What a spin:"[T]he only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music -- especially CDs.' This is despite years of iTunes promotion and apparent success."
The success is not apparent, it is real. They are making real money from real people. I would say: "Considering that only 20 tracks are from iTunes, then the potential for growth is huge because doubling everyone's purchases simply means convincing them to spend an extra 20$".
Objective-C has no template system. This is a huge advantage for C++.
This is interesting because C++ has templates only because it needs them and Objective-C doesn't have them because there is no need. For instance, you can't have a C++ array of "anything", unless all objects descend from the same class, and then you are restricted to functions that were declared in that base class. That's because C++ is statically typed and needs to know the virtual table to use for the function call (whatever the function is). On the other hand, Objective-C does not need templates because function calls are not looked up through a virtual table, they are dynamically sent as messages, which are handled if the object implements that function. Hence, you can (and do) have a general-purpose array in Objective-C. You can even have a general purpose hash table with changing element types...! I'd love to see an implementation in C++ that is readable.
The "Object Penalty" (i.e. the cost of using a certain object-oriented language) is fixed, and it therefore reduces over time with faster and faster computers. C++ will do anything to make that cost as small as possible, including getting in your way. So really, the advantages of C++ are decreasing over time if you consider all the hoops you have to jump through to get what you want. When you really need performance in Objective-C, you write that little snippet of code in straight C (just like everyone else does in C++.)
I was a C++ junkie for 10 years until I tried Objective-C and quickly noticed how much more complex a task I could handle without the language getting in my way. You should try it.
Apple has to support current computers with their Applecare program. Applesinsider has discussed that these go into 2008. So really, this is probably nothing more than the winding down period.
I agree with the parent: Thurrot is completely missing the point that in every OS release, there are two things to consider: improvements for the users and improvements for the developers.
Spotlight and Dashboard make compelling reasons for Users to upgrade today. Core Data, Core image and Spotlight SDK make compelling reasons for developers to go to 10.4 and use 10.4-only system wide facilities that will make their applications more functional (more and better functionalities, faster to market). They would not do so if 10.4 had a poor install base, but the user-centric features entice people to upgrade before those applications are available. Once they get new applications to market, more users will be willing to move to 10.4, for added functionalities in the OS _and_ applications.
Apple appreciates the two sides of the equation: the users and the developers. Tiger has everything in place to stimulate (not force) an upgrade cycle and avoids the Chicken-egg problem (contrary to 10.3 which __was__ a minor upgrade that a lot of people skipped).
Saying "But Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) was arguably a bigger advance over the initial release of XP than Tiger is over Mac OS X 10.3." is so bloody out there that it can't even qualify as wrong. I don't think it qualifies as an English sentence either. I think it's in Polish.
It also adjusts to constant steady motion, like a car or train. It's pretty neat and I think a very worthwhile feature.
Just as a curiosity, how does that work? There is no way of knowing whether you are going at constant speed or not moving at all (as long as you don't accelerate).
Except for tables, which it transforms to tab lists, TextEdit.app reads simple Word documents flawlessly.
Re:Probably a silly question but...
on
Xgrid Agent for Unix
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Can anybody confirm if the linux and unix ports are smp aware?
(I wrote the xgridagent).
As the other poster said, XGrid does not care what the binary does (so it can be smp aware, multi-threaded, whatever). However, the xgridagent itself is not explicitly smp aware, but it is multi-threaded. Each task is started in its own thread and depending on the OS(?) I guess they could spread to other CPUs. The other aspect of the question is "Does the Unix XGrid agent support MPI like Apple's GridAgent for OS X?". It does not and I can't say for sure how difficult it would be to support it. However, since all communication is done via the XGrid protocol, I don't see what would prevent it from being implemented. BUt other things need to be done first.
The most pressing issue is to fix the annoying "large message" issue which makes the agent hang (while it waits forever for the controller to accept more frames). I am convinced it is trivial, I just don't know enough about BEEP to fix it. I am hoping somebody who knows BEEP will take a look at xgridagent-profile.c and fix the xgridagent_SengMSG() function and send me the patch.
I just find it interesting that people making salaries of (just guessing) $50k still argue whether or not it is money well spent to buy an Operating System at 0.1k. That's 0.2%.
(I know the hardware is more expensive than that, but a good fast machine is expensive no matter what the operating system is).
However, I was a little dissapointed by the price of the new iPod mini. At $250 (just $50 less than the (now) 15Gb iPod) I can't really see how it's worth it. I'll just pay another $50 and get an iPod that can hold my entire music library. Not sure what they were thinking with that price.
I think the reasoning is not that for $50 extra you could get the 15 Gb iPod ($300), it's that for $50 extra (from a flash player at $199) you get an iPod Mini ($249). If you were on the market for a player at $199, you can get pushed over to the iPod Mini. If you were already prepared to spend over $200, then from the start you were considering the Full iPod.
Overall, you always get more value if you spend more, but it's not where you end up that matters, it's from what price range you started shopping initially.
There are materials with an index of n = -1 in the visible: metals will have an index of -1 for a particular frequency (not a range, just one). For instance, silver has an index of -1 for a wavelength of 350 nm and that is precisely the case that is discussed at the end of the article in PRL. However, to get a perfect lens the author shows that you also need a magnetic constant mu of -1. This is not the case of silver but he shows that you can still get a perfect lens as long as you stay in the near field (i.e. very close to the lens). That's why the object is only a few nanometers away from the silver lens. For photolithograhy applications, this could actually be practical.
The GHz lens made of wires and loops would be a perfect lens because they could manage to get n = -1 as well as mu = -1. By the way, the negative index for the GHz wave is achieved by stacking wires in a certain structure that is the exact analog of photonic crystals. Those are also possible in the visible. Pendry studies those too...
Slashdot Mirror
What a spin :"[T]he only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music -- especially CDs.' This is despite years of iTunes promotion and apparent success."
The success is not apparent, it is real. They are making real money from real people. I would say: "Considering that only 20 tracks are from iTunes, then the potential for growth is huge because doubling everyone's purchases simply means convincing them to spend an extra 20$".
Objective-C has no template system. This is a huge advantage for C++.
This is interesting because C++ has templates only because it needs them and Objective-C doesn't have them because there is no need. For instance, you can't have a C++ array of "anything", unless all objects descend from the same class, and then you are restricted to functions that were declared in that base class. That's because C++ is statically typed and needs to know the virtual table to use for the function call (whatever the function is). On the other hand, Objective-C does not need templates because function calls are not looked up through a virtual table, they are dynamically sent as messages, which are handled if the object implements that function. Hence, you can (and do) have a general-purpose array in Objective-C. You can even have a general purpose hash table with changing element types...! I'd love to see an implementation in C++ that is readable.
The "Object Penalty" (i.e. the cost of using a certain object-oriented language) is fixed, and it therefore reduces over time with faster and faster computers. C++ will do anything to make that cost as small as possible, including getting in your way. So really, the advantages of C++ are decreasing over time if you consider all the hoops you have to jump through to get what you want. When you really need performance in Objective-C, you write that little snippet of code in straight C (just like everyone else does in C++ .)
I was a C++ junkie for 10 years until I tried Objective-C and quickly noticed how much more complex a task I could handle without the language getting in my way. You should try it.
Apple has to support current computers with their Applecare program. Applesinsider has discussed that these go into 2008. So really, this is probably nothing more than the winding down period.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1248
I agree with the parent: Thurrot is completely missing the point that in every OS release, there are two things to consider: improvements for the users and improvements for the developers.
Spotlight and Dashboard make compelling reasons for Users to upgrade today. Core Data, Core image and Spotlight SDK make compelling reasons for developers to go to 10.4 and use 10.4-only system wide facilities that will make their applications more functional (more and better functionalities, faster to market). They would not do so if 10.4 had a poor install base, but the user-centric features entice people to upgrade before those applications are available. Once they get new applications to market, more users will be willing to move to 10.4, for added functionalities in the OS _and_ applications.
Apple appreciates the two sides of the equation: the users and the developers. Tiger has everything in place to stimulate (not force) an upgrade cycle and avoids the Chicken-egg problem (contrary to 10.3 which __was__ a minor upgrade that a lot of people skipped).
Saying "But Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) was arguably a bigger advance over the initial release of XP than Tiger is over Mac OS X 10.3." is so bloody out there that it can't even qualify as wrong. I don't think it qualifies as an English sentence either. I think it's in Polish.
It also adjusts to constant steady motion, like a car or train. It's pretty neat and I think a very worthwhile feature.
Just as a curiosity, how does that work? There is no way of knowing whether you are going at constant speed or not moving at all (as long as you don't accelerate).
Except for tables, which it transforms to
tab lists, TextEdit.app reads simple Word documents flawlessly.
Can anybody confirm if the linux and unix ports are smp aware?
(I wrote the xgridagent).
As the other poster said, XGrid does not care what the binary does (so it can be smp aware, multi-threaded, whatever). However, the xgridagent itself is not explicitly smp aware, but it is multi-threaded. Each task is started in its own thread and depending on the OS(?) I guess they could spread to other CPUs. The other aspect of the question is "Does the Unix XGrid agent support MPI like Apple's GridAgent for OS X?". It does not and I can't say for sure how difficult it would be to support it. However, since all communication is done via the XGrid protocol, I don't see what would prevent it from being implemented. BUt other things need to be done first.
The most pressing issue is to fix the annoying "large message" issue which makes the agent hang (while it waits forever for the controller to accept more frames). I am convinced it is trivial, I just don't know enough about BEEP to fix it. I am hoping somebody who knows BEEP will take a look at xgridagent-profile.c and fix the xgridagent_SengMSG() function and send me the patch.
Daniel Côté
I just find it interesting that people making salaries of (just guessing) $50k still argue whether or not it is money well spent to buy an Operating System at 0.1k. That's 0.2%.
(I know the hardware is more expensive than that, but a good fast machine is expensive no matter what the operating system is).
However, I was a little dissapointed by the price of the new iPod mini. At $250 (just $50 less than the (now) 15Gb iPod) I can't really see how it's worth it. I'll just pay another $50 and get an iPod that can hold my entire music library. Not sure what they were thinking with that price.
I think the reasoning is not that for $50 extra you could get the 15 Gb iPod ($300), it's that for $50 extra (from a flash player at $199) you get an iPod Mini ($249). If you were on the market for a player at $199, you can get pushed over to the iPod Mini. If you were already prepared to spend over $200, then from the start you were considering the Full iPod. Overall, you always get more value if you spend more, but it's not where you end up that matters, it's from what price range you started shopping initially.
There are materials with an index of n = -1 in the visible: metals will have an index of -1 for a particular frequency (not a range, just one). For instance, silver has an index of -1 for a wavelength of 350 nm and that is precisely the case that is discussed at the end of the article in PRL. However, to get a perfect lens the author shows that you also need a magnetic constant mu of -1. This is not the case of silver but he shows that you can still get a perfect lens as long as you stay in the near field (i.e. very close to the lens). That's why the object is only a few nanometers away from the silver lens. For photolithograhy applications, this could actually be practical.
The GHz lens made of wires and loops would be a perfect lens because they could manage to get n = -1 as well as mu = -1. By the way, the negative index for the GHz wave is achieved by stacking wires in a certain structure that is the exact analog of photonic crystals. Those are also possible in the visible. Pendry studies those too...