That's just a quick scan of the first few pages of the listings, pulling out a selection of different types of cars. A far from exhaustive list or scientific study. For the market the Insight is aimed at - urban runabouts from the look of things - it's a perfectly acceptable figure. Perhaps even fast.
As for top speeds, I'm wondering whether we've either hit a KPH figure (though that'd be a little low) or someone's simply read how far the speedo can go round...
The Insight's a good little car. Pity it hasn't got another 2 seats, but it's a good first generation product.
I'm not an IP lawyer - I'm a fresh CS graduate so if anyone wants to employ me get in touch;) - but to my knowledge copyright lawyer does not say that distribution is forbidden unless stated otherwise.
My recollection is hazy but I'm pretty sure that this came up and the opinion of our lawyer was that the license couldn't be a valid contract under our law, so distribution was little short of unrestricted free-for-all.
Now, I'm not a GPL fan personally, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it's important that that class of license is possible. I'd want to see this sorted out fairly soon. But, it's worth our while knowing that UK law pretty much says you can do what you want.
Last time I heard, the GPL had no effect under English law. We had to have a brief law course as part of my CS degree and contracts came up. For a contract to be valid, you needed consideration.
Basically, for it to be valid, it basically boils down to "I'll give you this if you'll give me that". Doesn't matter what this and that are, but they have to exist.
Which is where _any_ public license hits problems under our law, as the licensee isn't entering into a vaild contract. Not receiving anything in return, see. Now, you can argue that that's a problem with the law and that it _should_ be possible until you're blue in the face - and I'd agree with you - but the fact is, right now, it looks rather like no public license actually does anything other than look pretty and act as a set of recommendations in England.
Note I'm specifying ENGLAND. Scottish and Northern Ireland law are different, and I don't know anything about them.
If this was still back in the bad old days where they were required to buy a license for every machine they made, that would be the case. It isn't.
An OEM copy of MS software doesn't necessarily have to come with a complete machine. There's any number of UK dealers who'll sell it to you with a big enough component to suggest you're building a new system. This is saying that they can go further than that, and sell software intended for bundling with new hardware by itself. That's ridiculous, and a dangerous precedent. The softwrae has been sold on condition that it's only resold with hardware, yet the reseller is now free to breach that contract.
Loads of manuacturers sell OEM copies at a reduced price, the idea being that if it's bundled with the machine you get possible future upgrade sales and reduce the likelihood of a sale for a competitor. This case effectively kills that market in Germany as they can't really carry on with this or people will always buy the OEM part rather than the retail, losing them a fortune.
Plenty of non-MS software gets bundled, too. When I bought this machine, it came with Lotus SmartSuite, IBM WorldBook and ViaVoice. True, none were installed but all were bundled.
Your last paragraph betrays a total lack of knowledge verging on paranoia. Calm down, get off your high horse. OEM software deals are a good idea, they're not anywhere near as restrictive as you make out and this ruling knocks the market for them on the head. It's daft.
Create an abstract RPG engine which happens to fit your storyline nicely. GPL it.
Write your game as a set of datafiles for this engine. Release them as freeware.
That way, you have an engine which can be handled by the GPL and enhanced by the world as a whole, along with your game which the world as a whole can still use but which remains true to your vision as you retain copyright.
This is a difficult one to draw analogies on, so sorry if some I've attempted earlier have caused problems...
The issue here is that Microsoft have been identified as having acted illegally, repeatedly. There is clear evidence that they have a corporate culture of simply ignoring anti-trust laws - I mean, it oculd easily be argued that Microsoft.NET is in contempt of court...
Oracle are saying that, on that basis, they have strong grounds to suspect that there are other skeletons in the closet - in this case, that links with trade groups might be helping them exert unfair influence.
Now, what makes this awkward is that it's Oracle doing the investigating. If it was the relevant authorities, no-one would bat an eyelid. But why should it make a difference? After all, we have private prosecutions and the right to perform citizens arrests over here. As long as Oracle's investigation is itself above-board - in other words, they're not stealing documents, breaking in to computers, violating anti-stalking regulations and the like - then I see no problem. They are pursuing a legitimate line of personal research.
I feel (more) comfortable about Oracle investigating Microsoft than vice-versa simply as Oracle haven't (yet) been found guilty of anti-trust violations. Microsoft have once, nearly were a second time and escaped via a badly-worded consent decree.
If you notice, I specified that I have a history of speeding. Yes, we're talking something pretty small here - though note that four tickets would get me disqualified from driving for a year minimum - but it is a pattern of offence.
I wouldn't by any means justify plain-clothed policemen following random black young men. If, on the other hand, they know who they're following and he has a history of offences which are serious enough for them to actually do anything about them, it becomes different. If (for example) he's committed three armed robberies and they think he's at risk of reoffending then they've got good reason to follow our example individual.
That's the issue here - justification. Sorry if the original example looked like slightly weak justification, but it's my only contact with the police. I stand by my assertion that Oracle are justified here as Microsoft's pattern of behaviour suggests there may well be something to find.
The argument is about reasonable suspicion. Microsoft's pattern of behaviour leads us to suspect that there is a good chance they've done more which hasn't been uncovered. Hence an investigation is justified and, if Oracle feel they could profit from their finding this out and either persuading the DoJ to prosecute or sueing themselves, then this is legitimate.
Let's look at this another way. I've had two speeding tickets in my driving career and, as a 21 year old guy am statistically fairly likely to speed. It'd be a little heavy-handed, but you could justify the pattern of behaviour if the police decided to follow me in unmarked cars to try and get me again.
A similar investigation on whether I'd defrauded a bank out of a large amount of money (for example) wouldn't be too clever, though, unless they had information pointing to me anyway. There's no pattern of behaviour to suggest that I might have done it, so the investigation wouldn't be worthwhile.
If we were investigating a company with no history of trouble whatsoever, I'd call the investigation muckraking. But Microsoft are not - they've shown that they will repeatedly break the law and use unfair influence to compete in a way others couldn't. They're not just an agressive competitor, they're the bully who beats the smaller kids up. There are laws against that sort of thing for a reason - partly that it's not fair but partly that it doesn't help the economy as a whole.
There's a good chance that Oracle will discover that Microsoft have done something underhand without people finding out. Microsoft's history suggests there's a good chance of dirty laundry. Hence, they're justified in doing this.
I can find you plenty of freeware software where no source is available. Freeware usually means that the author asserts their copyright but does not charge users in any way, shape or form.
The nature of a catalystic converter - yes, I was just being lazy - means it actually has to be made out of the materials they use. Cheap alloys aren't a possibility.
I can't see electric cars coming all that soon, though. Battery technology is still a _major_ problem and they've been working hard with no real results for ages. I'd have to say that hydrogen power, in one form or another, looks by far and away the most likely.
If we want to look at it from another side, electric cars wouldn't actually help the environment as a whole - only the local environment. The electricity has to come from somewhere and, right now, power stations are _worse_.
I wouldn't be so sure. Some things are always going to be expensive, for various reasons. I know we're jumping industries here, but a car catalyst is never going to be cheap beacuse it's made of platinum or rhodium. Now, I don't know enough about the details of LCDs to know whether this is definitely the case, but with digital watches and mobile phones te small ones have been here in huge volume for some time. Laptops and LCD monitors aren't a small market either, though they're smaller in relative terms.
Anyway. I'd say, looking from the outside, that LCD prices probably haven't got that much further to fall without a major breakthrough.
LEPs are looking very interesting and may well produce some nice results but I can't see LCDs usable in decent webpads becoming that cheap.
Actually, I'm pretty sure Outlook express still needs the http:// if we're going to be picky.
Anyway. While I agree with you, it's always useful to know quite how stupid some people are. I forget the search engine, but one engine's stats a while back revealed that www.hotmail.com was in the top 10 searched for terms...
Er, one thing. Z isn't a programming language, it's a specification system. I'm sure my Z lecturers would agree that I'm no expert on the subject, but from all I was ever taught about it there simply isn't enough information in there to produce code directly from the spec.
Don Knuth's comment is worth bearing in mind, but it's a distraction in many ways. He's saying - or at least appears to be saying - that he has proved that the fundamental design and architecture is correct, but isn't certain that, in the translation of specification to code, he hasn't made a typo or two. That's still possible, but a very different source of bugs.
The problem with the standard 'open source' development model is that it's too chaotic to tightly control adherence to specs, IMO. That's what our original source here seemed to be talking about when he doubted whether 'open source' development could ever produce trusted code.
Your last two paragraphs seem to miss the point somewhat, though. A trusted system needs to have the specification tightly drawn up before a single line of code is created, if we wish to have any serious prospect of trustworthiness. If you try and draw up a 'de facto' specification after the event, it's inevitably going to contain problems as you're merely documenting behaviour that isn't necessarily trustworthy in the first place. Trusted reimplementation may be possible, but I'd still want a new codebase.
BTW, before anyone gets annoyed, the only reason I've been referring to 'open source' development as opposed to open source development is that, in this context, it implies something about the structure of the development team and that's mostly what's relevant. I could produce a project with a tightly controlled, exclusively internal team which decided to publish its source as it was going along. We'd still have source which was open but it wouldn't be conforming to what's normally accepted as the open source development model.
I'm sorry, but you miss the point. As long as people keep thinking this is about security, we'll never properly understand the requirements for a trusted system.
The whole point here is a system where you can trust that its functionality will conform precisely to the specifications. It's not security or trusting that there aren't back doors, it's trusting that it will do what it's supposed to. That may include security features, but that's not the point.
I'm sorry if this sounds awkward, but a lot of this topic is showing a basic ignorance of some aspects of software engineering by 'open source' fans and / or developers.
That sentence actually made me wonder if Cliff knows what the guy is talking about or not.
If we approach this from the viewpoint of trusting that our OS will not crash or be hacked (or whatever) then this argument has some merit. But we're not, and this isn't really about commercial vs. community development. Trusted code, after all, normally means that we're talking a custom job for a particular application, rather than off-the-shelf.
I'm sorry, but you seem to be missing the point here.
OpenBSD is a wonderful, secure system. If I had to trust that an out-of-the-box, off-the-shelf system wouldn't give me a security problem on my hypothetical servers, OpenBSD would be there in a second.
What this guy is talking about is rather different. We're talking trusted functionality. Trusting that this software controlling your nuclear power station does exactly what it says. Trusting that your rocket will fly into space properly. Trusting that your ABS brakes will stop your car.
Now, if we're being at all practical, this requires a tight, formal specification which can be effectively tested. You can't ensure that a system works properly if you don't know what working properly means, while you can't practically ensure that it will work properly if you don't have a tight, complete and agreed definition to work from. Anything else means you'll have to spend a long time chasing down problems, which may well tun out to be fundamental to a design technique used in the implementation of the system.
Current 'open source' development styles simply do not permit this. There isn't any way to get this level of control, or even of proper design. Now, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement such software _as_ open source, merely that current methods won't work.
Frankly, though, I'm not sure there's any real point. Open development works very well with consumer applications marketted at computer nerds such as ourselves. We're prepared to put up with problems to get the bleeding edge in a certain respect. Release early and often is clearly sensible, while there are plenty of people who are demonstrably prepared to use this incomplete, unstable software and help the developers make it complete and stable.
Now, let's move this across to the field this guy's talking about. Let's imagine we're talking about the hypothetical ABS brakes on your equally hypothetical car. Release early and often becomes, to be perfectly honest, dangerous as it results in brakes whose functionality isn't certain. You can't be sure they'll stop your car. So, do you drive it? No. How do you find the bugs? Well, you can play with it on test cells, tracks, simulators and the like. But, how many people have them?
Now let's imagine the final release has a bug in it - a major problem, but not totally impossible. Let's suppose you manage to spot what's causing the bug. Should the team running the project take your submission? Well, I can't say I'd recommend it to them. If you're coding a bigfix without total knowledge of the system, its specifications and design parameters - which is inevitable in this environment - the potential for an unseen effect is huge. They're better off to get their own engineers, who know the problem well, to reimplement it. That way, they can know that it won't produce an unforeseen consequence elsewhere due to inadequate domain knowledge.
Releasing the source code for outside inspection may well help others to trust their code performs as they say it will, but it's not going to usefully do much more than that.
We are talking about a problem space which few of us here will ever encounter. It's hugely different, and the same models aren't necessarily true. We aren't talking about trusting your WP not to crash or report your every word back to its makers, we're talking about trusting your nuclear power station not to go into meltdown. And for that, the current 'open source' development methods are wholly inadequate.
I don't recall seeing crash test results for the Lupo in particular, but I've definitely seen them for other small cars. They're by no means universally worse than larger cars - in some examples they're better. Bigger cars can be safer but they're by no means guaranteed to.
_IN_THIS_CASE_ I'd agree - though with caveats. The more useful information would be the training sets, bearing me mind that this is neural net based.
In a more general case - which seemed to be where this particular subthread was going and was certainly what I was talking about - where you have a program based on a blocklist, opening the source adds very little indeed.
Sorry to be awkward here, but I really can't see how opening the _source_ to the blocking is even slightly relevant. The algorithms used for blocking the access and the interface - all that we're talking about here, after all - wouldn't help the user's confidence that the blocking was sound unless we're talking seriously nasty code acting against the instructions in the block file. Indeed, it may weaken it slightly by allowing the users to see how to exploit its problems...
The only thing that makes _any_ sense to open up to give confidence that the blocking is fair is the blocking list itself. Now, if we're blocking access for young kids exclusively, that's fine. Once you include teenage boys into the equation though - as the demographic where blocking software and computer skills are most likely to cross over - then it becomes a liability as, the second the kid finds out how to bypass the blocking software (which _will_ happen eventually) then they have a list of sites that their parents don't want them to use, sitting right in front of them...
Like I said, it's tricky. Blockers want to know that the blocks are sensible, blockees want to know where all the dodgy material is - and one leads straight to the other. Quite how we fix it I really don't know, but it's far too simplistic to simply say that opening everything solves all the problems. It doesn't, and it creates two new ones.
... but the problem with open censorware lists is that the block list becomes a very valuable commodity. Kid manages to hack round the protection - heck, the number of teenage boys who are better with the computers than their parents isn't low - and surfs straight through the blocklist, using it as a porn-only Yahoo! Or, for that matter, moves it to someone else's (unblocked) machine and surfs from there.
What we have here is a fantastically complex problem. Cyberpatrol has pulled some _disgusting_ stunts - like blokcing sites which criticised its methods - but that doesn't necessarily mean that all censorship software is bad.
Put it this way: imagine I'm (say) 10-15 years older, and with primary school age kids. Chances are, they're going to want to play with this Internet thing, just like we watched TV at that age. Now, do I want to have to say they can only surf whenever I'm watching over their shoulders? Of course not - that's ridiculously laborious and clearly impractical. The far simpler approach is to do what you do with kids and TV - bar by program / channel / time. So, in this case, don't allow access to Usenet & Gnutella (for example) and only allow websites you've approved. Kid gets a better net experience while you're prepared to let them spend longer online because it doesn't take so much effort on your part.
For this sector of the market - if nothing else - net censorship software is needed. You and I may well be able to get the desired result by configuring a spare box in the back bedroom as a proxy server, but we're not representative of the general population.
Censorship software hasn't yet hit the sweet spot but it's definitely necessary, if only within limited areas. And, while I see the advantage to an open blocklist, I hope you see the problem, too.
That's a pity. I used a Mac version 4-5 years ago and it was fantastic. Zero intervention produced _very_ accurate text. give it the extra few minutes and it was superb. Sorry to hear it's gone downhill. Wonder why?
Oh well. I _liked_ it. The central show is impressive - even if the story's not any good. The Blackadder's worth seeing. That huge RC airship is _so_ cool that I really want one. The body zone's dull but that's not all there is to it! I can't remember the exact names but I enjoyed the transport, earth, that one with the huge kid and the IR cameras, plus that funky flying saucer thing where you're going into the earth.
It's definitely worth going to. It's a good focal point for the millenial celebrations (even if they did get the date wrong...) and it wasn't that expensive. IIRC £780 Million, which buys a _lot_ less than you'd think. Next time you see a government announcement, look at how much any of these wonderful new initiatives cost. Anything significant normally costs several _Billion_ pounds.
France tends to be fairly open about this sort of thing, IME. Topless bathing on pretty much _any_ beach, plus limited nudity on billboards and the like, or earlier evening TV than over here. What little I've seen of Germany suggests that's pretty similar.
In the UK we're probably about halfway to that. Nudity on billboards or TV before 9 simply isn't allowed - well, depends on your definition of nudity. One magazine projected a shot of a TV presenter's bottom on to the Houses of Parliament, which they'd run on their cover. Anything more than that would definitely get complaints, though. Topless bathing can happen anywhere, but is still pretty rare.
On the other side, we _will_ moan loudly about violence or gore (no not Gore...) - the general opinion being that it just desensitises the kids and warps their valuesystems.
OK, but how much is this a problem? I've _never_ had to get our cat off the desk while I was typing.
There's two machines I regularly use in the same house as the cat. Both are in rooms where the door is normally shut, while the cat has been shoo'd off on many, many occasions.
I can see that this is cool tech but there are better things to spend our time on...
Slashdot Mirror
0-60 in 11 seconds is most certainly not in the last 1% of car performance, unless we're talking KPH or US cars are _hugely_ faster than european.
Let's see. Audi A4 Avant 1.9 TDI. o-60 in 13.9 secs.
Chrysler Voyager 2.5 TD SE 14.0 secs, 2.0 SE 13.8 secs.
Citroen Saxo 1.0i First. 0-60 16.6 secs. Or, Xsara 1.4i X, 13.0 secs.
That's just a quick scan of the first few pages of the listings, pulling out a selection of different types of cars. A far from exhaustive list or scientific study. For the market the Insight is aimed at - urban runabouts from the look of things - it's a perfectly acceptable figure. Perhaps even fast.
As for top speeds, I'm wondering whether we've either hit a KPH figure (though that'd be a little low) or someone's simply read how far the speedo can go round...
The Insight's a good little car. Pity it hasn't got another 2 seats, but it's a good first generation product.
No, I don't think that follows.
;) - but to my knowledge copyright lawyer does not say that distribution is forbidden unless stated otherwise.
I'm not an IP lawyer - I'm a fresh CS graduate so if anyone wants to employ me get in touch
My recollection is hazy but I'm pretty sure that this came up and the opinion of our lawyer was that the license couldn't be a valid contract under our law, so distribution was little short of unrestricted free-for-all.
Now, I'm not a GPL fan personally, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it's important that that class of license is possible. I'd want to see this sorted out fairly soon. But, it's worth our while knowing that UK law pretty much says you can do what you want.
Anyone else?
Quite possibly.
But...
Last time I heard, the GPL had no effect under English law. We had to have a brief law course as part of my CS degree and contracts came up. For a contract to be valid, you needed consideration.
Basically, for it to be valid, it basically boils down to "I'll give you this if you'll give me that". Doesn't matter what this and that are, but they have to exist.
Which is where _any_ public license hits problems under our law, as the licensee isn't entering into a vaild contract. Not receiving anything in return, see. Now, you can argue that that's a problem with the law and that it _should_ be possible until you're blue in the face - and I'd agree with you - but the fact is, right now, it looks rather like no public license actually does anything other than look pretty and act as a set of recommendations in England.
Note I'm specifying ENGLAND. Scottish and Northern Ireland law are different, and I don't know anything about them.
No, I'm sorry, that's wrong.
If this was still back in the bad old days where they were required to buy a license for every machine they made, that would be the case. It isn't.
An OEM copy of MS software doesn't necessarily have to come with a complete machine. There's any number of UK dealers who'll sell it to you with a big enough component to suggest you're building a new system. This is saying that they can go further than that, and sell software intended for bundling with new hardware by itself. That's ridiculous, and a dangerous precedent. The softwrae has been sold on condition that it's only resold with hardware, yet the reseller is now free to breach that contract.
Loads of manuacturers sell OEM copies at a reduced price, the idea being that if it's bundled with the machine you get possible future upgrade sales and reduce the likelihood of a sale for a competitor. This case effectively kills that market in Germany as they can't really carry on with this or people will always buy the OEM part rather than the retail, losing them a fortune.
Plenty of non-MS software gets bundled, too. When I bought this machine, it came with Lotus SmartSuite, IBM WorldBook and ViaVoice. True, none were installed but all were bundled.
Your last paragraph betrays a total lack of knowledge verging on paranoia. Calm down, get off your high horse. OEM software deals are a good idea, they're not anywhere near as restrictive as you make out and this ruling knocks the market for them on the head. It's daft.
If I was doing this, I'd make it modular.
Create an abstract RPG engine which happens to fit your storyline nicely. GPL it.
Write your game as a set of datafiles for this engine. Release them as freeware.
That way, you have an engine which can be handled by the GPL and enhanced by the world as a whole, along with your game which the world as a whole can still use but which remains true to your vision as you retain copyright.
This is a difficult one to draw analogies on, so sorry if some I've attempted earlier have caused problems...
.NET is in contempt of court...
The issue here is that Microsoft have been identified as having acted illegally, repeatedly. There is clear evidence that they have a corporate culture of simply ignoring anti-trust laws - I mean, it oculd easily be argued that Microsoft
Oracle are saying that, on that basis, they have strong grounds to suspect that there are other skeletons in the closet - in this case, that links with trade groups might be helping them exert unfair influence.
Now, what makes this awkward is that it's Oracle doing the investigating. If it was the relevant authorities, no-one would bat an eyelid. But why should it make a difference? After all, we have private prosecutions and the right to perform citizens arrests over here. As long as Oracle's investigation is itself above-board - in other words, they're not stealing documents, breaking in to computers, violating anti-stalking regulations and the like - then I see no problem. They are pursuing a legitimate line of personal research.
I feel (more) comfortable about Oracle investigating Microsoft than vice-versa simply as Oracle haven't (yet) been found guilty of anti-trust violations. Microsoft have once, nearly were a second time and escaped via a badly-worded consent decree.
Does that make more sense?
No, I'm not saying that and I didn't say that.
If you notice, I specified that I have a history of speeding. Yes, we're talking something pretty small here - though note that four tickets would get me disqualified from driving for a year minimum - but it is a pattern of offence.
I wouldn't by any means justify plain-clothed policemen following random black young men. If, on the other hand, they know who they're following and he has a history of offences which are serious enough for them to actually do anything about them, it becomes different. If (for example) he's committed three armed robberies and they think he's at risk of reoffending then they've got good reason to follow our example individual.
That's the issue here - justification. Sorry if the original example looked like slightly weak justification, but it's my only contact with the police. I stand by my assertion that Oracle are justified here as Microsoft's pattern of behaviour suggests there may well be something to find.
No, it's not.
The argument is about reasonable suspicion. Microsoft's pattern of behaviour leads us to suspect that there is a good chance they've done more which hasn't been uncovered. Hence an investigation is justified and, if Oracle feel they could profit from their finding this out and either persuading the DoJ to prosecute or sueing themselves, then this is legitimate.
Let's look at this another way. I've had two speeding tickets in my driving career and, as a 21 year old guy am statistically fairly likely to speed. It'd be a little heavy-handed, but you could justify the pattern of behaviour if the police decided to follow me in unmarked cars to try and get me again.
A similar investigation on whether I'd defrauded a bank out of a large amount of money (for example) wouldn't be too clever, though, unless they had information pointing to me anyway. There's no pattern of behaviour to suggest that I might have done it, so the investigation wouldn't be worthwhile.
Under the circustances, I'd support Oracle here.
If we were investigating a company with no history of trouble whatsoever, I'd call the investigation muckraking. But Microsoft are not - they've shown that they will repeatedly break the law and use unfair influence to compete in a way others couldn't. They're not just an agressive competitor, they're the bully who beats the smaller kids up. There are laws against that sort of thing for a reason - partly that it's not fair but partly that it doesn't help the economy as a whole.
There's a good chance that Oracle will discover that Microsoft have done something underhand without people finding out. Microsoft's history suggests there's a good chance of dirty laundry. Hence, they're justified in doing this.
Erm, freeware != open source.
I can find you plenty of freeware software where no source is available. Freeware usually means that the author asserts their copyright but does not charge users in any way, shape or form.
Erm...
The nature of a catalystic converter - yes, I was just being lazy - means it actually has to be made out of the materials they use. Cheap alloys aren't a possibility.
I can't see electric cars coming all that soon, though. Battery technology is still a _major_ problem and they've been working hard with no real results for ages. I'd have to say that hydrogen power, in one form or another, looks by far and away the most likely.
If we want to look at it from another side, electric cars wouldn't actually help the environment as a whole - only the local environment. The electricity has to come from somewhere and, right now, power stations are _worse_.
I wouldn't be so sure. Some things are always going to be expensive, for various reasons. I know we're jumping industries here, but a car catalyst is never going to be cheap beacuse it's made of platinum or rhodium. Now, I don't know enough about the details of LCDs to know whether this is definitely the case, but with digital watches and mobile phones te small ones have been here in huge volume for some time. Laptops and LCD monitors aren't a small market either, though they're smaller in relative terms.
Anyway. I'd say, looking from the outside, that LCD prices probably haven't got that much further to fall without a major breakthrough.
LEPs are looking very interesting and may well produce some nice results but I can't see LCDs usable in decent webpads becoming that cheap.
Actually, I'm pretty sure Outlook express still needs the http:// if we're going to be picky.
Anyway. While I agree with you, it's always useful to know quite how stupid some people are. I forget the search engine, but one engine's stats a while back revealed that www.hotmail.com was in the top 10 searched for terms...
Er, one thing. Z isn't a programming language, it's a specification system. I'm sure my Z lecturers would agree that I'm no expert on the subject, but from all I was ever taught about it there simply isn't enough information in there to produce code directly from the spec.
Don Knuth's comment is worth bearing in mind, but it's a distraction in many ways. He's saying - or at least appears to be saying - that he has proved that the fundamental design and architecture is correct, but isn't certain that, in the translation of specification to code, he hasn't made a typo or two. That's still possible, but a very different source of bugs.
The problem with the standard 'open source' development model is that it's too chaotic to tightly control adherence to specs, IMO. That's what our original source here seemed to be talking about when he doubted whether 'open source' development could ever produce trusted code.
Your last two paragraphs seem to miss the point somewhat, though. A trusted system needs to have the specification tightly drawn up before a single line of code is created, if we wish to have any serious prospect of trustworthiness. If you try and draw up a 'de facto' specification after the event, it's inevitably going to contain problems as you're merely documenting behaviour that isn't necessarily trustworthy in the first place. Trusted reimplementation may be possible, but I'd still want a new codebase.
BTW, before anyone gets annoyed, the only reason I've been referring to 'open source' development as opposed to open source development is that, in this context, it implies something about the structure of the development team and that's mostly what's relevant. I could produce a project with a tightly controlled, exclusively internal team which decided to publish its source as it was going along. We'd still have source which was open but it wouldn't be conforming to what's normally accepted as the open source development model.
I'm sorry, but you miss the point. As long as people keep thinking this is about security, we'll never properly understand the requirements for a trusted system.
The whole point here is a system where you can trust that its functionality will conform precisely to the specifications. It's not security or trusting that there aren't back doors, it's trusting that it will do what it's supposed to. That may include security features, but that's not the point.
I'm sorry if this sounds awkward, but a lot of this topic is showing a basic ignorance of some aspects of software engineering by 'open source' fans and / or developers.
That sentence actually made me wonder if Cliff knows what the guy is talking about or not.
If we approach this from the viewpoint of trusting that our OS will not crash or be hacked (or whatever) then this argument has some merit. But we're not, and this isn't really about commercial vs. community development. Trusted code, after all, normally means that we're talking a custom job for a particular application, rather than off-the-shelf.
I'm sorry, but you seem to be missing the point here.
OpenBSD is a wonderful, secure system. If I had to trust that an out-of-the-box, off-the-shelf system wouldn't give me a security problem on my hypothetical servers, OpenBSD would be there in a second.
What this guy is talking about is rather different. We're talking trusted functionality. Trusting that this software controlling your nuclear power station does exactly what it says. Trusting that your rocket will fly into space properly. Trusting that your ABS brakes will stop your car.
Now, if we're being at all practical, this requires a tight, formal specification which can be effectively tested. You can't ensure that a system works properly if you don't know what working properly means, while you can't practically ensure that it will work properly if you don't have a tight, complete and agreed definition to work from. Anything else means you'll have to spend a long time chasing down problems, which may well tun out to be fundamental to a design technique used in the implementation of the system.
Current 'open source' development styles simply do not permit this. There isn't any way to get this level of control, or even of proper design. Now, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement such software _as_ open source, merely that current methods won't work.
Frankly, though, I'm not sure there's any real point. Open development works very well with consumer applications marketted at computer nerds such as ourselves. We're prepared to put up with problems to get the bleeding edge in a certain respect. Release early and often is clearly sensible, while there are plenty of people who are demonstrably prepared to use this incomplete, unstable software and help the developers make it complete and stable.
Now, let's move this across to the field this guy's talking about. Let's imagine we're talking about the hypothetical ABS brakes on your equally hypothetical car. Release early and often becomes, to be perfectly honest, dangerous as it results in brakes whose functionality isn't certain. You can't be sure they'll stop your car. So, do you drive it? No. How do you find the bugs? Well, you can play with it on test cells, tracks, simulators and the like. But, how many people have them?
Now let's imagine the final release has a bug in it - a major problem, but not totally impossible. Let's suppose you manage to spot what's causing the bug. Should the team running the project take your submission? Well, I can't say I'd recommend it to them. If you're coding a bigfix without total knowledge of the system, its specifications and design parameters - which is inevitable in this environment - the potential for an unseen effect is huge. They're better off to get their own engineers, who know the problem well, to reimplement it. That way, they can know that it won't produce an unforeseen consequence elsewhere due to inadequate domain knowledge.
Releasing the source code for outside inspection may well help others to trust their code performs as they say it will, but it's not going to usefully do much more than that.
We are talking about a problem space which few of us here will ever encounter. It's hugely different, and the same models aren't necessarily true. We aren't talking about trusting your WP not to crash or report your every word back to its makers, we're talking about trusting your nuclear power station not to go into meltdown. And for that, the current 'open source' development methods are wholly inadequate.
I don't recall seeing crash test results for the Lupo in particular, but I've definitely seen them for other small cars. They're by no means universally worse than larger cars - in some examples they're better. Bigger cars can be safer but they're by no means guaranteed to.
_IN_THIS_CASE_ I'd agree - though with caveats. The more useful information would be the training sets, bearing me mind that this is neural net based.
In a more general case - which seemed to be where this particular subthread was going and was certainly what I was talking about - where you have a program based on a blocklist, opening the source adds very little indeed.
Sorry to be awkward here, but I really can't see how opening the _source_ to the blocking is even slightly relevant. The algorithms used for blocking the access and the interface - all that we're talking about here, after all - wouldn't help the user's confidence that the blocking was sound unless we're talking seriously nasty code acting against the instructions in the block file. Indeed, it may weaken it slightly by allowing the users to see how to exploit its problems...
The only thing that makes _any_ sense to open up to give confidence that the blocking is fair is the blocking list itself. Now, if we're blocking access for young kids exclusively, that's fine. Once you include teenage boys into the equation though - as the demographic where blocking software and computer skills are most likely to cross over - then it becomes a liability as, the second the kid finds out how to bypass the blocking software (which _will_ happen eventually) then they have a list of sites that their parents don't want them to use, sitting right in front of them...
Like I said, it's tricky. Blockers want to know that the blocks are sensible, blockees want to know where all the dodgy material is - and one leads straight to the other. Quite how we fix it I really don't know, but it's far too simplistic to simply say that opening everything solves all the problems. It doesn't, and it creates two new ones.
... but the problem with open censorware lists is that the block list becomes a very valuable commodity. Kid manages to hack round the protection - heck, the number of teenage boys who are better with the computers than their parents isn't low - and surfs straight through the blocklist, using it as a porn-only Yahoo! Or, for that matter, moves it to someone else's (unblocked) machine and surfs from there.
What we have here is a fantastically complex problem. Cyberpatrol has pulled some _disgusting_ stunts - like blokcing sites which criticised its methods - but that doesn't necessarily mean that all censorship software is bad.
Put it this way: imagine I'm (say) 10-15 years older, and with primary school age kids. Chances are, they're going to want to play with this Internet thing, just like we watched TV at that age. Now, do I want to have to say they can only surf whenever I'm watching over their shoulders? Of course not - that's ridiculously laborious and clearly impractical. The far simpler approach is to do what you do with kids and TV - bar by program / channel / time. So, in this case, don't allow access to Usenet & Gnutella (for example) and only allow websites you've approved. Kid gets a better net experience while you're prepared to let them spend longer online because it doesn't take so much effort on your part.
For this sector of the market - if nothing else - net censorship software is needed. You and I may well be able to get the desired result by configuring a spare box in the back bedroom as a proxy server, but we're not representative of the general population.
Censorship software hasn't yet hit the sweet spot but it's definitely necessary, if only within limited areas. And, while I see the advantage to an open blocklist, I hope you see the problem, too.
That's a pity. I used a Mac version 4-5 years ago and it was fantastic. Zero intervention produced _very_ accurate text. give it the extra few minutes and it was superb. Sorry to hear it's gone downhill. Wonder why?
Oh well. I _liked_ it. The central show is impressive - even if the story's not any good. The Blackadder's worth seeing. That huge RC airship is _so_ cool that I really want one. The body zone's dull but that's not all there is to it! I can't remember the exact names but I enjoyed the transport, earth, that one with the huge kid and the IR cameras, plus that funky flying saucer thing where you're going into the earth.
It's definitely worth going to. It's a good focal point for the millenial celebrations (even if they did get the date wrong...) and it wasn't that expensive. IIRC £780 Million, which buys a _lot_ less than you'd think. Next time you see a government announcement, look at how much any of these wonderful new initiatives cost. Anything significant normally costs several _Billion_ pounds.
Stop being a killjoy and enjoy it.
Depends on the country.
France tends to be fairly open about this sort of thing, IME. Topless bathing on pretty much _any_ beach, plus limited nudity on billboards and the like, or earlier evening TV than over here. What little I've seen of Germany suggests that's pretty similar.
In the UK we're probably about halfway to that. Nudity on billboards or TV before 9 simply isn't allowed - well, depends on your definition of nudity. One magazine projected a shot of a TV presenter's bottom on to the Houses of Parliament, which they'd run on their cover. Anything more than that would definitely get complaints, though. Topless bathing can happen anywhere, but is still pretty rare.
On the other side, we _will_ moan loudly about violence or gore (no not Gore...) - the general opinion being that it just desensitises the kids and warps their valuesystems.
OK, but how much is this a problem? I've _never_ had to get our cat off the desk while I was typing.
There's two machines I regularly use in the same house as the cat. Both are in rooms where the door is normally shut, while the cat has been shoo'd off on many, many occasions.
I can see that this is cool tech but there are better things to spend our time on...