I switched to T-Mobile about a year ago, and got one of their crappy free camera phones.
The cameras in those suck. And it didn't have Bluetooth, and even over USB it wouldn't sync with my Mac. So I went on craigslist, and found someone who was wanting a camera phone, and willing to trade for an N-Gage. I knew what an N-Gage was, I knew that even then, it had become a commercial failure. But it is a Symbian OS smartphone, with Bluetooth, that syncs with the Mac. Sure, whatever, I traded. He even threw in a second phone that he had bought as a spare.
Well, as a TELEPHONE, it sucks. The form factor is horrible. (It looks like you're holding a gray taco to your ear.) But I use my Bluetooth headset 95% of the time, so that isn't that big a deal.
As a smartphone, though... I think Symbian is the best smartphone OS out there now, after playing with 'Windows Smartphone', 'Windows Mobile' with phone features, and Palm-based phones. It just rocks. Heck, it even transfers the pictures from my desktop address book.
As for games? Well, the phone came with a dozen or so games (the guy was an avid N-Gage fan, but apparently lost all interest,) and most of them are pretty crappy. The graphics are slightly better than an a Game Boy Advance, and it does do 'real' 3D, but the games all seem to be overly simplified. I am a big fan of the 'pen-and-paper' RPG Rifts, but haven't gotten around to buying the Rifts game for N-Gage yet. From all the reviews, I should like it, though.
On a related note, I seem to be destined to buy obsolete/abandoned/whatever game systems, as last December I bought myself a clearance-priced Tapwave Zodiac, the Palm-based game machine made by a now-bankrupt company. It makes a kick-ass Palm, and is a much better game machine than the N-Gage, way better than the Game Boy Advance, but just can't hold a candle to the DS or PSP.
If you happen to own a Toyota that uses their 'Smart Key System', their Smart Watch.
(It's for their high-end 'Crown' model in Japan, rougly analogous to the Avalon in the U.S. The Avalon and the Prius in the U.S. do have Smart Key as an option. But not the watch.)
Where do all these other top-level posters get their information?
AGP is a subset of PCI. The original AGP spec (1.0) defined a dedicated slot with a 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI connection directly to the Northbridge, plus the ability to directly access main memory more quickly than conventional DMA allowed. AGP 2x then increased speed by using a double data rate system, similar to DDR memory, transferring two data chunks per clock cycle.
AGP 4x then added a quad data rate connection, Fast Writes (the ability to write to main memory out of normal order,) and Direct Memory Execute (the ability for the AGP card to execute directly out of main memory, rather than having to load into on-board memory first.)
AGP 8x just oct-data rate'd it. It's still 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI, though.
But, either way, AGP *IS* a PCI connection. Fully compliant with PCI 2.1, with full bandwidth in each direction.
There are/were bridge chips that converted the AGP connection into one or more PCI slots, which would become fully-compliant PCI 32-bit, 66 MHz slots. These bridge chips were sometimes used on lower-end server motherboards with onboard PCI video, as a cheaper alternative to adding a separate 64-bit PCI controller. They could be found on products from Intel (L440GX,) and others.
BUT, since it is only 32-bit, you're limited to a 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI connection. PCI-X requires 64-bit for its faster bus speeds. That means that there are no bridge chips that will give you anything better than a 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI 2.1 connection. You can run multiple cards off this connection (As the Intel board listed above did,) but just as with 'regular' PCI, you are sharing the speed among all the cards.
But, any 66 MHz PCI card (or any correctly backwards-compatible PCI-X card,) would take advantage of the doubled speed over 33 MHz PCI, though.
Sorry, not quite true. AGP is a 100% spec PCI 2.1 interface, just pumped up in speed, then with a couple of nice add-ons added. (Direct Memory Execute, for one.) On some server motherboards, you will see the AGP slot replaced with one or more higher-speed PCI slots. (I haven't seen it too much recently, but Intel used to sell the L440GX board that had two 66 MHz PCI slots that were run off the AGP controller, in addition to the 33 MHz PCI slots off the Southbridge. But this was back in the Pentium II days.)
Wow. That's the biggest bit of flamebait I've seen in a long time... Let's break it down, point by point.
Because your modern Windows machine will traditionally have a more powerful AMD processor.
While AMD is indeed outselling Intel in the 'retail desktop' market, there is nothing 'traditional' about this, it's a recent turn of events. And by most counts, the Pentium-M and Core Duo are at least a match for the latest AMDs. Yes, the Pentium 4/Pentium D suck. That's why Intel is abandoning that core.
AMD's solutions, even the mobile ones, outperform Intel consistently at low prices.
Ah, AMD fanboy speak. I'm sorry, but Core Duo simply spanks any available AMD mobile solution. Check out somereviews (Core Duo 2 GHz, ATI X1400 scores 2092 3DMark05's, and... Oh, wait, I can't find any reviews of a dual-core mobile AMD with current-generation graphics... Sorry. The best I could find was 1203 3DMark05's for a 1.6 GHz Turion with AMD X700 graphics. I looked for over half an hour. Only one review of an AMD-equipped laptop without integrated graphics. And AMD doesn't offer dual-core mobile at any price.
It'll possibly have more RAM, better integrated graphics, and so on.
possibly? You can choose the amount of RAM you want... Better integrated graphics? Look again. Apple has X1600 at 128 or 256 MB of VRAM. I only found one non-chipset graphics on an AMD notebook, and it was 64 MB X700. Although I did find an Alienware with a desktop processor and video chip for significantly more than a MacBook Pro (when configured with the slowest dual-core processor, and all other specs equal to the MacBook.)
Moreso - it will be customisable and easy to optimise the hardware for gaming purposes.
Yes, and most of the customizations are necessary to bring it to the minimum level of the MacBook; and my 2.0 GHz Core Duo and 256 MB ATI X1600 will be just horrible for gaming. I mean, for crying out loud, the Alienware $2500 portable gaming monster only comes with 256 MB of system memory by default!
... it's still a Mac and they paid way more money for less computing power than the regular Windows...
If it's the same hardware, then it's the same computing power. You can install Linux on a Mac just as a Windows machine. And, again, configure the same between a PC company and a MacBook Pro, and you'll find that you're not paying 'way more' money. Maybe a little more, but as I like 'thin and light', it's worth it to me. (And, as I mentioned, if you configure an Alienware the same, it ends up significantly more expensive.) Nobody ever said Apple was a 'cheap' supplier. They're at the same level as Alienware, or Dell's XPS series. Or compare to a ThinkPad or a Sony. Those are the same 'level' of computer as a Mac. Don't compare to a Compaq or a generic.
You can't trademark a number, which is why Intel switched.
If you couldn't trademark a common word, then it wouldn't be "Microsoft Windows (TM)", "Microsoft Word (TM)", and my favorite "Microsoft Money (TM)".
Besides, nowhere on Intel's website do you see it called "Core". You see it called "Core Duo", or "Core Solo". (And what's with all the press reversing the order? It's an official name, "Core Duo", like "Athlon 64" or "Windows XP". They don't call it "XP Windows", or "64 Athlon".)
I had a fairly enlightened dad, and while we couldn't afford the then-brand-new Macintosh, we could afford a PC clone. So he bought a Leading Edge model 'D' computer. 8088 (with toggle switch in the back to swich between 'normal' 4.77 MHz and 'fast' 8 MHz,) 640 KB of RAM, dual 5.25", 360 KB floppy drives, CGA with a composite monitor, and a Microsoft Mouse. Came with MS-DOS 3.1, and we got 'Microsoft Paint' for DOS, which was pretty much identical in look and feel to 'Paint' that's still included with every copy of Windows.
A couple years later, he got a surplus IBM PC/XT from his work. It was almost the same specs, but had a 30 MB hard drive, and a Hercules monochrome graphics card. So in 1986 (or thereabouts) we became a 2 PC household. Then in 1989, my mom got a surplus Compaq Portable II from her work. Again, same basic specs, CGA card with a built-in 3-or-4 inch greenscale monitor, but this had a modem! I sat in my room BBSing all night through high school. Ah, the joy of downloading naked lady pics at 2400 baud illicitly... Waiting half an hour to view a grany pic on a tiny greenscale screen. And having chat-sex with someone that really did turn out to be female!!! (Albiet 40-something years old and pushing 300 pounds, as I later found out.) Good thing I got my own phone line, because I can't count the number of times my Freshman and Sophmore years I heard "GET OFF THE COMPUTER!" at 2 AM when my dad picked up the phone to hear modem static...
Ah, the nostalgia.
But, the first computer I bought with my own money was the Cyrix 6x86/90 just out of high school. Don't remember all of its specs, but I do remember that it replaced the Leading Edge 486/66 my dad bought later my Junior year in high school. I had spent money upgrading that 486 (Sound Blaster Pro, better VGA card, bigger hard drive, 16 MB of RAM!!!) making it essentially mine, but the Cyrix was the first one that every penny was mine.
I still have the XT and Compaq Portable, and I wish I had kept my Leading Edge 'D'. It would make a nice addition to my old computer collection. (Mostly Macs.)
FireWire 400 isn't included in the chipset, either. Intel doesn't make a FireWire controller. So for even FW400 support, they had to add a PCI-device chip; just as every notebook manufacturer does. (Only the nVidia nForce chipset includes FireWire in the main chipset.)
Putting a FireWire 800 controller in instead of the FireWire 400 controller wouldn't have been an engineering challenge at all. Apple just cheaped out. (This way they only have to provide a single, cheaper, FW400 port, saving cost on both the controller and the ports.)
Again, FireWire isn't in the chipset anyway. Nobody has to custom produce squat. Apple could have used a third-party FireWire 800 controller chip instead of the third-party FireWire 400 controller chip, and it wouldn't have affected engineering at all. It only affects production, in the added cost of the raw parts.
Yeah, I actually said "it's legal" in my original draft, but then after previewing, changed it to the "I would consider..." (In addition to other black-and-white statements changed to be opinion.)
CDs would be legal, DVDs wouldn't (although if you digitized from a VHS tape, it would,) and I don't think the legality of transferring an Apple ID has properly been tested yet.
A "brand new" 60-gigabyte video iPod loaded with 10,000 songs plus more than 50 movies and TV shows, including the three Matrix movies and the first four seasons of 24. In the listing, the seller says the buyer "must already own all of the music and DVDs.... If not, they must delete them as soon as they receive it in the mail." The item sold for $551 on Monday.
Now, just like with laptops that come loaded with $10,000 worth of software "for demo purposes only, if you don't own the license, you must remove it upon receipt," this is copyright violation, and, by definition, piracy.
The iPod sold for $152 more than an equivalent 'blank' iPod. Therefore, someone was willing to pay a premium for the added content. Therefore, the seller made money off of the content that they put on the iPod, in violation of the copyright holder's rights. That meets the FBI's definition of piracy.
Now, if the seller instead says "GIve me a list of your TV shows/movies/music, and I'll pre-load your iPod with that for you," it's a lot more gray. That is at least nominally only including content for which the recipeint has the legal rights to use. But selling it with stuff preloaded, and saying "you must remove..." is shipping it with infringing material, then telling the recipient to do something active to become legal.
I'm not one who believes 'IP theft' is anywhere near the same as physical property theft; but this is roughly the analog of selling someone a car with a stolen stereo in it, and saying "Upon receipt of this car, you must turn the stereo in to the proper authorities." You're still selling stolen merchandise. (I think this is the first time I've found an 'IP theft vs. propterty theft' analogy appropriate!)
I have no problem with people who want to commit 'civil disobedience' by breaking copyright for personal use. But the moment you have monetary gain, it's no longer okay. That's not 'fair use' any more.
If you include the source material (CDs, DVDs, or Apple account media was purchased with from the iTunes Music Store,) then I would consider it 100% legal.
Yup. I get +1 for being in the US (G8), and -2 for cheating and having the same card twice in the poker hand (Ace of Clubs.) Zero points in every other category.
Yes, I'm sure. They're sent to 'Dave'. I'm not Dave. There is obvious direct email to 'Dave', repeatedly. It's not a boo-boo from the sender. It's email going to the wrong place. I have yet to see one that is in reply to one Dave sent, so replies must go only to the right place.
It includes confidential information (web site admin usernames and passwords, in non-form-letters sent to 'Dave'.)
I've had an address in the form xxx.yyy@gmail.com for a long time. I picked it because I liked the separation. I don't even know if xxxyyy@gmail.com was taken before I registered. But I know that someone else (named Dave) has xxxyyy@gmail.com, because i receive his messages, including ones with private information, like web site admin login/password combos, which would give me access to billing information.
Already has happened. Two days ago, I got a set of username/password combos for a CHILDCARE website that isn't mine. I have xxx.yyy@gmail.com, it was sent to xxxyyy@gmail.com (addresses changed to protect the innocent.) This login information can be used to access billing information (according to the email.) If I was dishonest, I could do some VERY bad things with this info.
The only problem is if Google has been allowing people to register addresses that differ only because of the position of periods.
They have. I have the address prius.driver@gmail.com, and someone else has priusdriver@gmail.com. I get some spam that is sent to 'priusdriver@gmail.com', and have once gotten legitimate messages (billing messages, with credit card information in them!)
Obviously, I don't use mine for sensitive information. But the other guy still does. (I have sent him/her/whatever messages warning him, but just yesterday I got an email with username/password combos for some secure website of his.
(The reason I'm posting my email address is so that if he's choosing to ignore my warnings, and he reads Slashdot, maybe he'll be more cautious now.)
Re:Marry Had a Little Lamb
on
Scanjet Music
·
· Score: 1
I miss the old 'real' touch tone phones. For those few slashdotters that don't know, the 'touch tones' (properly called DTMF tones,) are really chords of two different tones. The chord is produced by the tone of the row combined with the tone of the column. (So 1, 2, and 3 share one of their two tones, and 1, 4, 7, and * share another tone. Those two tones combined produce the '1' chord.) On some older touch-tone phones, pressing two buttons that share a tone would produce that single tone, rather than the more grating chord. So pushing 1 and 2 (or 1 and 3, or 2 and 3,) would produce the 'top row tone'; 4 and 5 (or 4 and 6 or 5 and 6,) would produce the 'second row tone', 1 and 4 (or 1/7, 1/*, 4/7, 4/*) would produce the 'left column tone', etc. Ironically, it required 'chording' the buttons to produce a non-chord. Pressing two buttons that don't share a tone (like 1 and 5,) would be silent.
Mary Had A Little Lamb sounded much better when played with 7/8, 4/5, 1/2, and */0. (I'll use just the first number in each row: 7 4 1 4 7 7 7, 4 4 4, 7 * *, 7 4 1 4 7 7 7 7 4 4 7 4 1.)
But the partners will continue their 50-50 ownership of the MSNBC Web site, which, partly as a consequence of its affiliation with Microsoft, is the most-used news site on the Internet.
Emphasis mine
Wow. They made a point of pointing out that MSNBC.com is only #1 because it's Microsoft. Sounds like sour grapes to me. New York Times is just pissed that THEY'RE not number one. (Well, if they were to get rid of the stupid registration requirement just to read a frickin' story, they might be.)
Now, while Google Dashboard plugins can be called 'widgets', what was the point of including that sentence at the end? Yes, I see it was a quote from the original article, and it's just as oddly placed there, but it is even more odd here.
"Microsoft releases Windows Vista. Microsoft rival Apple also offers an OS."
"Honda releases new Civic Hybrid. Honda rival Toyota also offers a hybrid."
"Devil offers Eve an Apple. Devil rival God also offers knowledge."
I mean, really. Did the reporter just HAVE to find a way to include Google in this story? Maybe a bit of commentary "Yahoo rival Google offers Widgets through their more extensible Google Dashboard" or something, but just 'Google too!' is a bit odd.
Sadly, the XB360 core proc was designed for gaming use, and is lacking in features that would make it useful for a general-purpose computer. Most notably, it's vector support only contains a subset of the 'AltiVec' command set. (It would be faster than a 3.2 GHz triple-core G3, but in all likelihood would benchmark slower than a dual-core 2.5GHz G5.)
And if they can make a triple-core 3.2 GHz chip that goes into a $300 gaming system, why are they only providing a dual-core 2.5GHz chip for a $3000 Apple system? It isn't about the cost Apple is willing to pay. They'll be paying Intel a pretty penny for Intel's chips, too. It's about Jobs' ego. The fact that they promised Apple 3GHz by a year and a half ago, and are only providing 2.7GHz single, or 2.5GHz dual core, while providing Microsoft with a 3.2GHz TRIPLE core proc based on the same basic technology. Yeah, it's not the same, but it's the fact that IBM seems to be more interested in providing custom-built solutions for Sony and Microsoft than providing open-standards solutions for Apple. (Heck, IBM sells the PPC970 in their own products, you'd think they'd have a vested interest in getting the 970 as fast as possible, which would have kept Apple happy.)
(Even if MS is truly taking a loss on the XB360, as rumors say, there's no way the processor alone would be expensive enough to justify Apple not being willing to pay for it, when Intel sells some processors that are more than $1000, including processors that could quite logically end up in Apple systems, such as the new dual-core Xeon, which in its top configuration, runs almost $2000 per chip!)
I mean, the plot was followable, interesting, and had a 'social message'. The acting was good, the effects were good. And it kept me interested the whole time.
I mean, I found it easier to follow than the original Æon Flux cartoon on MTV.
MPEG-2 is a horrible codec by modern standards. If you're ripping from DVD, you get the best quality not by ripping to lower-bitrate MPEG-2. (So squeezing a dual-layer DVD in to a 4.7GB DVD is a HORRIBLE way to rip a DVD.) You want to use a more efficient codec, such as DivX or H.264. Then, you can have 99% of the quality in 33% the file space. (Not that I'd violate the DMCA and do this, mind you.:-) But, for example, my uh, home movies, yeah, my home movies, look better in 1500kb/s H.264 than they do in 5000kb/s MPEG-2.
That's funny. Neither Oregon State nor Portland State are on the list.
Hrm. A close friend of mine is a CS graduate from Oregon State, and is currently taking 'Classical Languages' at Portland State. Maybe she should sign up. Oh, wait... Her 'Classical Languages' program is Greek and Latin, not Pascal and Ada. (Yes, she has a CS degree, and is now pursuing archaeology as a career.)
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, neither did Scaled Composites, yet they managed spaceflight WITH their prototype.
Come on, it's not like this is... uh... Rocket........... sci...
Nevermind.
I switched to T-Mobile about a year ago, and got one of their crappy free camera phones.
The cameras in those suck. And it didn't have Bluetooth, and even over USB it wouldn't sync with my Mac. So I went on craigslist, and found someone who was wanting a camera phone, and willing to trade for an N-Gage. I knew what an N-Gage was, I knew that even then, it had become a commercial failure. But it is a Symbian OS smartphone, with Bluetooth, that syncs with the Mac. Sure, whatever, I traded. He even threw in a second phone that he had bought as a spare.
Well, as a TELEPHONE, it sucks. The form factor is horrible. (It looks like you're holding a gray taco to your ear.) But I use my Bluetooth headset 95% of the time, so that isn't that big a deal.
As a smartphone, though... I think Symbian is the best smartphone OS out there now, after playing with 'Windows Smartphone', 'Windows Mobile' with phone features, and Palm-based phones. It just rocks. Heck, it even transfers the pictures from my desktop address book.
As for games? Well, the phone came with a dozen or so games (the guy was an avid N-Gage fan, but apparently lost all interest,) and most of them are pretty crappy. The graphics are slightly better than an a Game Boy Advance, and it does do 'real' 3D, but the games all seem to be overly simplified. I am a big fan of the 'pen-and-paper' RPG Rifts, but haven't gotten around to buying the Rifts game for N-Gage yet. From all the reviews, I should like it, though.
On a related note, I seem to be destined to buy obsolete/abandoned/whatever game systems, as last December I bought myself a clearance-priced Tapwave Zodiac, the Palm-based game machine made by a now-bankrupt company. It makes a kick-ass Palm, and is a much better game machine than the N-Gage, way better than the Game Boy Advance, but just can't hold a candle to the DS or PSP.
Whoops, forgot the link!
If you happen to own a Toyota that uses their 'Smart Key System', their Smart Watch.
(It's for their high-end 'Crown' model in Japan, rougly analogous to the Avalon in the U.S. The Avalon and the Prius in the U.S. do have Smart Key as an option. But not the watch.)
Where do all these other top-level posters get their information?
w ww.gcsextreme.com/agpfaq.htm for more info. (Sorry, Slashdot's code doesn't want to let me make that into a proper link, it breaks it into 'archive.org' and 'gcsextreme.com' segments, you'll have to copy and paste, then remove the space yourself.)
AGP is a subset of PCI. The original AGP spec (1.0) defined a dedicated slot with a 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI connection directly to the Northbridge, plus the ability to directly access main memory more quickly than conventional DMA allowed. AGP 2x then increased speed by using a double data rate system, similar to DDR memory, transferring two data chunks per clock cycle.
AGP 4x then added a quad data rate connection, Fast Writes (the ability to write to main memory out of normal order,) and Direct Memory Execute (the ability for the AGP card to execute directly out of main memory, rather than having to load into on-board memory first.)
AGP 8x just oct-data rate'd it. It's still 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI, though.
But, either way, AGP *IS* a PCI connection. Fully compliant with PCI 2.1, with full bandwidth in each direction.
There are/were bridge chips that converted the AGP connection into one or more PCI slots, which would become fully-compliant PCI 32-bit, 66 MHz slots. These bridge chips were sometimes used on lower-end server motherboards with onboard PCI video, as a cheaper alternative to adding a separate 64-bit PCI controller. They could be found on products from Intel (L440GX,) and others.
BUT, since it is only 32-bit, you're limited to a 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI connection. PCI-X requires 64-bit for its faster bus speeds. That means that there are no bridge chips that will give you anything better than a 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI 2.1 connection. You can run multiple cards off this connection (As the Intel board listed above did,) but just as with 'regular' PCI, you are sharing the speed among all the cards.
But, any 66 MHz PCI card (or any correctly backwards-compatible PCI-X card,) would take advantage of the doubled speed over 33 MHz PCI, though.
See http://web.archive.org/web/20040205095311/http://
Sorry, not quite true. AGP is a 100% spec PCI 2.1 interface, just pumped up in speed, then with a couple of nice add-ons added. (Direct Memory Execute, for one.) On some server motherboards, you will see the AGP slot replaced with one or more higher-speed PCI slots. (I haven't seen it too much recently, but Intel used to sell the L440GX board that had two 66 MHz PCI slots that were run off the AGP controller, in addition to the 33 MHz PCI slots off the Southbridge. But this was back in the Pentium II days.)
Wow. That's the biggest bit of flamebait I've seen in a long time... Let's break it down, point by point.
While AMD is indeed outselling Intel in the 'retail desktop' market, there is nothing 'traditional' about this, it's a recent turn of events. And by most counts, the Pentium-M and Core Duo are at least a match for the latest AMDs. Yes, the Pentium 4/Pentium D suck. That's why Intel is abandoning that core.
Ah, AMD fanboy speak. I'm sorry, but Core Duo simply spanks any available AMD mobile solution. Check out some reviews (Core Duo 2 GHz, ATI X1400 scores 2092 3DMark05's, and... Oh, wait, I can't find any reviews of a dual-core mobile AMD with current-generation graphics... Sorry. The best I could find was 1203 3DMark05's for a 1.6 GHz Turion with AMD X700 graphics. I looked for over half an hour. Only one review of an AMD-equipped laptop without integrated graphics. And AMD doesn't offer dual-core mobile at any price.
possibly? You can choose the amount of RAM you want... Better integrated graphics? Look again. Apple has X1600 at 128 or 256 MB of VRAM. I only found one non-chipset graphics on an AMD notebook, and it was 64 MB X700. Although I did find an Alienware with a desktop processor and video chip for significantly more than a MacBook Pro (when configured with the slowest dual-core processor, and all other specs equal to the MacBook.)
Yes, and most of the customizations are necessary to bring it to the minimum level of the MacBook; and my 2.0 GHz Core Duo and 256 MB ATI X1600 will be just horrible for gaming. I mean, for crying out loud, the Alienware $2500 portable gaming monster only comes with 256 MB of system memory by default!
If it's the same hardware, then it's the same computing power. You can install Linux on a Mac just as a Windows machine. And, again, configure the same between a PC company and a MacBook Pro, and you'll find that you're not paying 'way more' money. Maybe a little more, but as I like 'thin and light', it's worth it to me. (And, as I mentioned, if you configure an Alienware the same, it ends up significantly more expensive.) Nobody ever said Apple was a 'cheap' supplier. They're at the same level as Alienware, or Dell's XPS series. Or compare to a ThinkPad or a Sony. Those are the same 'level' of computer as a Mac. Don't compare to a Compaq or a generic.
You can't trademark a number, which is why Intel switched.
If you couldn't trademark a common word, then it wouldn't be "Microsoft Windows (TM)", "Microsoft Word (TM)", and my favorite "Microsoft Money (TM)".
Besides, nowhere on Intel's website do you see it called "Core". You see it called "Core Duo", or "Core Solo". (And what's with all the press reversing the order? It's an official name, "Core Duo", like "Athlon 64" or "Windows XP". They don't call it "XP Windows", or "64 Athlon".)
I had a fairly enlightened dad, and while we couldn't afford the then-brand-new Macintosh, we could afford a PC clone. So he bought a Leading Edge model 'D' computer. 8088 (with toggle switch in the back to swich between 'normal' 4.77 MHz and 'fast' 8 MHz,) 640 KB of RAM, dual 5.25", 360 KB floppy drives, CGA with a composite monitor, and a Microsoft Mouse. Came with MS-DOS 3.1, and we got 'Microsoft Paint' for DOS, which was pretty much identical in look and feel to 'Paint' that's still included with every copy of Windows.
A couple years later, he got a surplus IBM PC/XT from his work. It was almost the same specs, but had a 30 MB hard drive, and a Hercules monochrome graphics card. So in 1986 (or thereabouts) we became a 2 PC household. Then in 1989, my mom got a surplus Compaq Portable II from her work. Again, same basic specs, CGA card with a built-in 3-or-4 inch greenscale monitor, but this had a modem! I sat in my room BBSing all night through high school. Ah, the joy of downloading naked lady pics at 2400 baud illicitly... Waiting half an hour to view a grany pic on a tiny greenscale screen. And having chat-sex with someone that really did turn out to be female!!! (Albiet 40-something years old and pushing 300 pounds, as I later found out.) Good thing I got my own phone line, because I can't count the number of times my Freshman and Sophmore years I heard "GET OFF THE COMPUTER!" at 2 AM when my dad picked up the phone to hear modem static...
Ah, the nostalgia.
But, the first computer I bought with my own money was the Cyrix 6x86/90 just out of high school. Don't remember all of its specs, but I do remember that it replaced the Leading Edge 486/66 my dad bought later my Junior year in high school. I had spent money upgrading that 486 (Sound Blaster Pro, better VGA card, bigger hard drive, 16 MB of RAM!!!) making it essentially mine, but the Cyrix was the first one that every penny was mine.
I still have the XT and Compaq Portable, and I wish I had kept my Leading Edge 'D'. It would make a nice addition to my old computer collection. (Mostly Macs.)
FireWire 400 isn't included in the chipset, either. Intel doesn't make a FireWire controller. So for even FW400 support, they had to add a PCI-device chip; just as every notebook manufacturer does. (Only the nVidia nForce chipset includes FireWire in the main chipset.)
Putting a FireWire 800 controller in instead of the FireWire 400 controller wouldn't have been an engineering challenge at all. Apple just cheaped out. (This way they only have to provide a single, cheaper, FW400 port, saving cost on both the controller and the ports.)
Again, FireWire isn't in the chipset anyway. Nobody has to custom produce squat. Apple could have used a third-party FireWire 800 controller chip instead of the third-party FireWire 400 controller chip, and it wouldn't have affected engineering at all. It only affects production, in the added cost of the raw parts.
Yeah, I actually said "it's legal" in my original draft, but then after previewing, changed it to the "I would consider..." (In addition to other black-and-white statements changed to be opinion.)
CDs would be legal, DVDs wouldn't (although if you digitized from a VHS tape, it would,) and I don't think the legality of transferring an Apple ID has properly been tested yet.
IANAL, but...
Now, just like with laptops that come loaded with $10,000 worth of software "for demo purposes only, if you don't own the license, you must remove it upon receipt," this is copyright violation, and, by definition, piracy.
The iPod sold for $152 more than an equivalent 'blank' iPod. Therefore, someone was willing to pay a premium for the added content. Therefore, the seller made money off of the content that they put on the iPod, in violation of the copyright holder's rights. That meets the FBI's definition of piracy.
Now, if the seller instead says "GIve me a list of your TV shows/movies/music, and I'll pre-load your iPod with that for you," it's a lot more gray. That is at least nominally only including content for which the recipeint has the legal rights to use. But selling it with stuff preloaded, and saying "you must remove..." is shipping it with infringing material, then telling the recipient to do something active to become legal.
I'm not one who believes 'IP theft' is anywhere near the same as physical property theft; but this is roughly the analog of selling someone a car with a stolen stereo in it, and saying "Upon receipt of this car, you must turn the stereo in to the proper authorities." You're still selling stolen merchandise. (I think this is the first time I've found an 'IP theft vs. propterty theft' analogy appropriate!)
I have no problem with people who want to commit 'civil disobedience' by breaking copyright for personal use. But the moment you have monetary gain, it's no longer okay. That's not 'fair use' any more.
If you include the source material (CDs, DVDs, or Apple account media was purchased with from the iTunes Music Store,) then I would consider it 100% legal.
Yup. I get +1 for being in the US (G8), and -2 for cheating and having the same card twice in the poker hand (Ace of Clubs.) Zero points in every other category.
Yes, I'm sure. They're sent to 'Dave'. I'm not Dave. There is obvious direct email to 'Dave', repeatedly. It's not a boo-boo from the sender. It's email going to the wrong place. I have yet to see one that is in reply to one Dave sent, so replies must go only to the right place.
It includes confidential information (web site admin usernames and passwords, in non-form-letters sent to 'Dave'.)
I've had an address in the form xxx.yyy@gmail.com for a long time. I picked it because I liked the separation. I don't even know if xxxyyy@gmail.com was taken before I registered. But I know that someone else (named Dave) has xxxyyy@gmail.com, because i receive his messages, including ones with private information, like web site admin login/password combos, which would give me access to billing information.
Already has happened. Two days ago, I got a set of username/password combos for a CHILDCARE website that isn't mine. I have xxx.yyy@gmail.com, it was sent to xxxyyy@gmail.com (addresses changed to protect the innocent.) This login information can be used to access billing information (according to the email.) If I was dishonest, I could do some VERY bad things with this info.
They have. I have the address prius.driver@gmail.com, and someone else has priusdriver@gmail.com. I get some spam that is sent to 'priusdriver@gmail.com', and have once gotten legitimate messages (billing messages, with credit card information in them!)
Obviously, I don't use mine for sensitive information. But the other guy still does. (I have sent him/her/whatever messages warning him, but just yesterday I got an email with username/password combos for some secure website of his.
(The reason I'm posting my email address is so that if he's choosing to ignore my warnings, and he reads Slashdot, maybe he'll be more cautious now.)
I miss the old 'real' touch tone phones. For those few slashdotters that don't know, the 'touch tones' (properly called DTMF tones,) are really chords of two different tones. The chord is produced by the tone of the row combined with the tone of the column. (So 1, 2, and 3 share one of their two tones, and 1, 4, 7, and * share another tone. Those two tones combined produce the '1' chord.) On some older touch-tone phones, pressing two buttons that share a tone would produce that single tone, rather than the more grating chord. So pushing 1 and 2 (or 1 and 3, or 2 and 3,) would produce the 'top row tone'; 4 and 5 (or 4 and 6 or 5 and 6,) would produce the 'second row tone', 1 and 4 (or 1/7, 1/*, 4/7, 4/*) would produce the 'left column tone', etc. Ironically, it required 'chording' the buttons to produce a non-chord. Pressing two buttons that don't share a tone (like 1 and 5,) would be silent.
Mary Had A Little Lamb sounded much better when played with 7/8, 4/5, 1/2, and */0. (I'll use just the first number in each row: 7 4 1 4 7 7 7, 4 4 4, 7 * *, 7 4 1 4 7 7 7 7 4 4 7 4 1.)
Wow. They made a point of pointing out that MSNBC.com is only #1 because it's Microsoft. Sounds like sour grapes to me. New York Times is just pissed that THEY'RE not number one. (Well, if they were to get rid of the stupid registration requirement just to read a frickin' story, they might be.)
I bet the "Adam Savage" on Mythbusters is a TV pseudonym, and that it used to be Jamie's pseudonym. Which leads to... What's Adam's real name?
Now, while Google Dashboard plugins can be called 'widgets', what was the point of including that sentence at the end? Yes, I see it was a quote from the original article, and it's just as oddly placed there, but it is even more odd here.
"Microsoft releases Windows Vista. Microsoft rival Apple also offers an OS."
"Honda releases new Civic Hybrid. Honda rival Toyota also offers a hybrid."
"Devil offers Eve an Apple. Devil rival God also offers knowledge."
I mean, really. Did the reporter just HAVE to find a way to include Google in this story? Maybe a bit of commentary "Yahoo rival Google offers Widgets through their more extensible Google Dashboard" or something, but just 'Google too!' is a bit odd.
Sadly, the XB360 core proc was designed for gaming use, and is lacking in features that would make it useful for a general-purpose computer. Most notably, it's vector support only contains a subset of the 'AltiVec' command set. (It would be faster than a 3.2 GHz triple-core G3, but in all likelihood would benchmark slower than a dual-core 2.5GHz G5.)
And if they can make a triple-core 3.2 GHz chip that goes into a $300 gaming system, why are they only providing a dual-core 2.5GHz chip for a $3000 Apple system? It isn't about the cost Apple is willing to pay. They'll be paying Intel a pretty penny for Intel's chips, too. It's about Jobs' ego. The fact that they promised Apple 3GHz by a year and a half ago, and are only providing 2.7GHz single, or 2.5GHz dual core, while providing Microsoft with a 3.2GHz TRIPLE core proc based on the same basic technology. Yeah, it's not the same, but it's the fact that IBM seems to be more interested in providing custom-built solutions for Sony and Microsoft than providing open-standards solutions for Apple. (Heck, IBM sells the PPC970 in their own products, you'd think they'd have a vested interest in getting the 970 as fast as possible, which would have kept Apple happy.)
(Even if MS is truly taking a loss on the XB360, as rumors say, there's no way the processor alone would be expensive enough to justify Apple not being willing to pay for it, when Intel sells some processors that are more than $1000, including processors that could quite logically end up in Apple systems, such as the new dual-core Xeon, which in its top configuration, runs almost $2000 per chip!)
I mean, the plot was followable, interesting, and had a 'social message'. The acting was good, the effects were good. And it kept me interested the whole time.
I mean, I found it easier to follow than the original Æon Flux cartoon on MTV.
MPEG-2 is a horrible codec by modern standards. If you're ripping from DVD, you get the best quality not by ripping to lower-bitrate MPEG-2. (So squeezing a dual-layer DVD in to a 4.7GB DVD is a HORRIBLE way to rip a DVD.) You want to use a more efficient codec, such as DivX or H.264. Then, you can have 99% of the quality in 33% the file space. (Not that I'd violate the DMCA and do this, mind you. :-) But, for example, my uh, home movies, yeah, my home movies, look better in 1500kb/s H.264 than they do in 5000kb/s MPEG-2.
That's funny. Neither Oregon State nor Portland State are on the list.
Hrm. A close friend of mine is a CS graduate from Oregon State, and is currently taking 'Classical Languages' at Portland State. Maybe she should sign up. Oh, wait... Her 'Classical Languages' program is Greek and Latin, not Pascal and Ada. (Yes, she has a CS degree, and is now pursuing archaeology as a career.)