Yup, you're right. It was an unfortunate coincidence that my Nine 5's machine happened to crash as I was typing the post. Another coincidence is that if you put the numbers of that patent name together, 9 and 5, you get 95, which is the commercial designation of the OS on my machine. Frailty, thy name be Windows 95.
"FYI, Gore DID take that trip Texas. The only mistake he made was in saying he went with the FEMA directory on that particular trip. This is an understandable mistake considering that he went with the directory on 17 other trips over the ppast few years."
I would doubt it is an understandable mistake - it is understandable to Democrat supporters who will naturally defend Gore no matter what he does.
To people who don't want politicians making lies even before they get into the office they're campaigning for, it is unforgiveable.
Gore is shooting himself in the foot with these moronic statements. He's an idiot anyway, and will be a horrible president if he gets elected. People supporting Gore aren't supporting him at all - he is a dufus and everyone knows it; the democrat suppporters are supporting the party, not the candidate.
"Compare this extremely trivial error to the kind of gargantuan whoppers that Bush made during that debate and then ask yourself why the press focuses so much attention on Gore's trivial error while ignoring the big ones that Bush is making almost every day."
The media pays such close attention because they should be. And the idea that the media is biased against Gore is absolutely crazy - the media is dominated by left-wing thinking in North America, and this election is no exception. But that doesn't mean they let a dufus get away with being a dufus - they're going after Gore and what he claims (at least the overstated claims anyway) just like they should be.
"Oh, and read the articles linked above and you will see that no less an authority then Vinton Cerf would disagree with your claim that Gore's impact on the internet was "minimal"."
Oh, gee, Mister Cerf said so, so let's all believe him. I don't care what he claims - Gore has had an insignificant impact on the Internet, and will never have anything more than that.
"Some people want to ignore the important role the government had in the creation of the modern internet and prefer to believe some libertarian myth about the internet springing whole from the head of a bunch of hackers."
Realistically, that is exactly the case. The government played a role - they identified a need for a redundant communication system for military purposes, knew that University people were smart and could do it, and then threw money at those University folk.
But it was the University folk, and other non-politicians, that built the Internet and everything on it today. Politicians didn't design or build anything about the Internet.
Perhaps it would be useful to define what is meant by "the government", as that could mean politicians, govt employees, contract workers, or even government organizations like the FCC.
"Sorry, but if it weren't for the government, it is extremely unlikely we would have the internet today."
If it wasn't for everyone _but_ the government, the Internet would probably have gone bankrupt or stopped working long ago, and would be a miniscule fraction of what it is today.
The government didn't invent or create the Internet - let me just say that much is true IMO.
Caveat Emptor. If you don't want to pay the taxes, don't live in the country that takes them without giving you the choice, and wastes the money better than any other organization.
Anyone can spend better than most governments, IMO.
1. Nine 5s Reliability - A standard for software and hardware design that ensures 55.555% uptime.
2. Optical Char Recognition - Algorithms for recognizing and classifying this fish commonly found in arctic regions of northern Canada.
3. Dense Car Division Multiplexing - A system of merging multiple streams of cars into fewer streams of cars for transport over long distances. (Declared invalid due to existing implementations in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and New York)
4. Non-Poetic Justice - A system of declaring legal judgements in free verse, patented to force the US Court System Judges' Rulings to come in the form of rhyming poetry in formats such as iambic pentameter, or trochaic tetrameter.
That's precisely the video clip in question, and the implications of it are a matter of interpretation. You disagree that it means Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet, but on the other hand, the vast majority of critics, pundits and other commentors construed his comments to mean that he claims to have invented the Internet.
Further, if you saw Al Gore's appearance on Letterman, he did the top 10 list and one of the items included him saying "not only did I invent the Internet", or words to that effect.
The precise interpretation isn't that he claimed to invent it. However, the way he said it and the way many people perceived how he said it was that he came across sounding like he was claiming to have invented the Internet. Adding to that was Al Gore's claim to have attended some government function in Texas during the first debate, which he later retracted once it was revealed by the media that Al Gore was claiming to have done something that he didn't.
In other words, Al Gore has a habit of claiming to have done more than he actually has. In one instance, the Internet claim - his impact on the Internet has been minimal, trust me. The second instance, claiming to have done work that he in fact hadn't done at all - going to Texas to do whatever.
Either way, either candidate - the US political system is a generic and bogus political system. It doesn't matter which candidate gets voted in, or which party gets voted in - neither party could push its agenda so much as to actually alter the US in any significant way. Every 4 years there is an election in the US, and there is a high volatility in which political party is in office. That means the two political parties just cancel each other out every 4 or 8 years, so America never makes any real progress.
The three most significant forces in the US are social and economic change, and Federal Reserve monetary policy - the government is no longer relevant or effective.
IMO, the US government will only be relevant to US citizens when more than 95% of eligible voters go to the ballot boxes and vote. As it is right now, the US government is far too out of touch with the modern day realities - it has not kept up with the sweeping advances of the US society, economy or the progress of technology.
For the record, I'm a Canadian citizen, and that's how I see things. Comment away.
Game genres won't die out, they will simply cycle between periods of popularity and periods of scarcity. Just like the people talking about MAME... that is VERY cool. But game developers during those scarcity periods will still come out with the occasional movie... kind of like excluding summer season and winter season for movies, there is that intermediary period where the quality of movies degrades (less action flicks), and the number of new releases may decline as well, but there are still movies coming out from all genres, from romance & comedy to romance & action to romance & pornography. Oh wait, those are all the same thing.
I think the next cool idea in RAM is a merging of RAM with microprocessors to create what was once referred to as IRAM. That is, IRAM would have one CPU per RAM chip, like a sort of system-on-chip configuration. With 512MB of RAM on your machine, there are perhaps four to 32 individual silicon chips with RAM memory, depending on the density of the RAM.
Hence, if that was IRAM, you would also have four to 32 individual processors.
The idea, of course, is to distribute processing and increase performance by having the RAM and CPU on the same silicon, thus reducing the path length, eliminate the need to go through a motherboard bus and connectors and all that. More power efficient, lower EM interferance, etc.
The question would remain whether to have a central CPU coordinating all of the individual CPU's, or whether the system would be entirely distributed. I think if there was a central CPU, the system would be easier to make it look like a SIMD machine to software, which would make it easy to program for. That may be possible without the CPU, but the alternative is MIMD.
Who knows, with a kernel made for distributed processing like Mach, which is may see growing attention because GNU Hurd and MacOS X both use it, then a large part of the computer market may benefit from IRAM.
I guess in addition to considering Novell, IBM's other attempt at putting new life into its servers has to do with its participation in the Gnome Foundation, which will boost the strength of Linux, and IBM seems big on Linux these days.
Question: If IBM is moving towards Linux, and hopes that Gnome Foundation and Linux will strengthen its servers, what does a purchase of Novell add to that, or does it split IBM's efforts to strength its hardware into two camps, a Linux camp and a Novell camp?
I always get the impression that IBM wants to be all things to all people... have a finger in every cookie jar...
"The irony is that if Apple's legal hadn't gone after the sites with Cube images, everyone woulda ignored it or thought it a hoax."
Very true, but would that stop the leaks? If Apple let it continue and the rumors sites proved consistently accurate, would regular news sites begin to trust the rumors sites, and also post the content?
And what if the competitors had it? What if time was an essential resource to Apple's competitors for the purpose of competing with Apple?
Since a company is a legally recognized entity, as are people, does a company have the right to privacy?
I think Apple is perfectly justified for suing to identify the people involved. Apple didn't want the information leaked, so why did the person leak it? The person violated the wishes of Apple, and everyone that works at Apple, and everyone that owns shares in Apple.
This is a situation where the legal system works _for_ the people, and against the selfish bastards that care nothing about anyone but themselves.
Sue away Apple, this is precisely why we have privacy and trade secret protection.
Most of your comments are common sense, and well known.
However, you understate the likelihood of an optional install of the necessary BSD components, which we can certainly expect to see.
Apple may have wishes, but I have heard from several people working directly with Apple that there will be an optional download install to make the OSX core a full BSD OS.
And I can't wait to see it, and all of the software that the Mac will have available for it.
Apple is leaving out those optional components for the benefit of its inexperienced and new users... but for people with a lot more experience with Unix and Macs, we are going to love seeing so much new software.
If Apple allows BSD compatibility, we instantly get twice the developers and twice the software products... since software can make or break a platform, and the fact that BSD is BSD regardless of what Apple wants to do with it, then I am almost entirely certain that we will have plenty of Open Source and Free Software available for the Mac through OSX and its core. And I, for one, can't wait.
Very true... I'm a hardcore Mac user and one of my biggest hopes for OSX is that there will be plenty of software available for it that has absolutely nothing of Apple's value-added components involved.
Just pure Unix, no Quartz or Aqua or slick special effects...
Firstly, being based on Unix means that open source apps will be easy to port. I expect that the demand for open source apps will come largely from Mac users wanting new software, different sofware, cheaper software.
Also, since it will be possible to bypass Apple's own components of OSX, like Quartz and Aqua, there exists the potential to have a Unix app running on OSX that is significantly faster than a Carbon or Cocoa app, simply because all of the Apple layers are discarded.
For gamers and the Mac open source/ free software communities, I think OSX is going to be an awesome product. I know that John Carmack is doign a lot of work on OSX and he is an active participant in Apple's Darwin email digests.... hopefully, his enthusiasm is a sign of things to come from the gaming industry.
Further, if Mac game developers develop their games to run just on the Unix core, does this not also mean it will be easier for these game developers to port to open source OSes like the BSD's and Linux?
With luck, OSX will be good for everyone, from hardcore GUI freaks to hardcore open source/ free software people, and everyone in between.
Yeah, it was an XOR, I was not calling AltiVec an Intel technology. I was alluding to the fact that Intel's one technology has gone through three names.
I also heard something about individual RAM cards integrating CPU's onto them. Not fully-fledged 32-bit or 64-bit CPU's, but 1-bit or 4-bit or 8-bit CPU's. The main CPU could farm out operations to the smaller processors, saving a lot of the main CPU time for the bigger operations needed.
Perhaps a vector processor on every chip would have value, allowing SIMD operations to be performed with much more efficiency than if a a central vector unit had to do it, like AltiVec or whatever name Intel has come up for their technology this week.
That strikes me as being a pretty smart technology... cheap and effective, hopefully. Add RAM, add a small about of processing power. We will see that eventually, but it would be good for some company to do that now and get an early lead in the "iRAM" field.
Perhaps Intel is trying to scare Rambus through some public relations... Rambus may be demonstrating attitudes that Intel doesn't like, or thinks will threaten Intel's investment in them. Subjective qualities like becoming complacent, cocky or too aggressive in their dealings is not something Intel wants to see.
Perhaps Intel is just doing this to keep Rambus on their toes, make sure that they are always using notch 11 on the 10 notch amp, for that little bit of extra energy.
Consider for a moment the issue of culture differences. Some cultures, including European ones, typically have different values than others. For example, in Germany if you are a team leader, your employees expect you to know _everything_ and always have an answer to any situation, even if it isn't the correct answer. A team leader that doesn't have an answer may be criticized quite harshly by employees in private, and by other team leaders.
In North America we don't always expect people to have all the answers, we tolerate it when people don't know the answer to something (usually) and often try to find the answer. If a team leader doesn't know an answer, it is common for the employee with the question to continue the search for the answer, but not common for the employee to frown upon his/her boss' lack of knowledge.
That is just one example, but culture differences can play a major role in the relationships of people, and how people interpret the words of others.
Culture differences are important to bear in mind when dealing with all people. People from some cultures communicate in a form that is, inherently, more negative than others, and quite a bit different from what some cultures can be used to. Hence, the issue of cultural conflicts.
So the "excited... and making comments about other people" comment in this thread may actually be a result of cultural differences, if one of the two men involved is from another culture. That may be how some cultures communicate - through language typically more exciting and personal than we are used to in North America.
Also, consider that even if a person learns fluent English, that doesn't mean he/she learns the culturally-specific generalities of communication typical in English-speaking countries.
Always keep cultural differences in mind when talking to people from other cultures, it may help you avoid unnecessary conflicts.
This whole inspired debate may be nothing more than the country of origin of these two gentleman. It may, in fact, have nothing to do with politics.
I believe the biggest threat to human safety, when nanotechnology becomes available, will be who is in charge of developing it. If the US government gets its hands on nanotechnology, the first use they will have for it will be as a weapon of war. Nanotechnology is also the CIA's dream come true... Think about it - now that the US can kill anyone, anywhere and without any evidence, what will happen to Marxists, Communists and anti-US organizations? As much as I don't agree with these people, I value freedom of speech above all, and the thought that the US could kill this freedom by killing people with opposing viewpoints is a scary consideration. - how about political assasinations? I have no trouble seeing a lot of politicians in the future dying suddenly of cardiac arrest, brain aneurisms and many other problems which can be caused by sheer physical manipulation - say an attack by Utility Fog (Utility Fog is one perceived application of nanotechnology... very interesting idea) Nanotechnology has the potential to eliminate all risk of many physical ailments, including cancer and aids - all without any genetic modification or drugs. It is one of the greatest potential tools to achieve standard of living parity across all peoples. It must be watched and it must not be in the hands of special interests, such as any one government. I propose nanotechnology should be put into the hands of scientists and watchdogs to ensure there is constant public disclosure of all developments, and that it is never put into the hands of groups that have exhibited aggressive tendencies, such as military and government.
The reason why Microsoft doesn't give away its API set is a very simple one - hiding APIs benefits them, and, in their monopoly situation, what benefits them hurts their competition.
One of the rules of thumbin the business world is - if you can develop an advantage, then after you develop it you have to take steps to preserve it.
Microsoft's closed APIs have worked on numerous occasions for them. We can all recall the stories of Microsoft changing APIs to disrupt the technology of their competitors, while their own technologies remain compatible because they know what they changed.
Microsoft, by not giving out its API set, has built a dependency, a crutch, that it will have a hard time letting go of.
The second rule of thumb in business that's relevant here is that a company tends to have genetics - once it becomes a part of the company, it doesn't go away easy. Thus, Microsoft's extremely protective behavior is entrenched in the company, and the mentality of employees there.
So it doesn't matter that someone may say "Hey, what's the big deal, they're only APIs"; that is _one_ perspective. Microsoft has a very different perspective, one of protection and secrecy and the simple fact that protectionism worked for them very effectively, so why give up one of their major advantages.
For another example, look at world trade. It doesn't happen overnight, it takes years for countries to open their borders.
I guess this is an example of F.U.D. in Microsoft.
Aqua is a complete UI, not just the fancy special effects, and so far it looks awesome. I definitely want to use it at this point, and they haven't even fully refined it yet - meaning it is only going to get better between now and showtime.
OSX, with Aqua, will be a much more complete and stable experience for Mac users. It will be a more complete and stable experience for ALL people who try it, for that matter. A merger of the stability that comes only from free software with the slick and highly appealing UI that only comes from people who understand the end-users desire (i.e. Apple) will be a very powerful merger indeed. Aqua is an example of what is possible with user interfaces.
What do you think the user interface of 10 years from now will look like? KDE? Gnome? X? Not likely... Aqua? Definitely.
You may like tinkering with the OS in discrete levels of detail... the vast majority of people on this planet will NEVER want that level of control. What UI do you think will appeal to most people on this planet more - one that offers significant control, or one that looks great and is highly intuitive like Aqua?
It doesn't take a computer scientist to figure out the answer to that question...
This raises an interesting possibility. Microsoft has at least a year before the appeals process ends. What if, in that time, they planned what the two separate companies are going to do separately to maintain complete dominance of the industry? After all, Microsoft doesn't just have an OS monopoly, they have a monopoly in the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software segments, and majority market share in the web browser market. Windows Inc has the OS monopoly, and now the breakup will separate the other Microsoft monopolies into a separate entity, creating two monopolies in the industry, instead of one.
So... what if Microsoft coordinates those two monopolies?
For example, the company in charge of MS applications is told "drop all development of apps for non-Windows platforms and claim, out of necessity to remain profitable, that the company must do this."
Gates and Ballmer find a loyal Microsoft management team, implant them in the company that Gates/Ballmer can't be majority shareholders in (that's one of the requirements of the breakup... any shareholder of MSFT with > 5% ownership can't own any shares of the other company) and then they coordinate the strategic moves of the two companies to maintain Microsoft's market dominace.
"Apple doomed the Mac. High priced hardware. Skimpy software selection. If it wasn't for all the Macs sold at budget prices to students and college staff I doubt the Mac would have sold very many machines at all. How many of US did Apple lose because of it's high prices? Apple decided to abandon us not the other way around."
Clueless. Apple owned 25% of the computer industry at one point with its "high priced" hardware, and bare in mind that the IBM PC "cheap hardware" was always around while Apple's Macintosh market share went from 0% to 25%. Users had choice, and 1 out of 4 of them chose the Mac.
And by the way, the Mac is more successful today than ever before, and yet even the cheapest Mac is twice the price of the cheapest PC. The "doomed" Mac is on more desktops today than at any time in its history. Besides - take a look at your computer, I bet you paid more for it than the cost of an iMac.
The reason why Apple continues to do well is because, unlike yourself, some people actually think a bit more intelligently - they don't look at the simple comparison of sticker price, they look at the issue of "Is this higher price justified? Does the Mac, for its higher price, offer me higher quality, more productivity, or significant value that justifies the cost?"
Even when the Mac was at its most expensive, the fact that a kid could learn it, could network it and could do more than just play games with it meant that it offered everyone a lot of value in ease of use and simplicity.
No other combination of hardware and Operating System has ever offered the complete, integrated user experience with the ease of operation as the Macintosh. THAT is why people willingly paid the high prices, THAT is why even at its lowest point Apple still had people that would never sell their Mac, and THAT is why, after Apple refocussed, they are one of the most successful computer companies today.
As for OSX, it is clear at this point that OSX will once again set a new standard for GUI design. It is brand new, so don't expect it to be flawless when it comes out. We can all spot its less-than-shining UI elements at this point, but on the other hand when we take off our platform-bias hats, we all see the elements of OSX that cause us all to drool.
Just check out the Ars Technica article about OSX Developer Preview 4.
There is no reason to knock Apple... after all, you have many significant and meaningful innovations and features found on desktop computers to thank them for.
The people that do knock Apple would do well to go over to this URL and read it thoroughly from beginning to end. If you've ever wondered why so many Mac users compare so many computers to their Mac, here is why.
Let's see if any OS will ever match this track record:
Slashdot Mirror
Multinationals do NOT dominate this world, or if they do, they only dominate to the extent that people willingly let them.
These oh-so-evil companies have no relevance in modern society, and very rarely do they impact our daily lives at all.
I see the future...
It looks a lot like 1984....
"Macintosh is better!"
"No, PC is better!"
"We're going to CHARGE for beer!"
"Where's the beef?!?!"
A Brazilian inventor had a fully functional compressed-air powered car well over a year ago, it was featured in an edition of Wired magazine.
Yup, you're right. It was an unfortunate coincidence that my Nine 5's machine happened to crash as I was typing the post. Another coincidence is that if you put the numbers of that patent name together, 9 and 5, you get 95, which is the commercial designation of the OS on my machine. Frailty, thy name be Windows 95.
Cheers to all, and to all a good cheer.
"FYI, Gore DID take that trip Texas. The only mistake he made was in saying he went with the FEMA directory on that particular trip. This is an understandable mistake considering that he went with the directory on 17 other trips over the ppast few years."
I would doubt it is an understandable mistake - it is understandable to Democrat supporters who will naturally defend Gore no matter what he does.
To people who don't want politicians making lies even before they get into the office they're campaigning for, it is unforgiveable.
Gore is shooting himself in the foot with these moronic statements. He's an idiot anyway, and will be a horrible president if he gets elected. People supporting Gore aren't supporting him at all - he is a dufus and everyone knows it; the democrat suppporters are supporting the party, not the candidate.
"Compare this extremely trivial error to the kind of gargantuan whoppers that Bush made during that debate and then ask yourself why the press focuses so much attention on Gore's trivial error while ignoring the big ones that Bush is making almost every day."
The media pays such close attention because they should be. And the idea that the media is biased against Gore is absolutely crazy - the media is dominated by left-wing thinking in North America, and this election is no exception. But that doesn't mean they let a dufus get away with being a dufus - they're going after Gore and what he claims (at least the overstated claims anyway) just like they should be.
"Oh, and read the articles linked above and you will see that no less an authority then Vinton Cerf would disagree with your claim that Gore's impact on the internet was "minimal"."
Oh, gee, Mister Cerf said so, so let's all believe him. I don't care what he claims - Gore has had an insignificant impact on the Internet, and will never have anything more than that.
"Some people want to ignore the important role the government had in the creation of the modern internet and prefer to believe some libertarian myth about the internet springing whole from the head of a bunch of hackers."
Realistically, that is exactly the case. The government played a role - they identified a need for a redundant communication system for military purposes, knew that University people were smart and could do it, and then threw money at those University folk.
But it was the University folk, and other non-politicians, that built the Internet and everything on it today. Politicians didn't design or build anything about the Internet.
Perhaps it would be useful to define what is meant by "the government", as that could mean politicians, govt employees, contract workers, or even government organizations like the FCC.
"Sorry, but if it weren't for the government, it is extremely unlikely we would have the internet today."
If it wasn't for everyone _but_ the government, the Internet would probably have gone bankrupt or stopped working long ago, and would be a miniscule fraction of what it is today.
The government didn't invent or create the Internet - let me just say that much is true IMO.
Caveat Emptor. If you don't want to pay the taxes, don't live in the country that takes them without giving you the choice, and wastes the money better than any other organization.
Anyone can spend better than most governments, IMO.
Too bad, but here's a couple I thought of:
1. Nine 5s Reliability - A standard for software and hardware design that ensures 55.555% uptime.
2. Optical Char Recognition - Algorithms for recognizing and classifying this fish commonly found in arctic regions of northern Canada.
3. Dense Car Division Multiplexing - A system of merging multiple streams of cars into fewer streams of cars for transport over long distances. (Declared invalid due to existing implementations in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and New York)
4. Non-Poetic Justice - A system of declaring legal judgements in free verse, patented to force the US Court System Judges' Rulings to come in the form of rhyming poetry in formats such as iambic pentameter, or trochaic tetrameter.
That's precisely the video clip in question, and the implications of it are a matter of interpretation. You disagree that it means Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet, but on the other hand, the vast majority of critics, pundits and other commentors construed his comments to mean that he claims to have invented the Internet.
Further, if you saw Al Gore's appearance on Letterman, he did the top 10 list and one of the items included him saying "not only did I invent the Internet", or words to that effect.
The precise interpretation isn't that he claimed to invent it. However, the way he said it and the way many people perceived how he said it was that he came across sounding like he was claiming to have invented the Internet. Adding to that was Al Gore's claim to have attended some government function in Texas during the first debate, which he later retracted once it was revealed by the media that Al Gore was claiming to have done something that he didn't.
In other words, Al Gore has a habit of claiming to have done more than he actually has. In one instance, the Internet claim - his impact on the Internet has been minimal, trust me. The second instance, claiming to have done work that he in fact hadn't done at all - going to Texas to do whatever.
Either way, either candidate - the US political system is a generic and bogus political system. It doesn't matter which candidate gets voted in, or which party gets voted in - neither party could push its agenda so much as to actually alter the US in any significant way. Every 4 years there is an election in the US, and there is a high volatility in which political party is in office. That means the two political parties just cancel each other out every 4 or 8 years, so America never makes any real progress.
The three most significant forces in the US are social and economic change, and Federal Reserve monetary policy - the government is no longer relevant or effective.
IMO, the US government will only be relevant to US citizens when more than 95% of eligible voters go to the ballot boxes and vote. As it is right now, the US government is far too out of touch with the modern day realities - it has not kept up with the sweeping advances of the US society, economy or the progress of technology.
For the record, I'm a Canadian citizen, and that's how I see things. Comment away.
Game genres won't die out, they will simply cycle between periods of popularity and periods of scarcity. Just like the people talking about MAME... that is VERY cool. But game developers during those scarcity periods will still come out with the occasional movie... kind of like excluding summer season and winter season for movies, there is that intermediary period where the quality of movies degrades (less action flicks), and the number of new releases may decline as well, but there are still movies coming out from all genres, from romance & comedy to romance & action to romance & pornography. Oh wait, those are all the same thing.
I think the next cool idea in RAM is a merging of RAM with microprocessors to create what was once referred to as IRAM. That is, IRAM would have one CPU per RAM chip, like a sort of system-on-chip configuration. With 512MB of RAM on your machine, there are perhaps four to 32 individual silicon chips with RAM memory, depending on the density of the RAM.
Hence, if that was IRAM, you would also have four to 32 individual processors.
The idea, of course, is to distribute processing and increase performance by having the RAM and CPU on the same silicon, thus reducing the path length, eliminate the need to go through a motherboard bus and connectors and all that. More power efficient, lower EM interferance, etc.
The question would remain whether to have a central CPU coordinating all of the individual CPU's, or whether the system would be entirely distributed. I think if there was a central CPU, the system would be easier to make it look like a SIMD machine to software, which would make it easy to program for. That may be possible without the CPU, but the alternative is MIMD.
Who knows, with a kernel made for distributed processing like Mach, which is may see growing attention because GNU Hurd and MacOS X both use it, then a large part of the computer market may benefit from IRAM.
I guess in addition to considering Novell, IBM's other attempt at putting new life into its servers has to do with its participation in the Gnome Foundation, which will boost the strength of Linux, and IBM seems big on Linux these days.
Question: If IBM is moving towards Linux, and hopes that Gnome Foundation and Linux will strengthen its servers, what does a purchase of Novell add to that, or does it split IBM's efforts to strength its hardware into two camps, a Linux camp and a Novell camp?
I always get the impression that IBM wants to be all things to all people... have a finger in every cookie jar...
CmdrTaco writes:
"The irony is that if Apple's legal hadn't gone after the sites with Cube images, everyone woulda ignored it or thought it a hoax."
Very true, but would that stop the leaks? If Apple let it continue and the rumors sites proved consistently accurate, would regular news sites begin to trust the rumors sites, and also post the content?
And what if the competitors had it? What if time was an essential resource to Apple's competitors for the purpose of competing with Apple?
Since a company is a legally recognized entity, as are people, does a company have the right to privacy?
I think Apple is perfectly justified for suing to identify the people involved. Apple didn't want the information leaked, so why did the person leak it? The person violated the wishes of Apple, and everyone that works at Apple, and everyone that owns shares in Apple.
This is a situation where the legal system works _for_ the people, and against the selfish bastards that care nothing about anyone but themselves.
Sue away Apple, this is precisely why we have privacy and trade secret protection.
Most of your comments are common sense, and well known.
However, you understate the likelihood of an optional install of the necessary BSD components, which we can certainly expect to see.
Apple may have wishes, but I have heard from several people working directly with Apple that there will be an optional download install to make the OSX core a full BSD OS.
And I can't wait to see it, and all of the software that the Mac will have available for it.
Apple is leaving out those optional components for the benefit of its inexperienced and new users... but for people with a lot more experience with Unix and Macs, we are going to love seeing so much new software.
If Apple allows BSD compatibility, we instantly get twice the developers and twice the software products... since software can make or break a platform, and the fact that BSD is BSD regardless of what Apple wants to do with it, then I am almost entirely certain that we will have plenty of Open Source and Free Software available for the Mac through OSX and its core. And I, for one, can't wait.
Very true... I'm a hardcore Mac user and one of my biggest hopes for OSX is that there will be plenty of software available for it that has absolutely nothing of Apple's value-added components involved.
Just pure Unix, no Quartz or Aqua or slick special effects...
Firstly, being based on Unix means that open source apps will be easy to port. I expect that the demand for open source apps will come largely from Mac users wanting new software, different sofware, cheaper software.
Also, since it will be possible to bypass Apple's own components of OSX, like Quartz and Aqua, there exists the potential to have a Unix app running on OSX that is significantly faster than a Carbon or Cocoa app, simply because all of the Apple layers are discarded.
For gamers and the Mac open source/ free software communities, I think OSX is going to be an awesome product. I know that John Carmack is doign a lot of work on OSX and he is an active participant in Apple's Darwin email digests.... hopefully, his enthusiasm is a sign of things to come from the gaming industry.
Further, if Mac game developers develop their games to run just on the Unix core, does this not also mean it will be easier for these game developers to port to open source OSes like the BSD's and Linux?
With luck, OSX will be good for everyone, from hardcore GUI freaks to hardcore open source/ free software people, and everyone in between.
Yeah, it was an XOR, I was not calling AltiVec an Intel technology. I was alluding to the fact that Intel's one technology has gone through three names.
I also heard something about individual RAM cards integrating CPU's onto them. Not fully-fledged 32-bit or 64-bit CPU's, but 1-bit or 4-bit or 8-bit CPU's. The main CPU could farm out operations to the smaller processors, saving a lot of the main CPU time for the bigger operations needed.
Perhaps a vector processor on every chip would have value, allowing SIMD operations to be performed with much more efficiency than if a a central vector unit had to do it, like AltiVec or whatever name Intel has come up for their technology this week.
That strikes me as being a pretty smart technology... cheap and effective, hopefully. Add RAM, add a small about of processing power. We will see that eventually, but it would be good for some company to do that now and get an early lead in the "iRAM" field.
Perhaps Intel is trying to scare Rambus through some public relations... Rambus may be demonstrating attitudes that Intel doesn't like, or thinks will threaten Intel's investment in them. Subjective qualities like becoming complacent, cocky or too aggressive in their dealings is not something Intel wants to see.
Perhaps Intel is just doing this to keep Rambus on their toes, make sure that they are always using notch 11 on the 10 notch amp, for that little bit of extra energy.
Consider for a moment the issue of culture differences. Some cultures, including European ones, typically have different values than others. For example, in Germany if you are a team leader, your employees expect you to know _everything_ and always have an answer to any situation, even if it isn't the correct answer. A team leader that doesn't have an answer may be criticized quite harshly by employees in private, and by other team leaders.
... and making comments about other people" comment in this thread may actually be a result of cultural differences, if one of the two men involved is from another culture. That may be how some cultures communicate - through language typically more exciting and personal than we are used to in North America.
In North America we don't always expect people to have all the answers, we tolerate it when people don't know the answer to something (usually) and often try to find the answer. If a team leader doesn't know an answer, it is common for the employee with the question to continue the search for the answer, but not common for the employee to frown upon his/her boss' lack of knowledge.
That is just one example, but culture differences can play a major role in the relationships of people, and how people interpret the words of others.
Culture differences are important to bear in mind when dealing with all people. People from some cultures communicate in a form that is, inherently, more negative than others, and quite a bit different from what some cultures can be used to. Hence, the issue of cultural conflicts.
So the "excited
Also, consider that even if a person learns fluent English, that doesn't mean he/she learns the culturally-specific generalities of communication typical in English-speaking countries.
Always keep cultural differences in mind when talking to people from other cultures, it may help you avoid unnecessary conflicts.
This whole inspired debate may be nothing more than the country of origin of these two gentleman. It may, in fact, have nothing to do with politics.
What makes you think they can't do this already, w/o the aid of nanotechnology?
There is little need to maintain a "most wanted" list of dead people.
I believe the biggest threat to human safety, when nanotechnology becomes available, will be who is in charge of developing it. If the US government gets its hands on nanotechnology, the first use they will have for it will be as a weapon of war. Nanotechnology is also the CIA's dream come true... Think about it - now that the US can kill anyone, anywhere and without any evidence, what will happen to Marxists, Communists and anti-US organizations? As much as I don't agree with these people, I value freedom of speech above all, and the thought that the US could kill this freedom by killing people with opposing viewpoints is a scary consideration. - how about political assasinations? I have no trouble seeing a lot of politicians in the future dying suddenly of cardiac arrest, brain aneurisms and many other problems which can be caused by sheer physical manipulation - say an attack by Utility Fog (Utility Fog is one perceived application of nanotechnology... very interesting idea) Nanotechnology has the potential to eliminate all risk of many physical ailments, including cancer and aids - all without any genetic modification or drugs. It is one of the greatest potential tools to achieve standard of living parity across all peoples. It must be watched and it must not be in the hands of special interests, such as any one government. I propose nanotechnology should be put into the hands of scientists and watchdogs to ensure there is constant public disclosure of all developments, and that it is never put into the hands of groups that have exhibited aggressive tendencies, such as military and government.
Got Meow?
The reason why Microsoft doesn't give away its API set is a very simple one - hiding APIs benefits them, and, in their monopoly situation, what benefits them hurts their competition.
One of the rules of thumbin the business world is - if you can develop an advantage, then after you develop it you have to take steps to preserve it.
Microsoft's closed APIs have worked on numerous occasions for them. We can all recall the stories of Microsoft changing APIs to disrupt the technology of their competitors, while their own technologies remain compatible because they know what they changed.
Microsoft, by not giving out its API set, has built a dependency, a crutch, that it will have a hard time letting go of.
The second rule of thumb in business that's relevant here is that a company tends to have genetics - once it becomes a part of the company, it doesn't go away easy. Thus, Microsoft's extremely protective behavior is entrenched in the company, and the mentality of employees there.
So it doesn't matter that someone may say "Hey, what's the big deal, they're only APIs"; that is _one_ perspective. Microsoft has a very different perspective, one of protection and secrecy and the simple fact that protectionism worked for them very effectively, so why give up one of their major advantages.
For another example, look at world trade. It doesn't happen overnight, it takes years for countries to open their borders.
I guess this is an example of F.U.D. in Microsoft.
Aqua is a complete UI, not just the fancy special effects, and so far it looks awesome. I definitely want to use it at this point, and they haven't even fully refined it yet - meaning it is only going to get better between now and showtime.
OSX, with Aqua, will be a much more complete and stable experience for Mac users. It will be a more complete and stable experience for ALL people who try it, for that matter. A merger of the stability that comes only from free software with the slick and highly appealing UI that only comes from people who understand the end-users desire (i.e. Apple) will be a very powerful merger indeed. Aqua is an example of what is possible with user interfaces.
What do you think the user interface of 10 years from now will look like? KDE? Gnome? X? Not likely... Aqua? Definitely.
You may like tinkering with the OS in discrete levels of detail... the vast majority of people on this planet will NEVER want that level of control. What UI do you think will appeal to most people on this planet more - one that offers significant control, or one that looks great and is highly intuitive like Aqua?
It doesn't take a computer scientist to figure out the answer to that question...
This raises an interesting possibility. Microsoft has at least a year before the appeals process ends. What if, in that time, they planned what the two separate companies are going to do separately to maintain complete dominance of the industry? After all, Microsoft doesn't just have an OS monopoly, they have a monopoly in the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software segments, and majority market share in the web browser market. Windows Inc has the OS monopoly, and now the breakup will separate the other Microsoft monopolies into a separate entity, creating two monopolies in the industry, instead of one.
... what if Microsoft coordinates those two monopolies?
So
For example, the company in charge of MS applications is told "drop all development of apps for non-Windows platforms and claim, out of necessity to remain profitable, that the company must do this."
Gates and Ballmer find a loyal Microsoft management team, implant them in the company that Gates/Ballmer can't be majority shareholders in (that's one of the requirements of the breakup... any shareholder of MSFT with > 5% ownership can't own any shares of the other company) and then they coordinate the strategic moves of the two companies to maintain Microsoft's market dominace.
"Apple doomed the Mac. High priced hardware. Skimpy software selection. If it wasn't for all the Macs sold at budget prices to students and college staff I doubt the Mac would have sold very many machines at all. How many of US did Apple lose because of it's high prices? Apple decided to abandon us not the other way around."
Clueless. Apple owned 25% of the computer industry at one point with its "high priced" hardware, and bare in mind that the IBM PC "cheap hardware" was always around while Apple's Macintosh market share went from 0% to 25%. Users had choice, and 1 out of 4 of them chose the Mac.
And by the way, the Mac is more successful today than ever before, and yet even the cheapest Mac is twice the price of the cheapest PC. The "doomed" Mac is on more desktops today than at any time in its history. Besides - take a look at your computer, I bet you paid more for it than the cost of an iMac.
The reason why Apple continues to do well is because, unlike yourself, some people actually think a bit more intelligently - they don't look at the simple comparison of sticker price, they look at the issue of "Is this higher price justified? Does the Mac, for its higher price, offer me higher quality, more productivity, or significant value that justifies the cost?"
Even when the Mac was at its most expensive, the fact that a kid could learn it, could network it and could do more than just play games with it meant that it offered everyone a lot of value in ease of use and simplicity.
No other combination of hardware and Operating System has ever offered the complete, integrated user experience with the ease of operation as the Macintosh. THAT is why people willingly paid the high prices, THAT is why even at its lowest point Apple still had people that would never sell their Mac, and THAT is why, after Apple refocussed, they are one of the most successful computer companies today.
As for OSX, it is clear at this point that OSX will once again set a new standard for GUI design. It is brand new, so don't expect it to be flawless when it comes out. We can all spot its less-than-shining UI elements at this point, but on the other hand when we take off our platform-bias hats, we all see the elements of OSX that cause us all to drool.
Just check out the Ars Technica article about OSX Developer Preview 4.
There is no reason to knock Apple... after all, you have many significant and meaningful innovations and features found on desktop computers to thank them for.
The people that do knock Apple would do well to go over to this URL and read it thoroughly from beginning to end. If you've ever wondered why so many Mac users compare so many computers to their Mac, here is why.
Let's see if any OS will ever match this track record:
http://www.mackido.com/Innovation/