I just don't believe Windows is a suitable OS for embedded devices.
I'm all for bashing Microsoft for its numerous failings, but we are talking about a mobile OS, completely rebuilt from the ground up, which is yet to be released. It completely breaks backward compatibility, has a completely new programming model and APIs (as far as Windows Mobile is concerned) and imposes strict requirements on the hardware, in stark contrast with past WM versions. In this case, any previous experience we've had with Windows Mobile is irrelevant, with the only possible exception being Zune, as it's said that WM7 borrows parts of the UI (or maybe much more than just the UI?) from it.
In the end, you may turn out to be right, but until we've had the chance to play with it, such dismissals on general grounds seem unjustified.
A potential issue I didn't see addressed in the article - crosstalk. What happens when an outbound signal, neuronal activity triggering a light pulse, is produced at the same wavelength (color) as another is tweaked to "listen" for? Would the brain be able to compensate and filter out such signals, as this essentially creates a form of an artificial permanent link between the two? Or maybe this isn't an issue beyond, say a few hundred microns, because the energy of the outgoing photons is below the sensitivity threshold of the listening ones? Otherwise, it might not be very practical to have to deal with your left knee bending every time you think of the letter "P".
Also, in theory, how many wavelengths could different molecules be produced to fluoresce (if this is even the right term) at? Same thing for the light-sensitive ones. How wide is the sensitivity waveband? IOW, how large a bandwidth can we expect to command, in each direction? Or put in even simpler terms, how many different things can this technology be employed for, simultaneously?
I can only hope that your science is more well-reasoned and more fact based than your views on atheism and its more vocal proponents.
If you have paid attention reading The God Delusion or watched just about any of his numerous recent interviews, you would have understood that Dawkins' atheism does not say "I know for a fact because I'm smarter than you, I'm certain that there is no god", but rather "*I see no compelling evidence* that there exists a personal god as described in the Bible, Quran and most any other monotheistic religions' literature." He describes himself as an agnostic atheist, one who admits there's a chance that such a god exists, but that chance is very, very small indeed. There is nothing dogmatic about such attitude.
You don't get to the top of the food chain by being a a bunch of happy fluffy bunnies. Exactly! Obviously the only way to get dismembered in this overly safe world is by being shot at or chased by bazookas. And all those pharmaceuticals and safety equipment, they've all been tested in WAR! Did you really think they've been conducting clinical trials for years? Don't be silly. The only reason to innovate is, of course, to be able to kill more effectively. A seven year old can tell you that. Because that's what really matters, that's what life is all about! We should all be proud with ourselves.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something..
You know, I dig that sig! That said, I have to ask you - Why do you believe so unwaveringly that watching TV does not exercise the symbolic cognition faculty? How do you define "symbol"? Isn't a visually presented form, shape or animation a symbol? Why can't a character (as in personage) be a symbol? If they can, what makes you believe that those symbols are never structured in a logical way when presented on the TV (or a DVD, or PC, etc)? Aren't books just one of the possible media that help transfer certain amount of information?
It's not about the medium, it's about the content. Not all books are a worthwhile reading, just as not all that's on TV is educational. Maybe we don't yet have enough quality interactive and/or video material, but that's a completely different issue. The visual cortex is a powerful "machine" that should not be restricted to just one mode of data entry when it comes to learning. Furthermore, it can and does a bunch of processing on its own and helps spot patterns in situations where logic alone will not do. All it takes is properly formatted input! Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water..
As I said earlier I understand and fully embrace most of the commonly announced concerns in this regard. However, I still think that an HTML rendering framework is (or should be) part of the basic infrastructure that every developer targeting a particular OS (and why not across OSs) should be able to rely upon. Some of the individual implementations are bound to be of poor quality as is the case with MS IE. What I do not agree with is the litigious side of this discussion. Otherwise, what's stopping them to request removal of the TCP stack implementation in Windows? How is that any different? Maybe there are tons of vendors willing to sell their own implementations of TCP stacks based on whatever they deem necessary APIs be it sockets or something proprietary. If there was a standard API, approved by independent international body like IETF, for accessing arbitrary HTML frameworks the case against IE would've been much more convincing. Since there is no such thing available, I tend to agree with MS that it is responsible for providing this functionality to its developers across all versions of its OS.
As much as I grok the premises of the loudly voiced opinion that IE (or any other browser for that matter) should be separate from the OS, I find myself stuck on this question: do you really need to include a version of your favorite browser (provided that it is embeddable) with every single application you create that requires HTML functionality, however insignificant that requirement might be? What if IE were a perfectly secure and stable browser with solid API and conforming to all standarts? Will you be still able to defend this stance given the potential benefits?
I submited that same story half a day ago and got a shiny =rejected=, although I referred to The Register's article. Whining aside, what I didn't expected to read (not @the reg, at least) was the following ^insightful^ observation: "The theft is a worry for security pros because wider access to Cisco's proprietary source code might make it easier for hackers to develop exploits." I guess I was fooling myself thinking that at least some open source firewall/scurity-related solutions are indeed (as)secure(as some piece of software can be). Now I get to "know" that all of them are inherently not, cuz their source is out there for any(evil)one to see! Goosebumps, anyone?;) Ok, ok, buffer overruns are much harder to find when you don't have the source, but is it that buffer overruns are really unavoidable? What else is there for Cisco to worry about? Better compliance with cheap chinese knock-offs?
At first I totally agreed, but then something reminded me of how XPCOM is Mozilla's version of MS COM. So, what's wrong with basing your design on a standard you're not going to use otherwise for being unsuitable in whatever way to your needs?
True, digital zoom can not figure information out of the blue. My guess is though, they're enhancing *analog* signal, not HDTV or whatever digital standart you might be thinking about. Plain old analog TV is still quite popular outside the US. The real gimmick might be the word Digital they're using in the product name.
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Sen. Ron Wyden says it's worse than you know.
So he went ahead and voted for it. Makes total sense.
I'm all for bashing Microsoft for its numerous failings, but we are talking about a mobile OS, completely rebuilt from the ground up, which is yet to be released. It completely breaks backward compatibility, has a completely new programming model and APIs (as far as Windows Mobile is concerned) and imposes strict requirements on the hardware, in stark contrast with past WM versions. In this case, any previous experience we've had with Windows Mobile is irrelevant, with the only possible exception being Zune, as it's said that WM7 borrows parts of the UI (or maybe much more than just the UI?) from it.
In the end, you may turn out to be right, but until we've had the chance to play with it, such dismissals on general grounds seem unjustified.
A potential issue I didn't see addressed in the article - crosstalk. What happens when an outbound signal, neuronal activity triggering a light pulse, is produced at the same wavelength (color) as another is tweaked to "listen" for? Would the brain be able to compensate and filter out such signals, as this essentially creates a form of an artificial permanent link between the two? Or maybe this isn't an issue beyond, say a few hundred microns, because the energy of the outgoing photons is below the sensitivity threshold of the listening ones? Otherwise, it might not be very practical to have to deal with your left knee bending every time you think of the letter "P".
Also, in theory, how many wavelengths could different molecules be produced to fluoresce (if this is even the right term) at? Same thing for the light-sensitive ones. How wide is the sensitivity waveband? IOW, how large a bandwidth can we expect to command, in each direction? Or put in even simpler terms, how many different things can this technology be employed for, simultaneously?
I can only hope that your science is more well-reasoned and more fact based than your views on atheism and its more vocal proponents.
If you have paid attention reading The God Delusion or watched just about any of his numerous recent interviews, you would have understood that Dawkins' atheism does not say "I know for a fact because I'm smarter than you, I'm certain that there is no god", but rather "*I see no compelling evidence* that there exists a personal god as described in the Bible, Quran and most any other monotheistic religions' literature." He describes himself as an agnostic atheist, one who admits there's a chance that such a god exists, but that chance is very, very small indeed. There is nothing dogmatic about such attitude.
You are my hero, Mr. Bad Wolf!
Shamelessly stolen from Sam Harris' Atheist Manifesto.
It must have something to do with magnetic field exerting force on a moving electric charge.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something..
You know, I dig that sig! That said, I have to ask you - Why do you believe so unwaveringly that watching TV does not exercise the symbolic cognition faculty? How do you define "symbol"? Isn't a visually presented form, shape or animation a symbol? Why can't a character (as in personage) be a symbol? If they can, what makes you believe that those symbols are never structured in a logical way when presented on the TV (or a DVD, or PC, etc)?
Aren't books just one of the possible media that help transfer certain amount of information?
It's not about the medium, it's about the content. Not all books are a worthwhile reading, just as not all that's on TV is educational. Maybe we don't yet have enough quality interactive and/or video material, but that's a completely different issue. The visual cortex is a powerful "machine" that should not be restricted to just one mode of data entry when it comes to learning. Furthermore, it can and does a bunch of processing on its own and helps spot patterns in situations where logic alone will not do. All it takes is properly formatted input! Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water..
Finally a good excuse for ./ to not have a single informative article the whole day. Woohooh
As I said earlier I understand and fully embrace most of the commonly announced concerns in this regard. However, I still think that an HTML rendering framework is (or should be) part of the basic infrastructure that every developer targeting a particular OS (and why not across OSs) should be able to rely upon. Some of the individual implementations are bound to be of poor quality as is the case with MS IE. What I do not agree with is the litigious side of this discussion. Otherwise, what's stopping them to request removal of the TCP stack implementation in Windows? How is that any different? Maybe there are tons of vendors willing to sell their own implementations of TCP stacks based on whatever they deem necessary APIs be it sockets or something proprietary.
If there was a standard API, approved by independent international body like IETF, for accessing arbitrary HTML frameworks the case against IE would've been much more convincing. Since there is no such thing available, I tend to agree with MS that it is responsible for providing this functionality to its developers across all versions of its OS.
As much as I grok the premises of the loudly voiced opinion that IE (or any other browser for that matter) should be separate from the OS, I find myself stuck on this question: do you really need to include a version of your favorite browser (provided that it is embeddable) with every single application you create that requires HTML functionality, however insignificant that requirement might be?
What if IE were a perfectly secure and stable browser with solid API and conforming to all standarts? Will you be still able to defend this stance given the potential benefits?
Funny, right? When 51% of the americans would agree with the above - it ain't funny to me!
I submited that same story half a day ago and got a shiny =rejected=, although I referred to The Register's article. Whining aside, what I didn't expected to read (not @the reg, at least) was the following ^insightful^ observation: "The theft is a worry for security pros because wider access to Cisco's proprietary source code might make it easier for hackers to develop exploits." I guess I was fooling myself thinking that at least some open source firewall/scurity-related solutions are indeed (as)secure(as some piece of software can be). Now I get to "know" that all of them are inherently not, cuz their source is out there for any(evil)one to see! Goosebumps, anyone? ;) Ok, ok, buffer overruns are much harder to find when you don't have the source, but is it that buffer overruns are really unavoidable? What else is there for Cisco to worry about? Better compliance with cheap chinese knock-offs?
At first I totally agreed, but then something reminded me of how XPCOM is Mozilla's version of MS COM. So, what's wrong with basing your design on a standard you're not going to use otherwise for being unsuitable in whatever way to your needs?
True, digital zoom can not figure information out of the blue. My guess is though, they're enhancing *analog* signal, not HDTV or whatever digital standart you might be thinking about. Plain old analog TV is still quite popular outside the US. The real gimmick might be the word Digital they're using in the product name.