It's even better for the lawyers: They can point to this case for any prospective clients and show how totally committed they are to any case they take on.
...there is a movie that depends on 3D to tell the story. No movie I've seen in 3D to date has used 3D as anything more as gimmick, always the same old concept of something flying towards the audience. I may be a used-car salesman's best friend, but even *I* know when I'm being taken for a ride.
I disagree
on
The Apple Two
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Jobs wants to make appliances. Woz wants to make computers. I think there's a real difference here; I enjoy tinkering with a lot of devices, but I'm not about to start taking apart my toaster or TV. That's what the iPad and iPhone are to me, appliances that are meant to be as reliable as possible as my toaster, and this is where Jobs' mantra of "It just works" is so key; you don't want your toaster to have problems, and more importantly, you don't want to need to get into the guts of a toaster just to make toast.
On the other hand, I love working on computers, both software and hardware. I've fried two Arduinos teaching myself how to make neat projects involving stepper motors, LEDs, etc. I accept that I may break this equipment, as I accept that I may lock my computer up because I'm overtaxing it. I accept this and try to not fry or crash the next time. A learning experience to be sure, and one that I enjoy having.
One aspect that always seems to be overlooked in all this discussion about "the future of Apple" is that Apple still makes a lot of other hardware and software; you still need to have a Mac with the developer tools installed to write anything for the iPhone/iPad. Apple gives away a lot of software for content creation as well as software creation.I don't see how they can let their other software and hardware fade away...they need people to create the apps and the content that is so readily consumed by the iPhone and iPad.
Seems about as relevant as ranking programming languages to their popularity. Does the fact that C is #1 mean I should start writing my websites with it (I've done it, actually...and it was extremely fast and extremely painful)?
I don't see how this metric has any use at all, especially given their criteria for determining popularity.
There are still a *lot* of mainframes out there running code from the 1960s. I can personally vouch for one system that went into production two years before I was even born.
The issue is the hardware; IBM charges a *lot* of money for their stuff, and especially on the mainframe, where some products (think MQSeries, or now known as WebsphereMQ) are charged by the processor cycle. The machine has a permanent link to IBM for both troubleshooting (they can work with every aspect of the machine remotely) as well as for billing (one of the "cool" features is that you can "lease" additional power only when you need it, like year-end billing or some-such).
I worked with a small shop that had a single mainframe that was used for small jobs by my company because it was cheaper to farm it out to them than to run it on the ES/9000; the $/cycle count cost just made it prohibitive to use the 9000 for anything other than massive jobs. So this small company got all the small business. You can appreciate that they'd cut their costs even further if they could run everything in Hercules on standard hardware, and probably get better performance than their small early 80s machine.
Mainframes are still the guy hidden in the shadows, smoking the cigarette; he's still there and has more power than you think.
I was just checking out these files and Gephi for a project and thought how cool they looked. I like Gephi, but one of my requirements is to be able to a diagram on demand; I see Gephi can do JDBC, but I need essentially a command-line version of it.
BTW, the main diagram was the first time I've seen all 16 processors in my MacPro (yes, I know, hyperthreading, cores, etc.) maxed out on 100%.
Back in the days of VT100, when windows were something you looked through, when Apple was selling the awesomeness of the Apple ][, there were two games to play that I spent untold number of days playing: Nethack (then just "Hack") and the original Adventure. It is safe to say these games were the genesis of pretty much everything, I believe I remember reading somewhere that the head developer of Diablo got a lot of inspiration from Nethack, and Adventure spawned pretty much the entire adventure game industry.
I guess it would have been after 1972, because I'd like to think that NASA would have sent some Apollo astronauts to collect some ice samples while they still had the chance. Or was it always known, theoretically, and for whatever reason they decided it could wait, as everyone assumed that if Apollo 21 didn't get around to it, Apollo 86 would.
Talk about timing: I downloaded Flower for my 5 year old, who loves just flying around in the pretty fields, and the game won't start because of this error. A single-player game, that has no multiplayer aspect, that doesn't even keep score, and it can't be played because it can't connect to the network.
I guess it's because Flower has trophy support, but really...you can't store the trophy information locally and then transmit later? I couldn't sit there, looking at the error screen, then trying to explain to my daughter why she can't fly around the field, and not feel like there was an awesome lesson to be learned here.
I agree with you, but with such a large code base it's also important to remember to check for unintended side effects; some other part of the code expected the static to never go above a certain threshold, and the fix allows for more tolerance in the value, which the other part of the code didn't expect.
As a real-world example, I worked on a system where we were always passing "0" to a function, it was marked as "reserved" but never used. Another developer re-factored the caller and saw that passing null also worked, and went on his merry way. Little did anyone realize that, three function calls down, *that* code demanded the value be 0, and the calculations it was doing failed, but still producing "valid" results (real numbers instead of crashing), which were dutifully passed onto the next function, and so on until they would up in a database, and onto someone's report. Of course, the numbers were all nice and formatted in the report, but the users couldn't make sense of what was going on; it really looked like 2+2 = 39743113. There was a huge uproar, and weeks were spent cleaning up the data, which required some very tricky programming to undo the damage.
Firmware updates always seem, on their face, to be "easier" insofar as the code handles actual hardware, which will presumably either work or not work. But I think we can all agree that even in the hardware world, it's very rare that you only have to worry about the equipment being "on" or "off", once you start dealing with variations, the problems go up exponentially.
We had a Directv-based Tivo and it has been painful to use any other DVR since for one reason alone; the interface. The interface is clear, snappy, and very simple, unlike Comcast's and Directv's other boxes which range from the simply bizarre (press "up" to get to Directv's favorites list?) to the outright awful (Comcast everything, but as one simple example, why does a Comcast DVR with a hard disk inside need to re-download every piece of scheduling data if the unit is accidentally turned off?).
Tivo may have made mistakes, but I am still pining away for the day that Directv offers an HD-compatible DVR with the Tivo software in it. I won't care about the terms, I'll get it; I want to watch what I want to watch without tensing up trying to find them using the horrible interfaces of the other boxes.
I meant to imply that you've essentially got the computer "telling on you"; either my the cycle-counter from the mainframe days, or WAT going out and checking whether you're legit, and having others tell it yes or no.
...they want their mainframes back. This is not unlike IBM charging for use of their hardware and software on a per cycle basis. One of the people I worked with back in the 90s remembers earlier models of mainframes actually had mechanical car-like odometers that were read by a "meter reader" like the gas company, and IBM would send them a bill.
And it is a guarantee that enterprising individuals will come up with a solution to WAT as my former co-worker did; crack the box and reset the numbers. Not enough to arouse suspicion, but just enough that they wouldn't be charged for a huge end-of-month load on the processor.
AIX....the last Unix you can't just "get" a copy of, but need to actually buy the hardware (a la the Mac). We had a Power box at work with AIX for awhile, but its configuration tools was quite... unique among Unix flavors (though I was told it was pretty straightforward IBM) and I had a horrible time getting GCC to work with it; most every F/OSS package I came across either straight up wasn't tested on AIX (because no one had the hardware), or it had a whole separate setup (I believe one of the standard lines running./configure is "Is this an AIX system?").
I recall the box being wicked fast when we were running Oracle on it; it was a "small" Power machine but it still could handle a monster database with hundreds of millions of rows with no trouble. Frankly, I was sort-of sad to see it go; I really did want to get more familiar with it, but apparently the maintenance costs IBM was charging made it a non-starter. Plus, ultimately, it seems that it just wasn't very OSS friendly; xlc is apparently an amazing compiler for the PowerPC, but they wanted $6000 for a license per developer. Plus, and I'm sorry if this is nitpicking, but to have the C compiler called xlc and the C++ compiler called xlC was just, well, insane.
What I really wanted to do was get Linux on it, and Oracle even has a Linux-on-Power version of their database, but there seemed to be some grumbling from the IBM salespeople (according to my boss) that they discourage people from running Linux on Power....I guess you (according to them) need AIX to unleash the real "power" in the PowerPC.
..I'm curious if, based on previous evidence that water existed on Mars at some point before it hit the deep-freeze, does this essentially suggest that water = life everywhere? Theoretically, then, if Europa contains water, then it, theoretically, might also have similar "organisms" that are found on Mars?
Like I said in the title, I know zip about how all this works, but once you've got some water sloshing around on your planet, what else do you need? Organic material presumably has to start somewhere, I just don't have any clue as to where.
Slashdot Mirror
...I didn't realize they'd been able to squeeze Lotus Notes onto a USB drive.
It's even better for the lawyers: They can point to this case for any prospective clients and show how totally committed they are to any case they take on.
...there is a movie that depends on 3D to tell the story. No movie I've seen in 3D to date has used 3D as anything more as gimmick, always the same old concept of something flying towards the audience. I may be a used-car salesman's best friend, but even *I* know when I'm being taken for a ride.
Just use Poi.
Jobs wants to make appliances. Woz wants to make computers. I think there's a real difference here; I enjoy tinkering with a lot of devices, but I'm not about to start taking apart my toaster or TV. That's what the iPad and iPhone are to me, appliances that are meant to be as reliable as possible as my toaster, and this is where Jobs' mantra of "It just works" is so key; you don't want your toaster to have problems, and more importantly, you don't want to need to get into the guts of a toaster just to make toast.
On the other hand, I love working on computers, both software and hardware. I've fried two Arduinos teaching myself how to make neat projects involving stepper motors, LEDs, etc. I accept that I may break this equipment, as I accept that I may lock my computer up because I'm overtaxing it. I accept this and try to not fry or crash the next time. A learning experience to be sure, and one that I enjoy having.
One aspect that always seems to be overlooked in all this discussion about "the future of Apple" is that Apple still makes a lot of other hardware and software; you still need to have a Mac with the developer tools installed to write anything for the iPhone/iPad. Apple gives away a lot of software for content creation as well as software creation.I don't see how they can let their other software and hardware fade away...they need people to create the apps and the content that is so readily consumed by the iPhone and iPad.
Seems about as relevant as ranking programming languages to their popularity. Does the fact that C is #1 mean I should start writing my websites with it (I've done it, actually...and it was extremely fast and extremely painful)?
I don't see how this metric has any use at all, especially given their criteria for determining popularity.
Ha ha, okay, I get it, and you're right, I missed it. The parent was talking about this.
A little forgiveness please, I only had one of these.
There are still a *lot* of mainframes out there running code from the 1960s. I can personally vouch for one system that went into production two years before I was even born.
The issue is the hardware; IBM charges a *lot* of money for their stuff, and especially on the mainframe, where some products (think MQSeries, or now known as WebsphereMQ) are charged by the processor cycle. The machine has a permanent link to IBM for both troubleshooting (they can work with every aspect of the machine remotely) as well as for billing (one of the "cool" features is that you can "lease" additional power only when you need it, like year-end billing or some-such).
I worked with a small shop that had a single mainframe that was used for small jobs by my company because it was cheaper to farm it out to them than to run it on the ES/9000; the $/cycle count cost just made it prohibitive to use the 9000 for anything other than massive jobs. So this small company got all the small business. You can appreciate that they'd cut their costs even further if they could run everything in Hercules on standard hardware, and probably get better performance than their small early 80s machine.
Mainframes are still the guy hidden in the shadows, smoking the cigarette; he's still there and has more power than you think.
...how will this affect my GPS for geocaching?
Beautiful pictures, BTW...I have never seen them in person, they've got to be just that cooler from space. Space! SPACE!!!!
Sigh, back to work in my little cube.
I was just checking out these files and Gephi for a project and thought how cool they looked. I like Gephi, but one of my requirements is to be able to a diagram on demand; I see Gephi can do JDBC, but I need essentially a command-line version of it.
BTW, the main diagram was the first time I've seen all 16 processors in my MacPro (yes, I know, hyperthreading, cores, etc.) maxed out on 100%.
...any reason to get a Pre anymore?
Back in the days of VT100, when windows were something you looked through, when Apple was selling the awesomeness of the Apple ][, there were two games to play that I spent untold number of days playing: Nethack (then just "Hack") and the original Adventure. It is safe to say these games were the genesis of pretty much everything, I believe I remember reading somewhere that the head developer of Diablo got a lot of inspiration from Nethack, and Adventure spawned pretty much the entire adventure game industry.
Sigh. Now get off my lawn!
If the batteries in my Garmin go out, I can just use any 747 to go geocaching!
I guess it would have been after 1972, because I'd like to think that NASA would have sent some Apollo astronauts to collect some ice samples while they still had the chance. Or was it always known, theoretically, and for whatever reason they decided it could wait, as everyone assumed that if Apollo 21 didn't get around to it, Apollo 86 would.
Sigh. I really miss those days.
Talk about timing: I downloaded Flower for my 5 year old, who loves just flying around in the pretty fields, and the game won't start because of this error. A single-player game, that has no multiplayer aspect, that doesn't even keep score, and it can't be played because it can't connect to the network.
I guess it's because Flower has trophy support, but really...you can't store the trophy information locally and then transmit later? I couldn't sit there, looking at the error screen, then trying to explain to my daughter why she can't fly around the field, and not feel like there was an awesome lesson to be learned here.
So we pulled out a pack of Go Fish cards instead.
I agree with you, but with such a large code base it's also important to remember to check for unintended side effects; some other part of the code expected the static to never go above a certain threshold, and the fix allows for more tolerance in the value, which the other part of the code didn't expect.
As a real-world example, I worked on a system where we were always passing "0" to a function, it was marked as "reserved" but never used. Another developer re-factored the caller and saw that passing null also worked, and went on his merry way. Little did anyone realize that, three function calls down, *that* code demanded the value be 0, and the calculations it was doing failed, but still producing "valid" results (real numbers instead of crashing), which were dutifully passed onto the next function, and so on until they would up in a database, and onto someone's report. Of course, the numbers were all nice and formatted in the report, but the users couldn't make sense of what was going on; it really looked like 2+2 = 39743113. There was a huge uproar, and weeks were spent cleaning up the data, which required some very tricky programming to undo the damage.
Firmware updates always seem, on their face, to be "easier" insofar as the code handles actual hardware, which will presumably either work or not work. But I think we can all agree that even in the hardware world, it's very rare that you only have to worry about the equipment being "on" or "off", once you start dealing with variations, the problems go up exponentially.
We had a Directv-based Tivo and it has been painful to use any other DVR since for one reason alone; the interface. The interface is clear, snappy, and very simple, unlike Comcast's and Directv's other boxes which range from the simply bizarre (press "up" to get to Directv's favorites list?) to the outright awful (Comcast everything, but as one simple example, why does a Comcast DVR with a hard disk inside need to re-download every piece of scheduling data if the unit is accidentally turned off?).
Tivo may have made mistakes, but I am still pining away for the day that Directv offers an HD-compatible DVR with the Tivo software in it. I won't care about the terms, I'll get it; I want to watch what I want to watch without tensing up trying to find them using the horrible interfaces of the other boxes.
What exactly is "improper behavior in the home", and who would believe it was appropriate for a school to accuse the kid of it?
I meant to imply that you've essentially got the computer "telling on you"; either my the cycle-counter from the mainframe days, or WAT going out and checking whether you're legit, and having others tell it yes or no.
...they want their mainframes back. This is not unlike IBM charging for use of their hardware and software on a per cycle basis. One of the people I worked with back in the 90s remembers earlier models of mainframes actually had mechanical car-like odometers that were read by a "meter reader" like the gas company, and IBM would send them a bill.
And it is a guarantee that enterprising individuals will come up with a solution to WAT as my former co-worker did; crack the box and reset the numbers. Not enough to arouse suspicion, but just enough that they wouldn't be charged for a huge end-of-month load on the processor.
AIX....the last Unix you can't just "get" a copy of, but need to actually buy the hardware (a la the Mac). We had a Power box at work with AIX for awhile, but its configuration tools was quite ... unique among Unix flavors (though I was told it was pretty straightforward IBM) and I had a horrible time getting GCC to work with it; most every F/OSS package I came across either straight up wasn't tested on AIX (because no one had the hardware), or it had a whole separate setup (I believe one of the standard lines running ./configure is "Is this an AIX system?").
I recall the box being wicked fast when we were running Oracle on it; it was a "small" Power machine but it still could handle a monster database with hundreds of millions of rows with no trouble. Frankly, I was sort-of sad to see it go; I really did want to get more familiar with it, but apparently the maintenance costs IBM was charging made it a non-starter. Plus, ultimately, it seems that it just wasn't very OSS friendly; xlc is apparently an amazing compiler for the PowerPC, but they wanted $6000 for a license per developer. Plus, and I'm sorry if this is nitpicking, but to have the C compiler called xlc and the C++ compiler called xlC was just, well, insane.
What I really wanted to do was get Linux on it, and Oracle even has a Linux-on-Power version of their database, but there seemed to be some grumbling from the IBM salespeople (according to my boss) that they discourage people from running Linux on Power....I guess you (according to them) need AIX to unleash the real "power" in the PowerPC.
Sigh, okay, whatever. back to Linux on x86-64.
Peanuts is in eternal reruns; Schulz was very specific he didn't want it to continue after he stopped (he even mentions it in the last strip ever).
I'm having that "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" moment that I really didn't want to have.
..I'm curious if, based on previous evidence that water existed on Mars at some point before it hit the deep-freeze, does this essentially suggest that water = life everywhere? Theoretically, then, if Europa contains water, then it, theoretically, might also have similar "organisms" that are found on Mars?
Like I said in the title, I know zip about how all this works, but once you've got some water sloshing around on your planet, what else do you need? Organic material presumably has to start somewhere, I just don't have any clue as to where.
...since I can't find the "any" key on my keyboard anywhere!