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User: Microlith

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  1. Re:Real convergence on Can the Atrix 4G Really Become Your Next PC? · · Score: 0

    Oh hello there troll.

    No, no that's not it at all. MeeGo has not failed, it is still progressing. It needs wins on platforms, but I suppose if that's how you see it you can go enjoy your crippled mobile operating systems that are gimp for no good reason (except advertising and monetization.)

    Oh and CmdrTaco: fix this stupid five minute delay between posts! Not all of us are so mentally slow that we need a whole 5 minutes to write up a thought and post it.

  2. Re:Landline + dumbphone + home Internet on Can the Atrix 4G Really Become Your Next PC? · · Score: 2

    Don't forget to add on the fact that you are locked into the revision of Android Motorola has placed on the device unless they feel like blessing you with an upgrade. Punitive measures like signing the kernel serve no one's purposes but Motorola's, and is a downgrade in capability compared to a regular PC simply from an ownership standpoint.

  3. Re:Not a MS fan, but... on Official MS Kinect SDK Coming to Windows · · Score: 1

    doing things this way for the "Hacker" community is a lot better than Sony's response to what hacking has been going on with the PS3

    It's easier for MS to take a hands-off approach, as the end result sells hardware and has no impact on the XBOX360's platform security, whereas on the PS3 it is a direct attack on the platform's ability to keep the closed environment that publishers demand.

    That said, MS is obviously doing this to drive development back towards the Windows platform and away from OS X and Unix. Windows has the most restrictive driver development policies, as Vista 64, WS2008+ and W7 will not load a driver unless signed by both the vendor AND Microsoft (and each release costs $250 for validation) so only Microsoft will really bother to target it.

  4. Re:Wear usage? on Intel Unveils SSDs With 6Gbit/Sec Throughput · · Score: 1

    Current write cycles are over 1,000,000 per cell.

    Far from it. Depending on the litho, at 25nm for instance you're down to 3,000 program/erase cycles. And even at 34nm, you're still little better than 10k cycles. The overprovisioning and ECC required at these scales is massive.

    But yes, studies have been done and it takes an industrial strength workload to kill an SSD. If one of these is in your home machine, you likely won't kill it. If you think you might, then you should already have practices in place to deal with disk failure.

  5. Re:Oh noes! on Infected Androids Run Up Big Texting Bills · · Score: 0

    You're not thinking of this from the corporate fearmonger perspective. This can be solved completely by abdicating all control!

    You buy stuff from trusted sources.

    Of course! So you just ensure it's trusted and bar other sources! Like Apple, Microsoft, and Android devices on AT&T!

  6. Oh noes! on Infected Androids Run Up Big Texting Bills · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Obviously this means we should abdicate (forcibly, if necessary) all control over our computing devices to large corporations with a vested interest in denying us the ability to use them as we see fit.

  7. Re:A developer's perspective on Apple Asks Security Experts To Examine OS X Lion · · Score: 1

    It can show you a memory dump of any address, help you debug programs with a very easy UI

    This is nothing special, I can do the same with GDB (or rather, DDD.) And GDB/DDD will work on (indeed, come with) OS X.

  8. Re:My takeaway on Nokia and Open Source — a Trial By Fire · · Score: 1

    Bitter? No, just have a dislike for people who talk as if they're familiar with the subject, when in fact they have a mishmash of information gained by a cursory reading and scraped from various disparate sources, each subtly wrong in its own way.

  9. Re:My takeaway on Nokia and Open Source — a Trial By Fire · · Score: 1

    As far as MeeGo and Moblin go, there didn't seem to be any attention to creating the minimum specification and just choosing what they were going to support and refine.

    MeeGo is that minimum specification. From all indications, it'll hit 1.2 in April and the compliance spec will be settled before then. Nokia wasn't patient enough (or competent enough) to stick with it.

    things stagnated over the sort of squabbles people in OSS know and love.

    Nokia's problems were entirely internal. Progress on MeeGo has been quite snappy, actually. I doubt Google got Android to release quality in a year.

    Unlike Apple or Google, which took off-the-shelf OSS software that the community had written, made it their own and now act as BDFLs for their own brands and make their money off supporting and extending the OSS core

    Apple is entirely proprietary with iOS, save a handful of libraries. Google basically suggested to the greater open source community that they throw all development up to that point on the fire, bought a proprietary software company that use the Linux kernel purely out of convenience, and went with something entirely new that is open source, but not FOSS, and benefits nothing but Android and no one but Google.

    nobody working on MeeGo ever knew where the platform was going next

    Let me guess. You belive this to be the case but don't know.

    Nokia and Intel were very tight-lipped, so the people in the community would do their own thing and the platform would drift and work would be done on all kinds of stuff that didn't benefit Nokia. And then Nokia would come in one day and drop Gtk.

    I reiterate my above point, and posit that you are mixing up MeeGo and Maemo. Also, GTK has never been officially supported on MeeGo.

    You don't see the sort of high-level coordination that Google nominally does through the OHA

    Of course you don't, because it's entirely closed source and opaque to the community at large. The community is irrelevant and ignored until after their customers get the software and you get 3rd tier treatment via the AOSP.

    you don't see the sort of commitment Apple makes to promoting their platform to end-users and keeping the platform as consistent as possible.

    Which is Nokia's fault and has nothing to do with MeeGo.

    Nokia seemed to have the idea that if they just kickstarted an OSS phone OS, they could just sell handsets and the software platform would take care of itself with magic bazaar pixie dust, while assuming that at any time they could completely drop or add whatever technology they chose and the community would go along for the ride.

    No, the people who started the initiative knew exactly what they wanted. Middle managers and people above them who failed to understand what was going on stymied and interfered with the process in Maemo. When they finally broke away with MeeGo and started making progress, the US financials decided it was time to give Microsoft the in they wanted.

  10. IE6 still works? No shocker there. on Retro Browser War: IE6 Vs. Netscape In 2011 · · Score: 1

    Considering how much life IE6 still has in it on the internet, and how much of the web was deliberately broken to be "best viewed in internet explorer" and the length of IE6's dominance, I'm not surprised people are creating pages that are mostly compatible with it.

    Netscape, however, was pushed out by loads of incompatible web pages and a failure to keep up. So yeah, IE6 is going to still work while Netscape is going to be broken. Thankfully, we have a much more diverse base of browsers that basically drive home the need to be standards compliant on both ends.

  11. Politicians are full of shit. on New Internal Cavity X-ray Technology for Airports · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the article: "Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said the scanners would also help innocent travelers. 'The option of an internal body scan will more quickly exonerate the innocent and ensure a minimum of delay for legitimate travelers,' Mr O'Connor said."

    Why should they need to be exonerated? Why should they have to suffer through a high intensity blast of x-ray just to prove that they aren't terrorists?

    Why aren't the terrorists exploiting this hole RIGHT NOW and KILLING MILLIONS and INFLICTING TERROR?

    Maybe it's because the threat is overblown and someone is sucking your cock in exchange for your pushing these useless, unneeded machines. Or maybe you're like Chertoff, destined to profit handsomely by pushing your employer (and other governments) to buy equipment from a company you own.

  12. Loudness Wars on Apple in Talks to Improve Sound Quality of Music Downloads · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure they'll be 24-bit, but they'll also have the dynamic range compressed to shit.

    Unless that's the actual selling point, getting copies of the songs before they've passed through the hands of the mastering engineer whose job it is to destroy the difference between the quietest and loudest parts of songs, or worse yet causing horrible clipping.

  13. Re:Hide what? on Trying To Lure Suckers, Company Resells Open Source Blender · · Score: 2

    That and the link to the tarball is held off of their "Disclaimers" page. But from all appearances they're trying to sucker the unsuspecting into paying them for a copy of Blender with no real improvements.

    The summary is wrong that they're in violation of the GPL, but it is very deceptive.

  14. Re:Comment to geohot on GeoHot Asks For Donations To Fight Sony · · Score: 1

    Why should this kid not be sued into long-term bankruptcy?

    Why should he? What wrong has he committed?

  15. Re:Sold at a loss... on GeoHot Asks For Donations To Fight Sony · · Score: 1

    The PS3 and iPhone both contain more parts in cost than their retail price reflects.

    If you seriously believe the iPhone's BOM is higher than the unsubsidized retail price I have a bridge to sell you. When you buy one via AT&T or Verizon, it's the carrier eating the cost to fool you into thinking you got a deal with your contract.

    when something is sold at a loss you can expect there to be some form of vendor lock-in in order for the add-on products to make back the money lost.

    Then why doesn't Apple disable the locks on devices bought without a contract?

    If you want an open computer, buy the parts and build it yourself. You'll pay a whole lot more than $300 for it.

    I paid $600 for my N900. This lock down has nothing to do with recouping costs.

  16. Android without Java... on Can Android Without Dalvik Avoid Oracle's Wrath? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Might as well use MeeGo. At least then contributions from the community and improvements to various parts of the operating system would benefit more than just one platform.

  17. Re:Short Nokia stock on Intel CEO: Nokia Should Have Gone With Android · · Score: 4, Informative

    the N900 was horrific to use.

    Funny, I've had mine now for over a year and wouldn't give it up for anything. It's not a perfect phone, but it's a great pocket computer with phone capabilities. Perhaps one device and one OS doesn't work for everyone, unlike what Jobs and Ballmer would have us believe.

  18. Re:How many can the market support? on Intel Committed To MeeGo Despite Nokia Defection · · Score: 1

    As I heard it best put, Android is a "black hole" of open source. WebOS isn't completely open, using a proprietary IPC and framebuffer system.

    Perhaps if Android were more fluid in its development process and didn't require such invasive kernel changes that they won't be accepted into the kernel, there wouldn't be the problem of "fragmentation" that is seen today, what with the sloppy development practices companies are encouraged to undertake.

  19. Re:Apps on Intel Committed To MeeGo Despite Nokia Defection · · Score: 1

    No. MeeGo is absolutely NOT that.

    MeeGo is a defined base operating system. It has no inherent GUI, nor inherent mode of operating. It is expected that vendors (or end users) will find and add their own GUI (nee User Experience) to the system and can be assured that "compliant applications" for their processor will run.

    Chances are there will be an openMeeGo or the like that will offer all those things up for end users. As it is, the reference is almost entirely for development purposes.

  20. Re:Dual-boot phone? on Nokia Gives Some Hints On the Future of Qt · · Score: 1

    In a few years we will have phones with WP7 and Linux dual-boot.

    Not only is it not worth the effort, I would not doubt that the WP7 license would prohibit just such activities. Use of the OS dictates so much of how your hardware works that it's pointless to put WP7 with any other OS.

  21. Re:The Insane Triad on Nokia Gives Some Hints On the Future of Qt · · Score: 3, Informative

    Now I see Nokia is traveling down all three paths. What?

    They are not. All non-Microsoft paths will end, I suspect the remnants of the MeeGo path will be out by year's end, if not earlier. Symbian will have a longer tail due to its installed base and pipeline.

    They will both charge on down the WP7 path, pushing closed, locked down systems with Microsoft firmly in control.

  22. Re:what part of jailbreak did you misunderstand? on Nokia and Microsoft Make Smartphone Alliance · · Score: 1

    No, there are backgrounder apps that run ANY APP IN THE BACKGROUND.

    Ok, so it requires a hack to force a process into the background. It's still artificially limited.

    GCD has nothing at all to do with backgrounding.

    No, but it does have everything to do with non-hack multi-threaded execution on iOS.

    The snobbery comes from the belief the devices are superior despite other evidence, along with firmly held convictions based on false data...

    So the belief, based on my own preferences, that a device that imposes no artificial limitations or DRM lock down is superior to a wholly locked down platform you have to exploit a weakness to gain the ability to use hacks to simulate multi-threaded multitasking... is wrong? I think that's pushing it.

    Perhaps people would rather not support a company whose entire attitude towards the mobile space is "you are not welcome, unless you go through our gates and live in our prisons." I know that within 2 years I went from an Apple fan to an Apple critic. Placing toll booths and walls around certain areas of technology tends to drive people away.

  23. Re:Rest in piece, hacker friendly mobile future on Nokia and Microsoft Make Smartphone Alliance · · Score: 1

    webOS is curtailed by the fact that its graphical subsystem and IPC subsystem are wholly proprietary. Were they to move back towards MeeGo and replace those proprietary components with open ones, then I could get behind webOS 100%. Bonus would be a guaranteed source of MeeGo compatible drivers for Xorg on ARM, which alone would be huge.

    have a compatible enough fs to make N900 able to run games for it with Preenv.

    Preenv works because the binaries use SDL for gaming on the Pre, which Maemo supports (it has nothing to do with the filesystem.)

  24. grammarfail on Nokia and Microsoft Make Smartphone Alliance · · Score: 1

    we don't like artificial limitations and open operating systems?

    should read

    we don't like artificial limitations and like open operating systems?

  25. Re:what part of jailbreak did you misunderstand? on Nokia and Microsoft Make Smartphone Alliance · · Score: 1

    Actually even the stock iPhone does real multitasking, for a limited subset of tasks.

    Right, but it's an artificial limit, and requires software be written to use GCD.

    But realizing the snobbish Nokia user would not do without full multitasking and other configurable things even if they never use them, I added in the Jailbreak part which lets you do anything you like.

    So those of us who have enjoyed the N900 are snobbish because we don't like artificial limitations and open operating systems? I think it's rather that we desire the same capabilities, even if we don't fully use them, that we have on our PCs. And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect mobile platforms would be that open and capable.

    The only people who feel it is unreasonable are those who have a profit motive in keeping you trapped in a tiny corner of capability.