Sell good phones and innovate. Of course, most of the major features in the iPhone (AppStore, multitouch, visual voice mail, etc.), Apple has copied from others.
Allow its competitor to provide the key service of its product: phone calls?
Apple doesn't provide a service, it sells phone hardware.
Google should promote their service in their own product, not encroach into Apple's turf.
Apple should be thanking their lucky stars that Google still bothers providing special services for the iPhone. Imagine: no Google maps, no Gmail, no Google Books, no YouTube, etc.
Instead, Apple is trying to build a Microsoft-style monopoly, and that's just evil.
You mean the kind of system where you couldn't make PCBs illegal because the taxpayer would have to "reimburse" all the property owners for the loss of "their" property value?
According to common usage, Python and Scheme are both "strongly typed" as well, since they guarantee that all type errors in programs are detected. This is in contrast to "weakly typed" languages like Perl or K&R C, in which many type errors are silently ignored. That is, all four combinations of strong/weak and static/dynamic typing are possible.
Some people are using the term "strong typing" as a synonym for "static typing"; I wouldn't really care, except that there is no good other term to describe what "strong typing" means.
From a practical point of view, it seems pretty clear that "strong typing" (in the first sense) is important, but I have seen little evidence that static typing is all that useful in a general purpose programming language.
All of our inhibitions about nuclear power is why we are doomed.
Until we start using nuclear fuel efficiently and solve the nuclear waste problem, nuclear power is irresponsible.
Of course, we know how to do all that: there is only one inhibition that dooms the West, namely the US government's prohibition on the use of breeder reactors worldwide. Without breeder reactors, we are wasting most of our fuel in highly inefficient reactors, wasting U-238 on munitions, and generating very dangerous nuclear waste.
"The public" has specific concerns about nuclear power in space.
(1) For plutonium-based reactors, the fact that plutonium is highly toxic is a concern, should the rocket break up during launch.
(2) For all nuclear power in space, there is a general concern that it is a stepping stone towards nuclear weapons in space, a potentially very dangerous development.
(3) For planetary exploration, contamination of an otherwise pristine environment may also be a problem, since there is no way of retrieving or destroying the nuclear fuel.
The SNAP reactor runs on uranium, so (1) shouldn't be a problem. Since the amounts of uranium involved are small, (2) may not be much of a concern either in this case. For the moon, (3) isn't a concern, but for Mars it is.
But it is still worth worrying about this sort of thing.
The "easy technical workaround" for Microsoft is to dump their crappy OOXML format (which infringes this patent) and switch completely to ODF (which doesn't seem to).
Maybe this patent lawsuit is the reason why Microsoft started supporting ODF in the first place.
I'm having a hard time understanding how the technology described in this patent is actually useful at all, let alone how Microsoft has infringed on it.
It's crappy technology (and there is prior art too). However, it happens to be the format that Microsoft uses in Microsoft Office's native XML format. I think Microsoft used it because it maps more naturally onto Microsoft Office's internal data structures. The correct way to accomplish this goal is, of course, with style sheets.
ODF, instead, uses XML markup the way it was intended to, so the patent shouldn't apply.
The patent may also be the reason for Microsoft's sudden reversal and support of ODF a couple of years ago.
It's talking about "formal" as in programs as formal systems, a branch of logicianship that allows you to reason about computation.
Yes. And like many mathematical terms, the terms "formal" and "correctness" in logic have little to do with their ordinary meanings when applied to software.
I would much rather use a completely untested, but entirely formally proven operating environment than a long-lived unproven one.
You're doing it too, by deliberately confusing the customary meaning of "unproven" with the logician's meaning of "lacking a proof".
"Formal methods" is basically a sham based on a misuse of mathematical language in ordinary speech. You can prove programs "correct" in the logician's sense, but that doesn't mean that the program is "correct" in the ordinary sense. The method can be "formal" in the logician's sense, but that doesn't mean that it is "formal" in the sense of being a justifiable application of mathematical principles to software.
Obviously, their claim of a misunderstanding is unbelievable,
No, it's not, since you obviously misunderstood them: all they required was that the software was available to parents, not that it be used or installed.
but what did make them change their mind about Green Dam
Probably the bad press they were getting from misrepresentation in the Western press.
If people like you could only apply the same fervor to all the censorship and intrusions into our privacy in the US and Europe.
China didn't require installation of the software, it merely required manufacturers to ship it. Manufacturers could satisfy this requirement simply by sticking a CD into the box.
Because we all know that calling it "formal" makes it formal, just like calling something "healthy" or "a good deal" makes it so.
The overhead? It took something like 5 years for a 10,000 line program.
So, would you rather use a program that has been tested for 5 years and not "formally" verified, or a program that has been "formally" verified for 5 years but not tested?
The primary use of this is for reading and annotating.
However, many cell phones now have screens like 800x350 or 800x480 and allow full (folding) Bluetooth keyboards to be used with the phone; that kind of setup isn't all that different from a netbook.
Item 2, terrorism is defined in UK law, and judges have to abide by that law. The definition is not "up to the authorities". It is made by Parliament.
Instead of pontificating, why don't you just actually read the law. There is a disclosure requirement if:
(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime; or
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.
Those provisions are so vague that police can require you to disclose encryption keys for anything at any time.
What is your proposal to prevent organised crime using encrypted media to conceal their activities? Unless you can point to a workable alternative solution, you are just ranting.
The purpose of this law is not to prevent covert communications because that is impossible in principle.
The purpose of this law it's to give the UK government additional means to force people to obey the government even in areas where the government otherwise has no cause or legal means of forcing you. It's a totalitarian law forced through parliament under the pretext of crime and terrorism prevention.
The true thrust of his article is that just having TrueCrypt (or any other advanced encryption tool) installed on your machine is enough to pique the interest of law enforcement.
And TrueCrypt gives you that legitimacy: many people use it with just a single key, so if you give law enforcement a key to your porn and/or financial collection, there is nothing particularly suspicious about having or using it with just a single key and no reason for them to conclude that there needs to be a second key for something else.
Some of us find it a bit improper/offensive when these people claim copyright over something that doesn't actually contain any of their work.
This is commonplace in the commercial world. Sun, for example, was making such claims for years for anybody who downloaded the Java source code. The GPL's claims are quite mild in comparison.
And why is it that people whine so much about GPL'ed software, something you get for free and with the best of intentions, but you don't bat an eye when companies do this for their overpriced and proprietary software.
People argue that this-or-that feature makes planets and suns more stable and hence better suited for life. But life may need cataclysms and in order to arise and advance.
And if humans survive a few hundred million years, this will motivate us to spread out across the galaxy.
Let me repost this, since Christians are modding this down to oblivion.
Here is a question I would like an answer to:
Trace the connections between Christianity, genocide, dictatorships, torture, and war. Why are Christians so ready to embrace these as a package deal? What view of humanity and reality is required to resist them?
Note that all I have done is replaced "Darwinian evolution" with "Christianity", since Christians seem to view this as alternatives. And Christianity has been responsible for genocide (Conquistadores), dictatorship (Catholicism during the middle ages), torture (the Spanish inquisition), and war (too numerous to count), so I think my question is legitimate: why have so many Christians embraced these evils? And what needs to be done to keep such horrors from happening again?
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Well, what the hell is Apple supposed to do?
Sell good phones and innovate. Of course, most of the major features in the iPhone (AppStore, multitouch, visual voice mail, etc.), Apple has copied from others.
Allow its competitor to provide the key service of its product: phone calls?
Apple doesn't provide a service, it sells phone hardware.
Google should promote their service in their own product, not encroach into Apple's turf.
Apple should be thanking their lucky stars that Google still bothers providing special services for the iPhone. Imagine: no Google maps, no Gmail, no Google Books, no YouTube, etc.
Instead, Apple is trying to build a Microsoft-style monopoly, and that's just evil.
Let's not even go near the idea of light beams being slow enough to dodge; that's just something you have let go of, or risk insanity.
You can't see light beams. So, more likely, this is a non-linear interaction between a radiation source and air.
But Luke's X-34 speeder on Tatooine? The Yugo of speeders, man. One hard stop, and out you go.
They have artificial gravity, so they don't need seat belts.
Add it all up and you have to wonder why stormtroopers don't just walk around naked, save for blinders and flip-flops.
Because that would be scary.
evolution here seems wacky, too
Some of these creatures might be genetically engineered.
So, large space worm lives in asteroid, disguises itself as a cave and waits for unwary spaceships to fly by so it can eat them?
An organic space ship gone bad?
Not every Sarlaac can count on an intergalactic mob boss to feed it tidbits.
It may not always have been a desert.
I'm only going if it has free Wifi in the rooms.
You mean the kind of system where you couldn't make PCBs illegal because the taxpayer would have to "reimburse" all the property owners for the loss of "their" property value?
If the solar sail is your means of propulsion, do you include some sort of 'conventional' rockets to make your course adjustments?
Just like you do on a sailing ship: you turn the sail.
Perl is quite strongly typed. It's only types are scalar, array, and hash [...]
Sorry, but that's not a useful point of view; automatic coercion like that is a form of weakness in the type system.
If you look at a C array as an int, you get its address in memory and party all over it.
That's wrong. Neither K&R nor ANSI C defines what you get when you look at an "array as an int".
LISP, Perl and OCaml are far more useful than C++, Java and C#
Let's see:
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with either strong typing or static typing.
The academic idiots,
That's as opposed to the non-academic idiots, who apparently don't even know what "strong typing" means.
According to common usage, Python and Scheme are both "strongly typed" as well, since they guarantee that all type errors in programs are detected. This is in contrast to "weakly typed" languages like Perl or K&R C, in which many type errors are silently ignored. That is, all four combinations of strong/weak and static/dynamic typing are possible.
Some people are using the term "strong typing" as a synonym for "static typing"; I wouldn't really care, except that there is no good other term to describe what "strong typing" means.
From a practical point of view, it seems pretty clear that "strong typing" (in the first sense) is important, but I have seen little evidence that static typing is all that useful in a general purpose programming language.
All of our inhibitions about nuclear power is why we are doomed.
Until we start using nuclear fuel efficiently and solve the nuclear waste problem, nuclear power is irresponsible.
Of course, we know how to do all that: there is only one inhibition that dooms the West, namely the US government's prohibition on the use of breeder reactors worldwide. Without breeder reactors, we are wasting most of our fuel in highly inefficient reactors, wasting U-238 on munitions, and generating very dangerous nuclear waste.
"The public" has specific concerns about nuclear power in space.
(1) For plutonium-based reactors, the fact that plutonium is highly toxic is a concern, should the rocket break up during launch.
(2) For all nuclear power in space, there is a general concern that it is a stepping stone towards nuclear weapons in space, a potentially very dangerous development.
(3) For planetary exploration, contamination of an otherwise pristine environment may also be a problem, since there is no way of retrieving or destroying the nuclear fuel.
The SNAP reactor runs on uranium, so (1) shouldn't be a problem. Since the amounts of uranium involved are small, (2) may not be much of a concern either in this case. For the moon, (3) isn't a concern, but for Mars it is.
But it is still worth worrying about this sort of thing.
The "easy technical workaround" for Microsoft is to dump their crappy OOXML format (which infringes this patent) and switch completely to ODF (which doesn't seem to).
Maybe this patent lawsuit is the reason why Microsoft started supporting ODF in the first place.
I'm having a hard time understanding how the technology described in this patent is actually useful at all, let alone how Microsoft has infringed on it.
It's crappy technology (and there is prior art too). However, it happens to be the format that Microsoft uses in Microsoft Office's native XML format. I think Microsoft used it because it maps more naturally onto Microsoft Office's internal data structures. The correct way to accomplish this goal is, of course, with style sheets.
ODF, instead, uses XML markup the way it was intended to, so the patent shouldn't apply.
The patent may also be the reason for Microsoft's sudden reversal and support of ODF a couple of years ago.
Do you know what "formal" means?
Yes.
It's talking about "formal" as in programs as formal systems, a branch of logicianship that allows you to reason about computation.
Yes. And like many mathematical terms, the terms "formal" and "correctness" in logic have little to do with their ordinary meanings when applied to software.
I would much rather use a completely untested, but entirely formally proven operating environment than a long-lived unproven one.
You're doing it too, by deliberately confusing the customary meaning of "unproven" with the logician's meaning of "lacking a proof".
"Formal methods" is basically a sham based on a misuse of mathematical language in ordinary speech. You can prove programs "correct" in the logician's sense, but that doesn't mean that the program is "correct" in the ordinary sense. The method can be "formal" in the logician's sense, but that doesn't mean that it is "formal" in the sense of being a justifiable application of mathematical principles to software.
Obviously, their claim of a misunderstanding is unbelievable,
No, it's not, since you obviously misunderstood them: all they required was that the software was available to parents, not that it be used or installed.
but what did make them change their mind about Green Dam
Probably the bad press they were getting from misrepresentation in the Western press.
If people like you could only apply the same fervor to all the censorship and intrusions into our privacy in the US and Europe.
China didn't require installation of the software, it merely required manufacturers to ship it. Manufacturers could satisfy this requirement simply by sticking a CD into the box.
Compared to, say, the German web censorship law, that's actually a lot less intrusive.
The missing word is formal.
Because we all know that calling it "formal" makes it formal, just like calling something "healthy" or "a good deal" makes it so.
The overhead? It took something like 5 years for a 10,000 line program.
So, would you rather use a program that has been tested for 5 years and not "formally" verified, or a program that has been "formally" verified for 5 years but not tested?
The kernel has now been proven to implement buggy specifications precisely!
Uh? Who in their right mind would even want to use office on a mobile phone? The UI is bad as it is on a full-size PC.
"Here is your travel itinerary in Microsoft Word format."
"Here is the almost-final proposal; could you please have a look and mark (with a "*") any items that we need to discuss?"
"Let me give you a 1-minute run through our presentation; I have the slides on my phone."
The primary use of this is for reading and annotating.
However, many cell phones now have screens like 800x350 or 800x480 and allow full (folding) Bluetooth keyboards to be used with the phone; that kind of setup isn't all that different from a netbook.
Item 2, terrorism is defined in UK law, and judges have to abide by that law. The definition is not "up to the authorities". It is made by Parliament.
Instead of pontificating, why don't you just actually read the law. There is a disclosure requirement if:
Those provisions are so vague that police can require you to disclose encryption keys for anything at any time.
What is your proposal to prevent organised crime using encrypted media to conceal their activities? Unless you can point to a workable alternative solution, you are just ranting.
The purpose of this law is not to prevent covert communications because that is impossible in principle.
The purpose of this law it's to give the UK government additional means to force people to obey the government even in areas where the government otherwise has no cause or legal means of forcing you. It's a totalitarian law forced through parliament under the pretext of crime and terrorism prevention.
It's not that complicated: just encrypt all your volumes, including your root volume. That's particularly easy with hardware disk encryption.
The true thrust of his article is that just having TrueCrypt (or any other advanced encryption tool) installed on your machine is enough to pique the interest of law enforcement.
And TrueCrypt gives you that legitimacy: many people use it with just a single key, so if you give law enforcement a key to your porn and/or financial collection, there is nothing particularly suspicious about having or using it with just a single key and no reason for them to conclude that there needs to be a second key for something else.
Some of us find it a bit improper/offensive when these people claim copyright over something that doesn't actually contain any of their work.
This is commonplace in the commercial world. Sun, for example, was making such claims for years for anybody who downloaded the Java source code. The GPL's claims are quite mild in comparison.
And why is it that people whine so much about GPL'ed software, something you get for free and with the best of intentions, but you don't bat an eye when companies do this for their overpriced and proprietary software.
People argue that this-or-that feature makes planets and suns more stable and hence better suited for life. But life may need cataclysms and in order to arise and advance.
And if humans survive a few hundred million years, this will motivate us to spread out across the galaxy.
Let me repost this, since Christians are modding this down to oblivion.
Here is a question I would like an answer to:
Note that all I have done is replaced "Darwinian evolution" with "Christianity", since Christians seem to view this as alternatives. And Christianity has been responsible for genocide (Conquistadores), dictatorship (Catholicism during the middle ages), torture (the Spanish inquisition), and war (too numerous to count), so I think my question is legitimate: why have so many Christians embraced these evils? And what needs to be done to keep such horrors from happening again?