6502c, actually. It's a custom version of the 6502 that was integrated with various other system hardware and could dynamically adjust its clock depending on which memory address was being accessed. (That was how Atari gained 2600 compatibility, which was a custom 6507 chip.)
It sounded all well and good on paper, but the actual implementation of the processor was a serious PITA. If you weren't careful, you'd accidentally drop the speed to 1.19MHz and throw all your timings off. Even more annoying was that many functions required you to access hardware that dropped the clock speed. The worst offender was the TIA sound hardware because Atari was too cheap to install a POKEY chip.
Worse yet, the normal 1.79MHz was underpowered for the complex sprite hardware they'd paired it with. The sprite hardware basically processed lists of lists of sprites, requiring sophisiticated data structures to get good performance out of complex, fast moving scenes. And if that wasn't painful enough, you were wise to find a way to keep as much of the structure in ROM as possible so that you wouldn't blow through the mere 4K of RAM.
The 7800 was an interesting and potentially even useful design, but it simply wasn't practical for most developers. (Many of whom were not computer scientists.)
Microsoft has been convicted (not merely accused) of using an monopoly in one field to support coercive efforts directed at computer manufacturers and others in an attempt to extend that monopoly in other fields.
Here's the amazing thing though: We're not trying to establish whether or not Google is leveraging a monopoly. We're only trying to establish that they are large enough to have a singular impact on the market. i.e. They are a large company along the lines of Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle.
Nothing else matters for this discussion. Monopoly and antitrust be damned. That's not what we're trying to establish.
Let me make this as clear as I can make it: Neil McAllister is an idiot. Stop posting his "stories".
To be sure, self-taught 'cowboy coders' -- the hallmark of today's programming generation in America -- are technically proficient, McAllister writes, 'but their code is less likely to be maintainable in the long term, and they're less likely to conform to organizational development processes and coding standards.
And yet no evidence is offered as to why that's true. It simply is. Accept it on face value.
Not.
As a "self-taught coder" (remove the "cowboy", because that has completely different implications) I am regularly frustrated by the coding practices of my more learned colleagues. Or more precisely, my colleagues who have more college backing behind their code.
Bull^H^H^Hachlor's Degrees, Masters Degrees, PhDs, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day they still cram code into an editor with little regard for the reasoning behind the coding practices they follow. In result, those practices become useless as they overarchitect the system into a corner. (Or at a lower level, smoosh so much code into view that it becomes unreadable.)
In my experience, if they don't have years of experience under their belt to understand the purpose behind coding practices, then all the practices they teach you in college are for naught. A more senior individual still needs to guide the code in the right direction, regardless of education.
There you go. My anecdotal evidence that disproves your unfounded assertions. Are we all happy now?
I didn't say they were a total monopoly. I said they were a "Big" corporation. They're running with the likes of Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and Oracle, no matter what they try to tell the DOJ.
(Not that I'm in favor of the DOJ coming down on them like a ton of bricks. But having the threat there is always conducive to keeping large companies honest.;-))
Hostile takeovers are extremely rare in this day in age. Mostly because public companies now structure their shares to prevent such takeovers.
If someone waves enough money under your nose, OF COURSE you're going to sell out. If someone offered to make me a multimillionaire AND allow me to continue working on my project, I'd be like "hell yeah!" Especially when we're talking about a generally friendly company like Google.
That being said, your argument is neither here nor there. Google is BIG with a capital B. Not horrible, not bad, not soul-sucking, not EVIL, just "Big". Trying to convince the market otherwise is a lost cause.
You're looking at it wrong. Google can't purchase Microsoft for Word, so they purchase Writely instead. Bam. Instant competition. Google can't purchase Apple, so they purchase Android instead. Bam. Instant competition. That's how they "compete". By either buying the market outright (e.g. Blogger) or by buying the upcoming competitor to a competitor they can't buy.
Microsoft, Oracle, and even IBM do the same thing.
I've also left out several direct competitors like DoubleClick, Outride, Kaltix, Sprinks, Genius Labs, Baidu, Picasa, Keyhole, and others. Google just shops the competition until they find the features they need, then integrate them into their products.
While I agree with the statement that Google has not been anticompetitive AND with the statement that competition is "only a click away"*, Google does one thing that still makes them a large company on the order of Microsoft:
Google buys out the competition
Mergers and acquisitions are a matter of course for the technology industry. But when you build your portfolio by simply buying off the leader in a new market space, then you become a holding corporation. That's been the mark of Microsoft for two decades now and it's become the mark of Google as well. Google Groups (DejaNews), Google Docs (Writely), Youtube, Google Analytics (Urchin), Android, etc. all testify to this.
While I'll grant that Google adds their own spin to the products and often integrates them better than acquisitions made by many of their competitors, it still does not change the fact that Google purchases their markets. And that... that is a damning argument against their "we're not that big" statement.
* Ignoring the competitive advantage of Google's massive infrastructure for a moment.
The Iranian government was hoping to quietly sweep the issue under the rug. The Guardian Council's statement that they would look into possible election fraud was nothing more than a delay tactic. The Council had hoped that the public would wait for the result quietly. Then when the Council made their determination, the people would have cooled off and the whole matter would be swept under the rug.
Of course, it didn't work that way. The Iranian public has been getting progressively angrier. These stalling tactics only made them madder. The Ayatollah's proclamation of "divine insight" into the election made them angrier still. Even the blood shed on the street has not discouraged them, but thrown them into a shear rage.
Now Iran is staring down a full-blown revolution. The police have been told they can use firearms (as if they haven't been using them) and the protesters have been denounced as terrorists.
A lot of blood is going to be shed in the next few days. And the press just happens to be considered a fair target by the Iranian government.:-(
I think that's a fair reason to want a machine like that, but as a consumer it would have been a good idea to do a bit more research up front to ensure that the system would meet your needs.
Specialty uses like yours tend to cost more money any way you cut it. You need a combination of high power and quiet operation. The ideal options there are either buy something like a Mac Pro (which is tuned for such uses) or build a custom PC that relies on more quiet cooling methods.
You tried to shortcut it with a device that you weren't going to be happy with, then complain at the manufacturer that they don't make it friendly for people who want to modify it. Well, that's not the market it targets and the machine is going to be underpowered. Pick the right tool for the job.
I can't help but think that the best idea for your situation might be to purchase a used Mac Pro. It will give you the power, silence, and expanability you need, but not the price tag. It's not as shiny as a new machine, but you're more concerned with getting the job done, right?:-)
Why? Why should I spend $1,200 in a machine that can be bought for less than half?
If you can find me a laptop machine that's just as usable as my Mac for $600, I'd call you nothing short of incredible. Such a beast doesn't exist. Part of the cost of Apple's hardware (which isn't nearly as inflated as you make it out to be) is a total-solution package that Just Works(TM). I close the lid, it sleeps. If the battery runs out, it hibernates. If I open the lid it wakes up. If I plug a device in, it just works. If I turn on Wifi, it just works. (I never knew that those "Free Public Wifi" nodes were actually mesh connections from a Windows misfeature until my Mac pointed out that they were mesh networks.) If I want to print, the Mac just finds the printers. If I want to use a Bluetooth headset, it just works. Plus the screen is gorgeous, the laptop is lightweight, and the battery life is excellent.
PCs are cheaper, but they're more hassle. Worth the money savings? Depends on who you are and your personal preferences.
Why is that I can buy an EEE that offers all I need when I want to travel light for under $300, weights ~1 kg, is very portable, and comes with 1M pixel camera,
Let's turn that question on its head: Why do you think that Apple should offer a $300 PC when you already have an option available that meets your needs?
Apple is not in the $300 market, nor do they want to compete there. If you don't want the products Apple sells, don't buy them. It really is that simple.
Simple answer: Steve. He knows. He knows best. He wants you to do things HIS way. Control freak...
This blind hate is just amazing. Apparently, if Apple doesn't give away hardware and solve world hunger, they suck.
Apple is a business. If you want their products, buy their products. If you don't want their products, don't buy their products. If you're still not happy, deal with it. Life doesn't work your way just because you think it should.
Are you seriously suggesting that he spend multiple kilobucks just so he can get something he can add RAM too?
No, I'm suggesting he spend sufficient money to get a machine he needs rather than one that is designed for an "average" home user. And last I checked, $1200 hardly counts as "multiple kilobucks".
You'll notice that I'm not defending the inaccessibility of the machine, only arguing that it was a poor purchasing decision. Apple sells plenty of hardware that geeks can be very happy with owning. Unless you have a specific plan for one, a Mac Mini is not it.
Having to press a key on the keyboard and click has got to be the most entertaining solution I have seen as 'good' in a long time.
Mod parent down. The desktop machines have a right mouse button while the laptops allow you to place a second finger on the trackpad and click for a right click. The latter is such a nice solution that I now loathe to reach for the right button on PC laptops.
I never realized how non-ergonomic right mouse buttons on trackpads were until I didn't have to do it anymore.;-)
My new Mini is actually my first Apple ever. So far, I have not been impressed.
Just about anyone who's posting on Slashdot is not going to be well-served by a Mac Mini. At least not as a primary machine. The Mini is a scaled-down computer intended for non-power users who need a relatively inexpensive machine that can be tethered to a desk.
If you want to be happy with your Mac purchase, get a MacBook. It will do everything you need of it and more. Plus, getting it equipped out-of-the-box with sufficient memory and disk is a very affordable upgrade. No need to crack open the machine for servicing. (Though it's probably not as hard as the mini. I haven't tried on the MacBook, but the iBook was a cinch. Just pop back the keyboard and voila!)
Hardly a design mistake. Its more a lack of testing mistake.
It was a design mistake because the system's own power supply generated the EMP when the switch was flipped. More testing could have caught the issue, but it was a critical flaw in the component choices and board layout of the system.
How is that any different to the Ipod coming without a user replacable battery?
The iPod battery is lightweight and generally easy to forget about. The power bricks were heavier and bulkier than real bricks. Computers of the day were often stored when not in use (they had to be hooked up to a television), which made this mis-feature a real PITA.
Problem #6: Rubber Keyboard
It didn't hurt the Sinclair ZX Spectrum's sales too much.
This one I agree with you on. Users of the day were willing to overlook issues like this if the system was otherwise solid. The problem with the Aquarius was not the keyboard, but rather that it was an uninspired machine. Mattel had failed to produce the promised keyboard expansion for the Intellivison, so they released the Aquarius instead. Support consisted of a few quick ports of older Intellivision software and that was it. There was no real reason for anyone to purchase the computer. So no one did.
I'd say all disk drives are proprietary until they become a standard.
It wasn't the proprietary part that was the problem, it was the unreliable part. Disks in the day were almost always tied to the computer that used them. But if they were unreliable and you couldn't even get a drive replacement, that made the machine outright useless. Think of it like your hard drive failing every few months. That's about what losing a floppy was like back then.
It only got worse when you tried to keep disk backups. Since most machines had only one drive, you had to swap disks back and forth for every few KB of data transferred. An 800KB disk would take a LOT of swaps. In that time, you spent a lot of time praying that the original disk wouldn't fail during the backup.
Sadly, it happens in the real-world too. I have a website for a device that only supports Javascript games. I've received more than one submission where the submitter claimed ownership of code that was quite clearly not theirs. In one case, the code had a full attribution segment in it AND the first Google result for the game showed it on a script download site.
Predictably, the code didn't even work on the target device. It was old-style JS code from the 1990's that clearly said it only supported IE3 and NS4.:-/
Because it packs more hype into an n-cube, and fills a 4-dimensional space with marketing.
That's why it's called a hype[r]cube. They'd call it a tesseract, but the reviewers kept asking how it helped with eye problems.;-)
Joking aside, a cube is a data-mining/reporting concept that pre-computes a number of reporting relationships between data elements. Adding a "fourth-dimension" is usually what's referred to as a "slowly changing dimension". It's usually handled by adding time stamps denoting an active period for a record, then computing based on a time range.
I don't know if Google means the same thing here (probably not), but it sounds like the real breakthrough is a large-scale data space. Having worked with a few data space DBs, the concept lends itself well to the more organic nature of the Web. IMHO, it has the potential to succeed and offer a strong competitive advantage over traditional RDBMSes.
Today's RDBMSes are great, but the cost of adding new features to the application is extremely high. Data spaces sidestep the issue by allowing you to add data in whatever format you need. There are some rather obvious pitfalls (I can hear the DBAs screaming about data integrity already), but it matches the web development environment well.:-)
4x more than original DSI? wow, that sucks, with ram prices, they could at least make it 96mb easy and a much more capable system
That would drive up the price by quite a bit. Nintendo sells their consoles at a profit, not at a loss like their competitors. Sony sells the PSP at $250 (almost $100 more than the DSi), but they still take a loss on it.
The browsers sucks as much as on the kindle for different reasons
You don't sound like a very forgiving fellow, so it may not be possible to please you. But many people have enjoyed pointing their DSis to sites like DSiCade, DSiPaint, and Hullbreach MMOG. Perhaps you'll also find some entertainment in those places. Or maybe not.
The emails were on the WHATWG mailing list. Anyone can join and participate. I mostly keep an eye on things. Ideally, I want to be able to jump in and say "HOLD IT!" if things are going off-track, but it seems the browser makers have some good heads on their shoulders. Except for Microsoft. I'd love to pop in with the occasional exclamation of "bullshit", but that wouldn't accomplish much.;-)
When I read it a few days ago, I understood it as "loading native codecs" rather than loading a binary library of FFMPEG. After that I paid little heed to the thread as these A\V codec discussions get a bit heated.:-/
Oddly, I have Chrome 2.0.172.30, but no FFMPEG license in sight. Oddly, the license for the V8 assembler is listed as Copyright (c) 1994-2006 Sun Microsystems Inc. WTF?
Slashdot Mirror
6502c, actually. It's a custom version of the 6502 that was integrated with various other system hardware and could dynamically adjust its clock depending on which memory address was being accessed. (That was how Atari gained 2600 compatibility, which was a custom 6507 chip.)
It sounded all well and good on paper, but the actual implementation of the processor was a serious PITA. If you weren't careful, you'd accidentally drop the speed to 1.19MHz and throw all your timings off. Even more annoying was that many functions required you to access hardware that dropped the clock speed. The worst offender was the TIA sound hardware because Atari was too cheap to install a POKEY chip.
Worse yet, the normal 1.79MHz was underpowered for the complex sprite hardware they'd paired it with. The sprite hardware basically processed lists of lists of sprites, requiring sophisiticated data structures to get good performance out of complex, fast moving scenes. And if that wasn't painful enough, you were wise to find a way to keep as much of the structure in ROM as possible so that you wouldn't blow through the mere 4K of RAM.
The 7800 was an interesting and potentially even useful design, but it simply wasn't practical for most developers. (Many of whom were not computer scientists.)
I didn't ask that, the other poster did. I was establishing that Google is a big company. That's what this is all really about.
What I'm saying is, ignore the whole abusive monopoly thing. That's not the question.
LunarPages is around that range and they provide both PostgreSQL and MySQL as options.
Here's the amazing thing though: We're not trying to establish whether or not Google is leveraging a monopoly. We're only trying to establish that they are large enough to have a singular impact on the market. i.e. They are a large company along the lines of Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle.
Nothing else matters for this discussion. Monopoly and antitrust be damned. That's not what we're trying to establish.
Let me make this as clear as I can make it: Neil McAllister is an idiot. Stop posting his "stories".
And yet no evidence is offered as to why that's true. It simply is. Accept it on face value.
Not.
As a "self-taught coder" (remove the "cowboy", because that has completely different implications) I am regularly frustrated by the coding practices of my more learned colleagues. Or more precisely, my colleagues who have more college backing behind their code.
Bull^H^H^Hachlor's Degrees, Masters Degrees, PhDs, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day they still cram code into an editor with little regard for the reasoning behind the coding practices they follow. In result, those practices become useless as they overarchitect the system into a corner. (Or at a lower level, smoosh so much code into view that it becomes unreadable.)
In my experience, if they don't have years of experience under their belt to understand the purpose behind coding practices, then all the practices they teach you in college are for naught. A more senior individual still needs to guide the code in the right direction, regardless of education.
There you go. My anecdotal evidence that disproves your unfounded assertions. Are we all happy now?
I didn't say they were a total monopoly. I said they were a "Big" corporation. They're running with the likes of Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and Oracle, no matter what they try to tell the DOJ.
(Not that I'm in favor of the DOJ coming down on them like a ton of bricks. But having the threat there is always conducive to keeping large companies honest. ;-))
Hostile takeovers are extremely rare in this day in age. Mostly because public companies now structure their shares to prevent such takeovers.
If someone waves enough money under your nose, OF COURSE you're going to sell out. If someone offered to make me a multimillionaire AND allow me to continue working on my project, I'd be like "hell yeah!" Especially when we're talking about a generally friendly company like Google.
That being said, your argument is neither here nor there. Google is BIG with a capital B. Not horrible, not bad, not soul-sucking, not EVIL, just "Big". Trying to convince the market otherwise is a lost cause.
You're looking at it wrong. Google can't purchase Microsoft for Word, so they purchase Writely instead. Bam. Instant competition. Google can't purchase Apple, so they purchase Android instead. Bam. Instant competition. That's how they "compete". By either buying the market outright (e.g. Blogger) or by buying the upcoming competitor to a competitor they can't buy.
Microsoft, Oracle, and even IBM do the same thing.
I've also left out several direct competitors like DoubleClick, Outride, Kaltix, Sprinks, Genius Labs, Baidu, Picasa, Keyhole, and others. Google just shops the competition until they find the features they need, then integrate them into their products.
While I agree with the statement that Google has not been anticompetitive AND with the statement that competition is "only a click away"*, Google does one thing that still makes them a large company on the order of Microsoft:
Google buys out the competition
Mergers and acquisitions are a matter of course for the technology industry. But when you build your portfolio by simply buying off the leader in a new market space, then you become a holding corporation. That's been the mark of Microsoft for two decades now and it's become the mark of Google as well. Google Groups (DejaNews), Google Docs (Writely), Youtube, Google Analytics (Urchin), Android, etc. all testify to this.
While I'll grant that Google adds their own spin to the products and often integrates them better than acquisitions made by many of their competitors, it still does not change the fact that Google purchases their markets. And that... that is a damning argument against their "we're not that big" statement.
* Ignoring the competitive advantage of Google's massive infrastructure for a moment.
The Iranian government was hoping to quietly sweep the issue under the rug. The Guardian Council's statement that they would look into possible election fraud was nothing more than a delay tactic. The Council had hoped that the public would wait for the result quietly. Then when the Council made their determination, the people would have cooled off and the whole matter would be swept under the rug.
Of course, it didn't work that way. The Iranian public has been getting progressively angrier. These stalling tactics only made them madder. The Ayatollah's proclamation of "divine insight" into the election made them angrier still. Even the blood shed on the street has not discouraged them, but thrown them into a shear rage.
Now Iran is staring down a full-blown revolution. The police have been told they can use firearms (as if they haven't been using them) and the protesters have been denounced as terrorists.
A lot of blood is going to be shed in the next few days. And the press just happens to be considered a fair target by the Iranian government. :-(
...went something like this.
"WTH is this? Scammers?"
*Press 1*
"Hello, what's the make of your vehicle?"
"May I ask who I'm speaking to?"
*click*
--
After receiving (and hanging up on) a few more of these calls, I can't say I'm sorry to see their asses getting handed to them in court.
I think that's a fair reason to want a machine like that, but as a consumer it would have been a good idea to do a bit more research up front to ensure that the system would meet your needs.
Specialty uses like yours tend to cost more money any way you cut it. You need a combination of high power and quiet operation. The ideal options there are either buy something like a Mac Pro (which is tuned for such uses) or build a custom PC that relies on more quiet cooling methods.
You tried to shortcut it with a device that you weren't going to be happy with, then complain at the manufacturer that they don't make it friendly for people who want to modify it. Well, that's not the market it targets and the machine is going to be underpowered. Pick the right tool for the job.
I can't help but think that the best idea for your situation might be to purchase a used Mac Pro. It will give you the power, silence, and expanability you need, but not the price tag. It's not as shiny as a new machine, but you're more concerned with getting the job done, right? :-)
If you can find me a laptop machine that's just as usable as my Mac for $600, I'd call you nothing short of incredible. Such a beast doesn't exist. Part of the cost of Apple's hardware (which isn't nearly as inflated as you make it out to be) is a total-solution package that Just Works(TM). I close the lid, it sleeps. If the battery runs out, it hibernates. If I open the lid it wakes up. If I plug a device in, it just works. If I turn on Wifi, it just works. (I never knew that those "Free Public Wifi" nodes were actually mesh connections from a Windows misfeature until my Mac pointed out that they were mesh networks.) If I want to print, the Mac just finds the printers. If I want to use a Bluetooth headset, it just works. Plus the screen is gorgeous, the laptop is lightweight, and the battery life is excellent.
PCs are cheaper, but they're more hassle. Worth the money savings? Depends on who you are and your personal preferences.
Let's turn that question on its head: Why do you think that Apple should offer a $300 PC when you already have an option available that meets your needs?
Apple is not in the $300 market, nor do they want to compete there. If you don't want the products Apple sells, don't buy them. It really is that simple.
This blind hate is just amazing. Apparently, if Apple doesn't give away hardware and solve world hunger, they suck.
Apple is a business. If you want their products, buy their products. If you don't want their products, don't buy their products. If you're still not happy, deal with it. Life doesn't work your way just because you think it should.
Derr... s/palatable/palpable/g. Though the original is kind of funny. :-P
No, I'm suggesting he spend sufficient money to get a machine he needs rather than one that is designed for an "average" home user. And last I checked, $1200 hardly counts as "multiple kilobucks".
Geez, the blind Apple hate is palatable today.
You'll notice that I'm not defending the inaccessibility of the machine, only arguing that it was a poor purchasing decision. Apple sells plenty of hardware that geeks can be very happy with owning. Unless you have a specific plan for one, a Mac Mini is not it.
Mod parent down. The desktop machines have a right mouse button while the laptops allow you to place a second finger on the trackpad and click for a right click. The latter is such a nice solution that I now loathe to reach for the right button on PC laptops.
I never realized how non-ergonomic right mouse buttons on trackpads were until I didn't have to do it anymore. ;-)
Just about anyone who's posting on Slashdot is not going to be well-served by a Mac Mini. At least not as a primary machine. The Mini is a scaled-down computer intended for non-power users who need a relatively inexpensive machine that can be tethered to a desk.
If you want to be happy with your Mac purchase, get a MacBook. It will do everything you need of it and more. Plus, getting it equipped out-of-the-box with sufficient memory and disk is a very affordable upgrade. No need to crack open the machine for servicing. (Though it's probably not as hard as the mini. I haven't tried on the MacBook, but the iBook was a cinch. Just pop back the keyboard and voila!)
It was a design mistake because the system's own power supply generated the EMP when the switch was flipped. More testing could have caught the issue, but it was a critical flaw in the component choices and board layout of the system.
The iPod battery is lightweight and generally easy to forget about. The power bricks were heavier and bulkier than real bricks. Computers of the day were often stored when not in use (they had to be hooked up to a television), which made this mis-feature a real PITA.
This one I agree with you on. Users of the day were willing to overlook issues like this if the system was otherwise solid. The problem with the Aquarius was not the keyboard, but rather that it was an uninspired machine. Mattel had failed to produce the promised keyboard expansion for the Intellivison, so they released the Aquarius instead. Support consisted of a few quick ports of older Intellivision software and that was it. There was no real reason for anyone to purchase the computer. So no one did.
It wasn't the proprietary part that was the problem, it was the unreliable part. Disks in the day were almost always tied to the computer that used them. But if they were unreliable and you couldn't even get a drive replacement, that made the machine outright useless. Think of it like your hard drive failing every few months. That's about what losing a floppy was like back then.
It only got worse when you tried to keep disk backups. Since most machines had only one drive, you had to swap disks back and forth for every few KB of data transferred. An 800KB disk would take a LOT of swaps. In that time, you spent a lot of time praying that the original disk wouldn't fail during the backup.
Sadly, it happens in the real-world too. I have a website for a device that only supports Javascript games. I've received more than one submission where the submitter claimed ownership of code that was quite clearly not theirs. In one case, the code had a full attribution segment in it AND the first Google result for the game showed it on a script download site.
Predictably, the code didn't even work on the target device. It was old-style JS code from the 1990's that clearly said it only supported IE3 and NS4. :-/
That's just what the market calls it for short. The full name is MicrOracleBM Java System Z Office DB2i AS Windows Enterprise Edition.
Or as I like to call it, MOBMJSZODBASWEE. Rolls right off the tongue.
That's why it's called a hype[r]cube. They'd call it a tesseract, but the reviewers kept asking how it helped with eye problems. ;-)
Joking aside, a cube is a data-mining/reporting concept that pre-computes a number of reporting relationships between data elements. Adding a "fourth-dimension" is usually what's referred to as a "slowly changing dimension". It's usually handled by adding time stamps denoting an active period for a record, then computing based on a time range.
I don't know if Google means the same thing here (probably not), but it sounds like the real breakthrough is a large-scale data space. Having worked with a few data space DBs, the concept lends itself well to the more organic nature of the Web. IMHO, it has the potential to succeed and offer a strong competitive advantage over traditional RDBMSes.
Today's RDBMSes are great, but the cost of adding new features to the application is extremely high. Data spaces sidestep the issue by allowing you to add data in whatever format you need. There are some rather obvious pitfalls (I can hear the DBAs screaming about data integrity already), but it matches the web development environment well. :-)
That would drive up the price by quite a bit. Nintendo sells their consoles at a profit, not at a loss like their competitors. Sony sells the PSP at $250 (almost $100 more than the DSi), but they still take a loss on it.
You don't sound like a very forgiving fellow, so it may not be possible to please you. But many people have enjoyed pointing their DSis to sites like DSiCade, DSiPaint, and Hullbreach MMOG. Perhaps you'll also find some entertainment in those places. Or maybe not.
The emails were on the WHATWG mailing list. Anyone can join and participate. I mostly keep an eye on things. Ideally, I want to be able to jump in and say "HOLD IT!" if things are going off-track, but it seems the browser makers have some good heads on their shoulders. Except for Microsoft. I'd love to pop in with the occasional exclamation of "bullshit", but that wouldn't accomplish much. ;-)
Seems you're right. The confusion is my own. The thread didn't start with the email you linked to, it started here:
http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-May/019994.html
When I read it a few days ago, I understood it as "loading native codecs" rather than loading a binary library of FFMPEG. After that I paid little heed to the thread as these A\V codec discussions get a bit heated. :-/
Oddly, I have Chrome 2.0.172.30, but no FFMPEG license in sight. Oddly, the license for the V8 assembler is listed as Copyright (c) 1994-2006 Sun Microsystems Inc. WTF?