Re:Just a few problems in your post...
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 2, Informative
[sigh] When you can't put together a cogent argument, or when you're just plain wrong, I guess it's easier to just call names, put your hands over your ears, and spout bullshit. I will try (just once more) to educate you.
Bottom line is that it's still a near useless app that can be replaced by freeware on any platform Fundamentally, every program can be replaced by a monitor program, with the user typing in hex bytes into memory locations. There's this idea that having a program take the drudgery out of a task, automating common tasks, and generally making life easier is a good thing. So that deals with the "replaced by freeware" - *nothing* comes close. "Best in class", yes I think so.
"Near useless" is also a relative thing - a friend of mine uses it to entertain his kids no end, and it takes him 5 minutes to create something they love - far and away easier than any other way of doing it.
So it just randomly selects clients to connect to, network interfaces to use, and every other parameter? I call bullshit... Ah, I see you misunderstand - using the client libraries is usually pretty easy (which you'd know if you'd ever written a bulk-synchronous parallel distributed application). It's the setting up of the server side that can be involved, with different machines having to know which other machines they can send tasks to. Apple use Rendezvous to automate that - all the complexity of managing which machines run faster, which ones have sufficient resources, which ones you have permissions for etc. is all managed automatically. Just write your code, link with the correct library, and your code will distribute automatically wherever it can. No bullshit. Trivial to set up and really easy to use - best in class, I reckon.
sounds to me like it does everything any other DVD authoring program does only with that pretty mac theme Actually there are lots of themes, and yes that's exactly what it does. Really really well - the animation effects are provided by Quartz composer (which we mentioned earlier). We were discussing various application areas and which applications are the best within their own application area. I'm glad you've seen the light and agree with me that iDVD is "best in class".
The perfect ==extension== for Final Cut Studio. I really did LOL at that one. Trust me, Shake is *not* a plugin. FCP is a fantastic video-editing application, Shake is a fantastic compositing application. It's not uncommon to have Shake compositions (which can be rendered to Quicktime movies) included within Final-cut-authored movies. That's why Apple sell the "suite". When Allen was hawking the commandline-only version around the post-production scene trying to interest people in a wonderful new product, we purchased one of the first licences in London. The graphical version came later and "Nothing Real" took off. Apple bought them a few years later.
You can still purchase Shake, but Apple have announced they are no longer developing it. It is possible for larger sites to buy the source code - I think it was only $50k, so well worth it for most of the larger effects houses. Given that *entire* *movies* have been done using Shake (and not using FCP either LOL), I guess its "best in class":-)
feel free to state your sources in a way that can be proven That's easy. Phone up CNN and ask them. Or the BBC for that matter.
Seems to me like [core data] is nothing but a glorified template system Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. I don't even know where to start. I suggest you get a clue and read the developer docs. You'll notice how the user-interface can be bound directly to objects persisted into the database ? How there is no "glue code" needed for things like this. And they don't have to be UI objects - any object is transparently and automatically persisted as requ
I blame the Windows OS
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I think Apple programmers are more productive than their MS counterparts, but not because they're in any way "better" - I think they have an easier life.
To code a Windows app on your own isn't particularly hard, but I don't think it scales as well to large groups - there's too much cruft in there, and too many ways to screw up with C++ because it's a complicated language. A group of 30 clever people, experts in the language, can be let down by one not-quite-so-expert person not realising some subtle interaction.
Apple, on the other hand, don't much care about backwards compatibility (just upgrade, and get all these extras too), have a much cleaner OS (basically unix), and a much simpler object-orientated language to work with. Objective C is 90% as powerful as C++, but it works in a different way and although it's very powerful, it's simple to pick up and use. Apple's guidelines are simple as well, and this helps when group A are relying on something that group B are developing, when groups A and B haven't even ever met.
So, Apple get to leverage lots of frameworks in an easier fashion. I think MS have a complexity-management problem forced on them by their language choice and their commitment to backwards compatibility. If I'm right, it's only going to get harder for MS as time goes by...
Simon
Just a few problems in your post...
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 5, Informative
In the interests of accuracy...
Comic life - if you haven't tried it (and by your comment, it seems you haven't), then you're just uninformed. Comic life isn't the most essential app I've ever used, but it's more like "DTP for comics" than "add a few speech bubbles"... And it's interface is gorgeously intuitive. It's sort of in a class of its own, but it's *really* nicely done, to the extent that it was a showcase app at one of Apple's events.
Grid computing - lots of (linux) systems can be configured, but I doubt any of them are quite so easy to configure as a Mac:
Control Panel -> Sharing -> hit the 'XGrid' checkbox. Done. I guess that qualifies as "best in class".
iLife - um, either you don't know what you're talking about, or you're just wrong. Show me the gentoo program that can create a DVD menu by dragging photos, adding transitions and behaviours (akin to "Motion") to make them move/interact, drag/dropping movies for both menus and content, allowing layout of all this and interaction-scripts to be written. Now show me a program that does all that with an intuitive well-designed interface. I could do the same for pretty much all the iLife apps (not just iDvd) - they're textbook examples of "best in class" apps.
Shake is not a plugin. I was privileged to know and work with the Shake team, and it's a truly awesome (in the traditional, rather than Californian sense) piece of software. The coders are demi-gods - yes I mean you Christophe and Arnaud. Shake is a compositing application that is used to create entire movies - just about every movie in recent times will have been through either Discreet Logic or Shake (probably both). I used to work in the post-production business, I know of what I speak - a licence for Shake was ~$10k. A "plugin" it is not. Sadly it's been discontinued, however the original team are hard at work on (presumably) its successor.
Logic, Logic Express, FCP - I've lumped these together because your ignorance is showing here. These are all standout-applications. Go to the BBC, or CNN, or just about any post-production house and you'll see FCP being used. Really used, as in workhorse-used. These are flagship applications for Apple, and it shows. I have a friend in ops at CNN - almost every journalist there will use a Macbook (Pro) in the field, with FCP to do rough-edits and provide EDLs back to the studios. The BBC are the same. When the two largest news organisations on the planet swear by your software, you're doing something right...
Core-data is not "old technology" just catching up. It's a full object-relational model, built into the OS that can use a SQL (or other) back-end as storage. You get full undo/redo functionality "for free" because of its comprehensive object model. It's essentially "Enterprise Objects" scaled down for the desktop. There's nothing (that I know of) like it bundled with any other OS. "Best in class" I guess
Core-image is a top-notch image-io framework. It's the basis of Quartz composer, and it's how Aperture can (in real time) apply effects to enormous images without having to write a new image every time - Aperture just stores the instructions on how to get an image from a raw source, and Core-image is the grunt behind it all. There are only 2 programs I know of that can do this, and of the two Aperture is by far the more impressive. The other is Lightroom, and its still in Beta. "Best in class" again, I suppose.
Core-graphics - another cool technology that provides innate use of the GPU, and is the basis for Quartz (the compositing engine that the Mac UI uses). CG treats the VRAM like a hard disk, and can "swap" textures in and out automatically, effectively providing an infinite amount of ram on the graphics card.
The parent poster's argument was that a lot of the Mac apps are "best in class", and I think he has a point. Certainly nothing you've said has managed to disprove it. As for "the only reason people buy
You're "subscribed" to the ADC, but you're not a premier member. So basically you registered to get the free tools, right ?
I've developed on 8- and 16-bit home micros, on just about every flavour of unix workstation, on Windows from -98 through -XP, and on OSX. Visual studio has some nice features, but I can honestly say I prefer Xcode. Have you even seen what xcode 3 can do ? Developing with Xray (scroll down on the linked page) is head-and-shoulders above what I've seen so far anywhere else. I used to love Dtrace on my Sun, but Xray is a much nicer interface.
And you get to use Cocoa / Objective C. Or even Objective C++ if you're a masochist. There's a good reason Mac programs get to look a lot better than their windows counterparts most of the time, and that's the core frameworks that Apple include (core-data, core-image, core-graphics, and core-animation). There's a lot of thought gone into the OS-services, and it shows.
As for "MS gives away free copies of Visual Studio.NET", if you were a *real* ADC member, you'd know that XCode is free for anyone. Any money paid is entirely optional, and gains professional developers a leg-up over the rest. You get Leopard-stuff earlier, for example...
Your assertion that "there's no serious competition" is just that - an assertion. Care to provide specific examples ? Given that you didn't even know the XCode was free, I somehow doubt your credentials on just which is the better development environment...
Simon
Re:This is getting old...
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You do realise just how retarded your comment is, right ?
The *only* complaints you could have in the ones you listed are the motherboard and (possibly) the processor... And Apple design their own motherboards, so that's what you get. Who *really* cares what motherboard you have, as long as it does its job ?
To break it down for you:
AMD vs Intel: the Intel procs are currently better than the AMD ones! So your "choice above all" maxim boils down to "I want to be able to choose a worse processor"...
nVidia vs ATI: yup, just choose which of the two you want - I have an ATI X1900XT in my Mac Pro, but I could have got it with a NVidia quadro FX4500 had I wanted, or up to 4 NVidia 7300GT's
Corsair vs Kingston: Dude, it's RAM. They have a standard interface for a good reason, so you can choose the RAM you want. I bought the RAM for my MacPro from NewEgg...
WD vs Seagate: Ok, I'm beginning to think you're a troll now. It's a *standard* SATA interface. Just plug one in. Seriously.
Operating system: Hmm - seems to me I can run all of those, and I do run two of them. Seems to me that any non-Mac *can't* run OSX... Guess I win.
Either you're smoking something illegal, or you're woefully uninformed.
The 1689 Bill of Rights is about protecting Parliament from the Crown. It primarily limits the Crown's interference with Parliament and is the document that essentially set the stage for Parliamentary Supremecy. It is not a Bill of Rights of the people, in the US sense, that lays out the individual rights of citizens and establishes their permanent protections from all forms of government.
That's not how I read it. From the Wikipedia page:
The basic tenets of the Bill of Rights 1689 are:
freedom from royal interference with the law (the Sovereign was forbidden to establish his own courts or to act as a judge himself)
freedom from taxation by royal prerogative, without agreement by Parliament
freedom to petition the King
freedom from a peace-time standing army, without agreement by Parliament
freedom [for Protestants] to have arms for defence, as allowed by law
freedom to elect members of Parliament without interference from the Sovereign
the freedom of speech in Parliament, in that proceedings in Parliament were not to be questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself (the basis of modern parliamentary privilege)
freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, and excessive bail
freedom from fines and forfeitures without trial
...
There are more, but these are very similar in nature (even the Wikipedia article says this) to the US bill of rights.
As for parliamentary sovereignty, that was effectively removed when the UK joined the EU - the European courts can trump UK law, and people do take cases there. Even without that step, there are cases where UK courts have ordered an act of parliament to be changed, and it has happened.
2) There are no courts with the power to overrule any law passed by parliament (no uk version of the supreme court).
Oh yes there is although they're still readying the building...
3) There are no REAL powers to curb the parliament's will. The House of Lords is mostly symbolic...
To abuse Pauli: "that's not even wrong". The House of Lords has been a critical part of UK parliamentary infrastructure. It has sent bill after bill back to the government for adjustment, and ironically enough is *far* more protective of the "common man" than the government of the day (whichever party is in power). As an overseer of an elected government body, they could do no better.
Of course, the House of Commons can ram legislation through if the Lords reject a bill 3 times, but this causes an immense, very public row. The Lords will quite happily eloquently state their case, or write op-ed pieces for the media saying why they rejected XXX, and since they're usually for very good reasons, politicians have to squirm on live TV interviews; they don't like that, which is why it happens rarely - usually a compromise is struck, or the Lords get their way. For an organisation with seemingly no power, they have a huge impact on UK law.
4) Royal assent (it's "assent" by the way, she's not climbing anywhere)
I'll just point out that just like life-insurance, past-performance is no guarantee of future success - just because royal-assent is only very rarely refused (the last time was 1708), it is still a requirement for any law. It is still a final check-and-balance within the judicial system. It is still very much *not* a rubber-stamp. Reserve powers like these *are* important during times of crisis, eg: the hung parliament example in the link.
If I go on like this, the reply will be miles long. Shortening things a little bit:
5) There is no written Bill of Rights
Yes there is. See above.
6) Tony Blair's government recently removed the right-to-remain silent without so much as a public debate
Apart from the massive public outcry, the weeks of TV coverage, and the end result being that in fact {you can remain silent, but the court is now told that you did} being the result of it all, you mean ?
Most of what you have written in the first paragraph (I'm not going to bother with the second, this reply is long enough, and it seems to be mainly based on the assumptions in the first paragraph anyway) is wrong and/or you've misunderstood the facts. That's not too surprising I guess - it certainly would be a lot easier if everything was collected in one place, and FWIW I'd like a constitution that placed limits on the UK government, but you can't use the above arguments to get there...
We still have Habeus corpus, even for "enemy combatants" and foreigners. I'm not in the UK atm, but I think there's a law been passed that allows holding of suspected terrorists without charge for 90 days recently. It caused quite a fuss, but they can't be tortured during that time, or in fact treated in any way contrary to the Geneva convention.
Hmm. In practice I agree with you - for all intents and purposes, the UK is a republic.
In theory however, there is a difference - until the ruling monarch signs a law, it is not a law (ironically enough, by UK law:-). Now for the Queen *not* to sign a law would provoke a constitutional crisis that (unless there was a *very* good reason not to) would probably abolish the monarchy in favour of the PM. It is a last check-and-balance though.
For the monarch to take such a step, it would have to be a pretty heinous law - (s)he'd be gambling the future of the monarchy on public support for the decision not to sign the bill, and it's highly unlikely to ever happen (well, until Tony finally screws up the House of Lords, which against all odds seems to be the voice of reason^W the people these days... Even then it's very improbable).
The statement I was taking issue with was your last one:
Apple is closer to a "value added reseller" than a hardware manufacturer.
Sorry, but IMHO, that's just plain wrong. VAR's are not generally involved with the design of a product (I've been one!), and usually base their business around customer relationships / extra services. The product is whatever is delivered from the manufacturer.
In the first 10 amendments to the constitution (the "Bill of Rights"), the areas of the constitution that are limited to citizens are very explicitly stated as such. From Wikipedia
In its most basic form, the writ of habeas corpus serves as the final chance a prisoner has to challenge his conviction, and it will be granted based on only constitutional issues.
The relevant part here is the 5th amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Note the use of the phrase "No person", not "No citizen". The supreme court holds that any offence that involves incarceration is to be considered an "infamous crime".
The fifth amendment is generally considered to be the one that protects "persons" from brutal interrogation. And, in case it escaped your notice, when pressed for whether an American citizen could be considered an "enemy combatant", the President just dodged the issue (this was on TV, so it's probably on U-tube somewhere, but I don't have a URL). Citizenship is irrelevant in this debate.
"On a personal note, I've met some folks in Arizona that are armed better than a small National Guard unit. In many states it's not very hard to obtain a Class 3 Firearms license. I wish you luck trying to take away any of these folks rights..."
Um, if Martial law is declared, a small posse of helicopter gunships could quite easily wipe out just about any citizen, no matter how they were holed up or armed. The citizenry can have ground-to-air missiles or rocket-propelled grenades and it makes no difference if the gunship is over the horizon with an AWACS up-top.
And if you want to see what an Apache can do against individuals, just look at this. I'd warn you about clicking on that link if you're squeamish, there's no doubt what's happening is the ruthless and efficient killing of men (even those wounded and trying to get away), as well as the destruction of vehicles. In that link, they didn't even use any air-to-ground missiles or cruise-missiles, just the Apache's cannon. If you don't think US soldiers would do this to US citizens, think again. Under martial law, they can be executed themselves for not performing their "duty".
It never ceases to amaze me that people don't grok this basic fact: you are at the mercy of your government - that's why it is important to choose it well. Even if (by some miracle) you managed to repulse the first-wave of government soldiers, they can escalate WAY better than you can, and they will. The only solution would be guerrilla warfare, and for that you need organisation, supplies, intelligence, and purpose - a lot more than can be expected by a few Arizonian gun-lovers.
The "stealth" bit is that the bill is like 10 miles long, and the bit that allows martial law for "an other condition" is buried about 3/4 of the way into it.
If you're going to change something that affects democracy to the extent of being able to impose martial law, surely it can stand on its own, be its own bill, etc. You don't bury it, hoping that no-one will notice, at least not if you have any sense of ethics or morals...
Recently the administration has given itself these extra powers (amongst others...)
- Removal of Habeus corpus for "enemy combatants"
- Ability to declare anyone (American citizen or no) an "enemy combatant" at will and without any defence
- Ability to declare martial law for "an other reason"... it's chilling. What I don't get is that *I* would find it chilling if my own party were doing it. I don't see why people are defending it, unless they expect the government to give itself these powers, and then never use them (??)
Apple did NOT note that "due to security concerns" they have not intention of making any future version of OSX/Darwin publically available. That was pure supposition by the author of the linked article. Apple's only quote was that the open-source project was "in flux".
Note that the date of the linked article was 17th of May ([grin] my birthday), whereas on the 7th of August, Apple (as in someone *really* from Apple, rather than some ignorant journo making up a story) released this to the world
A quote: "As of today, we are posting buildable kernel sources for Intel-based Macs alongside the usual PowerPC (and other Intel) sources, starting with Mac OS X 10.4.7. We regret the delay in readying the new kernel for release, and thank you for your patience"
Of course, just going and visiting the darwin-download site would let you see that both intel and ppc sources are there for 10.4.7 - it usually takes a while for the upgrades to make their way onto the site so 10.4.8 isn't there yet, but there's *no* indication that it won't appear...
What you're saying is that Apple just purchase commodity units (hard disks, screens, keyboards, etc.), drop-ship them to Asus, and have them come up with the MB and MBP ?
What planet are you from ?
Apple *design* their own circuit-boards and *design* the environment that these boards fit into. What other manufacturer has ambient-light sensors in the case, and translucent backlit keyboards ? Who else has LED's integrated into the bezel (see the latest MBP) so you can't see it when it's not glowing ? Who else puts firewire (400/800) onto the motherboard ? What about the keyboard on the Macbook ? How about the sudden-motion sensor, or the magsafe power connector (I could go on and on...)
So, for the umpteenth time, there is a difference between [b]design[/b] and [b]manufacture[/b]. Any competent factory can solder parts in place and assemble them into a product - that's what factories *do*, but coming up with the initial design is called *engineering*. And that's what Apple do best of all.
Then they wrap OSX around it, knowing the hardware it will support, and integrate that support right into the OS. It's one hell of a combination.
Interesting - do you have a link to where Acer make these quad-core machines ?
The OP referenced the "Mac is $1000 cheaper" meme, which means he was referring to the desktop workstations. I thought Acer just made so-so laptops that don't run OSX...
The problem is the situation you have laid out in the analogy completely absolves Ford of any responsibility. If tires randomly started to explode, yeah, Ford would blame the tire manufacturer -- and rightly so -- but the implication is Ford didn't do anything. It would be more like if on a selected percentage of cars, there was a jagged piece of metal hanging down near the tire that caused it to pop and explode at a random time, and then Ford tried to complain that the tires should have been made stronger to withstand the poke.
But that's my whole point - I don't think Apple *did* do anything. Their subcontractor used a Windows machine already-infected with a virus, and since an ipod is just a hard-disk, that virus infected the ipod as part of the random-sample QA process. Now I'm a little surprised that they don't shove any QA'd devices back into the queue to be re-initialised, but I suppose that's up to the subcontractor. Apple's hardware, firmware, and software was all perfectly-well designed. It was the attaching-to-the-PC-for-QA-testing that caused the problem.
In the realms of the already-stretched analogy, it's as though they did a QA check of the tires on the track, and everything looked great. Then they got out into the real world and found that the tires are combustible when mixed with asphalt...
I think you're missing that it was a subcontractor, doing final QA compatibility testing on a random sample of finished products, using an infected PC that caused the whole problem in the first place.
Apple probably have heard about viruses, even if their own immune system seems to be holding up... They're not saying "what's a virus", they're saying "Damn, that stupid frickin contractor used an infected PC for a QA test, then shipped the device out without re-initialising the hardware. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had as good an immune system as us and wouldn't have to worry about this stuff ? Must get better subcontractors, sorry people - here's how to fix it."
That is like ford saying "A limited number of tires on Mustangs will spontaneously fail, causing a serious accident. As you might imagine, we are upset at drivers for not being more durable during such a crash, and even more upset at ourselves for not catching it"
Apple are *not* blaming the users of the ipod (the "drivers"), they are expressing some anger at the ultimate cause of how it happened ("the tire manufacturers"), and you better believe that if tires started randomly blowing out on cars, and there was an avenue of blame available, then Ford damn well would lay that blame firmly at the tire-manufacturers feet.
Since they're also volunteering this information, announcing a way for users to completely recover ("new body cloning device" ?), and expressing even more anger at themselves for not catching it, I don't really see the big deal.
Since the device appears like a hard-drive to Windows, Windows will run any code set to auto-execute as soon as the disk is plugged in. The ipod just acts as a carrier in this instance.
It appears that one of the QA machines used to test windows compatibility had the virus on it, so when the randomly-sampled fully-finished ipod was plugged in for a QA compatibility test, the virus was uploaded onto the ipod's hard disk by Windows, and just sat there waiting until it was plugged into another Windows PC. None of this involves any activity by the ipod itself, it's all being done by Windows.
Not that I think Apple's comment was all-that-great, and they'll have to deal with the fall-out, but I could see Apple being just a tad frustrated about this...
So, I have a 3840x1200 desktop (2x23" displays), and I can move from side-to-side with ~4 inches of mouse movement on the desktop if I move it fast. At the same time, when moving slowly, it's perfectly pixel-accurate. I guess I don't see the problem. FWIW, I have my tracking speed set about mid-way.
As far as I can see, it works in exactly the way you describe as how you want it to work. Not so "retarted" after all... Maybe you need a better mouse ?
From now on, all break periods will be taken by all children filing slowly and silently out to the playground in single file, 1 meter apart. They will then sit in their designated 1m square for a period of 15 minutes and file slowly back into class. If it is raining, they will be given an umbrella. Coats and galoshes must be worn at all times in case any cold- or water-based infection might be possible, even when sunny. Portable fans will be provided in the Summer. Talking will be permitted, but only to those within 1 square of the child doing the talking.
In this way, the school hopes to reduce it's liability risk even further, for your protection. We have consulted parents, and at least one of them said "I prefer my child not to run around, she may fall down and cut herself. I think this is a good idea".
It has nothing to do with the article, I'll grant you. The reason for posting was simple irritation - A post critical of the EU, and highly likely to be US-based (based on the time-of-posting, the fact that ~70% of/. traffic is US-sourced, and that it was anti-EU). Since then it has sort of grown a life all its own...
And suspension of HC (I'm sick of typing it out!) _is_ a big deal. When the UK introduced the RIP bill (another odious piece of legislation) that would bring back the Star Chamber for some offences if part-3 ever gets passed, there were many protests, even some civil unrest at one of them, IIRC. If they'd tried to remove HC, I can't believe it would have gone over as smoothly as it seems to have done here... You lot don't even get the Star Chamber...
As a foreign national living in the USA, it obviously concerns me a lot more than your average slashdotter, but the language of who this bill affects is sufficiently vague as to probably include US citizens as well.
Now perhaps I'll stop replying to people, and the thread can die a natural death - next time I'm irritated by someone, I'll not bother posting, I reckon!
Hmm - I've not seen the meme "Bush is Hitler" before, but maybe that's because I don't watch CNN.
There's a fair amount of criticism of this latest insult to human rights, and it's not just on CNN. The right of "habeus corpus" is the fundamental right of a prisoner to demand a *fair* review of why he is a captive. If you don't have that right (which by the way, your constitution prevents being suspended unless you're being invaded or you're in rebellion), pretty much any other right in the bill of rights is irrelevant. You can be held indefinitely, and suffer any indignity because they never have to free you.
[from Wikipedia] According to Christopher Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel, "nothing could be less American than a government that can indefinitely hold people in secret torture cells, take away their protections against horrific and cruel abuse, put them on trial based on evidence that they cannot see, sentence them to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and then slam shut the courthouse door for any habeas petition, but that's exactly what Congress just approved."
Slashdot Mirror
[sigh] When you can't put together a cogent argument, or when you're just plain wrong, I guess it's easier to just call names, put your hands over your ears, and spout bullshit. I will try (just once more) to educate you.
:-)
Bottom line is that it's still a near useless app that can be replaced by freeware on any platform
Fundamentally, every program can be replaced by a monitor program, with the user typing in hex bytes into memory locations. There's this idea that having a program take the drudgery out of a task, automating common tasks, and generally making life easier is a good thing. So that deals with the "replaced by freeware" - *nothing* comes close. "Best in class", yes I think so.
"Near useless" is also a relative thing - a friend of mine uses it to entertain his kids no end, and it takes him 5 minutes to create something they love - far and away easier than any other way of doing it.
So it just randomly selects clients to connect to, network interfaces to use, and every other parameter? I call bullshit...
Ah, I see you misunderstand - using the client libraries is usually pretty easy (which you'd know if you'd ever written a bulk-synchronous parallel distributed application). It's the setting up of the server side that can be involved, with different machines having to know which other machines they can send tasks to. Apple use Rendezvous to automate that - all the complexity of managing which machines run faster, which ones have sufficient resources, which ones you have permissions for etc. is all managed automatically. Just write your code, link with the correct library, and your code will distribute automatically wherever it can. No bullshit. Trivial to set up and really easy to use - best in class, I reckon.
sounds to me like it does everything any other DVD authoring program does only with that pretty mac theme
Actually there are lots of themes, and yes that's exactly what it does. Really really well - the animation effects are provided by Quartz composer (which we mentioned earlier). We were discussing various application areas and which applications are the best within their own application area. I'm glad you've seen the light and agree with me that iDVD is "best in class".
The perfect ==extension== for Final Cut Studio.
I really did LOL at that one. Trust me, Shake is *not* a plugin. FCP is a fantastic video-editing application, Shake is a fantastic compositing application. It's not uncommon to have Shake compositions (which can be rendered to Quicktime movies) included within Final-cut-authored movies. That's why Apple sell the "suite". When Allen was hawking the commandline-only version around the post-production scene trying to interest people in a wonderful new product, we purchased one of the first licences in London. The graphical version came later and "Nothing Real" took off. Apple bought them a few years later.
You can still purchase Shake, but Apple have announced they are no longer developing it. It is possible for larger sites to buy the source code - I think it was only $50k, so well worth it for most of the larger effects houses. Given that *entire* *movies* have been done using Shake (and not using FCP either LOL), I guess its "best in class"
feel free to state your sources in a way that can be proven
That's easy. Phone up CNN and ask them. Or the BBC for that matter.
Seems to me like [core data] is nothing but a glorified template system
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. I don't even know where to start. I suggest you get a clue and read the developer docs. You'll notice how the user-interface can be bound directly to objects persisted into the database ? How there is no "glue code" needed for things like this. And they don't have to be UI objects - any object is transparently and automatically persisted as requ
I think Apple programmers are more productive than their MS counterparts, but not because they're in any way "better" - I think they have an easier life.
To code a Windows app on your own isn't particularly hard, but I don't think it scales as well to large groups - there's too much cruft in there, and too many ways to screw up with C++ because it's a complicated language. A group of 30 clever people, experts in the language, can be let down by one not-quite-so-expert person not realising some subtle interaction.
Apple, on the other hand, don't much care about backwards compatibility (just upgrade, and get all these extras too), have a much cleaner OS (basically unix), and a much simpler object-orientated language to work with. Objective C is 90% as powerful as C++, but it works in a different way and although it's very powerful, it's simple to pick up and use. Apple's guidelines are simple as well, and this helps when group A are relying on something that group B are developing, when groups A and B haven't even ever met.
So, Apple get to leverage lots of frameworks in an easier fashion. I think MS have a complexity-management problem forced on them by their language choice and their commitment to backwards compatibility. If I'm right, it's only going to get harder for MS as time goes by...
Simon
Control Panel -> Sharing -> hit the 'XGrid' checkbox. Done. I guess that qualifies as "best in class".
The parent poster's argument was that a lot of the Mac apps are "best in class", and I think he has a point. Certainly nothing you've said has managed to disprove it. As for "the only reason people buy
You're "subscribed" to the ADC, but you're not a premier member. So basically you registered to get the free tools, right ?
I've developed on 8- and 16-bit home micros, on just about every flavour of unix workstation, on Windows from -98 through -XP, and on OSX. Visual studio has some nice features, but I can honestly say I prefer Xcode. Have you even seen what xcode 3 can do ? Developing with Xray (scroll down on the linked page) is head-and-shoulders above what I've seen so far anywhere else. I used to love Dtrace on my Sun, but Xray is a much nicer interface.
And you get to use Cocoa / Objective C. Or even Objective C++ if you're a masochist. There's a good reason Mac programs get to look a lot better than their windows counterparts most of the time, and that's the core frameworks that Apple include (core-data, core-image, core-graphics, and core-animation). There's a lot of thought gone into the OS-services, and it shows.
As for "MS gives away free copies of Visual Studio.NET", if you were a *real* ADC member, you'd know that XCode is free for anyone. Any money paid is entirely optional, and gains professional developers a leg-up over the rest. You get Leopard-stuff earlier, for example...
Your assertion that "there's no serious competition" is just that - an assertion. Care to provide specific examples ? Given that you didn't even know the XCode was free, I somehow doubt your credentials on just which is the better development environment...
Simon
The *only* complaints you could have in the ones you listed are the motherboard and (possibly) the processor... And Apple design their own motherboards, so that's what you get. Who *really* cares what motherboard you have, as long as it does its job ?
To break it down for you:
Either you're smoking something illegal, or you're woefully uninformed.
Simon
That's not how I read it. From the Wikipedia page:
There are more, but these are very similar in nature (even the Wikipedia article says this) to the US bill of rights.
Simon.
Well...
1) In the UK, there is parliamentary sovereignty and no written constitution
There is no *single* written constitution, but there is Magna Carta (1215), the Bill of rights (1689), the act of settlement (1701), and the Parliament acts (1911, 1949). These collectively form the constitution of the United Kingdom.
As for parliamentary sovereignty, that was effectively removed when the UK joined the EU - the European courts can trump UK law, and people do take cases there. Even without that step, there are cases where UK courts have ordered an act of parliament to be changed, and it has happened.
2) There are no courts with the power to overrule any law passed by parliament (no uk version of the supreme court).
Oh yes there is although they're still readying the building...
3) There are no REAL powers to curb the parliament's will. The House of Lords is mostly symbolic...
To abuse Pauli: "that's not even wrong". The House of Lords has been a critical part of UK parliamentary infrastructure. It has sent bill after bill back to the government for adjustment, and ironically enough is *far* more protective of the "common man" than the government of the day (whichever party is in power). As an overseer of an elected government body, they could do no better.
Of course, the House of Commons can ram legislation through if the Lords reject a bill 3 times, but this causes an immense, very public row. The Lords will quite happily eloquently state their case, or write op-ed pieces for the media saying why they rejected XXX, and since they're usually for very good reasons, politicians have to squirm on live TV interviews; they don't like that, which is why it happens rarely - usually a compromise is struck, or the Lords get their way. For an organisation with seemingly no power, they have a huge impact on UK law.
4) Royal assent (it's "assent" by the way, she's not climbing anywhere)
I'll just point out that just like life-insurance, past-performance is no guarantee of future success - just because royal-assent is only very rarely refused (the last time was 1708), it is still a requirement for any law. It is still a final check-and-balance within the judicial system. It is still very much *not* a rubber-stamp. Reserve powers like these *are* important during times of crisis, eg: the hung parliament example in the link.
If I go on like this, the reply will be miles long. Shortening things a little bit:
5) There is no written Bill of Rights
Yes there is. See above.
6) Tony Blair's government recently removed the right-to-remain silent without so much as a public debate
Apart from the massive public outcry, the weeks of TV coverage, and the end result being that in fact {you can remain silent, but the court is now told that you did} being the result of it all, you mean ?
Most of what you have written in the first paragraph (I'm not going to bother with the second, this reply is long enough, and it seems to be mainly based on the assumptions in the first paragraph anyway) is wrong and/or you've misunderstood the facts. That's not too surprising I guess - it certainly would be a lot easier if everything was collected in one place, and FWIW I'd like a constitution that placed limits on the UK government, but you can't use the above arguments to get there...
Simon
On my passport it says "British Citizen". These days it's pretty rare to be a "British subject" - see Wikipedia's definitions of british nationalities
We still have Habeus corpus, even for "enemy combatants" and foreigners. I'm not in the UK atm, but I think there's a law been passed that allows holding of suspected terrorists without charge for 90 days recently. It caused quite a fuss, but they can't be tortured during that time, or in fact treated in any way contrary to the Geneva convention.
Simon.
Hmm. In practice I agree with you - for all intents and purposes, the UK is a republic.
:-). Now for the Queen *not* to sign a law would provoke a constitutional crisis that (unless there was a *very* good reason not to) would probably abolish the monarchy in favour of the PM. It is a last check-and-balance though.
In theory however, there is a difference - until the ruling monarch signs a law, it is not a law (ironically enough, by UK law
For the monarch to take such a step, it would have to be a pretty heinous law - (s)he'd be gambling the future of the monarchy on public support for the decision not to sign the bill, and it's highly unlikely to ever happen (well, until Tony finally screws up the House of Lords, which against all odds seems to be the voice of reason^W the people these days... Even then it's very improbable).
Simon.
That only works if they copyrighted it more than 50 years ago...
(it was "50 years or longer whichever is the greater")
Simon.
The statement I was taking issue with was your last one:
Apple is closer to a "value added reseller" than a hardware manufacturer.
Sorry, but IMHO, that's just plain wrong. VAR's are not generally involved with the design of a product (I've been one!), and usually base their business around customer relationships / extra services. The product is whatever is delivered from the manufacturer.
This is not Apple. At least IMHO.
Simon.
The relevant part here is the 5th amendment:
Note the use of the phrase "No person", not "No citizen". The supreme court holds that any offence that involves incarceration is to be considered an "infamous crime".
The fifth amendment is generally considered to be the one that protects "persons" from brutal interrogation. And, in case it escaped your notice, when pressed for whether an American citizen could be considered an "enemy combatant", the President just dodged the issue (this was on TV, so it's probably on U-tube somewhere, but I don't have a URL). Citizenship is irrelevant in this debate.
Simon
"On a personal note, I've met some folks in Arizona that are armed better than a small National Guard unit. In many states it's not very hard to obtain a Class 3 Firearms license. I wish you luck trying to take away any of these folks rights..."
Um, if Martial law is declared, a small posse of helicopter gunships could quite easily wipe out just about any citizen, no matter how they were holed up or armed. The citizenry can have ground-to-air missiles or rocket-propelled grenades and it makes no difference if the gunship is over the horizon with an AWACS up-top.
And if you want to see what an Apache can do against individuals, just look at this. I'd warn you about clicking on that link if you're squeamish, there's no doubt what's happening is the ruthless and efficient killing of men (even those wounded and trying to get away), as well as the destruction of vehicles. In that link, they didn't even use any air-to-ground missiles or cruise-missiles, just the Apache's cannon. If you don't think US soldiers would do this to US citizens, think again. Under martial law, they can be executed themselves for not performing their "duty".
It never ceases to amaze me that people don't grok this basic fact: you are at the mercy of your government - that's why it is important to choose it well. Even if (by some miracle) you managed to repulse the first-wave of government soldiers, they can escalate WAY better than you can, and they will. The only solution would be guerrilla warfare, and for that you need organisation, supplies, intelligence, and purpose - a lot more than can be expected by a few Arizonian gun-lovers.
Simon.
The "stealth" bit is that the bill is like 10 miles long, and the bit that allows martial law for "an other condition" is buried about 3/4 of the way into it.
... it's chilling. What I don't get is that *I* would find it chilling if my own party were doing it. I don't see why people are defending it, unless they expect the government to give itself these powers, and then never use them (??)
If you're going to change something that affects democracy to the extent of being able to impose martial law, surely it can stand on its own, be its own bill, etc. You don't bury it, hoping that no-one will notice, at least not if you have any sense of ethics or morals...
Recently the administration has given itself these extra powers (amongst others...)
- Removal of Habeus corpus for "enemy combatants"
- Ability to declare anyone (American citizen or no) an "enemy combatant" at will and without any defence
- Ability to declare martial law for "an other reason"
Simon.
Apple did NOT note that "due to security concerns" they have not intention of making any future version of OSX/Darwin publically available. That was pure supposition by the author of the linked article. Apple's only quote was that the open-source project was "in flux".
Note that the date of the linked article was 17th of May ([grin] my birthday), whereas on the 7th of August, Apple (as in someone *really* from Apple, rather than some ignorant journo making up a story) released this to the world
A quote: "As of today, we are posting buildable kernel sources for Intel-based Macs alongside the usual PowerPC (and other Intel) sources, starting with Mac OS X 10.4.7. We regret the delay in readying the new kernel for release, and thank you for your patience"
Of course, just going and visiting the darwin-download site would let you see that both intel and ppc sources are there for 10.4.7 - it usually takes a while for the upgrades to make their way onto the site so 10.4.8 isn't there yet, but there's *no* indication that it won't appear...
Simon
What you're saying is that Apple just purchase commodity units (hard disks, screens, keyboards, etc.), drop-ship them to Asus, and have them come up with the MB and MBP ?
What planet are you from ?
Apple *design* their own circuit-boards and *design* the environment that these boards fit into. What other manufacturer has ambient-light sensors in the case, and translucent backlit keyboards ? Who else has LED's integrated into the bezel (see the latest MBP) so you can't see it when it's not glowing ? Who else puts firewire (400/800) onto the motherboard ? What about the keyboard on the Macbook ? How about the sudden-motion sensor, or the magsafe power connector (I could go on and on...)
So, for the umpteenth time, there is a difference between [b]design[/b] and [b]manufacture[/b]. Any competent factory can solder parts in place and assemble them into a product - that's what factories *do*, but coming up with the initial design is called *engineering*. And that's what Apple do best of all.
Then they wrap OSX around it, knowing the hardware it will support, and integrate that support right into the OS. It's one hell of a combination.
Simon.
Interesting - do you have a link to where Acer make these quad-core machines ?
The OP referenced the "Mac is $1000 cheaper" meme, which means he was referring to the desktop workstations. I thought Acer just made so-so laptops that don't run OSX...
Simon.
But that's my whole point - I don't think Apple *did* do anything. Their subcontractor used a Windows machine already-infected with a virus, and since an ipod is just a hard-disk, that virus infected the ipod as part of the random-sample QA process. Now I'm a little surprised that they don't shove any QA'd devices back into the queue to be re-initialised, but I suppose that's up to the subcontractor. Apple's hardware, firmware, and software was all perfectly-well designed. It was the attaching-to-the-PC-for-QA-testing that caused the problem.
In the realms of the already-stretched analogy, it's as though they did a QA check of the tires on the track, and everything looked great. Then they got out into the real world and found that the tires are combustible when mixed with asphalt...
Simon
I think you're missing that it was a subcontractor, doing final QA compatibility testing on a random sample of finished products, using an infected PC that caused the whole problem in the first place.
Apple probably have heard about viruses, even if their own immune system seems to be holding up... They're not saying "what's a virus", they're saying "Damn, that stupid frickin contractor used an infected PC for a QA test, then shipped the device out without re-initialising the hardware. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had as good an immune system as us and wouldn't have to worry about this stuff ? Must get better subcontractors, sorry people - here's how to fix it."
Simon.
Apple are *not* blaming the users of the ipod (the "drivers"), they are expressing some anger at the ultimate cause of how it happened ("the tire manufacturers"), and you better believe that if tires started randomly blowing out on cars, and there was an avenue of blame available, then Ford damn well would lay that blame firmly at the tire-manufacturers feet.
Since they're also volunteering this information, announcing a way for users to completely recover ("new body cloning device" ?), and expressing even more anger at themselves for not catching it, I don't really see the big deal.
Simon
It doesn't.
Since the device appears like a hard-drive to Windows, Windows will run any code set to auto-execute as soon as the disk is plugged in. The ipod just acts as a carrier in this instance.
It appears that one of the QA machines used to test windows compatibility had the virus on it, so when the randomly-sampled fully-finished ipod was plugged in for a QA compatibility test, the virus was uploaded onto the ipod's hard disk by Windows, and just sat there waiting until it was plugged into another Windows PC. None of this involves any activity by the ipod itself, it's all being done by Windows.
Not that I think Apple's comment was all-that-great, and they'll have to deal with the fall-out, but I could see Apple being just a tad frustrated about this...
Simon.
So, I have a 3840x1200 desktop (2x23" displays), and I can move from side-to-side with ~4 inches of mouse movement on the desktop if I move it fast. At the same time, when moving slowly, it's perfectly pixel-accurate. I guess I don't see the problem. FWIW, I have my tracking speed set about mid-way.
As far as I can see, it works in exactly the way you describe as how you want it to work. Not so "retarted" after all... Maybe you need a better mouse ?
Simon
Dear parent,
From now on, all break periods will be taken by all children filing slowly and silently out to the playground in single file, 1 meter apart. They will then sit in their designated 1m square for a period of 15 minutes and file slowly back into class. If it is raining, they will be given an umbrella. Coats and galoshes must be worn at all times in case any cold- or water-based infection might be possible, even when sunny. Portable fans will be provided in the Summer. Talking will be permitted, but only to those within 1 square of the child doing the talking.
In this way, the school hopes to reduce it's liability risk even further, for your protection. We have consulted parents, and at least one of them said "I prefer my child not to run around, she may fall down and cut herself. I think this is a good idea".
The headmaster.
Simon.
It has nothing to do with the article, I'll grant you. The reason for posting was simple irritation - A post critical of the EU, and highly likely to be US-based (based on the time-of-posting, the fact that ~70% of /. traffic is US-sourced, and that it was anti-EU). Since then it has sort of grown a life all its own...
And suspension of HC (I'm sick of typing it out!) _is_ a big deal. When the UK introduced the RIP bill (another odious piece of legislation) that would bring back the Star Chamber for some offences if part-3 ever gets passed, there were many protests, even some civil unrest at one of them, IIRC. If they'd tried to remove HC, I can't believe it would have gone over as smoothly as it seems to have done here... You lot don't even get the Star Chamber...
As a foreign national living in the USA, it obviously concerns me a lot more than your average slashdotter, but the language of who this bill affects is sufficiently vague as to probably include US citizens as well.
Now perhaps I'll stop replying to people, and the thread can die a natural death - next time I'm irritated by someone, I'll not bother posting, I reckon!
Simon.
Hmm - I've not seen the meme "Bush is Hitler" before, but maybe that's because I don't watch CNN.
There's a fair amount of criticism of this latest insult to human rights, and it's not just on CNN. The right of "habeus corpus" is the fundamental right of a prisoner to demand a *fair* review of why he is a captive. If you don't have that right (which by the way, your constitution prevents being suspended unless you're being invaded or you're in rebellion), pretty much any other right in the bill of rights is irrelevant. You can be held indefinitely, and suffer any indignity because they never have to free you.
[from Wikipedia]
According to Christopher Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel, "nothing could be less American than a government that can indefinitely hold people in secret torture cells, take away their protections against horrific and cruel abuse, put them on trial based on evidence that they cannot see, sentence them to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and then slam shut the courthouse door for any habeas petition, but that's exactly what Congress just approved."
Simon.