Yes, it is flawed. In fact I believe that modern telepathy research is Terminally Flawed. You can't produce telepathy in an environment which doubts it is possible. Plain and simple.
What you are saying is a lame cop out. Plenty of true believers conduct tests, some even strive to conduct tests that are free from experimental bias or other pitfalls. So why are we not seeing paper after paper highlighting the amazing telepathic ability of their test subjects which were conducted in harmonious settings, surrounded by other believers?
Also, I would have to say, that so far all those who have 'seriously' researched telepathy seek to weaponize it. This can't be good for the spiritual principle, which states that there is a universe outside of the one in which bombs are the most powerful device in the universe for controlling mankinds destiny.
My experience of my Windows Mobile 2002 edition is that the core software is reasonably stable, but some of the crap tools written by HP crash my handheld with impunity. Therefore it is no wonder that their devices require a recessed reset button to recover.
My biggest problem with CE, and perhaps it's been improved in more recent versions is the number of redundant taps you have to do the same task as Palm OS used to do with one. In on my old Vx I could enter an appointment by tapping on a timeslot and start writing. In CE, it means clicking "New", writing, picking a time and finally clicking OK once done. It doesn't sound a lot but having to do 4 or 5 extra taps for the same function is a pain.
Java is getting pretty good on the desktop, even under Swing. Under SWT, it uses native widgets so its even better. I think I would be hard pressed to consider writing a native application these days unless it required maximum performance or some kind of advanced feature that Java does not offer access to.
It always gives me a kick to see my Java app, developed solely on Windows work almost flawlessly on Linux or OS X. I say almost but there are some minor UI inconsistencies that I need to fix. You mention for example the menu bar should go at the top, but it doesn't in my app. Also, my menus look a bit stupid since it uses the Windows conventions for menu structure for underlining accelerator keys, e.g. File.
So some work would be required here and in other places for a cross-UI, but certainly nothing at all comparable with attempting to port a Win32 app to Objective-C & Cocoa. I think.NET would actually be better than Java as a cross-platform tool if it actually were cross-platform. Mono might hold that promise one day, but trying to run even the simplest Windows.Forms app on Linux and the problems that follow suggests they have a way to go yet.
You are missing the point. It isn't about detecting ESP, UFOs, ghosts, it's investigating unexplained phenomenon. People tried to explain the stars in the sky, why they moved, and what they were with paranormal explainations. They simply did not have the technology or understanding to come up with anything better. Eventually technology improved, so that investigations into the "magical" sky had more concrete results.
Stars are observable. Every sighted person on earth is able to look up and see them. Not just once, but every single cloudless day of the year. Not only are they observable but they appear to follow patterns. Patterns which allow theories to be developed and then tested against the more observations to see if they are correct. Sometimes theories collide (e.g. heliocentric vs Earth-centric), and after some period of debate based on evidence and observation, one is discarded. Thus science improves on its self.
Whereas, ESP is not observable. No one has ever observed it in a controlled setting. Plenty of anecdotes, but no empirical evidence gathered in a controlled evironment. Since you can't observe it you can't develop theories that try to define it and you can't can't test those theories with further observation. In fact no one can even explain why ESP should even be considered plausible. There is no scientific justification for believing it exists (hence it is paranormal) and what explanations you get tend to be woo-woo word salad, e.g. "quantum vibrations", "positive energies" etc. Meaningless terms.
That hasn't stopped dozens, hundreds of experiments being done to try to detect ESP. All of which are flawed or fail miserably. In short ESP is a phenomena that for all intents and purposes does not exist. Of course it might exist, just as my tiny Titanic in the bathtub might, but it is such a preposterous claim in the first place that a line must be drawn. After how many centuries of anecdotes but not a single shred of proof do you give up?
It doesn't mean unexplained phenomena should go untested but you do so on its merits. ESP, UFOs, crop circles etc. are well and truly meritless by this point.
What if telepathy is real, but the experiments are wrong? I wonder if telepathy actually works differently than one usually thinks. After sorting out the clear frauds and hoaxes, one can see that most psychics seem to be very intuitive. If telepathy is some sort of enhanced intuition, then maybe the ability depends heavily on the environment and situation. For example, being in a very familiar room triggering telepathic abilities. Unfortunately, this would render telepathy unprovable.
Intuition is not telepathy. Intuition is being able to read other people's emotions from the signs they give off. You and they may not even be aware of the subconscious signals that may being read. If you want to demonstrate telepathy is real, I suggest you conduct an experiment when the test subject has to determine the age, sex, mood and other characteristics of people they cannot see or hear or smell, e.g. because they're behind a wall. I expect the result of that experiment will be no better than chance. Or perhaps ask this telepathic person to suggest their own test, and then conduct it in a manner that precludes cheating.
Also, if someone is REALLY capable of telepathy, chances are high that this person keeps it a secret. Reading thoughts allow revealing true motives. If one reads the minds of ESP-interested people, one may well find some rather sinister motives (like, abusing it for stealing, blackmail, military applications..) Also, reading other's minds could be quite scary and disturbing, so it would not surprise me to find lots of insane people among the real psychics.....
This is akin to saying the fairies are shy of people, and that's why you can't see them. It's an excuse to rationalise away the non-existence of the phenomena to begin with.
This stance also requires that any psychic who appears on tv, writes a book, sells tours, offers advice through a premium phone number, holds seances, helps the cops, takes part in studies etc. is by definition not a psychic. After these folks are clearly not shy or even afraid of lining their pockets, so what's their excuse other than they're frauds?
(Also, couple of questions:
* How LONG will the movie stay around?
* How MUCH is this going to cost?
* What OTHER viewing options besides the iPod screen?
* How MANY viewings before expiration?
I've wondered this. From what movie rental services I've seen, they appear to be under the delusion that people will be stupid enough to buy a movie for $10 or some absurd figure, which is view or time limited, or requires a certain player to play and confers no kind of ownership rights whatsoever onto the viewer. As most movies > 3 months are on dvd, that services like NetFlix have an unlimited $9.99 monthly plan, and most movies > 10 months are in the bargain bin, I have have to question who would be so fucking stupid to fall for this.
It might be different if online movies were the same price as rentals, but I have yet to see it happen. It beggars belief that Sony, Time Warner etc. simply don't open a store that sells cheap rentals with limited DRM. After all, TW movies would be fantastic attraction for their ailing AOL brand. Sony could give an enormous shot in the arm to the PSP / PS3 online business etc.
All these derivative, proprietary solutions will rip the market apart just like with music and ebooks before. And people will stay away in droves. iTunes popularity won't extend to movies when most people don't even have a video iPod to start with.
If someone claims to have had a telepathic experience, it is not up to you to decide the validity of their experience. What irks me is people immediately dismissing such a person as a nutjob. There is certainly a lot more going on around us than we can directly sense, and anyone with any amount of intuition who is in touch with themselves has had experiences that demonstrate at least the possibility of "paranormal" awareness.
Actually it is up to whomever the claim is being made to decide the validity of the experience. Do the claimant provide irrefutable evidence of their claim? Is there claim just one of string which never happened? Was their claim specific? Is it verifiable? Did they attempt to fiddle the claim to fit the facts after the happened? etc.
Worse yet if they are using their claimed experience to charge people for advice, or telling them that they should dump their spouse because the spirits say so, or to hand over all their cash to be "cleansed" or that they should stay away from doctors because of negative "energies". etc.
I have no problem if someone thinks they have had a paranormal experience, but if they push their claim on me, or boast their claims in a public manner, or use their claims to make money, or use their claims to convince a friend or family member to make an irrational decision then I'm sure as hell fully entitled to say exactly what I think of those claims.
People with greater than average skill are always derided by the masses. Or, as Einstein put it: "Great thinkers will always face violent opposition from mediocre minds." Just because someone might be more perceptually evolved is no reason to cast them away.
Clowns and jesters are derided by the masses too. Comparing yourself or others to Einstein doesn't mean that you or they are Einstein or anything comparable.
Besides which, I doubt Einstein made that quote and certainly didn't mean it in the way you claim if he did. Cite your source. Einstein provided scientific theories that could be tested with observation. Where are your paranormal theories that can be tested with observation?
We should honor this experiment, not immediately dismiss it. Yes, let's make sure rigorous checks are in place, and that the data is properly validated. But give it a chance, eh?
The paranormal has had three centuries to demonstrate it exists. How many more centuries of statistical noise should be gathered before we state that we are as certain as experiment allows to say it has absolutely no basis in fact?
That being said, I don't see any reason there shouldn't be some continued research into these areas. The more basic research, the better, I say. What doesn't make sense, however, is sinking substantial amounts of money into research in areas that show no actual promise of ever turning up anything. Or, spending a lot of time doing non-scientific work in these areas. I'm sure paranormal enthusiasts can point to lots of "evidence" for telepathy. How much of it would actually stand up to scrutiny, though?
There IS research in these areas. Hundreds of hours of fruitless, pointless research every single year. And it is fatally flawed and contains some form of experimental bias, or it comes back with exactly the result you would expect - indistinguishable from random chance. There are reputable research facilities that investigate paranormal claims and none have produce anything which could be called compelling or even promising. Even groups with a vested interest in providing evidence of the paranormal (e.g. cults like TM, scientology etc.) can't provide any valid evidence for its existence.
How many times do the same experiments have to be repeated before it is reasonable to conclude no such phenomena exists? Of course you can keep looking and looking, but if it doesn't exist to begin with, you can never conclusively state that it isn't there. I have a miniaturized Titanic floating in my bath complete with a tiny crew and tiny Kate Winslet. Prove that I haven't. You can't see it? Oh I meant to say it's invisible. You can't touch it? It's very fast, and it's insubstantial to the touch. You could concoct the most elaborate tests to search for my Titanic and you'd always have an "out" that you couldn't find it.
I hear skeptics often say things like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", but paranormalists, offer no evidence whatsoever. They claim this and that but their claims cannot even a cursory inspection. Some skeptic societies even offer cash prizes for any self-claimed paranormalist who demonstrates their claim in a controlled environment. There is no trickery involved, the person must demonstrate their claim in a way previously agreed and they get a large sum of money. One prize is even a million dollars. So it is very strange that of all these astrologers, pet psychics, clairvoyants, remote viewers etc., not a single one claims this money. If someone offered me $1,000,000 to write a "hello world" program in Java, I'd sure as hell do it. What's so damned special about the paranormal that not a single one of them will provide a conclusive 10 minute demonstration of their powers? Many have no problem selling their services, so its certainly nothing to do with money.
Plus, the switch to Intel ain't exactly easy. [adobe.com] Same situation at Microsoft. [msdn.com]
Exactly. Apple appeared to make light of doing it - "oh just use XCode and you already get UB". Except of course for those software houses who have large, complex projects which don't use XCode, or on Carbon, or who have big chunks of assembly or other platform specific optimizations peppered through their code. Something like Photoshop must feature an extremely complex build procedure, probably one strung out from all kinds of custom tools.
Anyway, I don't know why people are holding out for Adobe on Intel OS X. It's the same hardware underneath a Mac as a PC these days. You may as well use Adobe Whatever under XP. It has long been tuned to run there so, you're not losing anything.
How do you come to that conclusion? Apple machines use the same chips and chipsets as their rivals. Therefore comparable models are going to perform with comparable results. The only thing I expect is faster is their time to market. They appear to be getting first cut on Intel chips, which gives them some edge on new machines until other makers catch up. For that you pay the Apple premium and still have to fork out for a Windows licence, if that was your intended OS in the first place.
Hmm, I'm not sure what your criticism of that code snippet is. Code on any environment can look pretty crazy, especially if you start using generate code or compiler extensions (of which gcc has many) to write it.
In this snippet, it appears to use COM (generated from #import by the looks of it), but then it's meant for a Windows program running in a Windows environment. As it happens it is just instantiating an XML parser to create a DOM. I'm sure the same could be done in Xerces-C++ or whatever but it would be just as mindboggling to read if you don't know what an XML parser does. Why not use Xerces if you want cross-platform compatibility? Otherwise, COM is just fine (and more convenient) once you can get your head around the VARIANT types and reference counting.
It certainly says nothing about standards. In fact XML is a standard, and even Microsoft treat it fairly well from a programming standpoint..NET has excellent XML support. It's in the application of those standards where MS sucks. Witness the sheer complexity and strings attached to their Office XML format for example.
Yes, the number of people opening a ppt with something other than Powerpoint is diminishingly small. It would be a waste of time writing an exploit for that scenario. Hence the reason that machines with a heterogenuous mix of software are far less vulnerable as a rule than those running purely Microsoft stuff.
It doesn't mean they are immune and common sense security still applies, but they are far less likely to be infected in the first place. Secondly, even if you caught a dose, the payload might not work properly. For example, a ppt file exploit is likely to want to mass mail everyone in your address book to spread itself. But if you're not using Outlook, then the virus / trojan can't spread via your machine because it can't propogate itself.
Put yourself in the shoes of a hacker. Do you waste a disproportionate amount of time writing an exploit that snags 0.01% of users who might a ppt association but it loads into another presentation app and who may not even be running Windows, or do you write one which targets the 99.9% of recipients who are running Windows and PowerPoint?
i.e. do you waste a lot of time for a minimal gain or go for the lowest hanging fruit?
Even if I open a ppt attachment by mistake, it will launch into OpenOffice. The law of diminishing returns makes far less likely that an exploit intended for one office suite used by the masses is going to work on another. That's no reason to be complacent or less vigilant, but it's just one extra layer of security between me and the attacker.
Probably because Microsoft had a monopoly on virtualization on OS X until recently so have not felt compelled to undercut the competition. Though there is now some competition in the form of Parallels, so perhaps they'll be cutting their prices there sooner than you can say antitrust, shades of Netscape etc.
The problem here that I see is that planes have to get low to land. No laser is likely to be reliable enough to take out a missile which has about 2 seconds to travel from the ground to its target. I think it more likely that any automated laser defence system is likely to get severely confused by itself and start blasting at birds, fireworks or even aircraft. Given that, I think I'd prefer an airport which didn't use such a system.
Besides which, I'm sure a.50 caliber machine gun or even a automatic rifle could do enough damage to a jet as it passes overhead, that it stands a good chance of crashing before it can turn around and land. It only has to happen once to make a mockery of any defence system.
Aside from GTA: SA, I can't think of a single decent "hood" game. Perhaps with good reason since the culture is not one that anyone with half a brain wants to imitate. And even then GTA: SA, the supposedly successful hood game got the hell out about 1/3 through and didn't come back until the end.
Would this allow two females to produce an offspring together? Because that would be a species changing event for humanity.
Not unless the earth was populated by rich lesbians, or significant numbers of families had some Y chromosome genetic disease they wished to avoid, or some disease wiped out / emasculated all the men. As it stands, even if this tech were available, it might allow a handful of babies to born this way, but the chances are that those offspring would revert to the good old fashioned way of conceiving in the course of time.
Tabbing in cmd.exe is probably one of the few things which is IMHO better than it is bash. Namely that you can cycle through different choices by hitting tab rather than (partially) completing as bash does. Perhaps there is an option somewhere for this, but it's about the only thing I like about cmd.exe.
Actually I say WINE sucks because apps running on Linux look horrible. They look exactly like they are - Win32 apps running an imperfect version of Windows Classic theme running on Linux. If you don't believe me then you've never used WINE. Items such as the registry are inescapable because so many Win32 components directly or indirectly rely upon settings held there. I expect the old Lotus Notes stuffed all kinds of ActiveX settings and file associations in there. I wouldn't be surprised if Lotus Notes even used ActiveX controls such as the Internet Browser control which would be almost impossible to implement correctly on Linux, and certainly IBM wouldn't have the right to distribute or port it. Even with all of the source it would be a massive headache to retrofit an app written for Win32 to work acceptably on Linux. It would be an ongoing QA, maintenance and regression nightmare to keep both Win32 and Linux whether it runs from the same codebase or a fork.
Whereas Java apps using SWT or even Swing look and behave pretty much any other app on Linux. Swing isn't perfect but it gets pretty close since it uses the native theme engine and SWT uses native widgets. Java also has plenty of APIs that abstract away mundane details such as path separators, registries, graphics, networking and so on. For example, the java.util.prefs package allows prefs to be stored on any platform. This abstraction extends through all APIs making it easy to write cross platform code in Java.
Faced with making a crappy old client a total makeover and porting it to Linux with WINE, or writing a new cross-platform one that runs pretty much everywhere, it is pretty obvious IBM are doing the smart thing.
An obviously file sharers and people who like to receive IMs when they are not there are a small percentage of users. I'm sure they could igure out how to change the power saving options if they want to leave their machine on all night. Servers obviously wouldn't sleep when not in use, but there is no reason that desktop machines shouldn't by default.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds easy, I'll give it a try! I guess that a few lines of platform specific code at startup would take care of most of the differences
What you are saying is a lame cop out. Plenty of true believers conduct tests, some even strive to conduct tests that are free from experimental bias or other pitfalls. So why are we not seeing paper after paper highlighting the amazing telepathic ability of their test subjects which were conducted in harmonious settings, surrounded by other believers?
You can't weaponize something that doesn't exist.
My biggest problem with CE, and perhaps it's been improved in more recent versions is the number of redundant taps you have to do the same task as Palm OS used to do with one. In on my old Vx I could enter an appointment by tapping on a timeslot and start writing. In CE, it means clicking "New", writing, picking a time and finally clicking OK once done. It doesn't sound a lot but having to do 4 or 5 extra taps for the same function is a pain.
It always gives me a kick to see my Java app, developed solely on Windows work almost flawlessly on Linux or OS X. I say almost but there are some minor UI inconsistencies that I need to fix. You mention for example the menu bar should go at the top, but it doesn't in my app. Also, my menus look a bit stupid since it uses the Windows conventions for menu structure for underlining accelerator keys, e.g. File.
So some work would be required here and in other places for a cross-UI, but certainly nothing at all comparable with attempting to port a Win32 app to Objective-C & Cocoa. I think .NET would actually be better than Java as a cross-platform tool if it actually were cross-platform. Mono might hold that promise one day, but trying to run even the simplest Windows.Forms app on Linux and the problems that follow suggests they have a way to go yet.
Stars are observable. Every sighted person on earth is able to look up and see them. Not just once, but every single cloudless day of the year. Not only are they observable but they appear to follow patterns. Patterns which allow theories to be developed and then tested against the more observations to see if they are correct. Sometimes theories collide (e.g. heliocentric vs Earth-centric), and after some period of debate based on evidence and observation, one is discarded. Thus science improves on its self.
Whereas, ESP is not observable. No one has ever observed it in a controlled setting. Plenty of anecdotes, but no empirical evidence gathered in a controlled evironment. Since you can't observe it you can't develop theories that try to define it and you can't can't test those theories with further observation. In fact no one can even explain why ESP should even be considered plausible. There is no scientific justification for believing it exists (hence it is paranormal) and what explanations you get tend to be woo-woo word salad, e.g. "quantum vibrations", "positive energies" etc. Meaningless terms.
That hasn't stopped dozens, hundreds of experiments being done to try to detect ESP. All of which are flawed or fail miserably. In short ESP is a phenomena that for all intents and purposes does not exist. Of course it might exist, just as my tiny Titanic in the bathtub might, but it is such a preposterous claim in the first place that a line must be drawn. After how many centuries of anecdotes but not a single shred of proof do you give up?
It doesn't mean unexplained phenomena should go untested but you do so on its merits. ESP, UFOs, crop circles etc. are well and truly meritless by this point.
Intuition is not telepathy. Intuition is being able to read other people's emotions from the signs they give off. You and they may not even be aware of the subconscious signals that may being read. If you want to demonstrate telepathy is real, I suggest you conduct an experiment when the test subject has to determine the age, sex, mood and other characteristics of people they cannot see or hear or smell, e.g. because they're behind a wall. I expect the result of that experiment will be no better than chance. Or perhaps ask this telepathic person to suggest their own test, and then conduct it in a manner that precludes cheating.
This is akin to saying the fairies are shy of people, and that's why you can't see them. It's an excuse to rationalise away the non-existence of the phenomena to begin with.
This stance also requires that any psychic who appears on tv, writes a book, sells tours, offers advice through a premium phone number, holds seances, helps the cops, takes part in studies etc. is by definition not a psychic. After these folks are clearly not shy or even afraid of lining their pockets, so what's their excuse other than they're frauds?
I've wondered this. From what movie rental services I've seen, they appear to be under the delusion that people will be stupid enough to buy a movie for $10 or some absurd figure, which is view or time limited, or requires a certain player to play and confers no kind of ownership rights whatsoever onto the viewer. As most movies > 3 months are on dvd, that services like NetFlix have an unlimited $9.99 monthly plan, and most movies > 10 months are in the bargain bin, I have have to question who would be so fucking stupid to fall for this.
It might be different if online movies were the same price as rentals, but I have yet to see it happen. It beggars belief that Sony, Time Warner etc. simply don't open a store that sells cheap rentals with limited DRM. After all, TW movies would be fantastic attraction for their ailing AOL brand. Sony could give an enormous shot in the arm to the PSP / PS3 online business etc.
All these derivative, proprietary solutions will rip the market apart just like with music and ebooks before. And people will stay away in droves. iTunes popularity won't extend to movies when most people don't even have a video iPod to start with.
Are corner cases worse than edge cases?
Actually it is up to whomever the claim is being made to decide the validity of the experience. Do the claimant provide irrefutable evidence of their claim? Is there claim just one of string which never happened? Was their claim specific? Is it verifiable? Did they attempt to fiddle the claim to fit the facts after the happened? etc.
Worse yet if they are using their claimed experience to charge people for advice, or telling them that they should dump their spouse because the spirits say so, or to hand over all their cash to be "cleansed" or that they should stay away from doctors because of negative "energies". etc.
I have no problem if someone thinks they have had a paranormal experience, but if they push their claim on me, or boast their claims in a public manner, or use their claims to make money, or use their claims to convince a friend or family member to make an irrational decision then I'm sure as hell fully entitled to say exactly what I think of those claims.
People with greater than average skill are always derided by the masses. Or, as Einstein put it: "Great thinkers will always face violent opposition from mediocre minds." Just because someone might be more perceptually evolved is no reason to cast them away.
Clowns and jesters are derided by the masses too. Comparing yourself or others to Einstein doesn't mean that you or they are Einstein or anything comparable.
Besides which, I doubt Einstein made that quote and certainly didn't mean it in the way you claim if he did. Cite your source. Einstein provided scientific theories that could be tested with observation. Where are your paranormal theories that can be tested with observation?
We should honor this experiment, not immediately dismiss it. Yes, let's make sure rigorous checks are in place, and that the data is properly validated. But give it a chance, eh?
The paranormal has had three centuries to demonstrate it exists. How many more centuries of statistical noise should be gathered before we state that we are as certain as experiment allows to say it has absolutely no basis in fact?
There IS research in these areas. Hundreds of hours of fruitless, pointless research every single year. And it is fatally flawed and contains some form of experimental bias, or it comes back with exactly the result you would expect - indistinguishable from random chance. There are reputable research facilities that investigate paranormal claims and none have produce anything which could be called compelling or even promising. Even groups with a vested interest in providing evidence of the paranormal (e.g. cults like TM, scientology etc.) can't provide any valid evidence for its existence.
How many times do the same experiments have to be repeated before it is reasonable to conclude no such phenomena exists? Of course you can keep looking and looking, but if it doesn't exist to begin with, you can never conclusively state that it isn't there. I have a miniaturized Titanic floating in my bath complete with a tiny crew and tiny Kate Winslet. Prove that I haven't. You can't see it? Oh I meant to say it's invisible. You can't touch it? It's very fast, and it's insubstantial to the touch. You could concoct the most elaborate tests to search for my Titanic and you'd always have an "out" that you couldn't find it.
I hear skeptics often say things like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", but paranormalists, offer no evidence whatsoever. They claim this and that but their claims cannot even a cursory inspection. Some skeptic societies even offer cash prizes for any self-claimed paranormalist who demonstrates their claim in a controlled environment. There is no trickery involved, the person must demonstrate their claim in a way previously agreed and they get a large sum of money. One prize is even a million dollars. So it is very strange that of all these astrologers, pet psychics, clairvoyants, remote viewers etc., not a single one claims this money. If someone offered me $1,000,000 to write a "hello world" program in Java, I'd sure as hell do it. What's so damned special about the paranormal that not a single one of them will provide a conclusive 10 minute demonstration of their powers? Many have no problem selling their services, so its certainly nothing to do with money.
Exactly. Apple appeared to make light of doing it - "oh just use XCode and you already get UB". Except of course for those software houses who have large, complex projects which don't use XCode, or on Carbon, or who have big chunks of assembly or other platform specific optimizations peppered through their code. Something like Photoshop must feature an extremely complex build procedure, probably one strung out from all kinds of custom tools.
Anyway, I don't know why people are holding out for Adobe on Intel OS X. It's the same hardware underneath a Mac as a PC these days. You may as well use Adobe Whatever under XP. It has long been tuned to run there so, you're not losing anything.
How do you come to that conclusion? Apple machines use the same chips and chipsets as their rivals. Therefore comparable models are going to perform with comparable results. The only thing I expect is faster is their time to market. They appear to be getting first cut on Intel chips, which gives them some edge on new machines until other makers catch up. For that you pay the Apple premium and still have to fork out for a Windows licence, if that was your intended OS in the first place.
In this snippet, it appears to use COM (generated from #import by the looks of it), but then it's meant for a Windows program running in a Windows environment. As it happens it is just instantiating an XML parser to create a DOM. I'm sure the same could be done in Xerces-C++ or whatever but it would be just as mindboggling to read if you don't know what an XML parser does. Why not use Xerces if you want cross-platform compatibility? Otherwise, COM is just fine (and more convenient) once you can get your head around the VARIANT types and reference counting.
It certainly says nothing about standards. In fact XML is a standard, and even Microsoft treat it fairly well from a programming standpoint. .NET has excellent XML support. It's in the application of those standards where MS sucks. Witness the sheer complexity and strings attached to their Office XML format for example.
Of course they can pump the price up. And in doing so, their competitor's products look just that little bit cheaper.
It doesn't mean they are immune and common sense security still applies, but they are far less likely to be infected in the first place. Secondly, even if you caught a dose, the payload might not work properly. For example, a ppt file exploit is likely to want to mass mail everyone in your address book to spread itself. But if you're not using Outlook, then the virus / trojan can't spread via your machine because it can't propogate itself.
i.e. do you waste a lot of time for a minimal gain or go for the lowest hanging fruit?
Even if I open a ppt attachment by mistake, it will launch into OpenOffice. The law of diminishing returns makes far less likely that an exploit intended for one office suite used by the masses is going to work on another. That's no reason to be complacent or less vigilant, but it's just one extra layer of security between me and the attacker.
Probably because Microsoft had a monopoly on virtualization on OS X until recently so have not felt compelled to undercut the competition. Though there is now some competition in the form of Parallels, so perhaps they'll be cutting their prices there sooner than you can say antitrust, shades of Netscape etc.
Besides which, I'm sure a .50 caliber machine gun or even a automatic rifle could do enough damage to a jet as it passes overhead, that it stands a good chance of crashing before it can turn around and land. It only has to happen once to make a mockery of any defence system.
Aside from GTA: SA, I can't think of a single decent "hood" game. Perhaps with good reason since the culture is not one that anyone with half a brain wants to imitate. And even then GTA: SA, the supposedly successful hood game got the hell out about 1/3 through and didn't come back until the end.
Not unless the earth was populated by rich lesbians, or significant numbers of families had some Y chromosome genetic disease they wished to avoid, or some disease wiped out / emasculated all the men. As it stands, even if this tech were available, it might allow a handful of babies to born this way, but the chances are that those offspring would revert to the good old fashioned way of conceiving in the course of time.
Tabbing in cmd.exe is probably one of the few things which is IMHO better than it is bash. Namely that you can cycle through different choices by hitting tab rather than (partially) completing as bash does. Perhaps there is an option somewhere for this, but it's about the only thing I like about cmd.exe.
Whereas Java apps using SWT or even Swing look and behave pretty much any other app on Linux. Swing isn't perfect but it gets pretty close since it uses the native theme engine and SWT uses native widgets. Java also has plenty of APIs that abstract away mundane details such as path separators, registries, graphics, networking and so on. For example, the java.util.prefs package allows prefs to be stored on any platform. This abstraction extends through all APIs making it easy to write cross platform code in Java.
Faced with making a crappy old client a total makeover and porting it to Linux with WINE, or writing a new cross-platform one that runs pretty much everywhere, it is pretty obvious IBM are doing the smart thing.
An obviously file sharers and people who like to receive IMs when they are not there are a small percentage of users. I'm sure they could igure out how to change the power saving options if they want to leave their machine on all night. Servers obviously wouldn't sleep when not in use, but there is no reason that desktop machines shouldn't by default.
Whether it was left in or not, the offensive material was so innocuous, that a 15 rated movie could exceed what is shown in "Hot Coffee".