I have a friend. We'll call him LowTech, because he doesn't own (or didn't for the longest time) a computer. LowTech is a finish carpenter. He does cabinetry. I asked LowTech, and his wife (and business parter) to build my desk for me.
It's a VERY nice three-tier built-in unit, which wraps around 3/4 of the room. The three, under-desk shelves have room for up to eight full-sized towers. It is large enough for TWO people to work at comfortably (although I'm the only one using it).
The desk was tailored (LowTech took my measurements) to fit me, with plenty of leg room, and front to back depth. The main tier of the desk has cable gromets and chaseways to keep all the myriad cables connecting my computers, neat and organized.
The top tier of the desk has cut-outs for computer monitors, and is wired for electircal power in six locations. This way I have access to electrical services without crawling under the desk.
If that were not enough, the next planned remodel is to convert the space to the south of the office into a sitting room, with a large wrap-around couch, and a huge bay window. That space is the only location on the property with a scenic view of Mt. Rainier.
Some of you may not believe me, after having read the above description. I point those of you who doubt my word, at the below URL. the picture is of me, at the desk which is still without the lamintate desktop, and semi-gloss finish for the oak trim.
I'm not sure what the $100m investment was for, but it has certainly paid off, as it is worth over $300m now.
Settlement of a long-standing patent-infringement suit concerning of certain parts of Microsoft's "ActiveX" technology lifted from Quicktime practically feature-by-feature. Apple promised to drop the suit, which they promptly did, in return for the stock investment.
A bunch of Shimomuras looking for spammers. Now that's what you call worthwhile.
Actually, for the spammers, we have one "Afterburner", who heads up the abuse desk at RCN/EROLS.
Afterburner has a team of "Evil Abuse Desk Minions", who mercilessly track down and terminate spammers accounts, with various BOFH LARTS. RCN/EROLS, before the arrival of Afterburner, used to be something of a haven for spammers. Not so anymore.
Over on USENET, in news.admin.net-abuse.email, a war is currently being waged. Spammers use software which circumvents the mechanisms by which the origins of a mail message can be tracked. Someone, obviously, has to write that software, and provide it to the spammer.
In at least one recent instance, that someone has turned out to be Andrew Brunner, who claims to be president of CyberCreek LLC. Brunner's product, Avalanche Pro, claims both to be a legitimate MTA, and to contain a number of tools for circumventing the security of OTHER MTAs. (hmmm, sounds suspicious).
The full details, of course, including death threats by Mr. Brunner against Paul Vixie (author of BIND(8), and currently V.P. of Above.net), as well as his impersonation of a federal agent, and prior criminal record, are available on n.a.n-a.e.
UUNet, who currently host Brunner, is suffering under a load of public humiliation, mostly by the abuse teams of other major ISPs.
Compiled by two Cro-Magnon and a Neandertal, HG Linux is desgined specifically for the modern computing needs of hunter-gatherers. HG Linux includes our custom Point-and-Grunt interface, simple enough for even the pre-verbal cave-dweller.
We at HG Linux torture tested our distro, by giving it to upper management for a month. Yes, we use our own distribution internally, as many of our tech support personel also have sloping foreheads and prognathous jaws.
We've carefully selected a minimum set of tools, considered uncomplicated enough for use by the illiterate. We know that many of you who are capable of actually READING don't bother to crack the manual open, so printed manuals aren't included. HG Linux is intentionally missing the usual READMEs and manpages. Not to worry! We've replaced them with simplified cave-paintings, in PNG format. Just point and grunt!
http://hglinux.example.org/
[...Example.org: providing all your RFC 2606 compliant sample domain name needs...]
No way! What we really need is to get even MORE FREAKED OUT over it. Spam adds about $2 - $3 a month to the cost of Internet access in the US. Wouldn't you like to save $3 a month. How about if saving that $3 meant not getting any spam?
You've obviously never administered a mailserver. Do you now what happens when a spammer does a dictionary attack on your Sendmail box? I'll tell you. You get to spend the next twelve hours cleaning up the mess, that's what! You have hundreds of angry users calling YOU up, and bawling YOU out, because they didn't ask for this turdlet MMF scheme or PR0N in their inboxes, and don't know who to complain to (but they've got your number, sure enough). Meanwhile, you have to order more memory, install another 6Gig hard drive, and additional bandwidth, just to get things back to a usable level? Multiply that $3 per user, per month by 100,000.
Then try to tell me not to get freaked out.
Yeah right, "just hit delete". Try it for 100,000 users. IT DOESN'T SCALE!!!
See, the problem with your thinking, is that you're only really thinking about you. But it's not just YOUR problem. If it takes three days to locate and disconnect an active spammer, just how many emails has he sent in that time. How many million "Just Hit Delete"s before you get the point? How many ISPs are there, passing the cost of controlling this problem along to their customers at how many millions of dollars expense?
How 'bout a little back of the envelope calculations, here...
Let's see, $36/year times 100,000 for a largish ISP, or $3.6 Million per ISP. OR for AOL, which gets TWICE as much spam $72/year time 15 million, (spam cost AOL $1.08 Billion? You have the gall to say JUST HIT DELETE?).
Every spam I get will result in some luser getting whacked from the 'net. Guaranteed. No questions.
This is almost invariably catastrophic - contractors have different agendas from scientists, and once the contract is secured, they often don't want to do more than the absolute minimum necessary to fulfil it. Successful projects send scientists out to live at the contractor plant, and to read them the Riot Act on a bi-weekly basis.
I have worked under contract to the US government (albeit not NASA), and must concur. Contractors have a different agenda than most morally-grounded individuals, let alon the scientists.
I knew during the course of my job, that neither my employer, nor the bulk of my co-workers should under any circumstaces be left unsupervised. The contractors SOLE motivation is to maximize their profit. They simply do not CARE what becomes of their work.
Contractors often land jobs with claims of huge cost savings, which invariably are created through shoddy workmanship, falsified testing, employing unqualified workers to handle tasks beyond their ability, failure to pay suppliers, failure to pay employees... It's a big list, so I'll stop there. Eventually, the worst abusers ARE identified, but at a HUGE cost.
As pointed out in the article, NASA only knew that the project would fail when it was well beyond anyone's power to do anything about it. What purpose would it have served to reveal that information and declare the project a failure? Had they done so, there would only be suspicion that a problem had occured. Playing out the mission to the failure point allows NASA to actively persue those responsible.
WRONG! It is about spam. What business operating in an unethical manner has a reasonable expectation to conduct trade across state lines free from restraint? To quote from the article:
Jim Kendall, president of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers, a trade group that works with the Attorney General's Office to maintain the electronic registry, was likewise critical of the judge's ruling.
"If the judge is going to say we're putting too much of a burden on someone who is acting unethically, I have to scratch my head and say, `Excuse me? That doesn't make sense to me,' " Kendall said.
This is why Jim Kendall's Telebyte Northwest remains my ISP!
Also, states are allowed to protect consumers within their jurisdiction on a state by state basis. Washington's Law was enacted under the Consumer Protection Act. Perhaps you'd prefer its tougher replacement, a criminal statute?
Please note that they took a LEISURELY three days to set the whole thing up. Not three 20-hour, CmdrTaco-esque, caffine-powered, loss-of-sleep days -- Three relaxed days in which they DAWDLED over the process. The utter ANTIHESIS of the Linux user-experience!
The point here isn't about the raw performance of the cluster, although it's fairly respectable performance at that. The point is that anyone can set one of these puppies up, and administering one is a no-brainer. Plug 'n' Play folks! Three steps on a half-sheet of paper versus a 230 page "introduction". Apple's got ease-of-use DOWN! Whole point of the excercise.
<disclaimer> A close reading of the Appleseed G4 benchmarks reveal that the AltiVec processor spends a good deal of it's time just idling away, waiting for other processes to finish. The code is sub-optimal in this respect (it could be faster), but also some of this is due to the nature of the AltiVec instruction set. With some tinkering, it could be improved upon. The code's in FORTRAN fer cryin' out loud! It could stand to have about 10% (the most used routines) hand-optimized in machine code. </disclaimer>
<flame> I'm preparing to target my home-built ICBM on the next lamer who complains that Macs are more expensive than PC's. Generally these comparisons involve "generic no-name" Intel or AMD boxen. It's unfair, and you know it. Compare instead comparable machines from Dell or Compaq. This isn't about price either! You can spend as little as $800 for a bottom-of-line iMac (from a mail-order house), OR you can have Apple custom-build you a tricked-out G4 with 150G of RAM (no, I'm not kidding) and spend $15,000 (or more). As far as I can see, Apple has all the price ranges covered.
You want to be a Linux-advocate, great. So do I. However, FUD is not advocacy. </flame>
I wish they had the option of leaving off the graphics card, though. In the context of an Appleseed cluster it's a waste.
I want "flavored" G4's too. That slate grey is boring.
Oh, two things: if you read the Apple developer docs you can "extend" Apple's Quicktime and make any damn player design you want. There are Perl-based MP3 players for the Mac, that just hook into the QT runtime.
Uh, huh. This is ture! I have Pudge's source for one of these. It's done in about 270 lines of Perl (including the POD). Quicktime does all the heavy lifting.
What many people fail to notice, is that Quicktime is more than just a streaming media format. Quicktime in fact, handles all sorts of still image formats, does a variety of image processing/effects, and also CONVERTS between the various supported formats. This is independant of the plethora of compression codecs (which seems to be the major bone of IP contention).
On the Mac, Quicktime is installed as a "System Extension", and is available for use by all applications. One doesn't need Apple's player to play Quicktime movies on the Mac, or even to make use of Quicktime's full feature set.
Forget the player and codecs. What we need for Linux is a complete Quicktime library, a set of APIs and a Quicktime SDK. OpenGL and Quicktime in combination ROCK!
<rant> As a 16-year Mac veteran with a foot in both camps, I understand Apple's motivation. They make money by selling hardware. The Linux community hasn't shown consistently that they'll BUY Apple hardware. If anything, there's a manifestly anti-Apple sentiment from a community of Intel die-hards. Why should Apple support you?
Dump a few of those Pentium III's, recycle them, ship them to a needy third-world country, and replace them with PowerMacs (preferably new, but buy used if you must (if you do this, be sure to upgrade the OS)). Run a dual-boot system. Being a CUSTOMER of Apple will give you more weight with them. </rant>
BTW, us Mac folks do a lot of these petitions. It was the only way we got games ported to the Mac during the days when everyone thought the Mac was dead. We're still fighting Corel over WordPerfect.
Apple will listen. They will listen better if you wave money at them. It's the nature of the beast.
We don't have to like it, but we do have to live with it, alas.
and no, I don't know what SAL stands for. Any guesses?
Syllogistic ALgorithmic (I can't find the reference now). However, Clarke states in the the 2010 novel that SAL 9000 was contemporanious with HAL. Both were in the 9000 series, but I take it that the personalities were distinct (due to differing algorithms, naturally).
I may be wrong about this, but basically Microsoft's only option here is to focus on the sentencing phase of the trial. A judge's Finding of Fact is not something that can be held up for appeal. Microsoft can "respectfully disagree" all it wants, but the FoF stands.
Microsoft's next move is to prevent a harsh penalty. To do this it has to put on a good face, and engage in a bit of spin doctoring. Sure they quote the only line of the 204 page finding that could (by taking it completely out of context) possibly be made to put them in a good light.
How much of an "application barrier to entry" would there be if the DOJ breaks up Microsoft? This trial has already emboldened OEM vendors to start bundling other systems with their Intel PCs (read: Linux). Imagine Microsoft without the leverage of its Internet and Applications business. Windows without IE. Office without insider ties to secret APIs.
If the DOJ takes the harshest route, Microsoft as we know and loath it is history. While there might be some short-term collarteral damage (re: paragraph 408 in the FoF), in the long term this levels the playing field and allows real innovation instead of "Microsoft Inovation"(tm)
Others disagree. "Only the trade press is really squeaking about this," said Eric S. Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, a programmer group, because it makes a good story hook when you have nothing real to write about and the advertising department is pressuring you to make closed-software vendors look good.
Raymond added: "The actual Linux developers know better. Fragmentation isn't going to happen, because developers outside of the Linux distributors effectively control all the key pieces." That is because Torvalds and a small group of his colleagues control the Linux standard and subject all modifications to peer review.
C'mon folks! Here's ESR telling reporters from the Times that this is a NON-STORY, and that they should better examine their motives for writing it! Kudos to Raymond for being so politic about it that the writer didn't catch it. The single quote above is the only thing in the article that actually made a modicum of sense.
A large percentage of the confusion surrounding this situation is due to incessant, incestuous rumor-mongering. It seem that many in the popular computing press find it quicker to build a story around an "anonymous source" rather than wait for valid information from Apple on what their intentions really are.
Note the main culprit, ZDNet, which reports comments from the primary mac-rumor sites as if it were straight from an inside source. Why should any of us trust them?
On the web, one can go straight to the official press releases, and not rely on a third party, who may put their own spin on the story.
And then there's always/., which while it can be occasionally off-the-mark, at least make the attempt to be largely self-correcting. Huzzah!
In the end I much prefer the ability to configure my own look and feel from modern WM's to anything apple has produced. Trust me, there is a major difference in philosophy from Unix users and macintosh users. Unix users are not going to flock to Mac OS X because of the look and feel.
Probably MORE schemes for Kaleidoscope than there are themes for any Unix WMs. Sure the source is closed, and the authors expect $25 of your hard-earned cash... Open-source has yet to make inroads on the Mac. Still, the main scheme editor is none other than ResEdit, which is free (as in beer).
Apple's own implementation of this feature fell somewhat short, so they dropped it. There were few complaints.
--B
Re:auto-attenuating Harmon Kardon subwoofer
on
New iMac Rolled Out
·
· Score: 1
Check it out - it's a USB subwoofer. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it works like this: the iMac recognizes your subwoofer the moment you plug it in and - get this - tweaks the EQ of the already excellent H-K speaker system in the iMac to compensate for all that bass that just showed up. Now that is cool.
Exactly. We're not talking about some wimpy external speaker that just plugs into USB and gives you the same sound profile you had only bigger. We're talking about an OS that KNOWS about what to do when it sees that H-K subwoofer out there, and does it. No fiddling with the settings yourself, and then having to REBOOT the hardware for the changes to take effect. Sure USB speakers are old hat, that not the point at all.
I watched (okay listened mostly -- slow modem) to the live webcast. Jobs still knows how to manipulate a crowd. The new iMacs are impressive for what they are. The redesigned cases and reformualted colors (more translucency, and brighter (if you can imagine)) are sure to turn just as many heads as the old ones. The new sound system looks good (the sub-woofer is a $99 USB add-on (and really shows how far Apple is able to take plug & play).
These machines are all convection-cooled. No fan. That makes them quieter than anything on the market. I know a big complaint about the original iMac was how noisy its fan was. Well, the fan is out. (just don't plan on overclocking any of these new iMacs).
The top-end iMac ($1499) features digital video editing and authoring software built-in, as well as FireWire (the only iMac to have it).
Upgrading the new iMacs should also be easier, thanks to a swing-down door which gives direct access to the memory and airport card slots.
But the thing to remember is that this is still a machine sqaurely targeted at the computer/illiterate/phobic. Slashdotters in general need not apply. Might make one heck of a Linux box, though;-)
I recall K. Eric Drexler's comment that if we're lucky, we'll have nanotech in 15 to 20 years, and if we're unlucky, we'll have it in FIVE. That was about four years ago, IIRC. Looks like our luck's running out.
Promote *ALL* other alternative OSes. Promote the BSDs. Promote BeOS. Promote MacOS and QNX and PalmOS(?) and every other OS.
They all have their place. QNX is a major force in the embedded market. Kicks ass on WindowsCE in every way. The BSDs are incredibly well done and kick NT ass. BeOS kicks everyone's ass in the multimedia department. MacOS is experiencing a resurgence, and is a delight to use.
Amen! And one should note that MacOS X essentially IS a BSD, albeit with the MacOS interface over top of it (actually, Mac OS X is a thinly disguised NeXTStep). The future will have people making a choice between varieties of Unix and the aging and inferior Micros~1 OS.
I say use what you're comfortable with, promote ALL solutions, not just your personal fave.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a friend. We'll call him LowTech, because he doesn't own (or didn't for the longest time) a computer. LowTech is a finish carpenter. He does cabinetry. I asked LowTech, and his wife (and business parter) to build my desk for me.
It's a VERY nice three-tier built-in unit, which wraps around 3/4 of the room. The three, under-desk shelves have room for up to eight full-sized towers. It is large enough for TWO people to work at comfortably (although I'm the only one using it).
The desk was tailored (LowTech took my measurements) to fit me, with plenty of leg room, and front to back depth. The main tier of the desk has cable gromets and chaseways to keep all the myriad cables connecting my computers, neat and organized.
The top tier of the desk has cut-outs for computer monitors, and is wired for electircal power in six locations. This way I have access to electrical services without crawling under the desk.
If that were not enough, the next planned remodel is to convert the space to the south of the office into a sitting room, with a large wrap-around couch, and a huge bay window. That space is the only location on the property with a scenic view of Mt. Rainier.
Some of you may not believe me, after having read the above description. I point those of you who doubt my word, at the below URL. the picture is of me, at the desk which is still without the lamintate desktop, and semi-gloss finish for the oak trim.
I call it the LARTStation. There is no excuse for a bad desk.
--B
I'm not sure what the $100m investment was for, but it has certainly paid off, as it is worth over $300m now.
Settlement of a long-standing patent-infringement suit concerning of certain parts of Microsoft's "ActiveX" technology lifted from Quicktime practically feature-by-feature. Apple promised to drop the suit, which they promptly did, in return for the stock investment.
--B
A bunch of Shimomuras looking for spammers. Now that's what you call worthwhile.
Actually, for the spammers, we have one "Afterburner", who heads up the abuse desk at RCN/EROLS.
Afterburner has a team of "Evil Abuse Desk Minions", who mercilessly track down and terminate spammers accounts, with various BOFH LARTS. RCN/EROLS, before the arrival of Afterburner, used to be something of a haven for spammers. Not so anymore.
Over on USENET, in news.admin.net-abuse.email, a war is currently being waged. Spammers use software which circumvents the mechanisms by which the origins of a mail message can be tracked. Someone, obviously, has to write that software, and provide it to the spammer.
In at least one recent instance, that someone has turned out to be Andrew Brunner, who claims to be president of CyberCreek LLC. Brunner's product, Avalanche Pro, claims both to be a legitimate MTA, and to contain a number of tools for circumventing the security of OTHER MTAs. (hmmm, sounds suspicious).
The full details, of course, including death threats by Mr. Brunner against Paul Vixie (author of BIND(8), and currently V.P. of Above.net), as well as his impersonation of a federal agent, and prior criminal record, are available on n.a.n-a.e.
UUNet, who currently host Brunner, is suffering under a load of public humiliation, mostly by the abuse teams of other major ISPs.
I invite slahsdotters to join in the fray.
--Brian
Compiled by two Cro-Magnon and a Neandertal, HG Linux is desgined specifically for the modern computing needs of hunter-gatherers. HG Linux includes our custom Point-and-Grunt interface, simple enough for even the pre-verbal cave-dweller.
We at HG Linux torture tested our distro, by giving it to upper management for a month. Yes, we use our own distribution internally, as many of our tech support personel also have sloping foreheads and prognathous jaws.
We've carefully selected a minimum set of tools, considered uncomplicated enough for use by the illiterate. We know that many of you who are capable of actually READING don't bother to crack the manual open, so printed manuals aren't included. HG Linux is intentionally missing the usual READMEs and manpages. Not to worry! We've replaced them with simplified cave-paintings, in PNG format. Just point and grunt!
http://hglinux.example.org/
[...Example.org: providing all your RFC 2606 compliant sample domain name needs...]
No way! What we really need is to get even MORE FREAKED OUT over it. Spam adds about $2 - $3 a month to the cost of Internet access in the US. Wouldn't you like to save $3 a month. How about if saving that $3 meant not getting any spam?
You've obviously never administered a mailserver. Do you now what happens when a spammer does a dictionary attack on your Sendmail box? I'll tell you. You get to spend the next twelve hours cleaning up the mess, that's what! You have hundreds of angry users calling YOU up, and bawling YOU out, because they didn't ask for this turdlet MMF scheme or PR0N in their inboxes, and don't know who to complain to (but they've got your number, sure enough). Meanwhile, you have to order more memory, install another 6Gig hard drive, and additional bandwidth, just to get things back to a usable level? Multiply that $3 per user, per month by 100,000.
Then try to tell me not to get freaked out.
Yeah right, "just hit delete". Try it for 100,000 users. IT DOESN'T SCALE!!!
See, the problem with your thinking, is that you're only really thinking about you. But it's not just YOUR problem. If it takes three days to locate and disconnect an active spammer, just how many emails has he sent in that time. How many million "Just Hit Delete"s before you get the point? How many ISPs are there, passing the cost of controlling this problem along to their customers at how many millions of dollars expense?
How 'bout a little back of the envelope calculations, here...
Let's see, $36/year times 100,000 for a largish ISP, or $3.6 Million per ISP. OR for AOL, which gets TWICE as much spam $72/year time 15 million, (spam cost AOL $1.08 Billion? You have the gall to say JUST HIT DELETE?).
Every spam I get will result in some luser getting whacked from the 'net. Guaranteed. No questions.
This is almost invariably catastrophic - contractors have different agendas from scientists, and once the contract is secured, they often don't want to do more than the absolute minimum necessary to fulfil it. Successful projects send scientists out to live at the contractor plant, and to read them the Riot Act on a bi-weekly basis.
I have worked under contract to the US government (albeit not NASA), and must concur. Contractors have a different agenda than most morally-grounded individuals, let alon the scientists.
I knew during the course of my job, that neither my employer, nor the bulk of my co-workers should under any circumstaces be left unsupervised. The contractors SOLE motivation is to maximize their profit. They simply do not CARE what becomes of their work.
Contractors often land jobs with claims of huge cost savings, which invariably are created through shoddy workmanship, falsified testing, employing unqualified workers to handle tasks beyond their ability, failure to pay suppliers, failure to pay employees... It's a big list, so I'll stop there. Eventually, the worst abusers ARE identified, but at a HUGE cost.
As pointed out in the article, NASA only knew that the project would fail when it was well beyond anyone's power to do anything about it. What purpose would it have served to reveal that information and declare the project a failure? Had they done so, there would only be suspicion that a problem had occured. Playing out the mission to the failure point allows NASA to actively persue those responsible.
WRONG! It is about spam. What business operating in an unethical manner has a reasonable expectation to conduct trade across state lines free from restraint? To quote from the article:
Jim Kendall, president of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers, a trade group that works with the Attorney General's Office to maintain the electronic registry, was likewise critical of the judge's ruling.
"If the judge is going to say we're putting too much of a burden on someone who is acting unethically, I have to scratch my head and say, `Excuse me? That doesn't make sense to me,' " Kendall said.
This is why Jim Kendall's Telebyte Northwest remains my ISP!
Also, states are allowed to protect consumers within their jurisdiction on a state by state basis. Washington's Law was enacted under the Consumer Protection Act. Perhaps you'd prefer its tougher replacement, a criminal statute?
--B
Actually, yes you are.
D'artagnan:
http://www.students.yorku. ca/~kipper/dartagnan/dart.html
Please note that they took a LEISURELY three days to set the whole thing up. Not three 20-hour, CmdrTaco-esque, caffine-powered, loss-of-sleep days -- Three relaxed days in which they DAWDLED over the process. The utter ANTIHESIS of the Linux user-experience!
The point here isn't about the raw performance of the cluster, although it's fairly respectable performance at that. The point is that anyone can set one of these puppies up, and administering one is a no-brainer. Plug 'n' Play folks! Three steps on a half-sheet of paper versus a 230 page "introduction". Apple's got ease-of-use DOWN! Whole point of the excercise.
<disclaimer>
A close reading of the Appleseed G4 benchmarks reveal that the AltiVec processor spends a good deal of it's time just idling away, waiting for other processes to finish. The code is sub-optimal in this respect (it could be faster), but also some of this is due to the nature of the AltiVec instruction set. With some tinkering, it could be improved upon. The code's in FORTRAN fer cryin' out loud! It could stand to have about 10% (the most used routines) hand-optimized in machine code.
</disclaimer>
<flame>
I'm preparing to target my home-built ICBM on the next lamer who complains that Macs are more expensive than PC's. Generally these comparisons involve "generic no-name" Intel or AMD boxen. It's unfair, and you know it. Compare instead comparable machines from Dell or Compaq. This isn't about price either! You can spend as little as $800 for a bottom-of-line iMac (from a mail-order house), OR you can have Apple custom-build you a tricked-out G4 with 150G of RAM (no, I'm not kidding) and spend $15,000 (or more). As far as I can see, Apple has all the price ranges covered.
You want to be a Linux-advocate, great. So do I. However, FUD is not advocacy.
</flame>
I wish they had the option of leaving off the graphics card, though. In the context of an Appleseed cluster it's a waste.
I want "flavored" G4's too. That slate grey is boring.
--B
What, no Apple commercials?
Yah, Apple played it smart, and spent the $2 million on a new LearJet for Steve.
Oh, two things:
/scripts/mp3player.plx
if you read the Apple developer docs you can "extend" Apple's Quicktime and make any damn player design you want. There are Perl-based MP3 players for the Mac, that just hook into the QT runtime.
Uh, huh. This is ture! I have Pudge's source for one of these. It's done in about 270 lines of Perl (including the POD). Quicktime does all the heavy lifting.
Rather than post the code, I'll just link to it.
http://pudge.net/files/macperl
What many people fail to notice, is that Quicktime is more than just a streaming media format. Quicktime in fact, handles all sorts of still image formats, does a variety of image processing/effects, and also CONVERTS between the various supported formats. This is independant of the plethora of compression codecs (which seems to be the major bone of IP contention).
On the Mac, Quicktime is installed as a "System Extension", and is available for use by all applications. One doesn't need Apple's player to play Quicktime movies on the Mac, or even to make use of Quicktime's full feature set.
Forget the player and codecs. What we need for Linux is a complete Quicktime library, a set of APIs and a Quicktime SDK. OpenGL and Quicktime in combination ROCK!
<rant>
As a 16-year Mac veteran with a foot in both camps, I understand Apple's motivation. They make money by selling hardware. The Linux community hasn't shown consistently that they'll BUY Apple hardware. If anything, there's a manifestly anti-Apple sentiment from a community of Intel die-hards. Why should Apple support you?
Dump a few of those Pentium III's, recycle them, ship them to a needy third-world country, and replace them with PowerMacs (preferably new, but buy used if you must (if you do this, be sure to upgrade the OS)). Run a dual-boot system. Being a CUSTOMER of Apple will give you more weight with them.
</rant>
BTW, us Mac folks do a lot of these petitions. It was the only way we got games ported to the Mac during the days when everyone thought the Mac was dead. We're still fighting Corel over WordPerfect.
Apple will listen. They will listen better if you wave money at them. It's the nature of the beast.
We don't have to like it, but we do have to live with it, alas.
--B
and no, I don't know what SAL stands for. Any guesses?
Syllogistic ALgorithmic (I can't find the reference now). However, Clarke states in the the 2010 novel that SAL 9000 was contemporanious with HAL. Both were in the 9000 series, but I take it that the personalities were distinct (due to differing algorithms, naturally).
I may be wrong about this, but basically Microsoft's only option here is to focus on the sentencing phase of the trial. A judge's Finding of Fact is not something that can be held up for appeal. Microsoft can "respectfully disagree" all it wants, but the FoF stands.
Microsoft's next move is to prevent a harsh penalty. To do this it has to put on a good face, and engage in a bit of spin doctoring. Sure they quote the only line of the 204 page finding that could (by taking it completely out of context) possibly be made to put them in a good light.
How much of an "application barrier to entry" would there be if the DOJ breaks up Microsoft? This trial has already emboldened OEM vendors to start bundling other systems with their Intel PCs (read: Linux). Imagine Microsoft without the leverage of its Internet and Applications business. Windows without IE. Office without insider ties to secret APIs.
If the DOJ takes the harshest route, Microsoft as we know and loath it is history. While there might be some short-term collarteral damage (re: paragraph 408 in the FoF), in the long term this levels the playing field and allows real innovation instead of "Microsoft Inovation"(tm)
C'mon folks! Here's ESR telling reporters from the Times that this is a NON-STORY, and that they should better examine their motives for writing it! Kudos to Raymond for being so politic about it that the writer didn't catch it. The single quote above is the only thing in the article that actually made a modicum of sense.
--B
A large percentage of the confusion surrounding this situation is due to incessant, incestuous rumor-mongering. It seem that many in the popular computing press find it quicker to build a story around an "anonymous source" rather than wait for valid information from Apple on what their intentions really are.
/., which while it can be occasionally off-the-mark, at least make the attempt to be largely self-correcting. Huzzah!
Note the main culprit, ZDNet, which reports comments from the primary mac-rumor sites as if it were straight from an inside source. Why should any of us trust them?
On the web, one can go straight to the official press releases, and not rely on a third party, who may put their own spin on the story.
And then there's always
In the end I much prefer the ability to configure my own look and feel from modern WM's to anything apple has produced. Trust me, there is a major difference in philosophy from Unix users and macintosh users. Unix users are not going to flock to Mac OS X because of the look and feel.
What makes you think you CAN'T do this on a Mac?
http://www.kaleidoscope.net/
Probably MORE schemes for Kaleidoscope than there are themes for any Unix WMs. Sure the source is closed, and the authors expect $25 of your hard-earned cash... Open-source has yet to make inroads on the Mac. Still, the main scheme editor is none other than ResEdit, which is free (as in beer).
Apple's own implementation of this feature fell somewhat short, so they dropped it. There were few complaints.
--B
Exactly. We're not talking about some wimpy external speaker that just plugs into USB and gives you the same sound profile you had only bigger. We're talking about an OS that KNOWS about what to do when it sees that H-K subwoofer out there, and does it. No fiddling with the settings yourself, and then having to REBOOT the hardware for the changes to take effect. Sure USB speakers are old hat, that not the point at all.
I watched (okay listened mostly -- slow modem) to the live webcast. Jobs still knows how to manipulate a crowd. The new iMacs are impressive for what they are. The redesigned cases and reformualted colors (more translucency, and brighter (if you can imagine)) are sure to turn just as many heads as the old ones. The new sound system looks good (the sub-woofer is a $99 USB add-on (and really shows how far Apple is able to take plug & play).
;-)
These machines are all convection-cooled. No fan. That makes them quieter than anything on the market. I know a big complaint about the original iMac was how noisy its fan was. Well, the fan is out. (just don't plan on overclocking any of these new iMacs).
The top-end iMac ($1499) features digital video editing and authoring software built-in, as well as FireWire (the only iMac to have it).
Upgrading the new iMacs should also be easier, thanks to a swing-down door which gives direct access to the memory and airport card slots.
But the thing to remember is that this is still a machine sqaurely targeted at the computer/illiterate/phobic. Slashdotters in general need not apply. Might make one heck of a Linux box, though
I recall K. Eric Drexler's comment that if we're lucky, we'll have nanotech in 15 to 20 years, and if we're unlucky, we'll have it in FIVE. That was about four years ago, IIRC. Looks like our luck's running out.
Amen! And one should note that MacOS X essentially IS a BSD, albeit with the MacOS interface over top of it (actually, Mac OS X is a thinly disguised NeXTStep). The future will have people making a choice between varieties of Unix and the aging and inferior Micros~1 OS.
I say use what you're comfortable with, promote ALL solutions, not just your personal fave.