Sorry, but I would tend to be more interested in a device that I would be able to actually buy in a couple of months when it hits the shelves in Europe.
It is very common on slashdot to keep hearing about awesome devices (Remember the Sharp Zaurus?) which are actually impossible to buy unless you are living in a specific part of the world. Almost as good as vaporware.
Even ordering is not the same, because sometimes people may want to go to the store and actually play with the thing before shelling out the money. If you want a kindle, you have to order it. I have no serious problems with that, but I suspect that for many people even this is a show stopper.
Re:CmdrTaco drags big brass ones along the ground
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 2, Informative
Wifi to location is not provided by Google. The iPhone/iPod Touch use Skyhook Wireless.
Even when GPS is available, this service is being used inside buildings etc.
You can buy and play FIFA10 or even Grand Theft Auto on the iPhone. The games are a pretty good indicator IMHO. When complex and expensive productions from big studios start coming out for a platform, you know that the platform is popular.
And if you think Java makes any kind of difference, think again. The guys that are developing these applications do not seem to care. It's not about happy programmers, it's about happy users. And right now the iPhone still has the edge.
This material reminds me of the lunar module's landing gear, made out of collapsible aluminum honeycomb. Look here for the word aluminum. Highly interesting.
I feel that you have already answered the question yourself.
Some of us would switch if Python/Ruby/Whatever was ten times better than Perl. But it's not. In fact, if you are fairly experienced with Perl, you can do almost anything almost equally as good with Perl as you would do it with the others. Why go through all the trouble of switching when you have a tool that you know too well and you are completely comfortable with?
And what about all these guys that are bashing Perl every time it gets mentioned in/.? Judging from the fact that they are frequently:
citing problems solved years ago
mentioning Python/Ruby features that Perl has too
hell, even saying PERL and not Perl
one can easily understand that the Perl they are referring to is different than the Perl many people are using. In the real world, you can write perfectly readable Perl code that works very well and fast.
If one should start learning now, he/she probably could choose Perl or Python or Ruby and be equally as happy. Maybe even just a little bit happier with the last two, especially if you are care about code aeshetics. But if you already know how to use Perl to accomplish your task, IMHO trying to switch may involve a certain amount of wasted time.
Apologies to Python/Ruby guys, but I have yet to encounter a very compelling reason to switch from Perl for the tasks I've been using it. Maybe it's just me.
Did you notice that the screenshots contained serious errors? In screenshot 1, the "h" was identified as an alpha, in screenshot 2 the h was identified as b.
They haven't invested sufficiently in R&D over the long haul to keep themselves technically relevant
As opposed to say, Dell? You're serious? This is Sun Microsystems for crying out loud. Not invested in R&D??? They routinelly used to invest a disproportionate percentage of their revenues in comparison to other companies. And they weren't technically relevant? Puh-lease.
Sun's product set consists of a set of high end servers
When was the last time you visited sun.com? 2001? Their low end line is relatively good and comparable to other similar vendors in terms of price.
Oracle didn't buy them just to fire them all and sell the building(s). Possibly some stupid stuff will be axed, but their long term technological strategy was and is sound. Maybe under Oracle's aegis they will be able to sort it out, hopefully.
How will current software interact with this chip and be transparent for current applications? Software support in things like IPSec libraries for this hardware is going to be important.
If a piece of software uses OpenSSL, OpenSSL needs to be modified to use the hardware instead of doing computations the normal way (e.g. using instructions on the main processor). Some functions inside the library are being deferred to the hardware, for example the computation of a checksum.
Yes, not only apps but even firmware upgrades (I have two iPods). You only pay once. It is also possible to ask apple support to let you download your purchased songs again in case you lose them.
Sun is full of PhDs, patents and interesting technologies and I think their corporate culture is much more close to Apple than to IBM. They have a fairly decent server product line with competitive prices, a host of enterprise contracts all over the world and an excellent OSS "server" OS which is still being developed heavily. They have a solid 64-bit RISC architecture coupled with energy efficient multicore processors that give even the best x86 chips a run for their money. Not to mention their storage strategy which is, IMHO, brilliant. ZFS, StorageTek, Lustre, fishworks, mysql all fall into a strategy of acquisitions and development that was commenced several years ago. Has it started yielding financial results yet? Arguably not quite. Was it spot-on? Hell yes. Storage has come and it will be big. The bad economic conditions make their financial problems worse, but it's not like they didn't give their best.
Apple could really use them to buy its way into the Enterprise. They have already ported dtrace and zfs to MacOSX, demonstrating that a lot of technologies can be used outside of Sun products with success. Considering the stockpile of cash they're sitting on, it would not really be a problem for Apple to buy them. With their combined strength (heard that one before, right?) they could really be a dangerous adversary for IBM, HP and Microsoft.
The problem of distributed consistency has kept researchers occupied for quite a while. For example, see project Scalaris. They are using a distributed hash table to distribute data among many nodes. This should be relatively easy, at least once you have a good hashing function on your hands. But a lot of research has been done on P2P networks during the last decade, so there is quite a lot of stuff to read and take ideas from. The interesting part is that it can maintain consistency and support ACID properties. From the site it appears that they accomplish that by using a modified Paxos Algorithm which basically is a way to maintain consensus among many different peers in a non-Byzantine system (this means that there are no malevolent peers in the system -- peers can break down and cease working but not sabotage the system). Leslie Lamport of Microsoft Research has done a lot of work on this, anyone interested may take a look at his papers, very advanced stuff there.
Slashdot Mirror
The Joojoo is available only in the US.
Sorry, but I would tend to be more interested in a device that I would be able to actually buy in a couple of months when it hits the shelves in Europe.
It is very common on slashdot to keep hearing about awesome devices (Remember the Sharp Zaurus?) which are actually impossible to buy unless you are living in a specific part of the world. Almost as good as vaporware.
Even ordering is not the same, because sometimes people may want to go to the store and actually play with the thing before shelling out the money. If you want a kindle, you have to order it. I have no serious problems with that, but I suspect that for many people even this is a show stopper.
Wifi to location is not provided by Google. The iPhone/iPod Touch use Skyhook Wireless.
Even when GPS is available, this service is being used inside buildings etc.
You can buy and play FIFA10 or even Grand Theft Auto on the iPhone. The games are a pretty good indicator IMHO. When complex and expensive productions from big studios start coming out for a platform, you know that the platform is popular.
And if you think Java makes any kind of difference, think again. The guys that are developing these applications do not seem to care. It's not about happy programmers, it's about happy users. And right now the iPhone still has the edge.
This material reminds me of the lunar module's landing gear, made out of collapsible aluminum honeycomb. Look here for the word aluminum. Highly interesting.
Unbelievable, you're right! I counted 9 out of 11. Maybe that figures how they are able to advance in such huge steps.
a la ST:TNG pads
OMFG I just realized I need one ASAP.
I feel that you have already answered the question yourself.
Some of us would switch if Python/Ruby/Whatever was ten times better than Perl. But it's not. In fact, if you are fairly experienced with Perl, you can do almost anything almost equally as good with Perl as you would do it with the others. Why go through all the trouble of switching when you have a tool that you know too well and you are completely comfortable with?
And what about all these guys that are bashing Perl every time it gets mentioned in /.? Judging from the fact that they are frequently:
one can easily understand that the Perl they are referring to is different than the Perl many people are using. In the real world, you can write perfectly readable Perl code that works very well and fast.
If one should start learning now, he/she probably could choose Perl or Python or Ruby and be equally as happy. Maybe even just a little bit happier with the last two, especially if you are care about code aeshetics. But if you already know how to use Perl to accomplish your task, IMHO trying to switch may involve a certain amount of wasted time.
Apologies to Python/Ruby guys, but I have yet to encounter a very compelling reason to switch from Perl for the tasks I've been using it. Maybe it's just me.
Fair enough, I 'll postpone worrying to the day you choose the protoss carrier as your next inspirational source :)
Did you notice that the screenshots contained serious errors? In screenshot 1, the "h" was identified as an alpha, in screenshot 2 the h was identified as b.
They haven't invested sufficiently in R&D over the long haul to keep themselves technically relevant
As opposed to say, Dell? You're serious? This is Sun Microsystems for crying out loud. Not invested in R&D??? They routinelly used to invest a disproportionate percentage of their revenues in comparison to other companies. And they weren't technically relevant? Puh-lease.
Sun's product set consists of a set of high end servers
When was the last time you visited sun.com? 2001? Their low end line is relatively good and comparable to other similar vendors in terms of price.
Oracle didn't buy them just to fire them all and sell the building(s). Possibly some stupid stuff will be axed, but their long term technological strategy was and is sound. Maybe under Oracle's aegis they will be able to sort it out, hopefully.
Have you ever actually tried writing some nice dynamic svg?
Don't they have a native (as opposed to X11) experimental dmg on their site?
How will current software interact with this chip and be transparent for current applications? Software support in things like IPSec libraries for this hardware is going to be important.
If a piece of software uses OpenSSL, OpenSSL needs to be modified to use the hardware instead of doing computations the normal way (e.g. using instructions on the main processor). Some functions inside the library are being deferred to the hardware, for example the computation of a checksum.
Can't you just click on the button twice while you are viewing google maps? I know it works on the iPod, but I dunno if it's the same on the iphone.
Yes, not only apps but even firmware upgrades (I have two iPods). You only pay once. It is also possible to ask apple support to let you download your purchased songs again in case you lose them.
Nice touch too, wouldn't you think?
You mean Solaris Zones. LDoms is a different thing.
It makes my eyes hurt just to read it
That's why most of us skip TFA and go to the comments section straight away (^_^)
If you are using the built in reader that comes with gnome, shouldn't you by the same token be judged as masochist?
I mean, I would be really HAPPY! if it worked right, but problem is that it is full of rendering bugs and memory leaks.
I had to reluctantly install Acrobat from medibuntu after running into several PDFs which had serious problems.
I'm sure Larry just told his underlings, "Hey, we have too much cash, and I'm bored. Take $7 billion, buy Sun, then fire everybody."
I wouldn't put that past him
Bare with me for a moment.
Sun is full of PhDs, patents and interesting technologies and I think their corporate culture is much more close to Apple than to IBM. They have a fairly decent server product line with competitive prices, a host of enterprise contracts all over the world and an excellent OSS "server" OS which is still being developed heavily. They have a solid 64-bit RISC architecture coupled with energy efficient multicore processors that give even the best x86 chips a run for their money. Not to mention their storage strategy which is, IMHO, brilliant. ZFS, StorageTek, Lustre, fishworks, mysql all fall into a strategy of acquisitions and development that was commenced several years ago. Has it started yielding financial results yet? Arguably not quite. Was it spot-on? Hell yes. Storage has come and it will be big. The bad economic conditions make their financial problems worse, but it's not like they didn't give their best.
Apple could really use them to buy its way into the Enterprise. They have already ported dtrace and zfs to MacOSX, demonstrating that a lot of technologies can be used outside of Sun products with success. Considering the stockpile of cash they're sitting on, it would not really be a problem for Apple to buy them. With their combined strength (heard that one before, right?) they could really be a dangerous adversary for IBM, HP and Microsoft.
Well, if that isn't a pipe dream, then what is?
I've been waiting this for ages. When OpenSolaris gets it, it will blow away many supposedly "Enterprise" storage systems.
zpool remove will eventually support the removal of any vdev, not only hotspares like it does now.
It has been filed as a bug by the OpenSolaris developers.
Admittedly it looks rather old, but they say work is under way to do it.
The problem of distributed consistency has kept researchers occupied for quite a while. For example, see project Scalaris. They are using a distributed hash table to distribute data among many nodes. This should be relatively easy, at least once you have a good hashing function on your hands. But a lot of research has been done on P2P networks during the last decade, so there is quite a lot of stuff to read and take ideas from.
The interesting part is that it can maintain consistency and support ACID properties. From the site it appears that they accomplish that by using a modified Paxos Algorithm which basically is a way to maintain consensus among many different peers in a non-Byzantine system (this means that there are no malevolent peers in the system -- peers can break down and cease working but not sabotage the system). Leslie Lamport of Microsoft Research has done a lot of work on this, anyone interested may take a look at his papers, very advanced stuff there.
If we already had it all figured out, it would get pretty boring very quickly.
Sometimes it is reassuring to know that there might be possibilities that we not yet aware of.
For a moment I read:
The Pornographic Performance Limited has a stranglehold on music use in England?
I almost spit my coffee.