Ah, maybe you could tell me why I couldn't jailbreak my iPod Touch, then. It came with the 1.1.4 firmware. I spent a couple of hours trying every possible jailbreaking application and web site. The best I did was to get it into a state which I thought was totally bricked, although after some panic I discovered that it could be reset with the magical button combo. So please, what was I doing wrong?
This didn't work for you?
What "this"? In any case, nothing worked.
Also, since you have a working iPod touch it was not "bricked", you simply reset it.
Please learn to read. I very clearly stated that I "thought" it was bricked, until I discovered the magic incantation to make it work again. I.e. there was a period of time where I thought it was completely dead.
You're mixing up two completely different issues:
No, you're taking one issue (can I develop for the iPhone/thouch) and artifically making them two.
You said that any platform owner can stop you from developing on their platform, and thus the iPhone is no different. This is not true! There is nothing like the iPhone's requirement for Apple-signed code on Mac OS X, Windows, or many other proprietary OSes.
Absolutely nonsensical. People have trouble getting in because Apple acts as gatekeepers and reserve (and use!) the right to reject people for any reason whatsoever.
Well people cannot program for actual Android devices right now for the same reason. There's a gatekeeper there too.
If I were saying anything about Android at all then this might actually have a chance at being relevant. Alas....
What you are ignoring is that in the future, there is no real gate. If anyone can come and go, what matter it is that Apple trims the flowers on the side?
This is pure speculation on your part. You don't really know how Apple is going to manage the program in the future, you're just guessing. They have all of the controls in place; why would they not use them? If anyone can come and go, why are many people still not approved?
I am all about answering questions in the practical sense. If you ask "can anyone develop for the iPhone" I have to say Yes, in ways Apple cannot stop (beyond simply not making products anymore but they cannot take what I already have). I have already shown why this is so, you are trying to twist small, and sometimes very temporary, facts around to suit your assertion the platform is closed. Theoretically it is, practically it is not. Why can't you just be happy that is so? The world is better off with more open devices.
I agree with your last sentence, but the iPhone is not an open platform. If my only choices are to either go through an uncertain, paid developer program so I can get a cryptographic key that signs my code so the device will accept it, or go through a "jailbreak" process that has a non-zero chance of destroying the device, that device is not open.
On a standard Mac I can turn the thing on, connect to the internet, download, and install new software from any web site without Apple ever getting involved. I just want this experience to exist on the iPhone as well. Is that too much to ask?
But, "I was forced to at gunpoint or threat of punishment and I had no other way out" is a valid defense.
This is utterly irrelevant to the case in question, though.
The government wasn't going to kill these companies if they didn't comply. They would have had to take them to court. If the order was illegal then the companies would win their court cases, and thus would not suffer any consequences. Even if they lost, what would they get, a fine? They have no excuse for not having done the right thing. Their survival was absolutely not at stake as you imply.
Now that is complete bullshit. It takes like a second, and while some of the apps you install might be more or less stable the underlying system tolerates abuse pretty well, and the quality of apps has generally been pretty good. It's only scary to you because it doesn't work nearly so well for other systems.
There are a lot of very casual iPhone users that jailbreak now because it's so easy.
Ah, maybe you could tell me why I couldn't jailbreak my iPod Touch, then. It came with the 1.1.4 firmware. I spent a couple of hours trying every possible jailbreaking application and web site. The best I did was to get it into a state which I thought was totally bricked, although after some panic I discovered that it could be reset with the magical button combo. So please, what was I doing wrong?
Nonsense. You get to develop software for it because the manufacturer decided that they wanted to let you.
Are you listening to what you type? "I'm only developing software because they let me". Well DUH.
DUH!!
That's true of ANY platform, you develop software at the pleasure of the platform OS writers.
You're mixing up two completely different issues:
Steve Jobs wakes up tomorrow morning and decides that third-party development will no longer be allowed on his platform.
Steve Jobs wakes up tomorrow morning and decides that you, personally, will lo longer be allowed to develop on his platform.
#1 is essentially a doomsday device. It would destroy the platform along with all of the third-party developers. It can therefore be safely ignored.
#2 only exists on the iPhone. If Steve Jobs decides that you, SuperKendall, Slashdot UID #24094329 will no longer be allowed to develop for the iPhone, guess what, you no longer get to develop for the iPhone. Go find some other platform to work on. On the other hand, if Steve decides that you, SuperKendall, will no longer be allowed to develop on the Mac, well, there's absolutely nothing he can do to enforce that.
Given the above, I must respectfully submit that your snide derisiveness is misplaced.
If Steve Jobs woke up tomorrow and decided that you should no longer be allowed to develop software for it, guess what, you would no longer be able to develop for it.
Same is true of any other phone OS.
Would it bother you terribly if we agreed to omit all of the illogical, pointless, "but everybody else does it" arguments?
Any slightly reasonable person knows Apple is not going to shut that door again - there is WAY too much money to be made and goodwill to be earned.
Again, you're confusing "eliminate all third parties" with "cut off your personal access".
Not to mention that, as before, your existence in the developer program is entirely at the whim of Apple. Many people are having trouble getting accepted
That's because it's in BETA. People used to have trouble getting GMail accounts too.
Absolutely nonsensical. People have trouble getting in because Apple acts as gatekeepers and reserve (and use!) the right to reject people for any reason whatsoever.
My class covered both, I'm sure almost all of them will. Now, years later, I still retain a fair ability to speak and understand, but little ability to read and essentially no ability to write.
I agree with your statement that Chinese is a pretty easy language, as long as you can learn the pronunciation (some people have no trouble, some people have a really rough time) and as long as you never try to read or write it.
It seems to me that if you are planning on working in the United States, your time would be better spent focusing on your Computer studies. Most foreign engineers here speak English.
I disagree. Much like learning an impractical but interesting computer language, the time spent learning a foreign language has many benefits in terms of widening your perspective, giving you new ways to think about things, etc. beyond the simple ability to use it in the country or countries where it is spoken.
The time spent is pretty small in the end. And that time really doesn't come out of your computer studies. It's such a different activity that it's the kind of thing that can help recharge your brain from all that math and programming. The benefits are well worth it.
I hear you, and I know it's difficult. If it were easy, we wouldn't be talking about it, it would be done already.
I'm just saying that the change must come from the researchers, not the journals. The traditional journals have nothing to gain and everything to lose from going to a more open system, so looking to them for change is the wrong thing. The researchers are ultimately who decides what's reputable and what's not. It will surely take a long time, but if it's going to happen at all then that's where the change will come from.
I recall reading about the Deep Blue matches and seeing a very different view on this. In the first set of matches, Deep Blue won the first game, and the rest were draws or losses. It was claimed that Kasparov used this first game to learn how the computer worked, and he subsequently was able to beat it by using extremely long-range thinking. Deep Blue would see at most a dozen moves ahead during the normal part of the game, and so Kasparov was able to maneuver it into losing by seeing much farther into the future.
Of course this ability to see farther into the future is very much tied into knowing strong positions and so forth. A human can't work like a computer does and evaluate every possible branch. Instead the human knows that there are one or two reasonable moves at each branching point and throws the rest away.
I could just be blowing smoke here, of course, this is all going by memory.
Wacky. I'd much rather have Bush-the-liar up there who got us into this war to secure oil and enrich his friends than Bush-the-utterly-incompetent-nitwit who got us into this war because he truly believed that we would be greeted as liberators.
You are completely mixing up the standards of guilt with the standards of innocence.
You correctly point out that the standard of guilt in a US criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt". And thus, logically speaking, the standard of innocence is "reasonable doubt". In other words, if reasonable doubt exists that a person committed a crime, then he is to be considered innocent. If no reasonable doubt exists, he is considered guilty.
Then you go and say that congress must believe Bush's innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, because otherwise they would have impeached him. Well that's simply not how it works. Even if they were a jury in a court of law, which they are not, then they would only need to have reasonable doubt of his guilt to find him innocent. Furthermore, since they aren't actually a jury, then the whole question is all tangled in political wrangling. The Democrats are, quite frankly, a big bunch of wimpy jerks who don't have the will to do anything of significance.
Lastly, I never claimed that there is a mountain of evidence against Bush.
Please, put some effort into getting your facts straight and making a coherent argument.
But that's not what you did. Since there has only been one Presidential impeachment trial in US history, and it wasn't on anything remotely like the same alleged crime, it really has no bearing. The fact that Congress was too wimpy to impeach in other circumstances is just far too stupid to be anything like evidence.
Just which popular languages offer the same features as Lisp and Smalltalk? I'm dying to know because I'd love to start using them. Most of the popular languages I know of are horrible, and the non-horrible ones still don't come close to offering the same features as Smalltalk or Lisp.
So just because our predecessors were too wimpy to impeach incompetent Presidents means that we shouldn't do so either? This stupid fucking excuse gets trotted out every god damned time this subject is discussed. President X did Horrible Thing Y, so forget about Bush. Fuck that shit! God damn it. The fact that other people fucked up is no excuse for the current guy fucking up. Maybe if we kicked out the sons of bitches when they fucked up, we'd stop getting such utter fuckups in the office, huh?
Forgive my foul mouth but these bullshit excuses really make me angry. Pansy-ass crap like this is why this country is so fucked up. Everybody is willing to overlook the grievous mistakes of "their guy" just because the supposed other side also did something bad once upon a time.
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That's pretty hilarious. You realize that your comment is precisely the "positive commentary on the licensing" that he requests of you?
Circular reasoning. The whole point of this discussion is whether such a law should exist.
Ah, maybe you could tell me why I couldn't jailbreak my iPod Touch, then. It came with the 1.1.4 firmware. I spent a couple of hours trying every possible jailbreaking application and web site. The best I did was to get it into a state which I thought was totally bricked, although after some panic I discovered that it could be reset with the magical button combo. So please, what was I doing wrong?
This didn't work for you?
What "this"? In any case, nothing worked.
Also, since you have a working iPod touch it was not "bricked", you simply reset it.
Please learn to read. I very clearly stated that I "thought" it was bricked, until I discovered the magic incantation to make it work again. I.e. there was a period of time where I thought it was completely dead.
You're mixing up two completely different issues:
No, you're taking one issue (can I develop for the iPhone/thouch) and artifically making them two.
You said that any platform owner can stop you from developing on their platform, and thus the iPhone is no different. This is not true! There is nothing like the iPhone's requirement for Apple-signed code on Mac OS X, Windows, or many other proprietary OSes.
Absolutely nonsensical. People have trouble getting in because Apple acts as gatekeepers and reserve (and use!) the right to reject people for any reason whatsoever.
Well people cannot program for actual Android devices right now for the same reason. There's a gatekeeper there too.
If I were saying anything about Android at all then this might actually have a chance at being relevant. Alas....
What you are ignoring is that in the future, there is no real gate. If anyone can come and go, what matter it is that Apple trims the flowers on the side?
This is pure speculation on your part. You don't really know how Apple is going to manage the program in the future, you're just guessing. They have all of the controls in place; why would they not use them? If anyone can come and go, why are many people still not approved?
I am all about answering questions in the practical sense. If you ask "can anyone develop for the iPhone" I have to say Yes, in ways Apple cannot stop (beyond simply not making products anymore but they cannot take what I already have). I have already shown why this is so, you are trying to twist small, and sometimes very temporary, facts around to suit your assertion the platform is closed. Theoretically it is, practically it is not. Why can't you just be happy that is so? The world is better off with more open devices.
I agree with your last sentence, but the iPhone is not an open platform. If my only choices are to either go through an uncertain, paid developer program so I can get a cryptographic key that signs my code so the device will accept it, or go through a "jailbreak" process that has a non-zero chance of destroying the device, that device is not open.
On a standard Mac I can turn the thing on, connect to the internet, download, and install new software from any web site without Apple ever getting involved. I just want this experience to exist on the iPhone as well. Is that too much to ask?
How bizarre, I've never even heard of this. What do they think it means?
But, "I was forced to at gunpoint or threat of punishment and I had no other way out" is a valid defense.
This is utterly irrelevant to the case in question, though.
The government wasn't going to kill these companies if they didn't comply. They would have had to take them to court. If the order was illegal then the companies would win their court cases, and thus would not suffer any consequences. Even if they lost, what would they get, a fine? They have no excuse for not having done the right thing. Their survival was absolutely not at stake as you imply.
Fancy electronics are cheaper than using a bunch of thugs you have on staff already? How do you figure?
Jailbreaking is unreliable and risky.
Now that is complete bullshit. It takes like a second, and while some of the apps you install might be more or less stable the underlying system tolerates abuse pretty well, and the quality of apps has generally been pretty good. It's only scary to you because it doesn't work nearly so well for other systems.
There are a lot of very casual iPhone users that jailbreak now because it's so easy.
Ah, maybe you could tell me why I couldn't jailbreak my iPod Touch, then. It came with the 1.1.4 firmware. I spent a couple of hours trying every possible jailbreaking application and web site. The best I did was to get it into a state which I thought was totally bricked, although after some panic I discovered that it could be reset with the magical button combo. So please, what was I doing wrong?
Nonsense. You get to develop software for it because the manufacturer decided that they wanted to let you.
Are you listening to what you type? "I'm only developing software because they let me". Well DUH.
DUH!!
That's true of ANY platform, you develop software at the pleasure of the platform OS writers.
You're mixing up two completely different issues:
#1 is essentially a doomsday device. It would destroy the platform along with all of the third-party developers. It can therefore be safely ignored.
#2 only exists on the iPhone. If Steve Jobs decides that you, SuperKendall, Slashdot UID #24094329 will no longer be allowed to develop for the iPhone, guess what, you no longer get to develop for the iPhone. Go find some other platform to work on. On the other hand, if Steve decides that you, SuperKendall, will no longer be allowed to develop on the Mac, well, there's absolutely nothing he can do to enforce that.
Given the above, I must respectfully submit that your snide derisiveness is misplaced.
If Steve Jobs woke up tomorrow and decided that you should no longer be allowed to develop software for it, guess what, you would no longer be able to develop for it.
Same is true of any other phone OS.
Would it bother you terribly if we agreed to omit all of the illogical, pointless, "but everybody else does it" arguments?
Any slightly reasonable person knows Apple is not going to shut that door again - there is WAY too much money to be made and goodwill to be earned.
Again, you're confusing "eliminate all third parties" with "cut off your personal access".
Not to mention that, as before, your existence in the developer program is entirely at the whim of Apple. Many people are having trouble getting accepted
That's because it's in BETA. People used to have trouble getting GMail accounts too.
Absolutely nonsensical. People have trouble getting in because Apple acts as gatekeepers and reserve (and use!) the right to reject people for any reason whatsoever.
In other words, neither do you!
You don't know anything about standard journalism writing, do you?
Fixed that for you. Being a decent person has very little to do with religion.
But it has everything to do with not being a pompous asshole, and thus avoiding pompous asshole-like phrases such as "fixed that for you."
My class covered both, I'm sure almost all of them will. Now, years later, I still retain a fair ability to speak and understand, but little ability to read and essentially no ability to write.
I agree with your statement that Chinese is a pretty easy language, as long as you can learn the pronunciation (some people have no trouble, some people have a really rough time) and as long as you never try to read or write it.
It seems to me that if you are planning on working in the United States, your time would be better spent focusing on your Computer studies. Most foreign engineers here speak English.
I disagree. Much like learning an impractical but interesting computer language, the time spent learning a foreign language has many benefits in terms of widening your perspective, giving you new ways to think about things, etc. beyond the simple ability to use it in the country or countries where it is spoken.
The time spent is pretty small in the end. And that time really doesn't come out of your computer studies. It's such a different activity that it's the kind of thing that can help recharge your brain from all that math and programming. The benefits are well worth it.
I'm sure I don't know. If none exist, then certainly researchers ought to create one.
I agree, but still hold that this is worse than the alternative.
I hear you, and I know it's difficult. If it were easy, we wouldn't be talking about it, it would be done already.
I'm just saying that the change must come from the researchers, not the journals. The traditional journals have nothing to gain and everything to lose from going to a more open system, so looking to them for change is the wrong thing. The researchers are ultimately who decides what's reputable and what's not. It will surely take a long time, but if it's going to happen at all then that's where the change will come from.
I recall reading about the Deep Blue matches and seeing a very different view on this. In the first set of matches, Deep Blue won the first game, and the rest were draws or losses. It was claimed that Kasparov used this first game to learn how the computer worked, and he subsequently was able to beat it by using extremely long-range thinking. Deep Blue would see at most a dozen moves ahead during the normal part of the game, and so Kasparov was able to maneuver it into losing by seeing much farther into the future.
Of course this ability to see farther into the future is very much tied into knowing strong positions and so forth. A human can't work like a computer does and evaluate every possible branch. Instead the human knows that there are one or two reasonable moves at each branching point and throws the rest away.
I could just be blowing smoke here, of course, this is all going by memory.
And thanks so much for doing that. Once all researchers follow in your footsteps, I think that humanity as a whole will be a lot better off.
Wacky. I'd much rather have Bush-the-liar up there who got us into this war to secure oil and enrich his friends than Bush-the-utterly-incompetent-nitwit who got us into this war because he truly believed that we would be greeted as liberators.
Congress certainly needs no evidence to impeach. All they have to do is vote on it and have a positive outcome.
Much better to blame the researchers for not publishing in a more open medium. They're the ones who might actually change their habits, after all.
You are completely mixing up the standards of guilt with the standards of innocence.
You correctly point out that the standard of guilt in a US criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt". And thus, logically speaking, the standard of innocence is "reasonable doubt". In other words, if reasonable doubt exists that a person committed a crime, then he is to be considered innocent. If no reasonable doubt exists, he is considered guilty.
Then you go and say that congress must believe Bush's innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, because otherwise they would have impeached him. Well that's simply not how it works. Even if they were a jury in a court of law, which they are not, then they would only need to have reasonable doubt of his guilt to find him innocent. Furthermore, since they aren't actually a jury, then the whole question is all tangled in political wrangling. The Democrats are, quite frankly, a big bunch of wimpy jerks who don't have the will to do anything of significance.
Lastly, I never claimed that there is a mountain of evidence against Bush.
Please, put some effort into getting your facts straight and making a coherent argument.
But that's not what you did. Since there has only been one Presidential impeachment trial in US history, and it wasn't on anything remotely like the same alleged crime, it really has no bearing. The fact that Congress was too wimpy to impeach in other circumstances is just far too stupid to be anything like evidence.
Just which popular languages offer the same features as Lisp and Smalltalk? I'm dying to know because I'd love to start using them. Most of the popular languages I know of are horrible, and the non-horrible ones still don't come close to offering the same features as Smalltalk or Lisp.
So just because our predecessors were too wimpy to impeach incompetent Presidents means that we shouldn't do so either? This stupid fucking excuse gets trotted out every god damned time this subject is discussed. President X did Horrible Thing Y, so forget about Bush. Fuck that shit! God damn it. The fact that other people fucked up is no excuse for the current guy fucking up. Maybe if we kicked out the sons of bitches when they fucked up, we'd stop getting such utter fuckups in the office, huh?
Forgive my foul mouth but these bullshit excuses really make me angry. Pansy-ass crap like this is why this country is so fucked up. Everybody is willing to overlook the grievous mistakes of "their guy" just because the supposed other side also did something bad once upon a time.