I think Apple should get it over with and release Mac OS X under the GPL.
Not because this is in their best interests, but merely because it would be the ultimate way to thoroughly annoy their most obnoxious supporters. Those arguing that it is impossible to make more money selling an operating system than selling cheap crap in stylish boxes would find their fears realised, and yet the world would still end up better off.
Also I like Mac OS X, and I want to run it on my Thinkpad.
I think the guarantee tht you will have all your hardware working within a month needs to be reworded as "you will have all the hardware you deem necessary working within a month, although in some cases you may need workarounds" would be more reasonable, but generally, yeah, as long as you take some care in your purchasing decisions, the statement is more or less true.
It took me around a week to get the major parts of my Thinkpad working, and another couple of weeks to get the ATI fglrx stuff going. I'm sure there are parts of my Thinkpad unconfigured, but that's because I don't use them.
He said he refused to upgrade a second time. I don't blame him. You know, Tiger's barely a couple of years old, and you can't get Java 1.5 for Panther, because Apple tries to avoid doing basic updates for earlier versions of Mac OS X unless it's something they can make money from, like iTunes. Operating systems sold less than two years ago.
Going from Jaguar to Tiger is more like going from Windows 2000 to Windows XP BTW. Jaguar has the same architecture and in many ways is a cleaner OS than its successors (the GUI in particular, while slower, is more elegant and less grating.) What it lacks are recent bells and whistles. And support.
Of course, unless there's truth in advertising, the people "subjected to the rules of the game" will be completely unaware there's a game to begin with.
Imagine, in 2009, buying an HD-DVD, and having to check the list of players listed on the back under "This disc will not play under the following players". If only two or three keys get compromised, this might be managable, but...
Contrary to what has been claimed above, CSS had the same mechanisms in place. Supposedly AACS makes this more practical because there are more keys, and therefore keys can be assigned to each model of player, and because some NG DVD players will have mechanisms to update themselves. In practice, this is absolute rubbish. Half the people buying such devices will not be able to set up those mechanisms, most of them find it hard enough just setting up a DSL connection, and revoking a key will be a major issue that will effect huge numbers of people. Any attempt to revoke keys, especially for more popular players of the type that are the most likely to be cracked due to sheer numbers, will cause permanent damage to the credibility of the format.
What a terrible idea you've come up with, MPAA. The sooner you and your DMCA promoting selves self destruct the better.
Having had both PowerBooks and Thinkpads, I much prefer the hardware of the latter. So much so I ended up switching back to GNU/Linux because despite the superiority of Mac OS X, a T60 + GNU/Linux was a better choice for me than a Macbook + Mac OS X. But a Thinkpad + Mac OS X would have been even better.
You know, I know there are some people there who seriously believe that there is no computer out there that hasn't been bettered by Apple, but honestly, I can't understand the attitude beyond inane fanboyism of the Amiga variety. Apple's hardware has always been interesting, but to argue it's always been superior to absolutely everything requires a deliberate blindness to reality that's hard to fathom.
In theory (I haven't tried it), this is configurable: The GNUSTEP_USER_DIR, the default of which is set in {GNUSTEP_HOME}/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh, has the name of the GNUstep directory relative to your home. ie, if you're prefer ".gs", place "export GNUSTEP_USER_DIR=.gs" in your.profile, or if that doesn't work, in Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh.
The funny thing is that the same criticisms can be made of GNUstep as of GNOME. Further, while the codebase issue may be true, GNOME is far from "amateurish" in 2006. It's a slick, professional, desktop, that, IMHO, is more usable and friendly than Microsoft's Windows, even if it isn't yet up to Mac OS X standards.
Does GNUstep have direction? Does it hell. There is an official line (that it's supposed to look and feel like OpenStep 4), and an unofficial argument about where it's going. The look and feel issues are being more and more muddied, as the influence of the Mac gains on the project without being officially embraced.
The code base is, despite a "1.0" release many years ago, still in flux with recent changes breaking older code. Compiling it is a PITA.
What's different? Well, the GNOME project really has had something resembling a direction over the last few years, and the system is now extremely usable, consistant, and well polished. I don't like all of the decisions they've made, but compared to GNUstep, it's a professional desktop. It most certainly isn't "amateurish", it might have been in the miguel days, but it's come a long way from then.
GNUstep, by comparison, is a mismatch of "nearly finished" applications. Glitches such as fights between menus as to who's on top, and translation issues ("Informations"?), not to mention confusion as to who manages the dock (GWorkspace.app has one, WindowMaker has another, and they work completely differently. And why is the Dock integrated into either?) and even the desktop, are commonplace and jarring.
I tried, when I switched back to GNU/Linux earlier this year, to start off with GNUstep, because it felt it was a more interesting system, but I ended up, despite prejudices heavily against it, going to GNOME. GNUstep is just too beta-quality at the moment. It's not there yet.
For anyone involved in GNUstep to describe GNOME as "amateurish" takes an astonishing amount of gall. At least release a finished, polished, version first with all the critical components (including the WM and GWorkspace.app) complete, working, and integrated, before criticising a project that's complete, working, and integrated as "amateurish".
Re:The electromagnetic spectrum has limits, people
on
Companies Betting on WiMAX
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Wow. What a lot of unnecessarily negative comments to make. I say that because it's not like there's anything that strings them together except that they're negative. 2.5GHz requires more power! Sufficient suspicion that cellular transmissions aren't good for you! This'll require a "huge" amount of spectrum!
Let's deal with them one by one:
1. 2.5GHz isn't ideal, but it's fine for NLOS, almost as good as regular PCS (think about it, it's only 25% higher in frequency.) For Line-of-Sight, it's no problem at all, as the antenna you're using would be external anyway. Frequencies in the 3.5GHz are already being used for that.
2. The phrase "sufficient suspicion" has to be one of the most misleading, anti-scientific, phrases I've heard since "Intelligent design". It's taking the valid phhrase "sufficient evidence" (which would indeed be worrying, but that doesn't exist) and replacing the word "evidence" with "suspicion" because there isn't any evidence. It's intellectually dishonest.
3. There is a huge amount of spectrum being licensed, and it's getting bigger every few years. In addition to cellular and PCS, we've just had the AWS spectrum in the US, and the 2.5GHz range is being made available. Other frequency bands are also coming online. In addition to more efficient protocols by WISPS (including modern 3G cellphone carriers, do not forget about them), operators of cellular networks of all descriptions (AMPS/CDMA2000, GSM/UMTS, WiMAX, UMTS-TDD, etc) are putting up more and more towers, breaking up the available area into smaller and smaller areas.
The UMTS LTE project is expecting to finalise new UMTS air interface protocols based on OFDMA and MIMO that'll increase the downlink to about 100Mbps per tower per 20MHz of spectrum, by the end of 2007. It's not hard to see with microcellular coverage in cities and lower population density outside of cities coupled with towers often as little as two or three miles apart, that's a lot of capacity for a single carrier to have.
Will it keep up with wireline? Probably not, but most of us are happy with our 1.5Mbps DSL connections right now...
I think WiMAX, and the technologies that compete against it (UMTS-TDD, for instance) have a very promising future. Right now, the biggest hurdle is getting people to pull their fingers out in getting the technology up, and getting the infrastructure installed. Is it a Utopia? No, nothing ever is. Do the limits of the electromagnetic spectrum have any serious risk of derailing this? Not a chance.
I don't know what you're talking about. I've had Nokia phones over the last ten years with at least six different connectors for data cables and handsfree systems (21xx series - eg 2190, 61xx series - eg 6185, 9000, 9290, 3220 (actually my wife's), and 6010 (that bizarre 1.8mm handsfree jack.) Even counting just the last five years (6185, 9290, 3220, and 6010), that's four completely different connectors. In terms of current model range, I believe there are phones covering three different, incompatible, connectors.
And to make matters worse, while the phones above may electrically have had similar connectors within their product families (that is, the 6150 had the same pins as the 6185), data cables frequently for one frequently weren't compatible with other models.
Nokia also gets a thumbs down for eschewing the 2.5mm jack for handsfree kits.
Nokia is by far the worst offender. Most Motorola, for example, phones made in the last five years have the same connector for data and power (or, recently, mini-USB - even better), and have proper 2.5mm handsfree jacks.
Every reasonable person on the planet already knows, and has known, that every OS has bugs, vulnerabilities, and security issues, and Mac OS X is no exception.
I would disagree with that. If you'd said "The vast majority of technically knowledgable people" instead of "Every reasonable person on the planet", then yes, it would have some truth to it. But as it is, no. Ask the average "reasonable" person, and the answer is a "don't know" because it's not that person's field of expertise, and in a surprising number of cases, there are people adamant that the Mac doesn't have vulnerabilities and security issues. (And saying that they're, by definition, "unreasonable", isn't helping.)
At the same time though, I'd also raise the question of whether anything you just said is really that relevent. You appear to be willing to allow the false sense of security to continue to permuate through the computer community with such statements as:
Mac OS X is a far more secure general purpose desktop operating system for most users than any viable alternative. There is almost zero malware of any kind "in the wild", no malware with vectors for mass propagation, and little with ANY kind of propagation capability whatsoever. And contrary to popular opinion among some, Apple does indeed respond to, and fix, security vulnerabilities, including crediting the discoverer(s) when said person or entity provides Apple with enough information to verify the issue. It has continuously and consistently improved on this front, mostly as a result of working with people in the enterprise and academic communities (e.g., Apple University Executive Forum and MacEnterprise.org). There is always room for improvement, but we have seen Apple make marked progress in disclosing, accurately describing, and fixing vulnerabilities in Mac OS X. As with most commercial vendors, Apple does not comment on security issues before they are fixed. So don't expect Apple to make public statements and explanations of any kind until after a particular vulnerability is addressed.
Realistically, this leaves the reader with the impression that Macs are more secure, they'll always be so, and that there's really nothing to worry about (because this guy is pulling a "stunt", right?)
Mac OS X is another variant of Unix. It's not a particularly bug-free version, though it is quite stable. It is not without obvious security holes, notably the fact that the vast majority of Mac users are used to dialogs popping up unprompted asking them for an "Administrator" username and password, a username and password that makes a scripted root access merely a "sudo" away. It has survived, thus far, by laying low, in the sense that the market share makes network effects, critical to the success of any worm or virus, close to non-existant. It has, I guess, also survived by Apple being smart and turning off remote-access services by default, though I'd hazard a guess that most malware suffered by Windows users involves outgoing connections rather than portscans and server daemon buffer-overflow exploits. The combination of the two measures, though, makes it, thus far, free from attack.
But that's a poor argument for people to use who use the "security" angle to sell Mac OS X to newcomers. It's also a poor argument for people to rely upon if they want to be sure that their machines are kept intrusion free. I think there's every reason to worry about Mac users being lulled into a false sense of security, especially if Apple is planning to popularize their platform as they appear to be attempting to do at the moment. If Apple has a 20% or 30% marketshare, how improbable is it that the bugs will start to be exploited?
We then get to this issue:
What should be "interesting" to see isn't whether or not Apple "does anything" to "scuttle" the project; it will be whether Apple has previously had any chance to respond to any of the issues that will be disclosed. If not, this l
Checksumming is frequently used to recover data. You can get especially good results when you use it with a matrix of checksums. For example (using ordinary checksums below for readibility, rather than CRCs which are more common):
Now, suppose you try to read the below, and several bytes are missing/corrupted, in various places:
+ 4 9 5 5 9 8 9 1 2 2 0 3 1 8 2 0 0 X 3 0 5 X X X X X X 9 0 4 0 0 0 5 6 1 2 2 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 1 1 1
You can recover the above fairly easily. Most of the numbers on the third row can be calculated by summing the other columns and subtracting it from the checksum, for example, the first column is 4-(1+2+1) = 0, the next is 9-(2+4+2)=1, etc. Using this method, you can recover the values for all but column 4.
Now, in column four, the number missing on the second row can be calculated again by taking the checksum of that row and subtracting the total of the remaining values. 8-(2+3)=3, so that number's 3. You can then do the same operation on the remaining missing value on the third row, either vertically or horizontally.
The system can be made more and more robust by increasing the number of dimensions of the matrix. The above wouldn't survive, say, two whole rows or columns missing, but add a third dimension and you can make it more difficult to lose blocks of data in that way. And the dimensions don't have to be defined in simple cartesian terms either - obviously the less the dimensions resemble the structure of the disk storing the data, the less likely it is that blocks will be lost that can't be recovered easily.
This is not a new mechanism. Some of the file transfer and error correction protocols for modems in the mid-eighties made use of the technique and it probably dates back earlier than that. A system called "PAR2" is popular on Usenet for transmitting large binaries, the idea being that if someone can only download 90% of a file, downloading most of the PAR2 blocks that go with it will be enough to recover the remainder of the file, regardless of what part of the file was missing.
I've been thinking for a while that this really is the direction GNU/Linux needs to go into if it wants a reasonable selection of games, and it's perhaps something Sony should consider assuming they're serious about homebrew development and haven't just put GNU on the PS3 as a tax dodge.
What's needed is a cross platform framework into which modern games can be developed with relative ease. Preferably this should incorporate some basic engines covering a wide range of game types so the programmer can concentrate on the art and logic rather than the technical details of 3D accelleration. Libraries could exist containing free/adaptable art, and simplifications of certain types of logic (for example, for bots.) Over time, such a system would become increasingly useful as more and more people contribute to the libraries to scratch their own itches or improve games they've obtained and wanted to improve a little more.
I've been really impressed with the Unreal frameworks, and while they concentrate on a specific type of game, it's not difficult to see how the idea can be extended. Buying "Unreal Tournament" (any version) is not buying what's on the box, there's a wealth of homebrew stuff that's freely downloadable and frequently better than the games Epic, and its competitors like id, come up with.
With Java entering the GPL-domain, a significant part of the low level stuff would be implemented (and systems like Jake2 prove that Java is a practical, fast-enough, VM for real time 3D games.) There are enough stillborn projects on SourceForge et al to prove that people like writing game engines, robots, and other components for games - the problems tending to be that the people who write one component get bored when they realise they have to write the other bits. So the skills are out there. To some extent, the technology is out there. What's missing is the integration and the coordination.
I think you're confused. We're not talking about the name of the kernel, we're talking about Linus taking credit for the entire operating system. He's criticised RMS directly for insisting on describing the OS as "GNU/Linux".
So, let's see: Torvalds is opposed to DRM unless it's actually restricting what you can do with your data. When it's not actually DRM at all, but a means to ensure your operating stays open, modifiable, and auditable, then it's evil.
I agree with you about playing times being the factor (1hr was actually, for the longest time, the longest tape you could get for Betamax), but Sony never "excluded" porn from Betamax. That's an urban legend.
Sony couldn't have excluded porn if they tried. How would they have prevented it? With some unique "anti-porn" technology built into every recorder?
I don't know about that, but I do know that Aqua has been undergoing a lot of "enhancements" that, over time, have detracted quite a bit from the look.
Jaguar had the first "Brushed metal" windows. This looked "ok", but still a little strange. Panther then downplayed a lot of the pin-striped look, which helped make the UI a little less distracting, but at the same time also made the look rather less attractive. Tiger has gone further, with squared off windows and the (non-brushed) metal look.
Each iteration has undermined the over-all elegance of the visuals (though in Jaguar's defense, they did make the buttons look more elegant.) That's not to say they weren't necessary, early Mac OS X was so full of stripes and other distractions that it was even more horrible to use than the poor graphics accelleration resulted in. But there's little doubt that a simple comparison of Jaguar, sans-metal, and Tiger, shows the former with a much more attractive looking (whether usable or not) UI than the latter.
This rumour doesn't surprise me really. What'll be interesting is to see whether it's a complete break with Aqua, or just an upgrade. I seriously doubt this has anything to do with Aero though: Steve Jobs is going to be concerned with the look of Mac OS X regardless of whether they have ten competitors or none.
It's not so much that it has to be GPLv3 (though the latter is an attempt to create a copyleft license that addresses all of the concerns that, currently, mean we have several totally incompatible copyleft licenses), it's more that there has to be a common license that people, for the most part, consider usable.
Right now, we have a situation where because, for example, Solaris is licensed under the CDDL, and Darwin is under the APSL, you can't put code from one in the other. Because of similar licensing issues, you can't put Java into Apache, despite the synergies, the two have to be kept separate.
If the essence of software freedom is that you should be able to do whatever you want with code, short of preventing others you pass that code on to from also having that freedom, then incompatible license fragmentation harms software freedom. If I can't build something on top of two free software projects because the two have licenses that conflict, then my freedom to do that is curtailed. Which is exactly the opposite of what most people who believe in software freedom want.
The GPLv3 needs to be created to be the consensus choice of those who want to develop and release Free software. If it isn't, it fails. Not because it'll not be a good license, but because it'll fail to prevent the biggest problem free software is suffering right now.
Yeah, I can see this working. RIAA sues father. Father says "Oh noes. I'm in exactly the same situation now as thousands of P2P pirates who have also been threatened with lawsuits. I don't like it, but at least this proves the system works."
Then he, the CEO of Warner, reaches into his back pocket, pulls out fifty thousand dollars, peels off $3,000, and hands the $3,000 "fine" to the RIAA lawyer.
Doesn't really matter of it's official or not, just whether it exists. The quality of FOSS support may be sub-par from time to time, but it's better than nothing. OLPC GNU/Linux is being actively maintained and the different components are supported by a large team of programmers spread around the world. Windows 98 isn't supported at all.
Sadly yes. Word is they're tapping Theo DeRaadt to take over kernel development, but this will be a part time, unpaid, position. Overall management of the direction of Linux will be given to Avie Tevanian, late of Mac OS X fame.
Also Alan Cox has announced he's leaving voluntarily to persue other interests. No replacement has been announced, though apparently Eric Raymond, Hans Reiser, and Kevin Warwick are being named as possible successors.
Developing...
(Note to mods: I'm going for +5 Funny, not -2 I don't understand the joke)
Nobody's seriously arguing about whether Google was right to delist talk.origins. The issue here is whether they're right to provide zero information to the webmaster so that the webmaster can fix the issue.
Every legitimate page missing from Google is a failure. Removing legitimate pages reduces the usefulness of Google. If the loyalty is with the user, then providing some mechanism for ensuring a webmaster who is the innocent (or just ignorant) flouter of some obscure Google rule strikes me as absolutely necessary.
Talk.origins is a legitimate site. People do searches and expect their search results to include pages from that site. If it's missing from Google, then that's a bug. If Google know why it's missing, and it's something the webmaster needs to take action over, then they're not helping anyone, and they're undermining their own product's usefulness, by not pointing the webmaster in the right direction on how to fix it.
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I think Apple should get it over with and release Mac OS X under the GPL.
Not because this is in their best interests, but merely because it would be the ultimate way to thoroughly annoy their most obnoxious supporters. Those arguing that it is impossible to make more money selling an operating system than selling cheap crap in stylish boxes would find their fears realised, and yet the world would still end up better off.
Also I like Mac OS X, and I want to run it on my Thinkpad.
I think the guarantee tht you will have all your hardware working within a month needs to be reworded as "you will have all the hardware you deem necessary working within a month, although in some cases you may need workarounds" would be more reasonable, but generally, yeah, as long as you take some care in your purchasing decisions, the statement is more or less true.
It took me around a week to get the major parts of my Thinkpad working, and another couple of weeks to get the ATI fglrx stuff going. I'm sure there are parts of my Thinkpad unconfigured, but that's because I don't use them.
He said he refused to upgrade a second time. I don't blame him. You know, Tiger's barely a couple of years old, and you can't get Java 1.5 for Panther, because Apple tries to avoid doing basic updates for earlier versions of Mac OS X unless it's something they can make money from, like iTunes. Operating systems sold less than two years ago.
Going from Jaguar to Tiger is more like going from Windows 2000 to Windows XP BTW. Jaguar has the same architecture and in many ways is a cleaner OS than its successors (the GUI in particular, while slower, is more elegant and less grating.) What it lacks are recent bells and whistles. And support.
Of course, unless there's truth in advertising, the people "subjected to the rules of the game" will be completely unaware there's a game to begin with.
Imagine, in 2009, buying an HD-DVD, and having to check the list of players listed on the back under "This disc will not play under the following players". If only two or three keys get compromised, this might be managable, but...
Contrary to what has been claimed above, CSS had the same mechanisms in place. Supposedly AACS makes this more practical because there are more keys, and therefore keys can be assigned to each model of player, and because some NG DVD players will have mechanisms to update themselves. In practice, this is absolute rubbish. Half the people buying such devices will not be able to set up those mechanisms, most of them find it hard enough just setting up a DSL connection, and revoking a key will be a major issue that will effect huge numbers of people. Any attempt to revoke keys, especially for more popular players of the type that are the most likely to be cracked due to sheer numbers, will cause permanent damage to the credibility of the format.
What a terrible idea you've come up with, MPAA. The sooner you and your DMCA promoting selves self destruct the better.
Having had both PowerBooks and Thinkpads, I much prefer the hardware of the latter. So much so I ended up switching back to GNU/Linux because despite the superiority of Mac OS X, a T60 + GNU/Linux was a better choice for me than a Macbook + Mac OS X. But a Thinkpad + Mac OS X would have been even better.
You know, I know there are some people there who seriously believe that there is no computer out there that hasn't been bettered by Apple, but honestly, I can't understand the attitude beyond inane fanboyism of the Amiga variety. Apple's hardware has always been interesting, but to argue it's always been superior to absolutely everything requires a deliberate blindness to reality that's hard to fathom.
The funny thing is that the same criticisms can be made of GNUstep as of GNOME. Further, while the codebase issue may be true, GNOME is far from "amateurish" in 2006. It's a slick, professional, desktop, that, IMHO, is more usable and friendly than Microsoft's Windows, even if it isn't yet up to Mac OS X standards.
Does GNUstep have direction? Does it hell. There is an official line (that it's supposed to look and feel like OpenStep 4), and an unofficial argument about where it's going. The look and feel issues are being more and more muddied, as the influence of the Mac gains on the project without being officially embraced.
The code base is, despite a "1.0" release many years ago, still in flux with recent changes breaking older code. Compiling it is a PITA.
What's different? Well, the GNOME project really has had something resembling a direction over the last few years, and the system is now extremely usable, consistant, and well polished. I don't like all of the decisions they've made, but compared to GNUstep, it's a professional desktop. It most certainly isn't "amateurish", it might have been in the miguel days, but it's come a long way from then.
GNUstep, by comparison, is a mismatch of "nearly finished" applications. Glitches such as fights between menus as to who's on top, and translation issues ("Informations"?), not to mention confusion as to who manages the dock (GWorkspace.app has one, WindowMaker has another, and they work completely differently. And why is the Dock integrated into either?) and even the desktop, are commonplace and jarring.
I tried, when I switched back to GNU/Linux earlier this year, to start off with GNUstep, because it felt it was a more interesting system, but I ended up, despite prejudices heavily against it, going to GNOME. GNUstep is just too beta-quality at the moment. It's not there yet.
For anyone involved in GNUstep to describe GNOME as "amateurish" takes an astonishing amount of gall. At least release a finished, polished, version first with all the critical components (including the WM and GWorkspace.app) complete, working, and integrated, before criticising a project that's complete, working, and integrated as "amateurish".
Wow. What a lot of unnecessarily negative comments to make. I say that because it's not like there's anything that strings them together except that they're negative. 2.5GHz requires more power! Sufficient suspicion that cellular transmissions aren't good for you! This'll require a "huge" amount of spectrum!
Let's deal with them one by one:
1. 2.5GHz isn't ideal, but it's fine for NLOS, almost as good as regular PCS (think about it, it's only 25% higher in frequency.) For Line-of-Sight, it's no problem at all, as the antenna you're using would be external anyway. Frequencies in the 3.5GHz are already being used for that.
2. The phrase "sufficient suspicion" has to be one of the most misleading, anti-scientific, phrases I've heard since "Intelligent design". It's taking the valid phhrase "sufficient evidence" (which would indeed be worrying, but that doesn't exist) and replacing the word "evidence" with "suspicion" because there isn't any evidence. It's intellectually dishonest.
3. There is a huge amount of spectrum being licensed, and it's getting bigger every few years. In addition to cellular and PCS, we've just had the AWS spectrum in the US, and the 2.5GHz range is being made available. Other frequency bands are also coming online. In addition to more efficient protocols by WISPS (including modern 3G cellphone carriers, do not forget about them), operators of cellular networks of all descriptions (AMPS/CDMA2000, GSM/UMTS, WiMAX, UMTS-TDD, etc) are putting up more and more towers, breaking up the available area into smaller and smaller areas.
The UMTS LTE project is expecting to finalise new UMTS air interface protocols based on OFDMA and MIMO that'll increase the downlink to about 100Mbps per tower per 20MHz of spectrum, by the end of 2007. It's not hard to see with microcellular coverage in cities and lower population density outside of cities coupled with towers often as little as two or three miles apart, that's a lot of capacity for a single carrier to have.
Will it keep up with wireline? Probably not, but most of us are happy with our 1.5Mbps DSL connections right now...
I think WiMAX, and the technologies that compete against it (UMTS-TDD, for instance) have a very promising future. Right now, the biggest hurdle is getting people to pull their fingers out in getting the technology up, and getting the infrastructure installed. Is it a Utopia? No, nothing ever is. Do the limits of the electromagnetic spectrum have any serious risk of derailing this? Not a chance.
Yeah, the movies that were made a thousand years ago were every bit as good as the ones made today...
I don't know what you're talking about. I've had Nokia phones over the last ten years with at least six different connectors for data cables and handsfree systems (21xx series - eg 2190, 61xx series - eg 6185, 9000, 9290, 3220 (actually my wife's), and 6010 (that bizarre 1.8mm handsfree jack.) Even counting just the last five years (6185, 9290, 3220, and 6010), that's four completely different connectors. In terms of current model range, I believe there are phones covering three different, incompatible, connectors.
And to make matters worse, while the phones above may electrically have had similar connectors within their product families (that is, the 6150 had the same pins as the 6185), data cables frequently for one frequently weren't compatible with other models.
Nokia also gets a thumbs down for eschewing the 2.5mm jack for handsfree kits.
Nokia is by far the worst offender. Most Motorola, for example, phones made in the last five years have the same connector for data and power (or, recently, mini-USB - even better), and have proper 2.5mm handsfree jacks.
Gah.
I would disagree with that. If you'd said "The vast majority of technically knowledgable people" instead of "Every reasonable person on the planet", then yes, it would have some truth to it. But as it is, no. Ask the average "reasonable" person, and the answer is a "don't know" because it's not that person's field of expertise, and in a surprising number of cases, there are people adamant that the Mac doesn't have vulnerabilities and security issues. (And saying that they're, by definition, "unreasonable", isn't helping.)
At the same time though, I'd also raise the question of whether anything you just said is really that relevent. You appear to be willing to allow the false sense of security to continue to permuate through the computer community with such statements as:
Realistically, this leaves the reader with the impression that Macs are more secure, they'll always be so, and that there's really nothing to worry about (because this guy is pulling a "stunt", right?)
Mac OS X is another variant of Unix. It's not a particularly bug-free version, though it is quite stable. It is not without obvious security holes, notably the fact that the vast majority of Mac users are used to dialogs popping up unprompted asking them for an "Administrator" username and password, a username and password that makes a scripted root access merely a "sudo" away. It has survived, thus far, by laying low, in the sense that the market share makes network effects, critical to the success of any worm or virus, close to non-existant. It has, I guess, also survived by Apple being smart and turning off remote-access services by default, though I'd hazard a guess that most malware suffered by Windows users involves outgoing connections rather than portscans and server daemon buffer-overflow exploits. The combination of the two measures, though, makes it, thus far, free from attack.
But that's a poor argument for people to use who use the "security" angle to sell Mac OS X to newcomers. It's also a poor argument for people to rely upon if they want to be sure that their machines are kept intrusion free. I think there's every reason to worry about Mac users being lulled into a false sense of security, especially if Apple is planning to popularize their platform as they appear to be attempting to do at the moment. If Apple has a 20% or 30% marketshare, how improbable is it that the bugs will start to be exploited?
We then get to this issue:
The data is the 1 2 2 0 3 1 2 0 0 3 3... bit.
Now, suppose you try to read the below, and several bytes are missing/corrupted, in various places:
You can recover the above fairly easily. Most of the numbers on the third row can be calculated by summing the other columns and subtracting it from the checksum, for example, the first column is 4-(1+2+1) = 0, the next is 9-(2+4+2)=1, etc. Using this method, you can recover the values for all but column 4.Now, in column four, the number missing on the second row can be calculated again by taking the checksum of that row and subtracting the total of the remaining values. 8-(2+3)=3, so that number's 3. You can then do the same operation on the remaining missing value on the third row, either vertically or horizontally.
The system can be made more and more robust by increasing the number of dimensions of the matrix. The above wouldn't survive, say, two whole rows or columns missing, but add a third dimension and you can make it more difficult to lose blocks of data in that way. And the dimensions don't have to be defined in simple cartesian terms either - obviously the less the dimensions resemble the structure of the disk storing the data, the less likely it is that blocks will be lost that can't be recovered easily.
This is not a new mechanism. Some of the file transfer and error correction protocols for modems in the mid-eighties made use of the technique and it probably dates back earlier than that. A system called "PAR2" is popular on Usenet for transmitting large binaries, the idea being that if someone can only download 90% of a file, downloading most of the PAR2 blocks that go with it will be enough to recover the remainder of the file, regardless of what part of the file was missing.
It's rather cool really.
That's good to hear. It's nice to hear something positive about Sony once in a while...
I've been thinking for a while that this really is the direction GNU/Linux needs to go into if it wants a reasonable selection of games, and it's perhaps something Sony should consider assuming they're serious about homebrew development and haven't just put GNU on the PS3 as a tax dodge.
What's needed is a cross platform framework into which modern games can be developed with relative ease. Preferably this should incorporate some basic engines covering a wide range of game types so the programmer can concentrate on the art and logic rather than the technical details of 3D accelleration. Libraries could exist containing free/adaptable art, and simplifications of certain types of logic (for example, for bots.) Over time, such a system would become increasingly useful as more and more people contribute to the libraries to scratch their own itches or improve games they've obtained and wanted to improve a little more.
I've been really impressed with the Unreal frameworks, and while they concentrate on a specific type of game, it's not difficult to see how the idea can be extended. Buying "Unreal Tournament" (any version) is not buying what's on the box, there's a wealth of homebrew stuff that's freely downloadable and frequently better than the games Epic, and its competitors like id, come up with.
With Java entering the GPL-domain, a significant part of the low level stuff would be implemented (and systems like Jake2 prove that Java is a practical, fast-enough, VM for real time 3D games.) There are enough stillborn projects on SourceForge et al to prove that people like writing game engines, robots, and other components for games - the problems tending to be that the people who write one component get bored when they realise they have to write the other bits. So the skills are out there. To some extent, the technology is out there. What's missing is the integration and the coordination.
I think you're confused. We're not talking about the name of the kernel, we're talking about Linus taking credit for the entire operating system. He's criticised RMS directly for insisting on describing the OS as "GNU/Linux".
But Linus has spoken out in favour of DRM.
So, let's see: Torvalds is opposed to DRM unless it's actually restricting what you can do with your data. When it's not actually DRM at all, but a means to ensure your operating stays open, modifiable, and auditable, then it's evil.
This is yet again why Linux needs to be forked.
I agree with you about playing times being the factor (1hr was actually, for the longest time, the longest tape you could get for Betamax), but Sony never "excluded" porn from Betamax. That's an urban legend.
Sony couldn't have excluded porn if they tried. How would they have prevented it? With some unique "anti-porn" technology built into every recorder?
I don't know about that, but I do know that Aqua has been undergoing a lot of "enhancements" that, over time, have detracted quite a bit from the look.
Jaguar had the first "Brushed metal" windows. This looked "ok", but still a little strange. Panther then downplayed a lot of the pin-striped look, which helped make the UI a little less distracting, but at the same time also made the look rather less attractive. Tiger has gone further, with squared off windows and the (non-brushed) metal look.
Each iteration has undermined the over-all elegance of the visuals (though in Jaguar's defense, they did make the buttons look more elegant.) That's not to say they weren't necessary, early Mac OS X was so full of stripes and other distractions that it was even more horrible to use than the poor graphics accelleration resulted in. But there's little doubt that a simple comparison of Jaguar, sans-metal, and Tiger, shows the former with a much more attractive looking (whether usable or not) UI than the latter.
This rumour doesn't surprise me really. What'll be interesting is to see whether it's a complete break with Aqua, or just an upgrade. I seriously doubt this has anything to do with Aero though: Steve Jobs is going to be concerned with the look of Mac OS X regardless of whether they have ten competitors or none.
It's not so much that it has to be GPLv3 (though the latter is an attempt to create a copyleft license that addresses all of the concerns that, currently, mean we have several totally incompatible copyleft licenses), it's more that there has to be a common license that people, for the most part, consider usable.
Right now, we have a situation where because, for example, Solaris is licensed under the CDDL, and Darwin is under the APSL, you can't put code from one in the other. Because of similar licensing issues, you can't put Java into Apache, despite the synergies, the two have to be kept separate.
If the essence of software freedom is that you should be able to do whatever you want with code, short of preventing others you pass that code on to from also having that freedom, then incompatible license fragmentation harms software freedom. If I can't build something on top of two free software projects because the two have licenses that conflict, then my freedom to do that is curtailed. Which is exactly the opposite of what most people who believe in software freedom want.
The GPLv3 needs to be created to be the consensus choice of those who want to develop and release Free software. If it isn't, it fails. Not because it'll not be a good license, but because it'll fail to prevent the biggest problem free software is suffering right now.
Ignoring the sibling's point that the prison sentences are for selling pirate copies, how is "accidental" the same thing as "intentional" again?
Yeah, I can see this working. RIAA sues father. Father says "Oh noes. I'm in exactly the same situation now as thousands of P2P pirates who have also been threatened with lawsuits. I don't like it, but at least this proves the system works."
Then he, the CEO of Warner, reaches into his back pocket, pulls out fifty thousand dollars, peels off $3,000, and hands the $3,000 "fine" to the RIAA lawyer.
Yeah, that's going to be really convincing...
Doesn't really matter of it's official or not, just whether it exists. The quality of FOSS support may be sub-par from time to time, but it's better than nothing. OLPC GNU/Linux is being actively maintained and the different components are supported by a large team of programmers spread around the world. Windows 98 isn't supported at all.
Sadly yes. Word is they're tapping Theo DeRaadt to take over kernel development, but this will be a part time, unpaid, position. Overall management of the direction of Linux will be given to Avie Tevanian, late of Mac OS X fame.
Also Alan Cox has announced he's leaving voluntarily to persue other interests. No replacement has been announced, though apparently Eric Raymond, Hans Reiser, and Kevin Warwick are being named as possible successors.
Developing...
(Note to mods: I'm going for +5 Funny, not -2 I don't understand the joke)
Nobody's seriously arguing about whether Google was right to delist talk.origins. The issue here is whether they're right to provide zero information to the webmaster so that the webmaster can fix the issue.
Every legitimate page missing from Google is a failure. Removing legitimate pages reduces the usefulness of Google. If the loyalty is with the user, then providing some mechanism for ensuring a webmaster who is the innocent (or just ignorant) flouter of some obscure Google rule strikes me as absolutely necessary.
Talk.origins is a legitimate site. People do searches and expect their search results to include pages from that site. If it's missing from Google, then that's a bug. If Google know why it's missing, and it's something the webmaster needs to take action over, then they're not helping anyone, and they're undermining their own product's usefulness, by not pointing the webmaster in the right direction on how to fix it.