Hey/.! How about posting about 'filing suit' when it actually happens, and not when someone lacks basic reading comprehension? Not even in TFA does it mention a legal dispute; it says it filed a challenge to NYC's trademark application. Speaking of reading comprehension, you'll notice that I never mention a suit. Maybe your comment was not directed at me even though it is a reply to my post?
I think you may have misunderstood the parent. Of course Apple's claim is ridiculous, but with the current state of intellectual property law, Apple has a possibility of winning. This by itself would be BAD, but it may prompt politicians to do something about reforming IP law.
I've been making an effort to use Sage in place of Mathematica lately and so far I'm impressed. Although, right now I prefer using the CLI rather than the web interface.
Steve Jobs claimed a while back that he didn't like DRM, and had to do it because of the labels. Now we have Amazon selling true MP3s for all four major labels. So where's Steve?
Based on what I've read, I think the record companies are trying to avoid a situation where iTunes has a monopsony in the (wholesale) market for digital music. If iTunes is the only reseller of digital music then Apple has a lot of bargaining power in price negotiations and will be able to pay the labels a low price.
By not allowing Apple to sell tracks DRM free while at the same time allowing stores like Amazon to do so, they allow the other stores to gain market share and catch up a little with Apple. Then no one buyer has the entire market and the record labels can retain some price setting power.
I agree. I bought an AEBS and external disk under the impression (and recommendation of an Apple store employee) that Time Machine would work with AirDisk. Not only was that feature dropped, but AirDisk is too buggy to even be useful. If there aren't updates to Leopard and/or the AEBS firmware to get things to work properly I'll be pissed.
I understand why Air Capsule was released ($$$), but I think Time Machine + Air Disk is a much more elegant solution. If I buy another computer and need a bigger disk to back up to I'd rather just buy another external drive rather than buy both a new drive (at Apple prices) and a new wireless router.
There should be no "momentum" in an election. The fact that there is illustrates that a significant number of voters "follow the leader".
This isn't necessarily a bad thing and could be completely rational. If Alice knows she doesn't have all the information she needs to make her decision but Bob and Eve may have that information, Alice should pay attention to what Bob and Eve do (as it reveals their information) and factor that into her decision.
...the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes...
I can see how eliminating left turns can save on time and gas, but how does it reduce the distance traveled? Surely the route found using only right turns is also available when you can use right and left turns.
In some circles, this is known as "doing a Netscape" on the competition, since it's the way that Microsoft drove Netscape out of business. It works for Microsoft. It probably won't work for you or me, because we don't control the market-leader OS.
Ya just gotta understand how our Capitalist system actually works (as opposed by how economic theology says it should work).
I'm not sure what you mean by "economic theology", but the same economic theory that promotes capitalism as an efficient system (under certain assumptions) also predicts exploitation of market power just as you describe. These models have been around for centuries and are taught in basic form in all introductory western economics courses. Hence the need for laws such as the Sherman Act in the United States that make exploitation of market power illegal. Whether or not the laws are enforced by the government is another matter, but your assertion that economic theory precludes this behavior is incorrect.
FYI, you can merge with either "ditto" or "rsync", both of which are included with the OS.
I have no idea what you are talking about when you say "Leopard's newfound support of hardlinks". OS X has always supported hard links, just not for directories. As far as I know, in Leopard there still isn't really support for hard linking directories. Time machine uses a logical equivalent, but I've read that it is not implemented with hard links per se. I haven't been able to find a way for users to create hard links to directories, but if you know, please respond.
I was also pleased to find out that Apple does indeed do incremental backups of data using a differential methodology (i.e. not making a whole copy of a changed file, but only recording the new information in the file as part of the backup). They do it using a variant of system links.
I think you misunderstand how Time Machine works. If the contents of a file change, the entire file's data will be re-written to the backup drive, not just the parts that changed. If a file is unchanged, a "hard link" is created that points to the old file data.
The second guideline you should follow is to avoid putting small amounts of volatile data into otherwise large and static files. If you have data files that are updated frequently to change a small percentage of the data in that file, Time Machine will copy the entire file, taking up more space on the backup disk. If, instead, you can separate the volatile data into a smaller separate file, Time Machine will be able to back up changes to the smaller file and make more efficient use of backup disk space.
Many of the people involved in making Futurama are degree heavy. Degrees aren't sufficient for geekdom, but watching the show and DVD commentaries gives evidence that they are true geeks.
Ken Keeler has a Ph.D. in applied math and a masters in electrical engineering David X Cohen has a Masters in theoretical computer science Bill Odenkirk has a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry Jeff Westbrook has a Ph.D. in computer science
Anybody who sells a car designed to be driven over 100mph should as a matter of course point their customers to the nearest track. It'd probably be good for business.
When I lived in Kansas City, the local Audi dealership included free membership to the Audi Club North America with the purchase of a car. The local chapter of the club organized many high performance driving schools/events at tracks around the midwest and it was a great way for people to learn the limits of their car and their own driving ability. Besides learning how to drive fast on the track you learn some non-trivial accident avoidance techniques.
The dealership has since changed hands, so I'm not sure if they still do this.
What the heck do you think academic freedom is supposed to be about anyway?
The freedom to pursue knowledge and do research without interference from the institution you're associated with. I do not understand how academic freedom is relevant in this matter.
While I don't think he should have been tazed, he had an opportunity to voice his opinions and questions in a civil, rational way. I understand the importance of disobedience in order to be heard from under oppression, but it looks like he skipped right to disobedience in order to get attention for himself, not his opinions or beliefs.
with DRM: apple gets a big share of the pie without DRM: apple gets a slightly smaller share (debatable) of a much bigger pie
apple has huge market share because their products are better than everyone else's, not because consumers are locked into itunes. i don't think ditching DRM would hurt apple at all.
Well, since I have to create an account with Citizendium just to look at the articles
I was somewhat amused that the edited sample article on biology that is publicly available is full of editorial errors. Capitalization of the topic word "biology" isn't even consistent in the section headers, let alone the article text.
The biggest idiocy perpetrated in this incident was by the people who didn't think far enough ahead to anticipate that this was going to happen
i think the fact that numerous signs posted in other cities caused no disruption or panic is a sure sign that boston's reaction was NOT the correct ex-ante expectation of what would happen.
they did have a use for it, but after it was clear that i would not be attending UCLA they no longer had a need for it and should not have retained it.
especially people like me who applied to the school years ago and never attended. why are they storing SSNs of people that are not students or employees? my info should have never been in there to steal in the first place.
Mainly because the people who do this are are super secret. They don't want anyone to know how or what they are doing because the field is so competitive. It's the equivalent of an algorithm arms race.
They are not as secretive about their methods as you might imagine.
As noted by earlier posters computers are not used to "pick stocks", but to construct portfolios with desirable characteristics, find arbitrage opportunities, etc. I can give a little insight into the first. I'll gloss over a lot and use language somewhat loosely, so please don't jump if you know your finance:)
There is a tradeoff in the market between risk and return. You can construct a portfolio with a very high expected return, but it will involve a lot of risk. Alternatively, you could have portfolio with very little risk, but low expected returns. The trick is to get the highest expected return with the lowest expected risk. Here is where mathematical models run on a computer can help. The most famous and the one everybody knows about is the CAPM (capital asset pricing model). There is a lot of debate in academia over this model, but it is still useful in practical ways.
Last year I attended a lecture and had a discussion with Bob Litterman, the director of quantitative resources at Goldman Sachs. He oversees several billion dollars worth of investments and does so quite successfully. One thing he stressed was that all of the tools they use are publicly available in the form of academic literature that their competition tends to ignore. For example, they use a modified CAPM that allows an investor to incorporate their "views" about certain stocks or sectors into the portfolio problem (this is the somewhat famous Black-Litterman model). Generating these views is still a human endeavor, but then the computers generate the portfolios that accurately represent these views and that have high expected returns with low risk.
Thought this was an interesting feature and funny comment from the new Xcode page:
Project Snapshots Record the state of your project anytime, and restore it instantly. Experiment with new features without spending time or brain cells committing them to a source control system. Like saving a game in Civilization 4, Xcode 3.0 lets you go back in time without repercussions. If only reality worked this way at the Pentagon...
Slashdot Mirror
I think you may have misunderstood the parent. Of course Apple's claim is ridiculous, but with the current state of intellectual property law, Apple has a possibility of winning. This by itself would be BAD, but it may prompt politicians to do something about reforming IP law.
Too bad the source code for the highly optimized prog10 raytracer was lost in the great hard drive crash of '98.
Sage also has an AJAX interface.
I've been making an effort to use Sage in place of Mathematica lately and so far I'm impressed. Although, right now I prefer using the CLI rather than the web interface.
Based on what I've read, I think the record companies are trying to avoid a situation where iTunes has a monopsony in the (wholesale) market for digital music. If iTunes is the only reseller of digital music then Apple has a lot of bargaining power in price negotiations and will be able to pay the labels a low price.
By not allowing Apple to sell tracks DRM free while at the same time allowing stores like Amazon to do so, they allow the other stores to gain market share and catch up a little with Apple. Then no one buyer has the entire market and the record labels can retain some price setting power.
I agree. I bought an AEBS and external disk under the impression (and recommendation of an Apple store employee) that Time Machine would work with AirDisk. Not only was that feature dropped, but AirDisk is too buggy to even be useful. If there aren't updates to Leopard and/or the AEBS firmware to get things to work properly I'll be pissed.
I understand why Air Capsule was released ($$$), but I think Time Machine + Air Disk is a much more elegant solution. If I buy another computer and need a bigger disk to back up to I'd rather just buy another external drive rather than buy both a new drive (at Apple prices) and a new wireless router.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing and could be completely rational. If Alice knows she doesn't have all the information she needs to make her decision but Bob and Eve may have that information, Alice should pay attention to what Bob and Eve do (as it reveals their information) and factor that into her decision.
I can see how eliminating left turns can save on time and gas, but how does it reduce the distance traveled? Surely the route found using only right turns is also available when you can use right and left turns.
I'm not sure what you mean by "economic theology", but the same economic theory that promotes capitalism as an efficient system (under certain assumptions) also predicts exploitation of market power just as you describe. These models have been around for centuries and are taught in basic form in all introductory western economics courses. Hence the need for laws such as the Sherman Act in the United States that make exploitation of market power illegal. Whether or not the laws are enforced by the government is another matter, but your assertion that economic theory precludes this behavior is incorrect.
FYI, you can merge with either "ditto" or "rsync", both of which are included with the OS.
I have no idea what you are talking about when you say "Leopard's newfound support of hardlinks". OS X has always supported hard links, just not for directories. As far as I know, in Leopard there still isn't really support for hard linking directories. Time machine uses a logical equivalent, but I've read that it is not implemented with hard links per se. I haven't been able to find a way for users to create hard links to directories, but if you know, please respond.
I think you misunderstand how Time Machine works. If the contents of a file change, the entire file's data will be re-written to the backup drive, not just the parts that changed. If a file is unchanged, a "hard link" is created that points to the old file data.
From http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/apptech.html:
Many of the people involved in making Futurama are degree heavy. Degrees aren't sufficient for geekdom, but watching the show and DVD commentaries gives evidence that they are true geeks.
Ken Keeler has a Ph.D. in applied math and a masters in electrical engineering
David X Cohen has a Masters in theoretical computer science
Bill Odenkirk has a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry
Jeff Westbrook has a Ph.D. in computer science
list taken from interview with Cohen at http://frontwheeldrive.com/david-x-cohen-futuramas-head-in-a-jar
When I lived in Kansas City, the local Audi dealership included free membership to the Audi Club North America with the purchase of a car. The local chapter of the club organized many high performance driving schools/events at tracks around the midwest and it was a great way for people to learn the limits of their car and their own driving ability. Besides learning how to drive fast on the track you learn some non-trivial accident avoidance techniques.
The dealership has since changed hands, so I'm not sure if they still do this.
The freedom to pursue knowledge and do research without interference from the institution you're associated with. I do not understand how academic freedom is relevant in this matter.
While I don't think he should have been tazed, he had an opportunity to voice his opinions and questions in a civil, rational way. I understand the importance of disobedience in order to be heard from under oppression, but it looks like he skipped right to disobedience in order to get attention for himself, not his opinions or beliefs.
montana (of all places) has had a dealer for a few years in bozeman.
http://www.ecoautoinc.com/smart.php
Jobs probably won't be forced to quit by the SEC. From today's WSJ coverage:
"The SEC said it will not pursue any further action against Apple itself, which cooperated fully with the probe"
I was really hoping there would be price drops on the quad core configurations. Or at least upgraded video cards.
in other words...
with DRM: apple gets a big share of the pie
without DRM: apple gets a slightly smaller share (debatable) of a much bigger pie
apple has huge market share because their products are better than everyone else's, not because consumers are locked into itunes. i don't think ditching DRM would hurt apple at all.
Well, since I have to create an account with Citizendium just to look at the articles
I was somewhat amused that the edited sample article on biology that is publicly available is full of editorial errors. Capitalization of the topic word "biology" isn't even consistent in the section headers, let alone the article text.
The biggest idiocy perpetrated in this incident was by the people who didn't think far enough ahead to anticipate that this was going to happen
i think the fact that numerous signs posted in other cities caused no disruption or panic is a sure sign that boston's reaction was NOT the correct ex-ante expectation of what would happen.
they did have a use for it, but after it was clear that i would not be attending UCLA they no longer had a need for it and should not have retained it.
800,000 people are going to be pissed
especially people like me who applied to the school years ago and never attended. why are they storing SSNs of people that are not students or employees? my info should have never been in there to steal in the first place.
Mainly because the people who do this are are super secret. They don't want anyone to know how or what they are doing because the field is so competitive. It's the equivalent of an algorithm arms race.
:)
They are not as secretive about their methods as you might imagine.
As noted by earlier posters computers are not used to "pick stocks", but to construct portfolios with desirable characteristics, find arbitrage opportunities, etc. I can give a little insight into the first. I'll gloss over a lot and use language somewhat loosely, so please don't jump if you know your finance
There is a tradeoff in the market between risk and return. You can construct a portfolio with a very high expected return, but it will involve a lot of risk. Alternatively, you could have portfolio with very little risk, but low expected returns. The trick is to get the highest expected return with the lowest expected risk. Here is where mathematical models run on a computer can help. The most famous and the one everybody knows about is the CAPM (capital asset pricing model). There is a lot of debate in academia over this model, but it is still useful in practical ways.
Last year I attended a lecture and had a discussion with Bob Litterman, the director of quantitative resources at Goldman Sachs. He oversees several billion dollars worth of investments and does so quite successfully. One thing he stressed was that all of the tools they use are publicly available in the form of academic literature that their competition tends to ignore. For example, they use a modified CAPM that allows an investor to incorporate their "views" about certain stocks or sectors into the portfolio problem (this is the somewhat famous Black-Litterman model). Generating these views is still a human endeavor, but then the computers generate the portfolios that accurately represent these views and that have high expected returns with low risk.
Thought this was an interesting feature and funny comment from the new Xcode page:
Project Snapshots
Record the state of your project anytime, and restore it instantly. Experiment with new features without spending time or brain cells committing them to a source control system. Like saving a game in Civilization 4, Xcode 3.0 lets you go back in time without repercussions. If only reality worked this way at the Pentagon...
Either submitter has a short position in AAPL or lacks basic reading and comprehension skills. Since this is slashdot, probably the latter.