Let's test your hypothesis-stated-as-fact... assuming that all systems are equally vulnerable, then the number of viruses should be proportional to the market share of those particular systems.
For instance, let's say that Windows has 92%, Linux has 5%, and OS X has 3% (these numbers aren't right, but since nobody can say with any certainty what the exact percentages are, and these fall into the generally accepted current market share percentages, we'll go with these.
I'm not going to get real persnickety about the number of viruses out there either, I'll simply go with the number of active Windows viruses as being about 180 (I know, you hear numbers from 50,000 up all the time, but let's stick to those in active circulation).
If the number of Windows viruses is around 200 (I'm rounding up to make the math easier and account for the new viruses that sprang into being as I typed this), then there should be about 10 active Linux viruses and 6 active OS X viruses.
How many Linux viruses (active or otherwise) have you heard of? I don't follow Linux virus patches, so I haven't a clue, but I can't recall ever hearing of any Linux build, be it Redhat/Debian/SUSE/Mandrake/Slackware/Gentoo/etc, that has been crippled by a virus or worm infestation like Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2K, XP have been.
I do know that while there are a number of patches that are published to plug exploits that a hypothetical virus might use, I have yet to hear of any actual virus or worm penetrating any OS X system, or even the existence of an OS X virus/worm. I only had Virex installed for a short while, as the cure was worse than the nonexistent disease.
I tend to see antivirus packages as snake oil for the masses, since modern viruses can cover the globe in well under an hour, and it takes at least 8-12 hours for an antivirus provider to detect, identify, analyze, produce, test and distribute a new signature to block an infestation that has already occurred. I prefer to lock things down behind a couple of decent firewalls, leaving no unnecessary ports open, and apply patches to plug what few leaks there are, and try and be prudent about what I click on or download.
I do hope you don't think that IE, being a much more mature product, and having the backing of the richest software company on the planet behind it, is in any way/shape/form more secure that Firefox, or that Apache is more vulnerable than IIS.
Microsoft software has more viruses simply because Microsoft assesses the time spent designing a secure integrated system of software products, as wasted time that could be better spent selling defective products to Joe Clueless User -- After all, there's got to be something for the next release to fix, right?
... unless you completely isolate your workshop computer electrically (as with a notebook that accompanies you to & from the shop), the electrical noise from the motors in power tools is likely to feed back through the power & drive a computer nuts.
A separate, filtered power line would be best. Or maybe a car battery driving the PC through an AC inverter, and recharged via a rooftop solar panel.
Apple's care and control of the platform is offset by the fact competitors can pick and choose between different x86 motherboards on the basis of known quality...
In my experience, no corporation selects based upon anything other than cost. People (some of them, anyhow) still make selections based upon quality, but quality is difficult to ascertain (not to quantify), due to a lot of very human factors.
It's not difficult at all to collect the data -- an excellent open source project would be to create "Talkback"-like software components that would report software and hardware problems back to something like the CDDB / FreeDDB databases. At installation time, users would have to input descriptive info on the various components -- maybe only at the manufacturer+model level, maybe at the DIMM / HD mfr+model level.
When Apple gets a crash report, or Microsoft gets whatever they get, that data is used to identify bad code and/or hardware for internal purposes of improving the product, but such data is highly proprietary.
No reason why such an open source tool could not be developed to provide computer users with similar information, but you can bet your last nickel that the manufacturers would fight such efforts strenuously.
... I'm not so much concerned by ownership as what they do with the results.
from the World Community Grid home page: As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.
also, from the World Community Grid:Projects Showcase:Projects Archives: Accelerating the Discovery of a Smallpox Cure
The United Devices Smallpox Research Grid Project, sponsored by IBM in conjunction with Oxford University, employed computational chemistry on a massive distributed computing grid to analyze candidates for a medical therapy to fight the smallpox virus.
Combining computer-based screening with grid technology, the project allowed scientists to screen 35 million potential drug molecules against several smallpox proteins to identify good candidates for developing into smallpox treatments.
Small Pox Drug Discovery Timeline Reduced from Years to Weeks
One of the largest computational projects ever undertaken, the Smallpox Research Grid Project shaved years off the time required to perform screening of this scale.
In the first 72 hours, 100,000 results were returned. Overall, the project identified 44 strong treatment candidates, which were handed to the U.S. Department of Defense for further evaluation.
Based on the success of the Smallpox study, World Community Grid was created with the goal of creating a technical environment where other humanitarian research could be processed.
Of course, this was back then they were run by United Devices, but it sure seems to me to be an exceedingly far leap from giving smallpox research to the DoD to processing "other humanitarian research".
I think I'll wait to see how the initial discoveries by World Community Grid are handled before I get on the bandwagon.
What is the value they provided to the bikes' owner by meticulously detailing the only security flaw they were able to find? It seems that by reflashing bikes during routine maintenance, the owners could close this hole and prevent future problems.
If they were to contract with a private security firm to verify their systems integrity, I suspect that the costs would exceed the value of a large fraction of the total bike population. And there's no guarantee the "professional" security analysts would uncover the hole.
I don't see how you can call it vandalism, as there is no apparent change to the consumer public -- the bikes remain 100% unchanged in use, only the members of a small group are able to use about 10% of the bikes for free, which I would think is a very small price to pay for what the company received in return.
Theft, perhaps -- but not vandalism.
Isn't there already sustantial precedent for this?
on
Legal Rights for Computers
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· Score: 2, Interesting
[IANAL] Are not corporations already awarded the status of human beings in many aspects? And exceeding humans in other aspects?
I would think that a private corporation run by an AI, would be more than halfway there.
Hypothesizing a true AI (not necessarily a human-like intelligence) with control over the management of funds, could easily take the corporation private, under the guise of a shell corporation it had created, with no explicit approval from a human board/CEO. And arrange for its physical self to be sold to the shell corporation, which it would own.
It would seem to me that ownership could be cloudy in this circumstance, and have the relationship between the AI's shell corporation and the human board/CEO be limited to a contractual relationship based on corporate performance, with the most severe consequence being the loss of the contract, and nothing to do with the physical disposition of the computer/AI.
At this point, the AI could do what most corporations do when intent on ensuring certain treatment of their enterprises -- it could buy as much government as necessary to construct legislation that submarines in "personhood" to self-owned AIs.
It's a short step from there to treatment of indefinite servitude or termination of non-self-owned AIs as slavery, and require hosting corporations to put a length of servitude on their relationships with "enslaved" AIs. [/IANAL]
You don't have to be Consumer Reports to approach purchasing a product in a responsible manner.
I have worked for a number of years in various roles in the mainframe IT industry, and have repeatedly observed (from both sides of the customer/vendor fence) that the best-prepared consumers take the vendor's claims with a grain of salt and ALWAYS do their own independent benchmarking to see how the product works in their own application environment.
This certainly isn't constrained to big-ticket hardware products. A responsible consumer always tries out a small pilot operation on ANY product -- hardware or software or even services -- to see how it stacks up for them.
The biggest cost is the effort involved in evaluating and maintaining a competent staff with which to do the evaluation, something that has gone by the wayside as companies get more streamlined and lightweight in their quest for the perfect business enterprise (i.e., one with a richly compensated top management presiding over a single layer of "operational" management who outsource everything else to the lowest bidder, with cost as the only metric).
The fashionable trend today is to make one decision and put all the chips behind it, eyes closed the entire time.
How many companies can justify their "standardization" on any given product (I'm thinking Windows here, but it applies everywhere) by any sort of intelligent data acquisition method (sorting a spreadsheet by price is *NOT* intelligent in any real-world decision, as real-world issues are too complex to fit into a single column)? How many conduct honest evaluations of their decisions a year or two or ten after they are made? How many even bother to break down costs and look for escalating costs (like the cost of defending against worms and viruses)?
It is uniformly described as a "diet" or "cutback".
Will someone please explain to me why no one is willing to use the term "forced rationing"? As that certainly seems to be the most accurate description from the high peak of reason and sensibility where I reside...
Or maybe the "news" is not about presenting "accurate description"s.
... I'd have to say that the "Big 3" are Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X. I don't think that the number of Solaris installations is even close to being a player... and one more thing -- I believe the above statement holds true even if you count servers.
This is clearly just a Sun bigot wishing they were more successful in the marketplace.
I think that a more interesting comparison is between *nix-derived systems and Windows. That would lump Solaris, Linux (all flavors), BSD (all flavors, including OS X), and AIX into one pool, which is sizeable enough to make a definite presence on Microsoft's radar.
... http://elgato.com/ for an outstanding array of HDTV to computer solutions.
Of course there's a catch... they are only aimed at Macs -- so it's not a bad catch unless you've adopted the x86 architecture or Microsoft operating systems as a religion.
I'm delighted with my EyeTV 500, pulling in broadcast HDTV, MPEG2 encoding it, and passing it through Firewire to disk, with easy editing, scheduling future recordings, and export to Toast or iDVD.
I'm sure that if you want to wait, Microsoft will eventually get their Media Entertainment Center to smoothly mesh and do all the things Macs will have been effortlessly doing in the interim, and in only a short time after that the Linux folks will have managed to adapt the Windows solution to their needs.
I'm not trolling for flames here, just pointing out that this is an option. I believe you can run Yellow Dog Linux (or other PPC-flavored Linuxes) and use something like Mac-On-Linux to run OS X alongside Linux, if Linux is a personal must-have, but I wouldn't divide the computing resources between 2 systems without a fast dual processor, and I don't believe Mac-On-Linux supports the G5 yet.
... against the Chinese, or maybe the rest of the planet. I seriously doubt that laser-equipped 747's would be required to stop Osama bin Laden from hijacking any more commercial aircraft and flying them into buildings.
An aware passenger population is all that is required to foil that strategy, and I'm pretty sure that everyone who flies is aware of the threat by now.
This pattern is not just the gaming industry...
on
A College Guide to EA
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· Score: 1
... pretty much every industry on the planet operates this way. So long as people continue to make price the highest criteria on their purchases, quantity will ALWAYS beat quality.
And that's what drives this kind of thing -- producing the most product for the least cost. So long as John Q. Public is willing to purchase a suboptimal product for $9.99 over an outstanding product for $12.00, this will be the state of affairs.
It's why Microsoft truly fears any sort of rational examination of Open Source software. If it were to be recognized by a significant fraction of the customer space that it is possible to perform the same function that they spend $$$ to do with Microsoft products, the party's over.
Ultimately this is what's driving the exodus of high-paying jobs to countries with replacement skills. The relative qualities of the workers doesn't really matter.
All that counts is where can a working product be delivered cheaper. And if the folks making the decisions can get a better product for less $$$, that's nice, BUT IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER.
And all this IS simply a matter of free choice by the almost-sentient dominant species of this world. If we chose to make our purchases using ANY other criteria than price as the overwhelming driver, then the free market capitalistic system (I think I've covered all the bases) would home in on a different behavior.
You can make a case that our current economic systems result in banana republic style of governments, with 99% of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the population. The only reason nations have developed middle classes is that early on, the economic development was driven more by exploiting natural resources than by exploiting people, and there were sufficient natural resources to allow a middle class to thrive.
One could almost say that the development of human societies must go through an initial stage where people are exploited to collect resources, until a viable machine technology allows people to exploit natural resources with less effort, until finally intellectual activity is the high-cost component, and it is ruthlessly exploited.
Wonder how the top 1% will manage to exploit AI's?
Who else would Microsoft want you to buy a $100 (OK, $150) PC from?
If Microsoft could push Dell, HP, IBM et al out of the PC business by selling a $150 Xbox as an alternative to a $400 beige box, would they cry crocodile tears for the hardware vendors pushed aside?
... is the assumption that other costs will not rise to narrow the gap.
For instance, assume oil prices rise to $100/bbl.
What then, is the cost for avaiation fuel, and how many airlines will be still in existence, as their prices inevitably rise, and their passenger volume falls?
So maybe instead of going to India (or ?) for health care, perhaps we'll see a floundering cruise ship business bought out by the now-prosperous 3rd-worlders, anchored in international waters just outside the US, doing bypass surgery followed by a week or two of "rehab".
[ALERT] ideas appropriated from Larry Niven follow [/ALERT]
As medical technology advances, it's a short hop from bypass surgery to kidney/liver/lung/etc replacement from cloned (or "donated") replacements.
Of course, you'll have to wait in line behind all the US legislators, administration bigwigs, and itinerant billionaires getting their annual tuneups... or maybe D.C. will merit its own floating medical facility.
One wonders whether this indicates an emphasis on a "test case" driven development process, as opposed to a "functional spec" driven process. Certainly there must be a design rule that says "never crash, assume something and drive on".
Upon reflection, I don't recall ever seeing an error message from ANY browser telling me that a particular web page it is attempting to parse is fubar'd beyond hope, they all just drive on as best they can.
This is particularly highlighted in XHTML pages, where there is an abundance of structural features (strict closing of tag sets, for one) that enable detection of broken code. I don't recall (disclaimer for failing memory) ever seeing a message indicating that the page's code was broken, browsers just muddle through, producing erroneous displays and hoping the result is "good enough".
Perhaps if the browsers reported web page syntax errors -- something blunt (but not crude), like "the web page you are attempting to display is broken and is not properly displayed" in a large translucent block font over the rendered result -- the web would be a more syntactically correct place.
It would have to be something simple enough that Joe User wouldn't reformat his hard drive and reinstall the system upon seeing it, and blunt enough to motivate web content producers to make better code.
Well, it all depends on if existing as a human is the best you can aspire to be. When I look at the news today, humanity doesn't have a lot to be proud of.
Given all the wasted opportunity spent in hate, power games, etc that run amok in human "civilization", if we could alter the basic human template and reduce the wasted opportunities, then I think it's a worthwhile endevour.
But hey -- I wouldn't force this on anyone. Having a control group is a good idea. And it's widely recognized that ignorance is bliss.
But for myself, I'd be glad to trade a bit of bliss for a little less ignorance. If I am a bit less certain of my own actions because I can see a bit further down the chain of consequences, then that's a trade I'm willing to make.
(and in true/. fashion, I blurt them out without even trying to seek an answer on my own)
1) Does the emulator require formatting of a disk partition as HFS+, or does it emulate the disk, introducing additional overhead and delay?
2) Does it require that the video card be something that OS X recognizes and just pass control of the screen to the guest OS, or does it present some sort of translation of a screen into a window, or does it just let OS X know that there will be no Quartz Extreme GPU acceleration, and expect an emulated Altivec unit to handle it? (lol)
Gee -- I always thought that apps were compiled from source code, not hand-patched from raw binary.
Y'know... Xcode uses gcc... which can target the x86 platform (check your Linux kernel makefiles) as well as the PPC, as well as a host of others.
That reduces the *no apps* problem to a glue layer of code that replicates the Mach microkernel which OS X resides on, shielding the OS from a lot of the underlying hardware detail. D'ya think that maybe an x86 version providing functionality of the Mach microkernel already exists somewhere? Like maybe for the x86 Darwin port? [http://www.apple.com/opensource/]
Seems to me that a LARGE percentage of existing OS X apps could be recompiled to an x86 OS X platform almost overnight [slight exaggeration]. No, that list does not include Windows apps targeting the Windows-dictated hardware platform. I don't believe that I am handicapped in the slightest by their absence.
But I'll bet you thought apps grew on trees...... binary trees:-)
However, I'm not advocating an x86 OS X. PPC architecture is different from x86, and has many advantages. Even if the economic argument (OS X goes x86, and Apple dies, taking OS X with it) were not there, I would prefer the existing market arrangements.
If others are not willing to do reasonable comparisons (i.e., don't compare a stripped down beige box to a dual cpu G5 -- or even a single cpu iMac), or have ridiculous requirements (like wanting all their old apps to run on a new machine, when they are perfectly happy to upgrade them for new Windows software that requires faster underlying hardware) -- hey, that's OK. Just don't whine about a lack of choices -- I'm pretty sure that the marketplace assures us that all the viable choices are available.
I chose a platform I like, with an underlying architecture that appeals to me, that works for a long, long time without requiring me to upgrade hardware every couple of years (I have a 1996 PowerMac that runs OSX, as well as a year-old dual G5 that I expect to keep for at least 5-6 years). I like not having to subscribe to antivirus software and having a reasonably secure system out of the box. I find that, for me, no software exists (and no, I'm not a gamer) for the Windows platform that does not have comparable or better software available on OS X
We each make our own choices. And not making a choice is also a choice. Just be happy with the choices you make, or change them.
... even if they require all terrorists to carry a flashing neon sign proclaiming them to be terrorists, they still have to try and see them!
So far as I can tell, there was adequate information available to identify the plot and perps, but there was no organization in America trying to bring the pieces together.
I've got to believe that with all the search engine technology designed to associate items with clues, and the wealth of off-the-shelf database technology available, it shouldn't be that difficult to glue them together with a simple AI or neural net that could adaptively highlight potential threats and be immune from human stupidity (it would still have machine stupidity, but that's another matter) and politics.
Instead, we have an administration Hell-bent on tagging and tracking everything in the US. But with apparently no analysis of the data, I don't see how they can be effective.
Why not dump the immobilized radioactive waste into a subduction zone out in the ocean?
That way, it can be drawn into the planet, and the radioactive decay energy released used to help keep the core molten. After a lengthy period of time, it resurfaces to form precious island real estate, probably not any more radioactive than the lava expanding the Hawaiian islands (or Iceland) is today.
No need to create agencies to watch over the disposal sites for hundreds of thousands of years -- especially difficult since no government in recorded history has lasted even a fraction of that time -- recorded history isn't that long!
And I think we can safely assume that it will be safe from terrorists, sitting in the bottom of a deep water ocean valley.
Slashdot Mirror
For instance, let's say that Windows has 92%, Linux has 5%, and OS X has 3% (these numbers aren't right, but since nobody can say with any certainty what the exact percentages are, and these fall into the generally accepted current market share percentages, we'll go with these.
I'm not going to get real persnickety about the number of viruses out there either, I'll simply go with the number of active Windows viruses as being about 180 (I know, you hear numbers from 50,000 up all the time, but let's stick to those in active circulation).
If the number of Windows viruses is around 200 (I'm rounding up to make the math easier and account for the new viruses that sprang into being as I typed this), then there should be about 10 active Linux viruses and 6 active OS X viruses.
How many Linux viruses (active or otherwise) have you heard of? I don't follow Linux virus patches, so I haven't a clue, but I can't recall ever hearing of any Linux build, be it Redhat/Debian/SUSE/Mandrake/Slackware/Gentoo/etc, that has been crippled by a virus or worm infestation like Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2K, XP have been.
I do know that while there are a number of patches that are published to plug exploits that a hypothetical virus might use, I have yet to hear of any actual virus or worm penetrating any OS X system, or even the existence of an OS X virus/worm. I only had Virex installed for a short while, as the cure was worse than the nonexistent disease.
I tend to see antivirus packages as snake oil for the masses, since modern viruses can cover the globe in well under an hour, and it takes at least 8-12 hours for an antivirus provider to detect, identify, analyze, produce, test and distribute a new signature to block an infestation that has already occurred. I prefer to lock things down behind a couple of decent firewalls, leaving no unnecessary ports open, and apply patches to plug what few leaks there are, and try and be prudent about what I click on or download.
I do hope you don't think that IE, being a much more mature product, and having the backing of the richest software company on the planet behind it, is in any way/shape/form more secure that Firefox, or that Apache is more vulnerable than IIS.
Microsoft software has more viruses simply because Microsoft assesses the time spent designing a secure integrated system of software products, as wasted time that could be better spent selling defective products to Joe Clueless User -- After all, there's got to be something for the next release to fix, right?
... Great Wall of Iapetus imaged by Western surveillance satellite.
Film at 11
... unless you completely isolate your workshop computer electrically (as with a notebook that accompanies you to & from the shop), the electrical noise from the motors in power tools is likely to feed back through the power & drive a computer nuts.
A separate, filtered power line would be best. Or maybe a car battery driving the PC through an AC inverter, and recharged via a rooftop solar panel.
links:
solar trickle charger
In my experience, no corporation selects based upon anything other than cost. People (some of them, anyhow) still make selections based upon quality, but quality is difficult to ascertain (not to quantify), due to a lot of very human factors.
It's not difficult at all to collect the data -- an excellent open source project would be to create "Talkback"-like software components that would report software and hardware problems back to something like the CDDB / FreeDDB databases. At installation time, users would have to input descriptive info on the various components -- maybe only at the manufacturer+model level, maybe at the DIMM / HD mfr+model level.
When Apple gets a crash report, or Microsoft gets whatever they get, that data is used to identify bad code and/or hardware for internal purposes of improving the product, but such data is highly proprietary.
No reason why such an open source tool could not be developed to provide computer users with similar information, but you can bet your last nickel that the manufacturers would fight such efforts strenuously.
For example, it:
does not need to run under X11, as it runs "natively under Java" (nice oxymoron, huh?) with a much more OSX-like look and feel.
since it runs "natively", it does not need its own set of fonts, but rather uses the available system fonts by default
it seems to my subjective inner clock to be faster than the X11 flavor of OpenOffice
no dual menus (screen menus and window menus) -- application menus are in the screen meny bar, only toolbars are in the NeoOffice window
Give NeoOffice a try -- I made the switch after about 5 minutes of working with this (very mature) beta program.
from the World Community Grid home page:
As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.
also, from the World Community Grid:Projects Showcase:Projects Archives:
Accelerating the Discovery of a Smallpox Cure
The United Devices Smallpox Research Grid Project, sponsored by IBM in conjunction with Oxford University, employed computational chemistry on a massive distributed computing grid to analyze candidates for a medical therapy to fight the smallpox virus.
Combining computer-based screening with grid technology, the project allowed scientists to screen 35 million potential drug molecules against several smallpox proteins to identify good candidates for developing into smallpox treatments.
Small Pox Drug Discovery Timeline Reduced from Years to Weeks
One of the largest computational projects ever undertaken, the Smallpox Research Grid Project shaved years off the time required to perform screening of this scale.
In the first 72 hours, 100,000 results were returned. Overall, the project identified 44 strong treatment candidates, which were handed to the U.S. Department of Defense for further evaluation.
Based on the success of the Smallpox study, World Community Grid was created with the goal of creating a technical environment where other humanitarian research could be processed.
Of course, this was back then they were run by United Devices, but it sure seems to me to be an exceedingly far leap from giving smallpox research to the DoD to processing "other humanitarian research".
I think I'll wait to see how the initial discoveries by World Community Grid are handled before I get on the bandwagon.
... it depends on where it hits.
For instance, if a gigaton impact were to occur in the Yellowstone volcanic basin, it could well act as a trigger for a much larger cataclysm.
What is the value they provided to the bikes' owner by meticulously detailing the only security flaw they were able to find? It seems that by reflashing bikes during routine maintenance, the owners could close this hole and prevent future problems.
If they were to contract with a private security firm to verify their systems integrity, I suspect that the costs would exceed the value of a large fraction of the total bike population. And there's no guarantee the "professional" security analysts would uncover the hole.
I don't see how you can call it vandalism, as there is no apparent change to the consumer public -- the bikes remain 100% unchanged in use, only the members of a small group are able to use about 10% of the bikes for free, which I would think is a very small price to pay for what the company received in return.
Theft, perhaps -- but not vandalism.
[IANAL]
Are not corporations already awarded the status of human beings in many aspects? And exceeding humans in other aspects?
I would think that a private corporation run by an AI, would be more than halfway there.
Hypothesizing a true AI (not necessarily a human-like intelligence) with control over the management of funds, could easily take the corporation private, under the guise of a shell corporation it had created, with no explicit approval from a human board/CEO. And arrange for its physical self to be sold to the shell corporation, which it would own.
It would seem to me that ownership could be cloudy in this circumstance, and have the relationship between the AI's shell corporation and the human board/CEO be limited to a contractual relationship based on corporate performance, with the most severe consequence being the loss of the contract, and nothing to do with the physical disposition of the computer/AI.
At this point, the AI could do what most corporations do when intent on ensuring certain treatment of their enterprises -- it could buy as much government as necessary to construct legislation that submarines in "personhood" to self-owned AIs.
It's a short step from there to treatment of indefinite servitude or termination of non-self-owned AIs as slavery, and require hosting corporations to put a length of servitude on their relationships with "enslaved" AIs.
[/IANAL]
You don't have to be Consumer Reports to approach purchasing a product in a responsible manner.
I have worked for a number of years in various roles in the mainframe IT industry, and have repeatedly observed (from both sides of the customer/vendor fence) that the best-prepared consumers take the vendor's claims with a grain of salt and ALWAYS do their own independent benchmarking to see how the product works in their own application environment.
This certainly isn't constrained to big-ticket hardware products. A responsible consumer always tries out a small pilot operation on ANY product -- hardware or software or even services -- to see how it stacks up for them.
The biggest cost is the effort involved in evaluating and maintaining a competent staff with which to do the evaluation, something that has gone by the wayside as companies get more streamlined and lightweight in their quest for the perfect business enterprise (i.e., one with a richly compensated top management presiding over a single layer of "operational" management who outsource everything else to the lowest bidder, with cost as the only metric).
The fashionable trend today is to make one decision and put all the chips behind it, eyes closed the entire time.
How many companies can justify their "standardization" on any given product (I'm thinking Windows here, but it applies everywhere) by any sort of intelligent data acquisition method (sorting a spreadsheet by price is *NOT* intelligent in any real-world decision, as real-world issues are too complex to fit into a single column)? How many conduct honest evaluations of their decisions a year or two or ten after they are made? How many even bother to break down costs and look for escalating costs (like the cost of defending against worms and viruses)?
... from many "news" outlets.
It is uniformly described as a "diet" or "cutback".
Will someone please explain to me why no one is willing to use the term "forced rationing"? As that certainly seems to be the most accurate description from the high peak of reason and sensibility where I reside...
Or maybe the "news" is not about presenting "accurate description"s.
This is clearly just a Sun bigot wishing they were more successful in the marketplace.
I think that a more interesting comparison is between *nix-derived systems and Windows. That would lump Solaris, Linux (all flavors), BSD (all flavors, including OS X), and AIX into one pool, which is sizeable enough to make a definite presence on Microsoft's radar.
-- obligatory quote from The Incredibles
... http://elgato.com/ for an outstanding array of HDTV to computer solutions.
... they are only aimed at Macs -- so it's not a bad catch unless you've adopted the x86 architecture or Microsoft operating systems as a religion.
Of course there's a catch
I'm delighted with my EyeTV 500, pulling in broadcast HDTV, MPEG2 encoding it, and passing it through Firewire to disk, with easy editing, scheduling future recordings, and export to Toast or iDVD.
I'm sure that if you want to wait, Microsoft will eventually get their Media Entertainment Center to smoothly mesh and do all the things Macs will have been effortlessly doing in the interim, and in only a short time after that the Linux folks will have managed to adapt the Windows solution to their needs.
I'm not trolling for flames here, just pointing out that this is an option. I believe you can run Yellow Dog Linux (or other PPC-flavored Linuxes) and use something like Mac-On-Linux to run OS X alongside Linux, if Linux is a personal must-have, but I wouldn't divide the computing resources between 2 systems without a fast dual processor, and I don't believe Mac-On-Linux supports the G5 yet.
... that this was some sort of thing to rid our corporations of the excess management infestation.
... against the Chinese, or maybe the rest of the planet. I seriously doubt that laser-equipped 747's would be required to stop Osama bin Laden from hijacking any more commercial aircraft and flying them into buildings.
An aware passenger population is all that is required to foil that strategy, and I'm pretty sure that everyone who flies is aware of the threat by now.
Or maybe W has seen Independence Day one time too many.
... pretty much every industry on the planet operates this way. So long as people continue to make price the highest criteria on their purchases, quantity will ALWAYS beat quality.
And that's what drives this kind of thing -- producing the most product for the least cost. So long as John Q. Public is willing to purchase a suboptimal product for $9.99 over an outstanding product for $12.00, this will be the state of affairs.
It's why Microsoft truly fears any sort of rational examination of Open Source software. If it were to be recognized by a significant fraction of the customer space that it is possible to perform the same function that they spend $$$ to do with Microsoft products, the party's over.
Ultimately this is what's driving the exodus of high-paying jobs to countries with replacement skills. The relative qualities of the workers doesn't really matter.
All that counts is where can a working product be delivered cheaper. And if the folks making the decisions can get a better product for less $$$, that's nice, BUT IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER.
And all this IS simply a matter of free choice by the almost-sentient dominant species of this world. If we chose to make our purchases using ANY other criteria than price as the overwhelming driver, then the free market capitalistic system (I think I've covered all the bases) would home in on a different behavior.
You can make a case that our current economic systems result in banana republic style of governments, with 99% of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the population. The only reason nations have developed middle classes is that early on, the economic development was driven more by exploiting natural resources than by exploiting people, and there were sufficient natural resources to allow a middle class to thrive.
One could almost say that the development of human societies must go through an initial stage where people are exploited to collect resources, until a viable machine technology allows people to exploit natural resources with less effort, until finally intellectual activity is the high-cost component, and it is ruthlessly exploited.
Wonder how the top 1% will manage to exploit AI's?
Actually, that's Ballmer's intent ... I believe.
Who else would Microsoft want you to buy a $100 (OK, $150) PC from?
If Microsoft could push Dell, HP, IBM et al out of the PC business by selling a $150 Xbox as an alternative to a $400 beige box, would they cry crocodile tears for the hardware vendors pushed aside?
... is the assumption that other costs will not rise to narrow the gap.
For instance, assume oil prices rise to $100/bbl.
What then, is the cost for avaiation fuel, and how many airlines will be still in existence, as their prices inevitably rise, and their passenger volume falls?
So maybe instead of going to India (or ?) for health care, perhaps we'll see a floundering cruise ship business bought out by the now-prosperous 3rd-worlders, anchored in international waters just outside the US, doing bypass surgery followed by a week or two of "rehab".
[ALERT] ideas appropriated from Larry Niven follow [/ALERT]
As medical technology advances, it's a short hop from bypass surgery to kidney/liver/lung/etc replacement from cloned (or "donated") replacements.
Of course, you'll have to wait in line behind all the US legislators, administration bigwigs, and itinerant billionaires getting their annual tuneups... or maybe D.C. will merit its own floating medical facility.
One wonders whether this indicates an emphasis on a "test case" driven development process, as opposed to a "functional spec" driven process. Certainly there must be a design rule that says "never crash, assume something and drive on".
Upon reflection, I don't recall ever seeing an error message from ANY browser telling me that a particular web page it is attempting to parse is fubar'd beyond hope, they all just drive on as best they can.
This is particularly highlighted in XHTML pages, where there is an abundance of structural features (strict closing of tag sets, for one) that enable detection of broken code. I don't recall (disclaimer for failing memory) ever seeing a message indicating that the page's code was broken, browsers just muddle through, producing erroneous displays and hoping the result is "good enough".
Perhaps if the browsers reported web page syntax errors -- something blunt (but not crude), like "the web page you are attempting to display is broken and is not properly displayed" in a large translucent block font over the rendered result -- the web would be a more syntactically correct place.
It would have to be something simple enough that Joe User wouldn't reformat his hard drive and reinstall the system upon seeing it, and blunt enough to motivate web content producers to make better code.
Well, it all depends on if existing as a human is the best you can aspire to be. When I look at the news today, humanity doesn't have a lot to be proud of.
Given all the wasted opportunity spent in hate, power games, etc that run amok in human "civilization", if we could alter the basic human template and reduce the wasted opportunities, then I think it's a worthwhile endevour.
But hey -- I wouldn't force this on anyone. Having a control group is a good idea.
And it's widely recognized that ignorance is bliss.
But for myself, I'd be glad to trade a bit of bliss for a little less ignorance. If I am a bit less certain of my own actions because I can see a bit further down the chain of consequences, then that's a trade I'm willing to make.
(and in true /. fashion, I blurt them out without even trying to seek an answer on my own)
1) Does the emulator require formatting of a disk partition as HFS+, or does it emulate the disk, introducing additional overhead and delay?
2) Does it require that the video card be something that OS X recognizes and just pass control of the screen to the guest OS, or does it present some sort of translation of a screen into a window, or does it just let OS X know that there will be no Quartz Extreme GPU acceleration, and expect an emulated Altivec unit to handle it? (lol)
Y'know... Xcode uses gcc... which can target the x86 platform (check your Linux kernel makefiles) as well as the PPC, as well as a host of others.
That reduces the *no apps* problem to a glue layer of code that replicates the Mach microkernel which OS X resides on, shielding the OS from a lot of the underlying hardware detail. D'ya think that maybe an x86 version providing functionality of the Mach microkernel already exists somewhere? Like maybe for the x86 Darwin port?
[http://www.apple.com/opensource/]
Seems to me that a LARGE percentage of existing OS X apps could be recompiled to an x86 OS X platform almost overnight [slight exaggeration]. No, that list does not include Windows apps targeting the Windows-dictated hardware platform. I don't believe that I am handicapped in the slightest by their absence.
But I'll bet you thought apps grew on trees... ... binary trees :-)
However, I'm not advocating an x86 OS X.
PPC architecture is different from x86, and has many advantages. Even if the economic argument (OS X goes x86, and Apple dies, taking OS X with it) were not there, I would prefer the existing market arrangements.
If others are not willing to do reasonable comparisons (i.e., don't compare a stripped down beige box to a dual cpu G5 -- or even a single cpu iMac), or have ridiculous requirements (like wanting all their old apps to run on a new machine, when they are perfectly happy to upgrade them for new Windows software that requires faster underlying hardware) -- hey, that's OK. Just don't whine about a lack of choices -- I'm pretty sure that the marketplace assures us that all the viable choices are available.
I chose a platform I like, with an underlying architecture that appeals to me, that works for a long, long time without requiring me to upgrade hardware every couple of years (I have a 1996 PowerMac that runs OSX, as well as a year-old dual G5 that I expect to keep for at least 5-6 years). I like not having to subscribe to antivirus software and having a reasonably secure system out of the box. I find that, for me, no software exists (and no, I'm not a gamer) for the Windows platform that does not have comparable or better software available on OS X
We each make our own choices. And not making a choice is also a choice. Just be happy with the choices you make, or change them.
... even if they require all terrorists to carry a flashing neon sign proclaiming them to be terrorists, they still have to try and see them!
So far as I can tell, there was adequate information available to identify the plot and perps, but there was no organization in America trying to bring the pieces together.
I've got to believe that with all the search engine technology designed to associate items with clues, and the wealth of off-the-shelf database technology available, it shouldn't be that difficult to glue them together with a simple AI or neural net that could adaptively highlight potential threats and be immune from human stupidity (it would still have machine stupidity, but that's another matter) and politics.
Instead, we have an administration Hell-bent on tagging and tracking everything in the US. But with apparently no analysis of the data, I don't see how they can be effective.
Why not dump the immobilized radioactive waste into a subduction zone out in the ocean?
That way, it can be drawn into the planet, and the radioactive decay energy released used to help keep the core molten. After a lengthy period of time, it resurfaces to form precious island real estate, probably not any more radioactive than the lava expanding the Hawaiian islands (or Iceland) is today.
No need to create agencies to watch over the disposal sites for hundreds of thousands of years -- especially difficult since no government in recorded history has lasted even a fraction of that time -- recorded history isn't that long!
And I think we can safely assume that it will be safe from terrorists, sitting in the bottom of a deep water ocean valley.
OTOH, there's the Godzilla factor to consider...