Apple seems to be dealing with the issue just fine. If you search back a few months I'm sure you'll find an article about some aqua-like project squashed by an Apple CnD letter.
For a "real world" example, check out Harley Davidson. They were able to legally defend the "V-Twin feel" for quite a long time, effectively keeping competition out of their particular market niche. Their only competition in that market now is Honda, but only because Honda bought HD, thereby acquiring the rights to that look-and-feel.
I think, though, that these were both persued under trademark, not patent, law. That would make sense, as look and feel is too nebulous to be patented, IMHO.
What about it drove you away? (You never gave a reason, and I'm curious)
As a SuSE/Win98 user who finds himself using SuSE more and more (currently 8.0 Pro), might I make a few suggestions?
First would be: ditch KDE. It's bloated, slow, and crashes a lot. I used to think XFree86 was a buggy peice of crap until I stopped using KDE, and all my X problems went away.
I switched to WindowMaker, personally, and I love it. It's small, fast, unobtrusive, and rock stable. All you have to do is pick a different WM from the pull-down menu on the login window. As long as you don't uninstall KDE you'll still have access to all your KDE apps, and the login window remembers what WM you used last.
If you decide not to give Linux another shot, though, at least remember that OpenOffice and Mozilla are both available for Windows.
And unless you know exactly what you're doing (which new users don't), you're stuck staring at a monitor refreshing at 60 Hz - welcome to headache heaven!
And this is different from Windows how?
It's not like MS makes the refresh settings easy to find, and I've yet to see a Windows install that didn't default to 60Hz.
Give me a fucking graphical tool for it! Windows can do it - so why can't I do it in X?
SuSE has had a graphical tool for a couple of years now. Mandrake has one too, I'm told. I bet Red Hat has one as well. Perhaps you should try a modern distro some time?
there are NICs in even the bottom of the line machines.
There had better be, considering that I can buy a NIC for $4. Funny thing is, I've had much better experiences with the cheap $4 NICs than I have with the "good" brands. Hell, most of the $20-30 NICs are exactly the same as the $4 ones anyway: an RTL8139 reference board. Only difference is the box, and maybe a sticker on the board. Don't even get me started on the $80 I wasted on a 3com NIC a few years ago. Never again! Oh well, at least I was able to trade it for some laptop parts...
Unfortunately, the "B" in "MB" is LOWERCASE... i.e. It's 400 MegaBITS, not bytes... Meaning it's 1/8th that speed in MegaBYTES. That would make it 50MB.
That's still plenty fast for video editing.
I do customer service repair on top end digital video production equipment, specifically storage RAIDs. My typical test for current SCSI RAIDs is simultaneous playback and record of 2 50Mbps streams[1]. That's the bandwidth limit (or very close, anyway) of the best Digital Video Server you can buy, and nobody runs them as hard as I do.
For one thing, 50Mbps is a ludicrous quality level, and I very much doubt anyone uses that level of quality in the real world (at least for standard TV). Also, if you're dealing with multiple streams at the same time you're going to be sitting at a switcher, not a PC.
So, firewire should be more than adequate for any current non-live video editing purpose. If you're doing lots of effects rendering, though, it may not be adequate, and I know of desktop editing/rendering solutions which are SCSI-based for this reason (they often have the SCSI bus integrated into the card doing the rendering in order to eliminate the potential PCI bus limitations).
[1] That's for a RAID3 LUN with 5 10kRPM drives (an additional LUN doesn't increase available bandwidth, just capacity) in a fibrechannel chassis. Sometimes I go as low as a single 36Mbps stream for older, slower drives (believe it or not, people are still using 4GB SCSI drives, albeit generally with 4 5-drive LUNs). I only go to 60Mbps on the rare occasions when I have 5 drives in a RAID0, although that's only one stream.
Let me reiterate that this is a top quality video system. I don't know what the entire system costs, but I know that we sell a fully populated RAID chassis for for somewhere in the neighborhood of $50k, and it's just an accessory to the actual system, which has internally the RAID0 array listed above.
Oh, and yes I do mean b, not B.
Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with you, just putting your statements in the context of the parent post.
Finding them isn't the issue, you can find 18" ATA cables if you look. The problem is using them, their just too damned short! They're barely usable for one drive, and for two drives you'd need a custom (very cramped) case. That's why you don't see them at your local computer store; nobody wants them!
If you really want a drive cable that's hard to find, though, try finding a laptop IDE cable (44-pin) that's 18", or even longer than 6" for that matter.
According to the article, all their custom apps are being ported to Java, so OS is irrelevant. They do make the assertion that Linux runs Java faster than Windows does, which is interesting since I hadn't heard anyone say that before (I'm not a Java guy, so I wouldn't know).
While I agree that the cost recovery will take time to be realized, I don't think it's going to take as long as you think.
First of all, we're talking about as many as 78,000 Windows licenses (probably closer to 50k) that are going to ultimately be replaced. While that probably doesn't pay for an iSeries, it's certainly not chump-change, and will definately help offset the innitial cost.
The real big deal, though, is in increased reliability, performance, and security, and centralizing their IT. Centralized IT support means fewer support people, since you have fewer machines at fewer locations that require "serious" support, and you can get away with having monkey-level techs at the rest of the sites.
Additionally, they're already using Samba for file and print servers, and NT security, which they say performs better than Windows does. Increased reliability and security also reduces IT costs.
And, of course, since they likely use mostly client/server apps, and Linux allows one to do that to a much higher degree than Windows ever will, that further allows them to reduce costs by reducing the hardware requirements for those (up to) 78,000 desktops which they are also converting.
Only #1 requires you to make your software open source.
Not true. Many Open Source licenses do not require this, and even the GPL requires it only under certain specific circumstances.
If you sell modified GPL code to, say, the Army for a targeting system, you have to provide the Army with the source to your modifications. Neither you, nor the Army, however, are required to provide source to the gunners who will be using the system.
He already talked to the EFF, and they aren't interested in patent stuff, just copyright.
Also, the patent doesn't apply to just MPEG, it applies to any transmitted video of any format transmitted which allows the recieving party some control over access (pause, fast forward, etc).
In other words, ogg, DivX, Real, whatever are all covered by this patent, as long as they are transmitted using one of the methods described in the patent. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to mention the internet anywhere, but it does mention standard telephone, cable, or satalite. Basically, the only way to win this is to convince a judge that the internet isn't covered by any of those terms.
Basically, the install and management apps are the only difference as far as the software goes. I'm personally very fond of YaST, mainly because of it's excellent hardware detection, but also because of it's Online Update module, so I use SuSE.
However, the reason I buy SuSE rather than just use the ftp install is the manuals. Of all Linux books I've read, the SuSE manuals are the most useful.
Anyway, aside from the 2 things I list above, I think all the distros are pretty much the same, with the rare exceptions where they include something proprietary, like Lindows includes Crossover Office (IIRC).
They have been. Repeatedly. They've even been convicted.
I think the problem is really the Justice Department, which seems to be far too friendly towards big corporations.
Re:This is too easy...
on
Green Geeks?
·
· Score: 2
An unsupported assertion is not an arguement. You have only made unsupported assertions, therefore you have not made any arguements.
Perhaps the apparent lack of supporting evidence is what makes this excercise pointless for you? You have yet to supply anything solid enough to actually argue against, aside from your complete lack of evidence.
Re:Green is not the real color...
on
Green Geeks?
·
· Score: 2
As usual, you stupid americans don't value human rights and you call anyone who does an idiot.
Oh, but you're wrong; I do value human rights: mine! I value my right to not breath someone elses cigarette smoke, I value my right to access to public resources and utilities, and I take solace in the fact that, while convicted felons are able to acquire guns, they cannot do so legally, and possessing one is, for them, a felony offense.
What the fuck do taxes have to do with human rights? Or building codes? Gun owership has a tenuous connection to human rights at best, I suppse having one would allow me to defend myself if my rights were actually being threatened, but I'd have to be an idiot to avail myself of that. There are much better ways to defend ones self built into the system.
If your friends house is going to fall over in the first medium sized earthquake that comes along, he needs to start suing his contractor and his so-called expert architect immediately, because he got ripped off. I've lived in California my whole life, and as I've already mentioned, I worked in construction for 10 years. If what you say is true, your friend should have done what he wanted, since he obviously didn't build to code anyway.
Re:This is too easy...
on
Green Geeks?
·
· Score: 2
So what you're saying is that everyone has to provide facts to back up their statements except you? Where exactly did you gain immunity from supporting your position? Are you suggesting that you've already provided facts? I've read this entire thread (as of noon, pacific time) and I haven't seen you produce a single actual fact that supports any of your assertions.
Re:Green is not the real color...
on
Green Geeks?
·
· Score: 2
The government is an evil monopoly-- you don't pay the money they demand, they come and throw you in jail.
A corporation, if they don't make a sale, tries harder next time to get your business.
Um, right. This is true in our current political environment, but how do you assure that it would still be true in your Libertarian Utopia? The only thing keeping the corporations from forcing you to give them your money is the government, and at least the government is somewhat accountable to the general populace.
anyone can smoke and its not "pollution"
Bullshit. A smoker polutes the air around them in a radius that far excedes any concept of personal space. This polution is quite noticable to those of us who would rather not participate in this self-destructive activity.
you don't support the elimination of taxes
Call me selfish, but I'm rather fond of paved roads, running water, public utilities, and all those other things made possible by taxes and Eminent Domain. But then, you've probably never had your access to electricity blocked by a neighbor who didn't want power lines disturbing his square mile of scenic forest (except, of course, for the line going to his house). Oh, but allowing 50 families access to electricity is an illegitimate use of collective power... pull your head out of your ass!
the elimination of building codes (which prevent safety, not encourage it)
You know jack shit about construction if you honestly believe this. And yes, I do know a few things about construction and building codes; I worked in the industry for over 10 years, and my father has for over 30 years.
the elimination of gun laws (Which make us all less safe)
While I disagree with some of the current laws, I certainly don't support eliminating them all. Are you trying to say that I would be more safe if convicted felons were able to legally acquire guns on a whim?
Cause if you don't then you endorse the wholesale violations of human rights.
Yeah, because the sum total of human rights is subverted by taxes, building codes, and gun laws! You're an idiot.
What are you going to do when your kid insists (in her very convincing way) to see the latest Disney movie?
It's entirely possible to say no to your kid, in fact it's even good for her if you do. If nothing else, you could wait for the movies to come out on video/DVD and rent them (which at least puts a lot less money in Disney's pockets) or buy them used.
My daughter has very limited Disney access, but that has more to do with my wife and I's opinion of Disney's artistic merit than a disagreement with their politics (although that is a factor). We have a few of the Pixar movies, but that's the extent of our Disney support.
Of course, my mother-in-law is perfectly happy to fill any of my daughters Disney desires, and that's fine, as long as it stays in her house (along with the Shirley Temple).
There is plenty of good childrens entertainment out there that is of far higher quality than the insipid sacharine of Disney (in terms of content anyway, it's hard to beat Disney on technical quality, although it has many rivals at this point). I'm personally a big fan of Big Idea (makers of Vegitales). I think their lessons could be a little bit less Bible-focused (there are plenty of reasons to not spread rumors other than because God doesn't want you to, for example), but the stories are very well done and enjoyable to watch, and then there's "Silly Songs with Larry", which rules!
Maybe you should tell your daughter about monopolies, and how corporations abuse the rights of their dehumanized consumers (a consumer is not a person, but a member of a demographic). Maybe you should point out to her how Disney butchers classic childrens stories and turns them into mindless sugar-coated crap (the real "Little Mermaid" has some valuable and powerful lessons for kids, especially girls, which are completely lost in the Disney version). Maybe you should take her to the office with you on weekends and get her involved in the really interesting parts of science (as opposed to the regurgitation she'll encounter in school) instead of trying to make up for that lost time with her by taking her to Disney movies. She would benefit greatly from you doing any one of these things.
AMD has never been a CPU only company, just like Intel isn't a CPU only company. You really only hear about Intel's motherboard chipsets and ethernet controllers, but they do a lot of other stuff. Likewise, while AMD may be relatively new to motherboard chipsets, they've been making ethernet controllers for a long time. You never hear about the other stuff, since it mostly goes into embedded/proprietary/special-purpose stuff, so it seems to the casual observer that both companies are totally dependent on the desktop PC.
The i-Buddie isn't really a laptop, it's more like a desktop built on a laptop chassis. Notice that it has no battery. Too bad, really. I was really excited when I first heard about it, but just having a portable computer, with no battery, seems kind of pointless.
The tablet is interesting, but I'd say it's still to expensive for what the article is asking for. Of course, it's almost certainly cheaper than building your own. It's not like you can go down to your local computer shop and pick up a tablet chassis and motherboard...
That's not true. If you're in the US Verizon is required to let you sign up with another service provider if you so choose. Verizon may be the only visible provider in your area, but you do have access to others.
I don't work for the kind of OEM you're talking about, and I generally don't work specifically with BIOS, but I do deal with PROMs every day.
This is probably more than you wanted to know, if you didn't know it already, but PROM stands for Programble Read Only Memory, which is often erasable and/or reprogramable in any of a number of ways, designated as EPROMs, EEPROMS, etc. These PROMs are often manufactured using CMOS technology, hence the reason the PROM your BIOS resides on is refered to as CMOS.
Anyway, the default settings are determined at design time, and there are far more settings than any motherboard vendor will ever let you look at. (Most of those you wouldn't want to change anyway, as doing so could completely hose your system.) The design team produces an image, which is then put on the PROM with a PROM Burner, which is basically a chip socket hooked up to a computer running software that enables it to access the features of the PROM. Burning a PROM generally takes less than a minute, and I've used Gang Burners that could do up to 4 at a time. Most likely an OEM would have one larger than that.
The PROM comes off the Burner with the default settings already set, and the assembler (man or machine) just puts it in the socket on the motherboard. It's entirely possible that no one ever turns on the machine until you get it. (The hard drives are likely loaded using cloners, basically a Gang Burner for HDDs)
Dell only owns any given desktop PC for an hour (a little less, actually). The parts are the property of the supplier until they hit the loading dock, and the computer becomes the property of the customer as soon as it hits the shipping dock. Certainly, there is no time for manual BIOS settings or installing stuff to the hard drive. At best, they power it up once just to make sure it works., though they probably don't even do that.
I can see some situations where that would be true, but it would not be the fault of DOS, other than the fact that it happened to be popular during the time when it was still practical to count clock cycles for operations. I use DOS on modern hardware regularly, with no issues, but I use a very narrow range of applications, some of which are even still maintained. Maybe there could be some problems with out of order execution, but I thought that OOO capable CPUs were supposed to be able to handle that gracefully.
I assume by that you mean DOS disks/licenses? DOS runs just fine on modern hardware.
Anyway, there are alternatives to porting, such as using an emulator. DOSemu, DOSexec are names I've heard, or Wine would probably work too (but be a bit bulky). Or you could try FreeDOS, although modem drivers might be an issue.
If you're hell-bent on porting, though, there are a lot of variables involved that you haven't supplied us with. What language is the app written in, for example? Was it written with portability in mind, or is it dependent on proprietary libraries? What does it do, and are any OSS projects that do the same thing? Without that information, no one is going to be able to give you a real answer. Maybe it will work with just a recompile (have you tried that yet?), or maybe it will be easier to start over from scratch. No one can tell without info!
Why have there been so many "I want to port arbitrary software to Linux" questions with no accompanying details lately? How the hell is anybody supposed to answer these?
Slashdot Mirror
Are you thinking something along the lines of AutoCAD (at least through R14, I'm not sure about more recent versions)?
AutoCAD is definately not easy to learn, but once you know it productivity is incredibly high.
Apple seems to be dealing with the issue just fine. If you search back a few months I'm sure you'll find an article about some aqua-like project squashed by an Apple CnD letter.
For a "real world" example, check out Harley Davidson. They were able to legally defend the "V-Twin feel" for quite a long time, effectively keeping competition out of their particular market niche. Their only competition in that market now is Honda, but only because Honda bought HD, thereby acquiring the rights to that look-and-feel.
I think, though, that these were both persued under trademark, not patent, law. That would make sense, as look and feel is too nebulous to be patented, IMHO.
What version of SuSE were you using?
What about it drove you away? (You never gave a reason, and I'm curious)
As a SuSE/Win98 user who finds himself using SuSE more and more (currently 8.0 Pro), might I make a few suggestions?
First would be: ditch KDE. It's bloated, slow, and crashes a lot. I used to think XFree86 was a buggy peice of crap until I stopped using KDE, and all my X problems went away.
I switched to WindowMaker, personally, and I love it. It's small, fast, unobtrusive, and rock stable. All you have to do is pick a different WM from the pull-down menu on the login window. As long as you don't uninstall KDE you'll still have access to all your KDE apps, and the login window remembers what WM you used last.
If you decide not to give Linux another shot, though, at least remember that OpenOffice and Mozilla are both available for Windows.
And unless you know exactly what you're doing (which new users don't), you're stuck staring at a monitor refreshing at 60 Hz - welcome to headache heaven!
And this is different from Windows how?
It's not like MS makes the refresh settings easy to find, and I've yet to see a Windows install that didn't default to 60Hz.
Give me a fucking graphical tool for it! Windows can do it - so why can't I do it in X?
SuSE has had a graphical tool for a couple of years now. Mandrake has one too, I'm told. I bet Red Hat has one as well. Perhaps you should try a modern distro some time?
there are NICs in even the bottom of the line machines.
There had better be, considering that I can buy a NIC for $4. Funny thing is, I've had much better experiences with the cheap $4 NICs than I have with the "good" brands. Hell, most of the $20-30 NICs are exactly the same as the $4 ones anyway: an RTL8139 reference board. Only difference is the box, and maybe a sticker on the board. Don't even get me started on the $80 I wasted on a 3com NIC a few years ago. Never again! Oh well, at least I was able to trade it for some laptop parts...
Unfortunately, the "B" in "MB" is LOWERCASE... i.e. It's 400 MegaBITS, not bytes... Meaning it's 1/8th that speed in MegaBYTES. That would make it 50MB.
That's still plenty fast for video editing.
I do customer service repair on top end digital video production equipment, specifically storage RAIDs. My typical test for current SCSI RAIDs is simultaneous playback and record of 2 50Mbps streams[1]. That's the bandwidth limit (or very close, anyway) of the best Digital Video Server you can buy, and nobody runs them as hard as I do.
For one thing, 50Mbps is a ludicrous quality level, and I very much doubt anyone uses that level of quality in the real world (at least for standard TV). Also, if you're dealing with multiple streams at the same time you're going to be sitting at a switcher, not a PC.
So, firewire should be more than adequate for any current non-live video editing purpose. If you're doing lots of effects rendering, though, it may not be adequate, and I know of desktop editing/rendering solutions which are SCSI-based for this reason (they often have the SCSI bus integrated into the card doing the rendering in order to eliminate the potential PCI bus limitations).
[1] That's for a RAID3 LUN with 5 10kRPM drives (an additional LUN doesn't increase available bandwidth, just capacity) in a fibrechannel chassis. Sometimes I go as low as a single 36Mbps stream for older, slower drives (believe it or not, people are still using 4GB SCSI drives, albeit generally with 4 5-drive LUNs). I only go to 60Mbps on the rare occasions when I have 5 drives in a RAID0, although that's only one stream.
Let me reiterate that this is a top quality video system. I don't know what the entire system costs, but I know that we sell a fully populated RAID chassis for for somewhere in the neighborhood of $50k, and it's just an accessory to the actual system, which has internally the RAID0 array listed above.
Oh, and yes I do mean b, not B.
Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with you, just putting your statements in the context of the parent post.
Finding them isn't the issue, you can find 18" ATA cables if you look. The problem is using them, their just too damned short! They're barely usable for one drive, and for two drives you'd need a custom (very cramped) case. That's why you don't see them at your local computer store; nobody wants them!
If you really want a drive cable that's hard to find, though, try finding a laptop IDE cable (44-pin) that's 18", or even longer than 6" for that matter.
60MB/sec is exactly what USB2.0 does theoretically.
Yeah, but in the real world Firewire is faster than USB2.0.
According to the article, all their custom apps are being ported to Java, so OS is irrelevant. They do make the assertion that Linux runs Java faster than Windows does, which is interesting since I hadn't heard anyone say that before (I'm not a Java guy, so I wouldn't know).
While I agree that the cost recovery will take time to be realized, I don't think it's going to take as long as you think.
First of all, we're talking about as many as 78,000 Windows licenses (probably closer to 50k) that are going to ultimately be replaced. While that probably doesn't pay for an iSeries, it's certainly not chump-change, and will definately help offset the innitial cost.
The real big deal, though, is in increased reliability, performance, and security, and centralizing their IT. Centralized IT support means fewer support people, since you have fewer machines at fewer locations that require "serious" support, and you can get away with having monkey-level techs at the rest of the sites.
Additionally, they're already using Samba for file and print servers, and NT security, which they say performs better than Windows does. Increased reliability and security also reduces IT costs.
And, of course, since they likely use mostly client/server apps, and Linux allows one to do that to a much higher degree than Windows ever will, that further allows them to reduce costs by reducing the hardware requirements for those (up to) 78,000 desktops which they are also converting.
Only #1 requires you to make your software open source.
Not true. Many Open Source licenses do not require this, and even the GPL requires it only under certain specific circumstances.
If you sell modified GPL code to, say, the Army for a targeting system, you have to provide the Army with the source to your modifications. Neither you, nor the Army, however, are required to provide source to the gunners who will be using the system.
...then RTFP
He already talked to the EFF, and they aren't interested in patent stuff, just copyright.
Also, the patent doesn't apply to just MPEG, it applies to any transmitted video of any format transmitted which allows the recieving party some control over access (pause, fast forward, etc).
In other words, ogg, DivX, Real, whatever are all covered by this patent, as long as they are transmitted using one of the methods described in the patent. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to mention the internet anywhere, but it does mention standard telephone, cable, or satalite. Basically, the only way to win this is to convince a judge that the internet isn't covered by any of those terms.
...is Linux.
Basically, the install and management apps are the only difference as far as the software goes. I'm personally very fond of YaST, mainly because of it's excellent hardware detection, but also because of it's Online Update module, so I use SuSE.
However, the reason I buy SuSE rather than just use the ftp install is the manuals. Of all Linux books I've read, the SuSE manuals are the most useful.
Anyway, aside from the 2 things I list above, I think all the distros are pretty much the same, with the rare exceptions where they include something proprietary, like Lindows includes Crossover Office (IIRC).
They have been. Repeatedly. They've even been convicted.
I think the problem is really the Justice Department, which seems to be far too friendly towards big corporations.
An unsupported assertion is not an arguement. You have only made unsupported assertions, therefore you have not made any arguements.
Perhaps the apparent lack of supporting evidence is what makes this excercise pointless for you? You have yet to supply anything solid enough to actually argue against, aside from your complete lack of evidence.
As usual, you stupid americans don't value human rights and you call anyone who does an idiot.
Oh, but you're wrong; I do value human rights: mine! I value my right to not breath someone elses cigarette smoke, I value my right to access to public resources and utilities, and I take solace in the fact that, while convicted felons are able to acquire guns, they cannot do so legally, and possessing one is, for them, a felony offense.
What the fuck do taxes have to do with human rights? Or building codes? Gun owership has a tenuous connection to human rights at best, I suppse having one would allow me to defend myself if my rights were actually being threatened, but I'd have to be an idiot to avail myself of that. There are much better ways to defend ones self built into the system.
If your friends house is going to fall over in the first medium sized earthquake that comes along, he needs to start suing his contractor and his so-called expert architect immediately, because he got ripped off. I've lived in California my whole life, and as I've already mentioned, I worked in construction for 10 years. If what you say is true, your friend should have done what he wanted, since he obviously didn't build to code anyway.
So what you're saying is that everyone has to provide facts to back up their statements except you? Where exactly did you gain immunity from supporting your position? Are you suggesting that you've already provided facts? I've read this entire thread (as of noon, pacific time) and I haven't seen you produce a single actual fact that supports any of your assertions.
The government is an evil monopoly-- you don't pay the money they demand, they come and throw you in jail.
A corporation, if they don't make a sale, tries harder next time to get your business.
Um, right. This is true in our current political environment, but how do you assure that it would still be true in your Libertarian Utopia? The only thing keeping the corporations from forcing you to give them your money is the government, and at least the government is somewhat accountable to the general populace.
anyone can smoke and its not "pollution"
Bullshit. A smoker polutes the air around them in a radius that far excedes any concept of personal space. This polution is quite noticable to those of us who would rather not participate in this self-destructive activity.
you don't support the elimination of taxes
Call me selfish, but I'm rather fond of paved roads, running water, public utilities, and all those other things made possible by taxes and Eminent Domain. But then, you've probably never had your access to electricity blocked by a neighbor who didn't want power lines disturbing his square mile of scenic forest (except, of course, for the line going to his house). Oh, but allowing 50 families access to electricity is an illegitimate use of collective power... pull your head out of your ass!
the elimination of building codes (which prevent safety, not encourage it)
You know jack shit about construction if you honestly believe this. And yes, I do know a few things about construction and building codes; I worked in the industry for over 10 years, and my father has for over 30 years.
the elimination of gun laws (Which make us all less safe)
While I disagree with some of the current laws, I certainly don't support eliminating them all. Are you trying to say that I would be more safe if convicted felons were able to legally acquire guns on a whim?
Cause if you don't then you endorse the wholesale violations of human rights.
Yeah, because the sum total of human rights is subverted by taxes, building codes, and gun laws! You're an idiot.
What are you going to do when your kid insists (in her very convincing way) to see the latest Disney movie?
It's entirely possible to say no to your kid, in fact it's even good for her if you do. If nothing else, you could wait for the movies to come out on video/DVD and rent them (which at least puts a lot less money in Disney's pockets) or buy them used.
My daughter has very limited Disney access, but that has more to do with my wife and I's opinion of Disney's artistic merit than a disagreement with their politics (although that is a factor). We have a few of the Pixar movies, but that's the extent of our Disney support.
Of course, my mother-in-law is perfectly happy to fill any of my daughters Disney desires, and that's fine, as long as it stays in her house (along with the Shirley Temple).
There is plenty of good childrens entertainment out there that is of far higher quality than the insipid sacharine of Disney (in terms of content anyway, it's hard to beat Disney on technical quality, although it has many rivals at this point). I'm personally a big fan of Big Idea (makers of Vegitales). I think their lessons could be a little bit less Bible-focused (there are plenty of reasons to not spread rumors other than because God doesn't want you to, for example), but the stories are very well done and enjoyable to watch, and then there's "Silly Songs with Larry", which rules!
Maybe you should tell your daughter about monopolies, and how corporations abuse the rights of their dehumanized consumers (a consumer is not a person, but a member of a demographic). Maybe you should point out to her how Disney butchers classic childrens stories and turns them into mindless sugar-coated crap (the real "Little Mermaid" has some valuable and powerful lessons for kids, especially girls, which are completely lost in the Disney version). Maybe you should take her to the office with you on weekends and get her involved in the really interesting parts of science (as opposed to the regurgitation she'll encounter in school) instead of trying to make up for that lost time with her by taking her to Disney movies. She would benefit greatly from you doing any one of these things.
If you honestly believe that will be true in 10 years with no action on your part to protect your rights, you're an idiot.
AMD has never been a CPU only company, just like Intel isn't a CPU only company. You really only hear about Intel's motherboard chipsets and ethernet controllers, but they do a lot of other stuff. Likewise, while AMD may be relatively new to motherboard chipsets, they've been making ethernet controllers for a long time. You never hear about the other stuff, since it mostly goes into embedded/proprietary/special-purpose stuff, so it seems to the casual observer that both companies are totally dependent on the desktop PC.
The i-Buddie isn't really a laptop, it's more like a desktop built on a laptop chassis. Notice that it has no battery. Too bad, really. I was really excited when I first heard about it, but just having a portable computer, with no battery, seems kind of pointless.
The tablet is interesting, but I'd say it's still to expensive for what the article is asking for. Of course, it's almost certainly cheaper than building your own. It's not like you can go down to your local computer shop and pick up a tablet chassis and motherboard...
That's not true. If you're in the US Verizon is required to let you sign up with another service provider if you so choose. Verizon may be the only visible provider in your area, but you do have access to others.
I don't work for the kind of OEM you're talking about, and I generally don't work specifically with BIOS, but I do deal with PROMs every day.
This is probably more than you wanted to know, if you didn't know it already, but PROM stands for Programble Read Only Memory, which is often erasable and/or reprogramable in any of a number of ways, designated as EPROMs, EEPROMS, etc. These PROMs are often manufactured using CMOS technology, hence the reason the PROM your BIOS resides on is refered to as CMOS.
Anyway, the default settings are determined at design time, and there are far more settings than any motherboard vendor will ever let you look at. (Most of those you wouldn't want to change anyway, as doing so could completely hose your system.) The design team produces an image, which is then put on the PROM with a PROM Burner, which is basically a chip socket hooked up to a computer running software that enables it to access the features of the PROM. Burning a PROM generally takes less than a minute, and I've used Gang Burners that could do up to 4 at a time. Most likely an OEM would have one larger than that.
The PROM comes off the Burner with the default settings already set, and the assembler (man or machine) just puts it in the socket on the motherboard. It's entirely possible that no one ever turns on the machine until you get it. (The hard drives are likely loaded using cloners, basically a Gang Burner for HDDs)
Dell only owns any given desktop PC for an hour (a little less, actually). The parts are the property of the supplier until they hit the loading dock, and the computer becomes the property of the customer as soon as it hits the shipping dock. Certainly, there is no time for manual BIOS settings or installing stuff to the hard drive. At best, they power it up once just to make sure it works., though they probably don't even do that.
I hope that answers your question and then some.
I can see some situations where that would be true, but it would not be the fault of DOS, other than the fact that it happened to be popular during the time when it was still practical to count clock cycles for operations. I use DOS on modern hardware regularly, with no issues, but I use a very narrow range of applications, some of which are even still maintained. Maybe there could be some problems with out of order execution, but I thought that OOO capable CPUs were supposed to be able to handle that gracefully.
I assume by that you mean DOS disks/licenses? DOS runs just fine on modern hardware.
Anyway, there are alternatives to porting, such as using an emulator. DOSemu, DOSexec are names I've heard, or Wine would probably work too (but be a bit bulky). Or you could try FreeDOS, although modem drivers might be an issue.
If you're hell-bent on porting, though, there are a lot of variables involved that you haven't supplied us with. What language is the app written in, for example? Was it written with portability in mind, or is it dependent on proprietary libraries? What does it do, and are any OSS projects that do the same thing? Without that information, no one is going to be able to give you a real answer. Maybe it will work with just a recompile (have you tried that yet?), or maybe it will be easier to start over from scratch. No one can tell without info!
Why have there been so many "I want to port arbitrary software to Linux" questions with no accompanying details lately? How the hell is anybody supposed to answer these?