The true old economy view would be: "The Internet is all one state -- let's tax it!"
... which is exactly what you're saying.
Pretty much.
The new economy view would be to not strangle it in its crib, like you propose to do.
I love rhetoric like this. All those poor struggling eCommerce companies who would go out of business if we imposed a sales tax. When we're talking about anything else on Slashdot, the the net is the unstoppable revolution that is going to blow away all that terrible old economy thinking. As soon as someone suggests a sales tax, its unthinkable because eCommerce is so vunerable.
People are welcome to take this point of view, but it is so laughably weak an argument that it will render anything else you say moot in the eyes of legislators. Unless we get some realism in here our voices will not be heard.
I agree that giving net companies a tax free breathing space in the first few years is/was a good idea. At some point we have to accept that the new economy is so strong that it is going to be the dominant force in the future. At that time, it shouldn't be exempt from taxation.
We aren't at that point yet, but its coming Real Soon Now. Starting to work out how to deal with this now will help eCommerce companies plan for the future and allow the net community to have a voice in how the taxes are established.
Constitution of the United States of America Article I, Section 9
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
That should be the end of the discussion, at least concerning the imposition of state sales taxes on out-of-state vendors.
I know this will be heresey to some, but perhaps, just perhaps, the time has come to overturn this outdated notion? One of the reasons the net is a revolution is because it gets rid of georgraphical boundaries. There are no states on the net.
It makes absoluely no sense to impose old-economy notions of the State on the net. Why cling to an 18th. century world view when we are living in an entirely new millenium? The net constantly demands it be judged by new rules in other areas, why not in terms of taxation too?
I say let's accept net sales taxes and work to ensure that they are imposed in a reasonable and sensible manner. Asking for special exemption from the responsibilities that the rest of society has makes us look naive and petulant.
Well, first of all, it's incredibly tacky to be talking about raising taxes in the midst of a surplus.
I agree, there is no justification for raising the overall tax burden, especially now. But the issue of a net sales tax does not have to be about a tax raise. How about imposing a uniform net sales tax, but offsetting it with a lowering of income tax?
Shifting tax from income to consumption is good because it gives consumers more power to choose where they spend their money, without jeapardizing government funding levels.
It would be possible to implement this. If the net community wants to influence how this plays out, they would (IMHO) be better off accepting that the net should and will get taxed and work to ensure that when it comes, that taxation is fair and equitable. Just moaning that you don't want to be taxed isn't likely to buy you much influence with the decision makers.
There are sales taxes already in place... there should be no new taxes, to borrow the phrase from the former Prez.
Its amazing. When issues like deCSS or Napster come up, Slashdot is filled with posts saying: "you can't stop the net, its different from the old economy. We deserve new rules to deal with the net. Stop applying your old rules to us". As soon as the possibility of net taxes come up, we're suddenly unable to imagine new taxes? Do I smell a double standard around here somewhere?
Yes, the net is driving new forms of commerce, and we need to think about new ways for society to deal with it. The net isn't a geographical entity, so it makes no sense to impose state-based taxation on it. Why should it matter where an eCommerce store is physically based when taxation is considered?
If you have taxation, then apply it in a fair and uniform manner. An across-the-board net sales tax makes sense. If the net is such an efficient mechanism, why does it need the extra unfair advantage over bricks and mortar stores of being tax exempt?
Not only is it not very fat, it's astonishingly narrow. IEEE 802.11 devices have a tiny little chunk of the radio spectrum - IIRC, only enough for 3 or 4 802.11 devices to be operating in the same area at the same time. This would be next-to-useless for setting up a neighborhood network, and it would probably bug the hell out of anyone else trying to use an 802.11 device nearby, as you would be effectively jamming them.
So I know next to nothing about the technicalities of spectrum usage (as my previous post to this thread apparently demonstrated:-). But, I do work in a large building that has several dozen base stations and many hundreds of wireless machines operating all the time. There are at least 5 basestations that I know of, operating within 20 yards of my office right now. There doesn't seem to be any significant congestion problems. Perhaps the hardware or software is doing some arbitration?
As I said, I'm not up on the technicailites involved, but in practice this seems to be much less of a problem than your post would suggest.
So if I get an Airport and some Wavelan cards I can network my PC's, no Mac required?
The hardware would be fine. The problem would come in the configuration software - right now this is Mac only. I'm sure someone could hack up some Windows or Linux software to do it, I just don't think its been done. Yet...
The base station is only $299, right? Comparable stuff for PC's is like a grand IIRC.
Well more like $700-800 for the base station, but yes, the Airport base station is significantly cheaper than PC products.
Personally, I'm going to rip the Cat5 out of my house and put all my Macs on Airport. Then I can add my Intel boxes using WaveLAN cards.
Of course, this means that you have to have an Apple. I think. I will go read the article, but if it is Airport, I think this limits it to Apple.
No, airport is just an implementation of IEEE 802.11 DS, so you can mix and match it with non-Apple technologies like Lucent's WaveLAN. I'll bet the same hacks apply just as well to these cards. Cool.
If everyone started extending the AirPort's range beyond what is allowed (the article quotes 4000 mW), then wouldn't the available bandwidth get congested really fast, causing collisions, and thus breaking connectivity?
In the article he mentions getting decent network performance over 14km (about 9 miles) with only a 1500 mW broadcast. Okay, so that's a directional antenna, but what applications were you thinking of that would require you to push this over 4000 mW? Enquiring minds want to know:-)
BTW, does anyone know if the original article is right that 4000 mW is also the FCC limit?
One justification for attempting the creation of intelligent machines is to answer questions about how the human mind works. The theory runs that an AI will necessarily have a human-like inteliigence. If such a machine were created, we have the tools to examine the way the AI operated, and we may be able to draw conclusions from this about the high-level cognitive structures of the brain. It is (currently) much harder to examine running wetware, and we don't have accurate tools for finding out how high-level human cognition works.
Do you believe this is either necessarily or possibly true? Would a human-like machine intelligence tell us anything about human cognition?
So, say you could change something cosmetic about yourself genetically for a reasonable price. For example, what if a virus were available that triggered a whole-body genetic mutation, and the end result was a change in your genetic hair color?
So this raises an interesting question that I've wanted an answer to for some time. [side note: I am not a biologist, nor do I play one on the Net, so please excuse me if this is a dumb question].
One of the much touted advantages of genetic engineering is the ability to cure genetic problems in living humans. This is distinct from altering the genetic code in cells that will go on to form a viable human foetus.
So, say I have some genetic disease caused by an unfortunate sequence in my DNA. Assume we know what replacement sequence would cure this problem. On an engineering level, how would I go about making the change in every cell in my body? This is what I would have to do, right? Is this an area where nanotechnology and genetic engineering meet? Or could genetically-modified viri really perform this task?
I assume that now we are closing in on getting detailed genetic information about humans, people are starting to think about how gene therapy might be applied in practice. Does anyone have anything they can share with us on this subject?
When will Apple release Quicktime in a format that allows cross-platform viewing of QuickTime 4 movies?
Apple already has. QuickTime 4.x runs on Mac OS 7, 8 and 9. It runs on all versions of Windows from 95 thru 2000. It (will soon) run on Mac OS X.
Oh, by "cross-platform", you meant "runs on Linux"? Time to actually say what you mean.
Are there any formats other then Open Source that would allow this to occur?
I guess you are asking whether Apple might release QuickTime as closed binaries on Linux. I'd guess its something they have looked at. Don't forget QuickTime is a massive piece of software. It does much more than just play back video - it has interactivitiy, sprites, QTVR, a full visual effects architecture etc. It runs to several million lines of source code and was the result of thousands of engineer-years of work.
Porting QuickTime to a new platform is a huge undertaking. It took Apple several years with a large team of engineers to get QuickTime onto Windows, and keeping the Mac and Windows versions in sync is itself a lot of work. Porting to yet another platform (Linux) would require a lot of money and expertise. Apple would really need to see a clear reward in order to invest the effort to do this. Some day the equation may come out in favor of QuickTime for Linux, but I suspect it isn't even close yet.
t last I checked, Apple only had ~5% of the desktop share, and their server share is non-existent. What does Apple have that makes their OS mainstream, that Linux doesn't?
Apple currently has about 5% share of new computers sold. That's one useful measure. A more useful measure might be the percentage of installed base. Apple's market share has been (significantly) higher in the past and Mac users typically use their systems for a 2-3 years longer than Windows users do. These two factors combine to give Apple somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the of the installed base of machines in current use.
As I understand it, Darwin is essentially OSX, sans Quartz and the MacOS compatability layer.
Close. Its Mac OS X minus Quartz, Carbon (the Mac OS X API compatibility layer), Classic (the Mac OS 9 emulation software) and Cocoa (the OpenStep API layer).
Finally, could anyone tell me if they know whether or not OSX is OpenStep compliant? ie, when Quicktime for OSX is released, would it be possible to run it under GNUstep?
QuickTime on Mac OS X is built on top of Carbon, not on Darwin or Cocoa, so it won't run in any environment that does not have Carbon. AFAIK, only Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X will ever have Carbon on them. Carbon is not Open Source and is unlikely to ever be, IMHO.
Good Old Apple.... (Score:1) by thefatz (fatz@linuxhaven.lessthispart.com) on Wednesday April 05, @11:36AM PDT (#21) (User Info) http://www.linuxhaven.com I wish they were more open with there hardware. Im mean in comparion with x86 PPC is really good, and is abit more used then alpha as far as, lower arena area. If only apple opened it up. What do they have to loose, nothing, because with a good Unix orentied OS like OSX, they will get prolly a good amount of developers and easly ported software, so the operating system is really golden. To me, this is what Unix should of been like in 1995. This is probley one of the best examples of a Unix desktop, fast, easy, and much powerful. Easly scaleable with unix, so you can have multi cpu's. And apple for the most part is good hardware. So if apple was to open up there hardware, and more companies started makeing "apple clones" for cheaper, what os are they gonna run, linux and prolly OSX. Well given the was OSX is, it may be just as easy to run OSX on top, and have a vm or something to run linux under it. This makes a good desktop unixen box, and some good PPC based linux servers is the best way to go.
Well, two important points about Apple. Firstly, they are a company and they are in the business of making money. Secondly, they are a hardware company. Almost all of their earnings come from selling boxes. Currently Apple makes in the order of $8 billion a year in revenue, about 95% (I'd guess) of which comes from hardware sales.
If Apple opened up their hardware tplatform to cloning again, they'd loose a huge chunk of their revenues and profits. Last time they tried that, Apple's revenues halved and they lost $2 billion. I don't see what incentive the company has to repeat that experiment...
And, yes, I do realize that not all of Apple's mid-90's woes are down to cloning, but it was a significant factor in the problems the company had.
However, the context of this article isn't about a language per se (i.e. without libraries), but about a cross-platform application development environment. Neither C nor Java is an environment without many libraries, as both are basically a syntax for pushing memory around. So the question isn't about the language, as you emphasis, but about the whole package, and so you have to consider the packages as well.
No, there really are substantive differences between C and Java as languages. For example, the lack of pointers in Java make it much easier to write error-free code. On the other hand, features of C make it a much better language for writing system-level code. These are real and important differences.
I was trying to separate the discussion of the language from discussions of the libraries that come with the language. After all, JNI makes it relatively easy to call any C library from within Java, and vice versa, so it is hard to claim that the libraries distinguish the languages.
Also, I disagree with your statement that AWT and Swing have few cross-platform problems. Even in casual use, when I'm using Java in my browsers, I see tremendous differences between Netscape on linux, and IE on Window (for example). Sometimes, a java program is broken in different ways on the different platforms, which is a true nightmare to fix for a developer.
But these are bugs in the browsers, not in the language itself, or even in the libraries. I am working with the browser developers every day on these problems. If you believe these are inherent problems with Java then you need to look a little deeper.
That said, in practice it doesn't matter much to a developer whether the bug is in the language, the library or the browser, it still has to be worked around. So I agree that this is a real issue for web developers.
>If the library has a problem deleting files (this is an example I ran into), you cannot fix it...
Of course you can - just write your own code to delete files in a platform-specific way.
So you're writing C code again. That's my point -- if you're going to have to resort to non-Java solutions, why put Java in the mix to begin with? Surely, Java+C is worse than either alone!
Not at all - use the right tool for the job. If your application has different modules that have very different characteristics, then it makes a great deal of sense to use different technologies to construct those modules. A good programmer has a wide arsenal of tools at his or her command. I am always highly suspicious of someone who wants to sell me a one-size-fits-all solution.
An example of this may lie in the fact that I cannot go down to CompUSA and buy a program written in Java. Why not? What is it about Java which prevents people from using it to create commercial-grade software?
In fact there are thousands of commercial-grade software packages written in Java. Try the Oracle suite. Try JBuilder. Try Digital Chisel. Try Creo Workshop. Try the Extensity package. Try Lotus eSuite. Try SimPhysics. You get the picture.
>The Java language is completely platform-independent.
I'm afraid I completely disagree with you. I have also developed extensively on cross-platform Java and C++ projects, and I've come to the opposite conclusion. The most important problem with Java bugs is this: if you have a "gotcha" in C/C++, you can fix it, because you can "do anything" with C/C++, in the sense that you have complete control over the code, the libraries, etc.. However, in Java you are limited by the bugs in the run-time libraries.
True (to a point), but read the statement again. I said the Java language was more platform-independent than the C/C++ languages. There are bugs in the standard Java libraries (e.g. AWT and Swing), but then again, most of the Java library source code is supplied to you (or can at least be downloaded from Javasoft). You can fix most of the bugs yourself.
Also note the difference between bugs and cross-platform dependencies: AWT and Swing are remarably platform-independent, especially Swing. There are very, very few platform-specific issues with these libraries.
If the library has a problem deleting files (this is an example I ran into), you cannot fix it...
Of course you can - just write your own code to delete files in a platform-specific way.
I have assisted multiple parties with cross-platform Java development, where I have arrived in the middle of a project. All of them had to resort to platform-specific code, written in C/C++, and called from Java. They had to do this to get around issues of speed, and of platform-incompatibilities.
Yup, Java is designed to allow you to do that. An old maxim, but a good one, is always use the right tools for the job. Seems to me that Java is the right tool for much development work, and C is a great tool for the low-level, platform-dependent, CPU-intensive bits of a project. If your project is all like that, use C throughout. If you are writing a general-purpose application with lots of UI that has to go cross-platform, then Java is the right way to do it.
C/C++ is faster and more platform-independant than Java, provided you are using good libraries.
C/C++ is faster, though with technologies like HotSpot, Java is catching up in this area, and sometimes even surpassing C++. However, C/C++ are defintely not more platform-independent than Java. The Java language is completely platform-independent. C and C++ have myriad platform- and compiler- specific dependencies. I have ported C and C++ code between platforms and compilers. There are a lot of gotchas. Java doesn't have this problem at all.
One area where C and C++ still have a big advantage over Java is in memory footprint - Java apps are still too big. Sigh.
Transmeta's codewarping is one of the reasons with the same ISA a transmeta CPU needs an extra 250Mhz or so to match an PIII-450.
The only place runtime optimization actually offsets the slowdowns from doing JIT compiliation are pathological cases arranged by vendors for demos. In the real world, java is ALWAYS slower, sometimes 10%, occasionally 100%.
The reason not to dismiss java out of hand is that most apps these days don't need the speed. The problem comes when someone tries to use java for an app that does, because they heard that java is "just as fast, or faster than C++, thanks to the patented HotSpot Technology (TM) (C) (all rights reserved)" marketing bullshit.
Sorry, this is just not true. I work on a team implementing a Java2 JVM and JRE. We were pleasantly surprised at the performance gains we saw when using HotSpot. It really does dramatically increase Java execution speed. We commonly see Java applications executing only 25-50% slower than their C++ counterparts.
But we also do see some not-uncommon cases of Java code excuting faster than natively compiled C++ code. This seems ocounter-intuitive, until you realize how optimizing native compilers work. They can only optimize within compile-time boundaries - typically they optimize within class or methods. They miss many potential runtime optimizations. There are repetitive code execution patterns that static compile-time optimization just misses.
For a detailed description of this sort of optimization, read: this ArsTechnica article. It describes HP's Dynamo technology, but HotSpot uses some of the same principles, as does TransMeta's code warping.
I can assure you this is not (just) marketing hype. There really are dramatic speed ups to be gained from this approach, and we are seeing them with real world code examples, not just "pathological cases arrranged by vendors for demos."
Why does everyone love Java? It's so ungodly pathetic. Yeah, it works for cross platform crap, but it's an awful solution.
Oh come on, that's just trolling. If you have a point to make, make it, justify it, show at least some glimmering of evidence for it. Dumb name calling is just that: dumb. If this is your best argument against Java then you loose.
If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Java developers far too often fall into this category. Just because you can write in Java, doesn't mean you have to. ANSI C seems to be a much more ideal solution.
And the same can be said for ANSI C or any other language. Why don't you tell us why you think Java is a poor solution. Then there might be a productive exchange of ideas to be had. Sigh.
Requiring people to have java on their machines is an uncessary burden. Before they can even install your software, they have to go out and find yet another piece of software. Or you have to bundle it with your program, which increases your distribution costs and makes you dependent on a third party product that you can't exercise much control over. Why do this to people?
So you'd be against using any library or similar extension that wasn't included with the base operating system? This seems like an onerous restriction to put on the developers. Part of the art of programming is to pick and choose between technologies. I guess this is why you like ANSI C so much. Still, shame you can't use those fancy-shmancy GUIs that users like so much. Don't worry they'll grow to love your curses-based UI.
Java - well it's cross platform, but for a real application it's not really all it cracked up to be is it? There's performance to consider for a start - Java is a lot slower than C++, and can be a lot more difficult to use for a large project, what with keeping track of finals, absracts and the like.
I suspect you haven't tried out Java for a few years...
Java with a modern JITC is approaching the speed of natively compiled code. With the latest compiler technologies, such as Hotspot, I've seen Java running faster than the equivalent C++ code. The reason this is possible is the same reason technologies like TransMeta's code warping are so good - code is optimized globally at runtime rather than class-by-class at compile-time.
As for scaleability, there are a number of very large Java applications out there - for example the Oracle suite. I wouldn't hesitate to use Java on a large project. If keeping track of "finals, abstracts and the like" is really too burdensome, then I'd suggest you shouldn't even be attempting large projects yet.
One area where Java (actually AWT and Swing) does have a problem is memory footprint. Java programs typically need a lot of memory to run in. Again, there are some compiler advances that are starting to address this too.
As always, Java is not a silver bullet, and its not for everyone. But don't dismiss it out of hand - it has a lot going for it too.
Right back at ya. I don't think I missed the point at all...
It may well "translate well to an American city" but why do they have to bother doing that? Its become fairly common for Hollywood to either take quality European literature and "Americanise" it and to take quality European films and remake them, magically suddenly set in America.
I can think of three or four examples of this. Hardly common...
I would like to think that the American public is not so dim that they can't accept a film set in another country. So why do it?
What, films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and aa Funeral, Amadeus, Ghandi... There are plenty of films that succeed in the US that aren't set there.
Books are set in certain places for a reason. If Nick Hornby thought that the book should have been set in Chicago then he would have set it there.
This is just wrong. High Fidelity isn't really set in a place. Its about the characters not the specific place. That's why it does translate well. Of course some novels are strongly about place, but this isn't one of them. If you don't agree, I'd suggest 1) that you read the book (again) and 2) you read the interviews with Nick Hornby where he strongly makes this point. In other words, don't believe me, but you really ought to listen to the author.
My guess, though I don't know this for sure, is the reason that Hornby set it in London and not Chicago is that's where he grew up. "Write about what you know". Similarly, when Cusack and the other writers of the movie adapted it to the screen, they set it in the millieu they knew - Chicago. Again, read the interviews that Cusack is giving. A film of a book should always have its own sensibility. I commend Cusack and the others for following theirs.
And of course they have both said that they agree with the changes made in the film. What do you expect them to do? Publically criticise the film, thus meaning (a) it does worse at the box office and they lose book sales and (b) they have less chance of selling the movie rights to another of their books?
Yeah, Hornby is that shallow and money-grubbing. Give the man some credit. Plenty of successful writers publically disagree with the film adaption of their works. Most of them simply don't publically comment on the resulting movie. Hornby has gopne out of his way to vocally and extensively talk about the film. Clearly he likes it and approves of it.
Typical. Take a good (or potentially profitable) story and set it in America because thats what the marketing men say. As a Londoner, I idendified very strongly with the novel and imagine it will loose a lot of this by being moved to America. The main character is a very English (in the way he is a total loser in the way only the English are) as are his attitudes.
As a UK citizen who lived in and around London until I was 28, then moved to California, I have to disagree. High Fidelity isn't really about being English at all. Its themes apply to a whole generation of men. This really is one novel that I am expecting to translate well to an American setting
Now, if I could just find enough time away from work to actually get to see the film...
>Out in the real world, competition exists and commercial organizations actually protect their intellectual property.
Don't be so sure about those odds. Already MS and Real have licensed each other's codecs for the next releases of their respective software. Why, then, would Apple's chances be any less?
Well, in fact this agreement considerably decreases the chances of an Apple-Real deal. Now that Real are in bed with Microsoft I think they are much less likely to want to deal with Apple.
Even before this, there is no love lost between Apple and Real. Real are basically a bunch of ex-Microsoft employees. Their natural partners are Microsoft.
>MPEG playback in software has become possible with the hardware of the last six months or so. MPEG encode (to any decent quality) still really require dedicated hardware. I imagine this is one of the reasons Apple has not gone down this path yet.
Strange... I've been doing both of those just fine with a 2-year-old G3. QuickTime has supported software MPEG playback since version 2.5, which is at least three years old.
Sorry, I see that my post wasn't as clear as it should have been. Yes, MPEG-1 playback has been in QuickTime for a few years. But, you still can't encode even MPEG-1 with QuickTime. And MPEG-2 requires considerably more CPU to both decode and encode. The latest version of Apple's DVD Player software does MPEG-2 decode in software, but only really works adequately with a fast G3 or (preferably) a G4. Practical MPEG-2 encoding in software only isn't here yet.
Slashdot Mirror
... which is exactly what you're saying.
Pretty much.
The new economy view would be to not strangle it in its crib, like you propose to do.I love rhetoric like this. All those poor struggling eCommerce companies who would go out of business if we imposed a sales tax. When we're talking about anything else on Slashdot, the the net is the unstoppable revolution that is going to blow away all that terrible old economy thinking. As soon as someone suggests a sales tax, its unthinkable because eCommerce is so vunerable.
People are welcome to take this point of view, but it is so laughably weak an argument that it will render anything else you say moot in the eyes of legislators. Unless we get some realism in here our voices will not be heard.
I agree that giving net companies a tax free breathing space in the first few years is/was a good idea. At some point we have to accept that the new economy is so strong that it is going to be the dominant force in the future. At that time, it shouldn't be exempt from taxation.
We aren't at that point yet, but its coming Real Soon Now. Starting to work out how to deal with this now will help eCommerce companies plan for the future and allow the net community to have a voice in how the taxes are established.
Constitution of the United States of America Article I, Section 9
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
That should be the end of the discussion, at least concerning the imposition of state sales taxes on out-of-state vendors.
I know this will be heresey to some, but perhaps, just perhaps, the time has come to overturn this outdated notion? One of the reasons the net is a revolution is because it gets rid of georgraphical boundaries. There are no states on the net.
It makes absoluely no sense to impose old-economy notions of the State on the net. Why cling to an 18th. century world view when we are living in an entirely new millenium? The net constantly demands it be judged by new rules in other areas, why not in terms of taxation too?
I say let's accept net sales taxes and work to ensure that they are imposed in a reasonable and sensible manner. Asking for special exemption from the responsibilities that the rest of society has makes us look naive and petulant.
Well, first of all, it's incredibly tacky to be talking about raising taxes in the midst of a surplus.
I agree, there is no justification for raising the overall tax burden, especially now. But the issue of a net sales tax does not have to be about a tax raise. How about imposing a uniform net sales tax, but offsetting it with a lowering of income tax?
Shifting tax from income to consumption is good because it gives consumers more power to choose where they spend their money, without jeapardizing government funding levels.
It would be possible to implement this. If the net community wants to influence how this plays out, they would (IMHO) be better off accepting that the net should and will get taxed and work to ensure that when it comes, that taxation is fair and equitable. Just moaning that you don't want to be taxed isn't likely to buy you much influence with the decision makers.
There are sales taxes already in place... there should be no new taxes, to borrow the phrase from the former Prez.
Its amazing. When issues like deCSS or Napster come up, Slashdot is filled with posts saying: "you can't stop the net, its different from the old economy. We deserve new rules to deal with the net. Stop applying your old rules to us". As soon as the possibility of net taxes come up, we're suddenly unable to imagine new taxes? Do I smell a double standard around here somewhere?
Yes, the net is driving new forms of commerce, and we need to think about new ways for society to deal with it. The net isn't a geographical entity, so it makes no sense to impose state-based taxation on it. Why should it matter where an eCommerce store is physically based when taxation is considered?
If you have taxation, then apply it in a fair and uniform manner. An across-the-board net sales tax makes sense. If the net is such an efficient mechanism, why does it need the extra unfair advantage over bricks and mortar stores of being tax exempt?
Not only is it not very fat, it's astonishingly narrow. IEEE 802.11 devices have a tiny little chunk of the radio spectrum - IIRC, only enough for 3 or 4 802.11 devices to be operating in the same area at the same time. This would be next-to-useless for setting up a neighborhood network, and it would probably bug the hell out of anyone else trying to use an 802.11 device nearby, as you would be effectively jamming them.
So I know next to nothing about the technicalities of spectrum usage (as my previous post to this thread apparently demonstrated :-). But, I do work in a large building that has several dozen base stations and many hundreds of wireless machines operating all the time. There are at least 5 basestations that I know of, operating within 20 yards of my office right now. There doesn't seem to be any significant congestion problems. Perhaps the hardware or software is doing some arbitration?
As I said, I'm not up on the technicailites involved, but in practice this seems to be much less of a problem than your post would suggest.
So if I get an Airport and some Wavelan cards I can network my PC's, no Mac required?
The hardware would be fine. The problem would come in the configuration software - right now this is Mac only. I'm sure someone could hack up some Windows or Linux software to do it, I just don't think its been done. Yet...
The base station is only $299, right? Comparable stuff for PC's is like a grand IIRC.
Well more like $700-800 for the base station, but yes, the Airport base station is significantly cheaper than PC products.
Personally, I'm going to rip the Cat5 out of my house and put all my Macs on Airport. Then I can add my Intel boxes using WaveLAN cards.
...if you were a) motivated and b) technically inclined enough to do this, would you be using Apple hardware in the first place?
Whoa, dude. Notice that the guys who posted the original article was both a) and b) and using Apple hardware in the first place. Imagine that.
If you want to troll, try not posting something that contradicts itself quite so obviously. It just make you look dumb...
Of course, this means that you have to have an Apple. I think. I will go read the article, but if it is Airport, I think this limits it to Apple.
No, airport is just an implementation of IEEE 802.11 DS, so you can mix and match it with non-Apple technologies like Lucent's WaveLAN. I'll bet the same hacks apply just as well to these cards. Cool.
Of course, you really want to combine this hack with MadRiver Lab's 128-bit encryption hack, which is described in this article.
128-bit encrypted airport networks with a 5-10 mile range. Now that's one sweet system :-)
If everyone started extending the AirPort's range beyond what is allowed (the article quotes 4000 mW), then wouldn't the available bandwidth get congested really fast, causing collisions, and thus breaking connectivity?
In the article he mentions getting decent network performance over 14km (about 9 miles) with only a 1500 mW broadcast. Okay, so that's a directional antenna, but what applications were you thinking of that would require you to push this over 4000 mW? Enquiring minds want to know :-)
BTW, does anyone know if the original article is right that 4000 mW is also the FCC limit?
One justification for attempting the creation of intelligent machines is to answer questions about how the human mind works. The theory runs that an AI will necessarily have a human-like inteliigence. If such a machine were created, we have the tools to examine the way the AI operated, and we may be able to draw conclusions from this about the high-level cognitive structures of the brain. It is (currently) much harder to examine running wetware, and we don't have accurate tools for finding out how high-level human cognition works.
Do you believe this is either necessarily or possibly true? Would a human-like machine intelligence tell us anything about human cognition?
So, say you could change something cosmetic about yourself genetically for a reasonable price. For example, what if a virus were available that triggered a whole-body genetic mutation, and the end result was a change in your genetic hair color?
So this raises an interesting question that I've wanted an answer to for some time. [side note: I am not a biologist, nor do I play one on the Net, so please excuse me if this is a dumb question].
One of the much touted advantages of genetic engineering is the ability to cure genetic problems in living humans. This is distinct from altering the genetic code in cells that will go on to form a viable human foetus.
So, say I have some genetic disease caused by an unfortunate sequence in my DNA. Assume we know what replacement sequence would cure this problem. On an engineering level, how would I go about making the change in every cell in my body? This is what I would have to do, right? Is this an area where nanotechnology and genetic engineering meet? Or could genetically-modified viri really perform this task?
I assume that now we are closing in on getting detailed genetic information about humans, people are starting to think about how gene therapy might be applied in practice. Does anyone have anything they can share with us on this subject?
When will Apple release Quicktime in a format that allows cross-platform viewing of QuickTime 4 movies?
Apple already has. QuickTime 4.x runs on Mac OS 7, 8 and 9. It runs on all versions of Windows from 95 thru 2000. It (will soon) run on Mac OS X.
Oh, by "cross-platform", you meant "runs on Linux"? Time to actually say what you mean.
Are there any formats other then Open Source that would allow this to occur?
I guess you are asking whether Apple might release QuickTime as closed binaries on Linux. I'd guess its something they have looked at. Don't forget QuickTime is a massive piece of software. It does much more than just play back video - it has interactivitiy, sprites, QTVR, a full visual effects architecture etc. It runs to several million lines of source code and was the result of thousands of engineer-years of work.
Porting QuickTime to a new platform is a huge undertaking. It took Apple several years with a large team of engineers to get QuickTime onto Windows, and keeping the Mac and Windows versions in sync is itself a lot of work. Porting to yet another platform (Linux) would require a lot of money and expertise. Apple would really need to see a clear reward in order to invest the effort to do this. Some day the equation may come out in favor of QuickTime for Linux, but I suspect it isn't even close yet.
t last I checked, Apple only had ~5% of the desktop share, and their server share is non-existent. What does Apple have that makes their OS mainstream, that Linux doesn't?
Apple currently has about 5% share of new computers sold. That's one useful measure. A more useful measure might be the percentage of installed base. Apple's market share has been (significantly) higher in the past and Mac users typically use their systems for a 2-3 years longer than Windows users do. These two factors combine to give Apple somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the of the installed base of machines in current use.
As I understand it, Darwin is essentially OSX, sans Quartz and the MacOS compatability layer.
Close. Its Mac OS X minus Quartz, Carbon (the Mac OS X API compatibility layer), Classic (the Mac OS 9 emulation software) and Cocoa (the OpenStep API layer).
Finally, could anyone tell me if they know whether or not OSX is OpenStep compliant? ie, when Quicktime for OSX is released, would it be possible to run it under GNUstep?
QuickTime on Mac OS X is built on top of Carbon, not on Darwin or Cocoa, so it won't run in any environment that does not have Carbon. AFAIK, only Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X will ever have Carbon on them. Carbon is not Open Source and is unlikely to ever be, IMHO.
Good Old Apple.... (Score:1) by thefatz (fatz@linuxhaven.lessthispart.com) on Wednesday April 05, @11:36AM PDT (#21) (User Info) http://www.linuxhaven.com I wish they were more open with there hardware. Im mean in comparion with x86 PPC is really good, and is abit more used then alpha as far as, lower arena area. If only apple opened it up. What do they have to loose, nothing, because with a good Unix orentied OS like OSX, they will get prolly a good amount of developers and easly ported software, so the operating system is really golden. To me, this is what Unix should of been like in 1995. This is probley one of the best examples of a Unix desktop, fast, easy, and much powerful. Easly scaleable with unix, so you can have multi cpu's. And apple for the most part is good hardware. So if apple was to open up there hardware, and more companies started makeing "apple clones" for cheaper, what os are they gonna run, linux and prolly OSX. Well given the was OSX is, it may be just as easy to run OSX on top, and have a vm or something to run linux under it. This makes a good desktop unixen box, and some good PPC based linux servers is the best way to go.
Well, two important points about Apple. Firstly, they are a company and they are in the business of making money. Secondly, they are a hardware company. Almost all of their earnings come from selling boxes. Currently Apple makes in the order of $8 billion a year in revenue, about 95% (I'd guess) of which comes from hardware sales.
If Apple opened up their hardware tplatform to cloning again, they'd loose a huge chunk of their revenues and profits. Last time they tried that, Apple's revenues halved and they lost $2 billion. I don't see what incentive the company has to repeat that experiment...
And, yes, I do realize that not all of Apple's mid-90's woes are down to cloning, but it was a significant factor in the problems the company had.
However, the context of this article isn't about a language per se (i.e. without libraries), but about a cross-platform application development environment. Neither C nor Java is an environment without many libraries, as both are basically a syntax for pushing memory around. So the question isn't about the language, as you emphasis, but about the whole package, and so you have to consider the packages as well.
No, there really are substantive differences between C and Java as languages. For example, the lack of pointers in Java make it much easier to write error-free code. On the other hand, features of C make it a much better language for writing system-level code. These are real and important differences.
I was trying to separate the discussion of the language from discussions of the libraries that come with the language. After all, JNI makes it relatively easy to call any C library from within Java, and vice versa, so it is hard to claim that the libraries distinguish the languages.
Also, I disagree with your statement that AWT and Swing have few cross-platform problems. Even in casual use, when I'm using Java in my browsers, I see tremendous differences between Netscape on linux, and IE on Window (for example). Sometimes, a java program is broken in different ways on the different platforms, which is a true nightmare to fix for a developer.
But these are bugs in the browsers, not in the language itself, or even in the libraries. I am working with the browser developers every day on these problems. If you believe these are inherent problems with Java then you need to look a little deeper.
That said, in practice it doesn't matter much to a developer whether the bug is in the language, the library or the browser, it still has to be worked around. So I agree that this is a real issue for web developers.
>If the library has a problem deleting files (this is an example I ran into), you cannot fix it...
Of course you can - just write your own code to delete files in a platform-specific way.
So you're writing C code again. That's my point -- if you're going to have to resort to non-Java solutions, why put Java in the mix to begin with? Surely, Java+C is worse than either alone!
Not at all - use the right tool for the job. If your application has different modules that have very different characteristics, then it makes a great deal of sense to use different technologies to construct those modules. A good programmer has a wide arsenal of tools at his or her command. I am always highly suspicious of someone who wants to sell me a one-size-fits-all solution.
An example of this may lie in the fact that I cannot go down to CompUSA and buy a program written in Java. Why not? What is it about Java which prevents people from using it to create commercial-grade software?
In fact there are thousands of commercial-grade software packages written in Java. Try the Oracle suite. Try JBuilder. Try Digital Chisel. Try Creo Workshop. Try the Extensity package. Try Lotus eSuite. Try SimPhysics. You get the picture.
>The Java language is completely platform-independent.
I'm afraid I completely disagree with you. I have also developed extensively on cross-platform Java and C++ projects, and I've come to the opposite conclusion. The most important problem with Java bugs is this: if you have a "gotcha" in C/C++, you can fix it, because you can "do anything" with C/C++, in the sense that you have complete control over the code, the libraries, etc.. However, in Java you are limited by the bugs in the run-time libraries.
True (to a point), but read the statement again. I said the Java language was more platform-independent than the C/C++ languages. There are bugs in the standard Java libraries (e.g. AWT and Swing), but then again, most of the Java library source code is supplied to you (or can at least be downloaded from Javasoft). You can fix most of the bugs yourself.Also note the difference between bugs and cross-platform dependencies: AWT and Swing are remarably platform-independent, especially Swing. There are very, very few platform-specific issues with these libraries.
If the library has a problem deleting files (this is an example I ran into), you cannot fix it...
Of course you can - just write your own code to delete files in a platform-specific way.
I have assisted multiple parties with cross-platform Java development, where I have arrived in the middle of a project. All of them had to resort to platform-specific code, written in C/C++, and called from Java. They had to do this to get around issues of speed, and of platform-incompatibilities.
Yup, Java is designed to allow you to do that. An old maxim, but a good one, is always use the right tools for the job. Seems to me that Java is the right tool for much development work, and C is a great tool for the low-level, platform-dependent, CPU-intensive bits of a project. If your project is all like that, use C throughout. If you are writing a general-purpose application with lots of UI that has to go cross-platform, then Java is the right way to do it.
C/C++ is faster and more platform-independant than Java, provided you are using good libraries.
C/C++ is faster, though with technologies like HotSpot, Java is catching up in this area, and sometimes even surpassing C++. However, C/C++ are defintely not more platform-independent than Java. The Java language is completely platform-independent. C and C++ have myriad platform- and compiler- specific dependencies. I have ported C and C++ code between platforms and compilers. There are a lot of gotchas. Java doesn't have this problem at all.
One area where C and C++ still have a big advantage over Java is in memory footprint - Java apps are still too big. Sigh.
Transmeta's codewarping is one of the reasons with the same ISA a transmeta CPU needs an extra 250Mhz or so to match an PIII-450.
The only place runtime optimization actually offsets the slowdowns from doing JIT compiliation are pathological cases arranged by vendors for demos. In the real world, java is ALWAYS slower, sometimes 10%, occasionally 100%.
The reason not to dismiss java out of hand is that most apps these days don't need the speed. The problem comes when someone tries to use java for an app that does, because they heard that java is "just as fast, or faster than C++, thanks to the patented HotSpot Technology (TM) (C) (all rights reserved)" marketing bullshit.
Sorry, this is just not true. I work on a team implementing a Java2 JVM and JRE. We were pleasantly surprised at the performance gains we saw when using HotSpot. It really does dramatically increase Java execution speed. We commonly see Java applications executing only 25-50% slower than their C++ counterparts.
But we also do see some not-uncommon cases of Java code excuting faster than natively compiled C++ code. This seems ocounter-intuitive, until you realize how optimizing native compilers work. They can only optimize within compile-time boundaries - typically they optimize within class or methods. They miss many potential runtime optimizations. There are repetitive code execution patterns that static compile-time optimization just misses.
For a detailed description of this sort of optimization, read: this ArsTechnica article. It describes HP's Dynamo technology, but HotSpot uses some of the same principles, as does TransMeta's code warping.
I can assure you this is not (just) marketing hype. There really are dramatic speed ups to be gained from this approach, and we are seeing them with real world code examples, not just "pathological cases arrranged by vendors for demos."
Why does everyone love Java? It's so ungodly pathetic. Yeah, it works for cross platform crap, but it's an awful solution.
Oh come on, that's just trolling. If you have a point to make, make it, justify it, show at least some glimmering of evidence for it. Dumb name calling is just that: dumb. If this is your best argument against Java then you loose.
If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Java developers far too often fall into this category. Just because you can write in Java, doesn't mean you have to. ANSI C seems to be a much more ideal solution.
And the same can be said for ANSI C or any other language. Why don't you tell us why you think Java is a poor solution. Then there might be a productive exchange of ideas to be had. Sigh.
Requiring people to have java on their machines is an uncessary burden. Before they can even install your software, they have to go out and find yet another piece of software. Or you have to bundle it with your program, which increases your distribution costs and makes you dependent on a third party product that you can't exercise much control over. Why do this to people?
So you'd be against using any library or similar extension that wasn't included with the base operating system? This seems like an onerous restriction to put on the developers. Part of the art of programming is to pick and choose between technologies. I guess this is why you like ANSI C so much. Still, shame you can't use those fancy-shmancy GUIs that users like so much. Don't worry they'll grow to love your curses-based UI.
Java - well it's cross platform, but for a real application it's not really all it cracked up to be is it? There's performance to consider for a start - Java is a lot slower than C++, and can be a lot more difficult to use for a large project, what with keeping track of finals, absracts and the like.
I suspect you haven't tried out Java for a few years...
Java with a modern JITC is approaching the speed of natively compiled code. With the latest compiler technologies, such as Hotspot, I've seen Java running faster than the equivalent C++ code. The reason this is possible is the same reason technologies like TransMeta's code warping are so good - code is optimized globally at runtime rather than class-by-class at compile-time.
As for scaleability, there are a number of very large Java applications out there - for example the Oracle suite. I wouldn't hesitate to use Java on a large project. If keeping track of "finals, abstracts and the like" is really too burdensome, then I'd suggest you shouldn't even be attempting large projects yet.
One area where Java (actually AWT and Swing) does have a problem is memory footprint. Java programs typically need a lot of memory to run in. Again, there are some compiler advances that are starting to address this too.
As always, Java is not a silver bullet, and its not for everyone. But don't dismiss it out of hand - it has a lot going for it too.
You're missing the point totally.
Right back at ya. I don't think I missed the point at all...
It may well "translate well to an American city" but why do they have to bother doing that? Its become fairly common for Hollywood to either take quality European literature and "Americanise" it and to take quality European films and remake them, magically suddenly set in America.
I can think of three or four examples of this. Hardly common...
I would like to think that the American public is not so dim that they can't accept a film set in another country. So why do it?
What, films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and aa Funeral, Amadeus, Ghandi... There are plenty of films that succeed in the US that aren't set there.
Books are set in certain places for a reason. If Nick Hornby thought that the book should have been set in Chicago then he would have set it there.
This is just wrong. High Fidelity isn't really set in a place. Its about the characters not the specific place. That's why it does translate well. Of course some novels are strongly about place, but this isn't one of them. If you don't agree, I'd suggest 1) that you read the book (again) and 2) you read the interviews with Nick Hornby where he strongly makes this point. In other words, don't believe me, but you really ought to listen to the author.
My guess, though I don't know this for sure, is the reason that Hornby set it in London and not Chicago is that's where he grew up. "Write about what you know". Similarly, when Cusack and the other writers of the movie adapted it to the screen, they set it in the millieu they knew - Chicago. Again, read the interviews that Cusack is giving. A film of a book should always have its own sensibility. I commend Cusack and the others for following theirs.
And of course they have both said that they agree with the changes made in the film. What do you expect them to do? Publically criticise the film, thus meaning (a) it does worse at the box office and they lose book sales and (b) they have less chance of selling the movie rights to another of their books?
Yeah, Hornby is that shallow and money-grubbing. Give the man some credit. Plenty of successful writers publically disagree with the film adaption of their works. Most of them simply don't publically comment on the resulting movie. Hornby has gopne out of his way to vocally and extensively talk about the film. Clearly he likes it and approves of it.
Typical. Take a good (or potentially profitable) story and set it in America because thats what the marketing men say. As a Londoner, I idendified very strongly with the novel and imagine it will loose a lot of this by being moved to America. The main character is a very English (in the way he is a total loser in the way only the English are) as are his attitudes.
As a UK citizen who lived in and around London until I was 28, then moved to California, I have to disagree. High Fidelity isn't really about being English at all. Its themes apply to a whole generation of men. This really is one novel that I am expecting to translate well to an American setting
Now, if I could just find enough time away from work to actually get to see the film...
>Out in the real world, competition exists and commercial organizations actually protect their intellectual property.
Don't be so sure about those odds. Already MS and Real have licensed each other's codecs for the next releases of their respective software. Why, then, would Apple's chances be any less?
Well, in fact this agreement considerably decreases the chances of an Apple-Real deal. Now that Real are in bed with Microsoft I think they are much less likely to want to deal with Apple.
Even before this, there is no love lost between Apple and Real. Real are basically a bunch of ex-Microsoft employees. Their natural partners are Microsoft.
>MPEG playback in software has become possible with the hardware of the last six months or so. MPEG encode (to any decent quality) still really require dedicated hardware. I imagine this is one of the reasons Apple has not gone down this path yet.
Strange... I've been doing both of those just fine with a 2-year-old G3. QuickTime has supported software MPEG playback since version 2.5, which is at least three years old.
Sorry, I see that my post wasn't as clear as it should have been. Yes, MPEG-1 playback has been in QuickTime for a few years. But, you still can't encode even MPEG-1 with QuickTime. And MPEG-2 requires considerably more CPU to both decode and encode. The latest version of Apple's DVD Player software does MPEG-2 decode in software, but only really works adequately with a fast G3 or (preferably) a G4. Practical MPEG-2 encoding in software only isn't here yet.