Seriously, I don't understand why being based in Bellevue is an issue. There are plenty of other companies in the Eastside area who've competed with Microsoft, and some that have even hauled them into court.
The reality is that, largely because of Microsoft, the greater Seattle area is a software development corridor, much like Mountain View, CA, or Boston, and it would be surprising if there weren't competitors to Microsoft there.
I understand they used to have a naugahide option as well, but between the ban on importing British naugas due to BSE concerns and the protests by PETA, they've withdrawn that one.
I have yet to see any scientifically valid, double-blind test in which users could distinguish between a CD and an MP3 at 320kbps.
In fact, a few years ago, C't did this at 256kbps, and found that 256kbps MP3 and CDs are pretty much a wash.
However, there is a reason to do this: longevity and patent issues. I don't trust the holders of the MP3 patents not to pull a Unisys just before the patents expire, and a lossless source recording means it's easier for people to compress to the format-du-jour. 256kbps MP3 maybe be indistinguishable from uncompressed, but I doubt the same is true for 256kbps MP3 recompressed using a different algorithm.
Easy there--you could really leave a bruise on someone's shin, what with your knee jerking like that.
An ACID file system would mean that images would probably take 10 days to write
Hmm. Drop an imagine into a BLOB using the slowest RDBMS you can think of, on modern hardware. Nothing like 10 days, and that's the worst case.
An ACID file system would mean that images would probably take 10 days to write, and that, if someone was writing a long file, and a short file, all users of the short file would have to wait until the long file write was complete.
By your reasoning, only one user is also ever able to update an ACID-compliant database at a time? Wow. I guess that throws all my DB experience out the window. Try googling for such arcane and seldom-used technologies such as row-level locking.
You're not burning it at ambient temperature when you light it with a match. Diesel's flash point (the point at which it can combust) is well above room temperature (around 140 degrees F, if memory serves); that of gasoline is well below zero.
That's why diesel engines don't use spark plugs--they can use more efficient air compression to ignite the fuel, whereas doing that with gasoline would cause premature ignition.
The existing flame of the match heats it to the temperature of the burning paper (or wood) of the match, which is above the flash point of the diesel. At that point, the diesel will combust.
A more appropriate test would be to strike the flint of an empty cigarette lighter over the diesel; it won't light. Don't try this over gasoline, though!
You are confusing GPL with LGPL. Modification has no bearing on GPL's requirement to distribute source; it does on LPGL's.
From the GPL: 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: [...]
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License.
See? The GPL covers distributing the licensed Program, as well as a work based on the licensed Program. So I can't, for example, throw the emacs binary on a CD and sell it without providing access to the source code.
Hence, they have NOTHING TO DISTRIBUTE that you couldn't get off of another FTP site.
Additionally, it's not even enough to provide a download location for the binary, and tell you to go download the source from another site! They both have to be from the same place:
[From the end of section 3, emphasis mine:]
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
But you could also put cash in your mailbox and the letter carrier would leave you stamps. AND CHANGE, when your cash exceeded the amount of a multiple of stamp price. If you specified what stamps- 2 cents, 29 cents, whatever, they'd do their best to accommodate, or they'd take the cash, leave a receipt and a note stating what you needed and had paid for, and deliver it the next day.
Ahh... you're bringing back memories. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and it sounds very similar. We also had a party telephone line.
Now they have DSL, supposedly, but they _still_ haven't run cable television up the valley where I used to live.
I'm guessing you don't have a credit card, or if you do, you haven't read the little flyer they send you (printed in the ever-popular Flyspeck 3-point typeface).
Most credit card agreements state the same thing: by using the card, you agree that they can change the terms at any time. Your recourse is to cancel the card. I've done that once before.
I double checked this... you're right. What threw me was that the 128 had two modes of operation, "fast" and "normal". Normal mode was 1.022 MHz, Fast was double that (which, if you were running in normal 40-column video mode caused the video chip to lose synchronization and blank the screen until you dropped back into normal mode).
I was thinking that normal was 2+MHz and fast was 4+MHz. Been a while...
[Sounds like you had a C128... if not, what machine was that?]
You used 128 mode and BASIC? Slacker...:-)
I used 64 mode (most of my friends still had 64s, I really didn't have a use for the extra memory, and it ran faster) and wrote in machine language--not assembly... I didn't know that there was such a thing as an assembler at the time. I had an Apple II CPU manual that was reasonably close enough to the 64 to get the opcodes right, the memory map from the back of the 128 manual, and a hand-copied list of system call addresses from a borrowed C64 Reference Manual. There's nothing like hand-calculating your conditional jumps, then add a byte here, add two bytes there... DAMN! Too far for the short jump.
But then again, 64 mode didn't have the "SYS 32800,123,45,6" easter egg... Link Arms, don't Make Them. *sigh* They don't make 'herdware' like they used to.
My experience in the last 2-3 years (and especially the last year) is that cost centers are *extremely* unpopular...
Oh, they're definitely unpopular with divisions that were previously run as strategic initiatives, and are now suddenly being told, "We know we're not marketing or selling what you produce, but from now on you're going to operate as a cost center."
As I understand it, the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO, etc) executives are the ones driving the return to cost-center budgeting.
I expect short-term thinking to rule here. Execs like to cut costs, and it takes a rare exec with some balls to put his ass on the line and fight for a project that is a net loss from most views:-).
Exactly... so what happens is that the "strategic initiative" gets turned into a cost center, and at the end of the year (or quarter, for the really unlucky ones), the division gets a bullet in the head. Instant cost savings!
You're right on one count--as I was typing a few sentences later, I realized I should have written "cost center/profit center budgeting", but I didn't correct it.
The first sentence was certainly not meant as an ad hominem attack. I think you have your vitriol detector set a little high, and your humor detector needs a battery change.;-) (Better?)
Taken at face value, the original post was indicative of the mindset many people outside the business world have of big companies: namely, a big company is a single, unified entity that thinks with one mind and moves with one body. My post corrected this, provided a scenario in which the poster's idea could be true, and then opined that I didn't think that that scenario was the case here. Where's the ad hominem attack? Just in the opening line?
It's ironic that you open and close your post on "civility" with blanket condemnations of a quarter-million participants--including yourself.
AOL/TW is a huge company and development of Netscape is a tiny tiny fraction of their cost to run their business.
Spoken like someone who has never worked in a large company.
Usually, each division in a company has to justify its own budget, on its own terms. (This is called cost-center budgeting, to which more and more companies are returning). The head of a division can't point to a more profitable section of a company and say "Look, they're making a profit, so I don't have to."
Now, on the other hand, the top brass at AOL might continue to fund a non-profiting product (like Microsoft does with several of its products like IE, XBox, MSN, etc.) because it fulfills a strategic goal. I'm just not sure that they'll be looking at Netscape as a strategic asset anymore.
Seven years is a long time... look at Netscape/IE seven years ago. Hell, in seven years, we may not even be thinking about the Web in terms of discrete browsers.
So, what exactly does OSI's ownership of the UNIX trademark mean, if honoring the trademark is more "in the breach than in the fact"? Has OSI failed to enforce its interest in the trademark sufficiently for it to be weakened and unenforceable?
The reason I'm asking is that, should SCO prevail, could OSI get ugly and demand that SCO stop using OSI's trademark in their marketing materials?
Slashdot Mirror
..and Redmond is the 'strip mall' version.
Seriously, I don't understand why being based in Bellevue is an issue. There are plenty of other companies in the Eastside area who've competed with Microsoft, and some that have even hauled them into court.
The reality is that, largely because of Microsoft, the greater Seattle area is a software development corridor, much like Mountain View, CA, or Boston, and it would be surprising if there weren't competitors to Microsoft there.
I understand they used to have a naugahide option as well, but between the ban on importing British naugas due to BSE concerns and the protests by PETA, they've withdrawn that one.
I have yet to see any scientifically valid, double-blind test in which users could distinguish between a CD and an MP3 at 320kbps.
In fact, a few years ago, C't did this at 256kbps, and found that 256kbps MP3 and CDs are pretty much a wash.
However, there is a reason to do this: longevity and patent issues. I don't trust the holders of the MP3 patents not to pull a Unisys just before the patents expire, and a lossless source recording means it's easier for people to compress to the format-du-jour. 256kbps MP3 maybe be indistinguishable from uncompressed, but I doubt the same is true for 256kbps MP3 recompressed using a different algorithm.
Actually, I find this to be all the proof I need.
Easy there--you could really leave a bruise on someone's shin, what with your knee jerking like that.
An ACID file system would mean that images would probably take 10 days to write
Hmm. Drop an imagine into a BLOB using the slowest RDBMS you can think of, on modern hardware. Nothing like 10 days, and that's the worst case.
An ACID file system would mean that images would probably take 10 days to write, and that, if someone was writing a long file, and a short file, all users of the short file would have to wait until the long file write was complete.
By your reasoning, only one user is also ever able to update an ACID-compliant database at a time? Wow. I guess that throws all my DB experience out the window. Try googling for such arcane and seldom-used technologies such as row-level locking.
Given that one of the main developers of SpamAssassin is another TransMeta-ite (Dan Quinlan, my roommate from college), I'd suspect he has one.
You're not burning it at ambient temperature when you light it with a match. Diesel's flash point (the point at which it can combust) is well above room temperature (around 140 degrees F, if memory serves); that of gasoline is well below zero.
That's why diesel engines don't use spark plugs--they can use more efficient air compression to ignite the fuel, whereas doing that with gasoline would cause premature ignition.
The existing flame of the match heats it to the temperature of the burning paper (or wood) of the match, which is above the flash point of the diesel. At that point, the diesel will combust.
A more appropriate test would be to strike the flint of an empty cigarette lighter over the diesel; it won't light. Don't try this over gasoline, though!
You are confusing GPL with LGPL. Modification has no bearing on GPL's requirement to distribute source; it does on LPGL's.
From the GPL:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: [...]
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License.
See? The GPL covers distributing the licensed Program, as well as a work based on the licensed Program. So I can't, for example, throw the emacs binary on a CD and sell it without providing access to the source code.
Hence, they have NOTHING TO DISTRIBUTE that you couldn't get off of another FTP site.
Additionally, it's not even enough to provide a download location for the binary, and tell you to go download the source from another site! They both have to be from the same place:
[From the end of section 3, emphasis mine:]
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
But you could also put cash in your mailbox and the letter carrier would leave you stamps. AND CHANGE, when your cash exceeded the amount of a multiple of stamp price. If you specified what stamps- 2 cents, 29 cents, whatever, they'd do their best to accommodate, or they'd take the cash, leave a receipt and a note stating what you needed and had paid for, and deliver it the next day.
Ahh... you're bringing back memories. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and it sounds very similar. We also had a party telephone line.
Now they have DSL, supposedly, but they _still_ haven't run cable television up the valley where I used to live.
Seriously, they are *not* doing this, are they?
Umm... yes. Take a look at Tux (kernel-mode http server).
The "H" is at the beginning of the abreviation, so it gets pronounced as a consonant ..... HTML is haitch-tee-em-el, PHP is pee-'aitch-pee.
The poster was probably a Yank... in American English, 'H' is never voiced.
Gee, yeah, it does, especially since the author mentioned that movie in the article.
*plonk*
I'm guessing you don't have a credit card, or if you do, you haven't read the little flyer they send you (printed in the ever-popular Flyspeck 3-point typeface).
Most credit card agreements state the same thing: by using the card, you agree that they can change the terms at any time. Your recourse is to cancel the card. I've done that once before.
I've used WinZip, and it's nice and all, but I just have a hard time using a product from a company with that name (third entry from the top).
It is not lossy. You can construct the original words ("usability" and "yodelers") without any ambiguity.
I suppose it hinges on what you mean by "of any note", but I'd call the 4004 noteworthy, being the first microprocessor and all that.
Granted, it was used mostly in calculators and device control, but they did built a microcomputer board around it as well.
Sure. All he has to do is identify it by its position, while determining it's exact velocity to decide whether it's high-energy or not, and then...
ARGH! DAMN YOU, HEISENBERG!
I double checked this... you're right. What threw me was that the 128 had two modes of operation, "fast" and "normal". Normal mode was 1.022 MHz, Fast was double that (which, if you were running in normal 40-column video mode caused the video chip to lose synchronization and blank the screen until you dropped back into normal mode).
I was thinking that normal was 2+MHz and fast was 4+MHz. Been a while...
[Sounds like you had a C128... if not, what machine was that?]
:-)
You used 128 mode and BASIC? Slacker...
I used 64 mode (most of my friends still had 64s, I really didn't have a use for the extra memory, and it ran faster) and wrote in machine language--not assembly... I didn't know that there was such a thing as an assembler at the time. I had an Apple II CPU manual that was reasonably close enough to the 64 to get the opcodes right, the memory map from the back of the 128 manual, and a hand-copied list of system call addresses from a borrowed C64 Reference Manual. There's nothing like hand-calculating your conditional jumps, then add a byte here, add two bytes there... DAMN! Too far for the short jump.
But then again, 64 mode didn't have the "SYS 32800,123,45,6" easter egg... Link Arms, don't Make Them. *sigh* They don't make 'herdware' like they used to.
Whew.... I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought of AC/DC when reading this summary:
Outstanding objects, and they're developed dirt cheap
Outstanding objects, and they're developed dirt cheap
Functors... serialization... patterns...
Developed dirt cheap
Regex... templates... iterators...
Developed dirt cheap
I'd be willing to bet that, in their 10K, they don't realize the $750MM as revenue coming from Netscape.
My experience in the last 2-3 years (and especially the last year) is that cost centers are *extremely* unpopular...
:-).
Oh, they're definitely unpopular with divisions that were previously run as strategic initiatives, and are now suddenly being told, "We know we're not marketing or selling what you produce, but from now on you're going to operate as a cost center."
As I understand it, the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO, etc) executives are the ones driving the return to cost-center budgeting.
I expect short-term thinking to rule here. Execs like to cut costs, and it takes a rare exec with some balls to put his ass on the line and fight for a project that is a net loss from most views
Exactly... so what happens is that the "strategic initiative" gets turned into a cost center, and at the end of the year (or quarter, for the really unlucky ones), the division gets a bullet in the head. Instant cost savings!
You're right on one count--as I was typing a few sentences later, I realized I should have written "cost center/profit center budgeting", but I didn't correct it.
;-) (Better?)
The first sentence was certainly not meant as an ad hominem attack. I think you have your vitriol detector set a little high, and your humor detector needs a battery change.
Taken at face value, the original post was indicative of the mindset many people outside the business world have of big companies: namely, a big company is a single, unified entity that thinks with one mind and moves with one body. My post corrected this, provided a scenario in which the poster's idea could be true, and then opined that I didn't think that that scenario was the case here. Where's the ad hominem attack? Just in the opening line?
It's ironic that you open and close your post on "civility" with blanket condemnations of a quarter-million participants--including yourself.
AOL/TW is a huge company and development of Netscape is a tiny tiny fraction of their cost to run their business.
Spoken like someone who has never worked in a large company.
Usually, each division in a company has to justify its own budget, on its own terms. (This is called cost-center budgeting, to which more and more companies are returning). The head of a division can't point to a more profitable section of a company and say "Look, they're making a profit, so I don't have to."
Now, on the other hand, the top brass at AOL might continue to fund a non-profiting product (like Microsoft does with several of its products like IE, XBox, MSN, etc.) because it fulfills a strategic goal. I'm just not sure that they'll be looking at Netscape as a strategic asset anymore.
Seven years is a long time... look at Netscape/IE seven years ago. Hell, in seven years, we may not even be thinking about the Web in terms of discrete browsers.
So, what exactly does OSI's ownership of the UNIX trademark mean, if honoring the trademark is more "in the breach than in the fact"? Has OSI failed to enforce its interest in the trademark sufficiently for it to be weakened and unenforceable?
The reason I'm asking is that, should SCO prevail, could OSI get ugly and demand that SCO stop using OSI's trademark in their marketing materials?