I think it's absolutely pathetic the way all these Windows fanboys bitch about the way Trolltech hasn't released a GPL version of Qt for windows. Nothing is stopping them doing what we in the GNU/Linux community have already done for ourselves, and writing their own.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but in my opinion one of the strong advantages of open source is that it allows sharing of code, rather than having everyone have to reinvent the wheel. Sure, someone could port a GPL version of QT to Windows themselves. Or perhaps, they could not bother with QT and stick with other toolkits as does happen. Perhaps Trolltech shouldn't have released QT as GPL on any platform - after all, any Linux developer can go and write their own toolkit if they want a GPL one.
And why is it okay to support or argue for the idea of open source (as Linux users often do), but it's "pathetic" to do so if you're a Windows user?
In the meantime, software follows Moore's Anti-law, which states software will waste all additional resources provided by Moore's Law. If only software would keep up with hardware I would be ecstatic. When WP5.1 did 98% of what WordXP does today, but did it on a 640K 16-bit processor, it's hard to say software is improving in any area but the GUI.
Except you've conveniently picked the example of Word Processing which never did and probably never will need huge amounts of processing power (or other resources). So yes, most of the improvements have gone into either non-essential things like GUI improvements, or features which most people don't use, but what else can they do? Those that don't want to use the newer versions can always stick with the old versions. Also, I'm not sure if Word does use up lots of CPU; it may hog up plenty of RAM, but I can't say I've noticed it consuming large amounts of CPU power..?
To say that this is therefore true of all software is a ridiculous extrapolation. There's plenty of software that's requiring ever faster CPUs, from games to CAD software, and using this extra power for more than just "GUI improvements".
Since everyone seems to be giving examples of earlier systems which install in this way, I should add that this is usual on the Amiga too.
Application specific files and user preferences all live in the program's directory. However, 3rd party libraries and so on tend to be stored in the system folders, which IMO gives the best of both worlds - applications can share common code, but application specific code and data are easily removed, and not strewn about all over the place (libraries tend to be small on the Amiga, so the fact that you might acquire libraries over time that aren't being used by any installed applications isn't that great a problem, and anyway there is probably more bloat in having multiple copies of a library).
Given that many people are arguing for these such measures on purely emotional grounds that it'll make them "feel safer", then that these measures cause emotional distress is a perfectly valid counter argument.
"sissies and whiners" as you call them wouldn't be demanding all the freedom-swiping laws we've had since 9/11, merely on the basis that they're scared by the idea of terrorism.
Economics is about the distribution of scarce resources. There are clearly issues of morality related to this (eg, when deciding who should get what) and each system of economics, capitalism included, tries to come up with what is supposed to be the best way of doing this.
Sometimes it may seem that the results of capitalism are entirely amoral, but there are usually some good arguments for what happens (eg, in this case, lower production costs should mean lower prices for consumers).
Focus-follows-mouse is an option on the Amiga at least.
On a related note, AmigaOS also has as an option the ability to click windows to front with a doubleclick, which is by far my favourite method for doing so. That way you can move a mouse over a window without giving focus, then click if you want focus without bringing it to the front, but still easily be able to bring it to the front with just a doubleclick. I don't know if that's available on any other OS?
Hmm interesting.. I can't say I really trust the source. There have been some firmware bugs in some versions I believe, but fixes have been released - what software company has never had bugs? The Pegasos may be less than perfect, and more expensive than PCs (the latter hardly surprising due to things like economies of scale - in fact, given their small market I think it's amazing what they have achieved), but it's seems bordering on libellous to say that this counts as fraud and makes them a scam!
A scam company would be one that takes money and doesn't deliver a product at all. "I am quite confident that there are almost NO WORKING machines in existance[sic]" Judging by the number of people posting about their working Pegasoses I've seen on forums, and the relative lack of people posting about their non-working Pegasos, I'd be curious to see his mysterious "evidence" for this. "Apparently there are only a handful of working G4 cpus in North America" So we are to believe that Pegasoses are being shipped CPUless on the basis of this one persons's claim? What on earth do Apple do then for their G4s?
(The above isn't meant to be directed at you Homology, btw - I realise you're just passing on the link, but I just had to comment on it).
Nice try AC. Nobody did or does ship a personal computer with an Opteron processor. Servers yes, workstations yes, pc's, no.
So what is the difference between a workstation and a PC?
That you only do work on a workstation? (Does that mean we can now say that Macs are no good for real work?;)
That workstations tend to be more powerful than PCs? (Does that mean we can now say that Macs aren't as powerful as x86 Workstations? - Not to mention that it makes Apple's claim a worthless statement: "We make the fastest computers that aren't fast enough to be counted as workstations").
Though note that the Windows version is based on an old version (2.3, released March 2001), and they seem to have no intention of releasing newer versions (and oddly, I couldn't find it linked at all from their page, I could only find that by searching).
A shame - I got all excited when I thought there might be a reasonable GUI toolkit available for Windows that didn't rely on visual-designing and x/y absolute coordinate layouts, but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile learning what is effectively going to be a discontinued and already outdated version of the product (no, I'm not paying $1550, that might be reasonable for a company, but not for someone who wants it for programming for fun in their spare time!;)
No, if someone's taking photos of you so as to use your likeness commercially, that's a matter of publicity law _now_. Even if they took the photo.
Not if it was in public.
But I just don't see why. Your failure to copyright them indicates that you didn't care about commercially exploiting them. If someone else is willing to take that chance, what's wrong about it?
I don't think you're getting it: There's more to life than money.
It's nothing to do with money.
It's not something that's intended to help keep works locked up and hidden.
I think the 5 year limit more than takes care of this. I'm not suggesting that people's right to privacy should be so severe that future historians can't look upon things such diaries without breaking copyrights (as would currently be the case, I presume - eg, Anne Frank), I'm talking within this short time period.
but don't try to stuff it into copyright is all.
I'm not trying to "stuff it into copyright", I'm pointing out that (rightly or wrongly), it's already stuffed into copyright, so if you're going to pull it out, you need to put it in another law rather than just chuck it away.
And if the author doesn't think it's worth it, would anyone else?
Well I don't see that that follows..
Which would tend to involve rights of publicity, if they're using your persona to sell something. But it isn't a copyright issue. Let's keep different bodies of law seperate, shall we?
Well that was the main point of my post. At the moment, I imagine the main way to prevent this would be copyright (consider if someone takes a photo of you - *they* then own the copyright, and there's not much you can do about it).
Introduce some new law to combat this, and I'd be in full agreement (and indeed, I agree that some sort of privacy laws would be a better suited tool than copyright laws), but your post missed this issue.
As for profiting, I have nothing against the idea of people profiting as such. But one of the main problems I have with existing copyright is that often people who profit aren't the original creators, which is why I'd be uneasy with any alternative that still has this flaws.
That is, if you go on holiday and take some holiday snaps (nudge, nudge), you probably would have done so even if copyright didn't exist.
Yes, but either way I'd be furious if The Sun or some other paper decided to publish them. By all means, bring in new laws to protect that, but it needs a mention in your set of copyright replacements IMO.
And if you don't understand why such an event is a problem just because "you have no desire to make money off them", then I guess we simply have different point of views here;)
There's more to the world than money; some people care about other issues. And even though my web page may be entirely public, there is a huge difference between that, and page 3 of the national newspaper.
Of course, I'd be free to simply keep my webpage entirely private or passworded for trusted friends, but then that means there's less information being made available for free.
I'd agree with much of that, but I'd strongly disagree with number 2. Things like copyright application and fees are the sorts of things that businesses can handle as part of their day to day operations, but this would be more of a hassles for individuals, and if they're not likely to make money from their work, they're less likely to want to pay a fee - and if you ask why do they want copyright if they're not going to make money, you're forgetting that copyright has added benefits.
So this could mean companies profiting from individuals who had not applied for copyright (and indeed, would companies be able to copyright their derivatives?) This could mean companies being able to use those family photos of yours for its advertising campaign, without permission.
I don't see why you need both #2 *and* #6. If people are allowed to copy non-commercially anyway, why should someone jump through hoops to stop someone else profitting from their work?
If you must have #2, there needs to be some provision for privacy. It's all very well saying you shouldn't publish works if you want privacy, but this isn't an either/or thing - it's conceivable that I might place photos on my webpage for people to come and look at, but that doesn't mean I want them distributed everywhere by some company.
But you can't get all the information (uncertainty principle), and in any chaotic system, even small errors in the initial state will blow up exponentially.
But you'd call a supercomputer (see original post) a personal computer?
You can't have it both ways, and argue that Macs are more powerful because you can make a better supercomputer, but then say that other computers don't count because they're not "personal" (whatever that means)!
Given Apple's seminal position in the industry, they can define "personal computer" any way they please.
That's just it though - it's one thing when you're bragging to your mates, but when you're advertising a commercial product, you *don't* get to define things how you like (that's why you sometimes get small print appearing at the bottom of the screen - though it'd make their claim rather amusing if they stuff "Where Personal Computer only includes those made by Apple" at the bottom..)
They chose to exclude "workstations" and "servers."
So we can now claim that yes, Apple have the first 64bit personal computer, but that Macs are no good for either work, or running a server?;)
(No, I don't believe that before you mod me down - the point is that isn't true because PC, server and workstation aren't mutually exclusive terms, and that also means you can't exclude the latter two from the former.)
The devil is in the details. Was Digital's Alpha, which happened to be 64bit and came out in 1992, a personal computer?
Earlier up in the thread, Apple are supposedly better than Dell because the 3rd fastest supercomputer is made up of Macs! - How on earth does *that* count as a personal computer? Oh, I guess Macs do and don't count as a personal computer, to suit the context.
Could your grandmother run her favorite applications and check her email on it?
Given that most computer-ignorant people's favourite applications run only on Windows, a Mac isn't a personal computer by that measure.
There are two meanings of personal computer that I'm aware of: a computer that one person uses, or an IBM compatible. The only reason we might not count an Alpha as a personal computer, but we did other computers, is because an Alpha was considered high-end. But using that definition, Apple's claim amounts to a tautology: "Mac's are the first computers that are 64bit, if we ignore the computers that were 64bit before us (and as a result weren't considered personal computers)".
Re:Every Theory Needs to be Tested....
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Testing Relativity
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i'll agree that theres not enough evidence as of yet to take it beyond a theory.
What is beyond a theory?
Re:Every Theory Needs to be Tested....
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Is there actually a progression from "theory" to "law"?
Quantum theory is "only" a theory, despite it being considered one of the most successful theories we have had. General Relativity is considered an improvement over Newtonian Gravitation, yet the latter is sometimes referred to as a law, whist the former is always a theory.
To my knowledge, there are two differences that seem to be in use to distinguish between a theory and a law. First is historical - old theories got called a law (eg, laws of gravity), but scientists are less reluctant to do this these days, since they realise that science is more about modelling how the Universe works, and that their theories will never be 100% correct, where as the word "law" suggests that the Universe must obey the law exactly.
I have also heard the idea that a law is used for things that happen under specific situations, in which case it could be argued that laws are more likely to be true than theory - but this is just because they are more specific, and doesn't mean that a theory, which has a much broader scope than a law, would ever progress to a law.
So for your examples, the laws of motion are three very specific statements, where as atomic theory covers a huge range of different things.
Re:Every Theory Needs to be Tested....
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Testing Relativity
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It is only a theory until proven otherwise
I would point out that the THEORY of evolution is still a theory.
As you say yourself, a theory only stops being a theory when it is proven wrong. A theory is as good as it gets, so it's a *good* thing for evolutionists that evolution is still a theory!
no ape has been observed walking out of the forest to take up a modern life
It's a good thing that evolution doesn't say that then.
What did you expect? rx is the name of the executable interpretor once rexxmaster was started in your startup-sequence. Feed an ARexx script to rx, and it will try to execute it. If the script is good, then of course it will do the job it was written to do.
That's what I did expect, and that's what I said. But for whatever reason, I couldn't get this to work by doubleclicking on a script in YAM.
Yam, and Thor also, were written rather largely in arexx,
I know the Amiga didn't really suffer that many of them (mostly the old bootblock viruses in the floppy disk days) but imagine an Email app with an ARexx port
YAM has an ARexx port, including the ability to send to mails with it.
However, I don't believe these can be ran from within the program directly by default (you'd have to save it out and run it externally). I once tried setting it up to do so (purely for academic interest, of course!) by setting 'rx' as a 'viewer' for ARexx scripts, but I couldn't get it to do so - I don't know if this was because I was doing something wrong, or because it has intentionally been blocked somewhere.
The Mac was 1 bit IIRC. A year later, the Amiga was doing 6 bits per pixel at 320x512 (or 4 bits per pixel at 640x512). It's not really clear that one machine was first to "the mainstream", but rather a gradual series of improvements.
For a long time, neither the Mac nor the PC was really fast enough to animate the whole screen at once at a reasonable framerate. [...] As I recall, that was mostly due to bus speed; the system simply couldn't shovel enough bits out to the graphics card over an ISA bus. The processor was more than capable, but the bus just wasn't up to it.
I believe the Amiga got round this by having memory which was shared by the CPU and graphics chips. Though tricks still had to be used (eg, using the blitter to do copying of screen areas which hadn't changed and only redrawing the bits which had).
A number of years ago, we finally got to the point that pretty much every computer in the world can do very smooth full motion video, and nobody even noticed, the idea was that dead.
I'd say that it's far from dead, but just that it's taken for granted. You don't hear the term "multimedia PC" either these days. It's true though that the hype of full motion video came several years before it really took off (eg, watching DVDs).
Sometime in the last couple of years, PCs really hit a plateau; they've gotten fast enough to do practically anything we can think of, at least for now. We can generate, manipulate, and output graphics of unbelievable quality... and we're mostly pretty blase' about the whole thing.
I think this quote is appropriate: "I suggest you close the book, go for a walk, and then return to your reading when you are done. Go out to a meadow, river, or a park and take a look around. You will soon discover how nature's complexity is far from being tamed by graphics programmers, and some doubt it will ever be mastered." [Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming, Sanchez-Crespo Dalmau.] Admittedly this is referring more to algorithms, but the reason we need clever graphics algorithms is because we don't have anywhere near enough computational power to do rendering in a more brute-force fashion.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's absolutely pathetic the way all these Windows fanboys bitch about the way Trolltech hasn't released a GPL version of Qt for windows. Nothing is stopping them doing what we in the GNU/Linux community have already done for ourselves, and writing their own.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but in my opinion one of the strong advantages of open source is that it allows sharing of code, rather than having everyone have to reinvent the wheel. Sure, someone could port a GPL version of QT to Windows themselves. Or perhaps, they could not bother with QT and stick with other toolkits as does happen. Perhaps Trolltech shouldn't have released QT as GPL on any platform - after all, any Linux developer can go and write their own toolkit if they want a GPL one.
And why is it okay to support or argue for the idea of open source (as Linux users often do), but it's "pathetic" to do so if you're a Windows user?
In the meantime, software follows Moore's Anti-law, which states software will waste all additional resources provided by Moore's Law. If only software would keep up with hardware I would be ecstatic. When WP5.1 did 98% of what WordXP does today, but did it on a 640K 16-bit processor, it's hard to say software is improving in any area but the GUI.
Except you've conveniently picked the example of Word Processing which never did and probably never will need huge amounts of processing power (or other resources). So yes, most of the improvements have gone into either non-essential things like GUI improvements, or features which most people don't use, but what else can they do? Those that don't want to use the newer versions can always stick with the old versions. Also, I'm not sure if Word does use up lots of CPU; it may hog up plenty of RAM, but I can't say I've noticed it consuming large amounts of CPU power..?
To say that this is therefore true of all software is a ridiculous extrapolation. There's plenty of software that's requiring ever faster CPUs, from games to CAD software, and using this extra power for more than just "GUI improvements".
Since everyone seems to be giving examples of earlier systems which install in this way, I should add that this is usual on the Amiga too.
Application specific files and user preferences all live in the program's directory. However, 3rd party libraries and so on tend to be stored in the system folders, which IMO gives the best of both worlds - applications can share common code, but application specific code and data are easily removed, and not strewn about all over the place (libraries tend to be small on the Amiga, so the fact that you might acquire libraries over time that aren't being used by any installed applications isn't that great a problem, and anyway there is probably more bloat in having multiple copies of a library).
Given that many people are arguing for these such measures on purely emotional grounds that it'll make them "feel safer", then that these measures cause emotional distress is a perfectly valid counter argument.
"sissies and whiners" as you call them wouldn't be demanding all the freedom-swiping laws we've had since 9/11, merely on the basis that they're scared by the idea of terrorism.
Yeah, because none of that ever happens in the commercialised world.
Economics is about the distribution of scarce resources. There are clearly issues of morality related to this (eg, when deciding who should get what) and each system of economics, capitalism included, tries to come up with what is supposed to be the best way of doing this.
Sometimes it may seem that the results of capitalism are entirely amoral, but there are usually some good arguments for what happens (eg, in this case, lower production costs should mean lower prices for consumers).
It's a system where you compete against your fellow human. I prefer co-operation. That's one reason I use linux.
Linux isn't in competition with other OSs? People don't cooperate in the making of closed source OSs?
Focus-follows-mouse is an option on the Amiga at least.
On a related note, AmigaOS also has as an option the ability to click windows to front with a doubleclick, which is by far my favourite method for doing so. That way you can move a mouse over a window without giving focus, then click if you want focus without bringing it to the front, but still easily be able to bring it to the front with just a doubleclick. I don't know if that's available on any other OS?
R.I.P. OpenBSD/Pegasos - All the story
Hmm interesting.. I can't say I really trust the source. There have been some firmware bugs in some versions I believe, but fixes have been released - what software company has never had bugs? The Pegasos may be less than perfect, and more expensive than PCs (the latter hardly surprising due to things like economies of scale - in fact, given their small market I think it's amazing what they have achieved), but it's seems bordering on libellous to say that this counts as fraud and makes them a scam!
A scam company would be one that takes money and doesn't deliver a product at all. "I am quite confident that there are almost NO WORKING machines in existance[sic]" Judging by the number of people posting about their working Pegasoses I've seen on forums, and the relative lack of people posting about their non-working Pegasos, I'd be curious to see his mysterious "evidence" for this. "Apparently there are only a handful of working G4 cpus in North America" So we are to believe that Pegasoses are being shipped CPUless on the basis of this one persons's claim? What on earth do Apple do then for their G4s?
(The above isn't meant to be directed at you Homology, btw - I realise you're just passing on the link, but I just had to comment on it).
Nice try AC. Nobody did or does ship a personal computer with an Opteron processor. Servers yes, workstations yes, pc's, no.
So what is the difference between a workstation and a PC?
That you only do work on a workstation? (Does that mean we can now say that Macs are no good for real work?;)
That workstations tend to be more powerful than PCs? (Does that mean we can now say that Macs aren't as powerful as x86 Workstations? - Not to mention that it makes Apple's claim a worthless statement: "We make the fastest computers that aren't fast enough to be counted as workstations").
Or something else?
Though note that the Windows version is based on an old version (2.3, released March 2001), and they seem to have no intention of releasing newer versions (and oddly, I couldn't find it linked at all from their page, I could only find that by searching).
;)
A shame - I got all excited when I thought there might be a reasonable GUI toolkit available for Windows that didn't rely on visual-designing and x/y absolute coordinate layouts, but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile learning what is effectively going to be a discontinued and already outdated version of the product (no, I'm not paying $1550, that might be reasonable for a company, but not for someone who wants it for programming for fun in their spare time!
No, if someone's taking photos of you so as to use your likeness commercially, that's a matter of publicity law _now_. Even if they took the photo.
Not if it was in public.
But I just don't see why. Your failure to copyright them indicates that you didn't care about commercially exploiting them. If someone else is willing to take that chance, what's wrong about it?
I don't think you're getting it: There's more to life than money.
It's nothing to do with money.
It's not something that's intended to help keep works locked up and hidden.
I think the 5 year limit more than takes care of this. I'm not suggesting that people's right to privacy should be so severe that future historians can't look upon things such diaries without breaking copyrights (as would currently be the case, I presume - eg, Anne Frank), I'm talking within this short time period.
but don't try to stuff it into copyright is all.
I'm not trying to "stuff it into copyright", I'm pointing out that (rightly or wrongly), it's already stuffed into copyright, so if you're going to pull it out, you need to put it in another law rather than just chuck it away.
And if the author doesn't think it's worth it, would anyone else?
Well I don't see that that follows..
Which would tend to involve rights of publicity, if they're using your persona to sell something. But it isn't a copyright issue. Let's keep different bodies of law seperate, shall we?
Well that was the main point of my post. At the moment, I imagine the main way to prevent this would be copyright (consider if someone takes a photo of you - *they* then own the copyright, and there's not much you can do about it).
Introduce some new law to combat this, and I'd be in full agreement (and indeed, I agree that some sort of privacy laws would be a better suited tool than copyright laws), but your post missed this issue.
As for profiting, I have nothing against the idea of people profiting as such. But one of the main problems I have with existing copyright is that often people who profit aren't the original creators, which is why I'd be uneasy with any alternative that still has this flaws.
That is, if you go on holiday and take some holiday snaps (nudge, nudge), you probably would have done so even if copyright didn't exist.
Yes, but either way I'd be furious if The Sun or some other paper decided to publish them. By all means, bring in new laws to protect that, but it needs a mention in your set of copyright replacements IMO.
And if you don't understand why such an event is a problem just because "you have no desire to make money off them", then I guess we simply have different point of views here;)
There's more to the world than money; some people care about other issues. And even though my web page may be entirely public, there is a huge difference between that, and page 3 of the national newspaper.
Of course, I'd be free to simply keep my webpage entirely private or passworded for trusted friends, but then that means there's less information being made available for free.
I'd agree with much of that, but I'd strongly disagree with number 2. Things like copyright application and fees are the sorts of things that businesses can handle as part of their day to day operations, but this would be more of a hassles for individuals, and if they're not likely to make money from their work, they're less likely to want to pay a fee - and if you ask why do they want copyright if they're not going to make money, you're forgetting that copyright has added benefits.
So this could mean companies profiting from individuals who had not applied for copyright (and indeed, would companies be able to copyright their derivatives?) This could mean companies being able to use those family photos of yours for its advertising campaign, without permission.
I don't see why you need both #2 *and* #6. If people are allowed to copy non-commercially anyway, why should someone jump through hoops to stop someone else profitting from their work?
If you must have #2, there needs to be some provision for privacy. It's all very well saying you shouldn't publish works if you want privacy, but this isn't an either/or thing - it's conceivable that I might place photos on my webpage for people to come and look at, but that doesn't mean I want them distributed everywhere by some company.
But you can't get all the information (uncertainty principle), and in any chaotic system, even small errors in the initial state will blow up exponentially.
I wouldn't call an UltraSparc a personal computer
But you'd call a supercomputer (see original post) a personal computer?
You can't have it both ways, and argue that Macs are more powerful because you can make a better supercomputer, but then say that other computers don't count because they're not "personal" (whatever that means)!
*checks out Apple's website*
I see Mac OS X Panther, and Mac OS X Server.
So what they actually meant was "World's first 64 bit panther". Panthers are pretty fast too.
Given Apple's seminal position in the industry, they can define "personal computer" any way they please.
;)
That's just it though - it's one thing when you're bragging to your mates, but when you're advertising a commercial product, you *don't* get to define things how you like (that's why you sometimes get small print appearing at the bottom of the screen - though it'd make their claim rather amusing if they stuff "Where Personal Computer only includes those made by Apple" at the bottom..)
They chose to exclude "workstations" and "servers."
So we can now claim that yes, Apple have the first 64bit personal computer, but that Macs are no good for either work, or running a server?
(No, I don't believe that before you mod me down - the point is that isn't true because PC, server and workstation aren't mutually exclusive terms, and that also means you can't exclude the latter two from the former.)
The devil is in the details. Was Digital's Alpha, which happened to be 64bit and came out in 1992, a personal computer?
Earlier up in the thread, Apple are supposedly better than Dell because the 3rd fastest supercomputer is made up of Macs! - How on earth does *that* count as a personal computer? Oh, I guess Macs do and don't count as a personal computer, to suit the context.
Could your grandmother run her favorite applications and check her email on it?
Given that most computer-ignorant people's favourite applications run only on Windows, a Mac isn't a personal computer by that measure.
There are two meanings of personal computer that I'm aware of: a computer that one person uses, or an IBM compatible. The only reason we might not count an Alpha as a personal computer, but we did other computers, is because an Alpha was considered high-end. But using that definition, Apple's claim amounts to a tautology: "Mac's are the first computers that are 64bit, if we ignore the computers that were 64bit before us (and as a result weren't considered personal computers)".
i'll agree that theres not enough evidence as of yet to take it beyond a theory.
What is beyond a theory?
Is there actually a progression from "theory" to "law"?
Quantum theory is "only" a theory, despite it being considered one of the most successful theories we have had. General Relativity is considered an improvement over Newtonian Gravitation, yet the latter is sometimes referred to as a law, whist the former is always a theory.
To my knowledge, there are two differences that seem to be in use to distinguish between a theory and a law. First is historical - old theories got called a law (eg, laws of gravity), but scientists are less reluctant to do this these days, since they realise that science is more about modelling how the Universe works, and that their theories will never be 100% correct, where as the word "law" suggests that the Universe must obey the law exactly.
I have also heard the idea that a law is used for things that happen under specific situations, in which case it could be argued that laws are more likely to be true than theory - but this is just because they are more specific, and doesn't mean that a theory, which has a much broader scope than a law, would ever progress to a law.
So for your examples, the laws of motion are three very specific statements, where as atomic theory covers a huge range of different things.
It is only a theory until proven otherwise
I would point out that the THEORY of evolution is still a theory.
As you say yourself, a theory only stops being a theory when it is proven wrong. A theory is as good as it gets, so it's a *good* thing for evolutionists that evolution is still a theory!
no ape has been observed walking out of the forest to take up a modern life
It's a good thing that evolution doesn't say that then.
What did you expect? rx is the name of the executable interpretor once rexxmaster was started in your startup-sequence. Feed an ARexx script to rx, and it will try to execute it. If the script is good, then of course it will do the job it was written to do.
That's what I did expect, and that's what I said. But for whatever reason, I couldn't get this to work by doubleclicking on a script in YAM.
Yam, and Thor also, were written rather largely in arexx,
Surely YAM is written in C?
I know the Amiga didn't really suffer that many of them (mostly the old bootblock viruses in the floppy disk days) but imagine an Email app with an ARexx port
YAM has an ARexx port, including the ability to send to mails with it.
However, I don't believe these can be ran from within the program directly by default (you'd have to save it out and run it externally). I once tried setting it up to do so (purely for academic interest, of course!) by setting 'rx' as a 'viewer' for ARexx scripts, but I couldn't get it to do so - I don't know if this was because I was doing something wrong, or because it has intentionally been blocked somewhere.
The Mac was 1 bit IIRC. A year later, the Amiga was doing 6 bits per pixel at 320x512 (or 4 bits per pixel at 640x512). It's not really clear that one machine was first to "the mainstream", but rather a gradual series of improvements.
For a long time, neither the Mac nor the PC was really fast enough to animate the whole screen at once at a reasonable framerate. [...] As I recall, that was mostly due to bus speed; the system simply couldn't shovel enough bits out to the graphics card over an ISA bus. The processor was more than capable, but the bus just wasn't up to it.
I believe the Amiga got round this by having memory which was shared by the CPU and graphics chips. Though tricks still had to be used (eg, using the blitter to do copying of screen areas which hadn't changed and only redrawing the bits which had).
A number of years ago, we finally got to the point that pretty much every computer in the world can do very smooth full motion video, and nobody even noticed, the idea was that dead.
I'd say that it's far from dead, but just that it's taken for granted. You don't hear the term "multimedia PC" either these days. It's true though that the hype of full motion video came several years before it really took off (eg, watching DVDs).
Sometime in the last couple of years, PCs really hit a plateau; they've gotten fast enough to do practically anything we can think of, at least for now. We can generate, manipulate, and output graphics of unbelievable quality... and we're mostly pretty blase' about the whole thing.
I think this quote is appropriate: "I suggest you close the book, go for a walk, and then return to your reading when you are done. Go out to a meadow, river, or a park and take a look around. You will soon discover how nature's complexity is far from being tamed by graphics programmers, and some doubt it will ever be mastered." [Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming, Sanchez-Crespo Dalmau.] Admittedly this is referring more to algorithms, but the reason we need clever graphics algorithms is because we don't have anywhere near enough computational power to do rendering in a more brute-force fashion.