The apple warranty's still good if you get 3rd party RAM. As long as you clearly didn't break the machine from installing it yourself, you're good to go.
I'm speaking from years of experience here.
As for price competition, they are competitive. What you're talking about is selection. They aren't competitive in selection. Often a lack of finding what you want ends up with you either spending money on stuff you don't need or getting less than you wanted. Hence the complaints.
OTOH, there's a lot to be said about less selection -> better OS stability. Microsoft's been complaining about the variety of machines they've had to support for decades now.
The selection's the price you pay for a Mac. The price argument is unfair and inaccurate. But on selection, I doubt any mac user's going to argue with you:-)
Technically, sure. But then you'd pay more than $500 in the pain-in-the-ass factor. As for the pricing, it was baseline for shareware. The price of the app eventually included all those people who used but never paid for the app. A terrible cycle, but no different from integrating the costs of real theft into retail prices.
For apple, the rule seems to be that they'll make 1-2 fuckups a year in terms of policy with developers. Other than that, they're usually pretty good about stuff. You don't worry about Apple the way you do about microsoft.
Apple, like just about everyone else, will put apps into three categories: Mainstream, innovative good, and innovative bad. The last category would be things that regular hackers would find fun and cool, but would scare suits (who hold lots of shares in AAPL) or their business partners (e.g. AT&T & the RIAA).
I think the real way that Apple's sold out in the last few years hasn't been themselves. It's the strings they've connected to with AT&T and the various record labels. If it wasn't for them, imagine the iPhone, iPod, and the iTunes music store!
That said, I agree with where they went. For the better good, they really (really!) raised the bar on mobile phone space. They made online music legitimate in ways many thought impossible at the time. They paid a bit of their soul in the process. But, again, it was for the greater good, of their consumers first. Not us hackers, but the mainstream kids & families who wanted good general computing.
For us, we have to dig a little deeper and there are enough hooks for us there. We can compile our own kernel (which, btw, can let us disable the no-dtrace hooks that iTunes uses), disassemble executables (otool -tv), and port scan hosts (Network Utility). They're not the hacker boxes the old Apple IIs were, but they're a decent compromise for most.
Certs are a pain in the ass, literally just an org vouching for you (for comparison, our last Verisign cert was > $1000). But the fee covers getting into the iTunes store, which is pretty lucrative these days. It also covers whatever costs apple has to go through to verify your app.
As for hacked vs unhacked -- the number of unhacked phones will always be much higher. Depriving those folks from free software is a shame.
The IDE was $500, plus $150/year to upgrade.
The major reseller I used wanted 40%, for a lower percentage they'd shove you in the back of the bus. I had my own web store set up separately, but literally got zero (nil, nada) sales from it. Mobile users tend to shop at specific sites. Without their own reputation, the little guys have to lean on the reputation of resellers (i.e. it's credible b/c it's being sold by them).
30% off the top isn't great, but it also doesn't require hosting, fulfillment, or anything else. Just ship them a binary and they send you a check in the mail each month until people stop buying (or an ABI change breaks your binary). I don't know how refunds are handled (or allowed at all), or documentation or support either, really.
Still, any info on what we can put on our own devices? I'm not interested in going back into mobile space anytime soon, just looking for a phone I can hack on personally. The SDK here is nice, but I'm still leaning towards the new openmoko when it comes out.
Some of the most talented people in computer security tend to have the sort of records that prevent them from getting clearance. Maybe nothing heavily criminal, but enough of a colored background that traditional security clearance mechanisms would throw them out of the room before they get started. Often the same types of minds that are really good at computer security are also the rebel types, who'll have some history. Will you work to get these people in, or are we looking at a bunch of off-the-shelf programmers/admins who've taken a few simple courses in computer security?
Also, how do you plan to attract/retain them? Again, rebel types are some of the best hackers, and they're not likely to go in without incentives. Not due to any lack of patriotism per se, but an unexplored understanding of it. More importantly, they're likely to be anti-establishment types who aren't comfortable in the strict traditional chain of command. Finally, usually the outside industry pays quite well for the good ones. Are you prepared to financially compete for the best?
Finally, will there be any connections back to the research/academic community? You may find academics more happy to help than usual, as cyber warfare can often be nonviolent. Also, will the existing (and immense) capability within the NSA be properly leveraged?
I'm glad to see our DoD taking our nation's networked security seriously. Right now it's just a bad, bad joke.
CVS versions of safari have had massive speed improvements as well, and are faster than FF3b3. There's a post above with the exact versions & speeds for you.
There's something to be said about prior history about MS. As for how diabolical this is, the development of this technique could be simple: they actually intend to buy a company, but eventually discover how much leverage they get just by offering. Eventually the offer becomes a weapon.
As for why MS isn't #1 in the field, no matter how unscrupulous you methods, you still have to put out good code.
It'd be nice if they eventually had an IBM-esque transformation. Then it'd be google's turn to go evil:-)
However I'd like to add that to make ethical progress (as a species), we have to bring in those we disagree with (e.g. the ones who are really wrong). Bring them in and push for incremental change. It's messy and boring, but it's the best way to do it. If we require china to play by all the rules at once, they're unlikely to participate -- no progress made. If we ease them, then we can start a process which (hopefully) will get us somewhere.
Messy, boring, and deeply unsatisfactory, yes. But it often works, and I personally can't think of a better solution that would work as well.
Nope, the eye candy was done b/c it's harder to re-architect games to use more extensive physics in primary gameplay. You have to shove all the physics models into the application code for all that advanced simulation. It's a lot easier to run 10,000 copies of a simple parabolic arc.
Rigid body physics, constrained motion, etc all take up some decent CPU. As does collision detection. So far, game developers have had to do with simplified collision geometries, simplified models, etc. As a first stab at what you could see with this, consider what they do in Uncharted: Drake's fortune. There's a dedicated SPU for making sure that the hand and foot movements are correct. Consider how much more realistic a game would be if the people moved more like people. If their feet actually touched each step as they went up stairs. If when they run and stop, you see their body shift a bit.
That sort of stuff could use real physics simulation (for the body's own internal physics). Right now it's basically a single point mass instead of a skeleton with joints, muscles, and mass.
There's a certain price range for a laptop of certain build quality. I can't speak to the current Lenovos --- haven't used them. But, I remember some of the older ones being built like tanks. I'd put their build quality up there as high as the old HP calculators.
The Pro line of apple laptops has been about the same, too (that's what I use). I wouldn't dream of taking the sub-$1000 boxes around with me all day. On the PC line, it'd be a good thinkpad or a well-built toshiba.
Maybe I'm just old and prejudiced on this. The cheap laptops I've seen out of dell make me afraid to relax my hands on them: they'd literally creak.
But, that all does really depend on how you use the machine. If it's mostly a desktop, I'm sure that the ~$500 boxes are fine for daily use.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the business model that's different. Technically, they're doing little more than selling/renting out DLLs. (Well, .Net assemblies, most likely)
The apple warranty's still good if you get 3rd party RAM. As long as you clearly didn't break the machine from installing it yourself, you're good to go.
:-)
I'm speaking from years of experience here.
As for price competition, they are competitive. What you're talking about is selection. They aren't competitive in selection. Often a lack of finding what you want ends up with you either spending money on stuff you don't need or getting less than you wanted. Hence the complaints.
OTOH, there's a lot to be said about less selection -> better OS stability. Microsoft's been complaining about the variety of machines they've had to support for decades now.
The selection's the price you pay for a Mac. The price argument is unfair and inaccurate. But on selection, I doubt any mac user's going to argue with you
Technically, sure. But then you'd pay more than $500 in the pain-in-the-ass factor. As for the pricing, it was baseline for shareware. The price of the app eventually included all those people who used but never paid for the app. A terrible cycle, but no different from integrating the costs of real theft into retail prices.
For apple, the rule seems to be that they'll make 1-2 fuckups a year in terms of policy with developers. Other than that, they're usually pretty good about stuff. You don't worry about Apple the way you do about microsoft.
Apple, like just about everyone else, will put apps into three categories: Mainstream, innovative good, and innovative bad. The last category would be things that regular hackers would find fun and cool, but would scare suits (who hold lots of shares in AAPL) or their business partners (e.g. AT&T & the RIAA).
I think the real way that Apple's sold out in the last few years hasn't been themselves. It's the strings they've connected to with AT&T and the various record labels. If it wasn't for them, imagine the iPhone, iPod, and the iTunes music store!
That said, I agree with where they went. For the better good, they really (really!) raised the bar on mobile phone space. They made online music legitimate in ways many thought impossible at the time. They paid a bit of their soul in the process. But, again, it was for the greater good, of their consumers first. Not us hackers, but the mainstream kids & families who wanted good general computing.
For us, we have to dig a little deeper and there are enough hooks for us there. We can compile our own kernel (which, btw, can let us disable the no-dtrace hooks that iTunes uses), disassemble executables (otool -tv), and port scan hosts (Network Utility). They're not the hacker boxes the old Apple IIs were, but they're a decent compromise for most.
It's turning into a giant MAID! With a Vacuum Cleaner!
Yup. Of course, you'll need a computer no matter what, and other PCs aren't free either.
Certs are a pain in the ass, literally just an org vouching for you (for comparison, our last Verisign cert was > $1000). But the fee covers getting into the iTunes store, which is pretty lucrative these days. It also covers whatever costs apple has to go through to verify your app.
As for hacked vs unhacked -- the number of unhacked phones will always be much higher. Depriving those folks from free software is a shame.
You can always distribute the source on your own website. Or sourceforge.net for that matter.
Just make sure to strip the cert out.
Nope. Just that whomever does the port/release will have to put up $99/yr to Apple.
After that, it's free for anyone to download.
Comparison pricing:
I used to develop & sell software for PalmOS.
The IDE was $500, plus $150/year to upgrade.
The major reseller I used wanted 40%, for a lower percentage they'd shove you in the back of the bus. I had my own web store set up separately, but literally got zero (nil, nada) sales from it. Mobile users tend to shop at specific sites. Without their own reputation, the little guys have to lean on the reputation of resellers (i.e. it's credible b/c it's being sold by them).
30% off the top isn't great, but it also doesn't require hosting, fulfillment, or anything else. Just ship them a binary and they send you a check in the mail each month until people stop buying (or an ABI change breaks your binary). I don't know how refunds are handled (or allowed at all), or documentation or support either, really.
Still, any info on what we can put on our own devices? I'm not interested in going back into mobile space anytime soon, just looking for a phone I can hack on personally. The SDK here is nice, but I'm still leaning towards the new openmoko when it comes out.
http://xkcd.org/125/?z
One thing often forgot about diesels is how long the engines last. I'm talking 80,000 miles to break them in.
General,
Some of the most talented people in computer security tend to have the sort of records that prevent them from getting clearance. Maybe nothing heavily criminal, but enough of a colored background that traditional security clearance mechanisms would throw them out of the room before they get started. Often the same types of minds that are really good at computer security are also the rebel types, who'll have some history. Will you work to get these people in, or are we looking at a bunch of off-the-shelf programmers/admins who've taken a few simple courses in computer security?
Also, how do you plan to attract/retain them? Again, rebel types are some of the best hackers, and they're not likely to go in without incentives. Not due to any lack of patriotism per se, but an unexplored understanding of it. More importantly, they're likely to be anti-establishment types who aren't comfortable in the strict traditional chain of command. Finally, usually the outside industry pays quite well for the good ones. Are you prepared to financially compete for the best?
Finally, will there be any connections back to the research/academic community? You may find academics more happy to help than usual, as cyber warfare can often be nonviolent. Also, will the existing (and immense) capability within the NSA be properly leveraged?
I'm glad to see our DoD taking our nation's networked security seriously. Right now it's just a bad, bad joke.
Best of Luck!
-Lally Singh
CVS versions of safari have had massive speed improvements as well, and are faster than FF3b3. There's a post above with the exact versions & speeds for you.
I mean this as advocacy bait :-D
Why would I choose FreeBSD over, say, Solaris x86 or Linux?
Nope, but I'll be scanning ebay in 2012! Daddy needs some Distributed.Net action!
Emacs 22 does antialiasing. As for distributed VC, How about this?.
To be fair, this is all from minimal use. Most of my day-to-day programming is in one of a few IDEs.
Donno about that. 22 brought in decent gnome integration. Before that, it was a relic from times past.
Yeah, that part was expected. But they thought they could turn the main transmitter back on. That part's broke.
Makes it a great time to show up with a patent that could threaten the economy, doesn't it?
it's racketeering, and they're getting away with it.
Linux hasn't spread because it's still a pain in the ass.
There's something to be said about prior history about MS. As for how diabolical this is, the development of this technique could be simple: they actually intend to buy a company, but eventually discover how much leverage they get just by offering. Eventually the offer becomes a weapon.
:-)
As for why MS isn't #1 in the field, no matter how unscrupulous you methods, you still have to put out good code.
It'd be nice if they eventually had an IBM-esque transformation. Then it'd be google's turn to go evil
Very fair.
However I'd like to add that to make ethical progress (as a species), we have to bring in those we disagree with (e.g. the ones who are really wrong). Bring them in and push for incremental change. It's messy and boring, but it's the best way to do it. If we require china to play by all the rules at once, they're unlikely to participate -- no progress made. If we ease them, then we can start a process which (hopefully) will get us somewhere.
Messy, boring, and deeply unsatisfactory, yes. But it often works, and I personally can't think of a better solution that would work as well.
Nope, the eye candy was done b/c it's harder to re-architect games to use more extensive physics in primary gameplay. You have to shove all the physics models into the application code for all that advanced simulation. It's a lot easier to run 10,000 copies of a simple parabolic arc.
Rigid body physics, constrained motion, etc all take up some decent CPU. As does collision detection. So far, game developers have had to do with simplified collision geometries, simplified models, etc. As a first stab at what you could see with this, consider what they do in Uncharted: Drake's fortune. There's a dedicated SPU for making sure that the hand and foot movements are correct. Consider how much more realistic a game would be if the people moved more like people. If their feet actually touched each step as they went up stairs. If when they run and stop, you see their body shift a bit.
That sort of stuff could use real physics simulation (for the body's own internal physics). Right now it's basically a single point mass instead of a skeleton with joints, muscles, and mass.
Sorry for the implication. I meant the crap @ Dell, HP, etc.
There's a certain price range for a laptop of certain build quality. I can't speak to the current Lenovos --- haven't used them. But, I remember some of the older ones being built like tanks. I'd put their build quality up there as high as the old HP calculators.
The Pro line of apple laptops has been about the same, too (that's what I use). I wouldn't dream of taking the sub-$1000 boxes around with me all day. On the PC line, it'd be a good thinkpad or a well-built toshiba.
Maybe I'm just old and prejudiced on this. The cheap laptops I've seen out of dell make me afraid to relax my hands on them: they'd literally creak.
But, that all does really depend on how you use the machine. If it's mostly a desktop, I'm sure that the ~$500 boxes are fine for daily use.