Because one of the reasons manufacturers like android is the ability to customize it. They don't want you to want Android; they want you to want an HTC android, so that the next time your contract is up, you get an HTC android again instead of Samsung or Motorola or anything else. If they were required to run stock android, their ability to differentiate their product would be lowered.
Now, I'm not saying the consumer appreciates things like HTC sense or Motoblur. The tech crowd certainly doesn't. But I do know this is the manufacturer mentality, because I remember reading concerns they had with WP7 and Microsoft's refusal to let them skin it. Honestly that's one thing they got very right about the platform.
Well, Apple's helping to get rid of Samsung's TouchWiz crap by filing all those lawsuits (it's not just "rounded corners" but the entire package, and since TouchWiz is default set up to look pretty much like an iOS device...).
Maybe we can ask Apple ot sue HTC and Motorola to get rid of Sense and Motoblur as well. At least turn the Apple lawsuits to do some good...
Err, HP seemed the have the same issue as Apple regarding getting a proper presentation of their Touchpad.
I think Best Buy would disagree. I seem to recall the endless signs of "Pre order the HP Touchpad now!" signs all throughout Best Buy stores for months. Heck, when the Touchpad was released, Best Buy had HP reps with tablets everyone.
Heck, the only other tablets they did ti for were the iPad 2 (obviously), and PlayBook (at least in Canada - RIM's Canadian after all). But after that, it was TouchPad all the way. The Xoom and other Android tablets didn't get as much attention as the TouchPad did.
The Kobo just suck ass. They are all nice and pretty in the store demos, but the don't hold a candle towards a Kindle or Nook (the e-ink ones). And I'm talking e-ink, not the Fire or Nook Color or a regular tablet.
Any phone smart enough to run Linux us smart enough to run WP7.
No, no, and no.
WP7 runs only on a certain processor (it's called a "chassis"). Right now it's a specific Qualcomm SoC. This ensures the WP7 experience is relatively consistent across all WP7 phones.
Linux can run on many more processors, and on processors far lower-end. You know, the ones that give Android a really bad name because they run it on sub-400MHz processors that can't keep up.
So a lightweight Linux phone OS is still useful - something with a processor with 100-400MHz of processor or less and such.
Probably because nobody ever replies with a reasonably affordable solution that is guarenteed to last for atleast 20 years.
Easy. Use film and photo paper - we've had photographs last a century or more already (your parents probably still have wedding photos and such that are still usable), and you never have to worry about both kinds of bit-rot (media degradation, format deprecation)..
Movies, solved problem as well - put it on film.
Of course, if it's digital, there are places that'll print them to film, and cheaply do high-quality photo prints as well on real photo paper.
You'll have to be choosy, but you'll have the digital for convenience, and the old skool analog for longevity as long as you keep it in a reasonbly cool and dry place. And yes, choosy means picking the one photo out of 100 that captures the memory. Also, when it does degrade, it tends to do so gradually, giving you time to restore them onto more archival media.
Actually, it's a bit disingenious to think that you can stick a modem to a serial port and call it a day. Hardware wise, that's all it is in all smartphones - even highly integrated chips have the baseband connected to the application CPU core via a standard interface like USB or shared memory or somesuch. Very easy and separates cleanly.
The software tack that resides on the application core (regardless of Android, WinMo, iOS, PalmOS, etc) is where the money's at. You may think it's trivial issuing AT commands to control the modem, but there's a TON more stuff going on behind the scenes.
It's a huge complex state machine for starters, and while you're doing one thing, your RIL proxy has to arbitrate by determining if it's safe to issue the command at the time (e.g., set up a data connection in the middle of sending/receiving an SMS or MMS).
In fact, it's so freaking huge and complex that it's really buggy. And modems are equally buggy - GSM07.07 leaves a lot to the imagination. Heck, I've seen a modem trip up the state machine of WinMo (and the RIL) because instead of sending "\r\n" to end a line, it sent "\n\r". Or sometimes "\n" only. (And sometimes you're handling multi-line inputs).
Then there are times when optional parameters aren't, and you have to get the current value so you don't change it, which is ferociously hard at times (in WinMo, everything is asynchronous - the AT command and AT response code were handled separately, easy for software since you just have a receive thread, but insane if you need to synchronously do something).
And nevermind the unsolicited events to complicate the mix (you're int he midst of getting a parameter so you can adjust it or pass it back, and you get an SMS... or a phone call).
It's actually quite a complex piece of code - RIL, the rest of the telephony stack, etc.
To verify the vote, simply count the paper-ballots the old-fashioned way, and compare the result with the results from the electronic voting.
Let's assume they don't match... What happens then? That's the problem with having two controls: you prefer one over the other, so you'll pay twice for the same information.
Really? The printed paper would be the one that counts, because a) the voter read the ballot before they deposited it. It's also the only record anyone has of the election. The electronic tally is unverifiable.
It's just like cheques. If you write a cheque and the written amount differs from the printed one, the bank will go with the written one because it's far harder to miswrite that over the amount. E.g., "one hundred and 10 cents" vs " 101.00".
So why not reduce the very expensive middleman and eliminate electronic voting altogether?
Well, e-voting allows for accessibility (paper ballots are hard to use by the blind, but it's trivial for an e-voting machine to speak the choice). Sure you're allowed to bring in an assistant to help, but that can lead to vote coercion.
A printed paper ballot can also be printed in such a way that the vote is unambiguous. No "hanging chads" or such - the paper shows the vote clearly. Even if the printer runs out midway it's still readable with enough redundancy (name, party affiliation) by humans, etc.
e-voting machines can also give you a quick ballot count while the official results are manually counted, Which makes people happy.
Lots of advantages, just everyone is Doing It Wrong(tm).
It doesn't even really mean that someone removed the book from their library. If you read carefully it says that these are the most challenged books, where a challenge is defined as a formal written complaint or request to remove the book from the library. None of these materials are actually censored.
If enough parents get together, "challenged" turns into "censored" very quickly. It has happened many times in the past and would probably happen in the future.
There are many groups who do these things, including ones like the Parents Television Council that floods the FCC and Apple with complaints over the slightest bit of female breast exposure. (I tossed Apple in there because they're the ones behind the "no porn in the App Store" - too many complaints, see (apps can get 1000+ complaints in a day from groups like them)).
And hey, there were huge protests from parents here over letting schools have 3 children's books featuring alternative families (i.e., homosexual couples) in the library. The books just featured stories about families with two dads or two moms as perfectly normal. Had it been written as one dad one mom, no one would've complained. Just because it featured a homosexual family doing normal stuff.
Right, go ask 10 random people on the street what they think should happen to copyright law, and see how many of them care. When no one cares, then the people who do care tend to get their way (which is, artists and recording industries.
Which is why you don't frame ACTA as a copyright law. Copyright is a boring thing.
You frame it in the way it would affect people's lives. Things like "Anti-iPod law" and the like. Things that they do that they won't know is illegal to do.
Heck, you can even try to be dramatic saying "download music, go to jail" and "is that link legal? Do you want to risk jail to find out?" It may even have to take a little stirring of the pot in saying downloading music will become illegal (ignoring iTunes and other legal download sources). Or that YouTube video you watch might land you in jail.
That's how you frame copyright law. Format shifting? That's fancy talk no one understands. "Copying to their iPod" everyone gets and no one sees anything wrong with it.
Sure, you could include dodgy.exe in an email and give moronic users instructions how to right-click to save it to disk, open a file manager, go find the file on disk, then double-click on it to execute it, but thanks to human laziness very few people are going to go to all that trouble just to see the naked photo, and quite a few will probably remember being told never to do such a thing anyway.
Users can do a surprisingly technical number of things in order to see Dancing Pigs. Let me describe in general the steps one had to take in order to do something a while back. First they had to download an executable, then run that executable. Click a few buttons. Then they had to tap a little bit, then find and download PuTTY and a SFTP client. Download another file, then use the SFTP client to transfer that file. Finally, log into PuTTY and execute a bunch of commands.
And what did I describe? How to jailbreak an iPhone in the 2.x days and download and install the modified installer file to run pirated apps. And enough people did it that they left OpenSSH running with default password because none of the tutorials said to change the password. Which lead to an iphone virus that simply ssh'd itself around.
And it happens on Android as well - people install alternative stores to pirate Android apps, or download torrents of apps of unknown quality, leading to Android based botnets and such. And everyone who claims to read every single permission before tapping install is lying - again, users "want that app" so they'll tap install blindly. The permissions box is just a fancy version of "This file was downloaded off the Internet. Only run trusted files. Do you wish to run it?" dialogs that Windows and OS X has.
What would happen is Apple writes a cheque to Samsung for those 3G patents, like Apple did for Nokia.
The reason for this is well, anyone who wants to use 3G may not have anything to contribute - if I stick a 3G module on my board for my product, there may be nothing of use to those who own the 3G patents I need to license. So being able to license it straight up is a bonus. (And yes, things are very fuzzy - Apple doesn't design 3G stuff - they stick a 3G chip and circuits to the board, which isn't much different than someone buying a 3G modem board and sticking it on their board. The question is who paid licensing and where - did Apple pay by buying the Qualcomm/Infineon parts already?).
Of course, Apple has patents everyone wants (Nokia wants them as does Samsung) but feels is worth more than just the 3G stuff.
End result is either Apple cuts Samsung a big 3G cheque like it did with Nokia, or they cross license and Samsung then pays Apple a big fat cheque for the patents it wants to cross license.
(As for the rounded corners stuff - the trade dress includes the fact that software itself is very iOS like with its icons, the page dots, etc. In fact, all Samsung has to do is get rid of TouchWiz and Apple loses. And Android users rejoice at being able to get rid of a crappy skin and revert back to standard Android. )
Is there a way for a CPU to make mutex handling easier and more efficient?
No. Because mutexes as slow (though highly efficient already).
Most architectures of today provide all the necessary tools to implement lockless algorithms which are more complex, but faster. They're less efficient (because they often do a "try and get lucky" style of processing), but if you have a ton of threads and pretty idle CPUs, it's less of an issue.
And support for this comes in the form of memory barriers (read and write - they're different) and conditional exchange instructions (if value of memory is same as register X, then swap X and memory) up to native word size (or more). The latter is important as you need to be able to swap pointer-sized things atomically.
An example of "try and get lucky" is in singleton object initialization. Say your code instantiates an object, and the object needs ot initialize.
If the object has been instantiated before, you return the existing object. If not, you instantiate and initialize. So far, exactly as how it's done normally, except no lock was taken during the check (!).
Now you initailize the object, and the magic happens near the end. You do a memory barrier to ensure all I/O and memory accesses are done. You then do an atomic compare-and-swap with the memory to hold your instance. If no one else has initialized it yet, it should still be NULL, so you compare with NULL and exchange with your instantiation.
If you succeed, you get the old value of the memory (i.e., NULL). If you fail, you get your instance pointer back (because the exchange failed). If you succeeded, object is initialized. If you failed, someone else initialized it under you, and you destroy the object you initialized and use the one already there.
You can extend this for processing as well - often by using a sequence counter to "flag" what has been done. Or linked lists (being able to verify no one stomped over your next pointer). Or many other structures.
it's less efficient because you're doing more work than necessary (e.g., if you have 100 threads, all 100 may initialize the singleton simultaneously, but only one will succeed and you would throw away the results of the other 99).
Why is healthcare such a rip-off? In nationalised healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high; in private healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high.
You have to remember, that a M.D. has a doctorate degree. And before they can basically earn any money, they have to get their doctorate. So at med school, they get their bachelor's, then do their masters, internships, residencies, then their doctorate. At which point then they can go and make money. But it's still a multi-year process and by the time they're done at the earliest they're in their late 20's or early 30's, and saddled with large debts (imagine having to student loan your way through your doctorate).
So you have a doctor who basically has to start paying off his huge debt and has anywhere from a 5 to 10 year delay before earning the "big bucks".
Then add in the fact that if the doctor is in private practice, they have to pay for an office, staff and equipment (even a doctor billing out $200K a year doesn't make that much after shelling out for an office and a receptionist/nurse). That's why they're often partner practices. Oh yeah, and in private healthcare, dealing with insurance and other payers can easily cost another $30-40k in paperwork alone per year. (It's much less in a single payer system - around $5k ish).
In places like Cuba, because the state pays for the education (it IS a Communist country), said doctor is no longer saddled with huge debts from education, the office and staff are likely provided for (by the state), so a doctor really only needs to earn enough to live on.
Oh yeah, the lawyers and malpractice costs are pretty high. I'm sure in Cuba that stuff is handled much quicker, mostly because of Communism means everyone is provided for, so there's no breadwinner to die and leave their family homeless because the remaining spouse can only get a minimum wage job.
Manufacturers are starting to ignore this now, though. For example, Roku doesn't consider overscan--it just displays its full resolution. That means that on CRTs, a moderate amount of the screen can be cut off. There's no way to adjust it on the Roku. If your TV can't adjust, you're out of luck.
Which is why there are still title and action safe areas even on HD. And said areas for 4:3 SD downconversion (important for TV shows).
Most devices don't care because it isn't needed for the vast majority of HDTVs out there. If it claims 720p, it can display all 1280x720 pixels. Ditto 1920x1080 for 1080p. Some TVs though have to put into a "pixel perfect" mode as they chop the frame down 5% (the HDTV overscan area) then upscale the remaining center of the frame up again
Apple also deserves a mention for pioneering the idea of packing the battery into the hard to open case of the phone/laptop itself, forcing 99% of the people who own these products to buy a new one as soon as the battery dies.
Yeah, because in a year's time when my laptop battery dies, I'll pay the $150 ($100 for a chinese OEM may-explode version) for a new one. NOT.
Most consumers don't buy spare batteries. Check it out sometime on what phones you can buy third party Li-Ion batteries for, and the selection will tend to be very weak unless the phone or laptop in question is very popular. A laptop older than 2 years or so, the replacement's so expensive it's not worth it. I'd be curious as to the sell through rate for spare batteries back when Apple still had replacable batteries. I'd guess that by the time you needed them, you couldn't find them (and since they wear out sitting on the shelf...).
Sure, business people will gripe (and they have a legitimate point), but Apple doesn't (and hasn't) care for them.
So yeah, it's a great conspiracy that Apple recognized that the vast majority of its customers don't ever use the replacable feature of its batteries, and by saving the space taken up by the battery, they can stick even larger ones inside their devices. Something most other manufacturers (Kindle, new Nooks, practically all tablets, iPad or Android or otherwise) have seen as well.
There's still some devices that recognize the need (e.g., cameras and camcorders) because people do buy spares for it, but for others, the only reason for it to be removable is tradition.
Well, it's not just that, it's that the devices are designed to give the most range possible without going with a unidirectional antenna. And the problem is that it worked fine when the 802.11b devices were first rolling out because few people had them, but as they've gotten to be common, you then have to deal with a dozen WAP competing for scarce spectrum.
The WiFi devices actually cooperate, it's part of the spec. A WiFi network consists of more than just the clients attached to it - it includes *all* clients and APs on the same channel as well.
First, the protocol is CSMA/CA, so any device using channel 1 (regardless of network) will try to avoid stomping on another device using channel 1, even if it's on a completely different (e.g., your neighbour's) network. It also has forward compatibility built in by setting a virtual carrier timeout - it's how 802.11n devices avoid conflicting with 802.11b/g devices. This virtual carrier basically tells incompatible devices that the medium is busy (for the specified duration) even if they can't decode the data.
And while you can DoS a network by doing this, you basicaly shut down the entire channel as everyone obeys it.
It's one of the reasons why setting a network to "g only" didn't really work (it was ignored if they detect a b device, which can be operating on another network, or in ad-hoc mode).
Interference still occurs though because you have classic radio problems of hidden nodes and such. But the IEEE recognized that nodes interfering with each other gave everyone less bandwidth than if they cooperated.
You don't need to prevent a user from being able to run apps, you just need to restrict default behaviors for apps, provide the user with information on how much an "expert" thinks they should trust software, and tell the user in clear and simple terms when the app wants more privileges and exactly what those privileges are. Finally, you need to present this in a usable interface. Apple is already heading down this route with both iOS and OS X. In OS X 10.7 apps are sandboxed by default, although I haven't seen a single report as to if this trojan works within the sandbox, breaks out of the sandbox, or simply fails entirely on Lion.
Users do not read dialog boxes. What you presented is a fancy dialog box, but that's all it is. The Android permissions system works only for tech savvy users. Those who don't will just click "Install" without reading the list at all.
If you default "no" several permissions, the app can say "I need X permission. Please enable it." and you'll find the user will do it.
It's called the Dancing Pigs Problem. The user will NOT care about security - they will do whatever it takes to run the app.
Yes, the days of the honor system virus are here. There's no way to protect the user without going to some walled-garden approach. They will open security holes if some app tells them to.
This is especially prevalent on ways for the users to get stuff for free. Offer pirated software and the user will download all sorts of crap.
Well, there are adequate replacements for CFCs. Why existing drugs were not reformulated using non-CFC propellants is beyond me. It'd been known for quite some time that CFCs would be banned.
Easy. They were exempt, and thus people would continue as they always did.
Why produce a CFC-free inhalant, when the ban is years away? Producing new requires R&D money. Producing old is just getting profit as R&D is done.
Humans are lazy. They won't change if they don't have to. And since inhalers were exempt, no one bothered producing the CFC free stuff in any quantity to push prices down.
The same happens to everything else - even if you give a generous transition period, things don't happen until the last minute.
You don't need a college degree to get a job, although we as a society have done a very good job of convincing young people otherwise.
The odds say otherwise if you want one with decent pay. It is and always will be possible to do well without a college degree but the simple fact is that there is copious data to support that, on average, having a college degree will result in significantly higher pay. Many/most professional jobs these days won't even give you an interview unless you have a degree. We can debate whether that is a good thing or not (probably not) but those are the facts.
There's more to post-secondary educatoin than just college and university.
It is true that there are practically no jobs for those without a high school graduation, and very few well paying jobs for those with (crab fishing in Alaska, oil worker grunt, etc - they pay well, but mostly because they're physically very demanding jobs).
However, getting post-secondary education opens up more jobs. There is the traditional professional positions which require a degree and thus a track in college or university.
There is also the skilled trades. Auto mechanic, airplane mechanic, plumber, electrician, etc. These require post secondary education and while they don't give degrees, are often fairly well paid practical jobs once you're through apprenticeship and got your license.
Trade school gets a bad rap because the IT Trades really aren't all they're cracked up to be, but the traditional trades can be where it's at.
It's not going to be easy to get 6 figures, but skilled tradeworkers can be paid extremely well, and shortages happen because parents tend to push their children towards the professional officeworker track (college/university degree) rather than the "greasemonkey" route.
Information is an asset I'll admit. But the access to the information was clearly bounded by Border's privacy policy. I really don't understand why the courts are even considering the possibility of allowing it to be sold. If the privacy policy said only Borders would access the data then when Borders ceases to exist than so should the data. B&N can just ask you to give them the info if you choose to under their privacy agreement. The fact that the company would even try to purchase information covered under a privacy agreement with another company puts them on my no-buy list.
In a bankruptcy situation, the court is the one in charge of trying to get back as much money as possible for creditors (secured first, then unsecured if there's anything left over).
Some stuff can't be sold, and aren't. Others may have zero value, but if someone comes to the court and say they want to pay money for it, the court will sell it because it allows creditors to be paid.
If it concerns you that much, put in a bid. Maybe you can convince the court that not selling it to B&N is a good thing and you'll pay for it for its destruction. Heck, maybe you can ask the court for permission to see the list so you can put up a collection of $10 each to pay for the information. If you can convince the court you'll get at least $13M for it, they'll probably allow it. If you get more, even better for all involved. Of course, you have to guarantee it, but the courts will entertain higher bids (again, more creditors get paid).
Nope. SUA is predominantly used for console applications. They've moved on from "Extend" to "Extinguish" now.
It's console-only, actually. It's just something that runs on the POSIX subsystem that NT provides, but it really sucks. First, it's an ancient POSIX interface. Second, it's command line only - it's not like you get X or anything. Third, well, you lose access to Win32 (can't cross subsystems).
If's really a checkbox item, just like how NT had the ability to run OS/2 programs too.
If you're porting a Unix app to Windows, you don't use SUA. You use a Unix-to-Win32 porting library (of which Cygwin is just one), just like how Windows apps can be ported to Linux using WineLib or its commercial equivalents as well.
Hell, a Cygwin program at least can mix Win32 API calls with POSIX calls, because Cygwin maps POSIX calls to Win32.
All of the things you mentioned above are _positive_ things, in that you would have to be crazy to use the bios for anything other than loading the os and getting the hell out.
EFI has a driver interface that an OS can use as a last resort. So you can boot to "safe mode" and the OS, instead of using its own drivers, can use the EFI drivers and get the system in a known working state.
Or, Linux can use it to boot on wierd hardware and at least be able to minimally use the hardware. Not a bad thing if you have some funky RAID array that Linux doesn't support - being able to mount it and read data off it beats any alternative.
You won't be able to game, but at least it's a last resort that can give you a working PC. Or a minimally available one you can remote into and fix.
A "gets the hell out of the way" bootloader is possible, but if things break, it can be damn difficult to recover. Sure you can boot Knoppix, and modern Windows (Vista/7) come with utilities to try to help you get your files out, but they're limited and their UI stinks (nevermind if you need a RAID driver...) (You often know this when you "brick" a device and have to resort to JTAG to fix it. Having a built-in recovery routine in the bootloader can at least avoid a nasty trip for repair).
Too stupid and buy cable connections because they offer "bigger numbers".
Go to dslreports.com and see - the cable provider forums are constantly filled with "high ping" and "lag spiking" complaints. Of course, they refuse to try DSL because their 15/1 connection outclasses the 3/.5 max that they can get via DSL. There are those who use both - DSL for gaming (constant latency), cable for fast downloads.
Bandwidth sells - it's easy to show pages/movies/downloads arrive faster. Latency, not so much. Heck, most cable providers advertise "more speed for better gaming performance!" rather than low latency.
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Well, Apple's helping to get rid of Samsung's TouchWiz crap by filing all those lawsuits (it's not just "rounded corners" but the entire package, and since TouchWiz is default set up to look pretty much like an iOS device...).
Maybe we can ask Apple ot sue HTC and Motorola to get rid of Sense and Motoblur as well. At least turn the Apple lawsuits to do some good...
I think Best Buy would disagree. I seem to recall the endless signs of "Pre order the HP Touchpad now!" signs all throughout Best Buy stores for months. Heck, when the Touchpad was released, Best Buy had HP reps with tablets everyone.
Heck, the only other tablets they did ti for were the iPad 2 (obviously), and PlayBook (at least in Canada - RIM's Canadian after all). But after that, it was TouchPad all the way. The Xoom and other Android tablets didn't get as much attention as the TouchPad did.
Well, Google learned and released the Nexus S, available form every carrier that it supports, fully unlocked.
Yes, you can march down to Best Buy and walk home with a Nexus S. Given its age, it's often free with contract these days.
Given how well it sells, Google seems to have fixed that problem.
Seriously.
The Kobo just suck ass. They are all nice and pretty in the store demos, but the don't hold a candle towards a Kindle or Nook (the e-ink ones). And I'm talking e-ink, not the Fire or Nook Color or a regular tablet.
Kobos are the Ladas of the car world.
No, no, and no.
WP7 runs only on a certain processor (it's called a "chassis"). Right now it's a specific Qualcomm SoC. This ensures the WP7 experience is relatively consistent across all WP7 phones.
Linux can run on many more processors, and on processors far lower-end. You know, the ones that give Android a really bad name because they run it on sub-400MHz processors that can't keep up.
So a lightweight Linux phone OS is still useful - something with a processor with 100-400MHz of processor or less and such.
Easy. Use film and photo paper - we've had photographs last a century or more already (your parents probably still have wedding photos and such that are still usable), and you never have to worry about both kinds of bit-rot (media degradation, format deprecation)..
Movies, solved problem as well - put it on film.
Of course, if it's digital, there are places that'll print them to film, and cheaply do high-quality photo prints as well on real photo paper.
You'll have to be choosy, but you'll have the digital for convenience, and the old skool analog for longevity as long as you keep it in a reasonbly cool and dry place. And yes, choosy means picking the one photo out of 100 that captures the memory. Also, when it does degrade, it tends to do so gradually, giving you time to restore them onto more archival media.
Actually, it's a bit disingenious to think that you can stick a modem to a serial port and call it a day. Hardware wise, that's all it is in all smartphones - even highly integrated chips have the baseband connected to the application CPU core via a standard interface like USB or shared memory or somesuch. Very easy and separates cleanly.
The software tack that resides on the application core (regardless of Android, WinMo, iOS, PalmOS, etc) is where the money's at. You may think it's trivial issuing AT commands to control the modem, but there's a TON more stuff going on behind the scenes.
It's a huge complex state machine for starters, and while you're doing one thing, your RIL proxy has to arbitrate by determining if it's safe to issue the command at the time (e.g., set up a data connection in the middle of sending/receiving an SMS or MMS).
In fact, it's so freaking huge and complex that it's really buggy. And modems are equally buggy - GSM07.07 leaves a lot to the imagination. Heck, I've seen a modem trip up the state machine of WinMo (and the RIL) because instead of sending "\r\n" to end a line, it sent "\n\r". Or sometimes "\n" only. (And sometimes you're handling multi-line inputs).
Then there are times when optional parameters aren't, and you have to get the current value so you don't change it, which is ferociously hard at times (in WinMo, everything is asynchronous - the AT command and AT response code were handled separately, easy for software since you just have a receive thread, but insane if you need to synchronously do something).
And nevermind the unsolicited events to complicate the mix (you're int he midst of getting a parameter so you can adjust it or pass it back, and you get an SMS... or a phone call).
It's actually quite a complex piece of code - RIL, the rest of the telephony stack, etc.
Really? The printed paper would be the one that counts, because a) the voter read the ballot before they deposited it. It's also the only record anyone has of the election. The electronic tally is unverifiable.
It's just like cheques. If you write a cheque and the written amount differs from the printed one, the bank will go with the written one because it's far harder to miswrite that over the amount. E.g., "one hundred and 10 cents" vs " 101.00".
Well, e-voting allows for accessibility (paper ballots are hard to use by the blind, but it's trivial for an e-voting machine to speak the choice). Sure you're allowed to bring in an assistant to help, but that can lead to vote coercion.
A printed paper ballot can also be printed in such a way that the vote is unambiguous. No "hanging chads" or such - the paper shows the vote clearly. Even if the printer runs out midway it's still readable with enough redundancy (name, party affiliation) by humans, etc.
e-voting machines can also give you a quick ballot count while the official results are manually counted, Which makes people happy.
Lots of advantages, just everyone is Doing It Wrong(tm).
If enough parents get together, "challenged" turns into "censored" very quickly. It has happened many times in the past and would probably happen in the future.
There are many groups who do these things, including ones like the Parents Television Council that floods the FCC and Apple with complaints over the slightest bit of female breast exposure. (I tossed Apple in there because they're the ones behind the "no porn in the App Store" - too many complaints, see (apps can get 1000+ complaints in a day from groups like them)).
And hey, there were huge protests from parents here over letting schools have 3 children's books featuring alternative families (i.e., homosexual couples) in the library. The books just featured stories about families with two dads or two moms as perfectly normal. Had it been written as one dad one mom, no one would've complained. Just because it featured a homosexual family doing normal stuff.
Which is why you don't frame ACTA as a copyright law. Copyright is a boring thing.
You frame it in the way it would affect people's lives. Things like "Anti-iPod law" and the like. Things that they do that they won't know is illegal to do.
Heck, you can even try to be dramatic saying "download music, go to jail" and "is that link legal? Do you want to risk jail to find out?" It may even have to take a little stirring of the pot in saying downloading music will become illegal (ignoring iTunes and other legal download sources). Or that YouTube video you watch might land you in jail.
That's how you frame copyright law. Format shifting? That's fancy talk no one understands. "Copying to their iPod" everyone gets and no one sees anything wrong with it.
Users can do a surprisingly technical number of things in order to see Dancing Pigs. Let me describe in general the steps one had to take in order to do something a while back. First they had to download an executable, then run that executable. Click a few buttons. Then they had to tap a little bit, then find and download PuTTY and a SFTP client. Download another file, then use the SFTP client to transfer that file. Finally, log into PuTTY and execute a bunch of commands.
And what did I describe? How to jailbreak an iPhone in the 2.x days and download and install the modified installer file to run pirated apps. And enough people did it that they left OpenSSH running with default password because none of the tutorials said to change the password. Which lead to an iphone virus that simply ssh'd itself around.
Facebook spam relies on users copying and pasting raw javascript.in order to post to feeds.
And it happens on Android as well - people install alternative stores to pirate Android apps, or download torrents of apps of unknown quality, leading to Android based botnets and such. And everyone who claims to read every single permission before tapping install is lying - again, users "want that app" so they'll tap install blindly. The permissions box is just a fancy version of "This file was downloaded off the Internet. Only run trusted files. Do you wish to run it?" dialogs that Windows and OS X has.
What would happen is Apple writes a cheque to Samsung for those 3G patents, like Apple did for Nokia.
The reason for this is well, anyone who wants to use 3G may not have anything to contribute - if I stick a 3G module on my board for my product, there may be nothing of use to those who own the 3G patents I need to license. So being able to license it straight up is a bonus. (And yes, things are very fuzzy - Apple doesn't design 3G stuff - they stick a 3G chip and circuits to the board, which isn't much different than someone buying a 3G modem board and sticking it on their board. The question is who paid licensing and where - did Apple pay by buying the Qualcomm/Infineon parts already?).
Of course, Apple has patents everyone wants (Nokia wants them as does Samsung) but feels is worth more than just the 3G stuff.
End result is either Apple cuts Samsung a big 3G cheque like it did with Nokia, or they cross license and Samsung then pays Apple a big fat cheque for the patents it wants to cross license.
(As for the rounded corners stuff - the trade dress includes the fact that software itself is very iOS like with its icons, the page dots, etc. In fact, all Samsung has to do is get rid of TouchWiz and Apple loses. And Android users rejoice at being able to get rid of a crappy skin and revert back to standard Android. )
No. Because mutexes as slow (though highly efficient already).
Most architectures of today provide all the necessary tools to implement lockless algorithms which are more complex, but faster. They're less efficient (because they often do a "try and get lucky" style of processing), but if you have a ton of threads and pretty idle CPUs, it's less of an issue.
And support for this comes in the form of memory barriers (read and write - they're different) and conditional exchange instructions (if value of memory is same as register X, then swap X and memory) up to native word size (or more). The latter is important as you need to be able to swap pointer-sized things atomically.
An example of "try and get lucky" is in singleton object initialization. Say your code instantiates an object, and the object needs ot initialize.
If the object has been instantiated before, you return the existing object. If not, you instantiate and initialize. So far, exactly as how it's done normally, except no lock was taken during the check (!).
Now you initailize the object, and the magic happens near the end. You do a memory barrier to ensure all I/O and memory accesses are done. You then do an atomic compare-and-swap with the memory to hold your instance. If no one else has initialized it yet, it should still be NULL, so you compare with NULL and exchange with your instantiation.
If you succeed, you get the old value of the memory (i.e., NULL). If you fail, you get your instance pointer back (because the exchange failed). If you succeeded, object is initialized. If you failed, someone else initialized it under you, and you destroy the object you initialized and use the one already there.
You can extend this for processing as well - often by using a sequence counter to "flag" what has been done. Or linked lists (being able to verify no one stomped over your next pointer). Or many other structures.
it's less efficient because you're doing more work than necessary (e.g., if you have 100 threads, all 100 may initialize the singleton simultaneously, but only one will succeed and you would throw away the results of the other 99).
You have to remember, that a M.D. has a doctorate degree. And before they can basically earn any money, they have to get their doctorate. So at med school, they get their bachelor's, then do their masters, internships, residencies, then their doctorate. At which point then they can go and make money. But it's still a multi-year process and by the time they're done at the earliest they're in their late 20's or early 30's, and saddled with large debts (imagine having to student loan your way through your doctorate).
So you have a doctor who basically has to start paying off his huge debt and has anywhere from a 5 to 10 year delay before earning the "big bucks".
Then add in the fact that if the doctor is in private practice, they have to pay for an office, staff and equipment (even a doctor billing out $200K a year doesn't make that much after shelling out for an office and a receptionist/nurse). That's why they're often partner practices. Oh yeah, and in private healthcare, dealing with insurance and other payers can easily cost another $30-40k in paperwork alone per year. (It's much less in a single payer system - around $5k ish).
In places like Cuba, because the state pays for the education (it IS a Communist country), said doctor is no longer saddled with huge debts from education, the office and staff are likely provided for (by the state), so a doctor really only needs to earn enough to live on.
Oh yeah, the lawyers and malpractice costs are pretty high. I'm sure in Cuba that stuff is handled much quicker, mostly because of Communism means everyone is provided for, so there's no breadwinner to die and leave their family homeless because the remaining spouse can only get a minimum wage job.
Which is why there are still title and action safe areas even on HD. And said areas for 4:3 SD downconversion (important for TV shows).
Most devices don't care because it isn't needed for the vast majority of HDTVs out there. If it claims 720p, it can display all 1280x720 pixels. Ditto 1920x1080 for 1080p. Some TVs though have to put into a "pixel perfect" mode as they chop the frame down 5% (the HDTV overscan area) then upscale the remaining center of the frame up again
Yeah, because in a year's time when my laptop battery dies, I'll pay the $150 ($100 for a chinese OEM may-explode version) for a new one. NOT.
Most consumers don't buy spare batteries. Check it out sometime on what phones you can buy third party Li-Ion batteries for, and the selection will tend to be very weak unless the phone or laptop in question is very popular. A laptop older than 2 years or so, the replacement's so expensive it's not worth it. I'd be curious as to the sell through rate for spare batteries back when Apple still had replacable batteries. I'd guess that by the time you needed them, you couldn't find them (and since they wear out sitting on the shelf...).
Sure, business people will gripe (and they have a legitimate point), but Apple doesn't (and hasn't) care for them.
So yeah, it's a great conspiracy that Apple recognized that the vast majority of its customers don't ever use the replacable feature of its batteries, and by saving the space taken up by the battery, they can stick even larger ones inside their devices. Something most other manufacturers (Kindle, new Nooks, practically all tablets, iPad or Android or otherwise) have seen as well.
There's still some devices that recognize the need (e.g., cameras and camcorders) because people do buy spares for it, but for others, the only reason for it to be removable is tradition.
The WiFi devices actually cooperate, it's part of the spec. A WiFi network consists of more than just the clients attached to it - it includes *all* clients and APs on the same channel as well.
First, the protocol is CSMA/CA, so any device using channel 1 (regardless of network) will try to avoid stomping on another device using channel 1, even if it's on a completely different (e.g., your neighbour's) network. It also has forward compatibility built in by setting a virtual carrier timeout - it's how 802.11n devices avoid conflicting with 802.11b/g devices. This virtual carrier basically tells incompatible devices that the medium is busy (for the specified duration) even if they can't decode the data.
And while you can DoS a network by doing this, you basicaly shut down the entire channel as everyone obeys it.
It's one of the reasons why setting a network to "g only" didn't really work (it was ignored if they detect a b device, which can be operating on another network, or in ad-hoc mode).
Interference still occurs though because you have classic radio problems of hidden nodes and such. But the IEEE recognized that nodes interfering with each other gave everyone less bandwidth than if they cooperated.
Users do not read dialog boxes. What you presented is a fancy dialog box, but that's all it is. The Android permissions system works only for tech savvy users. Those who don't will just click "Install" without reading the list at all.
If you default "no" several permissions, the app can say "I need X permission. Please enable it." and you'll find the user will do it.
It's called the Dancing Pigs Problem. The user will NOT care about security - they will do whatever it takes to run the app.
In fact, as Facebook users have shown they will basically be the attack vector.
Yes, the days of the honor system virus are here. There's no way to protect the user without going to some walled-garden approach. They will open security holes if some app tells them to.
This is especially prevalent on ways for the users to get stuff for free. Offer pirated software and the user will download all sorts of crap.
Easy. They were exempt, and thus people would continue as they always did.
Why produce a CFC-free inhalant, when the ban is years away? Producing new requires R&D money. Producing old is just getting profit as R&D is done.
Humans are lazy. They won't change if they don't have to. And since inhalers were exempt, no one bothered producing the CFC free stuff in any quantity to push prices down.
The same happens to everything else - even if you give a generous transition period, things don't happen until the last minute.
There's more to post-secondary educatoin than just college and university.
It is true that there are practically no jobs for those without a high school graduation, and very few well paying jobs for those with (crab fishing in Alaska, oil worker grunt, etc - they pay well, but mostly because they're physically very demanding jobs).
However, getting post-secondary education opens up more jobs. There is the traditional professional positions which require a degree and thus a track in college or university.
There is also the skilled trades. Auto mechanic, airplane mechanic, plumber, electrician, etc. These require post secondary education and while they don't give degrees, are often fairly well paid practical jobs once you're through apprenticeship and got your license.
Trade school gets a bad rap because the IT Trades really aren't all they're cracked up to be, but the traditional trades can be where it's at.
It's not going to be easy to get 6 figures, but skilled tradeworkers can be paid extremely well, and shortages happen because parents tend to push their children towards the professional officeworker track (college/university degree) rather than the "greasemonkey" route.
In a bankruptcy situation, the court is the one in charge of trying to get back as much money as possible for creditors (secured first, then unsecured if there's anything left over).
Some stuff can't be sold, and aren't. Others may have zero value, but if someone comes to the court and say they want to pay money for it, the court will sell it because it allows creditors to be paid.
If it concerns you that much, put in a bid. Maybe you can convince the court that not selling it to B&N is a good thing and you'll pay for it for its destruction. Heck, maybe you can ask the court for permission to see the list so you can put up a collection of $10 each to pay for the information. If you can convince the court you'll get at least $13M for it, they'll probably allow it. If you get more, even better for all involved. Of course, you have to guarantee it, but the courts will entertain higher bids (again, more creditors get paid).
It's console-only, actually. It's just something that runs on the POSIX subsystem that NT provides, but it really sucks. First, it's an ancient POSIX interface. Second, it's command line only - it's not like you get X or anything. Third, well, you lose access to Win32 (can't cross subsystems).
If's really a checkbox item, just like how NT had the ability to run OS/2 programs too.
If you're porting a Unix app to Windows, you don't use SUA. You use a Unix-to-Win32 porting library (of which Cygwin is just one), just like how Windows apps can be ported to Linux using WineLib or its commercial equivalents as well.
Hell, a Cygwin program at least can mix Win32 API calls with POSIX calls, because Cygwin maps POSIX calls to Win32.
EFI has a driver interface that an OS can use as a last resort. So you can boot to "safe mode" and the OS, instead of using its own drivers, can use the EFI drivers and get the system in a known working state.
Or, Linux can use it to boot on wierd hardware and at least be able to minimally use the hardware. Not a bad thing if you have some funky RAID array that Linux doesn't support - being able to mount it and read data off it beats any alternative.
You won't be able to game, but at least it's a last resort that can give you a working PC. Or a minimally available one you can remote into and fix.
A "gets the hell out of the way" bootloader is possible, but if things break, it can be damn difficult to recover. Sure you can boot Knoppix, and modern Windows (Vista/7) come with utilities to try to help you get your files out, but they're limited and their UI stinks (nevermind if you need a RAID driver...) (You often know this when you "brick" a device and have to resort to JTAG to fix it. Having a built-in recovery routine in the bootloader can at least avoid a nasty trip for repair).
Too stupid and buy cable connections because they offer "bigger numbers".
Go to dslreports.com and see - the cable provider forums are constantly filled with "high ping" and "lag spiking" complaints. Of course, they refuse to try DSL because their 15/1 connection outclasses the 3/.5 max that they can get via DSL. There are those who use both - DSL for gaming (constant latency), cable for fast downloads.
Bandwidth sells - it's easy to show pages/movies/downloads arrive faster. Latency, not so much. Heck, most cable providers advertise "more speed for better gaming performance!" rather than low latency.