Whatever happened about not being able to patent an idea? That's all software is!
However, there's a loophole. Notice that in order for an algorithm to be patented, it must produce a "useful, concrete and tangible" result. Now, most algorithms produce useful results, and many produce concrete ones. But it is physically impossible for anything tangible to arise from a non-tangible object, including algorithms.
In other words, it looks as though the Supreme Court might just be sticking its foot in its mouth with this one. In effect it renders all software patents invalid because no algorithm can produce a tangible result (well, I suppose you could say printer drivers create tangible results, but that's it).
It's especially a service because when Carmack says "no memmory protection" he happens to be wrong. "Only partial memory protection" yes, "no memory protection," no.
Carmack apparently doesn't completely understand the concept of giving credit where credit is due, nor do most Slashdot users, judging from most of the posts I see in this thread.
I believe MicroConversions makes a Voodoo2 card which pops right into the Mezzanine slot of the Rev. A and Rev. B iMacs. The Rev. C iMac has no such slot, unfortunately (I'm not above saying that Apple is capable of mistakes; I still maintain that Steve Jobs is quite often an insane fool).
Sorry to burst the bubbles of so many Mac-bashers with that one. The iMac was not designed to be an expandable machine, after all; don't bash it as though it were meant for a high-end user. You want expandability? You can have it plus the cool coloring now. It's called the Power Mac G3.
It isn't entirely true, you see. Most of the people here on Slashdot rant and rave about MP without even knowing what it is.
You see, MP is not simply something you implement. It is many things, which have come to be collectively known as "memory protection," though full memory protection would be a much better term. A system which contains what Slashdotters commonly know as "memory protection" implements all of these techniques. Linux is in fact one such system. MacOS is not. But, due to the nature of memory protection, it is not an all-or-nothing deal.
MacOS has implemented many of these techniques since 1984. The system's own memory is especially well-protected. When it gets to user apps, then yes, it degrades a bit. But not completely, unlike the FUDmongers who always pop up on Mac-related posts would have you believe.
Yes, MacOS has room for improvement. Actually, it has a lot of room for improvement. About as much as Linux, actually; the improvement is simply needed in different areas (still, they are just as important, though the aforementioned FUDmongers would have you believe otherwise). But it does not merit the kind of bashing it is given here.
No, Every got it more or less right. John Carmack is a game programmer. A very, very good and extremely talented game programmer, yes, and one worthy of a lot of respect, but do not forget that he is still a game programmer: no more, no less. Not a genius, not a god. Just a programmer, with all the ego that comes with it. He doesn't like the Mac's underpinnings, but that's to be expected because they aren't as well-suited to the things he does. For his words (which are chosen, it seems, with all the maturity of a twelve-year-old Beavis and Butt-head fanatic who blindly defends Windoze in his spare time) to be taken as gospel simply isn't right. He's human. Humans are fallible. Such as screaming over having to take the time to properly debug an application for a change, since the OS doesn't coddle the programmer in exactly the same way many of you accuse MacOS of coddling the user.
Personally, I don't like him very much. Professionally he's one of the best game programmers I've seen; quite possibly the best. But frankly, I don't like very many other aspects of him.
It takes a hell of a lot more power to emulate something than to do it natively. But if the machine you have is fast enough, emulation can be faster than the real thing. As an example, all Power Macs have emulators for the old 68000-based models. I can use these on my G3/300 and emulate a 68000-based Mac faster than any of 68K Mac ever made.
It takes lots of computing power to do it, but emulation can be faster than the real thing.
Sony actually loses money on every PlayStation they sell. They make it up with the revenues from games. In other words, an emulator actually saves Sony money, as opposed to taking money away from it.
Yes, I know about the burned CD crack. But you can get a mod chip for a "real" PSX for ten bucks (it actually does cost this; I know a Hotline site which sells them) and get the same effect. Piracy was an issue long before this came out, and will continue to be an issue even if the emulator is destroyed.
When Apple made the switch over to that licensing systen (with system 7.1), Jobs was no longer at the company. He was out with NeXT and Pixar. I think it was Spindler who was responsible for that one (or was it Sculley?)
I don't like Steve Jobs very much myself (though he's much better than Amelio was). But don't make him the scapegoat.
MacOS and BeOS are cheaper. Keep in mind that BeOS runs on Intel boxes and you have an OS for the PC (and a more powerful one at that) which is cheaper than Windows.
Technically that's a flame. Why are MS products the better. Show me even one thing MS does that isn't done better by some other product, and use of proprietary MS protocols or specific programs does not count.
Here's the difference. In good marketing, people know there are alternatives, but think they should choose a given product.
The way Microsoft's marketing goes, there are no alternatives; one must buy their product or fact the consequences. It's somewhat akin to extortion when you think about it.
A lot of the blind Microslaves counteract these arguments by saying "but Microsoft doesn't force anyone to buy Windows." I suppose this is true. It's also irrelevant. Why? Because Microsoft's marketing is geared in such a way what it has made the computing industry think it is forced to buy Windows. This is every bit as bad; perceived reality is infinitely more important than actual reality because it is percieved reality on which people act.
I'm not sure if the article was referring to the US computing industry or that of the world as a whole. If, however, it was referring to only the US, that means that Microsoft has bilked every man, woman, and child in this country out of $40.
I don't know about you, but I want my $40 back, thank you very much.
Windoze is one of the most competitively priced OS's in the market? Keep on dreaming, Billy. Let's see, you have Solaris and OS/2 costing more. However, let's broaden our views a bit, shall we?
Let's go with OS's which are suitable to be used as clients, and compare them with Win98. Win98 costs roughly $150. MacOS costs less than $100. BeOS clocks in at $80 last time I looked. AmigaOS... it's not being sold much anymore, but I believe it's cheaper too.
Now, let's look at servers. Win95 can be used as a server, but onyl with a 5-client license, so let's throw it out and look at NT. Now, you limit the client numbers on that like the greedy scumbags you are, so let's look at your "unlimited-client" license, which I believe runs close to $10,000. MacOS X Server offers the same license in a more powerful operating system for a tenth of that. Linux and the various BSD-variants do the same, but they do it for free (or at most the cost of a distro, which is about $50). I won't go into other Unices, but I'll bet you they're cheaper too.
Microsoft, competitively priced? Don't make me laugh.
Wrong. In a free market Microsoft has the right to do whatever it wants to do to earn money, so long as that money is earned by honest means. Lying, cheating, theft, and even murder are not "honest means" by anyone's definition. According to U.S. law, a corporation is legally a lot like a person; this gives it legal rights and responsibilities. And MS is nothing but a common swindler.
We could run out of seeds. This is true. Also, why does this gene need some help from bacterial DNA to work? Where did it originally come from?
Worse; we still can't know the effects this gene might have on humans, as there's no way this can have been tested long enough that we would know the long-term effects. I'll be the first to admit that the possibility of this happening is extremely remote, but what happens if this gene can somehow sterilize humans?
My point: What Monsanto seeks to do is dangerous not only to the industry, but it is potentially dangerous to humanity in general, and as such they must be stopped at absolutely all costs. The first step: spreading the word.
1) Can I freely download Linux PPC, or do we need to purchase a distribution?
Unfortunately, LinuxPPC won't support the 7100. MkLinux does run on it, however, and despite rumors to the contrary it's very much alive. It's freely downloadable from Apple, or you can buy LinuxPPC (which includes a copy).
2) Can I pick up an adapter for an SVGA monitor to macintosh?
Absolutely. MacConnection would probably be your best bet for getting one of these; I've had great luck with them in the past. I use just such an adapter myself; it's great.
Please, cut the FUD. For one, Gnome's at 0.99.2 right now. Yeah, KDE's preparing 1.1. So what? They're version numbers. Look at features/functionality and you have more or less a draw on that score.
StarOffice is KDE compliant. So? What's the big deal there? You can still use it with Gnome, and I'm sure they'll be adding Gnome-compliance once 1.0 is released.
Every Gnome app has a KDE-compliant clone. Not quite; I can think of several very good Gnome apps without KDE equivalence, among them Pharmacy (a CVS client), Balsa (yes I know KDE has a mail app but it simply does not compare), and recent versions of Mozilla (QtZilla's development, last I heard, was halted; it was only ported in the first place to show off Qt's portability features).
Now, on to windowmanagers. This is as irrelevant a point as your bit about StarOffice, but your facts are wrong so I'll bite. There are three KDE-compliant WM's: KWM, WM, and Blackbox (sort of). There are five Gnome-compliant WM's: E, IceWM, WindowMaker, SCWM, and Blackbox (actually, is Blackbox compliant? I never heard that). I won't count FVWM in this one since it's not true compliance, but as you can see Gnome has more WM support. It's irrelevant, but you had your facts wrong.
Now, several distros ship with KDE. Let's see: SuSE does. LinPPC does but it also ships with Gnome. RedHat: Gnome. Debian: Gnome. I admittedly do not know about other distributions, so I hope someone else can do a better tally of these. FreeBSD ships with KDE, too. The point: who cares? This one's irrelevant as well (not FreeBSD, but the number of distro's shipping Gnome or KDE).
And licensing issues? How does Qt's being Open-Source hurt Gnome any? Sorry; that one's not relevant either.
Now, let's see: Is Gnome dead based on your arguments? Five of your points were completely irrelevant. That leaves only one valid point. So you basically just said "Gnome is dead because StarOffice is KDE-compliant." I'm sorry, but that seems more than a bit ludicrous.
Why does either desktop environment have to die? Sure, KDE could stand some major improvements (particularly in aesthetics, though alternate windowmanagers help somewhat in that department) but it isn't bad. Sure, Gnome isn't done yet, but it's usable and functional. It's about choice, people. This said, I do wish the two would strive to be more compatible.
I think you're right on this one. Of course, the SheepShaver Website hasn't been updated in over a month; anyone know how SheepShaver/LinuxPPC is going? I'd love to be able to OF-boot LinuxPPC and run MacOS from within it; saves all the rebooting hassles.
Um, no offense, but what does Java have to do with any of this?
Because Mesa is bug-ridden amateur freeware crap.
on
Apple Announcements
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· Score: 1
unstable non-multitasking is a "bug"
Whoa. You've managed to make no sense here. Were you referring to two things (stability and supposed non-multitasking, about which you are dead wrong), or just one?
one game is not enough to make a platform True. Many games are not enough to make a platform either. Games are, in fact, useless to making a platform; they contribute nothing but marketing dollars. Macs have all the top games anyway (or they are in development) so who cares?
Legally, that guy owns retards.com and can do whatever he wants with it. If that happens to mean redirecting all URL's to M$, I don't think even Billy can stop him from this expensive prank.
Slashdot Mirror
After all, it's the last hope of preventing informational totalitarianism by Big Business (or big Brother).
Whatever happened about not being able to patent an idea? That's all software is!
However, there's a loophole. Notice that in order for an algorithm to be patented, it must produce a "useful, concrete and tangible" result. Now, most algorithms produce useful results, and many produce concrete ones. But it is physically impossible for anything tangible to arise from a non-tangible object, including algorithms.
In other words, it looks as though the Supreme Court might just be sticking its foot in its mouth with this one. In effect it renders all software patents invalid because no algorithm can produce a tangible result (well, I suppose you could say printer drivers create tangible results, but that's it).
Eat that, Big Business.
It's especially a service because when Carmack says "no memmory protection" he happens to be wrong. "Only partial memory protection" yes, "no memory protection," no.
Carmack apparently doesn't completely understand the concept of giving credit where credit is due, nor do most Slashdot users, judging from most of the posts I see in this thread.
Actually, you can get Apache for MacOS, though it's under a different name. A company called Tenon handles the ports; they call it WebTen.
I don't believe, however, that mod_frontpage works on it. Meaning, sorry guys, that's not a Mac that's gone down.
I believe MicroConversions makes a Voodoo2 card which pops right into the Mezzanine slot of the Rev. A and Rev. B iMacs. The Rev. C iMac has no such slot, unfortunately (I'm not above saying that Apple is capable of mistakes; I still maintain that Steve Jobs is quite often an insane fool).
Sorry to burst the bubbles of so many Mac-bashers with that one. The iMac was not designed to be an expandable machine, after all; don't bash it as though it were meant for a high-end user. You want expandability? You can have it plus the cool coloring now. It's called the Power Mac G3.
It isn't entirely true, you see. Most of the people here on Slashdot rant and rave about MP without even knowing what it is.
You see, MP is not simply something you implement. It is many things, which have come to be collectively known as "memory protection," though full memory protection would be a much better term. A system which contains what Slashdotters commonly know as "memory protection" implements all of these techniques. Linux is in fact one such system. MacOS is not. But, due to the nature of memory protection, it is not an all-or-nothing deal.
MacOS has implemented many of these techniques since 1984. The system's own memory is especially well-protected. When it gets to user apps, then yes, it degrades a bit. But not completely , unlike the FUDmongers who always pop up on Mac-related posts would have you believe.
Yes, MacOS has room for improvement. Actually, it has a lot of room for improvement. About as much as Linux, actually; the improvement is simply needed in different areas (still, they are just as important, though the aforementioned FUDmongers would have you believe otherwise). But it does not merit the kind of bashing it is given here.
No, Every got it more or less right. John Carmack is a game programmer. A very, very good and extremely talented game programmer, yes, and one worthy of a lot of respect, but do not forget that he is still a game programmer: no more, no less. Not a genius, not a god. Just a programmer, with all the ego that comes with it. He doesn't like the Mac's underpinnings, but that's to be expected because they aren't as well-suited to the things he does. For his words (which are chosen, it seems, with all the maturity of a twelve-year-old Beavis and Butt-head fanatic who blindly defends Windoze in his spare time) to be taken as gospel simply isn't right. He's human. Humans are fallible. Such as screaming over having to take the time to properly debug an application for a change, since the OS doesn't coddle the programmer in exactly the same way many of you accuse MacOS of coddling the user.
Personally, I don't like him very much. Professionally he's one of the best game programmers I've seen; quite possibly the best. But frankly, I don't like very many other aspects of him.
It takes a hell of a lot more power to emulate something than to do it natively. But if the machine you have is fast enough, emulation can be faster than the real thing. As an example, all Power Macs have emulators for the old 68000-based models. I can use these on my G3/300 and emulate a 68000-based Mac faster than any of 68K Mac ever made.
It takes lots of computing power to do it, but emulation can be faster than the real thing.
Sony actually loses money on every PlayStation they sell. They make it up with the revenues from games. In other words, an emulator actually saves Sony money, as opposed to taking money away from it.
Yes, I know about the burned CD crack. But you can get a mod chip for a "real" PSX for ten bucks (it actually does cost this; I know a Hotline site which sells them) and get the same effect. Piracy was an issue long before this came out, and will continue to be an issue even if the emulator is destroyed.
When Apple made the switch over to that licensing systen (with system 7.1), Jobs was no longer at the company. He was out with NeXT and Pixar. I think it was Spindler who was responsible for that one (or was it Sculley?)
I don't like Steve Jobs very much myself (though he's much better than Amelio was). But don't make him the scapegoat.
MacOS and BeOS are cheaper. Keep in mind that BeOS runs on Intel boxes and you have an OS for the PC (and a more powerful one at that) which is cheaper than Windows.
Technically that's a flame. Why are MS products the better. Show me even one thing MS does that isn't done better by some other product, and use of proprietary MS protocols or specific programs does not count.
Here's the difference. In good marketing, people know there are alternatives, but think they should choose a given product.
The way Microsoft's marketing goes, there are no alternatives; one must buy their product or fact the consequences. It's somewhat akin to extortion when you think about it.
A lot of the blind Microslaves counteract these arguments by saying "but Microsoft doesn't force anyone to buy Windows." I suppose this is true. It's also irrelevant. Why? Because Microsoft's marketing is geared in such a way what it has made the computing industry think it is forced to buy Windows. This is every bit as bad; perceived reality is infinitely more important than actual reality because it is percieved reality on which people act.
I'm not sure if the article was referring to the US computing industry or that of the world as a whole. If, however, it was referring to only the US, that means that Microsoft has bilked every man, woman, and child in this country out of $40.
I don't know about you, but I want my $40 back, thank you very much.
Windoze is one of the most competitively priced OS's in the market? Keep on dreaming, Billy. Let's see, you have Solaris and OS/2 costing more. However, let's broaden our views a bit, shall we?
Let's go with OS's which are suitable to be used as clients, and compare them with Win98. Win98 costs roughly $150. MacOS costs less than $100. BeOS clocks in at $80 last time I looked. AmigaOS... it's not being sold much anymore, but I believe it's cheaper too.
Now, let's look at servers. Win95 can be used as a server, but onyl with a 5-client license, so let's throw it out and look at NT. Now, you limit the client numbers on that like the greedy scumbags you are, so let's look at your "unlimited-client" license, which I believe runs close to $10,000. MacOS X Server offers the same license in a more powerful operating system for a tenth of that. Linux and the various BSD-variants do the same, but they do it for free (or at most the cost of a distro, which is about $50). I won't go into other Unices, but I'll bet you they're cheaper too.
Microsoft, competitively priced? Don't make me laugh.
Wrong. In a free market Microsoft has the right to do whatever it wants to do to earn money, so long as that money is earned by honest means. Lying, cheating, theft, and even murder are not "honest means" by anyone's definition. According to U.S. law, a corporation is legally a lot like a person; this gives it legal rights and responsibilities. And MS is nothing but a common swindler.
We could run out of seeds. This is true. Also, why does this gene need some help from bacterial DNA to work? Where did it originally come from?
Worse; we still can't know the effects this gene might have on humans, as there's no way this can have been tested long enough that we would know the long-term effects. I'll be the first to admit that the possibility of this happening is extremely remote, but what happens if this gene can somehow sterilize humans?
My point: What Monsanto seeks to do is dangerous not only to the industry, but it is potentially dangerous to humanity in general, and as such they must be stopped at absolutely all costs. The first step: spreading the word.
1) Can I freely download Linux PPC, or do we
need to purchase a distribution?
Unfortunately, LinuxPPC won't support the 7100. MkLinux does run on it, however, and despite rumors to the contrary it's very much alive. It's freely downloadable from Apple, or you can buy LinuxPPC (which includes a copy).
2) Can I pick up an adapter for an SVGA monitor to macintosh?
Absolutely. MacConnection would probably be your best bet for getting one of these; I've had great luck with them in the past. I use just such an adapter myself; it's great.
Please, cut the FUD. For one, Gnome's at 0.99.2 right now. Yeah, KDE's preparing 1.1. So what? They're version numbers. Look at features/functionality and you have more or less a draw on that score.
StarOffice is KDE compliant. So? What's the big deal there? You can still use it with Gnome, and I'm sure they'll be adding Gnome-compliance once 1.0 is released.
Every Gnome app has a KDE-compliant clone. Not quite; I can think of several very good Gnome apps without KDE equivalence, among them Pharmacy (a CVS client), Balsa (yes I know KDE has a mail app but it simply does not compare), and recent versions of Mozilla (QtZilla's development, last I heard, was halted; it was only ported in the first place to show off Qt's portability features).
Now, on to windowmanagers. This is as irrelevant a point as your bit about StarOffice, but your facts are wrong so I'll bite. There are three KDE-compliant WM's: KWM, WM, and Blackbox (sort of). There are five Gnome-compliant WM's: E, IceWM, WindowMaker, SCWM, and Blackbox (actually, is Blackbox compliant? I never heard that). I won't count FVWM in this one since it's not true compliance, but as you can see Gnome has more WM support. It's irrelevant, but you had your facts wrong.
Now, several distros ship with KDE. Let's see: SuSE does. LinPPC does but it also ships with Gnome. RedHat: Gnome. Debian: Gnome. I admittedly do not know about other distributions, so I hope someone else can do a better tally of these. FreeBSD ships with KDE, too. The point: who cares? This one's irrelevant as well (not FreeBSD, but the number of distro's shipping Gnome or KDE).
And licensing issues? How does Qt's being Open-Source hurt Gnome any? Sorry; that one's not relevant either.
Now, let's see: Is Gnome dead based on your arguments? Five of your points were completely irrelevant. That leaves only one valid point. So you basically just said "Gnome is dead because StarOffice is KDE-compliant." I'm sorry, but that seems more than a bit ludicrous.
Why does either desktop environment have to die? Sure, KDE could stand some major improvements (particularly in aesthetics, though alternate windowmanagers help somewhat in that department) but it isn't bad. Sure, Gnome isn't done yet, but it's usable and functional. It's about choice, people. This said, I do wish the two would strive to be more compatible.
I think you're right on this one. Of course, the SheepShaver Website hasn't been updated in over a month; anyone know how SheepShaver/LinuxPPC is going? I'd love to be able to OF-boot LinuxPPC and run MacOS from within it; saves all the rebooting hassles.
Whenever it's ready. Probably soon, however; I'd say it certainly wouldn't be more than two months away, and probably no more than one month.
Um, no offense, but what does Java have to do with any of this?
unstable non-multitasking is a "bug"
Whoa. You've managed to make no sense here. Were you referring to two things (stability and supposed non-multitasking, about which you are dead wrong), or just one?
one game is not enough to make a platform
True. Many games are not enough to make a platform either. Games are, in fact, useless to making a platform; they contribute nothing but marketing dollars. Macs have all the top games anyway (or they are in development) so who cares?
Legally, that guy owns retards.com and can do whatever he wants with it. If that happens to mean redirecting all URL's to M$, I don't think even Billy can stop him from this expensive prank.