Sorry, did you miss the part where it's done 103 million queries in the last 5 days ? At an average of 203 per second! As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty good performance, and that's what I want.
Look, you might want (and hell you may even need) all the bells and whistles, but for most people it's a matter of "how big is mine".
There's something decidedly irritating about being called a 'fanboy' when you're getting excellent service out of something, and you're happy with that.
Considering that MySQL probably runs more databases than all the others put together (it being the poster-child for most OSS projects involving DB's), I think that's a little harsh. Sure it's not ACID, but it does well enough for most purposes...
As a data-point:
simon% mysqladmin ver mysqladmin Ver 8.40 Distrib 4.0.18, for suse-linux on x86_64 Copyright (C) 2000 MySQL AB & MySQL Finland AB & TCX DataKonsult AB This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL license
Server version 4.0.18-Max Protocol version 10 Connection Localhost via UNIX socket UNIX socket/opt/mysql/mysql.sock Uptime: 5 days 21 hours 32 min 52 sec
Threads: 2 Questions: 103591631 Slow queries: 101 Opens: 181809 Flush tables: 1 Open tables: 64 Queries per second avg: 203.291... the only reason it's only 5 days is a server upgrade, but its performance seems pretty "real" to me:-)
This isn't going to be popular with the 'no DRM is good DRM' brigade. So Sue Me.
So Jon's done it again. Well, the man has testicles of steel because Apple are currently taking legal action against another single person. Making the blog title 'So Sue Me' is just asking for it, IMHO. Even if (and I say *if*) Apple haven't a leg to stand on, they can afford far fancier lawyers. Rather him than me.
What's the knock-on effect ? Apple have to have some DRM in place to keep their corporate music-land clients happy, or the contracts they've signed will be revoked, and they'll lose loadsamoney. This is just a guess, but I'm pretty sure the RIAA/whoever wouldn't have given Apple carte-blanche to sell their music without some degree of "protection" (whether required or not is a different argument).
So, Apple will have to respond. Off the top of my head, I think they'll be forced into making the iTMS contact Apple regularly for a right to play the library (similar to Kerberos). The right to play will be governed by whether the library is "legal" or not (ie: if any tracks have the same signature as on the iTunes website, but no DRM, prevent playback of either the entire library or just those songs.
Or they could do DRM management completely on the server, change the file format to heavily encrypt the system, change the OS, hell, change the machine hardware if necessary.
The point is that none of this is good for me, or in fact for Apple, but they'll be forced to go down this road because their clients will demand their "protection", and people like Jon will keep on breaking anything too lenient. So, in the end, Apple either lock the system down completely using hardware, or they drop the music business. Well done guys, now everyone's happy.
One of the first things you notice when on holiday in the US (buying petrol, stuff, whatever) is that they don't look at your credit card signature. Ever.
In the UK (and I think most of Europe) it's a lot different. I've been asked to re-sign because my (legitimate!) signature wasn't quite similar enough. It doesn't help when you've got a 3-year-old card where the signature is pretty much worn-off anyway:-)
Another weird thing about the US is that pretty much the entire world wants to know your social-security number. The only person in the UK who ever asks for my SSN is the taxman, and I want him to know, so I don't get two tax-bills:-) You never ever get asked by the electricity/gas people, the cable company, the phone people, your bank, the list goes on. I guess identity fraud is that much easier that way...
Simon
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa....
on
MSN Sponsors Mensa
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· Score: 3, Insightful
You know what, I didn't. I've never felt the need.
Frankly, I'm not the "worrier" type who needs the justification of a test to prove (s)he's as good as (s)he thinks (s)he is. I've done it and I'm proud of what I've done.
I'm a clever guy - I've excelled in every academic test I've ever taken. (14 'O' levels, 6 'A' levels, 2 'S' levels, a Physics degree from IC, London, and a PhD at KCL). I have more qualifications (in spades) than 99% of people I've met. I don't see the need to be an arrogant SOB because of that. I've set up, run for a few years and successfully sold a company at an excellent profit. I've pretty much done it all - I'm now working in a dream job for a cool company in California and enjoying every minute of it.
And, in case you were thinking along the lines of privileged education etc., my mother is an estate agent, my father a docker, and I was the first in my family to ever go to University. Everyone has, since.
I *do* value intelligence (hell, I require it of interviewees). I just don't value Mensa tests. They're about as useful a measure of basic intelligence as the colour of the sky is of tomorrow's weather. "Red sky at night" will get you so far, but it's only a weighted average. Point made, I think.
Look, I'm no shill for MS - I think their OS sucks dead bunnies through short straws, but frankly, who cares ? MS want to associate themselves with an organisation that likes to consider itself better than average, by their own definition. And the news is... what ?
I have no respect for Mensa, they like to position themselves as the "society of the intelligent", and yet most of the people I've interviewed who have claimed Mensa membership on their resume are less than attractive as candidates. It's almost a badge of dishonour... They don't fail on intelligence (but that's not normally where people I interview fail anyway), they fail on people skills - being able to recognise that someone else may know more about X than you do, and coping with that knowledge well.
Oh, I've not much respect for MS either (at least technically - I think their marketing is excellent), but that ought to be obvious from my tagline...
I can't help thinking that this is bad timing on Think-Secret's part. To raise your profile by doing (again!) the thing you're being sued for, at the very time you're being sued means that (if he loses), the penalties are going to be that much worse (reckless, showed no remorse, uncontrollable, etc. etc.). Lawyers will have a field day.
On the other hand, there's the case that if he's not doing anything wrong, why not continue doing exactly that. And let's face it, if this turns out to be true, it's definitely something that Apple would want to hide. Definitely news that Apple-lovers will want to read.
Gaah. Brain hurts.
Assuming he's right, then at least this time (apart from 'De Plume's "sources" who know a lot more about the cpu than CHUD tools would tell you), Apple only have themselves to blame regarding the release of 4-way dev tools...
You know, I debated adding 'for them' at the end of the '2 months' sentence, but I figured that anyone reading would understand I meant that. Obviously not.
Therefore, I replace the original with:
" ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old for them".
IMHO they look like every other flash drive, apart from the circular one. It doesn't matter, I reckon Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank here - the press are describing it as "Sony takes on Apple's IPOD shuffle" - ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old.
The other comment is - what on earth are Sony smoking - they really need to learn about branding - the models are the NW-E103, NW-E105, NW-E107, NW-E405, NW-E407, NW-E505, NW-E507. Apart from 'bigger numbers are better' (which is a guess), what does that tell me ? What are the distinctions between them ? both in-range and between the ranges (presuming the E1xx, E4xx and E5xx are 3 distinct ranges).
Even I get this, and I write s/w for a living. You'd have thought someone in the highly-paid 'marketing director' position would have a clue too.
The UK has an elected and an unelected (appointed, in the main, some hereditary members) house. It's odd that in the UK it's seen as the supposedly accountable house (the House of Commons) that rides roughshod over the people, and the unelected and unaccountable House of Lords has been the voice of reason.
In fact, the Lords were a sufficient pain in the neck for Tony's Cronies that they have been forced to vote on their own existence, and they are in the process of being "reformed" (ie: made toothless). From my point of view that's tantamount to betrayal.
It just goes to show that people as individuals can be intelligent, viable humans, but aggregate opinions over a sufficiently large number, and it's not the cream that floats to the top, [sigh]. It's depressing just how easy it is to get the result you want by producing a message you think will be popular, rather than one that is accurate. It's also depressing that people vote for the same results over and over 'because gran'pa voted that way'.
Lone voice in the dark gloomy wilderness, screaming in desperation and despair. Is there *no-one* there ?
I've just moved to the US, and I'd far prefer to have the BBC available over here - without the adverts that they insert into the exported BBC channels they show.
For every hour of TV, about 20 mins will be adverts for things I don't want and will never buy. The Tivo is the only thing keeping me watching TV at all over here, because I can skip the ads. They even interrupt MOVIES for crying out loud!
Even the ad-supported channels in the UK are nowhere near as bad as the USA. I've got 300 channels of pure unadulterated crap, from which every now and then a semi-decent program emerges, in small pieces. Thank [insert deity] for the Sci Fi channel, it's the only thing I watch these days.
So, instead of ruining all my TV viewing ever, I used to pay ~£10/month. Well worth it. And even more so when you're forced to put up with the alternative.
Steve (and I have a *lot* of respect for the guy) is as hard-nosed as the next businessman. Apple's been around for a looong time now (in computer-time, of course) and it's a professional organisation now, with all that that entails.
Steve (if it was him that made the final decision - it could have been 'Legal') won't have done it to be cuddly. He'll have done it for sound business reasons - the best path for the business is to do X, we'll do X. It could be that he thinks perhaps he's put the fear of [insert random deity] into those who would have continued to leak, and he's satisfied with that... It could be that Apple really do have to do more before they can issue subpoenas.
Apple's a cool company. They make cool hardware and the best damn unix workstation I've ever used (prior to OSX I wasn't impressed, but I am now:-). That doesn't mean their money-men, legal folks, HR etc. aren't just as 'bad' (read: for the company at any cost) as everywhere else (with suitable apologies to those who buck the trend).
Er, even if (and I say if) you are right that it's only 1 cent profit per song, Apple have sold 250 million songs to date, and are selling ongoing at a rate of 1.5 million a day, or ~ half a billion songs a year.
I think a 10-cent profit is more likely, making their yearly projection $50 million, which is hardly pocket change...
Eventually even the EU will have to pay lip service to what the people want, It may be the most undemocratic system of government I've ever come across, but it at least has to maintain the ideal of being the voice of the people...
Ok, I'm replying to this late, but frankly I think you've misunderstood what I was trying to say. There is a physical limit on the information that can be resolved. It's rooted in the fundamental equations of electromagnetic field theory, and there's no way you can somehow be "better" by being smarter.
You can be better by increading your resolving power, by increasing your cross-sectional area of juxtaposition or by increasing your bandwidth potential. None of these are subject to technical innovation, in the same way as gravity is not subject to technical innovation.
I probably oughtn't respond to this, but since it's possibly a colloquial expression.... It's in the same vein as "I found it trying to...", or "it was not easy to".
Are you *sure* that's not an active tag ? ie: is the tag powered in any way, and how big is it ?
After giving up on the manufacturer-supplied readers, we built a reader starting with the reference designs available, and it's all down to the power emitted, the angle-adjusted cross-sectional area of both tag and reader antennae, and the frequency of the carrier wave. I would have thought it would be physically impossible to achieve what you say using only passive RFID. Pretty easy with active RFID though...
We were using ~13MHz carrier waves, which were the most reliable we could get. There were also ~125 KHz systems. Perhaps there's a higher band now that your auto system uses...
The range over which you can read RFID information in any sort of portable (ie: non-obvious) fashion is limited to a few inches. In fact, tuning the damn things so they'll read at (say: 4 or 5) inches is hard.
The readers that are designed for doorways can do roughly 2 feet, but they're huge and very very obvious - they're designed for store entrances, where they make you walk through the "gates" to get in/out of the store. You can't miss a 4-foot (max) separated row of columns covering all the exits...
RFID works by the reader exciting a sympathetic response in the tag (which is itself unpowered, though it rectifies the incoming RF energy to self-power), this response modifies the reader's waveform signal, overlaying an incredibly weak (roughly 1% of the incident waveform) signal on top. It is this weak modification to the reader's signal that has to be extracted and deconstructed into a bitstream.
Speaking as one whom RFID has tried, it's not an easy task to get any significant distance between tag and reader, and IM(NS:-)HO the likelihood of being randomly snooped on wherever you go is damn small. Almost flying-pig small. Our asset management system aimed for a 6" separation between tag and reader, and we didn't care about being obvious though there were size constraints for the reader (had to fit in a 1U box). Getting repeatable results proved very difficult with the units we had.
Aside: London Underground introduced an RFID-based system for block-purchase of tickets, promising it would read your "ticket" in your bag/pocket as you passed by. This claim was dropped on introduction, and they now advise you to swipe the reader with your tag as you go by...
The architecture of the Cell look like a much-improved PS2 system, with the PS2's vu0 and vu1 (vector units 0 and 1) replaced by 8 SPE's. Also, the programmable DMA (with chaining ability, allowing it to sequence multiple DMA events one after the other etc.) looks very similar to the PS2's.
If that turns out to be the case, then PS2 programming is a hint towards how it'll work. On the PS2, you generally configured the DMA controller to upload mini programs to the vector units, then DMA-chained data as streams from RAM through the just-uploaded program and onto the destination (usually the GS which rasterised the display).
On the Cell, it looks as though you can DMA-chain code & data through multiple SPE's and ultimately back to RAM/the PPC core/whatever is memory mapped. This is cool - it's software pipelining:-)
So, my guess is that the PPC acts as a (DMA, IO, etc.) controller (much like the mips chip did in the PS2), and the heavy lifting goes on in the vector units, with code and data being streamed in on demand.
It's a different model to normal programming, and as far as I can see it encourages you to be closer to the metal (ie: it's harder, I normally expect my L1 cache to take care of itself...), but assuming they release/port gcc for the SPE's, it might not be too hard if you're used to event-driven highly-threaded programming. Let's just hope they release a Linux port and 'vcl' so we can do something useful with the vector units...
Oh, and if the xbox was a target for a self-hosting linux solution, I think the Cell will be irrestible:-)
Actually the Brits are probably one of the most pro-patents nations. Tony likes winners to be on his side, and MS (a fairly pro-patents organisation) is pretty much as far as he sees.
The EU is not a democratic organisation. When people elect people who elect people, democracy is not the correct term. The obvious problem is that the first stage can promise X and then turn around and do Y to elect the second stage. This is the problem that people have with the EU. With the advent of the 'net, we have the ability for true democracy within our society. I'd like to take it.
At the end of the day, there is a decision to be made - is it better to be part of an organisation that is moving and shaping the world in the local neighbourhood, or is it better to be apart ? Britain for one cannot afford splendid isolation any more. It's as simple as that. That doesn't make the EU a great choice. It's just the lesser of two evils.
In Europe, the traditional view of Brits is that of 'little Englanders' obsessed with their petty social rights and demands on society. It's far more complex. Most Brits are far less patriotic than portrayed (for example, I'd like to see a world government), but we just don't think the setup of the EU is a good framework to build on for that ultimate journey.
Under no circumstances ought the EU parliament and the EU council of ministers be so disparate in their opinion that the issue of software patents (or any issue, actually) should divide them so. The EU government (as a whole) is there to represent the people - it's a shame that the council of ministers is far too busy representing (paying) businesses to pay attention to the people whom those businesses ultimately depend on.
Yes, this is politically biased, and I apologise. I'm just sick of being told I'm "anti-democracy" because I disagree with the non-democratic (ironic, huh?) process that the EU takes on these things. I'm especially sick of being told it's "because I'm British". For crying out loud, address the ISSUES, not my nationality.
Simon
Re:So much easier to knock down than to build up
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
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· Score: 1
I was talking about the original article, not the posting on/. Besides, after posting on/., it'll have generated a few seconds of interest anyway. Nuke indeed:-)
I'm not trying to say that Apple oughtn't be criticised for its failures, but to make an article up "All the things Apple did wrong" seems a little OTT, and I expect it's a reaction to all the "Apple success story" articles that have been published recently, not just on/.
Simon
So much easier to knock down than to build up
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
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· Score: 1, Insightful
I suppose it's inevitable that (with the current flurry of Apple success stories) someone would come up with a list of things they got wrong. Wonder if he's an Apple fan, or if their current success is eating at his liver...
Show me a single computer company (hell, any company) that's been around for 25 years or so and hasn't made any mistakes. To succeed, you have to play the game, and playing is a risk.
So they screwed up a few times. So what ? I'd actually be defending MS on the same charge, even though I despise their OS. Linux has screwed up badly now and then as well - brown bag releases aren't unknown after all...
I just think it's a bit sad to concentrate on someone's failures. It seems such an... inadequate... response to someone/thing doing well.
Disclaimer: I actually do think there's something in the global warming argument. I think putting loads more energy into a chaotic system gives that system the freedom to explore states in its phase space that could cause us some real grief. I actually don't care if "the planet will survive, it's seen worse". I'd prefer to survive personally, and I'd like to keep a few other humans around as well...
However I think the results are pretty conclusive in their own right and right-minded politicians ought to be doing something on that basis alone (they're finally beginning to, as well:-). I don't think that alarmist, over-the-top "reports" are doing any real good - in fact I think they harm the argument they try to represent.
So, by varying the parameters in a simulation, they've found a range of temperature increases which we should engender reactions from "concerned" (2 degrees) through "terrified" (11 degrees). Hey, I admitted my bias in the first paragraph! The press reports the "terrified" figure and it's big news. Until someone points out that it's a Normal distribution, and the massively-more-likely figure is in the "worried" temperature range of (guessing here) 5-6 degrees.
The problem is not that the scientists are lying (they're not), and not that the press are lying either (they're not). The problem is a lack of understanding of the end-result in announcing a catastrophe and then saying "No, we'll be ok". There's a fable about this, and it involves a boy crying "wolf" too many times...
I'm not sure who's to blame. Should the scientists state more forcefully what their expectation is rather than the extremes of their results? Would they ever get published in that case ? Should journalists be held accountable for doing the equivalent of shouting "Fire" in a theatre ? Well, a journalist's job is not to report the news, it's to sell papers, and catastrophes sell better. Perhaps there's a need for a neutral ground, some sort of arbiter that can interpret the results in a way the public can understand (since no-one seems to take science these days), but *that*'s open to *easy* abuse as well.
Perhaps science was better off in its ivory tower after all. That's a depressing thought. Perhaps the best solution would be to comprehensively educate people about science (better, about statistics) and beat the snake-oil salesmen at their own game.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, did you miss the part where it's done 103 million queries in the last 5 days ? At an average of 203 per second! As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty good performance, and that's what I want.
Look, you might want (and hell you may even need) all the bells and whistles, but for most people it's a matter of "how big is mine".
There's something decidedly irritating about being called a 'fanboy' when you're getting excellent service out of something, and you're happy with that.
Considering that MySQL probably runs more databases than all the others put together (it being the poster-child for most OSS projects involving DB's), I think that's a little harsh. Sure it's not ACID, but it does well enough for most purposes...
/opt/mysql/mysql.sock
... the only reason it's only 5 days is a server upgrade, but its performance seems pretty "real" to me :-)
As a data-point:
simon% mysqladmin ver
mysqladmin Ver 8.40 Distrib 4.0.18, for suse-linux on x86_64
Copyright (C) 2000 MySQL AB & MySQL Finland AB & TCX DataKonsult AB
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL license
Server version 4.0.18-Max
Protocol version 10
Connection Localhost via UNIX socket
UNIX socket
Uptime: 5 days 21 hours 32 min 52 sec
Threads: 2 Questions: 103591631 Slow queries: 101 Opens: 181809 Flush tables: 1 Open tables: 64 Queries per second avg: 203.291
Simon
Just see the sig.
This isn't going to be popular with the 'no DRM is good DRM' brigade. So Sue Me.
So Jon's done it again. Well, the man has testicles of steel because Apple are currently taking legal action against another single person. Making the blog title 'So Sue Me' is just asking for it, IMHO. Even if (and I say *if*) Apple haven't a leg to stand on, they can afford far fancier lawyers. Rather him than me.
What's the knock-on effect ? Apple have to have some DRM in place to keep their corporate music-land clients happy, or the contracts they've signed will be revoked, and they'll lose loadsamoney. This is just a guess, but I'm pretty sure the RIAA/whoever wouldn't have given Apple carte-blanche to sell their music without some degree of "protection" (whether required or not is a different argument).
So, Apple will have to respond. Off the top of my head, I think they'll be forced into making the iTMS contact Apple regularly for a right to play the library (similar to Kerberos). The right to play will be governed by whether the library is "legal" or not (ie: if any tracks have the same signature as on the iTunes website, but no DRM, prevent playback of either the entire library or just those songs.
Or they could do DRM management completely on the server, change the file format to heavily encrypt the system, change the OS, hell, change the machine hardware if necessary.
The point is that none of this is good for me, or in fact for Apple, but they'll be forced to go down this road because their clients will demand their "protection", and people like Jon will keep on breaking anything too lenient. So, in the end, Apple either lock the system down completely using hardware, or they drop the music business. Well done guys, now everyone's happy.
Simon.
One of the first things you notice when on holiday in the US (buying petrol, stuff, whatever) is that they don't look at your credit card signature. Ever.
In the UK (and I think most of Europe) it's a lot different. I've been asked to re-sign because my (legitimate!) signature wasn't quite similar enough. It doesn't help when you've got a 3-year-old card where the signature is pretty much worn-off anyway
Another weird thing about the US is that pretty much the entire world wants to know your social-security number. The only person in the UK who ever asks for my SSN is the taxman, and I want him to know, so I don't get two tax-bills
Simon
You know what, I didn't. I've never felt the need.
Frankly, I'm not the "worrier" type who needs the justification of a test to prove (s)he's as good as (s)he thinks (s)he is. I've done it and I'm proud of what I've done.
I'm a clever guy - I've excelled in every academic test I've ever taken. (14 'O' levels, 6 'A' levels, 2 'S' levels, a Physics degree from IC, London, and a PhD at KCL). I have more qualifications (in spades) than 99% of people I've met. I don't see the need to be an arrogant SOB because of that. I've set up, run for a few years and successfully sold a company at an excellent profit. I've pretty much done it all - I'm now working in a dream job for a cool company in California and enjoying every minute of it.
And, in case you were thinking along the lines of privileged education etc., my mother is an estate agent, my father a docker, and I was the first in my family to ever go to University. Everyone has, since.
I *do* value intelligence (hell, I require it of interviewees). I just don't value Mensa tests. They're about as useful a measure of basic intelligence as the colour of the sky is of tomorrow's weather. "Red sky at night" will get you so far, but it's only a weighted average. Point made, I think.
Simon
Look, I'm no shill for MS - I think their OS sucks dead bunnies through short straws, but frankly, who cares ? MS want to associate themselves with an organisation that likes to consider itself better than average, by their own definition. And the news is... what ?
I have no respect for Mensa, they like to position themselves as the "society of the intelligent", and yet most of the people I've interviewed who have claimed Mensa membership on their resume are less than attractive as candidates. It's almost a badge of dishonour... They don't fail on intelligence (but that's not normally where people I interview fail anyway), they fail on people skills - being able to recognise that someone else may know more about X than you do, and coping with that knowledge well.
Oh, I've not much respect for MS either (at least technically - I think their marketing is excellent), but that ought to be obvious from my tagline...
Simon.
Never did like that guy ever since he dissed Linux.
/. would I qualify this...]
[Hint for the humour impaired: I'm not being entirely serious here... Sigh, only on
Simon
I can't help thinking that this is bad timing on Think-Secret's part. To raise your profile by doing (again!) the thing you're being sued for, at the very time you're being sued means that (if he loses), the penalties are going to be that much worse (reckless, showed no remorse, uncontrollable, etc. etc.). Lawyers will have a field day.
On the other hand, there's the case that if he's not doing anything wrong, why not continue doing exactly that. And let's face it, if this turns out to be true, it's definitely something that Apple would want to hide. Definitely news that Apple-lovers will want to read.
Gaah. Brain hurts.
Assuming he's right, then at least this time (apart from 'De Plume's "sources" who know a lot more about the cpu than CHUD tools would tell you), Apple only have themselves to blame regarding the release of 4-way dev tools...
Simon
You know, I debated adding 'for them' at the end of the '2 months' sentence, but I figured that anyone reading would understand I meant that. Obviously not.
Therefore, I replace the original with:
" ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old for them".
(/. really ought to allow editing of comments...)
Simon.
IMHO they look like every other flash drive, apart from the circular one. It doesn't matter, I reckon Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank here - the press are describing it as "Sony takes on Apple's IPOD shuffle" - ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old.
The other comment is - what on earth are Sony smoking - they really need to learn about branding - the models are the NW-E103, NW-E105, NW-E107, NW-E405, NW-E407, NW-E505, NW-E507. Apart from 'bigger numbers are better' (which is a guess), what does that tell me ? What are the distinctions between them ? both in-range and between the ranges (presuming the E1xx, E4xx and E5xx are 3 distinct ranges).
Even I get this, and I write s/w for a living. You'd have thought someone in the highly-paid 'marketing director' position would have a clue too.
Simon
The UK has an elected and an unelected (appointed, in the main, some hereditary members) house. It's odd that in the UK it's seen as the supposedly accountable house (the House of Commons) that rides roughshod over the people, and the unelected and unaccountable House of Lords has been the voice of reason.
In fact, the Lords were a sufficient pain in the neck for Tony's Cronies that they have been forced to vote on their own existence, and they are in the process of being "reformed" (ie: made toothless). From my point of view that's tantamount to betrayal.
It just goes to show that people as individuals can be intelligent, viable humans, but aggregate opinions over a sufficiently large number, and it's not the cream that floats to the top, [sigh]. It's depressing just how easy it is to get the result you want by producing a message you think will be popular, rather than one that is accurate. It's also depressing that people vote for the same results over and over 'because gran'pa voted that way'.
Lone voice in the dark gloomy wilderness, screaming in desperation and despair. Is there *no-one* there ?
Simon.
I've just moved to the US, and I'd far prefer to have the BBC available over here - without the adverts that they insert into the exported BBC channels they show.
For every hour of TV, about 20 mins will be adverts for things I don't want and will never buy. The Tivo is the only thing keeping me watching TV at all over here, because I can skip the ads. They even interrupt MOVIES for crying out loud!
Even the ad-supported channels in the UK are nowhere near as bad as the USA. I've got 300 channels of pure unadulterated crap, from which every now and then a semi-decent program emerges, in small pieces. Thank [insert deity] for the Sci Fi channel, it's the only thing I watch these days.
So, instead of ruining all my TV viewing ever, I used to pay ~£10/month. Well worth it. And even more so when you're forced to put up with the alternative.
Simon.
Hmm. Perhaps.
:-). That doesn't mean their money-men, legal folks, HR etc. aren't just as 'bad' (read: for the company at any cost) as everywhere else (with suitable apologies to those who buck the trend).
Steve (and I have a *lot* of respect for the guy) is as hard-nosed as the next businessman. Apple's been around for a looong time now (in computer-time, of course) and it's a professional organisation now, with all that that entails.
Steve (if it was him that made the final decision - it could have been 'Legal') won't have done it to be cuddly. He'll have done it for sound business reasons - the best path for the business is to do X, we'll do X. It could be that he thinks perhaps he's put the fear of [insert random deity] into those who would have continued to leak, and he's satisfied with that... It could be that Apple really do have to do more before they can issue subpoenas.
Apple's a cool company. They make cool hardware and the best damn unix workstation I've ever used (prior to OSX I wasn't impressed, but I am now
Simon.
Er, even if (and I say if) you are right that it's only 1 cent profit per song, Apple have sold 250 million songs to date, and are selling ongoing at a rate of 1.5 million a day, or ~ half a billion songs a year.
I think a 10-cent profit is more likely, making their yearly projection $50 million, which is hardly pocket change...
Simon
Woohoo :-))
Eventually even the EU will have to pay lip service to what the people want, It may be the most undemocratic system of government I've ever come across, but it at least has to maintain the ideal of being the voice of the people...
Simon.
Ok, I'm replying to this late, but frankly I think you've misunderstood what I was trying to say. There is a physical limit on the information that can be resolved. It's rooted in the fundamental equations of electromagnetic field theory, and there's no way you can somehow be "better" by being smarter.
You can be better by increading your resolving power, by increasing your cross-sectional area of juxtaposition or by increasing your bandwidth potential. None of these are subject to technical innovation, in the same way as gravity is not subject to technical innovation.
Quad Erat to br demonstrated.
Simon
I probably oughtn't respond to this, but since it's possibly a colloquial expression.... It's in the same vein as "I found it trying to ...", or "it was not easy to".
Simon.
Are you *sure* that's not an active tag ? ie: is the tag powered in any way, and how big is it ?
After giving up on the manufacturer-supplied readers, we built a reader starting with the reference designs available, and it's all down to the power emitted, the angle-adjusted cross-sectional area of both tag and reader antennae, and the frequency of the carrier wave. I would have thought it would be physically impossible to achieve what you say using only passive RFID. Pretty easy with active RFID though...
We were using ~13MHz carrier waves, which were the most reliable we could get. There were also ~125 KHz systems. Perhaps there's a higher band now that your auto system uses...
Simon
The range over which you can read RFID information in any sort of portable (ie: non-obvious) fashion is limited to a few inches. In fact, tuning the damn things so they'll read at (say: 4 or 5) inches is hard.
The readers that are designed for doorways can do roughly 2 feet, but they're huge and very very obvious - they're designed for store entrances, where they make you walk through the "gates" to get in/out of the store. You can't miss a 4-foot (max) separated row of columns covering all the exits...
RFID works by the reader exciting a sympathetic response in the tag (which is itself unpowered, though it rectifies the incoming RF energy to self-power), this response modifies the reader's waveform signal, overlaying an incredibly weak (roughly 1% of the incident waveform) signal on top. It is this weak modification to the reader's signal that has to be extracted and deconstructed into a bitstream.
Speaking as one whom RFID has tried, it's not an easy task to get any significant distance between tag and reader, and IM(NS
Aside: London Underground introduced an RFID-based system for block-purchase of tickets, promising it would read your "ticket" in your bag/pocket as you passed by. This claim was dropped on introduction, and they now advise you to swipe the reader with your tag as you go by...
Simon.
The architecture of the Cell look like a much-improved PS2 system, with the PS2's vu0 and vu1 (vector units 0 and 1) replaced by 8 SPE's. Also, the programmable DMA (with chaining ability, allowing it to sequence multiple DMA events one after the other etc.) looks very similar to the PS2's.
If that turns out to be the case, then PS2 programming is a hint towards how it'll work. On the PS2, you generally configured the DMA controller to upload mini programs to the vector units, then DMA-chained data as streams from RAM through the just-uploaded program and onto the destination (usually the GS which rasterised the display).
On the Cell, it looks as though you can DMA-chain code & data through multiple SPE's and ultimately back to RAM/the PPC core/whatever is memory mapped. This is cool - it's software pipelining
So, my guess is that the PPC acts as a (DMA, IO, etc.) controller (much like the mips chip did in the PS2), and the heavy lifting goes on in the vector units, with code and data being streamed in on demand.
It's a different model to normal programming, and as far as I can see it encourages you to be closer to the metal (ie: it's harder, I normally expect my L1 cache to take care of itself...), but assuming they release/port gcc for the SPE's, it might not be too hard if you're used to event-driven highly-threaded programming. Let's just hope they release a Linux port and 'vcl' so we can do something useful with the vector units...
Oh, and if the xbox was a target for a self-hosting linux solution, I think the Cell will be irrestible
Simon
Actually the Brits are probably one of the most pro-patents nations. Tony likes winners to be on his side, and MS (a fairly pro-patents organisation) is pretty much as far as he sees.
The EU is not a democratic organisation. When people elect people who elect people, democracy is not the correct term. The obvious problem is that the first stage can promise X and then turn around and do Y to elect the second stage. This is the problem that people have with the EU. With the advent of the 'net, we have the ability for true democracy within our society. I'd like to take it.
At the end of the day, there is a decision to be made - is it better to be part of an organisation that is moving and shaping the world in the local neighbourhood, or is it better to be apart ? Britain for one cannot afford splendid isolation any more. It's as simple as that. That doesn't make the EU a great choice. It's just the lesser of two evils.
In Europe, the traditional view of Brits is that of 'little Englanders' obsessed with their petty social rights and demands on society. It's far more complex. Most Brits are far less patriotic than portrayed (for example, I'd like to see a world government), but we just don't think the setup of the EU is a good framework to build on for that ultimate journey.
Under no circumstances ought the EU parliament and the EU council of ministers be so disparate in their opinion that the issue of software patents (or any issue, actually) should divide them so. The EU government (as a whole) is there to represent the people - it's a shame that the council of ministers is far too busy representing (paying) businesses to pay attention to the people whom those businesses ultimately depend on.
Yes, this is politically biased, and I apologise. I'm just sick of being told I'm "anti-democracy" because I disagree with the non-democratic (ironic, huh?) process that the EU takes on these things. I'm especially sick of being told it's "because I'm British". For crying out loud, address the ISSUES, not my nationality.
Simon
I was talking about the original article, not the posting on /. Besides, after posting on /., it'll have generated a few seconds of interest anyway. Nuke indeed :-)
/.
I'm not trying to say that Apple oughtn't be criticised for its failures, but to make an article up "All the things Apple did wrong" seems a little OTT, and I expect it's a reaction to all the "Apple success story" articles that have been published recently, not just on
Simon
I suppose it's inevitable that (with the current flurry of Apple success stories) someone would come up with a list of things they got wrong. Wonder if he's an Apple fan, or if their current success is eating at his liver...
Show me a single computer company (hell, any company) that's been around for 25 years or so and hasn't made any mistakes. To succeed, you have to play the game, and playing is a risk.
So they screwed up a few times. So what ? I'd actually be defending MS on the same charge, even though I despise their OS. Linux has screwed up badly now and then as well - brown bag releases aren't unknown after all...
I just think it's a bit sad to concentrate on someone's failures. It seems such an
Simon.
Disclaimer: I actually do think there's something in the global warming argument. I think putting loads more energy into a chaotic system gives that system the freedom to explore states in its phase space that could cause us some real grief. I actually don't care if "the planet will survive, it's seen worse". I'd prefer to survive personally, and I'd like to keep a few other humans around as well...
:-). I don't think that alarmist, over-the-top "reports" are doing any real good - in fact I think they harm the argument they try to represent.
However I think the results are pretty conclusive in their own right and right-minded politicians ought to be doing something on that basis alone (they're finally beginning to, as well
So, by varying the parameters in a simulation, they've found a range of temperature increases which we should engender reactions from "concerned" (2 degrees) through "terrified" (11 degrees). Hey, I admitted my bias in the first paragraph! The press reports the "terrified" figure and it's big news. Until someone points out that it's a Normal distribution, and the massively-more-likely figure is in the "worried" temperature range of (guessing here) 5-6 degrees.
The problem is not that the scientists are lying (they're not), and not that the press are lying either (they're not). The problem is a lack of understanding of the end-result in announcing a catastrophe and then saying "No, we'll be ok". There's a fable about this, and it involves a boy crying "wolf" too many times...
I'm not sure who's to blame. Should the scientists state more forcefully what their expectation is rather than the extremes of their results? Would they ever get published in that case ? Should journalists be held accountable for doing the equivalent of shouting "Fire" in a theatre ? Well, a journalist's job is not to report the news, it's to sell papers, and catastrophes sell better. Perhaps there's a need for a neutral ground, some sort of arbiter that can interpret the results in a way the public can understand (since no-one seems to take science these days), but *that*'s open to *easy* abuse as well.
Perhaps science was better off in its ivory tower after all. That's a depressing thought. Perhaps the best solution would be to comprehensively educate people about science (better, about statistics) and beat the snake-oil salesmen at their own game.
Simon.