People that publish web content professionally are not manually marking up their blocks of text. They're either using style sheets or using processing software (i.e. InDesign) that they can do layout and then produce the markup with. Also Slashdot's markup is barely "html-like." There's no functional difference between Slashdot markup and BBCode beyond the angle brackets vs. square brackets, and personally I remember BBCode a lot better because I've written a lot more forum posts than Slashdot posts.
I doubt many people finish playing their game and say "Man, I was really angry but it felt really good to kill all those people." In all seriousness, we're talking about a subconscious level of desire. Some people have strong emotions or tempers or even a need for excitement and adrenaline rushes. Video games can target a lot of those aspects of people, with different games in a genre having a different balance between immersion and action. The conscious mind knows that it's a game, but below the surface the psychological experience of playing a fast-paced action game is not trivial.
Hit the nail on the head. Microsoft's fears were for essentially a popular, capable software platform that was operating system platform-agnostic. These days, you can view a web page in any major (recent) browser on just about any operating system and get relatively the same experience. Not being able to use a web app on an operating system no matter what browser is relatively unheard of. Think about what Microsoft's web strategy has been since it's growth as a popular content platform - they've tried to introduce Microsoft-specific "standards" and practices that limited functionality to Windows. Sure for a while some sites used ActiveX and crap like that, but those days are rapidly fading. A few days ago there was a submission about even Microsoft websites replacing their Silverlight interfaces with HTML5. In many ways, today's web is EXACTLY what Microsoft was trying to avoid.
Things like Google Docs must really make Steve Ballmer shit bricks. I mean it literally is Office that has nothing to do with Microsoft - you don't even need Windows to run it.
For what it's worth, for just about every automated menu system (every one I've ever used, certainly), pressing 0 a few times will transfer you to a general customer server agent. You probably will still have to queue for that, but in my experience the wait is a LOT shorter (not to mention you avoid navigating the annoying menus).
All streaming works this way. The concept of buffering is downloading the video ahead of the part you're watching, hopefully at a speed faster than the amount of time it would take you to catch up. It's a necessity with compressed video streams, just treating the stream like a flat ask/receive pipe wouldn't work in the context of the internet. If you're handy with web debugging tools or have a connection tracker, you can probably download the actual file that is being streamed from whatever source. Depending on the streaming method and protocol, you could possibly download the file at connection speed, or if it's a live stream then you download it in real-time.
Out of curiosity, I just downloaded and pulled apart the Canon update mentioned in a grandparent. Decompressed, the installer package is 547 MB. 546 MB of that goes in/Library/Printers/Canon, with about 25 MB being for what looks like scanner stuff and the rest in a directory called "BJPrinter". Inside THAT folder, 454 MB is provided by the "Resources" folder. In there, the bulk of the size is split between Data base and ICCProfiles. ICCProfiles contains 170 subdirectories that are named in the convention [printermodel].canonicc. These subdirs range from a handful of KB to a couple of MB and each contain a standard Mac OS X Package hierarchy with a few.icc files in Resources. So yeah, that's all colorsync profiles for hundreds of models of Canon printers. Why they had to supply all new ones, I do not know. Moving on, the Database directory contains 365 subdirs named either [printermodel].unifdb or [printermodel].dbgrp. Again, these are packages but they contain binary data that probably corresponds to printer info and features and whatnot. In conclusion, from the looks of it this particular "bloated" update contains replacement color profiles and specification files for hundreds of Canon printers, perhaps their entire (supported) line.
I suspect that this update was formulated with the kitchen sink approach. Now whether or not *all* of these printer specs and whatnot are installed, I cannot say. On my Snow Leopard machine, the only contents of my Printers folder is a 100-odd MB directory for HP, half of which is occupied by utility applications. Taking a peek, I only see model-specific references in the Icons folder. The only driver-related thing I see is a PostScript PDE plugin. Now my system was installed without any printer drivers (Snow Leopard default), Software Update downloaded the appropriate software for my HP printer when I first created the queue. Perhaps the Canon updater package is configured only to install those files that are required by previously installed printer models? That would certainly make sense, though one can hardly expect printer drivers to make sense...
Actually, the huge updates are generally because Apple likes to release "combo" updates instead of deltas. For simplicity and system stability's sake, it's easier to just replace most/all of the Epson components with an update. Solves the issue of people having older versions than the previous update and can nullify an issue from a corrupted file or two. Though actually that Snow Leopard update you mentioned is just the delta. The combo for 10.6.7 is 1.2 GB if memory serves... Pull apart one of the packages with Pacifist if you're curious why they're so big. That particular system update replaces a large number of kernel extensions, notably the nVidia graphics drivers and a few of the graphics-related system frameworks (again, if memory serves). It's not like 500 MB of files is getting tacked onto your system, it's replacing what probably equates to ~500 MB of older system files. I'll admit the fact that you have to download that much stuff is unfortunate but such is life.
It does not matter if you can show that nothing short of an EMP will interfere with or disable one model of plane, or even a dozen models. The simple and quite honestly undeniable fact that some common electronic devices might interfere with the navigational systems of some planes means that not only are the airlines completely justified in restricting passenger use of said devices (it's their private aircraft, they can restrict you whichever way they want - you really don't have any say other than refusing to fly by that airline) but people who think they are justified in protesting those restrictions on the plane are putting all the other passengers in danger. All you need is one corner-case of random phone and random plane and a couple hundred people die in a plane crash. Until a full and complete list of safe use cases can be established by testing and possibly retrofitting, the risk inherent in using any wireless device on any is unacceptable.
For what it's worth, I've been on several flights that support in-flight wifi access (paid of course). This would suggest that there has been some (hopefully) rigorous testing with certain types of signals and planes. Unfortunately, the task of testing *every* device with *every* plane (you can't necessarily even just rely on testing a certain model - faulty or damaged interference shielding in older planes could present a danger that varies between individual planes of the same model) is virtually impossible. Passengers really need to just accept that there will be a somewhat limited list of acceptable devices on a somewhat limited number of planes. Violating those rules is reckless and frankly quite self-important. As much as you think the airline employee telling you to shut off your phone is an idiot, they are being told to say that by people that are very likely much smarter and have much more information than you.
There's a reason the parent used the words "random assemblage of lowest-bidder hardware" when talking about OEM computers. Sure you can get cheap PCs in the range of a few hundred bucks, but that's exactly what they are - cheap. The hardware is undoubtably low-spec, likely prone to defects or short lifespan, and the operating system is fraught with crapware and preloaded trials. On newegg.com, the cheapest "All-in-one" they have (computer-in-monitor w/ keyboard and mouse) is $600 MSRP. That's with a Dual-Core Celeron, a gig of RAM, and relatively dated Intel GMA graphics on a 19" CCFL display. Considering those specs, I'd rather have a mid-level iPad 2 or related device for the same price. Technically the specs are lower, but the "desktop" PC is far too underpowered for its form-factor and thus to me a smaller highly portable device is worth a lot more. Furthermore, the cheapest "recertified" PC (parts and/or entire PCs were recalled for defect and are now being reissued after "repair") is $300 MSRP and carries a Pentium 4 with a gig of ram and a 40 gig hard drive (yeah - really). Minus monitor and input devices. Not even close to worth that money, I assembled a dual core 1.8 GHz Atom ITX box with two 7200 drives running Ubuntu as a quick-n-dirty fileserver for $200. The next cheapest machine not recertified is one of those ASUS Atom boxes for $240. Again, relatively low specs downplay usefulness as a desktop machine, would much rather a portable device. The cheapest non-recertified non-Atom desktop appears to be an Athlon II system for $330. The specs are a little more respectable for light desktop use but again, many many consumer-level users are going to prefer portable devices for their email, facebook, etc. I don't even really count netbooks much in the game because so many of them are too underpowered or poorly configured even for that. Admittedly I haven't used any netbook released within the past year, but the ones I have used have really chugged along when loading web pages and youtube videos. I think many of us take the modern casual user for granted, assuming that dated generic hardware can support their web-related activities for granted. The reality is the bulk of the "social" internet can be very hard on system requirements, particularly when using older hardware that doesn't have all the optimizations current low-power stuff does. Devices like iPads and probably soon some Android tablets that are truly designed to support those use cases are heavily optimized for those users. They can accomplish more with less and their core design philosophies (portability, battery life, etc) make them a lot more attractive to users.
It is my belief that were it not for the naturally wasteful and capitalist nature of our society (cell phone companies want you to have both a smartphone and a smartpad with expensive data plans, for obvious reasons), our personal device usage would be moving in a more centralized direction. The cloud concept is part of a step in the right direction, but so far everyone that's embraced it has been far to single-minded, IMHO. I think the ideal solution is for individuals to have three separate "spheres" of computing. At the lowest level, an individual has their personal data and processing, something akin to carrying a tablet device with localized and cellular wireless capabilities. There's really no good reason for people to not carry a 5 to 10 inch device with a headset that serves as both a personal communications and an information access device. In simple terms, their iPad also double as their iPhone and their iPod. Moreover, there's no real reason that this device can't be a relatively powerful 15" notebook. For those that need such power on some occasions, it would mak
Good god 1366x768 makes me sick. I was spoiled as my first laptop was a 17" MacBook Pro with 1680x1050, now I can barely tolerate the 1440x900 on my Thinkpad. Some people in the comments in those links mentioned this and I'm going to reiterate it here - as computer power and graphics capability has been advancing in leaps and bounds in recent years, why has display quality been going downhill? Heh, this is one of my favorite posts from the first thread...
I want to buy a couple new laptops, but am so far delaying because of lousy screen resolution choices. There simply is not enough vertical resolution to get any useful work done. Coupled with Microsoft's introduction of the 'brilliant' ribbon UI - a vertical screen space burning wonder - the 21st century computer industry has ACTUALLY TAKEN A STEP BACKWARDS FROM THE 1990's. On a 1366x768 display, Excel with the ribbon shows 24 worksheet lines. An old DOS computer with 320x200 resolution would show 23 (25 lines minus one for the menu and one for the column names) and VGA allowed us to bump it up to 41 lines.
When I bought my MacBook Pro three years ago the matte option was free, so I had to go check now what this is about. Presently, the 17" with "antiglare" display costs $50 more than the glossy display. I'm not sure why they decided they should/could charge for that. The 15" antiglare option is actually a higher resolution display than the default glossy option and costs $150. Someone on this thread mentioned that matte screens cost more to produce than glossy. I presume the price is related to that.
FWIW, this is why I own a MacBook Pro. My 17" screen is 16:10 matte at 1680x1050. Did not cost extra for that option, though they did offer glossy as the default choice (ick).
In my institute (private engineering college) there are a metric fuckton of CS majors who have absolutely no background nor interest nor ability in computer science. You ask the majority of them why they're in that major and you'll either hear something about high-paying jobs or wanting to work for (insert company name) and write video games... Now I'm dualing the Computer Systems Engineer and Comp Sci majors. Thankfully, I AP placed out of CS1 because absolutely everyone who takes the class (all sections are taught by the department head) has informed me that the professor is too dim-witted to teach anything or realize that practically the entire class copies all the homework and labs from a handful of older students. Hell a number of friends I had in Data Structures (CS2) pestered me constantly for help with their labs and passed their classes only due to the intervention of people like me that actually know what they're doing and also can't say no to pleas for help >:(
Point of this rant is that these people (I'd say a good third of the CS major as a whole, probably like 9/10s of the students in CS1) have no business in this department and amount to nothing more than a waste of resources. It angers me that many of these students are burning their time at a very expensive school, while I'm struggling to both maintain my sanity (dual majors suck, btw) and pay tuition. Bah, end rant about privileged kids that have no direction and should make room for people with actual talents and goals.
My father, who's somewhat of an authority on tribal art (he's a self-employed bodypainter and has published a book about tribal art), had an interesting tidbit for me when I mentioned this story to him. Mike Tyson has said that his tribal tattoo is a warrior's tattoo based on art from the Maori tribes. According to my father's research, the Maori and other tribes in that area of the world do produce such art, although the warrior tattoos are meant to be a form of endurance testing. The warriors of the tribes get their whole faces and most of their bodies tattooed through a painful process that proves their strength and endurance. Only the priests, who are too weak to handle what the warriors do, get small designs on just a part of their face. So yeah, Mike Tyson has a wimp tattoo...
Full disclosure, I know very little about WebGL other than a few things I've read and what's in this particular TFA. On the other hand, I consider myself quite knowledgable about computers in general. I'm wondering what the feasibility is of some sort of social engineering attack based around accessing the video buffers in the GPU and essentially snooping what other windows are open on your computer. Complex examples I thought of involve using OCR to determine information about the user that will convince them they are at a valid page (of whatever sort), though it could be as simple as scanning other open windows looking for credit card numbers. Every once in a while, you might get a malicious pop-up or a drive-by attack while you're paying for something on Amazon.
This has really become a shouting match. I'm going to qualify my statements as to the comparative functionality of iOS devices versus Android devices. I've used several of both. I own a 2nd Gen iPod Touch as well as an iPad (my phone is a dumbphone). I've used my girlfriend's DroidX quite a lot recently and I'm the one she goes to when she needs help with something on it. I've also had friends demonstrate a few Android devices they've owned to me. If I was to own an Android phone, it would probably be a Nexus. The Motorolas I've seen have been extremely clunky and unstable, to say nothing of the locked software sources and crapware that cannot be uninstalled. The one HTC I've used seemed far too dumbed down (I think it was an Evo, I can't recall). Meanwhile, I'm extremely satisfied with my iOS devices and see no reason to replace them in the near future. If there was a tablet offering that in my opinion surpassed the iPad line, then I would probably go for that. At present, I do not see this being the case.
Also just to clarify what I meant by "iOS devices only come in one flavor of operation" - Each generation of iOS devices have the same capabilities and limitations. There isn't an iPhone model that allows 3rd party software sources, for instance. They all come with the same software and they all use the same software store (with platform divisions where appropriate). That is not true for a great many Android devices. It's similar to the OEM PC market, where each PC brand comes with different crapware and sometimes different features enabled in Windows. It's a different business model, and this is how Apple has (just about) always done things.
Indeed. Adobe's approach to software is pretty ridiculous. The have essentially three separate software monopolies. Adobe (formally Acrobat) PDF is pretty much the only portable cross-platform document format in use. Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash is pretty much the only web-based applet format in use. Adobe Creative Suite is pretty much the only graphic design suite in professional use. All three of these software products have horrendous stability and security issues. Adobe is probably just about the worst software development company in existence today. Unfortunately they have found a way to maintain their status quo of shitty software without much backlash, primary due to the fact that there are zero feasible alternatives to their flagship products.
Ooooooh don't even get me started about their compatibility issues with Mac OS X. Adobe CS is quite literally the ONLY Mac software that has ever completely broken for me due to an OS upgrade. Somehow Adobe must be managing to violate the Mac OS X API guidelines with everything they do, because every time there's a new major version of OS X, the entire body of users must purchase the next version of Adobe CS. I've got a rant somewhere around here of the hell I went through maintaining the graphic design machines in my family's business. The compatibility problems between different versions of CS combined with the fact that our hardware is not all identical in age and capability made me throw in the towel and stop spending many thousands of dollars every year on new hardware and CS versions.
Wait... so you'd prefer GP be a hypocrite than a "self-righteous douchebag"? Think about that for a moment.
Well that's the point - if he owned the device he *probably* wouldn't be complaining about it. He would own an Android or otherwise device that fulfilled his "openness" requirements.
Unfortunately, Apple is trying to make it a legal issue, and they also seem to be trying to move their desktop OS towards the same walled garden.
They tried to make it a legal issue and the supreme court ruled against them. That phase is over, any corporation with a business interest in a walled garden is going to do whatever they can to protect that interest. I certainly don't agree with that model and I'm glad it was legally defeated but I can't blame them for trying...
You can't say an Android phone isn't intended for the same things -- both Android and iOS are targeting the exact same users, use cases, etc.
Except that they don't appeal to the same users/use cases. The Android OS isn't really even comparable to iOS as iOS devices come in only one flavor of operation while there are many different Android devices with many different distinguishing features. In fact, many of the Android phones are as locked down as an iPhone, with restricted root access and software sources. Apple's App Store isn't much different than the Market on my girlfriend's DroidX. Of course there are phones (the Nexus series, perhaps others) that could be considered open in this regard, but those most certainly cater to a different audience than the iOS line by the simple fact that they DO have unlocked software sources.
Now, I don't think anyone is saying that people should be prevented from making such a device, but it is a very odd situation where the device with less functionality actually has a higher price point, and I do think that this sort of locked-down device is harmful to everyone except the manufacturer.
Price point is irrelevant. A locked-down device having more or less functionality is entirely a matter of opinion. Whether or not such a device is harmful to consumers again depends on the consumer. Like I said, it's unfortunate that there's no "best of both worlds." As it is, I'll settle for jailbreaking my iPad if and when I find that I desire functionality far beyond what it is designed to perform.
Alright. It's not illegal to do what your saying, so what are you complaining about? Apple sold you (well not you because you're probably too much of a self-righteous douchebag to actually own the device you're complaining about) a collection of hardware and software that have been developed together with the purpose of running applications obtained through their App Store. If you have a desire to run software that they haven't approved, then you are free to do whatever you want to achieve that goal. To use parent's analogy, a gas range and an easy bake are both ovens. They were designed and marketed with completely different uses and capabilities, but they're both technically ovens. Now should the makers of the easy bake be forced to provide the necessary hardware and/or software tools to ensure that the end user can use the exact same recipes in their easy bake as they could in a regular oven?
That doesn't stop some ambitious end-user from developing procedures and tools that allow them to bake regular shit in the toy oven. I firmly stand against legal restrictions on the software that I'm allowed to run on my i-device or any device. Hell I would love it if Apple and everyone else included a "jailbreak" button. They don't have to honor their warranties if you go beyond their scope of intended use, but then again you don't have to jailbreak it. That being said, neither Apple nor anyone else is obligated to provide the user with anything more than they advertise their product as.
Indeed. I discovered this amazing gem of a tool a couple years ago and I've loved it ever since. I've been familiarizing myself with the source lately with the intent of implementing a FUSE filesystem layer for at least viewing archives. Glad to see TU is getting a decent amount of attention.
I think a better analogy involving shipping would be they're suing the trucking company that transported the gun from the online distributor to your house. The actual Limewire company being the online distributor, the Limewire software being the gun, and the trucking company being the download site (in this case CNET).
Amusing anecdote: it's actually all this anti-piracy's fault that I download anything. Back when I was in high school living at home, my father came to me one day with a letter from Cablevision (our ISP). The letter was pretty much a general threat to all of their customers that "using 'Peer To Peer' software such as Limewire or Kazaa to obtain free music and movies is illegal under US copyright law and a violation of our Terms of Service" or somesuch. Seriously, they essentially told all of their customers how they could get free music and movies and then listed software that would allow them to do it. Right after reading that I went and googled "LimeWire" and thus began my piracy foray.
Slashdot Mirror
People that publish web content professionally are not manually marking up their blocks of text. They're either using style sheets or using processing software (i.e. InDesign) that they can do layout and then produce the markup with. Also Slashdot's markup is barely "html-like." There's no functional difference between Slashdot markup and BBCode beyond the angle brackets vs. square brackets, and personally I remember BBCode a lot better because I've written a lot more forum posts than Slashdot posts.
I doubt many people finish playing their game and say "Man, I was really angry but it felt really good to kill all those people." In all seriousness, we're talking about a subconscious level of desire. Some people have strong emotions or tempers or even a need for excitement and adrenaline rushes. Video games can target a lot of those aspects of people, with different games in a genre having a different balance between immersion and action. The conscious mind knows that it's a game, but below the surface the psychological experience of playing a fast-paced action game is not trivial.
Hit the nail on the head. Microsoft's fears were for essentially a popular, capable software platform that was operating system platform-agnostic. These days, you can view a web page in any major (recent) browser on just about any operating system and get relatively the same experience. Not being able to use a web app on an operating system no matter what browser is relatively unheard of. Think about what Microsoft's web strategy has been since it's growth as a popular content platform - they've tried to introduce Microsoft-specific "standards" and practices that limited functionality to Windows. Sure for a while some sites used ActiveX and crap like that, but those days are rapidly fading. A few days ago there was a submission about even Microsoft websites replacing their Silverlight interfaces with HTML5. In many ways, today's web is EXACTLY what Microsoft was trying to avoid.
Things like Google Docs must really make Steve Ballmer shit bricks. I mean it literally is Office that has nothing to do with Microsoft - you don't even need Windows to run it.
For what it's worth, for just about every automated menu system (every one I've ever used, certainly), pressing 0 a few times will transfer you to a general customer server agent. You probably will still have to queue for that, but in my experience the wait is a LOT shorter (not to mention you avoid navigating the annoying menus).
All streaming works this way. The concept of buffering is downloading the video ahead of the part you're watching, hopefully at a speed faster than the amount of time it would take you to catch up. It's a necessity with compressed video streams, just treating the stream like a flat ask/receive pipe wouldn't work in the context of the internet. If you're handy with web debugging tools or have a connection tracker, you can probably download the actual file that is being streamed from whatever source. Depending on the streaming method and protocol, you could possibly download the file at connection speed, or if it's a live stream then you download it in real-time.
Out of curiosity, I just downloaded and pulled apart the Canon update mentioned in a grandparent. Decompressed, the installer package is 547 MB. 546 MB of that goes in /Library/Printers/Canon, with about 25 MB being for what looks like scanner stuff and the rest in a directory called "BJPrinter". Inside THAT folder, 454 MB is provided by the "Resources" folder. In there, the bulk of the size is split between Data base and ICCProfiles. ICCProfiles contains 170 subdirectories that are named in the convention [printermodel].canonicc. These subdirs range from a handful of KB to a couple of MB and each contain a standard Mac OS X Package hierarchy with a few .icc files in Resources. So yeah, that's all colorsync profiles for hundreds of models of Canon printers. Why they had to supply all new ones, I do not know. Moving on, the Database directory contains 365 subdirs named either [printermodel].unifdb or [printermodel].dbgrp. Again, these are packages but they contain binary data that probably corresponds to printer info and features and whatnot. In conclusion, from the looks of it this particular "bloated" update contains replacement color profiles and specification files for hundreds of Canon printers, perhaps their entire (supported) line.
I suspect that this update was formulated with the kitchen sink approach. Now whether or not *all* of these printer specs and whatnot are installed, I cannot say. On my Snow Leopard machine, the only contents of my Printers folder is a 100-odd MB directory for HP, half of which is occupied by utility applications. Taking a peek, I only see model-specific references in the Icons folder. The only driver-related thing I see is a PostScript PDE plugin. Now my system was installed without any printer drivers (Snow Leopard default), Software Update downloaded the appropriate software for my HP printer when I first created the queue. Perhaps the Canon updater package is configured only to install those files that are required by previously installed printer models? That would certainly make sense, though one can hardly expect printer drivers to make sense...
Actually, the huge updates are generally because Apple likes to release "combo" updates instead of deltas. For simplicity and system stability's sake, it's easier to just replace most/all of the Epson components with an update. Solves the issue of people having older versions than the previous update and can nullify an issue from a corrupted file or two. Though actually that Snow Leopard update you mentioned is just the delta. The combo for 10.6.7 is 1.2 GB if memory serves... Pull apart one of the packages with Pacifist if you're curious why they're so big. That particular system update replaces a large number of kernel extensions, notably the nVidia graphics drivers and a few of the graphics-related system frameworks (again, if memory serves). It's not like 500 MB of files is getting tacked onto your system, it's replacing what probably equates to ~500 MB of older system files. I'll admit the fact that you have to download that much stuff is unfortunate but such is life.
It does not matter if you can show that nothing short of an EMP will interfere with or disable one model of plane, or even a dozen models. The simple and quite honestly undeniable fact that some common electronic devices might interfere with the navigational systems of some planes means that not only are the airlines completely justified in restricting passenger use of said devices (it's their private aircraft, they can restrict you whichever way they want - you really don't have any say other than refusing to fly by that airline) but people who think they are justified in protesting those restrictions on the plane are putting all the other passengers in danger. All you need is one corner-case of random phone and random plane and a couple hundred people die in a plane crash. Until a full and complete list of safe use cases can be established by testing and possibly retrofitting, the risk inherent in using any wireless device on any is unacceptable.
For what it's worth, I've been on several flights that support in-flight wifi access (paid of course). This would suggest that there has been some (hopefully) rigorous testing with certain types of signals and planes. Unfortunately, the task of testing *every* device with *every* plane (you can't necessarily even just rely on testing a certain model - faulty or damaged interference shielding in older planes could present a danger that varies between individual planes of the same model) is virtually impossible. Passengers really need to just accept that there will be a somewhat limited list of acceptable devices on a somewhat limited number of planes. Violating those rules is reckless and frankly quite self-important. As much as you think the airline employee telling you to shut off your phone is an idiot, they are being told to say that by people that are very likely much smarter and have much more information than you.
There's a reason the parent used the words "random assemblage of lowest-bidder hardware" when talking about OEM computers. Sure you can get cheap PCs in the range of a few hundred bucks, but that's exactly what they are - cheap. The hardware is undoubtably low-spec, likely prone to defects or short lifespan, and the operating system is fraught with crapware and preloaded trials. On newegg.com, the cheapest "All-in-one" they have (computer-in-monitor w/ keyboard and mouse) is $600 MSRP. That's with a Dual-Core Celeron, a gig of RAM, and relatively dated Intel GMA graphics on a 19" CCFL display. Considering those specs, I'd rather have a mid-level iPad 2 or related device for the same price. Technically the specs are lower, but the "desktop" PC is far too underpowered for its form-factor and thus to me a smaller highly portable device is worth a lot more. Furthermore, the cheapest "recertified" PC (parts and/or entire PCs were recalled for defect and are now being reissued after "repair") is $300 MSRP and carries a Pentium 4 with a gig of ram and a 40 gig hard drive (yeah - really). Minus monitor and input devices. Not even close to worth that money, I assembled a dual core 1.8 GHz Atom ITX box with two 7200 drives running Ubuntu as a quick-n-dirty fileserver for $200. The next cheapest machine not recertified is one of those ASUS Atom boxes for $240. Again, relatively low specs downplay usefulness as a desktop machine, would much rather a portable device. The cheapest non-recertified non-Atom desktop appears to be an Athlon II system for $330. The specs are a little more respectable for light desktop use but again, many many consumer-level users are going to prefer portable devices for their email, facebook, etc. I don't even really count netbooks much in the game because so many of them are too underpowered or poorly configured even for that. Admittedly I haven't used any netbook released within the past year, but the ones I have used have really chugged along when loading web pages and youtube videos. I think many of us take the modern casual user for granted, assuming that dated generic hardware can support their web-related activities for granted. The reality is the bulk of the "social" internet can be very hard on system requirements, particularly when using older hardware that doesn't have all the optimizations current low-power stuff does. Devices like iPads and probably soon some Android tablets that are truly designed to support those use cases are heavily optimized for those users. They can accomplish more with less and their core design philosophies (portability, battery life, etc) make them a lot more attractive to users.
It is my belief that were it not for the naturally wasteful and capitalist nature of our society (cell phone companies want you to have both a smartphone and a smartpad with expensive data plans, for obvious reasons), our personal device usage would be moving in a more centralized direction. The cloud concept is part of a step in the right direction, but so far everyone that's embraced it has been far to single-minded, IMHO. I think the ideal solution is for individuals to have three separate "spheres" of computing. At the lowest level, an individual has their personal data and processing, something akin to carrying a tablet device with localized and cellular wireless capabilities. There's really no good reason for people to not carry a 5 to 10 inch device with a headset that serves as both a personal communications and an information access device. In simple terms, their iPad also double as their iPhone and their iPod. Moreover, there's no real reason that this device can't be a relatively powerful 15" notebook. For those that need such power on some occasions, it would mak
Good god 1366x768 makes me sick. I was spoiled as my first laptop was a 17" MacBook Pro with 1680x1050, now I can barely tolerate the 1440x900 on my Thinkpad. Some people in the comments in those links mentioned this and I'm going to reiterate it here - as computer power and graphics capability has been advancing in leaps and bounds in recent years, why has display quality been going downhill? Heh, this is one of my favorite posts from the first thread...
I want to buy a couple new laptops, but am so far delaying because of lousy screen resolution choices. There simply is not enough vertical resolution to get any useful work done. Coupled with Microsoft's introduction of the 'brilliant' ribbon UI - a vertical screen space burning wonder - the 21st century computer industry has ACTUALLY TAKEN A STEP BACKWARDS FROM THE 1990's. On a 1366x768 display, Excel with the ribbon shows 24 worksheet lines. An old DOS computer with 320x200 resolution would show 23 (25 lines minus one for the menu and one for the column names) and VGA allowed us to bump it up to 41 lines.
When I bought my MacBook Pro three years ago the matte option was free, so I had to go check now what this is about. Presently, the 17" with "antiglare" display costs $50 more than the glossy display. I'm not sure why they decided they should/could charge for that. The 15" antiglare option is actually a higher resolution display than the default glossy option and costs $150. Someone on this thread mentioned that matte screens cost more to produce than glossy. I presume the price is related to that.
FWIW, this is why I own a MacBook Pro. My 17" screen is 16:10 matte at 1680x1050. Did not cost extra for that option, though they did offer glossy as the default choice (ick).
In my institute (private engineering college) there are a metric fuckton of CS majors who have absolutely no background nor interest nor ability in computer science. You ask the majority of them why they're in that major and you'll either hear something about high-paying jobs or wanting to work for (insert company name) and write video games... Now I'm dualing the Computer Systems Engineer and Comp Sci majors. Thankfully, I AP placed out of CS1 because absolutely everyone who takes the class (all sections are taught by the department head) has informed me that the professor is too dim-witted to teach anything or realize that practically the entire class copies all the homework and labs from a handful of older students. Hell a number of friends I had in Data Structures (CS2) pestered me constantly for help with their labs and passed their classes only due to the intervention of people like me that actually know what they're doing and also can't say no to pleas for help >:(
Point of this rant is that these people (I'd say a good third of the CS major as a whole, probably like 9/10s of the students in CS1) have no business in this department and amount to nothing more than a waste of resources. It angers me that many of these students are burning their time at a very expensive school, while I'm struggling to both maintain my sanity (dual majors suck, btw) and pay tuition. Bah, end rant about privileged kids that have no direction and should make room for people with actual talents and goals.
In case any of you are wondering, my father's book is called Transformations! The Story Behind the Painted Faces by Christopher Agostino. Website
My father, who's somewhat of an authority on tribal art (he's a self-employed bodypainter and has published a book about tribal art), had an interesting tidbit for me when I mentioned this story to him. Mike Tyson has said that his tribal tattoo is a warrior's tattoo based on art from the Maori tribes. According to my father's research, the Maori and other tribes in that area of the world do produce such art, although the warrior tattoos are meant to be a form of endurance testing. The warriors of the tribes get their whole faces and most of their bodies tattooed through a painful process that proves their strength and endurance. Only the priests, who are too weak to handle what the warriors do, get small designs on just a part of their face. So yeah, Mike Tyson has a wimp tattoo...
That's exactly how I felt when I heard about the RIAA suit against Limewire...
Full disclosure, I know very little about WebGL other than a few things I've read and what's in this particular TFA. On the other hand, I consider myself quite knowledgable about computers in general. I'm wondering what the feasibility is of some sort of social engineering attack based around accessing the video buffers in the GPU and essentially snooping what other windows are open on your computer. Complex examples I thought of involve using OCR to determine information about the user that will convince them they are at a valid page (of whatever sort), though it could be as simple as scanning other open windows looking for credit card numbers. Every once in a while, you might get a malicious pop-up or a drive-by attack while you're paying for something on Amazon.
This has really become a shouting match. I'm going to qualify my statements as to the comparative functionality of iOS devices versus Android devices. I've used several of both. I own a 2nd Gen iPod Touch as well as an iPad (my phone is a dumbphone). I've used my girlfriend's DroidX quite a lot recently and I'm the one she goes to when she needs help with something on it. I've also had friends demonstrate a few Android devices they've owned to me. If I was to own an Android phone, it would probably be a Nexus. The Motorolas I've seen have been extremely clunky and unstable, to say nothing of the locked software sources and crapware that cannot be uninstalled. The one HTC I've used seemed far too dumbed down (I think it was an Evo, I can't recall). Meanwhile, I'm extremely satisfied with my iOS devices and see no reason to replace them in the near future. If there was a tablet offering that in my opinion surpassed the iPad line, then I would probably go for that. At present, I do not see this being the case.
Also just to clarify what I meant by "iOS devices only come in one flavor of operation" - Each generation of iOS devices have the same capabilities and limitations. There isn't an iPhone model that allows 3rd party software sources, for instance. They all come with the same software and they all use the same software store (with platform divisions where appropriate). That is not true for a great many Android devices. It's similar to the OEM PC market, where each PC brand comes with different crapware and sometimes different features enabled in Windows. It's a different business model, and this is how Apple has (just about) always done things.
Indeed. Adobe's approach to software is pretty ridiculous. The have essentially three separate software monopolies. Adobe (formally Acrobat) PDF is pretty much the only portable cross-platform document format in use. Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash is pretty much the only web-based applet format in use. Adobe Creative Suite is pretty much the only graphic design suite in professional use. All three of these software products have horrendous stability and security issues. Adobe is probably just about the worst software development company in existence today. Unfortunately they have found a way to maintain their status quo of shitty software without much backlash, primary due to the fact that there are zero feasible alternatives to their flagship products.
Ooooooh don't even get me started about their compatibility issues with Mac OS X. Adobe CS is quite literally the ONLY Mac software that has ever completely broken for me due to an OS upgrade. Somehow Adobe must be managing to violate the Mac OS X API guidelines with everything they do, because every time there's a new major version of OS X, the entire body of users must purchase the next version of Adobe CS. I've got a rant somewhere around here of the hell I went through maintaining the graphic design machines in my family's business. The compatibility problems between different versions of CS combined with the fact that our hardware is not all identical in age and capability made me throw in the towel and stop spending many thousands of dollars every year on new hardware and CS versions.
I wish you did too. Apparently something thinks I'm "overrated"
Wait... so you'd prefer GP be a hypocrite than a "self-righteous douchebag"? Think about that for a moment.
Well that's the point - if he owned the device he *probably* wouldn't be complaining about it. He would own an Android or otherwise device that fulfilled his "openness" requirements.
Unfortunately, Apple is trying to make it a legal issue, and they also seem to be trying to move their desktop OS towards the same walled garden.
They tried to make it a legal issue and the supreme court ruled against them. That phase is over, any corporation with a business interest in a walled garden is going to do whatever they can to protect that interest. I certainly don't agree with that model and I'm glad it was legally defeated but I can't blame them for trying...
You can't say an Android phone isn't intended for the same things -- both Android and iOS are targeting the exact same users, use cases, etc.
Except that they don't appeal to the same users/use cases. The Android OS isn't really even comparable to iOS as iOS devices come in only one flavor of operation while there are many different Android devices with many different distinguishing features. In fact, many of the Android phones are as locked down as an iPhone, with restricted root access and software sources. Apple's App Store isn't much different than the Market on my girlfriend's DroidX. Of course there are phones (the Nexus series, perhaps others) that could be considered open in this regard, but those most certainly cater to a different audience than the iOS line by the simple fact that they DO have unlocked software sources.
Now, I don't think anyone is saying that people should be prevented from making such a device, but it is a very odd situation where the device with less functionality actually has a higher price point, and I do think that this sort of locked-down device is harmful to everyone except the manufacturer.
Price point is irrelevant. A locked-down device having more or less functionality is entirely a matter of opinion. Whether or not such a device is harmful to consumers again depends on the consumer. Like I said, it's unfortunate that there's no "best of both worlds." As it is, I'll settle for jailbreaking my iPad if and when I find that I desire functionality far beyond what it is designed to perform.
Alright. It's not illegal to do what your saying, so what are you complaining about? Apple sold you (well not you because you're probably too much of a self-righteous douchebag to actually own the device you're complaining about) a collection of hardware and software that have been developed together with the purpose of running applications obtained through their App Store. If you have a desire to run software that they haven't approved, then you are free to do whatever you want to achieve that goal. To use parent's analogy, a gas range and an easy bake are both ovens. They were designed and marketed with completely different uses and capabilities, but they're both technically ovens. Now should the makers of the easy bake be forced to provide the necessary hardware and/or software tools to ensure that the end user can use the exact same recipes in their easy bake as they could in a regular oven?
That doesn't stop some ambitious end-user from developing procedures and tools that allow them to bake regular shit in the toy oven. I firmly stand against legal restrictions on the software that I'm allowed to run on my i-device or any device. Hell I would love it if Apple and everyone else included a "jailbreak" button. They don't have to honor their warranties if you go beyond their scope of intended use, but then again you don't have to jailbreak it. That being said, neither Apple nor anyone else is obligated to provide the user with anything more than they advertise their product as.
Indeed. I discovered this amazing gem of a tool a couple years ago and I've loved it ever since. I've been familiarizing myself with the source lately with the intent of implementing a FUSE filesystem layer for at least viewing archives. Glad to see TU is getting a decent amount of attention.
I think a better analogy involving shipping would be they're suing the trucking company that transported the gun from the online distributor to your house. The actual Limewire company being the online distributor, the Limewire software being the gun, and the trucking company being the download site (in this case CNET).
Amusing anecdote: it's actually all this anti-piracy's fault that I download anything. Back when I was in high school living at home, my father came to me one day with a letter from Cablevision (our ISP). The letter was pretty much a general threat to all of their customers that "using 'Peer To Peer' software such as Limewire or Kazaa to obtain free music and movies is illegal under US copyright law and a violation of our Terms of Service" or somesuch. Seriously, they essentially told all of their customers how they could get free music and movies and then listed software that would allow them to do it. Right after reading that I went and googled "LimeWire" and thus began my piracy foray.
That's what it was doing as far as I know.