How is this not equally your fault for buying/using/tolerating drm encumbered media?
Probably because, like the average buyer, he didn't realise this until four months down the road. Most people don't notice or care about the DRM until it screws them doing something legitimate.
Hrmph. Call me when the switch in question is tied to a massive, mad scientist-quality switch, clearly labeled in big letters with "LINUX" on one side, "WINDOWS" on the other. It should also make a satisfying mechanical switching noise whenever I pull it. And if you can make lightning crack outside my window every time, that'd be nice, too.
We also had phone service with them for a bit. When I set it up, I specifically asked for unlimited calling to Canada, and was assured it was on the plan. I called back again for another reason, and was again assured that I had unlimited calling to Canada. Next month's bill? $1200. They had not added unlimited calling to Canada. It took me about a half-dozen calls to sort it out, during which time I was told that it was impossible for me to talk to anyone who was capable of modifying my bill, because "they don't have phone numbers."
Until you see it on paper, don't assume it is the case. I have made the same mistake, of not having it in writing, and what you have in writing trumps what ever the company may later say verbally. Something else also worth doing, once suggested by a phone operator, is getting the reference of the operator, so if you do have issues you can specify who game you the information.
With this attitude I now ask for any operator trying to sell me something I may be interested in to send me the details in writing, and only then will I consider signing up for the service. I don't like pressure selling tactics.
But as this story points out, there are factors other than "best reception" than can weigh into which tower is best to connect to. Looking at only one factor in a multi-dimensional problem is a poor design.
This is where having a GPS could have helped, to an extent, since with that the phone would have the information to decide where it is and therefore which tower to use. I say to an extent, since if you are in a situation where GPS can get a signal, such inside a building, then the phone is going to have to make a best guess.
Then again a simpler solution is simply to have cell phone towers broadcast country ID and then have you phone using the tower that matches your subscription country ID, after checking for subscriber's company, but before using a tower which is considered 'roaming'.
A garbage collector is no silver bullet. It will protect you against hard leaks, but not logical leaks within your program.
You'd better design your resource management in terms of ownership from the start.
I real life equivalent to this would be a tidy house and a house which is a mess. You employ a cleaner to throw out the rubbish, and (s)he will spend much less effort in the tidy house, than the messy one, after all who is decide what is rubbish and what isn't?
Yes... all you say is true, but it's what you are not saying that is what disqualifies a GC'd language for being a successor for C or C++.
C and C++ are used for: 1. Kernels. 2. Video codecs. 3. Video games. 4. Embedded programming.
I will go with and say definitely, and this goes to show that there isn't one solution for everything. For me C++ is the assembly language of today, where we need something that compiles tightly and has the highest performance possible. The examples you illustrated also tend to have predictable data paths, and hence it is much simpler to decide when an object should be freed. These examples are also the 20% of code that gets executed 80% of the time, so optimisation is crucial. As we get further from the core we are reaching the point where there is more varied user interaction, so it is not always clear what the life-cyle of object really is, and therefore who is really responsible for its deletion, and when.
At the same time, even with a high level application there are ways of making the GC's life simpler. For example allocating stuff on the stack and setting references to null where you know they aren't being used. In order for a GC to perform well it really needs to be presented with less fuzzy scenarios.
It's almost as if Ballmer threw these employees' chairs out the window and now he's billing them to replace the broken window! Good luck collecting this, Micro$oft!
There you have it the real cause of why Windows Vista doesn't work: chairs;)
Remember, succes in the consumer market is never decided on technical merit. It is about usability, interface and perception. Apple really stands out in those areas.
This is especially true if you look at the consumer market. Business tend to approach a product, asking whether it can do x,y,z, but don't care so much about the usability factor. Non-business buyers tend to approach things more from a a design and usability direction, asking whether it looks good and feels good at what it does, and "oh. it can do this too"?
Microsoft has won in business, because while some of its stuff is a usability nightmare they do check off all the boxes are doing x,y and z. Apple has entered from the "consumer" market where style and usability matters. As for the other companies, they tend to follow Microsoft's approach of checking off the functionality boxes, but failing on the one of style and design. For these companies I say: don't let you engineers design the packaging, get an industrial designer for that and be ready to take risks.
Openness is important, but it is also about being open in the right place. Microsoft says they want to be open, but they are quite willing to play the content industry's game. This has the net effect of screwing, in the wrong way, the people who would give you their money, and playing the tune on the ones who are simply playing the role of the bully. Companies screw their customers in numerous ways, but its all about screwing the customers in such a way that they don't mind - basically the customer ends up feeling that it was worth it.
To be honest, if your institution does not foot the bill for subscription, try inter-library loans. That's easy. Most credible institutions in the US do have some subscription for more mainstream journals. Unless you're in third world countries.
Anything that complicates the retrieval of knowledge ends up reducing access to that knowledge. Why should someone have to put up with manual process, when we have this things called the internet. The internet is designed to facilitate access of knowledge, so it is the tool of choice.
While some readers of papers may not understand the content fully, it is sometimes enough to start the quest of understanding. Science suffers from a lack of people entering the field, so anything that can make it easier to access knowledge makes the idea of entering less daunting. In many ways this can be seen as part of the PR process.
The other way of approaching the issue, is simply asking why journals should be the only ones allowed to publish the information? They aren't paying anyone for the content, yet they are requiring a monopoly of the publishing of the given paper.
Journals have long had the role of being the only providers of papers to the community and see their position in jeopardy. I think this new source of competition is the chance for them to see where they can matter. In my opinion journals can matter by being the filter, where the 'best' papers are published.
Just 16 screws? How does Jobs do it? That shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so during my flight to Australia.
Chances are if you have a second battery you will not be able to take it with you. There was an item on the news some time back indicating this was the case.
An unbiased lawyer's point of view really should reflect the interests of the person or party that he is meant to be defending or accusing. A judge's point of view should be to defend the law of the land and judge the merits of the defence and the accusers in this context. In many ways, just because a judge was previously a lawyer for the RIAA does not mean he will continue to support them, since they are no longer the customer and are no longer paying the former lawyer. If he is still receiving money from a previous client, then the judge should be disbarred, since they have a conflict of interest.
Oh, IANAL, so this is just an outsider's view point.
The Apple dock-connector audio-out is (as far as I am aware) raw decoded audio at max volume.
This is not really much different from line-out on many devices. Line out is not to be confused with the 3.5mm jack used for head phones which is volume controlled.
With what you are saying would this suggest that many USB power plugs simply provide 100mA and provide no support for drawing more? If this is the case, other than selecting those plugs marked as 'iPhone' ready, is there any other way of knowing if a plug is capable of providing the amount of current needed?
The other thing that I find curious is the Sony Ericsson phone I had would only charge if there was a driver for it installed on the Windows PC. I would have thought this was simply a hardware negotiation?
Yup, that would be good, or at least require them to include an adaptor in the box. The other thing that they should sort out is getting these phones to be able to recharge with any USB power plug. The iPhone and the iPod are guilty here, requiring you to buy special 'iPod' capable power adapters. Then again it could be the plug manufacturers for not wiring all the lines up in the USB portion of the plug.
What are the odds that two advanced SSBN submarines would collide in a vast ocean accidentally ?
According to the article it was probably because they use the same location. While the ocean might be huge there is a certain percentage that is is in international waters and a certain percentage of that area that appeals to the sort of training manoeuvres they make. Another factor to add in is that both these submarines are probably playing in waters that are of relatively similar distance from their home bases.
The odds are great until you start taking into account all the factors at play.
I believe they collided almost head on so unless that manoeuvre was a handbrake turn I doubt they were shadowing one another (submarines not being well known for their manoeuvrability). I suspect that it's more likely a case of wrong place at the wrong time combined with good stealth technology). Actually, this does say a bit about how good the stealth technology must be since they weren't able to passively detect one another.
While it says something about how good their stealth technology is, it also says something about how much more work needs to be done on passive detection systems. What I mean by passive detection systems is anything like an optical camera which does not need to emit anything to see something. I am not sure what technologies could be used, but while hiding is a good thing, being able to 'see' is just as important.
I think the real solution is to make the internet hard to use. The problem today is that any odd Joe can hop on and use these tubes. By ensuring that is it too damned hard to use, then only the 1337 will be using it, or if you want something that appeases to the people in control, just make it too expensive so the average Joe can't afford it. Heck I prefer the old approach where only education establishments and techies could use the net. At least there you only had people who knew what these 'tubes' were all about.;-)
IPTV is another route providers can turn to. As an example see the package offered by Free.fr (in French). For example a company such as Bell in Canada which currently offers DSL and satellite TV could provider IPTV to their customers. This is an important alternative they should be turning to, especially when you consider the number of apartment blocks that do not allow the installation of satellite dishes.
When you consider the amount of junk on TV and the amount of adverts, I am not really sure I want to be paying for a service that charges me $30+Tax+Charges for a service that matches what I can get for free, and then charges me extra for channels with ad breaks every 5-10 minutes. If TV companies want to know why people turn to torrents, then they should consider that their ad schedule somehow turns a 1 hour film into a 3 hour film, with bundled grief.
If they were working full time then it probably covered living expenses, development tools (commerical SDKs) and more. Not everyone gets to live in their parent's basement. This is why if you really like the game I would encourage you by voting with your wallet. Free is good, but it prevents developers working full time on a project.
Spend the $.41 or whateverit'satthesedays for a stamp and scribble down a short note telling them to get Aiken to STFU.
Add a disclaimer at the bottom indicating that Aiken must read the letter himself (it can't be read by his secretary to him) and that he must not move his lips while doing so. Anything else would require that he pays audio royalties to the author of the letter. He can't have it both ways.
I agree that when Starter was just for third world countries that it was basically a way to get something from users that were going to use a bootleg copy of Windows, but thanks to Netbooks folks in the first world are going to be offered the Starter edition.
I suppose if it is a choice between a crippled version of Windows or bootleg version of a full version, then I suspect the latter will be popular.
Slashdot Mirror
If I were Microsoft I'd be ashamed.
Yeah, but this is Microsoft we are talking about and this is /., so they don't really come over as a company being ashamed at anything. ;-)
How is this not equally your fault for buying/using/tolerating drm encumbered media?
Probably because, like the average buyer, he didn't realise this until four months down the road. Most people don't notice or care about the DRM until it screws them doing something legitimate.
Hrmph. Call me when the switch in question is tied to a massive, mad scientist-quality switch, clearly labeled in big letters with "LINUX" on one side, "WINDOWS" on the other. It should also make a satisfying mechanical switching noise whenever I pull it. And if you can make lightning crack outside my window every time, that'd be nice, too.
I'll get Igor to start work on that right away.
Don't worry about your recommendation. All a large company will do is confirm that you were employed.
In large companies they don't know who works for them, unless they are high up on the payroll ;)
We also had phone service with them for a bit. When I set it up, I specifically asked for unlimited calling to Canada, and was assured it was on the plan. I called back again for another reason, and was again assured that I had unlimited calling to Canada. Next month's bill? $1200. They had not added unlimited calling to Canada. It took me about a half-dozen calls to sort it out, during which time I was told that it was impossible for me to talk to anyone who was capable of modifying my bill, because "they don't have phone numbers."
Until you see it on paper, don't assume it is the case. I have made the same mistake, of not having it in writing, and what you have in writing trumps what ever the company may later say verbally. Something else also worth doing, once suggested by a phone operator, is getting the reference of the operator, so if you do have issues you can specify who game you the information.
With this attitude I now ask for any operator trying to sell me something I may be interested in to send me the details in writing, and only then will I consider signing up for the service. I don't like pressure selling tactics.
But as this story points out, there are factors other than "best reception" than can weigh into which tower is best to connect to. Looking at only one factor in a multi-dimensional problem is a poor design.
This is where having a GPS could have helped, to an extent, since with that the phone would have the information to decide where it is and therefore which tower to use. I say to an extent, since if you are in a situation where GPS can get a signal, such inside a building, then the phone is going to have to make a best guess.
Then again a simpler solution is simply to have cell phone towers broadcast country ID and then have you phone using the tower that matches your subscription country ID, after checking for subscriber's company, but before using a tower which is considered 'roaming'.
A garbage collector is no silver bullet. It will protect you against hard leaks, but not logical leaks within your program.
You'd better design your resource management in terms of ownership from the start.
I real life equivalent to this would be a tidy house and a house which is a mess. You employ a cleaner to throw out the rubbish, and (s)he will spend much less effort in the tidy house, than the messy one, after all who is decide what is rubbish and what isn't?
Yes... all you say is true, but it's what you are not saying that is what disqualifies a GC'd language for being a successor for C or C++.
C and C++ are used for:
1. Kernels.
2. Video codecs.
3. Video games.
4. Embedded programming.
I will go with and say definitely, and this goes to show that there isn't one solution for everything. For me C++ is the assembly language of today, where we need something that compiles tightly and has the highest performance possible. The examples you illustrated also tend to have predictable data paths, and hence it is much simpler to decide when an object should be freed. These examples are also the 20% of code that gets executed 80% of the time, so optimisation is crucial. As we get further from the core we are reaching the point where there is more varied user interaction, so it is not always clear what the life-cyle of object really is, and therefore who is really responsible for its deletion, and when.
At the same time, even with a high level application there are ways of making the GC's life simpler. For example allocating stuff on the stack and setting references to null where you know they aren't being used. In order for a GC to perform well it really needs to be presented with less fuzzy scenarios.
It's almost as if Ballmer threw these employees' chairs out the window and now he's billing them to replace the broken window! Good luck collecting this, Micro$oft!
There you have it the real cause of why Windows Vista doesn't work: chairs ;)
Remember, succes in the consumer market is never decided on technical merit. It is about usability, interface and perception. Apple really stands out in those areas.
This is especially true if you look at the consumer market. Business tend to approach a product, asking whether it can do x,y,z, but don't care so much about the usability factor. Non-business buyers tend to approach things more from a a design and usability direction, asking whether it looks good and feels good at what it does, and "oh. it can do this too"?
Microsoft has won in business, because while some of its stuff is a usability nightmare they do check off all the boxes are doing x,y and z. Apple has entered from the "consumer" market where style and usability matters. As for the other companies, they tend to follow Microsoft's approach of checking off the functionality boxes, but failing on the one of style and design. For these companies I say: don't let you engineers design the packaging, get an industrial designer for that and be ready to take risks.
Openness is important, but it is also about being open in the right place. Microsoft says they want to be open, but they are quite willing to play the content industry's game. This has the net effect of screwing, in the wrong way, the people who would give you their money, and playing the tune on the ones who are simply playing the role of the bully. Companies screw their customers in numerous ways, but its all about screwing the customers in such a way that they don't mind - basically the customer ends up feeling that it was worth it.
To be honest, if your institution does not foot the bill for subscription, try inter-library loans. That's easy. Most credible institutions in the US do have some subscription for more mainstream journals. Unless you're in third world countries.
Anything that complicates the retrieval of knowledge ends up reducing access to that knowledge. Why should someone have to put up with manual process, when we have this things called the internet. The internet is designed to facilitate access of knowledge, so it is the tool of choice.
While some readers of papers may not understand the content fully, it is sometimes enough to start the quest of understanding. Science suffers from a lack of people entering the field, so anything that can make it easier to access knowledge makes the idea of entering less daunting. In many ways this can be seen as part of the PR process.
The other way of approaching the issue, is simply asking why journals should be the only ones allowed to publish the information? They aren't paying anyone for the content, yet they are requiring a monopoly of the publishing of the given paper.
Journals have long had the role of being the only providers of papers to the community and see their position in jeopardy. I think this new source of competition is the chance for them to see where they can matter. In my opinion journals can matter by being the filter, where the 'best' papers are published.
Just 16 screws? How does Jobs do it? That shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so during my flight to Australia.
Chances are if you have a second battery you will not be able to take it with you. There was an item on the news some time back indicating this was the case.
An unbiased lawyer's point of view really should reflect the interests of the person or party that he is meant to be defending or accusing. A judge's point of view should be to defend the law of the land and judge the merits of the defence and the accusers in this context. In many ways, just because a judge was previously a lawyer for the RIAA does not mean he will continue to support them, since they are no longer the customer and are no longer paying the former lawyer. If he is still receiving money from a previous client, then the judge should be disbarred, since they have a conflict of interest.
Oh, IANAL, so this is just an outsider's view point.
The Apple dock-connector audio-out is (as far as I am aware) raw decoded audio at max volume.
This is not really much different from line-out on many devices. Line out is not to be confused with the 3.5mm jack used for head phones which is volume controlled.
With what you are saying would this suggest that many USB power plugs simply provide 100mA and provide no support for drawing more? If this is the case, other than selecting those plugs marked as 'iPhone' ready, is there any other way of knowing if a plug is capable of providing the amount of current needed?
The other thing that I find curious is the Sony Ericsson phone I had would only charge if there was a driver for it installed on the Windows PC. I would have thought this was simply a hardware negotiation?
You mean like USB and, I dunno... maybe mini-USB?
Yup, that would be good, or at least require them to include an adaptor in the box. The other thing that they should sort out is getting these phones to be able to recharge with any USB power plug. The iPhone and the iPod are guilty here, requiring you to buy special 'iPod' capable power adapters. Then again it could be the plug manufacturers for not wiring all the lines up in the USB portion of the plug.
What are the odds that two advanced SSBN submarines would collide in a vast ocean accidentally ?
According to the article it was probably because they use the same location. While the ocean might be huge there is a certain percentage that is is in international waters and a certain percentage of that area that appeals to the sort of training manoeuvres they make. Another factor to add in is that both these submarines are probably playing in waters that are of relatively similar distance from their home bases.
The odds are great until you start taking into account all the factors at play.
I believe they collided almost head on so unless that manoeuvre was a handbrake turn I doubt they were shadowing one another (submarines not being well known for their manoeuvrability). I suspect that it's more likely a case of wrong place at the wrong time combined with good stealth technology). Actually, this does say a bit about how good the stealth technology must be since they weren't able to passively detect one another.
While it says something about how good their stealth technology is, it also says something about how much more work needs to be done on passive detection systems. What I mean by passive detection systems is anything like an optical camera which does not need to emit anything to see something. I am not sure what technologies could be used, but while hiding is a good thing, being able to 'see' is just as important.
I think the real solution is to make the internet hard to use. The problem today is that any odd Joe can hop on and use these tubes. By ensuring that is it too damned hard to use, then only the 1337 will be using it, or if you want something that appeases to the people in control, just make it too expensive so the average Joe can't afford it. Heck I prefer the old approach where only education establishments and techies could use the net. At least there you only had people who knew what these 'tubes' were all about. ;-)
IPTV is another route providers can turn to. As an example see the package offered by Free.fr (in French). For example a company such as Bell in Canada which currently offers DSL and satellite TV could provider IPTV to their customers. This is an important alternative they should be turning to, especially when you consider the number of apartment blocks that do not allow the installation of satellite dishes.
When you consider the amount of junk on TV and the amount of adverts, I am not really sure I want to be paying for a service that charges me $30+Tax+Charges for a service that matches what I can get for free, and then charges me extra for channels with ad breaks every 5-10 minutes. If TV companies want to know why people turn to torrents, then they should consider that their ad schedule somehow turns a 1 hour film into a 3 hour film, with bundled grief.
I'm curious what they spent the $10K on
If they were working full time then it probably covered living expenses, development tools (commerical SDKs) and more. Not everyone gets to live in their parent's basement. This is why if you really like the game I would encourage you by voting with your wallet. Free is good, but it prevents developers working full time on a project.
Spend the $.41 or whateverit'satthesedays for a stamp and scribble down a short note telling them to get Aiken to STFU.
Add a disclaimer at the bottom indicating that Aiken must read the letter himself (it can't be read by his secretary to him) and that he must not move his lips while doing so. Anything else would require that he pays audio royalties to the author of the letter. He can't have it both ways.
I can understand the poster making one typo, afterall, 8 IS next to 9, but three typos seems a bit extreme
Well, at least they were consistent.
When you do work out what the root cause was, I am sure we would all like to find out what it was, so please post an update when you can.
I agree that when Starter was just for third world countries that it was basically a way to get something from users that were going to use a bootleg copy of Windows, but thanks to Netbooks folks in the first world are going to be offered the Starter edition.
I suppose if it is a choice between a crippled version of Windows or bootleg version of a full version, then I suspect the latter will be popular.