I support an office which is running W2K on the servers (about 40 of them) and about 300 XP Pro workstations. Since switching from NT to XP, I would have to say that the failure/crash/reboot ratio has dropped considerably. Before the switch it was almost daily that I would have to tell someone to reboot their computer. With XP, I have never told someone to reboot their computer. In fact, my workstation (which gets abused alot more than users workstations) has been up for 4 months now without any issues. I think it all comes down to proper education for the users and IT personel; and proper administration of the computers.
Of course, XP auto reboots instead of BSODing. So your users might be rebooting without calling you for help.
Have you looked at how often this happens?
Its a moot point for the average desktop user - a reboot isn't the end of the world (especially with word doing autorecovery of a document).
That little white light stay blinking? When I shut any of my mac laptops lids they go to sleep. This is not a reboot. I find the only reason I reboot my OS X machines anymore is when software update tells me to, and even then I push the screen back until the end of the day.
Yes the little white light stays blinking. I know it isn't a reboot. My previous comment about shutting down and starting up OSX was a joke (perhaps I was being a little too dry).
I do understand the real difference between what the laptop does and a true reboot of the operating system (which OS X rarely requires). I actually think that the almost immediate power on/off of the mac laptops is one of the best features. Even if you know nothing about computers you can tell that the ibook/powerbook is a very different breed to a windows computer.
This is about rebooting. A crash is not the only time Windows forces you to reboot. You say you shut down daily - only Windows users would regard that as normal.
Not true - I'm a mac user, and I shut down alot. Every time I a finished at the laptop I shut down the lid. When I'm ready to work again I have to do a start up - I start by lifting the lid up.
Although if you do want to read the article, in english, its here:
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagec on tent?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsolutions.journaldunet.com%2 F0409%2F040915_etude_postedetravail.shtml&lp=fr_en
(Remove any spaces in the above URL that/. may have inserted)
Even the type that Slashdot attracts can't read everything posted here. As a community service, here's some more news, should a reader have missed it the first 10**6 times around (:) ): - holy cr*p. A meteor's going to smash into the Earth - Bill Gates and anyone who looks like him is evil, evil, evil - in Soviet Russia, the tin foil hat wears you - there's a floating point bug in the Pentium processor - Google's issuing an IPO - Perl is illegible line-noise - Python is for weenies
You will kick yourself for forgetting it, but there is always the update article on the next evil action from SCO
Make the phosphors only excite one cone type each, and you can generate all the colors the eye can see.
Actually, the wavelength response curves of the cones overlap alot (particularly red and green). Which means that there is no light frequency that can stimulate only one cone.
So if you managed to excite only one cone type, you would produce a colour that you have probably never seen before.
If someone can post a good use of apgns/gifs for which a better solution does not exist, I will humbly retract my opinion and we can all consider this to be have been, indeed, a stupid question.
How about as an alternative format for movie encoding instead of divx?:)
Actually, there is no point getting an infinite number of colours because:
1) Most displays cannot show that many colour 2) Even with a display that does 16 777 216 colours, the human eye cannot distinguish between that many shades (particularly in the blue region) which is why 16 bit colour (which has 5 + 6 + 5 bits to divide amongst the red, green & blue) puts the extra information into the green (I think, could also be red, but its never the blue)
3) Most RGB displays, while they have gradations finer than the eye can distinguish, cannot show the full spectrum in width (from 400nm to 700nm wavelengths). You can put as many bits as you want on to any consumer display, there are colours it simply cannot do.
4) Humans vary in their ability to see colour, making alot of the finer gradations imprecise. 8% of males have altered colour vision - as do a small percentage of women and those bits are really wasted on them. On the other hand, if you have had cataract surgery, the implantable lens will let in low end ultraviolet (which your retina can see) that our natural lens does not allow through. Not that I'm suggesting that it is good to see into the UV range:)
Its all and interesting (perhaps) but to be truthful the website post seems to be a bit of a rant but not alot of news there (In temrs of it being "Stuff that matters")
Interesting comments on being in hospital and getting IV fluids & surgery - I guess its a reminder of how unpredictable people are compared with machines. (Insert obligate Windows joke here).
However, the lack of content could explain why the first six posts well all pretty uninteresting or off topic.
Serious question - does this site really have much "news" as such?
What a brilliant comment. So if you only read the sports section of the newspaper the newspaper is a rip-off for having the nerve to charge you for all those pesky other pages and you should go around ranting that it is only a sports section, the rest of the paper doesn't exist?
Whoa, hang back a second here. I'm not saying that the other bits of.mac don't exist. I am just saying that they are of relatively little value to me.
But the flip side of the coin - are you seriously suggesting that you think that the 15MB of storage for eMails and 100MB of personal storage is enough for you? Well, perhaps it is, but it isn't nearly enough for me, nor is it enough for many others now. And if I subscribe to.mac and never use half the stuff, is this to apple's disadvantage?
I'm not trying to shoot down apple, I am seriously happy with my powerbook and my wife uses her iBook like she has never used any other computer. They work, and I like.
However, some things that apple do are crippled deliberately to promote further sales. iSync can sync your personal data to all sorts of stuff - your phone, your PDA, your idisk and your ipod - but not to any other external hard drive. Which is a pity if you want more storage than you can buy in an iPod. Likewise iTunes is the only client to stream audio to an airport express - but I didn't hear anyone on/. complain about the encryption on that being cracked.
So I'm saying, yes, I want more storage, and I'm not paying money to apple until it offers a gig of storage on the iDisk for a little less than $350 per year (current pricing on website http://www.mac.com/1/mac_faq.html#upgradingstorage )
And no, you can't get more than one gig on iDisk, probably because with their pricing model they know that nobody will ever take the subscription out.
In other words - 1 GB iDisk $350 per year. 1 GB gMail - free. Something is wrong there with somebody's pricing model for such a difference to exist.
And when apple realises this and drops its price a bit, more people (including myself) will pay them money for the services.
iDisk is only one part of Apple's subscription service(.mac).
Along with the 100MB of storage, it includes hosting, several commercial applications, and several discounts on software and subscription..mac also lets you access your bookmarks from any computer with internet access.
Yes, I know that. However, its the only bit I'm really interested in, and its way too small. The antivirus stuff will probably be useful one day when there are a few viruses around, and I use my own domain's for eMail.
But you would have to ask why, as a paid subscription service, they offer 10% of the storage of gMail.
I would love to use idisk, and when I can offload a significant amount of the 40 GB of backup data I have online, I will do so.
It's a war, but it's not going to be about storage. Gmail doesn't need to match Hotmail on the 2GB storage (at least yet).
On the other hand, apples paid subscription service (idisk) with 100 MB of storage (At $99/yr) starts to look a little paltry - It will be interesteing to see what they do in response to this.
Alright dude, but at the farms out here about 5 years is a good number, since these things are typically made of glass and, *surprise*, glass breaks. Last time I drove by a farm (about 5 weeks ago) about a third of the panels were broken-either from punks throwing rocks or just whatever. Just fragile, and that can be a pretty bad thing in the desert.
Thats easily fixed. Simply wire the power outflow through the fence around the solar farm. Should keep most of those punk vandals from damaging the cells. Might need some batteries for 24/7 protection....
I just got an Airport Express recently and during the setup process it gave me the option of using WEP or WPA, which it said was more secure, so I chose the latter. Why hasn't anyone mentioned WPA in this discussion? I don't really know anything about it other than it is supposed to be a more secure alternative to WEP, yet I've never heard anyone mention it even from the store I bought the Airport Express from.
I don't think that alot of wireless vendors implement WPA. Apple has chosen to do so for a while now, because they actually seem to understand default security alot better than the windows world.
The trouble with WPA is mostly getting windows machines to look on the network for it - most of my windows boxes cant see WPA, and using them wirelessly requires me to turn off WPA (which I do as little as possible)
By the way, its totally reasonable to have unsecured public access wireless at defcon - there is no point in securing a public network. If they used WEP, they would have to give everyone at the conference the key - thus negating the security.
The point of this discussion relates more to private networks where you are assuming that it is trusted.
1) punish the person for breaking the law 2) protect society from the criminal
Actually I can see at least three reasons:
Punishment Protection Rehabilitation
Society seems very confused about which of these roles Prison is for.
There is also restitution, which is very important but has nothing to do with a jail sentance in most cases.
Most people want punishment, probably because there is an underlying emotional response most people have to strike back. This works in small communities well, but doesn't work so well in larger communities/cities or with some individuals who are not fully competent to plan (Frontal lobe brain injuries, Antisocial personality disorders)
Protection is often mentioned by the judiciary and media, but rarely provided. Protection means keeping most serial offenders locked up for life, without punishment (You are removing them for society not for what they have done, but what they might do again). Likewise it means doing nothing in some situations such as an elderly couple where the husband kills the wife who has a chronic illness at her request, because he would not be a threat to society or likely to do this again to someone else.
Rehabilitation is what everyone says, but never really happens. Prisons do many things, but rarely rehabilitate people. If you are going to change your life in prison, you will probably make the choice of your own volition, early on in your sentance. It will occur independently of any "programs" that people are put through, which will not work in many offenders.
Just my 2c, I'm sure this will generate other responses as its an emotive topic.
Since every cell phone tower consists of an array of antennas, you can simply measure on which antenna the signal is strongest for an approximate direction. Combined with the distance measurement (from signal strength), this gives quite a nice accuracy (~100m).
Except that signal strength is dynamically altered by GSM and all other advanced mobiles - you don't want the mobile transmitting at full strength all the time, just the minimum amount to get through reliably because:
1. Your battery life will be pitiful if max power is used 2. You will "Jam" one frequency/timeslice over the whole radius of your transmission.
The big advance of GSM over Analog phones (similar with CDMA I believe) is that they could work well with high basestation densities, and they do this by keeping the power down, not up.
So signal strength does not tell you how far away the phone is.
How ironic, the inflexible mindset of the OSS crowd. I'm tempted to let your arrogance stand and fall on its' own; but I can't resist citeting out a quote from the linux advocacy site Linux Myths.
Except that this is a troll. Its a particularly bad one as the real site is now down.
But the first page of this is still cached with google as a small (and less offensive) proof that the site isn't what the URL would suggest:
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=cache:CV8fXaH5 UM sJ:linuxmyths.org/+linuxmyths&hl=en&ie=UTF -8
I'm sure this site will pop up again however - this sort of rubbish usually does.
Only the 12" PowerBook is missing a PC Card slot, and that's probably because there wasn't room for one. Every other PowerBook in the last 10 years has PC Slots, including the latest 15" and 17" models.
Well, I stand corrected in this case. I never noticed a PC slot on any of the 15 or 17 inch models, I'll look again.
However, neither my 12" powerbook nor my wifes 14" iBook have them, and neither does the 12" iBook.
I cheched the Apple web site and it does describe the PC slot on those two models. However, they make no other mention of them and in fact boast of how there is nothing that sticks out on the laptops. Which is probably the whole problem with most PC card slots.
Anyway, of the Six base models of laptop (3x iBook, 3x PowerBook) that they sell on the website, two of them have PC slots and 4 do not.
They certainly dont treat them as essential items.
Microsoft has vowed to fight the EC's ruling The European Commission has suspended sanctions against Microsoft stemming from a ruling that the group had abused its dominant market position.
The move came after the world's largest software company appealed against the decision at the EU court early in June.
The EC stressed that the move was an "interim measure" until a court had ruled on Microsoft's request. Microsoft has also asked for a long-term suspension of EU-imposed changes to the way the firm operates.
The changes ordered by the Commission include selling a version of Windows without its media player software.
Record fine
Microsoft was ordered to unbundle the software within 90 days - that deadline runs out on Monday.
The EC, in its March ruling, also hit Microsoft with a record fine of 497m euros (332m) and gave it 120 days to reveal details of its Windows software codes, so rivals could design compatible products more easily.
The remedies will not only hurt Microsoft, they will hurt many other software development companies and web site developers who have built products for the Windows platform Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft lawyer But on Friday, the company appealed to the Court of the First Instance in Luxembourg, asking it to suspend the orders for as long as its case remains before the European Courts.
That could see the penalties suspended for as long as three years.
As it announced the suspension, the Commission said that "in the interest of a proper administration of justice", it was delaying the implementation of its measures "while a Microsoft application for interim measures is being considered".
But it added that the decision to put the punishment on hold was "without prejudice to Microsoft's obligation to implement the remedies" if the court decides to reject Microsoft's request.
Unfair advantage
"The Commission believes that the remedies are reasonable, balanced and necessary to restore competition in the marketplace and that there is a strong public interest in favour of implementing them without waiting for the judgement on the substance of the case," a statement added.
Microsoft has vowed to fight the Commission's finding that it had broken competition laws, arguing that the EC sanctions will stunt competition and innovation, and limit consumer choice.
Microsoft's Windows software runs on about 90% of the world's PCs.
Rivals, including Real Networks, have complained that the company was unnecessarily bundling in software with its operating system, and as a result gaining an unfair advantage.
One of the main bones of contention was Microsoft's media player - software used to play audio and video, as well as to burn CDs.
'Lost forever'
Bundling media player in with its Windows software meant that consumers rarely looked for similar products offered by other companies, critics argued.
The EU agreed and told Microsoft in March that it had 120 days to reveal details of its Windows software codes so rivals could design compatible products more easily.
It was also instructed to offer a version of its Windows operating system minus the media player within 90 days.
It could, however, still sell Windows with the media player included.
"The remedies will not only hurt Microsoft, they will hurt many other software development companies and web site developers who have built products for the Windows platform," the company's lawyer Horacio Gutierrez said.
Well, I can understand the appeal making sense in witholding the source code - once its out in the public domain you really can't get it back in.
As for the fine, however, they should pay up now like most ordinary people do when they lose a court case (You normally have to pay costs upfront if you lose a case before you can appeal, at least in Australia and most places elsewhere I suspect too).
The key point to remember is that a mauve paradigm shift will more robustly develop synergy and foster a more scalable environment of positive collegiality utilizing a next-generation digital framework powered by web-enabled e-commerce applications.
Right, yeah.
The Open Sauce Applicator. That will be between the ketchup and the mustard.
This is the reason why my s&p 500 software company won't touch or even allow us to use GPL code.
The BSD license is acceptable.
Is there anything to stop you from taking BSD code and relicencing it as GPL? Just out of interest - Obviously it won't stop the original code from being available - but in response to BSD code is ok but GPL is bad.
If your issue is the licence, then fine. If your issue is intellectual property, then perhaps you should think again - you are probably firing at the wrong target to suggest that the GPL is, of itself, a weakness.
There are hundreds of IP violations that go on all the time in commercial products - the GPL just makes that more obvious more quickly.
yone can blurt out a hundred of reasons why you may need the extra bays and slots. But the truth is that most people won't use them. External USB and Firewire devices are getting more affordable and closer to the prices of internal equipment (unlike 10 years ago where where was a huge difference) PCI slots are no longer as important as they were before especially with integrated Modems, Sound, Ethernet, and Video (Well Video is rarely pci based anymore) There isn't much need anymore for PCI like they use to. With USB memory sticks becoming very affordable with a large sizes (a 512k stick $80) There is not much of a need for extra 5.25 bays for extra Optical Drives for most uses.
I have to agree. Apple does remove things when they aren't needed. They got rid of the floppy drive.
I don't hear anyone on/. saying that that was a step backwards, although it raised a few eyebrows at the time
Same goes for PCI slots. The bandwidth of Firewire (more than USB 2.0, which is a bit of a hack) plus its expandability in the future to 800 and 1600 MB/s means that most users don't need the speed of a PCI slot.
Note that they have done much the same on their iBooks and PowerBooks - Go find a PC card slot on them - because firewire and USB2.0 provide sufficient bandwidth to replace the PC card slot need. Plus all the above comments about integrated sound/video/ethernet/modem and so on.
The need for these older technologies just isn't there anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
I support an office which is running W2K on the servers (about 40 of them) and about 300 XP Pro workstations. Since switching from NT to XP, I would have to say that the failure/crash/reboot ratio has dropped considerably. Before the switch it was almost daily that I would have to tell someone to reboot their computer. With XP, I have never told someone to reboot their computer. In fact, my workstation (which gets abused alot more than users workstations) has been up for 4 months now without any issues. I think it all comes down to proper education for the users and IT personel; and proper administration of the computers.
Of course, XP auto reboots instead of BSODing. So your users might be rebooting without calling you for help.
Have you looked at how often this happens?
Its a moot point for the average desktop user - a reboot isn't the end of the world (especially with word doing autorecovery of a document).
Michael
That little white light stay blinking? When I shut any of my mac laptops lids they go to sleep. This is not a reboot. I find the only reason I reboot my OS X machines anymore is when software update tells me to, and even then I push the screen back until the end of the day.
Yes the little white light stays blinking. I know it isn't a reboot. My previous comment about shutting down and starting up OSX was a joke (perhaps I was being a little too dry).
I do understand the real difference between what the laptop does and a true reboot of the operating system (which OS X rarely requires). I actually think that the almost immediate power on/off of the mac laptops is one of the best features. Even if you know nothing about computers you can tell that the ibook/powerbook is a very different breed to a windows computer.
Michael
This is about rebooting. A crash is not the only time Windows forces you to reboot. You say you shut down daily - only Windows users would regard that as normal.
Not true - I'm a mac user, and I shut down alot. Every time I a finished at the laptop I shut down the lid. When I'm ready to work again I have to do a start up - I start by lifting the lid up.
Pretty much the same really.
Not.
Michael
For once some of us don't have to RTFA!
c on tent?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsolutions.journaldunet.com%2 F0409%2F040915_etude_postedetravail.shtml&lp=fr_en
/. may have inserted)
Although if you do want to read the article, in english, its here:
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_page
(Remove any spaces in the above URL that
Michael
Even the type that Slashdot attracts can't read everything posted here. As a community service, here's some more news, should a reader have missed it the first 10**6 times around ( :) ):
- holy cr*p. A meteor's going to smash into the Earth
- Bill Gates and anyone who looks like him is evil, evil, evil
- in Soviet Russia, the tin foil hat wears you
- there's a floating point bug in the Pentium processor
- Google's issuing an IPO
- Perl is illegible line-noise
- Python is for weenies
You will kick yourself for forgetting it, but there is always the update article on the next evil action from SCO
Michael
Make the phosphors only excite one cone type each, and you can generate all the colors the eye can see.
Actually, the wavelength response curves of the cones overlap alot (particularly red and green). Which means that there is no light frequency that can stimulate only one cone.
So if you managed to excite only one cone type, you would produce a colour that you have probably never seen before.
Michael
If someone can post a good use of apgns/gifs for which a better solution does not exist, I will humbly retract my opinion and we can all consider this to be have been, indeed, a stupid question.
:)
How about as an alternative format for movie encoding instead of divx?
Sorry, I just had to say it.
MGV
16,777,216 != infinity :-)
:)
Actually, there is no point getting an infinite number of colours because:
1) Most displays cannot show that many colour
2) Even with a display that does 16 777 216 colours, the human eye cannot distinguish between that many shades (particularly in the blue region) which is why 16 bit colour (which has 5 + 6 + 5 bits to divide amongst the red, green & blue) puts the extra information into the green (I think, could also be red, but its never the blue)
3) Most RGB displays, while they have gradations finer than the eye can distinguish, cannot show the full spectrum in width (from 400nm to 700nm wavelengths). You can put as many bits as you want on to any consumer display, there are colours it simply cannot do.
4) Humans vary in their ability to see colour, making alot of the finer gradations imprecise. 8% of males have altered colour vision - as do a small percentage of women and those bits are really wasted on them. On the other hand, if you have had cataract surgery, the implantable lens will let in low end ultraviolet (which your retina can see) that our natural lens does not allow through. Not that I'm suggesting that it is good to see into the UV range
My 2c worth
Michael
all of the record labels join under one RIAA roof, get out the gun, and sue their enemy ...
If that's not a monopoly what is?
What you have described is an oligopoly
A monopoly is when there is only one entity controlling a resourse for sale.
Sorry, but you did ask.
No argument with your line of reasoning, however.
Michael
Its all and interesting (perhaps) but to be truthful the website post seems to be a bit of a rant but not alot of news there (In temrs of it being "Stuff that matters")
Interesting comments on being in hospital and getting IV fluids & surgery - I guess its a reminder of how unpredictable people are compared with machines. (Insert obligate Windows joke here).
However, the lack of content could explain why the first six posts well all pretty uninteresting or off topic.
Serious question - does this site really have much "news" as such?
Michael
What a brilliant comment. So if you only read the sports section of the newspaper the newspaper is a rip-off for having the nerve to charge you for all those pesky other pages and you should go around ranting that it is only a sports section, the rest of the paper doesn't exist?
.mac don't exist. I am just saying that they are of relatively little value to me.
.mac and never use half the stuff, is this to apple's disadvantage?
/. complain about the encryption on that being cracked.
e )
Whoa, hang back a second here. I'm not saying that the other bits of
But the flip side of the coin - are you seriously suggesting that you think that the 15MB of storage for eMails and 100MB of personal storage is enough for you? Well, perhaps it is, but it isn't nearly enough for me, nor is it enough for many others now. And if I subscribe to
I'm not trying to shoot down apple, I am seriously happy with my powerbook and my wife uses her iBook like she has never used any other computer. They work, and I like.
However, some things that apple do are crippled deliberately to promote further sales. iSync can sync your personal data to all sorts of stuff - your phone, your PDA, your idisk and your ipod - but not to any other external hard drive. Which is a pity if you want more storage than you can buy in an iPod. Likewise iTunes is the only client to stream audio to an airport express - but I didn't hear anyone on
So I'm saying, yes, I want more storage, and I'm not paying money to apple until it offers a gig of storage on the iDisk for a little less than $350 per year (current pricing on website http://www.mac.com/1/mac_faq.html#upgradingstorag
And no, you can't get more than one gig on iDisk, probably because with their pricing model they know that nobody will ever take the subscription out.
In other words - 1 GB iDisk $350 per year. 1 GB gMail - free. Something is wrong there with somebody's pricing model for such a difference to exist.
And when apple realises this and drops its price a bit, more people (including myself) will pay them money for the services.
Michael
iDisk is only one part of Apple's subscription service(.mac).
.mac also lets you access your bookmarks from any computer with internet access.
Along with the 100MB of storage, it includes hosting, several commercial applications, and several discounts on software and subscription.
Yes, I know that. However, its the only bit I'm really interested in, and its way too small. The antivirus stuff will probably be useful one day when there are a few viruses around, and I use my own domain's for eMail.
But you would have to ask why, as a paid subscription service, they offer 10% of the storage of gMail.
I would love to use idisk, and when I can offload a significant amount of the 40 GB of backup data I have online, I will do so.
Michael
If you'd turn it into a formula, yes, that would probably be what you'd get. :-)
:)
500 MB - 1 GB is likely to be more than enough for my needs.
Yes, I'd say that 640 MB of storage should be enough for anyone.
Michael
It's a war, but it's not going to be about storage. Gmail doesn't need to match Hotmail on the 2GB storage (at least yet).
/yr) starts to look a little paltry - It will be interesteing to see what they do in response to this.
On the other hand, apples paid subscription service (idisk) with 100 MB of storage (At $99
Michael
Alright dude, but at the farms out here about 5 years is a good number, since these things are typically made of glass and, *surprise*, glass breaks. Last time I drove by a farm (about 5 weeks ago) about a third of the panels were broken-either from punks throwing rocks or just whatever. Just fragile, and that can be a pretty bad thing in the desert.
....
Thats easily fixed. Simply wire the power outflow through the fence around the solar farm. Should keep most of those punk vandals from damaging the cells. Might need some batteries for 24/7 protection
Michael
I just got an Airport Express recently and during the setup process it gave me the option of using WEP or WPA, which it said was more secure, so I chose the latter. Why hasn't anyone mentioned WPA in this discussion? I don't really know anything about it other than it is supposed to be a more secure alternative to WEP, yet I've never heard anyone mention it even from the store I bought the Airport Express from.
I don't think that alot of wireless vendors implement WPA. Apple has chosen to do so for a while now, because they actually seem to understand default security alot better than the windows world.
The trouble with WPA is mostly getting windows machines to look on the network for it - most of my windows boxes cant see WPA, and using them wirelessly requires me to turn off WPA (which I do as little as possible)
By the way, its totally reasonable to have unsecured public access wireless at defcon - there is no point in securing a public network. If they used WEP, they would have to give everyone at the conference the key - thus negating the security.
The point of this discussion relates more to private networks where you are assuming that it is trusted.
My 2c
Michael
1) punish the person for breaking the law
2) protect society from the criminal
Actually I can see at least three reasons:
Punishment
Protection
Rehabilitation
Society seems very confused about which of these roles Prison is for.
There is also restitution, which is very important but has nothing to do with a jail sentance in most cases.
Most people want punishment, probably because there is an underlying emotional response most people have to strike back. This works in small communities well, but doesn't work so well in larger communities/cities or with some individuals who are not fully competent to plan (Frontal lobe brain injuries, Antisocial personality disorders)
Protection is often mentioned by the judiciary and media, but rarely provided. Protection means keeping most serial offenders locked up for life, without punishment (You are removing them for society not for what they have done, but what they might do again). Likewise it means doing nothing in some situations such as an elderly couple where the husband kills the wife who has a chronic illness at her request, because he would not be a threat to society or likely to do this again to someone else.
Rehabilitation is what everyone says, but never really happens. Prisons do many things, but rarely rehabilitate people. If you are going to change your life in prison, you will probably make the choice of your own volition, early on in your sentance. It will occur independently of any "programs" that people are put through, which will not work in many offenders.
Just my 2c, I'm sure this will generate other responses as its an emotive topic.
Michael
Since every cell phone tower consists of an array of antennas, you can simply measure on which antenna the signal is strongest for an approximate direction. Combined with the distance measurement (from signal strength), this gives quite a nice accuracy (~100m).
Except that signal strength is dynamically altered by GSM and all other advanced mobiles - you don't want the mobile transmitting at full strength all the time, just the minimum amount to get through reliably because:
1. Your battery life will be pitiful if max power is used
2. You will "Jam" one frequency/timeslice over the whole radius of your transmission.
The big advance of GSM over Analog phones (similar with CDMA I believe) is that they could work well with high basestation densities, and they do this by keeping the power down, not up.
So signal strength does not tell you how far away the phone is.
Michael
How ironic, the inflexible mindset of the OSS crowd. I'm tempted to let your arrogance stand and fall on its' own; but I can't resist citeting out a quote from the linux advocacy site Linux Myths
Except that this is a troll. Its a particularly bad one as the real site is now down.
But the first page of this is still cached with google as a small (and less offensive) proof that the site isn't what the URL would suggest:
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=cache:CV8fXaH
I'm sure this site will pop up again however - this sort of rubbish usually does.
Michael
Only the 12" PowerBook is missing a PC Card slot, and that's probably because there wasn't room for one. Every other PowerBook in the last 10 years has PC Slots, including the latest 15" and 17" models.
Well, I stand corrected in this case. I never noticed a PC slot on any of the 15 or 17 inch models, I'll look again.
However, neither my 12" powerbook nor my wifes 14" iBook have them, and neither does the 12" iBook.
I cheched the Apple web site and it does describe the PC slot on those two models. However, they make no other mention of them and in fact boast of how there is nothing that sticks out on the laptops. Which is probably the whole problem with most PC card slots.
Anyway, of the Six base models of laptop (3x iBook, 3x PowerBook) that they sell on the website, two of them have PC slots and 4 do not.
They certainly dont treat them as essential items.
Michael
Jesus christ, moron, blatant karma whoring. It's practically impossible to /. the BBC.
/. effect to for those who don't RTFA.
My post could be interpreted as a Karma Whore one but I would like to make the following points before you call it a blatant whore however:
1) My Karma is probably about 50 (Max) anyway, not that you can tell these days. I don't need to Karma Whore
2) If it makes you feel better, change the
3) I did actually add my own comments to the bottom of the cut and paste, because I was actually making a comment also.
Michael
From the article, just to avoid the /. effect:
Microsoft has vowed to fight the EC's ruling
The European Commission has suspended sanctions against Microsoft stemming from a ruling that the group had abused its dominant market position.
The move came after the world's largest software company appealed against the decision at the EU court early in June.
The EC stressed that the move was an "interim measure" until a court had ruled on Microsoft's request. Microsoft has also asked for a long-term suspension of EU-imposed changes to the way the firm operates.
The changes ordered by the Commission include selling a version of Windows without its media player software.
Record fine
Microsoft was ordered to unbundle the software within 90 days - that deadline runs out on Monday.
The EC, in its March ruling, also hit Microsoft with a record fine of 497m euros (332m) and gave it 120 days to reveal details of its Windows software codes, so rivals could design compatible products more easily.
The remedies will not only hurt Microsoft, they will hurt many other software development companies and web site developers who have built products for the Windows platform
Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft lawyer
But on Friday, the company appealed to the Court of the First Instance in Luxembourg, asking it to suspend the orders for as long as its case remains before the European Courts.
That could see the penalties suspended for as long as three years.
As it announced the suspension, the Commission said that "in the interest of a proper administration of justice", it was delaying the implementation of its measures "while a Microsoft application for interim measures is being considered".
But it added that the decision to put the punishment on hold was "without prejudice to Microsoft's obligation to implement the remedies" if the court decides to reject Microsoft's request.
Unfair advantage
"The Commission believes that the remedies are reasonable, balanced and necessary to restore competition in the marketplace and that there is a strong public interest in favour of implementing them without waiting for the judgement on the substance of the case," a statement added.
Microsoft has vowed to fight the Commission's finding that it had broken competition laws, arguing that the EC sanctions will stunt competition and innovation, and limit consumer choice.
Microsoft's Windows software runs on about 90% of the world's PCs.
Rivals, including Real Networks, have complained that the company was unnecessarily bundling in software with its operating system, and as a result gaining an unfair advantage.
One of the main bones of contention was Microsoft's media player - software used to play audio and video, as well as to burn CDs.
'Lost forever'
Bundling media player in with its Windows software meant that consumers rarely looked for similar products offered by other companies, critics argued.
The EU agreed and told Microsoft in March that it had 120 days to reveal details of its Windows software codes so rivals could design compatible products more easily.
It was also instructed to offer a version of its Windows operating system minus the media player within 90 days.
It could, however, still sell Windows with the media player included.
"The remedies will not only hurt Microsoft, they will hurt many other software development companies and web site developers who have built products for the Windows platform," the company's lawyer Horacio Gutierrez said.
Well, I can understand the appeal making sense in witholding the source code - once its out in the public domain you really can't get it back in.
As for the fine, however, they should pay up now like most ordinary people do when they lose a court case (You normally have to pay costs upfront if you lose a case before you can appeal, at least in Australia and most places elsewhere I suspect too).
Michael
The key point to remember is that a mauve paradigm shift will more robustly develop synergy and foster a more scalable environment of positive collegiality utilizing a next-generation digital framework powered by web-enabled e-commerce applications.
Right, yeah.
The Open Sauce Applicator. That will be between the ketchup and the mustard.
Michael
This is the reason why my s&p 500 software company won't touch or even allow us to use GPL code.
The BSD license is acceptable.
Is there anything to stop you from taking BSD code and relicencing it as GPL? Just out of interest - Obviously it won't stop the original code from being available - but in response to BSD code is ok but GPL is bad.
If your issue is the licence, then fine. If your issue is intellectual property, then perhaps you should think again - you are probably firing at the wrong target to suggest that the GPL is, of itself, a weakness.
There are hundreds of IP violations that go on all the time in commercial products - the GPL just makes that more obvious more quickly.
Michael
yone can blurt out a hundred of reasons why you may need the extra bays and slots. But the truth is that most people won't use them. External USB and Firewire devices are getting more affordable and closer to the prices of internal equipment (unlike 10 years ago where where was a huge difference) PCI slots are no longer as important as they were before especially with integrated Modems, Sound, Ethernet, and Video (Well Video is rarely pci based anymore) There isn't much need anymore for PCI like they use to. With USB memory sticks becoming very affordable with a large sizes (a 512k stick $80) There is not much of a need for extra 5.25 bays for extra Optical Drives for most uses.
/. saying that that was a step backwards, although it raised a few eyebrows at the time
I have to agree. Apple does remove things when they aren't needed. They got rid of the floppy drive.
I don't hear anyone on
Same goes for PCI slots. The bandwidth of Firewire (more than USB 2.0, which is a bit of a hack) plus its expandability in the future to 800 and 1600 MB/s means that most users don't need the speed of a PCI slot.
Note that they have done much the same on their iBooks and PowerBooks - Go find a PC card slot on them - because firewire and USB2.0 provide sufficient bandwidth to replace the PC card slot need. Plus all the above comments about integrated sound/video/ethernet/modem and so on.
The need for these older technologies just isn't there anymore.
Michael