On the contrary. I'd suggest that *most* windows programs spend most of there time there. In particular, GDI drawing is one of the slowest things you can possibly do in the windows API -- and almost every application does it, to some extent. Which is not to say that Microsoft's GDI sucks (it does) but graphics are a notoriously slow operation when you're busy calculating margins and colors and transparencies and fonts.
By the way, I hope your numbers are exagguration. If Bochs on a 600MHz processor is incapable of running a program faster than an 8088, then I will be somewhat disappointed.
True. I glossed over that aspect, and that's my fault. However, the blatant nastiness that is autotools could really be significantly improved by simply adding and maintaining some groups of common, default setups. The whole thing is kludged together with macros, so it isn't like it'd be technically difficult. I'd offer to do it, if I could figure out how the damn tools work.
Even still, it's not a very well thought-through system. If it was really targetted at cross platform builds, there is no reason why I should routinely have to write some of my own shell scripting, very likely to not be cross-platform compatible, into my configure script because for whatever reason the autoconf methods are unable to do (or correctly do) what I want.
Hell, they don't even know how to operate ld on different systems. If there is anything in the world that I would rather have my build system deal with, the every-OS-different-flavour of ld would be it. Why should I have to tell it how to build and link a dynamic library depending on which OS it has detected (which seems to be about all it's really good for)
And don't even get me started on autoconf's notorious history of breaking inter-version compatability. "this configure script requires version x.y of autoconf... no, not 'or higher'" Gah.
Visual Studio admittedly does not do the packaging part itself, but MSDN (which is basically yet another expensive required component of VS) includes an MSI builder, if I am not mistaken. They aren't ridiculously easy, say, compared to Wise. But they are still a whole lot easier than autoconf/automake.
What other posters have said is true, though. Most of the difficulty in autotools is related to the crossplatform nature. Although really, I think a few well placed default configurations could fix a lot of that. Still, it was a bit foolish of me to gloss over that aspect.
A build system with the objective of being less arcane than autoconf? HOORAY!
Seriously though, build systems is one place where, despite all its bugs and shortcomings, Microsoft Visual Studio kicks the shit out of autoconf/jam/whatever else. It's not cross platform nor very configurable, admittedly, but as far as ease of use goes it is in an entirely different universe from standard UNIX build systems.
Hopefully Build Buddy can strike a decent balance between ease of use and configurability. I'm looking forward to checking it out.
They could create an independent Palestinian state, and that might make some would-be terrorists reconsider, but there are others who hate Israel merely for existing, and would continue the attacks anyway.
First of all, prove it. Secondly, this is a terrible rationalization for ignoring what they are demanding, which is a palestinian state. What you're saying is roughly equivalent to suggesting that there is no point in making abortion illegal because while anti-abortionists who kill doctors may reconsider, but there would still be murderers who kill people for whatever reason.
Please forgive that I am taking hypothetical sides in another very emotionally charged issue, but it's the closest approximation I could think of. I am pro-choice myself, but let's not get into that.
With terrorists, there's no victory or defeat, only eternal terror for both sides.
That's simply not true. You've got two types of terrorists. Those who have demands, and those who simply hate you and want you to die. If you look closely, almost *ALL* terrorists are doing what they're doing because they want their demands to be met, they want something to change. Hatred doesn't just appear one day. "Oh shit, I feel like destroying the USA today." Osama bin Laden/al-Qa'ida have an agenda. Yasser Arafat/Hamas have an agenda. The IRA have an agenda.
Contrary to what you think, they are not killing people for shits and giggles. They can be negotiated with. However, as we are all so fond of hearing in movies "The United States does not negotiate with terrorists." which is a valid point of view, albeit a little short-sighted. What you have to realize is that the only reason you've been unable to negotiate with terrorists is because you don't want to set a bad precedent, so you don't even try. They are perfectly willing to negotiate. That's why they're doing what they're doing, so they can get someone to listen to them, so they can get to a negotiation table and voice their (often unreasonable and/or ignorant) demands.
The question you really have to ask yourself is whether the "terrorists" have legitimate greivances. Ignore their disgusting methods of getting their attention for just long enough to think about what they're asking for. The people who have committed and organized terror acts are criminals, no doubt about it. But let's face it, they wouldn't be killing themselves and others for a cause if they didn't believe in it just a little. If you want to end terrorism, give an ear to the problems that drive them to it.
You can't fight what you don't understand. (By the way "They want to kill us because they are jealous of our freedom!" is not even remotely considered understanding)
My ~$140 CDN GameBoy Advance SP can do this, in full color. Turn off the backlight under good lighting and there is no difference at all. I often have trouble determining whether the backlight is on or off, in fact.
The screen is not the best screen in the universe, but it uses an LCD technology called 'transflective' or 'trans-reflective' display which combines the reflective backplane used in older LCD displays (think digital watch) with a backlight. Color saturation is somewhat lessened in direct sunlight, but that's life.
This technology is becoming more common in Tablet PCs, but is still in the very experimental stage in laptops. I have seen a grand total of two laptops with transflective screens. They were moderately priced and otherwise pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the laptops on display. I don't remember the model number, but it was a Toshiba of some sort. They stood out like a sore thumb though because the screen looked so much brighter and glossier than the other laptops.
That is like, the silliest thing I have ever heard. If you are not trolling, then I pity your utter lack of thought on the matter.
The international date line isn't some magical gateway that adds or subtracts from your date. It doesn't work like that.
Ok, start in Japan on noon at February 1st. Head towards the international dateline. Assume you move at infinite speed, so when you get there it's only the timezone difference, which IIRC is +3 hours from japan, but it's irrelevant whether that 's right or not. So it's Feb 1, 3:00pm on the western side of the dateline. Cross the international dateline, and now it's Jan 31, 4:00pm. Go all the way around half the world now to the prime meridian. The time increases by 12 hours, making it Feb 1 again! At 4:00am. Now go around the world at infinite speed until you get to the international dateline. Cross over it again. It's Jan 31 at 4:00pm again. Continue ad nauseum if you like. It will continue to be either Feb 1 or Jan 31.
No matter how fast you go, no matter how many times you cross the international dateline, it will not 'wind up' or 'wind down' the date to arbitrary values. Indeed, it exists to prevent exactly that very thing from happening. If the date never changed at the international dateline, then you could continue going around the world in an easterly fashion, and just keep adding +24 hours to the time/date for every time you went around the earth.
All of this is ignoring the fact that emails MUST include the timezone and offset on every date, so they are able to handle this sort of thing by themselves.
A actual avalanche is orders of magnitude more complicated. It'd probably be easier, and much more informative, to simulate it on a computer, actually.
The same thing could be said about an avalanche relative to most of our fluid dynamics models. It is still orders of magnitude more complicated. Which isn't to say that our models aren't quite accurate, they are. But at the same time, they're merely a 'good enough' oversimplification of what's really going on.
Fluid dynamics are an extremely difficult thing to model, and even more difficult to compute. They could challenge most of the supercomputers on the top500 list.
In fact, the top computer on there, Earth Simulator, (at well over double second place) has one of it's two primary objectives being the calculation of relatively simple fluid dynamics models across the Earth's entire oceans.
So, to put it summarize my point here, the best fluid dynamics models we have are extremely expensive to compute, and they are still not perfect. The best way to better understand, and therefore better model, what is happening, is still to experiment with real physics. This experiment will help us develop faster-but-still-accurate models, or extremely precise models for fluid behavior. Either way, recording the locations of each 'particle' as they flow is actually research and will provide a solid set of data for future research to build on.
Disclaimer: I work in the petroleum industry, and therefore only have experience with extremely high pressure/small scale fluid dynamics. My extrapolations may not hold true to the broader field of fluid dynamics.
Nintendo does indeed have a better reputation than Microsoft, but it's not any more deserved. While I love Nintendo, and even owned an N64 and a Virtual Boy:P I don't have any illusions about them being an exceptionally friendly company, especially when it comes to anything which could be twisted into a piracy concern.
It was their staunch refusal to touch CDs (because they were easily copied) that lost them SquareSoft as a developer to Sony, and the N64's anemic cartrige space nearly dragged them out of the mainstream gaming market.
They were, and still are, well known as one of the most litigous companies when it comes to emulators and ROMs. They crack down the hardest on manufacturers of ROM copier devices.
And you expect this company to give you access to the system's internals? Not likely. Look at Sony's PlayStation Linux. It runs on a layer so that you aren't allowed to touch the PlayStation hardware directly. Console makers consider that kind of stuff extremely proprietary.
Basically, Nintendo has this illusionary image that they are a good, consumer-friendly company. And they are that for the most part. Even still, they're mostly just a company like any other -- if you get in their way, they will not hesistate for a second before coming down on you like a ton of bricks.
That's exactly what I'm saying. The age of shitty mass-produced games is ending. As soon as the big publishers get out of the way, there will be more room for the smaller developers on store shelves, in reviews, in magazines, and on Gamer's hard drives.
All the major publishers are going console. There are a few big primarily or at least heavily PC developers left, but you have to keep your eye out for them. id Software, Valve, Bioware are a few that come to mind.
I don't think anyone disputes that games are going to get shitty in the next little while, but at least the defection of the big PC publishers and developers will leave a big opening for a lot of the stronger small studios to slide into. In my opinion, a short lull will be followed by a bunch of innovation. I'm looking forward to (read: hoping for) it.
The deep pipelines in the P4 perform poorly, period. Even when running simple desktop apps on a Windows machine, I notice my P4-2.5GHz w/1GB RAM at work often jerks around or lags, while my Athlon 1900XP+ w/256MB RAM at home works like lightning. Obviously processor is not the whole story, but I think that under typical, multi-tasking usage, the deep pipelines are even more painful than benchmarks suggest.
Disclaimer: I am not an EE, so I could very well be full of shit.
Though they are available I don't use them personally. Calgary, while cold, is also remarkably dry. When we do get snow, it rarely lasts more than a day on a surface that is travelled even remotely often. Once the snow is pounded into slush, it's absorbed in short order by the dry air and becomes dry pavement. (This is merely my observations compared to other places I've lived, and is not scientific in any way)
Besides, cycling on snow/ice/slush isn't really that hard if you're slow and careful about it. Admittedly becomes messier and much slower, though. I would generally work from home on days like that.:)
... but not more calories burned nor more useful, nor is it even more fun in my opinion, than cycling.
It may not be feasable for everyone, but cycling has replaced my car (and saved me a metric assload of money as well). This is in Calgary, a city with very cold winters and serious urban sprawl going on, although it also has an excellent public transit/bike path system.
Anyway, it's just a thought. There are some excellent bike-commuting solutions out there. It's excellent exercise, good for the environment, and cheap as heck.
Uh, how did the harvester find your page in the first place, if not by crawling non-mailto links? I would be surprised if your scheme worked very well at all, and even if it did, I think that's betting too much on the fact that many harvesters are completely incompetent at redirects, not because they magically don't follow links that you think should be ignorable to them.
This purpose has been adequately served for several companies I'm involved with by using a MOO or other MU*s. My bias may be revealed by the fact that one of those corporations is in fact dedicated to running a particular MOO.
However, I have to say that it satisfies all of your requirements and provides a great deal of flexibility for the future as well. It has its own internal programming language (affectionately but not officially known as C&) which allows you to modify basically everything without requiring a restart. It has full support for TCP/IP and file IO, and though the binary support leaves something to be desired, it is quite possible to write a fully functional HTTP server for example.
Sorry, not every "geek" is a rabid open source zealot. There are many varieties of geek. And the music geek does not worry about open source software. The music geek worries about performing, in a band, in front of people, and doing it well. The Neko64 is targetting musicians, and music geeks. If they satisfy the requirements of a music geek which includes often-overlooked but greatly appreciated features like "what happens if a cable gets pulled, or a breaker trips?" then I think it's pretty fair to say that they "Get It." It's not a phrase exclusive to the open source geek, you know.
You don't have to be a "tard" as you so eloquently put it, to be conned. Clearly he realizes this as he included the phrase "she's probably too trusting" in there. I'd say you're the one being judgemental, if you think that anyone who falls for a scam is a retard.
Calling someone too trusting is not, in my books, an insult any more than telling someone they're giving too much of a tip. Generosity, whether through trust or money, is not a failing. Even if it can burn you sometimes.
Slashdot Mirror
It means I can stop boycotting Pixar films. Hooray!
On the contrary. I'd suggest that *most* windows programs spend most of there time there. In particular, GDI drawing is one of the slowest things you can possibly do in the windows API -- and almost every application does it, to some extent. Which is not to say that Microsoft's GDI sucks (it does) but graphics are a notoriously slow operation when you're busy calculating margins and colors and transparencies and fonts.
By the way, I hope your numbers are exagguration. If Bochs on a 600MHz processor is incapable of running a program faster than an 8088, then I will be somewhat disappointed.
True. I glossed over that aspect, and that's my fault. However, the blatant nastiness that is autotools could really be significantly improved by simply adding and maintaining some groups of common, default setups. The whole thing is kludged together with macros, so it isn't like it'd be technically difficult. I'd offer to do it, if I could figure out how the damn tools work.
Even still, it's not a very well thought-through system. If it was really targetted at cross platform builds, there is no reason why I should routinely have to write some of my own shell scripting, very likely to not be cross-platform compatible, into my configure script because for whatever reason the autoconf methods are unable to do (or correctly do) what I want.
Hell, they don't even know how to operate ld on different systems. If there is anything in the world that I would rather have my build system deal with, the every-OS-different-flavour of ld would be it. Why should I have to tell it how to build and link a dynamic library depending on which OS it has detected (which seems to be about all it's really good for)
And don't even get me started on autoconf's notorious history of breaking inter-version compatability. "this configure script requires version x.y of autoconf... no, not 'or higher'" Gah.
Both, I suppose.
Visual Studio admittedly does not do the packaging part itself, but MSDN (which is basically yet another expensive required component of VS) includes an MSI builder, if I am not mistaken. They aren't ridiculously easy, say, compared to Wise. But they are still a whole lot easier than autoconf/automake.
What other posters have said is true, though. Most of the difficulty in autotools is related to the crossplatform nature. Although really, I think a few well placed default configurations could fix a lot of that. Still, it was a bit foolish of me to gloss over that aspect.
A build system with the objective of being less arcane than autoconf? HOORAY!
Seriously though, build systems is one place where, despite all its bugs and shortcomings, Microsoft Visual Studio kicks the shit out of autoconf/jam/whatever else. It's not cross platform nor very configurable, admittedly, but as far as ease of use goes it is in an entirely different universe from standard UNIX build systems.
Hopefully Build Buddy can strike a decent balance between ease of use and configurability. I'm looking forward to checking it out.
They could create an independent Palestinian state, and that might make some would-be terrorists reconsider, but there are others who hate Israel merely for existing, and would continue the attacks anyway.
First of all, prove it. Secondly, this is a terrible rationalization for ignoring what they are demanding, which is a palestinian state. What you're saying is roughly equivalent to suggesting that there is no point in making abortion illegal because while anti-abortionists who kill doctors may reconsider, but there would still be murderers who kill people for whatever reason.
Please forgive that I am taking hypothetical sides in another very emotionally charged issue, but it's the closest approximation I could think of. I am pro-choice myself, but let's not get into that.
With terrorists, there's no victory or defeat, only eternal terror for both sides.
That's simply not true. You've got two types of terrorists. Those who have demands, and those who simply hate you and want you to die. If you look closely, almost *ALL* terrorists are doing what they're doing because they want their demands to be met, they want something to change. Hatred doesn't just appear one day. "Oh shit, I feel like destroying the USA today." Osama bin Laden/al-Qa'ida have an agenda. Yasser Arafat/Hamas have an agenda. The IRA have an agenda.
Contrary to what you think, they are not killing people for shits and giggles. They can be negotiated with. However, as we are all so fond of hearing in movies "The United States does not negotiate with terrorists." which is a valid point of view, albeit a little short-sighted. What you have to realize is that the only reason you've been unable to negotiate with terrorists is because you don't want to set a bad precedent, so you don't even try. They are perfectly willing to negotiate. That's why they're doing what they're doing, so they can get someone to listen to them, so they can get to a negotiation table and voice their (often unreasonable and/or ignorant) demands.
The question you really have to ask yourself is whether the "terrorists" have legitimate greivances. Ignore their disgusting methods of getting their attention for just long enough to think about what they're asking for. The people who have committed and organized terror acts are criminals, no doubt about it. But let's face it, they wouldn't be killing themselves and others for a cause if they didn't believe in it just a little. If you want to end terrorism, give an ear to the problems that drive them to it.
You can't fight what you don't understand. (By the way "They want to kill us because they are jealous of our freedom!" is not even remotely considered understanding)
My ~$140 CDN GameBoy Advance SP can do this, in full color. Turn off the backlight under good lighting and there is no difference at all. I often have trouble determining whether the backlight is on or off, in fact.
The screen is not the best screen in the universe, but it uses an LCD technology called 'transflective' or 'trans-reflective' display which combines the reflective backplane used in older LCD displays (think digital watch) with a backlight. Color saturation is somewhat lessened in direct sunlight, but that's life.
This technology is becoming more common in Tablet PCs, but is still in the very experimental stage in laptops. I have seen a grand total of two laptops with transflective screens. They were moderately priced and otherwise pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the laptops on display. I don't remember the model number, but it was a Toshiba of some sort. They stood out like a sore thumb though because the screen looked so much brighter and glossier than the other laptops.
That is like, the silliest thing I have ever heard. If you are not trolling, then I pity your utter lack of thought on the matter.
The international date line isn't some magical gateway that adds or subtracts from your date. It doesn't work like that.
Ok, start in Japan on noon at February 1st. Head towards the international dateline. Assume you move at infinite speed, so when you get there it's only the timezone difference, which IIRC is +3 hours from japan, but it's irrelevant whether that 's right or not. So it's Feb 1, 3:00pm on the western side of the dateline. Cross the international dateline, and now it's Jan 31, 4:00pm. Go all the way around half the world now to the prime meridian. The time increases by 12 hours, making it Feb 1 again! At 4:00am. Now go around the world at infinite speed until you get to the international dateline. Cross over it again. It's Jan 31 at 4:00pm again. Continue ad nauseum if you like. It will continue to be either Feb 1 or Jan 31.
No matter how fast you go, no matter how many times you cross the international dateline, it will not 'wind up' or 'wind down' the date to arbitrary values. Indeed, it exists to prevent exactly that very thing from happening. If the date never changed at the international dateline, then you could continue going around the world in an easterly fashion, and just keep adding +24 hours to the time/date for every time you went around the earth.
All of this is ignoring the fact that emails MUST include the timezone and offset on every date, so they are able to handle this sort of thing by themselves.
A actual avalanche is orders of magnitude more complicated. It'd probably be easier, and much more informative, to simulate it on a computer, actually.
The same thing could be said about an avalanche relative to most of our fluid dynamics models. It is still orders of magnitude more complicated. Which isn't to say that our models aren't quite accurate, they are. But at the same time, they're merely a 'good enough' oversimplification of what's really going on.
Fluid dynamics are an extremely difficult thing to model, and even more difficult to compute. They could challenge most of the supercomputers on the top500 list.
In fact, the top computer on there, Earth Simulator, (at well over double second place) has one of it's two primary objectives being the calculation of relatively simple fluid dynamics models across the Earth's entire oceans.
So, to put it summarize my point here, the best fluid dynamics models we have are extremely expensive to compute, and they are still not perfect. The best way to better understand, and therefore better model, what is happening, is still to experiment with real physics. This experiment will help us develop faster-but-still-accurate models, or extremely precise models for fluid behavior. Either way, recording the locations of each 'particle' as they flow is actually research and will provide a solid set of data for future research to build on.
Disclaimer: I work in the petroleum industry, and therefore only have experience with extremely high pressure/small scale fluid dynamics. My extrapolations may not hold true to the broader field of fluid dynamics.
Nintendo does indeed have a better reputation than Microsoft, but it's not any more deserved. While I love Nintendo, and even owned an N64 and a Virtual Boy :P I don't have any illusions about them being an exceptionally friendly company, especially when it comes to anything which could be twisted into a piracy concern.
It was their staunch refusal to touch CDs (because they were easily copied) that lost them SquareSoft as a developer to Sony, and the N64's anemic cartrige space nearly dragged them out of the mainstream gaming market.
They were, and still are, well known as one of the most litigous companies when it comes to emulators and ROMs. They crack down the hardest on manufacturers of ROM copier devices.
And you expect this company to give you access to the system's internals? Not likely. Look at Sony's PlayStation Linux. It runs on a layer so that you aren't allowed to touch the PlayStation hardware directly. Console makers consider that kind of stuff extremely proprietary.
Basically, Nintendo has this illusionary image that they are a good, consumer-friendly company. And they are that for the most part. Even still, they're mostly just a company like any other -- if you get in their way, they will not hesistate for a second before coming down on you like a ton of bricks.
That's exactly what I'm saying. The age of shitty mass-produced games is ending. As soon as the big publishers get out of the way, there will be more room for the smaller developers on store shelves, in reviews, in magazines, and on Gamer's hard drives.
I see this as a win for quality.
I feel your pain. :/
All the major publishers are going console. There are a few big primarily or at least heavily PC developers left, but you have to keep your eye out for them. id Software, Valve, Bioware are a few that come to mind.
I don't think anyone disputes that games are going to get shitty in the next little while, but at least the defection of the big PC publishers and developers will leave a big opening for a lot of the stronger small studios to slide into. In my opinion, a short lull will be followed by a bunch of innovation. I'm looking forward to (read: hoping for) it.
Maybe a more brainiac approach was opposed by marketing? They could never have pushed through a clearly inferior solution though.
Hahaha. Clearly you have never seen a marketing department.
The deep pipelines in the P4 perform poorly, period. Even when running simple desktop apps on a Windows machine, I notice my P4-2.5GHz w/1GB RAM at work often jerks around or lags, while my Athlon 1900XP+ w/256MB RAM at home works like lightning. Obviously processor is not the whole story, but I think that under typical, multi-tasking usage, the deep pipelines are even more painful than benchmarks suggest.
Disclaimer: I am not an EE, so I could very well be full of shit.
Do you have snow tires on your bike or something?
:)
Though they are available I don't use them personally. Calgary, while cold, is also remarkably dry. When we do get snow, it rarely lasts more than a day on a surface that is travelled even remotely often. Once the snow is pounded into slush, it's absorbed in short order by the dry air and becomes dry pavement. (This is merely my observations compared to other places I've lived, and is not scientific in any way)
Besides, cycling on snow/ice/slush isn't really that hard if you're slow and careful about it. Admittedly becomes messier and much slower, though. I would generally work from home on days like that.
Canada or Quebec
Contrary to a minority of Quebecer's wishes, Quebec is still part of Canada. You didn't really need to mention both.
... but not more calories burned nor more useful, nor is it even more fun in my opinion, than cycling.
It may not be feasable for everyone, but cycling has replaced my car (and saved me a metric assload of money as well). This is in Calgary, a city with very cold winters and serious urban sprawl going on, although it also has an excellent public transit/bike path system.
Anyway, it's just a thought. There are some excellent bike-commuting solutions out there. It's excellent exercise, good for the environment, and cheap as heck.
Well, I'm impressed then. I wouldn't trust it myself, but can't argue with what works. :)
Uh, how did the harvester find your page in the first place, if not by crawling non-mailto links? I would be surprised if your scheme worked very well at all, and even if it did, I think that's betting too much on the fact that many harvesters are completely incompetent at redirects, not because they magically don't follow links that you think should be ignorable to them.
This purpose has been adequately served for several companies I'm involved with by using a MOO or other MU*s. My bias may be revealed by the fact that one of those corporations is in fact dedicated to running a particular MOO.
However, I have to say that it satisfies all of your requirements and provides a great deal of flexibility for the future as well. It has its own internal programming language (affectionately but not officially known as C&) which allows you to modify basically everything without requiring a restart. It has full support for TCP/IP and file IO, and though the binary support leaves something to be desired, it is quite possible to write a fully functional HTTP server for example.
That would be a cool solution if only there were free Newsreaders which weren't buggy, confusing, or stuck in the 1980s.
If there are, please point me to one. FreeAgent is the best I've ever seen, and it's still rather awkward.
Ahh, good old Stunts. That's how my Grade 10 Communications class was spent.
That game provided many many hours of enjoyment. Especially with the track editor.
Sorry, not every "geek" is a rabid open source zealot. There are many varieties of geek. And the music geek does not worry about open source software. The music geek worries about performing, in a band, in front of people, and doing it well. The Neko64 is targetting musicians, and music geeks. If they satisfy the requirements of a music geek which includes often-overlooked but greatly appreciated features like "what happens if a cable gets pulled, or a breaker trips?" then I think it's pretty fair to say that they "Get It." It's not a phrase exclusive to the open source geek, you know.
You don't have to be a "tard" as you so eloquently put it, to be conned. Clearly he realizes this as he included the phrase "she's probably too trusting" in there. I'd say you're the one being judgemental, if you think that anyone who falls for a scam is a retard.
Calling someone too trusting is not, in my books, an insult any more than telling someone they're giving too much of a tip. Generosity, whether through trust or money, is not a failing. Even if it can burn you sometimes.
What 'known problem' would that be? I've had my 12" PowerBook since they day they were released and have not even had a hint of a problem...