So the problem is DRM and restrictive distribution rather than the digital-only aspect...
If you download a game, there should be no reason why you can't back it up to other media, and a portable usb hdd is far more convenient than a pile of optical media.
There is no guarantee that a game you found while cleaning your room will still be readable, then what?
Speaking of games being available "forever", i actually have a boxed copy of quake in the attic, but aside from the data files the original cd contains a very old version of quake for dos which is pretty useless. If i want to actually play this, i have to download updated binaries for it anyway.
Just how big is the software you're downloading? Even on a relatively slow internet connection you can download anything that isn't insanely huge faster than you can drive to a store and back, and then mail order is even slower.
If you are on an exceptionally slow connection, it's still usually far more convenient to take a usb stick to somewhere that isn't than have to deal with unwieldy optical media.
What proportion of people do you think download the likes of firefox or libreoffice vs getting it on cd?
Pictures look like I'm looking through glass Text is TINY, so much that I can barely read it on my 32". Apple is WAY behind.
Sounds like you have an error with your EDID modifications... The screen should report its physical size, allowing the host system to work out the DPI of the screen and thus render text the proper size (font sizes are specified in points, which are a measurement of physical size not pixels).
This device is basically running a newer version of Windows CE, which is an entirely different and incompatible product... All this device will do, is annoy users when they buy it and find they can't install their apps intended for regular x86 windows on it.
This device would have been MUCH better off running android or linux... Users would have no expectation of windows compatibility, would have far more software available and it would reduce the price further too.
You aren't supposed to be able to see individual pixels, the idea is that things look smoother and more detailed. If you can't see the improved level of detail perhaps you should see an optician?
Why would you want to install boxed software? The Internet is so much more convenient, the idea of software coming in a box is ridiculous and outdated... Whenever i see someone installing software from physical media they immediately have to go and download a huge amount of updates anyway.
If you want to be tethered to an ethernet cable and clunky optical media, why have a laptop at all? Just have a desktop...
My laptop has optical media and ethernet, i haven't used either in a ridiculously long time.
Unless you are doing a lot of LAN transfers or have an exceptionally fast internet connection, wireless is more than sufficient. If you really must have ethernet, a small dongle isn't the end of the world because you're already resigned to having a cable hanging out the side anyway.
I would rather not have an optical drive at all, it takes a significant amount of space and adds weight...
Screen resolution on the other hand is very important, the higher the better. The reason i have a somewhat large laptop is due to the screen resolution, and that's also why i have an optical drive because all the laptops with this screen res had one.
What exactly do you use an optical drive for these days? Most modern machines can boot from the network or a usb device, compared to optical media large capacity usb devices are considerably faster, more convenient and offer random read/write. The only time i've burned a CD recently, was to boot a legacy piece of hardware.
Is this the same steve jobs who vowed to kill android? Perhaps Google shouldn't be asking advice from someone who wants to kill one of their most popular products, after all disrupting google would damage android.
Not easy perhaps, depending on what's being used as a relay... But theoretically if the hacker was able to compromise the box then it should be possible for you to do the same.
It's hard to write software which directly access the GPUs without hardware specs, which nvidia don't like to provide. Every single supercomputer deployment writing its own code for everything would be stupid, which is why so many run linux and then write a small amount of custom code that pertains directly to their individual needs. No point reinventing the wheel.
"Even if you can't or won't inspect the linux source, you at least gain some assurance from the fact that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source. Again, this is something windows simply doesn't provide."
I will rephrase this yet again:
If you are under an NDA then you are not independent. Your ability to work with the source (eg publish any bad things you find in it) are controlled by the company with whom you have the NDA.
That you are independent of other organisations that have the source is irrelevant, you are not truly independent of the organisation that supplied the source since you are beholden to them under contract.
that would also require the following. 1. Shippers that pick up late at night.Will they time shift too. 2. Shipping departments require supplies to be ordered and delivered. Will the supply companies time shift too?
Many shippers work at night, they don't currently pick up at these times because there wouldn't be anyone to pick up from but i don't see why they wouldn't at least for higher volume customers.
1. Finance would need to deal with banks which do not work at night. 2. IT deals with managers who are customer facing and work days. 3. Receivers work with shippers and suppliers who work days.
Most banking is automated.. Many banks now offer 24/7 telephone banking.
In my city of 300k people the bus system shuts down from midnight to 6AM. I guess night workers will have to drive.
Which makes the current bus system totally unusable for anyone who needs to travel during those hours... A more spread out system would be far better, you could run buses 24/7 with moderate load instead of an overcrowded service for 3-4 hours of the day, and an underutilised or nonexistent service for the rest.
Exactly my point. The main issue is that there are very few jobs that are completely isolated from interaction with people who must work day hours. In my estimation the number of those jobs is so insignificant as to make time shifting irrelevant.
Jobs that are not isolated generally only have to deal with a small number of others, who could also spread their workload out. You could employ 15 workers at a time in shifts, instead of 50 workers during the day and 3 at night, meaning you only need sufficient office space for 15 workers now.
Problems of mismatched working hours are already a problem for any company that has international dealings.
So what you're saying, is that open source is better but that many of the advantages don't matter to you...
Incidentally, the fact that a third party can fork an existing program instead of writing their own from scratch is a huge difference for anything thats not trivial. It's what enabled google to create android fairly quickly for a start.
Actually it costs them more to develop their own binary drivers in house, than it would to open source them and allow third parties (including the kernel devs) to take up some of the slack...
Not supporting linux would lose them business, almost certainly more than it costs them to support the drivers... Linux may not be huge on gaming desktops, but GPUs are also targeted at high performance computing, and Linux is very big there.
It's not just desktops which use GPUs these days...
How about the 90%+ supercomputer market share, where GPUs are starting to be used... What about the server market, where GPUs are also being used for computing where linux is fairly widespread. Also mobile devices, where linux in the form of android is widely used.
1.) I showed that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source!
And your examples are not truly independent because they are all beholden to the (rather restrictive) agreement under which they receive the source, so my original statement still applies.
Have you actually read the terms an organisation has to agree with in order to qualify for the shared source program?
Only certain parts of a business need to communicate with others...
For instance a company that sells mail order goods, they need to have people available on the phone to take orders when the customers are likely to place orders, but those orders could be packed and shipped late at night with no problem. Similarly backend functions such as finance, it, taking deliveries of stock etc which are not directly customer facing could easily be performed at different times.
Aside from spreading out the power requirements, changing working hours like this also helps with another problem - transport, in any large city the trains and roads are stupidly overcrowded as millions of people travel to/from work at the same time every day... Outside of these hours, there is a huge wasted surplus of transport resources as empty buses and trains travel around.
Making peak electricity more expensive is just going to punish those who have no choice in the matter, which is the vast majority of people... Their employer will still make them work the same hours, so they will still need to use power at the same time. It may also discourage home working and therefore further increase transport congestion.
The demand is higher at peak times for a reason...
In hot climates, more cooling is needed during the day. Society/business basically force you to keep certain hours, and power demand is therefore highest during those hours.
It's not just power thats like this, also look at transport... You have peak times when every transport method around a major city is over crowded, and you have off peak times when they are empty.
If working hours were staggered, you would be able to spread the demand for power and transportation out more evenly, making the whole system far more efficient.
Incidentally, powering A/C units would actually be a good use for solar power, since the period of high demand coincides with the period of high output...
You are completely misreading what i said, so i will spell it out in simple terms for you:
1, It is easier for people to get access to Linux source than Windows. 2, Many more people and organisations have access to Linux source than Windows.
Therefore "linux provides better access to the sourcecode" as i said.
"If you are sufficiently concerned about it, then you can inspect the sourcecode of linux and/or remove the parts you don't want..." This applies to ANYONE... Only certain organisations have READ access to windows source under restrictive terms, which means they can't make themselves a modified build with unwanted code removed.
For many organisations and individuals, access to windows source would simply not be available at all via any legal channels, what do you expect people or organisations which fall into this group to do?
"Even if you can't or won't inspect the linux source, you at least gain some assurance from the fact that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source. Again, this is something windows simply doesn't provide." Organisations with access to windows source have to sign all manner of NDAs, they are not impartial and are bound by contracts which limit what they can disclose to the public. Linux has no such limitations.
"If you're a national government, then you certainly have the resources to inspect linux, and you'd be foolish not to inspect the software you use for critical infrastructure." Do you think microsoft provide sourcecode of windows to governments such as iran? I severely doubt it, in which case the fact that microsoft provide sourcecode to someone else is irrelevant as far as the iranian government is concerned. Linux on the other hand provides source to anyone who wants it.
Your providing irrelevant links does not change the facts.
Also, answer these direct questions:
1, Do YOU have access to windows source code? And if so, what can you do with it (inspect, build, modify, distribute)? 2, Do YOU have access to linux source code? And if so, what can you do with it (inspect, build, modify, distribute)?
The point is that anyone can read/modify the linux sourcecode... Windows sourcecode is only available to certain organisations, i doubt the government of iran has it and it's certainly not available to the general public.
Also as far as i know, the "shared source" agreement only provides source you can read through, you are not allowed to modify it and i don't believe you can even compile it. What assurance do recipients of the source have that it is the exact same source used to build the binaries they are running?
The development process of windows is also far less open, with linux you can see exactly who submitted a patch.
Whichever way you look at it, linux provides better access to the sourcecode.. How much better varies depending on how much microsoft trusts you.
Whoever you are, you have a better chance of finding unwanted code inserted by a third party like the NSA, you have a better chance of identifying who put it there and you have a better chance of building a version which excludes the code in question.
Well, it's also highly likely that there are foreign government moles in MS too, given how widespread their software is foreign governments would be pretty foolish not to try and infiltrate them.
If you are sufficiently concerned about it, then you can inspect the sourcecode of linux and/or remove the parts you don't want... You can't do that with windows.
If you're a national government, then you certainly have the resources to inspect linux, and you'd be foolish not to inspect the software you use for critical infrastructure.
Even if you can't or won't inspect the linux source, you at least gain some assurance from the fact that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source. Again, this is something windows simply doesn't provide.
What matters, is that you can see and inspect their contributions, or even remove them if you want.
Sure, you may not have the skills, resources or desire to inspect the code, but governments certainly do, and certainly should for anything remotely important. Plus for an organisation the size of a national government, inspecting sourcecode once and then using it widely isn't even all that much of an overhead.
Why would the government of countries such as Iran, run closed source software from openly unfriendly countries such as the US?
They should either be writing their own, or at the very least using open source so they can thoroughly audit it.
Same applies to hardware, they don't need to develop their own hardware from scratch, just use published designs, inspect them and then manufacture their own.
AMD were never really interested in the high end desktop market, they were the performance leader for a while but only because Intel dropped the ball...
High end desktops are low volume, and mostly about marketing and bragging rights these days. A few years ago you bought the fastest cpu you could because even that would be relatively slow, and quickly obsolete. Today any CPU made in the last few years will suffice for 99% of users, so only a small niche need the high end cpus.
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So the problem is DRM and restrictive distribution rather than the digital-only aspect...
If you download a game, there should be no reason why you can't back it up to other media, and a portable usb hdd is far more convenient than a pile of optical media.
There is no guarantee that a game you found while cleaning your room will still be readable, then what?
Speaking of games being available "forever", i actually have a boxed copy of quake in the attic, but aside from the data files the original cd contains a very old version of quake for dos which is pretty useless. If i want to actually play this, i have to download updated binaries for it anyway.
Just how big is the software you're downloading?
Even on a relatively slow internet connection you can download anything that isn't insanely huge faster than you can drive to a store and back, and then mail order is even slower.
If you are on an exceptionally slow connection, it's still usually far more convenient to take a usb stick to somewhere that isn't than have to deal with unwieldy optical media.
What proportion of people do you think download the likes of firefox or libreoffice vs getting it on cd?
Pictures look like I'm looking through glass Text is TINY, so much that I can barely read it on my 32". Apple is WAY behind.
Sounds like you have an error with your EDID modifications... The screen should report its physical size, allowing the host system to work out the DPI of the screen and thus render text the proper size (font sizes are specified in points, which are a measurement of physical size not pixels).
This device is basically running a newer version of Windows CE, which is an entirely different and incompatible product...
All this device will do, is annoy users when they buy it and find they can't install their apps intended for regular x86 windows on it.
This device would have been MUCH better off running android or linux... Users would have no expectation of windows compatibility, would have far more software available and it would reduce the price further too.
You aren't supposed to be able to see individual pixels, the idea is that things look smoother and more detailed. If you can't see the improved level of detail perhaps you should see an optician?
Why would you want to install boxed software? The Internet is so much more convenient, the idea of software coming in a box is ridiculous and outdated... Whenever i see someone installing software from physical media they immediately have to go and download a huge amount of updates anyway.
If you want to be tethered to an ethernet cable and clunky optical media, why have a laptop at all? Just have a desktop...
My laptop has optical media and ethernet, i haven't used either in a ridiculously long time.
Unless you are doing a lot of LAN transfers or have an exceptionally fast internet connection, wireless is more than sufficient. If you really must have ethernet, a small dongle isn't the end of the world because you're already resigned to having a cable hanging out the side anyway.
I would rather not have an optical drive at all, it takes a significant amount of space and adds weight...
Screen resolution on the other hand is very important, the higher the better. The reason i have a somewhat large laptop is due to the screen resolution, and that's also why i have an optical drive because all the laptops with this screen res had one.
What exactly do you use an optical drive for these days? Most modern machines can boot from the network or a usb device, compared to optical media large capacity usb devices are considerably faster, more convenient and offer random read/write. The only time i've burned a CD recently, was to boot a legacy piece of hardware.
The world would be different sure, but Apple were not alone in those days, you had several manufacturers like Atari, Commodore and Sinclair...
IBM created their PC as a response to the home computer market in general, not specifically Apple.
It's likely that MS among others would still have built on the Xerox designs..
Who knows what the likes of Commodore and DEC would have come up with had they still been around.
Is this the same steve jobs who vowed to kill android?
Perhaps Google shouldn't be asking advice from someone who wants to kill one of their most popular products, after all disrupting google would damage android.
Not easy perhaps, depending on what's being used as a relay... But theoretically if the hacker was able to compromise the box then it should be possible for you to do the same.
It's hard to write software which directly access the GPUs without hardware specs, which nvidia don't like to provide.
Every single supercomputer deployment writing its own code for everything would be stupid, which is why so many run linux and then write a small amount of custom code that pertains directly to their individual needs. No point reinventing the wheel.
"Even if you can't or won't inspect the linux source, you at least gain some assurance from the fact that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source. Again, this is something windows simply doesn't provide."
I will rephrase this yet again:
If you are under an NDA then you are not independent. Your ability to work with the source (eg publish any bad things you find in it) are controlled by the company with whom you have the NDA.
That you are independent of other organisations that have the source is irrelevant, you are not truly independent of the organisation that supplied the source since you are beholden to them under contract.
that would also require the following.
1. Shippers that pick up late at night.Will they time shift too.
2. Shipping departments require supplies to be ordered and delivered. Will the supply companies time shift too?
Many shippers work at night, they don't currently pick up at these times because there wouldn't be anyone to pick up from but i don't see why they wouldn't at least for higher volume customers.
1. Finance would need to deal with banks which do not work at night.
2. IT deals with managers who are customer facing and work days.
3. Receivers work with shippers and suppliers who work days.
Most banking is automated..
Many banks now offer 24/7 telephone banking.
In my city of 300k people the bus system shuts down from midnight to 6AM. I guess night workers will have to drive.
Which makes the current bus system totally unusable for anyone who needs to travel during those hours...
A more spread out system would be far better, you could run buses 24/7 with moderate load instead of an overcrowded service for 3-4 hours of the day, and an underutilised or nonexistent service for the rest.
Exactly my point. The main issue is that there are very few jobs that are completely isolated from interaction with people who must work day hours. In my estimation the number of those jobs is so insignificant as to make time shifting irrelevant.
Jobs that are not isolated generally only have to deal with a small number of others, who could also spread their workload out. You could employ 15 workers at a time in shifts, instead of 50 workers during the day and 3 at night, meaning you only need sufficient office space for 15 workers now.
Problems of mismatched working hours are already a problem for any company that has international dealings.
So what you're saying, is that open source is better but that many of the advantages don't matter to you...
Incidentally, the fact that a third party can fork an existing program instead of writing their own from scratch is a huge difference for anything thats not trivial. It's what enabled google to create android fairly quickly for a start.
Actually it costs them more to develop their own binary drivers in house, than it would to open source them and allow third parties (including the kernel devs) to take up some of the slack...
Not supporting linux would lose them business, almost certainly more than it costs them to support the drivers... Linux may not be huge on gaming desktops, but GPUs are also targeted at high performance computing, and Linux is very big there.
It's not just desktops which use GPUs these days...
How about the 90%+ supercomputer market share, where GPUs are starting to be used...
What about the server market, where GPUs are also being used for computing where linux is fairly widespread.
Also mobile devices, where linux in the form of android is widely used.
1.) I showed that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source!
And your examples are not truly independent because they are all beholden to the (rather restrictive) agreement under which they receive the source, so my original statement still applies.
Have you actually read the terms an organisation has to agree with in order to qualify for the shared source program?
Only certain parts of a business need to communicate with others...
For instance a company that sells mail order goods, they need to have people available on the phone to take orders when the customers are likely to place orders, but those orders could be packed and shipped late at night with no problem. Similarly backend functions such as finance, it, taking deliveries of stock etc which are not directly customer facing could easily be performed at different times.
Aside from spreading out the power requirements, changing working hours like this also helps with another problem - transport, in any large city the trains and roads are stupidly overcrowded as millions of people travel to/from work at the same time every day... Outside of these hours, there is a huge wasted surplus of transport resources as empty buses and trains travel around.
Making peak electricity more expensive is just going to punish those who have no choice in the matter, which is the vast majority of people... Their employer will still make them work the same hours, so they will still need to use power at the same time. It may also discourage home working and therefore further increase transport congestion.
The demand is higher at peak times for a reason...
In hot climates, more cooling is needed during the day.
Society/business basically force you to keep certain hours, and power demand is therefore highest during those hours.
It's not just power thats like this, also look at transport... You have peak times when every transport method around a major city is over crowded, and you have off peak times when they are empty.
If working hours were staggered, you would be able to spread the demand for power and transportation out more evenly, making the whole system far more efficient.
Incidentally, powering A/C units would actually be a good use for solar power, since the period of high demand coincides with the period of high output...
You are completely misreading what i said, so i will spell it out in simple terms for you:
1, It is easier for people to get access to Linux source than Windows.
2, Many more people and organisations have access to Linux source than Windows.
Therefore "linux provides better access to the sourcecode" as i said.
"If you are sufficiently concerned about it, then you can inspect the sourcecode of linux and/or remove the parts you don't want..." This applies to ANYONE... Only certain organisations have READ access to windows source under restrictive terms, which means they can't make themselves a modified build with unwanted code removed.
For many organisations and individuals, access to windows source would simply not be available at all via any legal channels, what do you expect people or organisations which fall into this group to do?
"Even if you can't or won't inspect the linux source, you at least gain some assurance from the fact that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source. Again, this is something windows simply doesn't provide."
Organisations with access to windows source have to sign all manner of NDAs, they are not impartial and are bound by contracts which limit what they can disclose to the public. Linux has no such limitations.
"If you're a national government, then you certainly have the resources to inspect linux, and you'd be foolish not to inspect the software you use for critical infrastructure."
Do you think microsoft provide sourcecode of windows to governments such as iran? I severely doubt it, in which case the fact that microsoft provide sourcecode to someone else is irrelevant as far as the iranian government is concerned. Linux on the other hand provides source to anyone who wants it.
Your providing irrelevant links does not change the facts.
Also, answer these direct questions:
1, Do YOU have access to windows source code? And if so, what can you do with it (inspect, build, modify, distribute)?
2, Do YOU have access to linux source code? And if so, what can you do with it (inspect, build, modify, distribute)?
The point is that anyone can read/modify the linux sourcecode...
Windows sourcecode is only available to certain organisations, i doubt the government of iran has it and it's certainly not available to the general public.
Also as far as i know, the "shared source" agreement only provides source you can read through, you are not allowed to modify it and i don't believe you can even compile it. What assurance do recipients of the source have that it is the exact same source used to build the binaries they are running?
The development process of windows is also far less open, with linux you can see exactly who submitted a patch.
Whichever way you look at it, linux provides better access to the sourcecode.. How much better varies depending on how much microsoft trusts you.
Whoever you are, you have a better chance of finding unwanted code inserted by a third party like the NSA, you have a better chance of identifying who put it there and you have a better chance of building a version which excludes the code in question.
Well, it's also highly likely that there are foreign government moles in MS too, given how widespread their software is foreign governments would be pretty foolish not to try and infiltrate them.
If you are sufficiently concerned about it, then you can inspect the sourcecode of linux and/or remove the parts you don't want...
You can't do that with windows.
If you're a national government, then you certainly have the resources to inspect linux, and you'd be foolish not to inspect the software you use for critical infrastructure.
Even if you can't or won't inspect the linux source, you at least gain some assurance from the fact that many independent people with differing goals are able to see the source. Again, this is something windows simply doesn't provide.
What matters, is that you can see and inspect their contributions, or even remove them if you want.
Sure, you may not have the skills, resources or desire to inspect the code, but governments certainly do, and certainly should for anything remotely important. Plus for an organisation the size of a national government, inspecting sourcecode once and then using it widely isn't even all that much of an overhead.
Why would the government of countries such as Iran, run closed source software from openly unfriendly countries such as the US?
They should either be writing their own, or at the very least using open source so they can thoroughly audit it.
Same applies to hardware, they don't need to develop their own hardware from scratch, just use published designs, inspect them and then manufacture their own.
AMD were never really interested in the high end desktop market, they were the performance leader for a while but only because Intel dropped the ball...
High end desktops are low volume, and mostly about marketing and bragging rights these days. A few years ago you bought the fastest cpu you could because even that would be relatively slow, and quickly obsolete. Today any CPU made in the last few years will suffice for 99% of users, so only a small niche need the high end cpus.