I didn't care for the design shown in the link at all. It didn't provide any advantages over a laptop, yet was trying to replace one. But I have thought of it before, and I do think it would be a good idea in some situations.
First some constraints. I don't think this would work well for a laptop; typing on a surface without tactile feedback sucks compared to a real keyboard. So it is limited to tablet-type applications. It would also need a solid core (like a scroll) or even sheath (like a retractable projector screen) to prevent the flexible part from being creased when transported. I imagine all the electronics and batteries being in the core, and just the screen rolling. Finally, for it to have any space-saving properties, the core and screen would both have to be thin.
I first imagined this being used for large-size eInk devices for reading schematics and floor plans. You really don't wouldn't want to carry around tablet the size of an A1, A2 or A3 paper. You could get away with an A3 surface size by folding in half to A4, but beyond that you need something like an accordion fold or roll-able, and I think roll-able would be better as it doesn't have seams. This could be done now using eInk for the display and the core would be quite small (although annoying to design), considering how the volume of electronics in small eBook readers.
I could also see it being used for smaller devices. Like a phone or PDA that wrapped around your wrist like a slap-bracelet. This will require further miniaturization before practical, but it isn't' too far away.
Ironic is when one's words say one thing and one's actions another that contradict it.
No, that is hypocritical. Situational Irony is where the outcome is has a humorous incongruity or discrepancy from what one would expect, or from what would normally be implied by the situation. The fact that the company which produces and sells MySQL wasn't using SQL correctly is indeed ironic.
Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.
I've been reading about C++0x for years now, and never realized that the 0x referred to a new revision of C++ to be released in 200X, until I just now saw the FAQ entry about C++1x. I assumed it was some odd inside reference to hex number prefix that I just didn't get. I thought the Y2K bug incident had purged everyone who didn't use full dates:)
For if one of the most technologically advanced countries on Earth who has had years of experience with nuclear energy
The Fukushima plant was began construction in 1967 (before Chernobyl). At that time Japan wasn't one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, nor did they have years of experience with nuclear energy. If their engineers managed to create a power plant that nearly survived the largest earthquake and tsunami in the countries history, then I am pretty confident that engineers today can build one that will operate safely in just about any conditions.
Life's parade of fashion just leaves me depressed Under every garment I can see the world's address Call the men of science and let them hear this song Tell them Albert Einstein and Copernicus were wrong
The world's address A place that's worn A sad pun that reflects a sadder mess I'll repeat it for those who may not have already guessed The world's address
I was speaking under the assumption that Apple would want to add this very useful feature to the iPad someday. Although that is probably delusional considering they won't even add a USB port to it:)
Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The summary is flat out wrong the way it is worded, but there are legitimate licensing issues.
The problem is with the iPhone, not OS X (yet). If you distribute binaries covered by the GPLv3 on a device, the license requires you to provide any signing keys, or other information/tools required to run modified versions of the software on the device. The iPhone requires all applications to be signed, and does not provide signing keys to it's users, thus they can't use GPLv3 software (like samba) on iOS.
They probably figure it is easier to maintain a single SMB/CIFS implementation rather than two, so they are ditching it on OS X as well (or they have other plans for OS X that we are not aware of yet).
Wikipedia says that the OtherOS had access to 6 of the 7 cell cores (SPEs), and the main processor (PPE). The cell was designed for parallel tasks, and is much better at it than a standard processor. Furthermore, the RSX uses a traditional fixed-function architecture (hardware is dedicated to vertex-shaders and pixel shaders), unlike newer GPGPUs that have a bunch of ALUs that can be used for any task. This makes it much harder to write general computation code. Also, the bandwidth to the RSX is much less than to the SPEs, which further limits how much data you can crunch with it.
I know the folding@home programmers decided that it wasn't worth the time and effort to do number crunching on the RSX (they are a native application not running in OtherOS, so they had full access to the machine), as they expected the increase in performance to be minimal.
It is possible that they either bought a dev-kit and wrote native applications (and Sony decided to sign their code), or they Sony gave them access to master keys so they can do whatever they want, but it isn't necessary.
Ah, nevermind, I found an Air Force article that quotes the guy who built the cluster that confirms that they are using stock firmware/linux:
"The server runs on a Linux operating system that isn't available on the newer firmware of current systems," said Mr. Barnell. "We have to abide by the end-user license agreement like everyone else, so we're only able to use the systems as we get them."
If a Condor PS3 breaks it can't be sent in for repairs because it comes back with system updates that are unable to run Linux. After an update, it's useless in the Condor cluster.
"I have a few spares," he said. "But as they break, we'll end up removing consoles from the cluster."
That doesn't sound right. I haven't used it myself, but I understood that the other OS had access to all the Cell cores, it just couldn't access the RSX GPU, which wouldn't really matter for a number crunching cluster.
Intel is strongly denying Oracle's claims that Itanium is near end-of-life. So it looks like more Oracle FUD, and probably intended to harm HP-UX rather than Intel.
Shielding is primarily used to take care of the low-hanging fruit when dealing with space radiation. There are some really high energy particles out there which are simply impractical to completely block with passive shielding.
Furthermore, energetic particles do the most damage when they are low-enough energy that object they hit can just barely stop them (at the Bragg Peak), whereas very high energy particles are more likely to pass right through without interacting. If you have a relatively uniform distribution of particle energies, then additional shielding may block the lower energy ones, but slow down the higher energy ones to take their place, leaving you with a similar distribution of particles as you began with. One of my professors told me that she has even heard of rare situations where additional shielding actually made things worse through that substitution effect. Normally, after about 20-50mm of aluminum, it helps some but not enough to justify the additional launch costs.
I'm taking a course right now about how to predict and mitigate space radiation effects in electronics. We may have skipped over radiation that harms humans but not electronics, but here is what I know.
The radiation you are talking about are the all result of nuclear decay. In science/engineering the word radiation can refer to any type of electromagnetic or energetic particle which is radiating from an object. Nuclear radiation generally isn't a concern in the space environment (unless you are carrying some nuclear material yourself).
The types radiation that we are primarily concerned about in space are charged particles: electrons, protons, and heavy ions (any ionized atom). Those all interact with electromagnetic fields. The fact that the earth's magnetic field has such a profound affect on radiation is why terrestrial radiation is at a much lower level than space radiation.
But while it makes the terrestrial environment nicer, the earth's magnetic shield makes the orbital environment worse, as all those charged particles that would have hit the earth either get deflected or trapped where they travel back and forth along the magnetic field lines (see Van Allen Belts) which is of course worst at the poles (see South Atlantic Anomaly).
Neutrons are also a concern, as are X-Rays/Gamma-Rays (especially during solar flares), and even UV. But the vast majority of radiation effects are caused by charged particles.
Objective-C and C++ were created at the roughly same time, with the early work done without any knowledge of each other. OPPC (the early version of Objective-C) was written around 1981-82. "C with Classes" (the early version of C++) was written around 1979-83. The first books documenting Objective C and C++ were released in 1986 and 1985 respectively.Objective-C was standardized (as part of OpenStep) in 1994, while C++ became an ISO standard in 1998.
Apple didn't choose to use it because C++ wasn't different enough; they chose to use it because that is what the NextStep was written with back when Objective-C and C++ were both still in their infancy.
From what I gathered on their website, Mirah was created by one of the main JRuby developers in order to create a language that fits in better with the JVM capabilities and Java ecosystem than a strait port of Ruby. The end result should offer better performance and cleaner integration with existing Java code then JRuby, while providing nicer syntax than Java.
Groovy is slow as snot, and I wouldn't use it for anything other than perhaps a user scripting language for a java application, and even for that I think there are better options. No clue how Mirah compares to Scala. That was my first question as well.
And to further support the parent's point, just look at the first section of the GPL, which original poster left out:
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
Thus if using headers does not constitute a derivative work with regards to copyright law, then the GPL does not apply to works that use (only) those headers. The next two sections of the GPL which were quoted contain language that supports this:
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
That would be a good architecture, provided the carefully audited the interface between UIWebView and the other applications. Who knows if Apple will ever bother to rearchitect it in that manner.
The problem isn't with the intentional ARM code written by the applications. It is with code injected into the application (via an exploitable bug, like a buffer overflow) by malicious software. Setting noexec on data pages and nowrite on code pages is a security feature that prevents a large class of remote exploits, by ensuring that only the original code is executed.
Compiling code on the fly should only be allowed on applications that have been carefully scrutinized for bugs, not every crappy app with an embedded web-browser. Even enabling it for Safari is risky, but is a lower attack surface than enabling it for any and all apps.
The scantron idea could be quick if it was parallelized. The following are assuming a single scanner.
At one extreme, each student is filling out their own form, which must then be passed down the row and then scanned, presumably one at a time. Everyone votes in parallel, but you have to scan 200 forms serially.
At the other extreme, you have a single scantron which is passed around, where each student answered one "question" (always the same number to track who voted for what). You only have to scan 1 form but must wait for 200 people to vote serially.
However, if students were sitting in rows of tables, and you passed one scantron down each row, then scanned each form, you would only have to wait for say 15 votes then 14 scans, which is pretty quick.
You are being intentionally obtuse. No it doesn't become illegitimate, you just have no way of knowing whether it is legitimate. The point is that if you care about whether the files are legitimate or not you will get them from the official source, not some third party. Furthermore, if you can't find the files on any official site, then they probably aren't legitimate. It really isn't that hard to tell.
If I download software for free from the developer's website, then it is almost certainly legal. If I download software from someone's random rapidshare folder then it probably isn't.
If I torrent a file from the official publisher's website, then I can safely assume it is legal. If I torrent something I randomly found on piratebay then it probably isn't. And if it is, it is almost assuredly available on an official site somewhere, so why bother with piratebay to begin with.
Bittorrent isn't an amorphous cloud like freenet or even gnutella. You got the.torrent file from somewhere, and are using a someone tracker (at least in the original design), so you can judge from those whether it is legit. I have downloaded a bunch of legal files with bittorrent, and never once have I visited a public tracker or torrent search site. It was simply offered as another option on their download page to help save them bandwidth.
No the allegation is that schools (aka the government) are requiring students/employees to use specific software as part of their job/class, and that this software isn't accessible.
ADA compliance is quite a bit more strict for government entities than it is for businesses.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't care for the design shown in the link at all. It didn't provide any advantages over a laptop, yet was trying to replace one. But I have thought of it before, and I do think it would be a good idea in some situations.
First some constraints. I don't think this would work well for a laptop; typing on a surface without tactile feedback sucks compared to a real keyboard. So it is limited to tablet-type applications. It would also need a solid core (like a scroll) or even sheath (like a retractable projector screen) to prevent the flexible part from being creased when transported. I imagine all the electronics and batteries being in the core, and just the screen rolling. Finally, for it to have any space-saving properties, the core and screen would both have to be thin.
I first imagined this being used for large-size eInk devices for reading schematics and floor plans. You really don't wouldn't want to carry around tablet the size of an A1, A2 or A3 paper. You could get away with an A3 surface size by folding in half to A4, but beyond that you need something like an accordion fold or roll-able, and I think roll-able would be better as it doesn't have seams. This could be done now using eInk for the display and the core would be quite small (although annoying to design), considering how the volume of electronics in small eBook readers.
I could also see it being used for smaller devices. Like a phone or PDA that wrapped around your wrist like a slap-bracelet. This will require further miniaturization before practical, but it isn't' too far away.
Ironic is when one's words say one thing and one's actions another that contradict it.
No, that is hypocritical. Situational Irony is where the outcome is has a humorous incongruity or discrepancy from what one would expect, or from what would normally be implied by the situation. The fact that the company which produces and sells MySQL wasn't using SQL correctly is indeed ironic.
Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.
I've been reading about C++0x for years now, and never realized that the 0x referred to a new revision of C++ to be released in 200X, until I just now saw the FAQ entry about C++1x. I assumed it was some odd inside reference to hex number prefix that I just didn't get. I thought the Y2K bug incident had purged everyone who didn't use full dates :)
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html
For if one of the most technologically advanced countries on Earth who has had years of experience with nuclear energy
The Fukushima plant was began construction in 1967 (before Chernobyl). At that time Japan wasn't one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, nor did they have years of experience with nuclear energy. If their engineers managed to create a power plant that nearly survived the largest earthquake and tsunami in the countries history, then I am pretty confident that engineers today can build one that will operate safely in just about any conditions.
Life's parade of fashion just leaves me depressed
Under every garment I can see the world's address
Call the men of science and let them hear this song
Tell them Albert Einstein and Copernicus were wrong
The world's address
A place that's worn
A sad pun that reflects a sadder mess
I'll repeat it for those who may not have already guessed
The world's address
I was speaking under the assumption that Apple would want to add this very useful feature to the iPad someday. Although that is probably delusional considering they won't even add a USB port to it :)
Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The summary is flat out wrong the way it is worded, but there are legitimate licensing issues.
The problem is with the iPhone, not OS X (yet). If you distribute binaries covered by the GPLv3 on a device, the license requires you to provide any signing keys, or other information/tools required to run modified versions of the software on the device. The iPhone requires all applications to be signed, and does not provide signing keys to it's users, thus they can't use GPLv3 software (like samba) on iOS.
They probably figure it is easier to maintain a single SMB/CIFS implementation rather than two, so they are ditching it on OS X as well (or they have other plans for OS X that we are not aware of yet).
Wikipedia says that the OtherOS had access to 6 of the 7 cell cores (SPEs), and the main processor (PPE). The cell was designed for parallel tasks, and is much better at it than a standard processor. Furthermore, the RSX uses a traditional fixed-function architecture (hardware is dedicated to vertex-shaders and pixel shaders), unlike newer GPGPUs that have a bunch of ALUs that can be used for any task. This makes it much harder to write general computation code. Also, the bandwidth to the RSX is much less than to the SPEs, which further limits how much data you can crunch with it.
I know the folding@home programmers decided that it wasn't worth the time and effort to do number crunching on the RSX (they are a native application not running in OtherOS, so they had full access to the machine), as they expected the increase in performance to be minimal.
It is possible that they either bought a dev-kit and wrote native applications (and Sony decided to sign their code), or they Sony gave them access to master keys so they can do whatever they want, but it isn't necessary.
Ah, nevermind, I found an Air Force article that quotes the guy who built the cluster that confirms that they are using stock firmware/linux:
"The server runs on a Linux operating system that isn't available on the newer firmware of current systems," said Mr. Barnell. "We have to abide by the end-user license agreement like everyone else, so we're only able to use the systems as we get them."
If a Condor PS3 breaks it can't be sent in for repairs because it comes back with system updates that are unable to run Linux. After an update, it's useless in the Condor cluster.
"I have a few spares," he said. "But as they break, we'll end up removing consoles from the cluster."
That doesn't sound right. I haven't used it myself, but I understood that the other OS had access to all the Cell cores, it just couldn't access the RSX GPU, which wouldn't really matter for a number crunching cluster.
Unless of course they're telling the truth.
Intel is strongly denying Oracle's claims that Itanium is near end-of-life. So it looks like more Oracle FUD, and probably intended to harm HP-UX rather than Intel.
Shielding is primarily used to take care of the low-hanging fruit when dealing with space radiation. There are some really high energy particles out there which are simply impractical to completely block with passive shielding.
Furthermore, energetic particles do the most damage when they are low-enough energy that object they hit can just barely stop them (at the Bragg Peak), whereas very high energy particles are more likely to pass right through without interacting. If you have a relatively uniform distribution of particle energies, then additional shielding may block the lower energy ones, but slow down the higher energy ones to take their place, leaving you with a similar distribution of particles as you began with. One of my professors told me that she has even heard of rare situations where additional shielding actually made things worse through that substitution effect. Normally, after about 20-50mm of aluminum, it helps some but not enough to justify the additional launch costs.
I'm taking a course right now about how to predict and mitigate space radiation effects in electronics. We may have skipped over radiation that harms humans but not electronics, but here is what I know.
The radiation you are talking about are the all result of nuclear decay. In science/engineering the word radiation can refer to any type of electromagnetic or energetic particle which is radiating from an object. Nuclear radiation generally isn't a concern in the space environment (unless you are carrying some nuclear material yourself).
The types radiation that we are primarily concerned about in space are charged particles: electrons, protons, and heavy ions (any ionized atom). Those all interact with electromagnetic fields. The fact that the earth's magnetic field has such a profound affect on radiation is why terrestrial radiation is at a much lower level than space radiation.
But while it makes the terrestrial environment nicer, the earth's magnetic shield makes the orbital environment worse, as all those charged particles that would have hit the earth either get deflected or trapped where they travel back and forth along the magnetic field lines (see Van Allen Belts) which is of course worst at the poles (see South Atlantic Anomaly).
Neutrons are also a concern, as are X-Rays/Gamma-Rays (especially during solar flares), and even UV. But the vast majority of radiation effects are caused by charged particles.
Objective-C and C++ were created at the roughly same time, with the early work done without any knowledge of each other. OPPC (the early version of Objective-C) was written around 1981-82. "C with Classes" (the early version of C++) was written around 1979-83. The first books documenting Objective C and C++ were released in 1986 and 1985 respectively.Objective-C was standardized (as part of OpenStep) in 1994, while C++ became an ISO standard in 1998.
Apple didn't choose to use it because C++ wasn't different enough; they chose to use it because that is what the NextStep was written with back when Objective-C and C++ were both still in their infancy.
From what I gathered on their website, Mirah was created by one of the main JRuby developers in order to create a language that fits in better with the JVM capabilities and Java ecosystem than a strait port of Ruby. The end result should offer better performance and cleaner integration with existing Java code then JRuby, while providing nicer syntax than Java.
Groovy is slow as snot, and I wouldn't use it for anything other than perhaps a user scripting language for a java application, and even for that I think there are better options. No clue how Mirah compares to Scala. That was my first question as well.
And to further support the parent's point, just look at the first section of the GPL, which original poster left out:
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
Thus if using headers does not constitute a derivative work with regards to copyright law, then the GPL does not apply to works that use (only) those headers. The next two sections of the GPL which were quoted contain language that supports this:
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
That would be a good architecture, provided the carefully audited the interface between UIWebView and the other applications. Who knows if Apple will ever bother to rearchitect it in that manner.
It's not; a webbrowser is a pretty damn big attack surface. But Safari + other apps is a larger attack surface than Safari alone.
The problem isn't with the intentional ARM code written by the applications. It is with code injected into the application (via an exploitable bug, like a buffer overflow) by malicious software. Setting noexec on data pages and nowrite on code pages is a security feature that prevents a large class of remote exploits, by ensuring that only the original code is executed.
Compiling code on the fly should only be allowed on applications that have been carefully scrutinized for bugs, not every crappy app with an embedded web-browser. Even enabling it for Safari is risky, but is a lower attack surface than enabling it for any and all apps.
The scantron idea could be quick if it was parallelized. The following are assuming a single scanner.
At one extreme, each student is filling out their own form, which must then be passed down the row and then scanned, presumably one at a time. Everyone votes in parallel, but you have to scan 200 forms serially.
At the other extreme, you have a single scantron which is passed around, where each student answered one "question" (always the same number to track who voted for what). You only have to scan 1 form but must wait for 200 people to vote serially.
However, if students were sitting in rows of tables, and you passed one scantron down each row, then scanned each form, you would only have to wait for say 15 votes then 14 scans, which is pretty quick.
Hey, just because they did things differently doesn't mean you should call people from Coventry England backwards.
You are being intentionally obtuse. No it doesn't become illegitimate, you just have no way of knowing whether it is legitimate. The point is that if you care about whether the files are legitimate or not you will get them from the official source, not some third party. Furthermore, if you can't find the files on any official site, then they probably aren't legitimate. It really isn't that hard to tell.
If I download software for free from the developer's website, then it is almost certainly legal. If I download software from someone's random rapidshare folder then it probably isn't.
If I torrent a file from the official publisher's website, then I can safely assume it is legal. If I torrent something I randomly found on piratebay then it probably isn't. And if it is, it is almost assuredly available on an official site somewhere, so why bother with piratebay to begin with.
Bittorrent isn't an amorphous cloud like freenet or even gnutella. You got the .torrent file from somewhere, and are using a someone tracker (at least in the original design), so you can judge from those whether it is legit. I have downloaded a bunch of legal files with bittorrent, and never once have I visited a public tracker or torrent search site. It was simply offered as another option on their download page to help save them bandwidth.
No the allegation is that schools (aka the government) are requiring students/employees to use specific software as part of their job/class, and that this software isn't accessible.
ADA compliance is quite a bit more strict for government entities than it is for businesses.