problems for IBM when they moved from supporting OS/2 only on genuine IBM PC/AT and PS/2 computers to supporting OS/2 on everything that claimed to be PC compatible. Apple could produce a version of OS X that was only guaranteed to run on a specific, tightly specified Intel system, but that just eliminated the vast majority of existing Intel systems. Getting the hardware vendors to write the drivers isn't a solution. Even Microsoft has problems getting hardware vendor support for Windows NT and Windows 2000.
I have Mac and PC hardware and I don't want to see a port of OS X to Intel. Whine all you want about "overpriced Mac hardware", it is a well defined target and allows Apple to do a nice job of software/hardware integration. I wouldn't wish PC hardware support on my worst enemy, there is just too much poorly designed and incompatible crap being sold.
One major problem is that the definition of upper and lower case is language and locale specific. It's a mess. It will only get worse with the adoption of Unicode. A case sensitive file system is much simpler and cleaner.
One good reason is that T1/T3 lines are not free. A properly designed, paid service allows the provider to provision adequate bandwidth and server resources for the predicted load. The problem with "free" services is that they are often overwhelmed by the demand and there is no money to upgrade the capacity of the service.
If you have the money, you can lease a DOMSAT (domestic satellite) transponder and build Earth stations at your network nodes. GE Americom provides this type of service in the USA.
Even for U.S. citizens, there is no statute of limitations for murder in most states. There is no statute of limitations for federal prosecution of capital crimes.
The U.S. Government has a long history of importing foreign workers to solve labor shortages, when a labor shortage is defined as uppity American workers who support labor unions or who want to be paid a decent wage. Remember the big nurse shortage? The problem wasn't a shortage of nurses, it was a shortage of nurses who were willing to be underpaid, treated like shit, and say "thank you sir, may I have another?"
And even after becoming citizens, naturalized citizens are always potentially subject to denaturalization, in which the INS can challenge and reverse the naturalization process until the day an immigrant dies. The statute of limitations for denaturalization was abolished about 10 years ago, another instance of what looks like a fairly hostile attitude towards immigrants.
There is a good reason for this. If you lie on you application for citizenship, say about your stint as the commander of a death squad, the INS can revoke your citizenship and deport you. Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
Does the station that provides local content need to be a network affiliate? The cable systems in my region got together and funded a cable channel that provides local news and weather, sort of a local version of CNN.
Line losses will kill you with low voltage DC. Do you want to distribute the power with bus bars? High voltage AC is more efficient. You can reduce the size of transformers by increasing the frequency. Aircraft use 400 Hz power instead of 50/60 Hz.
If something sufficiently better is available, the x86 will vanish. The 8080A/8085/Z-80 chips disappeared from desktop computers after the introduction of the 8086/8088.
I wonder how long the current model of geographical franchises for television distribution is going to last. The technical and economic reasons for the system are disappearing. This is already starting to happen in the telephone business, many companies are starting to offer regional or nation-wide local calling areas. Satellite radio broadcasting is due to appear soon. Direct broadcast satellites already provide cable-like video service to millions of homes.
Why do we need local network affiliate broadcasters to relay the network feed? Why not just provide the network feed to anyone who wants to watch or distribute it, provided they don't modify it without permission.
What happens when it becomes practical to distribute high quality video streams via the Internet? Canada blocks direct broadcast satellite transmissions from the USA, apparently because they can't regulate it and mandate "Canadian content". Why shouldn't I be able to watch the CBC and BBC, in addition to NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and the other American networks. How about the goat pr0n channel from Tierra del Fuego?
"Well I never told them to go out and kill those darkies. I mean sure I told them about how they were taking jobs away from them and liked to rape their woman and weren't really humans at all... but I never meant for them to go and kill people."
This is protected speech according to current first amendment doctrine. You can also advocate the violent overthrow of the government. To be prohibited, the speech must be "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." See Brandenburg v. Ohio.
If the software is written by a civil service employee, it is in the public domain. If the software is written by a contractor, it depends on the contract.
They do not have to hand out the source code just because it is in the public domain.
It isn't always ignorance. Sometimes they are just being malicious, seizing everything that is remotely related to the search warrant. Sometimes the seized equipment is "accidentally" dropped down the stairs.
See the OpenCable Initiative and this article in Cable Today. There is a July 1st, 2000 deadline but many cable operators have applied to the FCC for waivers due to deployment delays.
It looks like PVR capabilities will soon be added to DBS receivers and CATV set-top boxes. This will eliminate one box and solve the current kludges used to interface the PVR with the DBS/CATV box. The FCC has ordered the CATV industry to use open standards for digital cable set-top boxes, allowing you to buy the box from a regular electronics store and plug in a conditional access card provided by the CATV provider. This is currently being implemented but isn't available yet.
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The author seems to think OS X is going to require a 1 GHz G4 with 256M. Like most beta releases, the current beta is a memory and CPU hog. The release version should be noticeably smaller and faster. I don't see why it wouldn't run at a reasonable speed on an iMac with a memory upgrade.
Windows NT will run on a 486 or Pentium with 16M of RAM, but it is so slow that you will slit your wrists while waiting for a program to load and start running. It really needs 64M and 128M is what gets installed in NT systems where I work.
OS X is not going to run well, or at all, on some older Macs. Fine, stick with your current version of MacOS. Nobody is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to upgrade your system.
Try reading the article again. The message is only sent to the mail server if the recipient is not on-line. If the recipient is on-line, the message is delivered directly to the recipient.
Even if you have infinite resolution lithography, what about all of the other problems that become important when devices get smaller? I've read about several, such as quantum tunneling, higher noise, lower breakdown voltages and increased susceptibility to damage and electromigration. Not everything scales in a linear fashion.
The problem is that a PC operating system has to support all of the hardware, both good and bad, plus there are too many variations in the hardware. This caused many problems for IBM when they moved from supporting OS/2 only on genuine IBM PC/AT and PS/2 computers to supporting OS/2 on everything that claimed to be PC compatible. Apple could produce a version of OS X that was only guaranteed to run on a specific, tightly specified Intel system, but that just eliminated the vast majority of existing Intel systems. Getting the hardware vendors to write the drivers isn't a solution. Even Microsoft has problems getting hardware vendor support for Windows NT and Windows 2000.
I have Mac and PC hardware and I don't want to see a port of OS X to Intel. Whine all you want about "overpriced Mac hardware", it is a well defined target and allows Apple to do a nice job of software/hardware integration. I wouldn't wish PC hardware support on my worst enemy, there is just too much poorly designed and incompatible crap being sold.
One major problem is that the definition of upper and lower case is language and locale specific. It's a mess. It will only get worse with the adoption of Unicode. A case sensitive file system is much simpler and cleaner.
One good reason is that T1/T3 lines are not free. A properly designed, paid service allows the provider to provision adequate bandwidth and server resources for the predicted load. The problem with "free" services is that they are often overwhelmed by the demand and there is no money to upgrade the capacity of the service.
If you have the money, you can lease a DOMSAT (domestic satellite) transponder and build Earth stations at your network nodes. GE Americom provides this type of service in the USA.
Most hard drives have a filtered pressure equalization port that allows air to move in and out of the drive housing.
Uncompressed HDTV is about 1.5 gigabit/sec. Compressed (MPEG-2) HDTV is about 19 megabit/sec.
Even for U.S. citizens, there is no statute of limitations for murder in most states. There is no statute of limitations for federal prosecution of capital crimes.
The U.S. Government has a long history of importing foreign workers to solve labor shortages, when a labor shortage is defined as uppity American workers who support labor unions or who want to be paid a decent wage. Remember the big nurse shortage? The problem wasn't a shortage of nurses, it was a shortage of nurses who were willing to be underpaid, treated like shit, and say "thank you sir, may I have another?"
There is a good reason for this. If you lie on you application for citizenship, say about your stint as the commander of a death squad, the INS can revoke your citizenship and deport you. Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
Does the station that provides local content need to be a network affiliate? The cable systems in my region got together and funded a cable channel that provides local news and weather, sort of a local version of CNN.
Line losses will kill you with low voltage DC. Do you want to distribute the power with bus bars? High voltage AC is more efficient. You can reduce the size of transformers by increasing the frequency. Aircraft use 400 Hz power instead of 50/60 Hz.
If something sufficiently better is available, the x86 will vanish. The 8080A/8085/Z-80 chips disappeared from desktop computers after the introduction of the 8086/8088.
Why do we need local network affiliate broadcasters to relay the network feed? Why not just provide the network feed to anyone who wants to watch or distribute it, provided they don't modify it without permission.
What happens when it becomes practical to distribute high quality video streams via the Internet? Canada blocks direct broadcast satellite transmissions from the USA, apparently because they can't regulate it and mandate "Canadian content". Why shouldn't I be able to watch the CBC and BBC, in addition to NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and the other American networks. How about the goat pr0n channel from Tierra del Fuego?
It's EMC (electromagnetic compatability). not ECC (error correcting code).
This is protected speech according to current first amendment doctrine. You can also advocate the violent overthrow of the government. To be prohibited, the speech must be "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." See Brandenburg v. Ohio.
They do not have to hand out the source code just because it is in the public domain.
I was told that the problems were caused by a fiber cut, AKA backhoe fade.
So it's illegal. Who's going to prosecute the police and how are you going to prove that it was intentional.
It isn't always ignorance. Sometimes they are just being malicious, seizing everything that is remotely related to the search warrant. Sometimes the seized equipment is "accidentally" dropped down the stairs.
See the OpenCable Initiative and this article in Cable Today. There is a July 1st, 2000 deadline but many cable operators have applied to the FCC for waivers due to deployment delays.
It looks like PVR capabilities will soon be added to DBS receivers and CATV set-top boxes. This will eliminate one box and solve the current kludges used to interface the PVR with the DBS/CATV box. The FCC has ordered the CATV industry to use open standards for digital cable set-top boxes, allowing you to buy the box from a regular electronics store and plug in a conditional access card provided by the CATV provider. This is currently being implemented but isn't available yet.