Set on the lowest setting, a summary of the article is:
The method could eventually allow computers to more easily process natural language, produce paraphrases that could be used in machine translation, and help people who have trouble reading certain types of sentences.
At a roughly 10% size:
The researchers used gene comparison techniques to identify word patterns from different news sources that described the same event.
The method could eventually allow computers to more easily process natural language, produce paraphrases that could be used in machine translation, and help people who have trouble reading certain types of sentences.
...When two reporters describe the same news event, for instance, they may use different details, but they tend to report about the same basic facts, said Barzilay.
...you have genes which started from the same kind of seed, and then they change during evolution [but] there is some similarity," said Barzilay.
...Given a sentence to paraphrase, the system finds the closest match among one set of lattices, then uses the matching lattice from the second source to fill in the argument values of the original sentence to create paraphrases.
At a quarter size:
The researchers used gene comparison techniques to identify word patterns from different news sources that described the same event.
The method could eventually allow computers to more easily process natural language, produce paraphrases that could be used in machine translation, and help people who have trouble reading certain types of sentences.
...When two reporters describe the same news event, for instance, they may use different details, but they tend to report about the same basic facts, said Barzilay.
...Second, to sort out sentence similarities, the researchers borrowed techniques from computational biology that determine how closely related organisms are by finding similarities among genes.... you have genes which started from the same kind of seed, and then they change during evolution [but] there is some similarity," said Barzilay.
...Lattices are made up of words or parallel sets of words that occur across several examples, and arguments, or slots, where names, dates or number of people hurt or killed occur.
...One pattern, or lattice, read: Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in NAME on DATE killing NUMBER (other) people and injuring/wounding NUMBER.
...Given a sentence to paraphrase, the system finds the closest match among one set of lattices, then uses the matching lattice from the second source to fill in the argument values of the original sentence to create paraphrases.
...The researchers' ultimate goal is to use the system to allow computers to be able to paraphrase like humans, and to understand paraphrases, "but that's very far [off]", said Barzilay.
...Barzilay's previous work, which used a different technique to paraphrase at the level of words and phrases rather than sentences, is part of the Columbia News Blaster project, which summarizes news stories.
...The researchers' system has the potential to accomplish the same thing by taking one human translation and creating 10 paraphrases of it automatically, she said.
...The system could be used to produce paraphrases based on a specific model, for example, for phasic readers, who find it difficult to read certain types of phrases, she said.
...For example, the system learned incorrectly that "Palestinian suicide bomber" and "suicide bomber" were the same, and that "killing 20 people" is the same as "killing 20 Israelis", said Barzilay.
If you play by the rules of capitalists and capitalism, the way to make it better is to make a corporation that makes good money with a good business model by not outsourcing and raping their customers; if you can do that, according to theory, there will be competitors who will spring up to steal your market and money by being more effective (at making money and satisfying customers), more efficient, or by offering a slightly better product/service/good.
If you frame the problem as capitalism as the problem, then your only solution is to endorse cooperation instead of competition for resources. Economics tells us there are limited resources, and capitalism is the common popular method in which those resources are allocated; you compete for them. The alternative is you share the resources willingly, but no one has figured out an efficient and effective way of doing it. Invariably people in power will manage to distribute the resources inequitably, in their favor... But even capitalism does that, with the side benefit that in the process, the person with the most power happens to do something good while simultaneously becoming the biggest target for other capitalists to take down!
Uh, other than the fact that Windows NT *was* OS/2 v3, that it contained the full OS/2 subsystem, and that Microsoft worked with IBM on OS/2 v1-v3 until renaming v3 to Windows NT?
Of course it's not just the shell!
on
On The Death Of Unix
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
But under the UI, Mac OS X is significantly more Unix than Windows XP, 2k, and NT.
You're misusing an extreme to prove the moderate.
Just because Windows isn't a Unix, but it has a shell, then Mac OS X isn't a Unix, despite it having a shell.
Between those points though, if you were to plot BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows XP on a Unix chart? Mac OS X would cluster much closer to BSD than to Windows XP, and Linux might actually fall in between OS X and BSD.
Cladistcally, OS X *is* a Unix. Trademark wise it isn't.
Cladistics however point out that Windows is not a Unix.
Jobs begat NeXT, which used a Mach-derived kernel that was begat from Carnegie Mellon, and itself begat DEC Unix, and is the basis for Hurd.
NeXT then incorporated BSD, which itself was begat from AT&T Unix! Thus strengthened, NeXT was then ported into multiple platforms and begat OpenStep, which could claim in it's heritage the code from BSD-AT&T and from Mach-CMU.
OpenStep has begat Darwin and Mac OS X, which leads us to today.
Windows XP claims as it's progenitors Windows 2k, Windows NT, and OS/2. It too uses Mach, so there *is* a point of commonality between the two OSes.
Hold an iPod in your hand: 40gb in the palm of your hand! Hold a DVD in your hand: 9gb in the palm of your hand! Hold a Karma Rio in your hand: 20gb in the palm of your hand!
In common parlance, a template is a pattern and a pattern is a template.
When you want to make a dress, you don't buy a template, you buy a pattern. When you want spray paint letters onto a sign, you use a stencil, not a template. When you're carving letters into stone, you use a template, not a pattern.
It's all about relevant language. If someone else had written a salient article, perhaps we'd be talking about design templates, and pattern template, instead of design patterns and the template pattern.
Regardless, the point is still the same: Design patterns provides a vocabulary in which people can talk about problems and solutions.
As opposed to the state of Microsoft, where they have standards you *can't* license.
OpenGL is open for anyone to license and implement. DirectX is not. It is proprietary and you *have* to agree with Microsoft's vision.
In fact I am incredibly surprised you would call DirectX a standard; it is a platform tied, closed, proprietary, and controlled API.
They are the 'standard' in the sense that Microsoft, having the largest market, in supporting it and pushing it also makes it the most common API. Of course I'm sure you mean to imply that by saying the 'standards' I list aren't standards at all, but despite the fact that they have patents and licensors, I think they are still standards! (I also listed open source groups too, if that's confusing you).
MP3, MPEG4, AAC, are all defined by the ISO-MPEG group. Firewire was created by Apple, but has it's own trade association OpenGL has it's Architecture Review Board. PDF is an open format, and as such a subset has been adopted by the ISO as a document interchange format and standard. Zeroconf, as well as WebDAV, is an IETF working group. Included in that list is LDAP, Kereberos, IPv6, and DHCP. Java is questionable, I probably should not have included it there ^^ PCI, PCI-X, USB, and AGP are all standards as well, with working groups and standards bodies.
My point is that Microsoft will take 'standards' and then change them to suit their needs, and Apple does not. If Microsoft is to become like Apple, then that means endorsing and supporting open source groups (Apache, SMB, KHTML, SSH, etc), opening the source of their own programs (IE core, OS core, etc), and using industry standards instead of rolling their own to control the market (DirectX, ActiveX, XDocs, etc).
So what is a standard? I propose that a standard is any format, API, or interface that you can license, get access to, and not worry that it is being controlled by a single organization who's wishes may differ markedly from yours. By that definition, Java definitely doesn't qualify; but also none of Microsoft's "standards" as well, while MP3, MP4, Firewire, etc, all do.
I almost agree with everything you say except paddling ^^
It doesn't damage the kid, you're right. My dad paddled me when I was younger. However, he decided to stop when he noticed that *I* started to punish my younger brother using force when he did something wrong.
Maybe he got lucky in raising kids who respected him and his beliefs without resorting to violence, because in the end that is exactly what he taught me; that violence was an appropriate tool for the upright and just, and he decided that wasn't such a good thing.
Can't disagree with your view; except that their hardware platform is proprietary; how much more proprietary is the PowerPC over the x86? As I mentioned before, just because x86 is commodity doesn't make it proprietary!
The reason people seem 'okay' with Microsoft and Intel over Apple is that they are much more 'commodity', but no more open, no more standard, and no more trustworthy. By being commodity, x86 *is* the standard; just like Office is the standard, or Windows is the standard. You don't replace those components with *alternatives* like PowerPC or Mac OS X, you replace them with variations of the same thing: Celeron -> Pentium II -> Pentium II -> Pentium 4, or IE 4, IE 5, IE 5.5, and IE 6, etc.
As for being starry eyed about Apple... they're a corporation like any other. To treat them like a person with good intent is kind of foolish; but I do believe that at their core they have a better set of working ideals than Microsoft does.
You forgot the scene where they very nearly do shoot The Hulk in the head with a RPG... except Mr Dumbass has it backwards and kills himself and merely angers The Hulk further ^^
Anyway, that's the *only* complaint you had?
I mean, the military obviously *didn't* want to kill him because he was a valuable genetic resource; they had a very complicated setup where they tried to unlock his genetic cache... but of course he got pissed off and destroyed their military base!
From your list you fail to mention the damning negatives; creating C# and.NET to work around Java, ActiveScript to get around JavaScript (though they do support JavaScript), they're implementing their own graphics interface Direct3d to circumnavigate OpenGL, IE, rather than adopt another implementation they can't control (like Netscape).
The original parent post complained that Microsoft was becoming like Apple, and I asked if he was confusing standards, an open architecture, and a proprietary architecture, and the question still holds:
Apple will champion open architectures (because at the moment they don't have the clout to push closed proprietary ones? That's cynical and beyond my ability to argue) Microsoft will champion *their* implementations (closed *and* proprietary) over all others in order to maintain control.
An open architecture doesn't mean it isn't proprietary: Firewire, 802.11b, PDF, and Java all have licensors, patents, and other restrictions around them, but unlike Microsoft's toys, you *can* license, implement, and use them. Microsoft won't let you license the Office formats, won't let you license or implement the DirectX interfaces, they don't give you access to the core source of their OS or web browser or web server, much less any of their tools...
Apple *does* give you their core OS source, their web browser core source, the source for their web server, the ability to license Quicktime as well as the Quicktime API, the ability to license MPEG-4, Firewire, they use the open/standard OpenGL API, they have Firewire and Zeroconf as standards... do you get what I mean?
So I have a point, and I tried to prove it. All you proved was that Microsoft will support the standards that are convenient to them.. and I further suggest that they will ignore them when they can roll their own in order to gain control.
Re:Microsoft is going to become Apple?
on
Phoenix's BIOS Roadmap
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
What, exactly, does this have to do with being like Apple?
Are you confusing open with commodity, and closed with proprietary?
Apple uses recognized standards: Open Firmware PCI PCI-X AGP USB Firewire 802.11 OpenGL PDF Apache SMB Zeroconf HTTP WebDAV KHTML Java JavaScript Objective C
Microsoft elects to create their own: DirectX ActiveX C#.NET Sparkle WVG MSHTML/IE ActiveScript Visua lBasic
But if you do the math (clipped from another post of mine) If you do the math with X (10,280 instead of 13,880 performance, 1000sq instead of 21,000sw, and 800kw instead of 3,000kw) you get a 337 fold increase in performance per square foot, rather than 65, and an 832 fold increase in performance per Watt, rather than 300 fold, vs the Cray.
And I don't know what the numbers for the Transmeta solution is.
If you do the math with X (10,280 instead of 13,880 performance, 1000sq instead of 21,000sw, and 800kw instead of 3,000kw) you get a 337 fold increase in performance per square foot, rather than 65, and an 832 fold increase in performance per Watt, rather than 300 fold, vs the Cray.
Of course I dunno the numbers for the Transmeta solution yet!
I understand most (95%+) don't have constant contact with Mac OS X, much less play with the developer tools...
But what you just described is how Mac OS X's Interface Builder works! The widgets, guidelines, interface paradigms, and look and feel are encouraged and enforced by the UI; the menubar, window layout, widget placement, texturing, widget types, etc,
It's not perfect; developers can still intentionally (or unintentionally) violate the HIGuidelines, but it's a lot harder than any other IDE I've ever seen.
What if you remove Safari, install Firebird, and try to use iTunes?
You use Firebird for web browsing and iTunes for music. Nothing will have changed by removing Safari. iTunes does *not* use the Safari rendering engine.
If you don't want Quicktime? Isn't that like not wanting OpenGL, not wanting TrueType, not wanting Quartz? But you can delete Quicktime.app in/Applications, and iTunes will still play music.
Both situations work because there are *libraries* that these applications leverage.
The difference between Microsoft and Apple in these endeavors: Both will integrate a library into the OS; MSHTML and WebKit, GDI+ or Quartz, MFC or Cocoa. Microsoft and Apple will then take this library, use it to create an App. Microsoft will then use these Apps to push out competition through legal contracts. Apple will push out the competition through sheer convenience and usability.
Apple's case isn't hypocritical; they aren't doing what Microsoft does, which is integrate. They Bundle.
They don't make iTunes and *integral* part of the OS, the way Internet Explorer is. Even Safari isn't an integral part of the OS; you can if you like delete all the Apps (Mail, iChat, Safari, Internet Explorer, iMovie, iDVD, etc) and use your own (Thunderbird, AIM, Firebird, Mozilla, etc) without affecting the stability or reliability of your system.
With Apple, you can unbundle without any ill effects. The only technical aspect that might be similar is the way Quicktime and AppleScript is integrated into the OS, but that's been the case since at least Mac OS 7.6, or how recently Apple added WebKit to offer HTML rendering as a service; but WebKit is based on (and continually updated against) KHTML, and was added in order to compete with Microsoft.
It means you solve different problems with different computers. Isn't that obvious?
There are solutions where multiple, numerous, nodes are fairly efficient. Something with coarse granularity and high compute effort, so that you can allocate per node infrequently. In those situations, something like the VT cluster is cheaper, more cost effective, and more capable than the Earth simulator because you can built many of them for the same cost.
Different tools for different problems, I think is the conversant idiom.
1:) Because the editors of slashdot have decided it should be that way.
2:) Because the importance and equality of AMD64 is not your decision, nor is it's icon.
3:) Because all 1,100 nodes of this computer are powered by Apple's PowerMac G5; it just happens that Apple's PowerMac G5 is also the IBM PPC970, and to call it the PPC970 would detract from Apple's achievement. To be fair, it is also IBM's achievement, but they have their own supercomputers on the list.
4:) No, of course not. To sell out is such a close minded and antagonistic viewpoint. The slashdot editors just happen to like Macs more than you do. You just haven't kept up with how cool Apple is nowadays.
Yes, you're quite right, the networking hardware is important.
But as researched by the VT folk, the G5 is significant: It was cheaper for their needs than the Xeons, Itaniums, and Opterons of similar performance and energy consumption!
So both component choices were critical to their achieving number 3.
Zealotry and dogmatism isn't really of benefit to anyone. It closes doors, options, and real concrete benefits. To be a fan is good, to appreciate something is fine, but hate and worship shouldn't really be attached to inhuman companies, figureheads, PR figures, or products I don't think.
Slashdot Mirror
At a roughly 10% size:
At a quarter size:
If you play by the rules of capitalists and capitalism, the way to make it better is to make a corporation that makes good money with a good business model by not outsourcing and raping their customers; if you can do that, according to theory, there will be competitors who will spring up to steal your market and money by being more effective (at making money and satisfying customers), more efficient, or by offering a slightly better product/service/good.
If you frame the problem as capitalism as the problem, then your only solution is to endorse cooperation instead of competition for resources. Economics tells us there are limited resources, and capitalism is the common popular method in which those resources are allocated; you compete for them. The alternative is you share the resources willingly, but no one has figured out an efficient and effective way of doing it. Invariably people in power will manage to distribute the resources inequitably, in their favor... But even capitalism does that, with the side benefit that in the process, the person with the most power happens to do something good while simultaneously becoming the biggest target for other capitalists to take down!
Uh, other than the fact that Windows NT *was* OS/2 v3, that it contained the full OS/2 subsystem, and that Microsoft worked with IBM on OS/2 v1-v3 until renaming v3 to Windows NT?
But under the UI, Mac OS X is significantly more Unix than Windows XP, 2k, and NT.
You're misusing an extreme to prove the moderate.
Just because Windows isn't a Unix, but it has a shell, then Mac OS X isn't a Unix, despite it having a shell.
Between those points though, if you were to plot BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows XP on a Unix chart? Mac OS X would cluster much closer to BSD than to Windows XP, and Linux might actually fall in between OS X and BSD.
Cladistcally, OS X *is* a Unix. Trademark wise it isn't.
Cladistics however point out that Windows is not a Unix.
Cladistics defined!
Jobs begat NeXT, which used a Mach-derived kernel that was begat from Carnegie Mellon, and itself begat DEC Unix, and is the basis for Hurd.
NeXT then incorporated BSD, which itself was begat from AT&T Unix! Thus strengthened, NeXT was then ported into multiple platforms and begat OpenStep, which could claim in it's heritage the code from BSD-AT&T and from Mach-CMU.
OpenStep has begat Darwin and Mac OS X, which leads us to today.
Windows XP claims as it's progenitors Windows 2k, Windows NT, and OS/2. It too uses Mach, so there *is* a point of commonality between the two OSes.
I keep my iPod in my pocket!
And, of course, I'm happy to see you too.
I had an original 5gb iPod bought nearly 2 years ago, sold it to a friend, who gave it to his girlfriend, and it's still functioning strong!
Hold an iPod in your hand: 40gb in the palm of your hand!
Hold a DVD in your hand: 9gb in the palm of your hand!
Hold a Karma Rio in your hand: 20gb in the palm of your hand!
These things do happen!
In common parlance, a template is a pattern and a pattern is a template.
When you want to make a dress, you don't buy a template, you buy a pattern.
When you want spray paint letters onto a sign, you use a stencil, not a template.
When you're carving letters into stone, you use a template, not a pattern.
It's all about relevant language. If someone else had written a salient article, perhaps we'd be talking about design templates, and pattern template, instead of design patterns and the template pattern.
Regardless, the point is still the same: Design patterns provides a vocabulary in which people can talk about problems and solutions.
As opposed to the state of Microsoft, where they have standards you *can't* license.
OpenGL is open for anyone to license and implement.
DirectX is not. It is proprietary and you *have* to agree with Microsoft's vision.
In fact I am incredibly surprised you would call DirectX a standard; it is a platform tied, closed, proprietary, and controlled API.
They are the 'standard' in the sense that Microsoft, having the largest market, in supporting it and pushing it also makes it the most common API. Of course I'm sure you mean to imply that by saying the 'standards' I list aren't standards at all, but despite the fact that they have patents and licensors, I think they are still standards! (I also listed open source groups too, if that's confusing you).
MP3, MPEG4, AAC, are all defined by the ISO-MPEG group.
Firewire was created by Apple, but has it's own trade association
OpenGL has it's Architecture Review Board.
PDF is an open format, and as such a subset has been adopted by the ISO as a document interchange format and standard.
Zeroconf, as well as WebDAV, is an IETF working group. Included in that list is LDAP, Kereberos, IPv6, and DHCP.
Java is questionable, I probably should not have included it there ^^
PCI, PCI-X, USB, and AGP are all standards as well, with working groups and standards bodies.
My point is that Microsoft will take 'standards' and then change them to suit their needs, and Apple does not. If Microsoft is to become like Apple, then that means endorsing and supporting open source groups (Apache, SMB, KHTML, SSH, etc), opening the source of their own programs (IE core, OS core, etc), and using industry standards instead of rolling their own to control the market (DirectX, ActiveX, XDocs, etc).
So what is a standard? I propose that a standard is any format, API, or interface that you can license, get access to, and not worry that it is being controlled by a single organization who's wishes may differ markedly from yours. By that definition, Java definitely doesn't qualify; but also none of Microsoft's "standards" as well, while MP3, MP4, Firewire, etc, all do.
Despite them not being free, libre, or open.
I almost agree with everything you say except paddling ^^
It doesn't damage the kid, you're right. My dad paddled me when I was younger. However, he decided to stop when he noticed that *I* started to punish my younger brother using force when he did something wrong.
Maybe he got lucky in raising kids who respected him and his beliefs without resorting to violence, because in the end that is exactly what he taught me; that violence was an appropriate tool for the upright and just, and he decided that wasn't such a good thing.
Can't disagree with your view; except that their hardware platform is proprietary; how much more proprietary is the PowerPC over the x86? As I mentioned before, just because x86 is commodity doesn't make it proprietary!
The reason people seem 'okay' with Microsoft and Intel over Apple is that they are much more 'commodity', but no more open, no more standard, and no more trustworthy. By being commodity, x86 *is* the standard; just like Office is the standard, or Windows is the standard. You don't replace those components with *alternatives* like PowerPC or Mac OS X, you replace them with variations of the same thing: Celeron -> Pentium II -> Pentium II -> Pentium 4, or IE 4, IE 5, IE 5.5, and IE 6, etc.
As for being starry eyed about Apple... they're a corporation like any other. To treat them like a person with good intent is kind of foolish; but I do believe that at their core they have a better set of working ideals than Microsoft does.
You forgot the scene where they very nearly do shoot The Hulk in the head with a RPG... except Mr Dumbass has it backwards and kills himself and merely angers The Hulk further ^^
Anyway, that's the *only* complaint you had?
I mean, the military obviously *didn't* want to kill him because he was a valuable genetic resource; they had a very complicated setup where they tried to unlock his genetic cache... but of course he got pissed off and destroyed their military base!
You're not proving one thing or another.
.NET to work around Java, ActiveScript to get around JavaScript (though they do support JavaScript), they're implementing their own graphics interface Direct3d to circumnavigate OpenGL, IE, rather than adopt another implementation they can't control (like Netscape).
From your list you fail to mention the damning negatives; creating C# and
The original parent post complained that Microsoft was becoming like Apple, and I asked if he was confusing standards, an open architecture, and a proprietary architecture, and the question still holds:
Apple will champion open architectures (because at the moment they don't have the clout to push closed proprietary ones? That's cynical and beyond my ability to argue)
Microsoft will champion *their* implementations (closed *and* proprietary) over all others in order to maintain control.
An open architecture doesn't mean it isn't proprietary: Firewire, 802.11b, PDF, and Java all have licensors, patents, and other restrictions around them, but unlike Microsoft's toys, you *can* license, implement, and use them. Microsoft won't let you license the Office formats, won't let you license or implement the DirectX interfaces, they don't give you access to the core source of their OS or web browser or web server, much less any of their tools...
Apple *does* give you their core OS source, their web browser core source, the source for their web server, the ability to license Quicktime as well as the Quicktime API, the ability to license MPEG-4, Firewire, they use the open/standard OpenGL API, they have Firewire and Zeroconf as standards... do you get what I mean?
So I have a point, and I tried to prove it. All you proved was that Microsoft will support the standards that are convenient to them.. and I further suggest that they will ignore them when they can roll their own in order to gain control.
What, exactly, does this have to do with being like Apple?
OpenGL
KHTML
.NETa lBasic
Are you confusing open with commodity, and closed with proprietary?
Apple uses recognized standards:
Open Firmware
PCI
PCI-X
AGP
USB
Firewire
802.11
PDF
Apache
SMB
Zeroconf
HTTP
WebDAV
Java
JavaScript
Objective C
Microsoft elects to create their own:
DirectX
ActiveX
C#
Sparkle
WVG
MSHTML/IE
ActiveScript
Visu
But if you do the math (clipped from another post of mine)
If you do the math with X (10,280 instead of 13,880 performance, 1000sq instead of 21,000sw, and 800kw instead of 3,000kw) you get a 337 fold increase in performance per square foot, rather than 65, and an 832 fold increase in performance per Watt, rather than 300 fold, vs the Cray.
And I don't know what the numbers for the Transmeta solution is.
If you do the math with X (10,280 instead of 13,880 performance, 1000sq instead of 21,000sw, and 800kw instead of 3,000kw) you get a 337 fold increase in performance per square foot, rather than 65, and an 832 fold increase in performance per Watt, rather than 300 fold, vs the Cray.
Of course I dunno the numbers for the Transmeta solution yet!
I don't see how it is technically possible for Apple to ditch the BSD subsystem. The BSD subsystem is integrated directly into the kernel space!
I also don't see how SCO has any claim to ownership over BSD?
I understand most (95%+) don't have constant contact with Mac OS X, much less play with the developer tools...
But what you just described is how Mac OS X's Interface Builder works! The widgets, guidelines, interface paradigms, and look and feel are encouraged and enforced by the UI; the menubar, window layout, widget placement, texturing, widget types, etc,
It's not perfect; developers can still intentionally (or unintentionally) violate the HIGuidelines, but it's a lot harder than any other IDE I've ever seen.
What if you remove Safari, install Firebird, and try to use iTunes?
/Applications, and iTunes will still play music.
You use Firebird for web browsing and iTunes for music. Nothing will have changed by removing Safari. iTunes does *not* use the Safari rendering engine.
If you don't want Quicktime? Isn't that like not wanting OpenGL, not wanting TrueType, not wanting Quartz? But you can delete Quicktime.app in
Both situations work because there are *libraries* that these applications leverage.
The difference between Microsoft and Apple in these endeavors:
Both will integrate a library into the OS; MSHTML and WebKit, GDI+ or Quartz, MFC or Cocoa.
Microsoft and Apple will then take this library, use it to create an App.
Microsoft will then use these Apps to push out competition through legal contracts.
Apple will push out the competition through sheer convenience and usability.
That's the big difference, in my mind.
Apple's case isn't hypocritical; they aren't doing what Microsoft does, which is integrate. They Bundle.
They don't make iTunes and *integral* part of the OS, the way Internet Explorer is. Even Safari isn't an integral part of the OS; you can if you like delete all the Apps (Mail, iChat, Safari, Internet Explorer, iMovie, iDVD, etc) and use your own (Thunderbird, AIM, Firebird, Mozilla, etc) without affecting the stability or reliability of your system.
With Apple, you can unbundle without any ill effects. The only technical aspect that might be similar is the way Quicktime and AppleScript is integrated into the OS, but that's been the case since at least Mac OS 7.6, or how recently Apple added WebKit to offer HTML rendering as a service; but WebKit is based on (and continually updated against) KHTML, and was added in order to compete with Microsoft.
Hmm, maybe this would help:
Welcome, to the Matrix.
It means you solve different problems with different computers. Isn't that obvious?
There are solutions where multiple, numerous, nodes are fairly efficient. Something with coarse granularity and high compute effort, so that you can allocate per node infrequently. In those situations, something like the VT cluster is cheaper, more cost effective, and more capable than the Earth simulator because you can built many of them for the same cost.
Different tools for different problems, I think is the conversant idiom.
1:) Because the editors of slashdot have decided it should be that way.
2:) Because the importance and equality of AMD64 is not your decision, nor is it's icon.
3:) Because all 1,100 nodes of this computer are powered by Apple's PowerMac G5; it just happens that Apple's PowerMac G5 is also the IBM PPC970, and to call it the PPC970 would detract from Apple's achievement. To be fair, it is also IBM's achievement, but they have their own supercomputers on the list.
4:) No, of course not. To sell out is such a close minded and antagonistic viewpoint. The slashdot editors just happen to like Macs more than you do. You just haven't kept up with how cool Apple is nowadays.
Yes, you're quite right, the networking hardware is important.
But as researched by the VT folk, the G5 is significant: It was cheaper for their needs than the Xeons, Itaniums, and Opterons of similar performance and energy consumption!
So both component choices were critical to their achieving number 3.
Zealotry and dogmatism isn't really of benefit to anyone. It closes doors, options, and real concrete benefits. To be a fan is good, to appreciate something is fine, but hate and worship shouldn't really be attached to inhuman companies, figureheads, PR figures, or products I don't think.