$5bn in losses so far, and still no profits at the Home Entertainment division of Microsoft. If they wanted, they could give Zunes away for 10 years. It's hard to compete against that kind of financial muscle.
Browsing through the titles is really fascinating, because it gives you a bit of what the NSA was working on, or what that particular researcher was thinking about. It can even, depending on the title, give you a bit of a window into how that particular researcher thinks.
To someone who has a clue, this stuff must be a gold mine. Heck, I read the "adam and eve" article, and found out that the US was decrypting Enigma messages all the way back in 1943...and that's in the brochure section. Just looking at the prevalence of traffic analysis in the historical documents shows how message volume can be an event indicator.
What I haven't found yet is any indication that the NSA was using its decrypting information in a counter-decryption sort of way. I haven't found a title that says "thwarting traffic analysis with coherent noise," or "generating false positives can be more useful than generating false negatives."
Then again, there are titles like "Assignment of Storage Space in Rapid-Access Memory Systems, 1957." Whoa, that's a long time ago to be thinking about storage in RAM.
MS gives the IPTV infrastructure away for free, or at least that's what I understand. That means back-end servers, software, etc.
It's yet another failed attempt for MS to mean something outside of the Windows/Office monopoly...and they're destroying the economics of the business in the process. Too bad there isn't an anti-dumping law for domestic companies.
The exploit is in the centrino driver. Everyone assumes that the Mac airport driver is based on Intel reference code, but it may not be. If it was, you would think that they would have talked about that more.
Note that for this exploit to work, the network needs to be active (ie: both cards need to be joined to a base station). Why? Because you can't send UDP packets to something with no IP address...unless they're blasting WiFi cards directly, which seems unlikely.
"we learn that the price of a product is determined essentially by supply and demand"
That isn't quite true. What you should have learned in economics is that "all other things being equal, the price of a product is determined by supply and demand" which basically means "in this incredibly simplified model that we have built, things probably work like this." Generalizing outwards from the models used in economics is dangerous at best, because in general all other things are almost never equal.
There are numerous examples in the Real World that show that price is not determined by supply and demand at all, except for commodity goods...and for many commodities, the perception of supply is more important than the supply itself.
Actually, they don't, in the sense that there is no one single built-in command to handle this case. Just like in SQL, you (or someone else) has to write the function that performs a 'select distinct' equivalent.
Unless you're using a targeted-product (one built specifically for your data needs), nothing you do will be handled natively in any language. You can build this functionality by using correct SQL or writing the appropriate functions in a procedural language.
And why don't you consider 'select distinct' a built-in function?
You mean proprietary formats like mp3 and AAC? While iTunes only sells protected AAC and audible tracks, you can in fact use your normal mp3 and AAC encoded files on your iPod.
I think what you mean is you'd rather have Microsoft Plays-For-Sure DRM'd files instead of Apple's FairPlay DRM'd files, which is something totally different.
Doesn't the US Government re-image the machines once they're in-house? If so, then the threat of bugs is somewhere near 0. Maybe they're talking about the normal Windows adware/spyware stuff?
To see why this patent is invalid, do the following:
* substitute 'classes' for 'tracks' * substitute 'methods' for 'names' * substitute 'computer' for 'music playback device'
And suddenly you have the classic Smalltalk object browser. This patent will be whacked in court, just like the uncrustables patent was denied by the USPTO. The USPTO said that uncrustables were basically big breakfast ravioli. Unfortunately, the examiner wasn't well-versed enough in the computer field (ie: he probably doesn't even know how to spell Smalltalk), so granted this one.
Applying the same old cookie cutter to a new kind of dough isn't a valid patent, even if the examiner thinks it is.
True. Back in the day, if you weren't curious enough to look at CFront's output and understand how vtables/ptables were built (which basically was the stuff behind the underlying initial implementations of C++), then, well, you weren't curious at all.
I'm not sure what passes for curiosity these days, though. I suppose it's building device drivers in Linux, or something like that.
But the best resume filler is to write and maintain a big app.
Dell doesn't really need to be defensive. They do one thing, and they do it really well: Dell builds cheap computers. There's a lot of value there, the quality of their product and support notwithstanding.
Sure, they don't really do R&D. But they don't need to - they have Intel, Microsoft, Lexmark, and the rest of the OEM partners to do that. They are a gateway to the market, not a market-maker. That's their niche. It's a really big one, and they do it really well. After all, they do make billions a year. And unlike Microsoft, they do it without being a monopoly.
If you're looking for a baseline that may be acceptable for customers, you could just use the browser vendor's support matrix. If the vendor doesn't support it (IE 2.0), it'll be difficult for you to support it.
Realistically speaking, it depends on your target audience. It's probably safe to ignore IE5 and older versions of Netscape, because your customers probably can update to newer versions, even on older OS versions.
One problem with the GPL-3 is that it's starting to have a political agenda that's outside the "software wants to be free" agenda.
Today it's DRM. Tomorrow it may be military or government applications. The next day it could prevent use in any commercial application.
Why?
Originally, the GPL was created so you could use software in an unencumbered manner. Now that same software is being used to encumber the uses of the software. This is exactly what the GPL was designed to prevent. It shows how far the FSF has come, I guess, that they've lost their focus.
Big, spinning magnetic fields sound like fun toys to play with. Gravity gets all the attention, but magnetism and it's right-angled brother electricity are probably where the action is going to be. After all, we can create magnetism and electricity - gravity is just kind of there.
The 520 broke after a friend stepped on it. The G3/300 is dead, finally - I sold it for $250 2 years ago, and it died a few months ago. The 540c still works, though the batteries died long ago. The G3/800 is still chugging away, though it needed a logic board swap last year. It also has developed a wierd smell that indicates that component death is only a few months away.
Overall, Apple's laptops are frustratingly robust. If they had broken or died earlier I could have replaced them more quickly. As it is, if you buy a new iBook or PowerBook, expect to be stuck with them for 3-4 years. They'll perform well enough that you won't be able to replace them.
Note that even in the "Seven Daughters of Eve" series of books, the team admits that the "out of Africa" theory is only a theory, and that there are other possible interpretations of the data.
From what I remember, "Out Of Asia" is a scenario that matches the data.
Writing software is a lot like making sausages. The process is messy, ugly, and you'll probably see a whole lot of stuff happen that you rather wouldn't have known about.
The main difference between the two is that at the end of the sausage-making process you have a yummy treat. At the end of the software process, all you have is...software.
Editor ----- BBedit or TextWrangler. The latter is free, as in beer.
OS -- Mac OS X 10.4.x. It works, and you don't have to worry about clicking links or reading email. Plus it's got all that good command line stuff built in. Plus you can use things like Pyramid, Photoshop, etc.
Displays ------- Two or three, depending on how big they are. The problem with the widescreens is they might exceed your angle of vision, making things a bit weird. You want one monitor for reference stuff and another monitor to work in.
Three monitors is a bit overkill, and requires a lot more thought than two. I suppose you could do "everything else" on monitor #3 (email, web, IM).
Be warned that monitors that are too big can be really annoying.
Keyboard -------- The MacAlly IceKey or one of the old IBM PC clicky steel keyboards with a USB adapter. Both keyboards are really excellent, but the IBM ones have the edge. The old Apple Extended Keyboard ]['s are good as well, but you have to you the flaky iMate adapter, which sucks.
The IBM and Apple keyboards will take a ridiculous amount of abuse. The IceKey is a lot more fragile. If you're prone to beating your keyboard in frustration sometimes, the Apple one is better because its plastic is softer than the IBM steel.
Chair ---- Find one that's comfortable, not necessarily ergonomic. I've tried using ergo equipment, and they cause all kinds of aches and pains in my arms, back, legs, etc. If it's comfortable, it'll probably be OK.
Desk ---- Make sure you can fit everything and a couple of reference books on it. That means it should be longer than 5 feet. Table depth isn't as important.
When my mom mentioned how crappy the staff is at the apple stores, they responded with 'Yeah, we get those kind of complaints all the time.'
They might say they get complaints like that all the time, but they're not about to tell a customer (and a mom) that they're full of shit. You have to ask the staff whether those complaints are valid or not.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason to be afraid of the Zune is simple: Microsoft has a ridiculous amount of money to spend:
o ft-home-entertainment.html
http://thingsguyslike.blogspot.com/2006/10/micros
$5bn in losses so far, and still no profits at the Home Entertainment division of Microsoft. If they wanted, they could give Zunes away for 10 years. It's hard to compete against that kind of financial muscle.
Browsing through the titles is really fascinating, because it gives you a bit of what the NSA was working on, or what that particular researcher was thinking about. It can even, depending on the title, give you a bit of a window into how that particular researcher thinks.
To someone who has a clue, this stuff must be a gold mine. Heck, I read the "adam and eve" article, and found out that the US was decrypting Enigma messages all the way back in 1943...and that's in the brochure section. Just looking at the prevalence of traffic analysis in the historical documents shows how message volume can be an event indicator.
What I haven't found yet is any indication that the NSA was using its decrypting information in a counter-decryption sort of way. I haven't found a title that says "thwarting traffic analysis with coherent noise," or "generating false positives can be more useful than generating false negatives."
Then again, there are titles like "Assignment of Storage Space in Rapid-Access Memory Systems, 1957." Whoa, that's a long time ago to be thinking about storage in RAM.
MS gives the IPTV infrastructure away for free, or at least that's what I understand. That means back-end servers, software, etc.
It's yet another failed attempt for MS to mean something outside of the Windows/Office monopoly...and they're destroying the economics of the business in the process. Too bad there isn't an anti-dumping law for domestic companies.
The exploit is in the centrino driver. Everyone assumes that the Mac airport driver is based on Intel reference code, but it may not be. If it was, you would think that they would have talked about that more.
Note that for this exploit to work, the network needs to be active (ie: both cards need to be joined to a base station). Why? Because you can't send UDP packets to something with no IP address...unless they're blasting WiFi cards directly, which seems unlikely.
"we learn that the price of a product is determined essentially by supply and demand"
That isn't quite true. What you should have learned in economics is that "all other things being equal, the price of a product is determined by supply and demand" which basically means "in this incredibly simplified model that we have built, things probably work like this." Generalizing outwards from the models used in economics is dangerous at best, because in general all other things are almost never equal.
There are numerous examples in the Real World that show that price is not determined by supply and demand at all, except for commodity goods...and for many commodities, the perception of supply is more important than the supply itself.
Do the other seasons move as well?
Any VPN provider that terminates in the US will allow you to bypass your local government's firewall. Providers include:
* PublicVPN.com
* HotspotVPN.com
* SpotLock (via iPass)
* iPig
Some (most?) of them also allow VoIP access, so you can bypass those pesky local telcos.
Actually, they don't, in the sense that there is no one single built-in command to handle this case. Just like in SQL, you (or someone else) has to write the function that performs a 'select distinct' equivalent.
Unless you're using a targeted-product (one built specifically for your data needs), nothing you do will be handled natively in any language. You can build this functionality by using correct SQL or writing the appropriate functions in a procedural language.
And why don't you consider 'select distinct' a built-in function?
You mean proprietary formats like mp3 and AAC? While iTunes only sells protected AAC and audible tracks, you can in fact use your normal mp3 and AAC encoded files on your iPod.
I think what you mean is you'd rather have Microsoft Plays-For-Sure DRM'd files instead of Apple's FairPlay DRM'd files, which is something totally different.
Doesn't the US Government re-image the machines once they're in-house? If so, then the threat of bugs is somewhere near 0. Maybe they're talking about the normal Windows adware/spyware stuff?
To see why this patent is invalid, do the following:
* substitute 'classes' for 'tracks'
* substitute 'methods' for 'names'
* substitute 'computer' for 'music playback device'
And suddenly you have the classic Smalltalk object browser. This patent will be whacked in court, just like the uncrustables patent was denied by the USPTO. The USPTO said that uncrustables were basically big breakfast ravioli. Unfortunately, the examiner wasn't well-versed enough in the computer field (ie: he probably doesn't even know how to spell Smalltalk), so granted this one.
Applying the same old cookie cutter to a new kind of dough isn't a valid patent, even if the examiner thinks it is.
True. Back in the day, if you weren't curious enough to look at CFront's output and understand how vtables/ptables were built (which basically was the stuff behind the underlying initial implementations of C++), then, well, you weren't curious at all.
I'm not sure what passes for curiosity these days, though. I suppose it's building device drivers in Linux, or something like that.
But the best resume filler is to write and maintain a big app.
Dell doesn't really need to be defensive. They do one thing, and they do it really well: Dell builds cheap computers. There's a lot of value there, the quality of their product and support notwithstanding.
Sure, they don't really do R&D. But they don't need to - they have Intel, Microsoft, Lexmark, and the rest of the OEM partners to do that. They are a gateway to the market, not a market-maker. That's their niche. It's a really big one, and they do it really well. After all, they do make billions a year. And unlike Microsoft, they do it without being a monopoly.
You can't find new stuff when you're sitting behind a desk in a university basement. Seek, and ye shall find!
Your ignorance is showing! Who's the moron now? Heh.
If you're looking for a baseline that may be acceptable for customers, you could just use the browser vendor's support matrix. If the vendor doesn't support it (IE 2.0), it'll be difficult for you to support it.
Realistically speaking, it depends on your target audience. It's probably safe to ignore IE5 and older versions of Netscape, because your customers probably can update to newer versions, even on older OS versions.
One problem with the GPL-3 is that it's starting to have a political agenda that's outside the "software wants to be free" agenda.
Today it's DRM. Tomorrow it may be military or government applications. The next day it could prevent use in any commercial application.
Why?
Originally, the GPL was created so you could use software in an unencumbered manner. Now that same software is being used to encumber the uses of the software. This is exactly what the GPL was designed to prevent. It shows how far the FSF has come, I guess, that they've lost their focus.
Funny, that was my first thought as well.
Big, spinning magnetic fields sound like fun toys to play with. Gravity gets all the attention, but magnetism and it's right-angled brother electricity are probably where the action is going to be. After all, we can create magnetism and electricity - gravity is just kind of there.
Or is that left-angled brother?
Read the story, then combine with nanotech:
"Whoops! We meant to build a DNA repair nanobot, but we've released DNA disassemblers by mistake. Oh well."
I've owned:
PowerBook 520
PowerBook 540c
Powerbook G3/300
iBook G3/800
The 520 broke after a friend stepped on it. The G3/300 is dead, finally - I sold it for $250 2 years ago, and it died a few months ago. The 540c still works, though the batteries died long ago. The G3/800 is still chugging away, though it needed a logic board swap last year. It also has developed a wierd smell that indicates that component death is only a few months away.
Overall, Apple's laptops are frustratingly robust. If they had broken or died earlier I could have replaced them more quickly. As it is, if you buy a new iBook or PowerBook, expect to be stuck with them for 3-4 years. They'll perform well enough that you won't be able to replace them.
Note that even in the "Seven Daughters of Eve" series of books, the team admits that the "out of Africa" theory is only a theory, and that there are other possible interpretations of the data.
From what I remember, "Out Of Asia" is a scenario that matches the data.
Pretty interesting.
Writing software is a lot like making sausages. The process is messy, ugly, and you'll probably see a whole lot of stuff happen that you rather wouldn't have known about.
The main difference between the two is that at the end of the sausage-making process you have a yummy treat. At the end of the software process, all you have is...software.
Editor
-----
BBedit or TextWrangler. The latter is free, as in beer.
OS
--
Mac OS X 10.4.x. It works, and you don't have to worry about clicking links or reading email. Plus it's got all that good command line stuff built in. Plus you can use things like Pyramid, Photoshop, etc.
Displays
-------
Two or three, depending on how big they are. The problem with the widescreens is they might exceed your angle of vision, making things a bit weird. You want one monitor for reference stuff and another monitor to work in.
Three monitors is a bit overkill, and requires a lot more thought than two. I suppose you could do "everything else" on monitor #3 (email, web, IM).
Be warned that monitors that are too big can be really annoying.
Keyboard
--------
The MacAlly IceKey or one of the old IBM PC clicky steel keyboards with a USB adapter. Both keyboards are really excellent, but the IBM ones have the edge. The old Apple Extended Keyboard ]['s are good as well, but you have to you the flaky iMate adapter, which sucks.
The IBM and Apple keyboards will take a ridiculous amount of abuse. The IceKey is a lot more fragile. If you're prone to beating your keyboard in frustration sometimes, the Apple one is better because its plastic is softer than the IBM steel.
Chair
----
Find one that's comfortable, not necessarily ergonomic. I've tried using ergo equipment, and they cause all kinds of aches and pains in my arms, back, legs, etc. If it's comfortable, it'll probably be OK.
Desk
----
Make sure you can fit everything and a couple of reference books on it. That means it should be longer than 5 feet. Table depth isn't as important.
Getting music onto the iPod was a hellish nightmare compared to most mp3 players and PDAs
It could be that the iPod and iTunes were engineered for the human race, not apes?
Sorry, couldn't resist. And it should be Dr. Zaius.
When my mom mentioned how crappy the staff is at the apple stores, they responded with 'Yeah, we get those kind of complaints all the time.'
They might say they get complaints like that all the time, but they're not about to tell a customer (and a mom) that they're full of shit. You have to ask the staff whether those complaints are valid or not.