Apple is part of the Hypertransport consortium. Crossbars surely are the future on 'low-end' machines. But currently none of the other desktop PC's or low-end workstations have a crossbar right now.
I don't think it's fair to compare a desktop-machine to a SGI. Different price, different markets. It's just that Mac's and PC's are competing with workstations because most people don't need a SGI. SGI is indeed a better solution if you can fill that 1.2GB/s, but most people would rather have a desktop machine for 1/6th the price with half the speed (or 4-6 cheap Linux or OS X-machines for a render-farm).
But, this wasn't my point. My point was that the G5 will probably not suck in the bandwith it has, compared to a PC. The G3 and G4 do have this problem. So I would count the G5 as a good option. Plus, you can use Altivec for some serious rendering, Phong, Blinn shading and Global Illumination get a big boost from it.
PS. Why AC? Is there anything embarassing in your post?;)
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Apple doesn't want to expose users to this. Including gcc will only tempt developers to take the easy route. They should make mac-software==user friendly.
PS. The developer tools are much more than just gcc, there is a lot of Apple's software that you get for free (ProjectBuilder IDE, InterfaceBuilder, etc). It's only a download away! (I do agree that they should include the devtools with new Macs, but I don't think there is much reason to complain with the current situation, at least not until M$ gives away Visual Studio).
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Sorenson is working on a Mpeg-4 codec. I've seen beta versions floating around. I believe that this announcement means one of two things:
1. Sorenson Mpeg-4 will be bundled with Quicktime, which is to be expected. Apple will probably make a big deal of it. This won't help Linux one bit as the codec will still be proprietary.
2. Apple will adapt Quicktime so that it will easily work with codecs that follow one of the ISO MPEG-4 profile codec definitions. This is also to be expected. Mpeg-4 will allow you to use the same codec with any video-architecture that supports Mpeg-4 (Quicktime, WMP, Real, etc).
Take your pick.
PS. Could someone mod down lordpixel, his sensible post doesn't fit it with the other posts: "F*ck Apple, why can't I play Quicktime trailers? It's a conspiracy."
PS2. 90% of the posts can be answered with this: "complain with Sorenson to port the codec to Linux".
PS3. This topic is about Quicktime. Not Linux.
BTW Has it occurred to anybody that most of the code for MS Office for X *would be* portabe to most *nix's?
Yes, it occured to many. Unfortunately for you Office X isn't a total rewrite based on BSD. It's based on Carbon which is a refurbished version of the classic MacOS API's. But even a rewrite in Cocoa wouldn't be cross-platform unless Cocoa is ported to other systems (= zero chance).
So according to you, the ability to earn money with your creations is not a freedom, but a power (evil creative person that I am).
So tell me why I would create music, books, games, etc? Strangely enough copyrights and patents have worked pretty well for a long time, until we started to extend them to envelope trivial matters (one-click) or undermined the fair use clauses (DMCA). It seems more logical to me to reduce their scope as they don't apply that well to software (mostly the duration and extent), as well as making fair use a right (that can't be taken away with something like the DMCA). But I can see little wrong with the principle that one can ask money to share his creations. Monopoly abuses can hardly be blamed on a license, it's also an issue with non-software monopolies. A good legal system and good laws should be an answer to that problem.
Why are so many people on/. fighting for an ideal that they can't back up with proof/logic? Even RMS admits that developers will have a hard time earning their living. Can you ever see businesses going for this? Do you really believe you can force it on them?
Why not ally with the companies that make money from fair use? There are plenty of those (just about every company creating consumer devices). Ally with schools and universities. Ally with businesses that pay too much for their software. Use them as a counterforce to the current stupidity.
But . . . most people on/. would rather be Don Quixote.
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GPL will make it very difficult for companies to base their work on the effort made by public institutions. The companies paid taxes and I can't see any good coming from GPL'ing the code, except for hindering it's acceptance.
Again, forcing altruism in this way is counterproductive. Businesses are starting to see the benefits of open source. Why? Because they can take apache/linux/etc and do just about everything with it. Once they have gotten benefits, they may decide to contribute. And they will, because it benefits them (working together on non-critical software is smart, even dumb managers can get that). If they can't use the software (and still make money), they won't contribute. So effectively GPL is counterproductive (less contributions versus more).
Again, patents can make more money available for research, but what will GPL'ed code accomplish except duplicate efforts? GPL is just a waste of electrons. Why should the taxpayer be expected to put up with this (e.g. pay for this)?
Note that the researcher that is referred to in the post just wants his source to be open. He's not advocating GPL. That wouldn't be a very academic standpoint (reducing freedoms).
This is also my big beef with GPL. We should encourage people to take idea's from others, add their own stuff and make a profit on it. This is the basis of our society, building on the work of others. I don't think we should force altruism on other people's work.
A _moderate_ form of patents + copyrights (with a right to fair use) seems to fit very well with this. In the case of research by public institutions I believe that they should be allowed to patent/copyright their work and sell it to companies if this allows (much) more research to be done. The companies that would pay for the patents get much more profits/advantages than would be 'fair' for the taxes they pay. Companies pay IMHO for the general advances in science that are brought about. They cannot claim to have a right on everything developed by public institutions (we can choose to make it free, but IMO it is not a right).
But overall I'm not convinced that patents are worth the trouble. It seems to cost more than it makes at our university (TUDelft, nanotubes, glare, etc).
Question: are you angry at the few cents per CD that go to Philips and Sony? Would you be angry if that money went to research?
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Tell me how I will get paid in advance for writing QuakeRipOff (or any other generic app)?
Instead of being paid in advance, companies make an investment and expect to be paid afterwards, when the users (should) know what they get. Is that immoral? It seems far more immoral to have to pay in advance and not to know that you get. In this programmers are no different from writers. Do you believe that they should give away their books and live on added services (whatever those would be)?
Why not be sensible and just limit the EULA's and patents? Why don't you fight the RIAA & MPAA with a position that doesn't hurt businesses and thus could garner support?
Libraries destroying information ----------------
The FBI can tap your communications without a warrant(carnivore). See the ATA for other violations of the constitution.
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Dimitri? Held for how long for allowing Russians to exercise their fair use rights. Suppose Iran would arrest an american for creating a porn-program and posting it on the Internet (forcing their laws on you). Would you be angry?
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DMCA. Take away your fair use rights, who wants to view DVD's on linux anyway? Copy media for your own use, thou shall not. 'Quoting' something (for a review or such), not allowed. Viewing an e-book in a non-approved browser: no, the traditional reverse engineering for interoperability is forbidden. Who needs competition anyway?
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Mandatory censorship in libraries. Who needs freedom of speech? A good thing your daughter can't find info on birth control, the US would risk losing it's nr. 1 position in teenage pregnancies.
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Randal Schwartz? A security advisor at Intel who forgot to inform his boss of running a password-auditing program. Even without hostile intent he was convicted. The same law can get you 15 years in Oregon if you run Napster on your computer or change the color of your screen without informing your boss (the judge gave that last example, I didn't make it up). They don't have to tell you it's wrong in advance.
A big mat which rings the bell everytime someone steps on it. That way you will always know when someone enters your premises.
Add a camera to record their tricks and send it off to America's Funniest Home Video's. Be sure to come out just after they've hidden the stuff and let them explain what they did and why. Act stupid.
you don't have to "pay" to create a program and run it on an OS. just some of your own time.
Time is money. Organisations pay people to produce software. Sometimes their own people and sometimes they buy a product from others. I would also like to note that I need money to keep myself fed and housed, my time is the resource that I can offer others in return for money.
Why should I be unable to fill both our needs (software in return for money)? Perhaps I will have to pay a sum to M$ for the use of an extra widget, but they should always allow me to use their standard-API's for free. And with free I mean that they may not put any constraint on my work. Forcing a big fee is the end of many small commercial developers, does the Linux-community really want to hurt them?
Again, you can choose the extra widgets you use, but you need the basic API's to create an app for the OS. There is no choice. A small developer will have to create apps for the platform that his customers are using. He has got much less freedom to develop his apps if he has to spend big bucks on a license. He can no longer just donate spare time to his project, but he has to make a serious financial commitment. This is an enormous barrier and seems to contradict the 'American dream'. You can no longer become a millionaire from scratch with just a computer and your spare time. There now exists a big entrance fee.
AFAIK you've got freedom to develop under Windows and MacOS, but not under KDE. And yes, I do consider the GUI to be part of the OS and not an extra.
I can't see why it would be necessary to pay for creating a program to run on an OS. Not even M$ does this. I think that this is far different from other libraries (where you have a choice to use them).
I think this is very bad to shareware and other small developers that do want to earn a living with software (or at least cover their expenses a bit).
The freedom fighters may flame me for this, but I believe in a world were you can choose whether to give away your work. If so, fine. If people are willing to pay, fine as well. Why do people like RMS feel they have the right to take away your freedom? Copylefts say you will have more freedom, but I can only see them taking away rights.
More info on Clockless Logic & ternary computi
on
Ternary Computing
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· Score: 1
It's a really interesting and challenging field of study. A nice story about the history of clockless computing can be read here:
An alternative, used by Theseus and others, is to open up a separate communication channel on the chip. Clocked chips represent ones and zeroes using low and high voltages on a single wire; "dual-rail" circuits, on the other hand, use two wires, giving the chip communications pathways, not only to send bits, but also to send "handshake" signals to indicate when work has been completed. Fant additionally proposes replacing the conventional system of digital logic with what he calls "null convention logic," a scheme that identifies not only "yes" and "no," but also "no answer yet"--a convenient way for clockless chips to recognize when an operation has not yet been completed. All of these ideas and approaches are different enough that executing them could confound the mind of an engineer trained to design to the beat of a clock.
In 1997, Intel developed an asynchronous, Pentium-compatible test chip that ran three times as fast, on half the power, as its synchronous equivalent.
I don't think people should vote more often than once every four years. The year prior to elections is already a 'lost' year where politicians try to avoid necessary but impopular decisions.
Your proposal will generate votes for people with a strong focus on a single issue, instead of someone who has a general ideal that people can support. I believe that it will radicalize politics, we don't need that. We need smart people who can compromise.
BTW, what would the issues be that you get to vote on? Who determines this?
I think that you never adapted to the Mac. Have you ever used it for a long time?
It's always more difficult to do something on a system that is different from what you know. The filetype 'problem' is a perfect example. It's totally logical, it's only problematic when you're used to other behaviour or it doesn't fit the way you work.
My experience is that the Mac is mostly more consistent than PC's. The interfaces of Windows-programs often differ greatly, everyone is doing something different. This is mostly for no good reason. On the Mac the similarity is much greater, allowing you to quickly come up to speed.
There are a lot of different ways to get something done, but it often requires you to download a tool. I don't mind, I rather have a lean OS that is tailored to me, than a bloated system that is jack of all trades, master of none. The OS should allow for the hooks to get things done, IMHO it shouldn't be required to do everything.
In my eyes a democracy means that our ideals and idea's should be represented in the government. I believe that the best way to achieve this, is to choose people/parties that have standpoints that are similar to yours. A 'pure' democracy where every law is voted on by the population will not represent the people's standpoints. Why?
I have no time to be an expert on every issue. I can't take all the evidence into account and make a good decision. I have to earn my living and have fun, the few hours left a day are not enough to be an expert on every issue. So instead of making a rational decision, I will just vote on sentiment. So we do need experts in the government to make law and journalists to check the governments work and lay out the facts to me in short. Every election I have a chance to decide if the guy/party I voted on is doing good enough.
Unfortunately (for you, as I'm dutch) the US has an extremely weak representative democracy. The focus on districts gears the national government towards local issues, instead of the national issues that they should govern on. The district-system has also effectively created the weak two-party system that has made your politics into a fight. The Democrats are in power, let's vote for our bills. The Republicans are in power, let's undo the things the Democrats did and do what we want.
I believe that the national votes should be counted for the whole country and not per district. This would mean that smaller parties (like Ralph Nader's party) would be able to get into congress. This will greatly increase the diversity of congress and will necessitate coalitions. Thus the political parties will be forced to work together. It will also mean that some minority groups will be able to get a seat in congress and will be able to air their views and question the decisions made by the coalition. Currently a party that has support of 49% of the population, can still be totally unrepresented in congress (if they are barely beaten in every district).
Of course there will always be conflicts between local and national concerns (like drilling off the coast of Florida). I will explain how the dutch system deals with this issue. The local government (chosen in seperate elections) chooses the people to represent them in the Upper House. The Upper House can turn down every Act of Parliament (but they may not amend). We choose the parliament's members directly, 15% of the dutch votes to a political party translates in about 15% of the seats in the Lower House.
Thus the politicians we have chosen (indirectly in our case) to represent our local views put a check on the actions of the 'national' politicians. This is IMHO much better than politicians that are chosen for both their local and national opinion (as they are chosen per district). Is it not true that many national issues have little relation with local issues? Examples include the missile defense system, international politics, etc.
Choosing politicians per district ties them very strongly to the opinions of a fairly uniform group of people. This leads to weak politicians who are afraid to do anything that will go against the sentiments of the local population. On the other hand, if he is chosen by a much more diverse group of people, spread out over the country, he will have the best chance of being re-elected by hanging to ideals. He might lose a few votes by going against the wishes of the people from a state or district, but this will be compensated by the people from the rest of the country who reward him for being steadfast (or will abandon him if he isn't).
A (random) example is an enviromentalist who chooses to forgo his principles when a polluting factory treatens to leave his state (and thus brings harm to the local economy). Such a scenario is much less likely with nationally chosen politicians.
.NET = component-based programming on the Internet
on
J#
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· Score: 1
Just like programmers built programs on Windows with DCOM,.NET allows you to built a program with basic components. Only now these components are not restricted to the same computer, OS or programming language, but may be used over the Internet. But Java offers the same thing: J2EE.
I can see merit to it,.NET will at least allow other platforms to use Windows-based components through SOAP, lowering the barrier for the adoption of Linux or MacOS X. But service-based software also has great risks of causing a Big Brother society (you'll only use the software as we allow, we'll be monitoring) and has security risks.
There actually are very few conceptual differences between J2EE and.NET (probably because one of the two is a rip off). The most basic differences are that J2EE locks you into a language, while.NET locks you into an OS and tool-provider. I have made my choice.
It would be trivial to implement a program in windows that would scan a stream attached to the file to see if you wanted to open this file with a different program than the default
Like a Creator-type on the Mac? You are basically advocating something similar, perhaps you just want an easier way to edit it built into the MacOS (to which I agree).
I think that most people dissing the Mac way are doing so because they are Windows-powerusers and haven't learned how to use the powerful features on the Mac. I have extensive experience with both and I prefer the Mac.
Why? It gets in your way less. On a PC I always have to pay attention, it's very hard to achieve 'flow'. On a Mac most things mostly work just like you expect and this makes it a joy to use. Whenever I try something new ('hey, would this work?'), it usually does work. On Windows it usually does not.
File/Creator-type is a good example of this. It allows you to double-click and open the program that you prefer for that document. Only in the cases that you want something different, you have to do something different.
This is in contrast to the Windows way in which you have to switch between double-clicking and right-clicking to open the app that you see as the default for this document. Different actions to basically achieve the same action -> mess.
BTW, changing the File/Creator-type is really easy with the proper tool.
Courses which teach basic skills like programming Java or assembly should be done by a single person. The university has to be certain that the groundwork is laid for future courses. This is similar to exams which are per person (math exams for example). You need to prove individual prowess.
Courses which teach concepts are often best done in groups. Students can assist each other in the understanding of these concepts. Examples include courses on graphics programming, network programming or neural networks. This is similar to papers written by a group of students on advanced concepts. The understanding of the concepts is more important in these cases than the assurance that you can program a particular problem.
You need not be able to program a neural network yourself, but you have to understand the concepts so you can learn it quickly when necessary, communicate with a neural programmer and understand the limitations/possibilities of the technology. That is the difference between a college and a University, the first mostly teaches skills, the second mostly teaches concepts. The University will allow you to become a broadly educated person. They expect you to mostly build up your own applied skills with this knowledge.
I think that a self-selected group of 2 people is usually best. They are compatible and will assist each other in understanding the more challenging concepts. Leaving the entire exercise to the partner feels wrong and might mean that the partner won't be your partner in future courses.
In larger groups there is a strong tendency for weaker team-members to leave the work for the others. The smarter team-members will also find it too much work too spend effort on spurring/assisting all the less intelligent and/or lazy team-members. I have had this problem a few times, writing something myself was less work than first having to whine for a lazy bum (who was assigned to my group) to do something and then correcting the work to be A material. And even then the writing wasn't that good (don't judge me on my spelling in this post, I'm Dutch;) ). But I also got sick of assisting a friend of mine who tries hard, but just isn't that good a writer. The problems caused by the size of the group just took so much of my time that I was unable to assist/steer him properly.
Groups > 4 are usually a drama. We had a course with 20 students, to learn how to cope with this. Very educational and extremely frustrating. The larger the group, the more uneven the contributions of team-members will become. I know of no good solution except to limit the size of the group and/or prevent weak students from being part of the group. Once you're in a large, uneven group you're fscked.
I have also become more and more self-reliant during my study. If somebody wants to get by on by back, I don't care anymore (although I won't invite them to do so). Studying isn't about getting a BSc or MSc, but about learning and improving yourself. The people who lean too much on others will get hurt at the final assignment (we have a 5 year program, with a 1 year individual project at the end to show your prowess) or when working at a company.
Besides, I also had to lean on people on a few occasions, sometimes an assignment just is too complicated for you or you can't keep up with your partner. Helping each other isn't wrong, up to a point.
PS. The University has to assume you have a basic level of computer expertise. We are expected to know Word, while students of Chemistry get a course. It would be a waste of time on 99.5% of us, so it's a good decision. The 0.5% needs to pick it up themselves. The gal who didn't know zip should partner with a few others of the less informed and assist each other in these things. They shouldn't hamper you with it. Unfortunately some professors like to randomly assign groups. I've never seen much good in this, having little choice in selecting your own group is frustrating enough.
A part of the traffic is reserved for isonchronous data (time-sensitive). This is part of the 1394 spec, it's of course impossible to slap it on afterwards. The same principle was later applied to USB (Apple laid the groundwork for Intel).
Your second assumption is also wrong. There is no difference between a IEEE 1394 disk for the Mac or for the PC (except formatting). Just like there is no difference between IDE or SCSI drives for both platforms.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is part of the Hypertransport consortium. Crossbars surely are the future on 'low-end' machines. But currently none of the other desktop PC's or low-end workstations have a crossbar right now.
;)
I don't think it's fair to compare a desktop-machine to a SGI. Different price, different markets. It's just that Mac's and PC's are competing with workstations because most people don't need a SGI. SGI is indeed a better solution if you can fill that 1.2GB/s, but most people would rather have a desktop machine for 1/6th the price with half the speed (or 4-6 cheap Linux or OS X-machines for a render-farm).
But, this wasn't my point. My point was that the G5 will probably not suck in the bandwith it has, compared to a PC. The G3 and G4 do have this problem. So I would count the G5 as a good option. Plus, you can use Altivec for some serious rendering, Phong, Blinn shading and Global Illumination get a big boost from it.
PS. Why AC? Is there anything embarassing in your post?
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Readme.txt:
"Just type:
./configure
./make
./make install"
Apple doesn't want to expose users to this. Including gcc will only tempt developers to take the easy route. They should make mac-software==user friendly.
PS. The developer tools are much more than just gcc, there is a lot of Apple's software that you get for free (ProjectBuilder IDE, InterfaceBuilder, etc). It's only a download away! (I do agree that they should include the devtools with new Macs, but I don't think there is much reason to complain with the current situation, at least not until M$ gives away Visual Studio).
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Apple continue to make the same mistake, and are going to cripple their G5 machines. Lovely fast processor, crap bus to the gfx, memory and disk.
So it ain't true.
Sorenson is working on a Mpeg-4 codec. I've seen beta versions floating around. I believe that this announcement means one of two things:
1. Sorenson Mpeg-4 will be bundled with Quicktime, which is to be expected. Apple will probably make a big deal of it. This won't help Linux one bit as the codec will still be proprietary.
2. Apple will adapt Quicktime so that it will easily work with codecs that follow one of the ISO MPEG-4 profile codec definitions. This is also to be expected. Mpeg-4 will allow you to use the same codec with any video-architecture that supports Mpeg-4 (Quicktime, WMP, Real, etc).
Take your pick.
Here's a link: 9 januari, behold the beta of Sorenson Mpeg-4
PS. Could someone mod down lordpixel, his sensible post doesn't fit it with the other posts: "F*ck Apple, why can't I play Quicktime trailers? It's a conspiracy."
PS2. 90% of the posts can be answered with this: "complain with Sorenson to port the codec to Linux".
PS3. This topic is about Quicktime. Not Linux.
BTW Has it occurred to anybody that most of the code for MS Office for X *would be* portabe to most *nix's?
;)
Yes, it occured to many. Unfortunately for you Office X isn't a total rewrite based on BSD. It's based on Carbon which is a refurbished version of the classic MacOS API's. But even a rewrite in Cocoa wouldn't be cross-platform unless Cocoa is ported to other systems (= zero chance).
Just run Wine and stop wining
So according to you, the ability to earn money with your creations is not a freedom, but a power (evil creative person that I am).
/. fighting for an ideal that they can't back up with proof/logic? Even RMS admits that developers will have a hard time earning their living. Can you ever see businesses going for this? Do you really believe you can force it on them?
/. would rather be Don Quixote.
So tell me why I would create music, books, games, etc? Strangely enough copyrights and patents have worked pretty well for a long time, until we started to extend them to envelope trivial matters (one-click) or undermined the fair use clauses (DMCA). It seems more logical to me to reduce their scope as they don't apply that well to software (mostly the duration and extent), as well as making fair use a right (that can't be taken away with something like the DMCA). But I can see little wrong with the principle that one can ask money to share his creations. Monopoly abuses can hardly be blamed on a license, it's also an issue with non-software monopolies. A good legal system and good laws should be an answer to that problem.
Why are so many people on
Why not ally with the companies that make money from fair use? There are plenty of those (just about every company creating consumer devices). Ally with schools and universities. Ally with businesses that pay too much for their software. Use them as a counterforce to the current stupidity.
But . . . most people on
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GPL will make it very difficult for companies to base their work on the effort made by public institutions. The companies paid taxes and I can't see any good coming from GPL'ing the code, except for hindering it's acceptance.
Again, forcing altruism in this way is counterproductive. Businesses are starting to see the benefits of open source. Why? Because they can take apache/linux/etc and do just about everything with it. Once they have gotten benefits, they may decide to contribute. And they will, because it benefits them (working together on non-critical software is smart, even dumb managers can get that). If they can't use the software (and still make money), they won't contribute. So effectively GPL is counterproductive (less contributions versus more).
Again, patents can make more money available for research, but what will GPL'ed code accomplish except duplicate efforts? GPL is just a waste of electrons. Why should the taxpayer be expected to put up with this (e.g. pay for this)?
Note that the researcher that is referred to in the post just wants his source to be open. He's not advocating GPL. That wouldn't be a very academic standpoint (reducing freedoms).
Companies pay taxes and should thus also benefit.
This is also my big beef with GPL. We should encourage people to take idea's from others, add their own stuff and make a profit on it. This is the basis of our society, building on the work of others. I don't think we should force altruism on other people's work.
A _moderate_ form of patents + copyrights (with a right to fair use) seems to fit very well with this. In the case of research by public institutions I believe that they should be allowed to patent/copyright their work and sell it to companies if this allows (much) more research to be done. The companies that would pay for the patents get much more profits/advantages than would be 'fair' for the taxes they pay. Companies pay IMHO for the general advances in science that are brought about. They cannot claim to have a right on everything developed by public institutions (we can choose to make it free, but IMO it is not a right).
But overall I'm not convinced that patents are worth the trouble. It seems to cost more than it makes at our university (TUDelft, nanotubes, glare, etc).
Question: are you angry at the few cents per CD that go to Philips and Sony? Would you be angry if that money went to research?
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Tell me how I will get paid in advance for writing QuakeRipOff (or any other generic app)?
Instead of being paid in advance, companies make an investment and expect to be paid afterwards, when the users (should) know what they get. Is that immoral? It seems far more immoral to have to pay in advance and not to know that you get. In this programmers are no different from writers. Do you believe that they should give away their books and live on added services (whatever those would be)?
Why not be sensible and just limit the EULA's and patents? Why don't you fight the RIAA & MPAA with a position that doesn't hurt businesses and thus could garner support?
Foreigner's can be held with secret evidence:
Washington Report
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Burning books & destroying CD's.
Libraries destroying information
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The FBI can tap your communications without a warrant(carnivore). See the ATA for other violations of the constitution.
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Dimitri? Held for how long for allowing Russians to exercise their fair use rights. Suppose Iran would arrest an american for creating a porn-program and posting it on the Internet (forcing their laws on you). Would you be angry?
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DMCA. Take away your fair use rights, who wants to view DVD's on linux anyway? Copy media for your own use, thou shall not. 'Quoting' something (for a review or such), not allowed. Viewing an e-book in a non-approved browser: no, the traditional reverse engineering for interoperability is forbidden. Who needs competition anyway?
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Mandatory censorship in libraries. Who needs freedom of speech? A good thing your daughter can't find info on birth control, the US would risk losing it's nr. 1 position in teenage pregnancies.
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Randal Schwartz? A security advisor at Intel who forgot to inform his boss of running a password-auditing program. Even without hostile intent he was convicted. The same law can get you 15 years in Oregon if you run Napster on your computer or change the color of your screen without informing your boss (the judge gave that last example, I didn't make it up). They don't have to tell you it's wrong in advance.
Oregon vs our favorite Perl programmer
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'But, but...other countries are far worse'
That's what I expect someone to say now.
A big mat which rings the bell everytime someone steps on it. That way you will always know when someone enters your premises.
Add a camera to record their tricks and send it off to America's Funniest Home Video's. Be sure to come out just after they've hidden the stuff and let them explain what they did and why. Act stupid.
That'll teach them.
you don't have to "pay" to create a program and run it on an OS. just some of your own time.
Time is money. Organisations pay people to produce software. Sometimes their own people and sometimes they buy a product from others. I would also like to note that I need money to keep myself fed and housed, my time is the resource that I can offer others in return for money.
Why should I be unable to fill both our needs (software in return for money)? Perhaps I will have to pay a sum to M$ for the use of an extra widget, but they should always allow me to use their standard-API's for free. And with free I mean that they may not put any constraint on my work. Forcing a big fee is the end of many small commercial developers, does the Linux-community really want to hurt them?
Again, you can choose the extra widgets you use, but you need the basic API's to create an app for the OS. There is no choice. A small developer will have to create apps for the platform that his customers are using. He has got much less freedom to develop his apps if he has to spend big bucks on a license. He can no longer just donate spare time to his project, but he has to make a serious financial commitment. This is an enormous barrier and seems to contradict the 'American dream'. You can no longer become a millionaire from scratch with just a computer and your spare time. There now exists a big entrance fee.
AFAIK you've got freedom to develop under Windows and MacOS, but not under KDE. And yes, I do consider the GUI to be part of the OS and not an extra.
I can't see why it would be necessary to pay for creating a program to run on an OS. Not even M$ does this. I think that this is far different from other libraries (where you have a choice to use them).
I think this is very bad to shareware and other small developers that do want to earn a living with software (or at least cover their expenses a bit).
The freedom fighters may flame me for this, but I believe in a world were you can choose whether to give away your work. If so, fine. If people are willing to pay, fine as well. Why do people like RMS feel they have the right to take away your freedom? Copylefts say you will have more freedom, but I can only see them taking away rights.
It's a really interesting and challenging field of study. A nice story about the history of clockless computing can be read here:
Technology Review: It's Time for Clockless Chips
Two quotes:
An alternative, used by Theseus and others, is to open up a separate communication channel on the chip. Clocked chips represent ones and zeroes using low and high voltages on a single wire; "dual-rail" circuits, on the other hand, use two wires, giving the chip communications pathways, not only to send bits, but also to send "handshake" signals to indicate when work has been completed. Fant additionally proposes replacing the conventional system of digital logic with what he calls "null convention logic," a scheme that identifies not only "yes" and "no," but also "no answer yet"--a convenient way for clockless chips to recognize when an operation has not yet been completed. All of these ideas and approaches are different enough that executing them could confound the mind of an engineer trained to design to the beat of a clock.
In 1997, Intel developed an asynchronous, Pentium-compatible test chip that ran three times as fast, on half the power, as its synchronous equivalent.
I don't think people should vote more often than once every four years. The year prior to elections is already a 'lost' year where politicians try to avoid necessary but impopular decisions.
Your proposal will generate votes for people with a strong focus on a single issue, instead of someone who has a general ideal that people can support. I believe that it will radicalize politics, we don't need that. We need smart people who can compromise.
BTW, what would the issues be that you get to vote on? Who determines this?
I think that you never adapted to the Mac. Have you ever used it for a long time?
It's always more difficult to do something on a system that is different from what you know. The filetype 'problem' is a perfect example. It's totally logical, it's only problematic when you're used to other behaviour or it doesn't fit the way you work.
My experience is that the Mac is mostly more consistent than PC's. The interfaces of Windows-programs often differ greatly, everyone is doing something different. This is mostly for no good reason. On the Mac the similarity is much greater, allowing you to quickly come up to speed.
There are a lot of different ways to get something done, but it often requires you to download a tool. I don't mind, I rather have a lean OS that is tailored to me, than a bloated system that is jack of all trades, master of none. The OS should allow for the hooks to get things done, IMHO it shouldn't be required to do everything.
In my eyes a democracy means that our ideals and idea's should be represented in the government. I believe that the best way to achieve this, is to choose people/parties that have standpoints that are similar to yours. A 'pure' democracy where every law is voted on by the population will not represent the people's standpoints. Why?
I have no time to be an expert on every issue. I can't take all the evidence into account and make a good decision. I have to earn my living and have fun, the few hours left a day are not enough to be an expert on every issue. So instead of making a rational decision, I will just vote on sentiment. So we do need experts in the government to make law and journalists to check the governments work and lay out the facts to me in short. Every election I have a chance to decide if the guy/party I voted on is doing good enough.
Unfortunately (for you, as I'm dutch) the US has an extremely weak representative democracy. The focus on districts gears the national government towards local issues, instead of the national issues that they should govern on. The district-system has also effectively created the weak two-party system that has made your politics into a fight. The Democrats are in power, let's vote for our bills. The Republicans are in power, let's undo the things the Democrats did and do what we want.
I believe that the national votes should be counted for the whole country and not per district. This would mean that smaller parties (like Ralph Nader's party) would be able to get into congress. This will greatly increase the diversity of congress and will necessitate coalitions. Thus the political parties will be forced to work together. It will also mean that some minority groups will be able to get a seat in congress and will be able to air their views and question the decisions made by the coalition. Currently a party that has support of 49% of the population, can still be totally unrepresented in congress (if they are barely beaten in every district).
Of course there will always be conflicts between local and national concerns (like drilling off the coast of Florida). I will explain how the dutch system deals with this issue. The local government (chosen in seperate elections) chooses the people to represent them in the Upper House. The Upper House can turn down every Act of Parliament (but they may not amend). We choose the parliament's members directly, 15% of the dutch votes to a political party translates in about 15% of the seats in the Lower House.
Thus the politicians we have chosen (indirectly in our case) to represent our local views put a check on the actions of the 'national' politicians. This is IMHO much better than politicians that are chosen for both their local and national opinion (as they are chosen per district). Is it not true that many national issues have little relation with local issues? Examples include the missile defense system, international politics, etc.
Choosing politicians per district ties them very strongly to the opinions of a fairly uniform group of people. This leads to weak politicians who are afraid to do anything that will go against the sentiments of the local population. On the other hand, if he is chosen by a much more diverse group of people, spread out over the country, he will have the best chance of being re-elected by hanging to ideals. He might lose a few votes by going against the wishes of the people from a state or district, but this will be compensated by the people from the rest of the country who reward him for being steadfast (or will abandon him if he isn't).
A (random) example is an enviromentalist who chooses to forgo his principles when a polluting factory treatens to leave his state (and thus brings harm to the local economy). Such a scenario is much less likely with nationally chosen politicians.
Just like programmers built programs on Windows with DCOM, .NET allows you to built a program with basic components. Only now these components are not restricted to the same computer, OS or programming language, but may be used over the Internet. But Java offers the same thing: J2EE.
.NET will at least allow other platforms to use Windows-based components through SOAP, lowering the barrier for the adoption of Linux or MacOS X. But service-based software also has great risks of causing a Big Brother society (you'll only use the software as we allow, we'll be monitoring) and has security risks.
.NET (probably because one of the two is a rip off). The most basic differences are that J2EE locks you into a language, while .NET locks you into an OS and tool-provider. I have made my choice.
I can see merit to it,
There actually are very few conceptual differences between J2EE and
It would be trivial to implement a program in windows that would scan a stream attached to the file to see if you wanted to open this file with a different program than the default
Like a Creator-type on the Mac? You are basically advocating something similar, perhaps you just want an easier way to edit it built into the MacOS (to which I agree).
I think that most people dissing the Mac way are doing so because they are Windows-powerusers and haven't learned how to use the powerful features on the Mac. I have extensive experience with both and I prefer the Mac.
Why? It gets in your way less. On a PC I always have to pay attention, it's very hard to achieve 'flow'. On a Mac most things mostly work just like you expect and this makes it a joy to use. Whenever I try something new ('hey, would this work?'), it usually does work. On Windows it usually does not.
File/Creator-type is a good example of this. It allows you to double-click and open the program that you prefer for that document. Only in the cases that you want something different, you have to do something different. This is in contrast to the Windows way in which you have to switch between double-clicking and right-clicking to open the app that you see as the default for this document. Different actions to basically achieve the same action -> mess.
BTW, changing the File/Creator-type is really easy with the proper tool.
Courses which teach basic skills like programming Java or assembly should be done by a single person. The university has to be certain that the groundwork is laid for future courses. This is similar to exams which are per person (math exams for example). You need to prove individual prowess.
;) ). But I also got sick of assisting a friend of mine who tries hard, but just isn't that good a writer. The problems caused by the size of the group just took so much of my time that I was unable to assist/steer him properly.
Courses which teach concepts are often best done in groups. Students can assist each other in the understanding of these concepts. Examples include courses on graphics programming, network programming or neural networks. This is similar to papers written by a group of students on advanced concepts. The understanding of the concepts is more important in these cases than the assurance that you can program a particular problem.
You need not be able to program a neural network yourself, but you have to understand the concepts so you can learn it quickly when necessary, communicate with a neural programmer and understand the limitations/possibilities of the technology. That is the difference between a college and a University, the first mostly teaches skills, the second mostly teaches concepts. The University will allow you to become a broadly educated person. They expect you to mostly build up your own applied skills with this knowledge.
I think that a self-selected group of 2 people is usually best. They are compatible and will assist each other in understanding the more challenging concepts. Leaving the entire exercise to the partner feels wrong and might mean that the partner won't be your partner in future courses.
In larger groups there is a strong tendency for weaker team-members to leave the work for the others. The smarter team-members will also find it too much work too spend effort on spurring/assisting all the less intelligent and/or lazy team-members. I have had this problem a few times, writing something myself was less work than first having to whine for a lazy bum (who was assigned to my group) to do something and then correcting the work to be A material. And even then the writing wasn't that good (don't judge me on my spelling in this post, I'm Dutch
Groups > 4 are usually a drama. We had a course with 20 students, to learn how to cope with this. Very educational and extremely frustrating. The larger the group, the more uneven the contributions of team-members will become. I know of no good solution except to limit the size of the group and/or prevent weak students from being part of the group. Once you're in a large, uneven group you're fscked.
I have also become more and more self-reliant during my study. If somebody wants to get by on by back, I don't care anymore (although I won't invite them to do so). Studying isn't about getting a BSc or MSc, but about learning and improving yourself. The people who lean too much on others will get hurt at the final assignment (we have a 5 year program, with a 1 year individual project at the end to show your prowess) or when working at a company.
Besides, I also had to lean on people on a few occasions, sometimes an assignment just is too complicated for you or you can't keep up with your partner. Helping each other isn't wrong, up to a point.
PS. The University has to assume you have a basic level of computer expertise. We are expected to know Word, while students of Chemistry get a course. It would be a waste of time on 99.5% of us, so it's a good decision. The 0.5% needs to pick it up themselves. The gal who didn't know zip should partner with a few others of the less informed and assist each other in these things. They shouldn't hamper you with it. Unfortunately some professors like to randomly assign groups. I've never seen much good in this, having little choice in selecting your own group is frustrating enough.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618126996/ 102-7400559-9156934
A part of the traffic is reserved for isonchronous data (time-sensitive). This is part of the 1394 spec, it's of course impossible to slap it on afterwards. The same principle was later applied to USB (Apple laid the groundwork for Intel).
Your second assumption is also wrong. There is no difference between a IEEE 1394 disk for the Mac or for the PC (except formatting). Just like there is no difference between IDE or SCSI drives for both platforms.
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On MacOS 9 you usually get a nice window which lets you pick an app to open the file with.
Files that come from the Internet or a PC automatically get the proper type and creator (most of the time).
It's also quite easy to change the type/creator for a power user. You should not act like all Mac-users are dumb.