That's right jackass, I've been on/. all these years just to astroturf for TomTom; user 5579, 1100+ comments, it's been a setup all along, you finally figured me out.
Less sarcastically, your implications are unjustified and rude.
As to why I justified a GPS, the last time GPS units came up on/. a buncha folks whined how superfluous they are, that a printed map should be good enough for anyone, etc. So I figured I'd recap why I so like mine.
But hey, its easier to publicly imply unethical misrepresentation by a stranger then wonder if they've a reason for wording a post how they did.
You can post your "sorry, it was a misunderstanding" now.
Thanks for your thoughts, however I expect my next satnav will also be a TomTom.
Nothing against the other brands, but so far the TomTom's feature set has really matched my needs.
I really really like the speaker on my TomTom 300. Yeah, it's big, indeed its the whole back of the device. The thing looks like a first generation iMac with the big hump behind the screen. But that speaker is clear, I can hear the directions with the windows open, the radio playing, etc.
Not everyone likes voice navigation but I prefer it, especially when I'm dealing with heavy traffic, bad weather, curves, don't know where I am, etc. That's when I hate to divert my attention from what is going on around my vehicle, refocus my eyes on a screen, puzzle it out, try and get names, then return my attention to the road and figure out what has happened in the intervening 100 feet or so. I've got two sensory channels, it seems stupid not to take advantage of both of them.
I agree the built-in satnav units seem a poor investment. Their maps are extraordinarily expensive and the devices will clearly age faster then the vehicles. Look at all the folks with first generation GM "OnStar" systems who are soon to find their systems abandoned without an update possibility. I also enjoy the ability to move my TomTom from vehicle to vehicle. However as I don't actually carry it with me but just switch it from car to car, or toss it in my luggage and then install it in a rental, I don't really care if it is pocket sized and again, that big clear speaker is a huge feature to me.
Finally, the TomTom GUI is just great. They don't waste large chunks of screen on static 'soft buttons', instead tapping the screen brings up a series of setting screen that are well thought out and easy to operate without lots of attention (though I almost always pull over anyhow.)
Everyone's needs are different, but for a car-based system my TomTom 300 has been the sweet spot for me. Now I'm just looking forward to one of the newer models with updating traffic conditions and it'll be perfect ('til they come out with a model that drives my car for me.)
I've been a happy owner of a TomTom 300 for a couple of years. It's a dashboard-mounted Linux-based satnav system. When I went shopping for a device like this several years ago I was impressed by the TomTom's UI & audio quality, both more important to me when using it then lots of rarely used features.
For those who don't understand why anyone would want a satnav system, its been a huge benefit to me. Not only does it guide me point to point, particularly when it's to or from a point I'm not familiar with, it also informs me of services near me. For example the other night I met friends at a cinema I'd never been to before. I was able to quickly navigate to it without having to refer to a printed Google map. After the show we were able to quickly chose nearby restaurant without having to roam around in a convoy. I was then able to simply chose "Home" as the destination from my new location. On the way home I was low on fuel; with the TomTom I was able to skip the first exit promising gas (the TomTom showed it was actually a mile away) and continue to the next exit, with 2 gas stations conveniently by the exits.
TomTom Corp.is out of Belgium, which is reflected in their multilingual features & mapsets. They've been fairly hacker friendly and there are a number of 3rd party addon packages that have shown up over the years. TomTom has a history of hiring those hackers and bringing them in-house.
Their software runs on both Linux & Windows CE. Indeed from what I've seen it is fairly agnostic about either platform and offers the same feature sets on both. They also have a free desktop application for adding & removing maps, updating firmware & software, adding custom voices, etc. This started out on MS Windows and is now also offered on MacOS X.
So far I've been extremely happy with my purchase. The biggest problem has been significant highway construction; my maps are now several years old and don't reflect current routes. However TomTom has recently announced updated maps which I'll be purchasing. My only concern is they issued a press release touting a significant discount for the introduction of these maps, a press release which has since disappeared from their website.
In the years since my model 300 shipped they've now added models with built-in hard drives, Bluetooth for integration with phones, radios, car services like headlights, and via phones downloading traffic updates for dynamic route optimization. This hard drive is apparently what has been affected.
Then you're not in the target market for an iPhone.
End. Period. Full stop.
You might want to consider other devices like the Blackberry, perhaps a PalmOS, windows Mobile, or Symbian device with a similar keyboard and application set. But going on about the iPhone and how it isn't a good fit for you is just silly, same as telling us how a tank probably doesn't fit your car needs and Playdough doesn't make for a good meal.
The solipsism of some folks is extraordinary.
Just because the iPhone looks to be awesome gadget phone that doesn't mean it is necessarily gonna be your perfect gadget phone. If you need a full keyboard then, d'uh!, forget about an iPhone. If you need to connect directly to an MS Exchange Server then forget about an iPhone. If you need a SD card in your phone then forget about an iPhone.
See the pattern?
However Apple clearly thinks there is a market for folks other then you (I know, shocking!) And Apple has a pretty good record of consumer products. They've also a good record for UI's, your inane quibbling that they don't ship with a 3 button mouse aside (Hint: Most folks don't know what more then 1 mouse button does, now please back away from most folks before your head detonates trying to absorb that it's-not-all-about-you concept.)
Your sort are are why/. is so useless for discussing consumer products.
It doesn't come with WiMax! That's the future! Nearly nothing ships with WiMax yet, come back 2Q 2007
It doesn't run Linux/BSD/OGG/methane/whatever! 99.9999% of folks don't care, won't care, and frankly don't need to care.
I need it in blue, with a juicer attachment! Great, whittle yourself one.
Consumer products are meant to have broad appeal and therefore won't ever fit everyone absolutely perfectly. Revel in being on the far end of the bell curve.
I red ur site because itz rad & mewanna soo bad to know about all of the crazy kewl hacks!!! But u kep riting in leet code I donno plez tell m3 what this codes mean NIDS IPS BGP DNS SYN + what du DDOS n DOS haveta du whichothr?
For those unaware (and/. editors too lazy to correct a memorial's name) James Webb was the head of NASA under whom the lunar missions were such a success. He was widely considered to be an excellent leader, both within NASA and in championing NASA in Washington DC. He was with NASA from 1961 to 1968 and died in 1992. In 2002 the planned "Next Generation Space Telescope" was renamed in his honor.
For more information on the man & the telescope see:
NASA did not "just lose" the footage, indeed there was no "footage" (as in film) to lose. Rather the original downlink recordings were misplaced decades ago. It was only recently discovered that those recordings were of significantly higher quality then what was retransmitted and seen by the rest of the world. Therefore there is now a search on for those original source recordings. This search has been fairly high profile including significant stories in Wired Magazine, AP newswire stories, etc.
If you're going to imply conspiracies at least have the well known facts right.
Because, contrary to your Grade 6 "Earth Sciences Unit" animated filmstrip, subduction zones aren't neat little escalator-like places where material goes into some sort of geological garbage disposal system like you might have attached to your sink.
Instead they're messy places where continental blocks are crashing into each other in tremendously slow motion, riding up over, breaking off, dissolving, melting, all that good stuff. Material dropped on one of these places is could just lay there for the longer then we've been a species. However there is a strong possibility this material won't always just lie there but instead break up, on it's own or under subduction-related volcanic or seismic activity, and spread into the larger ecosystem (garbage in is indeed garbage out!)
While this breakdown & distribution could be a slow process it would be a chaotic environment and 'bad things' could just as well happen 'fast', with disastrous consequences. Keep in mind that while out of sight and generally low energy places the deep ocean beds are not disconnected from the rest of the planet and are also subject to disturbances; subduction zones hugely so.
So you're talking about essentially land-mining a significant chunk of the planet, some of the most unstable parts of the planet, with the possibility that still-lethal material could suddenly, randomly, re-enter our parts of the environment, with catastrophic results.
Yeah. No. Not a good idea.
Better to minimize the amount of material. Convert it into the least reactive forms economically & technically practical. Then using reliable systems (and that pretty much rules out 'under several thousand meters of water' with our current skills) isolate it as much as practicable in long-term stable places, and hope that future generations don't fuck with it in a bad way.
Finally, regarding the majority of your posting:
While there are indeed alarmist/ignorant/self-serving 'environmentalists', as there are boobs and headline-graspers in every part of human endeavor, there are also arrogant self-righteous techno-weenies with equally poor understanding of the topics on which they opine. As much as you look down on those you deem ignorant, those who are informed can look down on your ignorance, which to a self-aware person would suggest an attitude-check would be in order. (Frankly you come off not much different then the stereotyped asshats you rail against.)
Sure there is, has been for years: SVG (look it up for yourself.)
Does all of the same vectors & animation that Flash does, easier to create (its XML), and open. Its not even that hard to re-author material from Flash to SVG.
... the reality is that the reason Firefox and Opera are "more secure" is that there are less people using them.
No, the reality is most non-MS products are more secure by design.
The fact is that years ago MS adopted an insecure architecture, at the time was roundly criticized for this, and has spent the years since being every malware's convenient bitch.
It's not "'cause that is where the money is", it's "'cause the front door is open".
Furthermore playing the numbers games is a fool's contest: MS doesn't publish their problems. Other folks have partial lists (we can assume MS knows of more) and every so often MS deigns to fix some of their problems and release patches, but that in no way is equivalent of maintaining a public bug tracker. Oh, and don't for a moment delude yourself MS's public documentation covers a tenth of their errata, not even MS pretends that.
So please, next time you post, let it not be burping up this old, well debunked, trope yet again. As sad has/. has gotten recently the standard still remains well above the old smaller-target argument.
So why is it easier for you to post your question to/. instead of actually looking it up for yourself? It's not like it's gonna be a hard or obscure topic to quickly find answers to...
Are you AOL-time-traveler-from-'97 somehow unaware of nasa.gov, google.com, or wikipedia.org?
Do you so needy of attention you'll shamelessly ask others to spoonfeed your (presumably) adult self?
Or are you just one of those socially challenged boors who has to interject something, anything, into a thread no matter how inane it is?
For those moderating, this isn't a troll, or flamebait, it's pointing out lazy anti-social all-noise/no-signal garbage and hopefully encouraging the poster to reconsider such junk postings in the future.
Wikipedia has a fairly good definition ofAstroturfing:
In politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations (PR) campaigns which seek to create the impression of being a spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the "AstroTurf" (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate "fake grassroots" support.
Note the part "formal public relations (PR) campaigns". That doesn't mean "everyone of a dissenting viewpoint", it's about organized, covert attempts at manipulating opinion by distorting open discussion with an explicit unacknowledged agenda.
A buncha folks with a different opinion, including those with the same different opinion, are not automatically Astroturfing. They may be (in your opinion) misguided, they may be (in your opinion) misinformed, they may even being quoting (in your opinion) propaganda, but unless you've real reason to suspect more sinister motives then mere difference of opinion don't go crying "Astroturfing!" at every sign of opposition.
Do the RIAA/MPAA/et al engage in underhanded covert public relations? Sure. I've no doubt they've got their hands in as many front groups as they do in their publicly acknowledged relationships. And they've never shied away from hiring folks to lobby on their behalf, in Washington or in public discourse.
But let's keep some perspective: Slashdot, as high visibility as it is amongst a certain set, is not where they're going to be hiring a buncha paid mouthpieces to burp up poorly articulated postings. I'm not saying it couldn't ever happen, but there's no good evidence of such and certain folks trying to netcop by shouting down every dissenting opinion is as harmful as any possible Astroturfing.
So, until you've got some persuasive evidence that there is more then the usual level of dissent, unoriginal argument, poorly understood implications, and simple bloody mindedness please don't go trying to shut down folks with "Aftroturfer!" ad hominem attacks. Anyone who plays such intellectually dishonest games should be immediately modded down into oblivion.
So isolated, but so populated
on
Birth of an Island
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Its fascinating that something like this, in the age of of satellite monitoring, global communications, Google Earth, can happen without vulcanologists aware of it. Its possible that military organizations detected it & then dismissed it as outside their purview & didn't pass it on, in any case it's unfortunate that such a rare event escaped study. Hopefully we'll soon see automated earth science 'anomaly' expert systems processing realtime data and alerting relevant specialists.
On the other hand, it's impressive that there were people there! That the human species is so ubiquitous on planet Earth that a random bunch of folks happened to be sailing in proximity, in what was historically one of the most isolate places on the planet. It really does bring home that there are now more folks alive today then have died in the history of our species, that we're now regularly witnessing these one-in-a-million (but what is that to six billion?!) events!
It's been out for years, it's a mature technology, it actually does support true sharing insofar as the devices can, and it doesn't require a host system. Add into that higher speeds with substantially less overhead (USB is dependent on your CPU) and it sure beats out the it's-USB-with-our-own-wonky-'extensions' stuff.
The downsides are a slightly higher hardware price due to a more sophisticated chipset and a bit of licensing fees (US$.25/device). And of course FW/1394 isn't as universal as USB, though whatever you're looking for is almost always available from somewhere.
The assumptions that went into the construction, the quality of fit & furnishings, the neighborhood, none are comparable between the two, and any advice/insights from one are only minimally applicable to the other.
If you want to know what happens to unoccupied houses in your area talk to your police department, your insurance agent, and a local real estate agent ('cause they're often dealing houses that have been empty for months or even years while estate are settled & the like.) They'll give you a realistic set of expectations, and frankly it'll scare you. Breakins, leaks that cause huge damages, mildew & must, cracking wallpaper & appliances with rust spots.
So tenants are typically the solution. But not annual renters, instead go through an agency that specializes in fully/semi furnished short term renters contracts. If you're clever you'll go for visiting executives, faculty, folks in town for about as long as you'll be away who are looking for a move-in fully furnished place. They're typically responsible people, and just as importantly the agency is your agent: Their job is to find & vet your tenants, handle the hot water tank that dies on the Friday of a three day weekend, collect the rent, do all of the things that would be so awkward while you're away.
Finally, even if everything is all set up, have a friend or family member pop by every month or so to give the property a look over. Give your neighbors your email address and ask that they get in touch if there are any concerns. Give the police department and your insurance agent call with your phone number & emergency contact information.
do it right and you'll have a fine time away. Do it wrong and your largest investment will become the Haunted Mansion.
Chuq Von Rospach, 17.5 year veteran of Apple, well known for his insights into email / usenet / web issues, did a series of blog entries on how Apple communicates. He went into, from his former privilaged position inside Apple, about how & why it communicates how it does, and what it is like being a communicator for Apple, officially & unofficially.
The postings about Apple & blogging start at Why Apple doesn't have a blogging policy (it ain't what you think....) and then goes for a few days, with responses to/from other bloggers.
Interesting stuff, insightful, and first-person from someone who was on the inside.
Most people do not own a Mac and have no interest in purchasing one.
Same was true for the iPod - it originally required a Mac to be truly useful.
Furthermore, getting 5% of Mac owners to buy a rev. A iPhone would still be some damn decent sales numbers, and doubtless have some pullthrough to new Mac purchases.
Later, after the low-hanging fruit are picked, the cutting edge/early adopter/Mac faithful, then give some luvin' to the other OS's, but not so sweet as on a Mac.
As someone who already uses his built-in Mac synchronization to trivially manage his phone (TM/N6103), it's a lovely thing.
Actually, my Grandfather was a buggy whip salesmen.
After returning from The Great War, WWI, he was disabled (indeed he'd been declared dead & in the morgue at one point - mustard gas.) The job he could get was selling buggy whips, and his territory was the US Midwest & Canada. He was away from home for long stretches of time, and as you can imagine had some pretty amazing tales to tell of traveling to remote ccommunities back when travel was HARD.
However he saw the car taking over and once he'd saved up enough money he did the smart thing: Opened a service station.
Later it went bust in the Great Depression. He then started again, in putting in power lines, then power plants, and eventually became VP of a a large construction firm and responsible for many of the major structures still standing in Kansas City including the Liberty Memorial, Nelson Gallery, and the Starlight Theatre.
The point is, he really was in the buggy whip business and when the new technologies came in he adapted and took advantage of them. Then when the bust came he reinvented himself again and took his skills and when into an entirely new career. Not a new high-tech story, rather from a fella raised in a sod hut in the Oklahoma Territory where buffalo were a constant threat.
First off, the list of 5 is really a 5-more list, there are numerous others listed by the same author on the same website in other articles.
And yes, there are many more items, from the workstations developed with Apollo, the clients with Wang, the Pippin game machine, etc.
Then there's the technologies like Hotsauce, Cyberdog, OpenDoc, and of course Newton, all of which got into demo or even release but never really made it. And of course the first post-Next version of MacOS which was to be interoperable with MS Windows (not the Star Trek Windows-on-Mac but a MS Windows-based MacOS layer).
It's really remarkable the amount of technology Apple has pumped out, and of that how much have proven remarkably prescient. Whenever folks complain about how much attention Apple gets I always point out it is because they truly do innovate & lead the market (their small market share notwithstanding)
Oh, want links to all of the nouns above? Try using your search-engine-of-choice with Apple and whichever it is strikes your fancy - lots of nifty stuff.
Today, it almost seems that voice calls are the least-used function of most phones
Bullshit.
... while Wi-Fi and WiMax use ever-growing amounts of network bandwidth.
Double bullshit.
While cellphones/mobiles might have all sorts of ancillary functions they are still first and foremost telephones. That someone thinks otherwise indicates they need to stop reading Gizmodo & Engadget and get out in the real world for a few hours. As to WiMax taking up ever-growing amounts of network bandwidth, sure, if up from.00000001 to.00000002 percent is worth blathering about.
Find me a few production-level WiMax deployments with significant amounts of traffic and well talk.
without such this is just so much empty talk wasting more bandwidth then WiMax has yet to carry.
Oh, and what to call mobile phones? How about mobiles like the rest of the planet? That wasnt so hard, was it?
Steve Jobs does... not... like... his surprises to leak in advance.
Apple used to leak like a sieve. Everyone knew their product plans before their own salesfolk did. It got so bad sales took a huge hit every time the next big thing was due as everyone put off their orders. Now after Job's return Apple does a few big new introductions at their own MacWorld or at a few specialty shows, the famous "one more thing..." products. Those are always hugely, obsessively, secret so Apple gets the maximum PR. Heck, everyone in the industry, caring about Apple or not, tracks these just to see what Apple will do next.
The last time someone leaked in a big way it was ATI. The result was 24 hours before the new Mac introductions, with ATI cards, they had their products stripped from the new Macs, all Apple presentations were rescripted to omit references to ATI, Apple marketing materials were quickly remade sans ATI, etc. Apparently ATI were persona non grata at Apple HQ for several months until his Steveness was sufficiently mollified this would never happen again.
Since then other Apple manufacturers have gotten in lower levels of trouble for simply acknowledging large orders had been made by Apple. These are picked up by the local press, which is of course read by everyone in the industry around the world.
But to confirm the long awaited iPhone, a rumor that has been a staple for years from the dingiest Mac rumor site to the NYT, that takes a special kind of stoopid.
My assumption is that as soon as this story started to break a damage control team from the manufacturer to Cupertino. Now the question is if Jobs will go ahead with the rollout or delay it at the last minute. As this is the same man who once had a factory closed down for all of the robots to be repainted, 9 times, 'til he was happy, who has a history of cancelling large projects, I dunno.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Also, if true, what the iPhone will entail, especially after Disney's recent phone flop.
With increasing pressure from other countries to get to the Moon first, as well as additional programs to settle the moon as a research outpost, the pressure is on.
"Alexander the Great, Black Death in Europe in 1347, Neil Armstrong in 1969. And which timeline are you from?"
Slashdot Mirror
That's right jackass, I've been on /. all these years just to astroturf for TomTom; user 5579, 1100+ comments, it's been a setup all along, you finally figured me out.
Less sarcastically, your implications are unjustified and rude.
As to why I justified a GPS, the last time GPS units came up on /. a buncha folks whined how superfluous they are, that a printed map should be good enough for anyone, etc. So I figured I'd recap why I so like mine.
But hey, its easier to publicly imply unethical misrepresentation by a stranger then wonder if they've a reason for wording a post how they did.
You can post your "sorry, it was a misunderstanding" now.
Thanks for your thoughts, however I expect my next satnav will also be a TomTom.
Nothing against the other brands, but so far the TomTom's feature set has really matched my needs.
I really really like the speaker on my TomTom 300. Yeah, it's big, indeed its the whole back of the device. The thing looks like a first generation iMac with the big hump behind the screen. But that speaker is clear , I can hear the directions with the windows open, the radio playing, etc.
Not everyone likes voice navigation but I prefer it, especially when I'm dealing with heavy traffic, bad weather, curves, don't know where I am, etc. That's when I hate to divert my attention from what is going on around my vehicle, refocus my eyes on a screen, puzzle it out, try and get names, then return my attention to the road and figure out what has happened in the intervening 100 feet or so. I've got two sensory channels, it seems stupid not to take advantage of both of them.
I agree the built-in satnav units seem a poor investment. Their maps are extraordinarily expensive and the devices will clearly age faster then the vehicles. Look at all the folks with first generation GM "OnStar" systems who are soon to find their systems abandoned without an update possibility. I also enjoy the ability to move my TomTom from vehicle to vehicle. However as I don't actually carry it with me but just switch it from car to car, or toss it in my luggage and then install it in a rental, I don't really care if it is pocket sized and again, that big clear speaker is a huge feature to me.
Finally, the TomTom GUI is just great. They don't waste large chunks of screen on static 'soft buttons', instead tapping the screen brings up a series of setting screen that are well thought out and easy to operate without lots of attention (though I almost always pull over anyhow.)
Everyone's needs are different, but for a car-based system my TomTom 300 has been the sweet spot for me. Now I'm just looking forward to one of the newer models with updating traffic conditions and it'll be perfect ('til they come out with a model that drives my car for me.)
I've been a happy owner of a TomTom 300 for a couple of years. It's a dashboard-mounted Linux-based satnav system. When I went shopping for a device like this several years ago I was impressed by the TomTom's UI & audio quality, both more important to me when using it then lots of rarely used features.
For those who don't understand why anyone would want a satnav system, its been a huge benefit to me. Not only does it guide me point to point, particularly when it's to or from a point I'm not familiar with, it also informs me of services near me. For example the other night I met friends at a cinema I'd never been to before. I was able to quickly navigate to it without having to refer to a printed Google map. After the show we were able to quickly chose nearby restaurant without having to roam around in a convoy. I was then able to simply chose "Home" as the destination from my new location. On the way home I was low on fuel; with the TomTom I was able to skip the first exit promising gas (the TomTom showed it was actually a mile away) and continue to the next exit, with 2 gas stations conveniently by the exits.
TomTom Corp.is out of Belgium, which is reflected in their multilingual features & mapsets. They've been fairly hacker friendly and there are a number of 3rd party addon packages that have shown up over the years. TomTom has a history of hiring those hackers and bringing them in-house.
Their software runs on both Linux & Windows CE. Indeed from what I've seen it is fairly agnostic about either platform and offers the same feature sets on both. They also have a free desktop application for adding & removing maps, updating firmware & software, adding custom voices, etc. This started out on MS Windows and is now also offered on MacOS X.
So far I've been extremely happy with my purchase. The biggest problem has been significant highway construction; my maps are now several years old and don't reflect current routes. However TomTom has recently announced updated maps which I'll be purchasing. My only concern is they issued a press release touting a significant discount for the introduction of these maps, a press release which has since disappeared from their website.
In the years since my model 300 shipped they've now added models with built-in hard drives, Bluetooth for integration with phones, radios, car services like headlights, and via phones downloading traffic updates for dynamic route optimization. This hard drive is apparently what has been affected.
Then you're not in the target market for an iPhone.
End. Period. Full stop.
You might want to consider other devices like the Blackberry, perhaps a PalmOS, windows Mobile, or Symbian device with a similar keyboard and application set. But going on about the iPhone and how it isn't a good fit for you is just silly, same as telling us how a tank probably doesn't fit your car needs and Playdough doesn't make for a good meal.
The solipsism of some folks is extraordinary.
Just because the iPhone looks to be awesome gadget phone that doesn't mean it is necessarily gonna be your perfect gadget phone. If you need a full keyboard then, d'uh! , forget about an iPhone. If you need to connect directly to an MS Exchange Server then forget about an iPhone. If you need a SD card in your phone then forget about an iPhone.
See the pattern?
However Apple clearly thinks there is a market for folks other then you (I know, shocking!) And Apple has a pretty good record of consumer products. They've also a good record for UI's, your inane quibbling that they don't ship with a 3 button mouse aside (Hint: Most folks don't know what more then 1 mouse button does, now please back away from most folks before your head detonates trying to absorb that it's-not-all-about-you concept.)
Your sort are are why /. is so useless for discussing consumer products.
It doesn't come with WiMax! That's the future! Nearly nothing ships with WiMax yet, come back 2Q 2007
It doesn't run Linux/BSD/OGG/methane/whatever! 99.9999% of folks don't care, won't care, and frankly don't need to care.
I need it in blue, with a juicer attachment! Great, whittle yourself one.
Consumer products are meant to have broad appeal and therefore won't ever fit everyone absolutely perfectly. Revel in being on the far end of the bell curve.
I red ur site because itz rad & mewanna soo bad to know about all of the crazy kewl hacks!!! But u kep riting in leet code I donno plez tell m3 what this codes mean NIDS IPS BGP DNS SYN + what du DDOS n DOS haveta du whichothr?
insert big anime gif from myspace pageIn your zeal to cut & paste you missed
For those unaware (and /. editors too lazy to correct a memorial's name) James Webb was the head of NASA under whom the lunar missions were such a success. He was widely considered to be an excellent leader, both within NASA and in championing NASA in Washington DC. He was with NASA from 1961 to 1968 and died in 1992. In 2002 the planned "Next Generation Space Telescope" was renamed in his honor.
For more information on the man & the telescope see:
Wikipedia entry on James E. Webb at NASA
Wikipedia Entry on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
NASA page on James E. Webb
NASA website on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
NASA did not "just lose" the footage, indeed there was no "footage" (as in film) to lose. Rather the original downlink recordings were misplaced decades ago. It was only recently discovered that those recordings were of significantly higher quality then what was retransmitted and seen by the rest of the world. Therefore there is now a search on for those original source recordings. This search has been fairly high profile including significant stories in Wired Magazine, AP newswire stories, etc.
If you're going to imply conspiracies at least have the well known facts right.
Because, contrary to your Grade 6 "Earth Sciences Unit" animated filmstrip, subduction zones aren't neat little escalator-like places where material goes into some sort of geological garbage disposal system like you might have attached to your sink.
Instead they're messy places where continental blocks are crashing into each other in tremendously slow motion, riding up over, breaking off, dissolving, melting, all that good stuff. Material dropped on one of these places is could just lay there for the longer then we've been a species. However there is a strong possibility this material won't always just lie there but instead break up, on it's own or under subduction-related volcanic or seismic activity, and spread into the larger ecosystem (garbage in is indeed garbage out!)
While this breakdown & distribution could be a slow process it would be a chaotic environment and 'bad things' could just as well happen 'fast', with disastrous consequences. Keep in mind that while out of sight and generally low energy places the deep ocean beds are not disconnected from the rest of the planet and are also subject to disturbances; subduction zones hugely so.
So you're talking about essentially land-mining a significant chunk of the planet, some of the most unstable parts of the planet, with the possibility that still-lethal material could suddenly, randomly, re-enter our parts of the environment, with catastrophic results.
Yeah. No. Not a good idea.
Better to minimize the amount of material. Convert it into the least reactive forms economically & technically practical. Then using reliable systems (and that pretty much rules out 'under several thousand meters of water' with our current skills) isolate it as much as practicable in long-term stable places, and hope that future generations don't fuck with it in a bad way.
Finally, regarding the majority of your posting:
While there are indeed alarmist/ignorant/self-serving 'environmentalists', as there are boobs and headline-graspers in every part of human endeavor, there are also arrogant self-righteous techno-weenies with equally poor understanding of the topics on which they opine. As much as you look down on those you deem ignorant, those who are informed can look down on your ignorance, which to a self-aware person would suggest an attitude-check would be in order. (Frankly you come off not much different then the stereotyped asshats you rail against.)
No, the reality is most non-MS products are more secure by design.
The fact is that years ago MS adopted an insecure architecture, at the time was roundly criticized for this, and has spent the years since being every malware's convenient bitch.
It's not "'cause that is where the money is", it's "'cause the front door is open".
Furthermore playing the numbers games is a fool's contest: MS doesn't publish their problems. Other folks have partial lists (we can assume MS knows of more) and every so often MS deigns to fix some of their problems and release patches, but that in no way is equivalent of maintaining a public bug tracker. Oh, and don't for a moment delude yourself MS's public documentation covers a tenth of their errata, not even MS pretends that.
So please, next time you post, let it not be burping up this old, well debunked, trope yet again. As sad has /. has gotten recently the standard still remains well above the old smaller-target argument.
So why is it easier for you to post your question to /. instead of actually looking it up for yourself? It's not like it's gonna be a hard or obscure topic to quickly find answers to...
Are you AOL-time-traveler-from-'97 somehow unaware of nasa.gov, google.com, or wikipedia.org?
Do you so needy of attention you'll shamelessly ask others to spoonfeed your (presumably) adult self?
Or are you just one of those socially challenged boors who has to interject something, anything, into a thread no matter how inane it is?
For those moderating, this isn't a troll, or flamebait, it's pointing out lazy anti-social all-noise/no-signal garbage and hopefully encouraging the poster to reconsider such junk postings in the future.
Wikipedia has a fairly good definition ofAstroturfing:
Note the part "formal public relations (PR) campaigns". That doesn't mean "everyone of a dissenting viewpoint", it's about organized, covert attempts at manipulating opinion by distorting open discussion with an explicit unacknowledged agenda.
A buncha folks with a different opinion, including those with the same different opinion, are not automatically Astroturfing. They may be (in your opinion) misguided, they may be (in your opinion) misinformed, they may even being quoting (in your opinion) propaganda, but unless you've real reason to suspect more sinister motives then mere difference of opinion don't go crying "Astroturfing!" at every sign of opposition.
Do the RIAA/MPAA/et al engage in underhanded covert public relations? Sure. I've no doubt they've got their hands in as many front groups as they do in their publicly acknowledged relationships. And they've never shied away from hiring folks to lobby on their behalf, in Washington or in public discourse.
But let's keep some perspective: Slashdot, as high visibility as it is amongst a certain set, is not where they're going to be hiring a buncha paid mouthpieces to burp up poorly articulated postings. I'm not saying it couldn't ever happen, but there's no good evidence of such and certain folks trying to netcop by shouting down every dissenting opinion is as harmful as any possible Astroturfing.
So, until you've got some persuasive evidence that there is more then the usual level of dissent, unoriginal argument, poorly understood implications, and simple bloody mindedness please don't go trying to shut down folks with "Aftroturfer!" ad hominem attacks. Anyone who plays such intellectually dishonest games should be immediately modded down into oblivion.
Its fascinating that something like this, in the age of of satellite monitoring, global communications, Google Earth, can happen without vulcanologists aware of it. Its possible that military organizations detected it & then dismissed it as outside their purview & didn't pass it on, in any case it's unfortunate that such a rare event escaped study. Hopefully we'll soon see automated earth science 'anomaly' expert systems processing realtime data and alerting relevant specialists.
On the other hand, it's impressive that there were people there! That the human species is so ubiquitous on planet Earth that a random bunch of folks happened to be sailing in proximity, in what was historically one of the most isolate places on the planet. It really does bring home that there are now more folks alive today then have died in the history of our species, that we're now regularly witnessing these one-in-a-million (but what is that to six billion?!) events!
Well, and an entirely different driver model, known as I/O Kit.
That & the XNU kernel design might be attractive to some developers over the Linux models. Maybe. Possibly. Inside Apple.
It's called FireWire aka iLink aka IEEE 1394.
It's been out for years, it's a mature technology, it actually does support true sharing insofar as the devices can, and it doesn't require a host system. Add into that higher speeds with substantially less overhead (USB is dependent on your CPU) and it sure beats out the it's-USB-with-our-own-wonky-'extensions' stuff.
The downsides are a slightly higher hardware price due to a more sophisticated chipset and a bit of licensing fees (US$.25/device). And of course FW/1394 isn't as universal as USB, though whatever you're looking for is almost always available from somewhere.
A house is not a seasonal cabin.
The assumptions that went into the construction, the quality of fit & furnishings, the neighborhood, none are comparable between the two, and any advice/insights from one are only minimally applicable to the other.
If you want to know what happens to unoccupied houses in your area talk to your police department, your insurance agent, and a local real estate agent ('cause they're often dealing houses that have been empty for months or even years while estate are settled & the like.) They'll give you a realistic set of expectations, and frankly it'll scare you. Breakins, leaks that cause huge damages, mildew & must, cracking wallpaper & appliances with rust spots.
So tenants are typically the solution. But not annual renters, instead go through an agency that specializes in fully/semi furnished short term renters contracts. If you're clever you'll go for visiting executives, faculty, folks in town for about as long as you'll be away who are looking for a move-in fully furnished place. They're typically responsible people, and just as importantly the agency is your agent: Their job is to find & vet your tenants, handle the hot water tank that dies on the Friday of a three day weekend, collect the rent, do all of the things that would be so awkward while you're away.
Finally, even if everything is all set up, have a friend or family member pop by every month or so to give the property a look over. Give your neighbors your email address and ask that they get in touch if there are any concerns. Give the police department and your insurance agent call with your phone number & emergency contact information.
do it right and you'll have a fine time away. Do it wrong and your largest investment will become the Haunted Mansion.
Argh - the link got mangled: Why Apple doesn't have a blogging policy (it ain't what you think....)
Chuq Von Rospach, 17.5 year veteran of Apple, well known for his insights into email / usenet / web issues, did a series of blog entries on how Apple communicates. He went into, from his former privilaged position inside Apple, about how & why it communicates how it does, and what it is like being a communicator for Apple, officially & unofficially.
The postings about Apple & blogging start at Why Apple doesn't have a blogging policy (it ain't what you think....) and then goes for a few days, with responses to/from other bloggers.
Interesting stuff, insightful, and first-person from someone who was on the inside.
Same was true for the iPod - it originally required a Mac to be truly useful.
Furthermore, getting 5% of Mac owners to buy a rev. A iPhone would still be some damn decent sales numbers, and doubtless have some pullthrough to new Mac purchases.
Later, after the low-hanging fruit are picked, the cutting edge/early adopter/Mac faithful, then give some luvin' to the other OS's, but not so sweet as on a Mac.
As someone who already uses his built-in Mac synchronization to trivially manage his phone (TM/N6103), it's a lovely thing.
Sounds like a reasonable business plan to me.
Actually, my Grandfather was a buggy whip salesmen.
After returning from The Great War, WWI, he was disabled (indeed he'd been declared dead & in the morgue at one point - mustard gas.) The job he could get was selling buggy whips, and his territory was the US Midwest & Canada. He was away from home for long stretches of time, and as you can imagine had some pretty amazing tales to tell of traveling to remote ccommunities back when travel was HARD.
However he saw the car taking over and once he'd saved up enough money he did the smart thing: Opened a service station.
Later it went bust in the Great Depression. He then started again, in putting in power lines, then power plants, and eventually became VP of a a large construction firm and responsible for many of the major structures still standing in Kansas City including the Liberty Memorial, Nelson Gallery, and the Starlight Theatre.
The point is, he really was in the buggy whip business and when the new technologies came in he adapted and took advantage of them. Then when the bust came he reinvented himself again and took his skills and when into an entirely new career. Not a new high-tech story, rather from a fella raised in a sod hut in the Oklahoma Territory where buffalo were a constant threat.
First off, the list of 5 is really a 5- more list, there are numerous others listed by the same author on the same website in other articles.
And yes, there are many more items, from the workstations developed with Apollo, the clients with Wang, the Pippin game machine, etc.
Then there's the technologies like Hotsauce, Cyberdog, OpenDoc, and of course Newton, all of which got into demo or even release but never really made it. And of course the first post-Next version of MacOS which was to be interoperable with MS Windows (not the Star Trek Windows-on-Mac but a MS Windows-based MacOS layer).
It's really remarkable the amount of technology Apple has pumped out, and of that how much have proven remarkably prescient. Whenever folks complain about how much attention Apple gets I always point out it is because they truly do innovate & lead the market (their small market share notwithstanding)
Oh, want links to all of the nouns above? Try using your search-engine-of-choice with Apple and whichever it is strikes your fancy - lots of nifty stuff.
Bullshit.
Double bullshit.
While cellphones/mobiles might have all sorts of ancillary functions they are still first and foremost telephones. That someone thinks otherwise indicates they need to stop reading Gizmodo & Engadget and get out in the real world for a few hours. As to WiMax taking up ever-growing amounts of network bandwidth, sure, if up from .00000001 to .00000002 percent is worth blathering about.
Find me a few production-level WiMax deployments with significant amounts of traffic and well talk. without such this is just so much empty talk wasting more bandwidth then WiMax has yet to carry.
Oh, and what to call mobile phones? How about mobiles like the rest of the planet? That wasnt so hard, was it?
Whoah - not the way to do business with Apple.
Steve Jobs does ... not ... like ... his surprises to leak in advance.
Apple used to leak like a sieve. Everyone knew their product plans before their own salesfolk did. It got so bad sales took a huge hit every time the next big thing was due as everyone put off their orders. Now after Job's return Apple does a few big new introductions at their own MacWorld or at a few specialty shows, the famous "one more thing ..." products. Those are always hugely, obsessively, secret so Apple gets the maximum PR. Heck, everyone in the industry, caring about Apple or not, tracks these just to see what Apple will do next.
The last time someone leaked in a big way it was ATI. The result was 24 hours before the new Mac introductions, with ATI cards, they had their products stripped from the new Macs, all Apple presentations were rescripted to omit references to ATI, Apple marketing materials were quickly remade sans ATI, etc. Apparently ATI were persona non grata at Apple HQ for several months until his Steveness was sufficiently mollified this would never happen again.
Since then other Apple manufacturers have gotten in lower levels of trouble for simply acknowledging large orders had been made by Apple. These are picked up by the local press, which is of course read by everyone in the industry around the world.
But to confirm the long awaited iPhone, a rumor that has been a staple for years from the dingiest Mac rumor site to the NYT, that takes a special kind of stoopid.
My assumption is that as soon as this story started to break a damage control team from the manufacturer to Cupertino. Now the question is if Jobs will go ahead with the rollout or delay it at the last minute. As this is the same man who once had a factory closed down for all of the robots to be repainted, 9 times, 'til he was happy, who has a history of cancelling large projects, I dunno.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Also, if true, what the iPhone will entail, especially after Disney's recent phone flop.
"Alexander the Great, Black Death in Europe in 1347, Neil Armstrong in 1969. And which timeline are you from?"