Apple seem stuck in a cycle of 1) violate our own rules, 2) change them to suit, 3) goto 1
For once, I agree with you on an Apple topic. There are quite obviously no rules for Apple's use of metal other than "wherever Steve wants it". Silly, and I expect better from them.
Not everything is a slppery slope, but this is, unfortunately.
I disagree partially. I definitely see where you're coming from, and I don't think any amount of DRM is a good thing. But in the case of the iTunes music store, it's trivial to convert music you buy to an uncrippled format, and by all indications Apple doesn't mind. (In fact they provide one of the easiest ways to do it with iMovie). The purpose of Palladium is to have 100% effective DRM, which necessarily involves eliminating the rights of users. The iTMS "DRM" specifically does not try for 100% effectiveness; you can still (legally) get complete control of the music, it's just slightly inconvenient. In my view there's a clear distinction, but I understand if others disagree. It's vital to prevent "trusted"(*) computing from becoming widely accepted, and it may be wise to err on the side of caution.
* Whoever came up with the term "trusted computing" is brilliant in an evil Orwellian manner. My computer trusts me today. With Palladium, it won't.
Thank you. I've been saying this for a while, even to the point of having 17 USC 117 bookmarked. This is why almost every EULA out there should be ruled unenforceable due to lack of consideration.
You could get a G3 system for a fairly reasonable price, but you could always get a faster PC for less
Really? I could be wrong, but I was pretty sure the PPC 604 and G3 Macs outperformed contemporary Wintel machines. At any rate, my point was that Apple is at a record low in terms of price/performance, and there's no reason to believe it can't improve substantially.
But by the time System 7 came out, Apple managed to lose its focus on stability (System 7 was horribly crashy, as you should know) and Windows 95 was making its appearance
True. Before OS X, Macs had pretty good hardware but a (technically) inferior OS. Now they have a great OS but poor hardware. This will be the first time in many years that they'll have solid offerings on both fronts.
x86 still is cheaper, if you're cheaper you can get a higher spec for the same money as buying a Mac.
It's not a natural law of the universe that Apple must be behind Wintel. Prior to the G4 debacle Macs were very competitive, and depending on the prices and performance of the G5 systems they may be again very soon.
(and don't give me this Clinton set it up crap, the GOP was in office for 6 years before Clinton, and for 6 years the economy crap)
Um, that doesn't parse at all. Perhaps you are referring to the minor recession in 1991, which ended well before Clinton took office? At any rate, although the economy appeared strong under Clinton, we now know this was due to massive corporate fraud and the unsustainable tech bubble. Yes, I'm sure it's the Republicans' fault somehow, but to blame Bush for the downturn requires believing that he's capable of time travel.
my state -- along with the vast majority of the states -- are poor as hell now due to tax cuts that lead to a drastic cut in federal funding...
Where do you think federal funding comes from? If your state needs money, it can raise it from its own taxpayers rather than having the federal government extort funds from taxpayers of other states. Or your state could try something wacky like cutting spending.
Because getting laid is much more shameful than inciting a war that lead to the death of thousands of innocent people
Considering Saddam was murdering many times more than that, the Iraqis are better off today. Look, I want to know what happened to the WMDs too, and if Bush did in fact mislead us then I'll be pissed. But remember that Clinton and many Democrats made exactly the same claims about Saddam's weapons programs. Were they also lying?
what's more valuable; lives, which cannot be replaced, or automatic vacuum cleaners?
Ok, but where do you stop? What's more valuable, lives or a Playstation? Lives, or a night out with your friends? Lives, or air conditioning? Taken to its logical conclusion, you end up with Peter Singer's argument that we are morally obligated to devote our entire lives toward helping the needy. There has to be some point at which it's permissible to act in your own self-interest. Perhaps you draw that line at automatic vacuum cleaners, but that's an arbitrary decision.
why does humanity expend effort, great amounts of time and money, on comparitively frivolous gadgets, when there are plenty other things we could be trying to sort out? I know, that the answer comes done to $$$
No, it comes down to freedom. "Humanity" is not a system whose activities can be directed from above. (Some have tried, but that generally leads to lots of dead humans). Because individuals have different preferences, some are always going to be doing stuff others find frivolous.
Then don't buy the product. Thats the whole purpose behind capitalism.
Which I'm guessing he's not a fan of. He knows what your needs are better than you do, and if only you had the wisdom to see that you'd allow him and his buddies to direct our activities towards more productive ends. Never mind that this approach led to the murder of over 100 million people in the last century; *this* time we'll do it right.
Meanwhile people starve because they are in the third world and not participants in the trinket economy.
No. People starve because of corrupt and oppressive governments. There is more than enough food produced to feed the world, the problem is actually getting it to the people.
Raw materials, land area, energy, and labor are all limited quantities.
Human ingenuity and technological innovation allow us to accomplish increasingly more with fewer raw materials. The wealth of a society is not solely dependent on the natural resources it possesses; compare the US to the former USSR, or for that matter virtually any capitalist country to any socialist country.
We must realize that endless growth is not only not desirable, but not even possible.
We're a long way from running out of resources. And there's lots of room in space.
You're perfectly free to go off and commune with nature and abandon decadent products like indoor plumbing and antibiotics. That doesn't make you morally superior to those of us who appreciate how modern technology improves our lives.
The Iraq "war" was the only remaining superpower (and largest oil consumer) going after the largest oil supplier.
Um, that would be Saudi Arabia. Look, whatever your opinion on the Iraq war, the claim that it was about oil is ridiculous. If we wanted their oil, we would have lifted the sanctions and bought it, which would have been much cheaper than military action.
"Sun is clean," he saidâ"but he gave no answer in regards to Apple and Microsoft. "But I thought that Microsoft had signed a license agreement?" "No," Sontag said. Microsoft merely licensed an "applications interface layer."
Looks like they're creating cover for another injection of cash from MS.
Nothing interesting happening is certainly possible
Yes, and the Earth being destroyed tomorrow to make way for a hyperspace bypass is also possible. But look at the evidence: WWDC was moved back a month for no adequately explained reason, the G4's are apparently in short supply, Apple is hyping WWDC and showing the keynote in their stores, and Steve Jobs made unusally pointed comments about Motorola a few months ago. None of this is conclusive, but it implies a very strong probability that we'll see the 970 a week from today.
As pointed out elsewhere, their cash pile has declined by over a billion dollars, despite the company being "profitable".
Um, because they've been buying lots of companies?
Is that actually confirmed? By Apple?
Of course not. But IBM has said they'll be shipping their own 970 systems this year. Can you construct a plausible scenario where Apple doesn't? It may be a rumor, but it's a rumor backed by overwhelming circumstantial evidence.
But you know what? I code less now, because I use my experience to sit back and think about what I'm going to code, and end up not only writing higher quality code, but less code to get the same job done, as I did back when I was a dumb little kid!
Agreed 100%. 10 years ago if you gave me a programming problem I'd immediately start banging out C code, and after N days and 1000N lines of code I'd have a solution that might work, but would be unmaintainable and incomprehensible to anyone but me. Today I'll consider the problem in depth, try to find existing tools or code that are helpful, and put thought into the overall design. It may still take me N days to produce "only" 250N lines of code, but it will be a much more reliable and elegant solution.
My most productive days at work are the ones where I end up with a net removal of code via refactoring, or where I add 5 lines of optimization right where they're needed because I've identified a major bottleneck. You're not going to measure that productivity looking at lines of code in CVS logs.
It seems to me that one of the bigger draws of 64-bit computing is the ability to address much more memory than a 32-bit processor can.
By far the biggest advantage of the 970 is simply that it's a much faster processor than the G4. If it were only 32 bits there would still be a good deal of anticipation. I doubt we'll see Powerbooks with 32 gigs of RAM anytime soon, but a PB 970 would still be a kickass machine.
one thing which struck me out as difficult to believe is the claim of an x2-x2.5 speed increase for Altivec apps
It will depend on the specific app. From what I've read, the 970's Altivec unit is slightly less advanced than that of the current G4, but it will have a *lot* more memory bandwidth. So the 970 won't be any faster per-cycle at RC5 (which fits entirely in cache), but could easily be significantly faster when processing large Photoshop images.
I agree that downloading CD quality music I did not buy is and should be illegal.
Agreed, and that's not the point, at least for me. The issue is ridiculously unbalanced copyright laws that criminalize activities and products that *could* be used to violate copyrights. Jack Valenti actually had it right when he called DeCSS a "digital crowbar". Crowbars are legal.
If you read the actual wording of the DCMA it is quite worthwhile, reasonable, clear and precise.
It is no such thing. It criminalizes acts that do not violate copyright on the grounds that they could be used to do so. It is counterproductive to progress, unreasonable, vague, and wide open to abuse.
I got an EyeTV for my Mac instead of a Tivo or ReplayTV. Not so much because it's cheaper, but because it's not dependent on a third party and therefore can't be crippled by entertainment industry weasels.
The EULA is only thing that allows you to install and use the software, as far as Microsoft is concerned.
Microsoft may well believe that, but they are wrong . You do not need the permission of the copyright holder to simply run software you have legally obtained. (This is only in the US, but my understanding is that EULAs are basically unenforceable in most other countries).
Slashdot Mirror
True. But in the absence of the profit motive, would these discoveries be made at all?
Finder and Safari aren't single window.
For once, I agree with you on an Apple topic. There are quite obviously no rules for Apple's use of metal other than "wherever Steve wants it". Silly, and I expect better from them.
I disagree partially. I definitely see where you're coming from, and I don't think any amount of DRM is a good thing. But in the case of the iTunes music store, it's trivial to convert music you buy to an uncrippled format, and by all indications Apple doesn't mind. (In fact they provide one of the easiest ways to do it with iMovie). The purpose of Palladium is to have 100% effective DRM, which necessarily involves eliminating the rights of users. The iTMS "DRM" specifically does not try for 100% effectiveness; you can still (legally) get complete control of the music, it's just slightly inconvenient. In my view there's a clear distinction, but I understand if others disagree. It's vital to prevent "trusted"(*) computing from becoming widely accepted, and it may be wise to err on the side of caution.
* Whoever came up with the term "trusted computing" is brilliant in an evil Orwellian manner. My computer trusts me today. With Palladium, it won't.
Thank you. I've been saying this for a while, even to the point of having 17 USC 117 bookmarked. This is why almost every EULA out there should be ruled unenforceable due to lack of consideration.
Bingo. Wasn't Microsoft's "license payment" greater than SCO's profit last quarter?
Really? I could be wrong, but I was pretty sure the PPC 604 and G3 Macs outperformed contemporary Wintel machines. At any rate, my point was that Apple is at a record low in terms of price/performance, and there's no reason to believe it can't improve substantially.
But by the time System 7 came out, Apple managed to lose its focus on stability (System 7 was horribly crashy, as you should know) and Windows 95 was making its appearance
True. Before OS X, Macs had pretty good hardware but a (technically) inferior OS. Now they have a great OS but poor hardware. This will be the first time in many years that they'll have solid offerings on both fronts.
It's not a natural law of the universe that Apple must be behind Wintel. Prior to the G4 debacle Macs were very competitive, and depending on the prices and performance of the G5 systems they may be again very soon.
Um, that doesn't parse at all. Perhaps you are referring to the minor recession in 1991, which ended well before Clinton took office? At any rate, although the economy appeared strong under Clinton, we now know this was due to massive corporate fraud and the unsustainable tech bubble. Yes, I'm sure it's the Republicans' fault somehow, but to blame Bush for the downturn requires believing that he's capable of time travel.
my state -- along with the vast majority of the states -- are poor as hell now due to tax cuts that lead to a drastic cut in federal funding...
Where do you think federal funding comes from? If your state needs money, it can raise it from its own taxpayers rather than having the federal government extort funds from taxpayers of other states. Or your state could try something wacky like cutting spending.
Because getting laid is much more shameful than inciting a war that lead to the death of thousands of innocent people
Considering Saddam was murdering many times more than that, the Iraqis are better off today. Look, I want to know what happened to the WMDs too, and if Bush did in fact mislead us then I'll be pissed. But remember that Clinton and many Democrats made exactly the same claims about Saddam's weapons programs. Were they also lying?
Ok, but where do you stop? What's more valuable, lives or a Playstation? Lives, or a night out with your friends? Lives, or air conditioning? Taken to its logical conclusion, you end up with Peter Singer's argument that we are morally obligated to devote our entire lives toward helping the needy. There has to be some point at which it's permissible to act in your own self-interest. Perhaps you draw that line at automatic vacuum cleaners, but that's an arbitrary decision.
why does humanity expend effort, great amounts of time and money, on comparitively frivolous gadgets, when there are plenty other things we could be trying to sort out? I know, that the answer comes done to $$$
No, it comes down to freedom. "Humanity" is not a system whose activities can be directed from above. (Some have tried, but that generally leads to lots of dead humans). Because individuals have different preferences, some are always going to be doing stuff others find frivolous.
Which I'm guessing he's not a fan of. He knows what your needs are better than you do, and if only you had the wisdom to see that you'd allow him and his buddies to direct our activities towards more productive ends. Never mind that this approach led to the murder of over 100 million people in the last century; *this* time we'll do it right.
Explain exactly how buying a vacuum cleaner causes third world children to die of malaria. Hint: it doesn't. Economics is not a zero-sum game.
No. People starve because of corrupt and oppressive governments. There is more than enough food produced to feed the world, the problem is actually getting it to the people.
Human ingenuity and technological innovation allow us to accomplish increasingly more with fewer raw materials. The wealth of a society is not solely dependent on the natural resources it possesses; compare the US to the former USSR, or for that matter virtually any capitalist country to any socialist country.
We must realize that endless growth is not only not desirable, but not even possible.
We're a long way from running out of resources. And there's lots of room in space.
You're perfectly free to go off and commune with nature and abandon decadent products like indoor plumbing and antibiotics. That doesn't make you morally superior to those of us who appreciate how modern technology improves our lives.
Um, that would be Saudi Arabia. Look, whatever your opinion on the Iraq war, the claim that it was about oil is ridiculous. If we wanted their oil, we would have lifted the sanctions and bought it, which would have been much cheaper than military action.
"Sun is clean," he saidâ"but he gave no answer in regards to Apple and Microsoft.
"But I thought that Microsoft had signed a license agreement?" "No," Sontag said. Microsoft merely licensed an "applications interface layer."
Looks like they're creating cover for another injection of cash from MS.
Yes, and the Earth being destroyed tomorrow to make way for a hyperspace bypass is also possible. But look at the evidence: WWDC was moved back a month for no adequately explained reason, the G4's are apparently in short supply, Apple is hyping WWDC and showing the keynote in their stores, and Steve Jobs made unusally pointed comments about Motorola a few months ago. None of this is conclusive, but it implies a very strong probability that we'll see the 970 a week from today.
As pointed out elsewhere, their cash pile has declined by over a billion dollars, despite the company being "profitable".
Um, because they've been buying lots of companies?
Is that actually confirmed? By Apple?
Of course not. But IBM has said they'll be shipping their own 970 systems this year. Can you construct a plausible scenario where Apple doesn't? It may be a rumor, but it's a rumor backed by overwhelming circumstantial evidence.
Agreed 100%. 10 years ago if you gave me a programming problem I'd immediately start banging out C code, and after N days and 1000N lines of code I'd have a solution that might work, but would be unmaintainable and incomprehensible to anyone but me. Today I'll consider the problem in depth, try to find existing tools or code that are helpful, and put thought into the overall design. It may still take me N days to produce "only" 250N lines of code, but it will be a much more reliable and elegant solution.
My most productive days at work are the ones where I end up with a net removal of code via refactoring, or where I add 5 lines of optimization right where they're needed because I've identified a major bottleneck. You're not going to measure that productivity looking at lines of code in CVS logs.
By far the biggest advantage of the 970 is simply that it's a much faster processor than the G4. If it were only 32 bits there would still be a good deal of anticipation. I doubt we'll see Powerbooks with 32 gigs of RAM anytime soon, but a PB 970 would still be a kickass machine.
It will depend on the specific app. From what I've read, the 970's Altivec unit is slightly less advanced than that of the current G4, but it will have a *lot* more memory bandwidth. So the 970 won't be any faster per-cycle at RC5 (which fits entirely in cache), but could easily be significantly faster when processing large Photoshop images.
Agreed, and that's not the point, at least for me. The issue is ridiculously unbalanced copyright laws that criminalize activities and products that *could* be used to violate copyrights. Jack Valenti actually had it right when he called DeCSS a "digital crowbar". Crowbars are legal.
Yeah, that worked out real well for the Empire of Japan...
It is no such thing. It criminalizes acts that do not violate copyright on the grounds that they could be used to do so. It is counterproductive to progress, unreasonable, vague, and wide open to abuse.
I got an EyeTV for my Mac instead of a Tivo or ReplayTV. Not so much because it's cheaper, but because it's not dependent on a third party and therefore can't be crippled by entertainment industry weasels.
Microsoft may well believe that, but they are wrong . You do not need the permission of the copyright holder to simply run software you have legally obtained. (This is only in the US, but my understanding is that EULAs are basically unenforceable in most other countries).