It's their store - they get to choose what's on the shelves. If you force Apple (or any distributor) to sell any app then what does that say for freedom?
In this case it's easy to say "well, I'm glad is was removed, bigotry is abhorrent", compared to something like the Mark Fiore situation (which was a decision that was eventually reversed), but regardless of how you feel about the app in question (or the good in general in the wider sense of a store), it is Apple's choice to make about what appears on their metaphorical shelves.
If you force them to carry everything that is submitted to them you do more harm to developers and users overall than allowing them free choice over what to carry. Their store, their rules.
Of course, this doesn't mean you can't criticise them for being inconsistent, but even if they are it ultimately doesn't make a difference - they're not "wrong" to do it, just arbitrary. If you (the general you, not you personally) don't like it, you can go somewhere else. This of course raises an issue that you can't go elsewhere on iOS (without jailbreaking), but it's not as if that was a secret going in.
So you are saying Apple should be *forced* to sell things in a store *it owns* because you don;t like the walled garden of the iOS ecosystem.
Either way, your loss - if you are a developer and are intentionally ignoring a 100 million customer base then there are some web designers from mid 2005 I think you should meet who think you only need to make a shopping site work on IE.:p
Reminds me of the 6 or 7 publishers who turned down Harry Potter.
Or the studio that let a young director whose name rhymes with "Greedo Shot First" keep sole merchandising rights on a little space-based movie because they figured it had zero potential.
You'd be surprised. The Terminal is one of the most useful apps on my Dock. You soon get introduced to the potential power of bash if you read OSXHints.
The bigger problem would be that while I know that I could SSH in, I'd have to enable it, since SSH is off by default. Something to do with "security" or somesuch thing. But I wouldn't know about that, would I?
So those posts in the linked thread of the "widespread" (about 400-500 cases) problem posting that Apple have said "send it in and we'll refund or replace it" are what then? Aberration?
Clearly this is some thermal problem with the CPU halting to protect itself, which crashes the machine.
Hopefully they'll be able to fix it, or determine why these machines are the ones failing - which could be why they want them back.
In my experience with Apple tech support, including time at a former job, they were always very good. They even shipped me a free GigE card for a PowerMac G5 when the on board port was refusing to play dice with the switch we had while they had a new machine put together, just so we wouldn;t have to take the current one we had "off air" and lose productivity. I thought that was a nice gesture. (They of course, replaced the logic board in the PM G5 under Apple Care too).
That's not my only experience with them, but one of the ones that stands out beyond the much ore normal "send it n, we'll repair it for free - if it still doesn't work we'll replace it" exchanges.
Who says it's closed and I'm "not allowed" to modify it? I installed a new hard drive in it myself when the old one died (it's just a standard SATA HD, and took about an hour or so to put in since I was being slow and careful). It's not like the case is welded shut. I also "modified" it with extra aftermarket RAM, but that's easy.
Either way, show me a computer that ticks all those boxes and would be better for me than the iMac. To recap it was: * Easy to pack away into box (2 minutes or less, including disconnecting cables) * Desktop size screen (20" widescreen or better) * Desktop size HD (500GB minimum) * Real keyboard and mouse * box that can be carried like suitcase so I can move it easily between locations. * Runs my choice of OS (OS X ideally, but I did say that was optional, and we'll make it optional here too so you can't just claim "you can only legally run OS X on Apple hardware so the comparison isn't fair" - hackintoshes are ok.) * near silent is also a big plus, but I can be slightly flexible on this but would much prefer something that can wake up and run quietly while I am alseep.
Also I will make it a requirement that it be *one* machine. Why on earth would I buy two machines to do the job of one? That would just be a massive annoyance.
That's a very disingenuous statement. The majority of their profits do come from hardware. But what type of hardware? It comes from media hardware not computing hardware. Itunes, iphone, ipod greatly surpasses mac revenue. It's akin saying Target is the world's largest restaurant company. They serve prepared food in their department stores and they have revenue four times as large as the largest restaurant company.
So what you're saying is that they make the majority of their profits from hardware, thus proving my point. You are saying "they are a media company" when it clearly is not true. They are a hardware maker who happens to be a media distributor. ABC, or the BBC or Discovery - they are media companies.
You also contradict yourself with the Target statement with your earlier statement about iTunes. So, if I'm following your logic, and you can call iTunes a "shopping app" then I can call Target a restaurant, because they sell pre-made food in sit down cafe sections. Right?
Incidentally "categorise" is the UK spelling, no need for a [sic] use during quotes, it's spelled correctly.
Note the words "supposedly" and the fact that that statement is not a quote from Apple, so "Apple" does not disagree with me. At least not officially.
In terms of why someone would purchase an Apple product "from an economic standpoint", how about because it offers everything (or most) of the things someone is looking for when buying a computer (and note that this is an individual decision and will vary person to person).
For example, I can tell you exactly why I bought an iMac - it runs OS X, which I enjoy using (although I also enjoy other operating systems) and the machine itself is very well designed, as is the box it came in. I can pull a couple of cables (power, optical audio, USB mouse) and have the whole thing packed up into its box (which has a handle and can be carried like the suitcase) so I can take it anywhere I need to go. This machine has done a number of trips across the Atlantic as checked baggage, for example, as well as shorter trips to friends' houses. I needed a portable desktop that took up a small amount of space and the iMac suited that beautifully.
It was the best £1100 I ever spent on a computer (I was using a laptop before this and was frustrated with a little too much compromise to make it portable [and I know the iMac is still 'compromised' compared to a normal desktop]), and I do not regret my purchase for a moment.
There was nothing else out there that fit my criteria (and the OS X thing is flexible, I can go with something else), and even to this day there really isn't anything so my next purchase will most likely be another iMac. Sure, it costs a lot more than some bargain basement Dell (and similar price to well specced Dells), but the value for money is well worth it to me.
*That* is why it makes economic sense - because it fits a role and my requirements very well. My personal story is one anecdote, but I assure you there are many people who look at the options available and pick something that *works for them*.
If you can't see the value in a more expensive product (and hey, I wish they were cheaper), and find that a cheaper computer works for you then great. Just don't try to pretend that they are merely white elephants, or that "only fashionistas buy them". That sort of thing is just as untrue as categorising everyone who uses Linux as a parental-basement-dwelling, two-tone neckbeard with an addiction to Cheez Its.
Also, I think it's (likely wilfully) disingenuous to classify iTunes as "a shopping program", since it is also a media manager/iPod manager/media playbac device. No one is forcing you to use the iTunes Music Store, and you can even turn it off if you want. You're not limited to iTunes-purchased music on your iPod and you can go your whole life without ever opening the store page (or even showing the link to the store in the program). You just have the option there if you want it.
It's also interesting that you categorise them as a media company when the bulk of their profits (the vast, vast bulk) come from hardware sales. The access to media (which they are not the owners of, merely the third party resellers of) is provided as a way to sell hardware - and very successful it is too. Again, no one is forcing you to consume that content, even if you have an Apple device - I don;t buy the movies, for example, due to the DRM, but I do have a lot of music from the iTunes store (which I also listen to on my Ubuntu machine). The bulk of my music library was ripped from CDs though.
And it sounds like this is exactly what Apple are doing - ensuring that purchases are confirmed with a password, even if the "15 minute convenience grace" of entering your password is still in effect, sort of like how sudo escalates for a small amount of time, so you can execute a few commands before you need to authenticate again.
(although I haven't sudo'ed [sudone?] for a while, so I might be misremembering, and for the sake of a slashdot comment I'm not invoking root just to test it! rm -rf your own hard drive:D )
There are plenty of documented exploits that have been fixed on both platforms. The only people who claim that Platform A's fans claim that there are "no exploits" are people who hate Platform A and believe everyone should use Platform B.
Everyone else is aware that no OS is safe. Well, except the users of BeOS. Both of them said they were pretty safe.
One man's "fact" is another man's "value for money", since you're not just buying hardware, but I have noticed the trend has shifted form "Macs are overpriced" to "Macs are overpriced for the hardware they have".
I was being facetious with my comments, but all three were accurate at one point: you were stuck at 640x480 resolution in Ubuntu because the settings window was taller than that and there was no way to select or click "ok" to change it. This bug has been fixed.
Android phones were sending text messages to the wrong recipients. This bug has been fixed. Both were "errors on the producer side". The bit about Canonical forcing users to use crippled systems was a little hyperbole, just to balance out all the "Apple is evil and Steve Jobs wants to control everything you do" nonsense.
This iOS bug will be fixed, to enable home-launched apps to use the new javascript engine. (and note carefully that Apple didn't "handcuff" or "cripple" anything, they made these same web apps that they are meant to be "crippling because it threatens their profits" actually FASTER with the new JS engine, but due to the way the home screen is launching these shortcuts (with the old safari JS engine) they are the same speed that they have always been, but now slower than the improved versions in the new Safari. This too will be fixed.
FTR, I run Ubuntu and OS X side by side, but I'm not averse to taking a pop at it for comic effect and to make a point now and again.
Yes, the same thing happened to me when I tried to change the resolution of my Ubuntu box above 640x480, but I couldn't because the "ok" button is off the screen with no way to get to it. This is clearly Canonical forcing users to use hobbled systems.
I tried to send a text message to them about it on my Android phone, but for some reason it was sent to RMS instead, who told me my phone was a tool of Stalin.
Because it is *much* easier to decommission the reactor if it's not a melted puddle of crap in the bottom of the shield. If it stays intact, but damaged, it will be cheaper and easier to dismantle when the core is cold.
The iPod Touch still sells well since it does all of the App Store stuff that the iPhone does, but is *considerably* cheaper, if you don't want a phone.
Unlikely - the core is surrounded by a massive block of rebar-reinforced concrete, and then a large steel pressure vessel that is designed to withstand serious pressure just during normal operating conditions.
The explosions we've been seeing are outside of this concrete block (actually above it, in the building), and the bulk of the pressure has been blasting the building apart - not great, but it's cosmetic/structural damage as far as the reactor containment measures are concerned (well, the primary and secondary measures - the third is the building itself, which is not compromised, but it was never designed to withstand this sort of explosion).
The explosions thus far have been able to relieve their force out into the atmosphere - which is better than the building containing it and thus increasing the blast wave on the reactor shield. Even then, it's a pretty tough cookie - it survived a 9.1 magnitude earthquake without any damage, for example.
Yes, the explosions are not good - ideally they wanted the venting to happen without the hydrogen gas igniting, but in the grand scale of things, it is not going to seriously threaten to expose the core.
The core is already subcritical, adding boric acid just acts as a neutron sponge to capture thermalised neutrons (that are being moderated by the water they're pumping in). The source of these neutrons is the short lives radionuclides that form as part of the normal operating reaction, ie, not the uranium.
With adequate cooling you don;t have to worry about them - there aren't all that many, relative to the normal running of the reactor and normal cooling is enough to deal with the heat produced as these products decay, but cooling is an issue, hence anything they can do to limit heat sources is being done - and thermalised neutrons are an indirect source of heat (since they bang into things and cause fission events).
These reactors don't have concrete containment shields.
" Cutaway drawing of a typical Boiling water reactor (BWR) Mark I Concrete Containment with Steel Torus (suppression pool), as used in the BWR/1, BWR/2, BWR/3 and some BWR/4 model reactors."
Those reactors are already destroyed. They will never be operational gain (it says that in the article I linked to). A complete meltdown will lead to a huge discharge of radioactive waste similiar to Chernobyl. That's what they are trying to avoid at all costs. The fact that the reactor is "off" is irrelevant.
No it won't - if these cores completely melt down they will be safely contained within the enclosing concrete containment (which is inside the building), and completely encloses the reactor.
If they melt down there will just be a puddle of fuel and melted reactor in the bottom of this structure, which is designed like a dish to spread it out thinly so it cools quickly, but it will all still be totally sealed inside.
There is no way it will be spread over hundreds of miles (or even just outside the plant itself in the local area), since it was designed to fail this way,
Think of it like a bar of chocolate inside sealed tin can. If you left it in the sun without pouring cold water over it, the chocolate would melt, but it would not escape from the can.
Yes, they could just drain off all the water completely (so no more steam generation and no risk of pressure build up) but it would totally wreck the core since it would melt into its concrete containment system, then you'd have a big, broken mess left over (although with all the radiation contained) that you'd have to clean up.
This way they are hoping the core is not totally wrecked (although it will definitely be damaged and require extensive repairs before being used again, if ever), so that it is easier to clean up and reprocess the fuel, with the problem that because you are pumping water in there (at less than required flow rate) it's boiling off quickly raising the pressure very high and cracking to H2 and O2, which just love to react very exothermically - causing those explosions we have seen when they vent this pressure out into the atmosphere.
The best case is that they keep doing what they're doing, and try to minimise the chance of H2 explosions, so that it will be easy to dismantle the core when it is cold. If they just let it melt there will be no more hydrogen explosions, but they'll have a molten mess of fuel and reactor parts spread out inside the concrete containment shield that will be considerably more annoying to clean up (but still completely safe from an external observer point of view - it;s designed to fail this way in the event of a full meltdown).
I think the problem is that everyone is equating "meltdown" to mean "will explode like Chernobyl", which is not what happened there - the Chernobyl explosion was a catastrophic steam explosion like a pressure cooker exploding. The core didn't melt down until after the explosion happened.
These "little" explosions we are seeing in Japan are because they are releasing the pressure in a controlled manner - if they just left it (and disabled the safety systems) then it could face a similar problem to Chernobyl, with the reactor being destroyed by a steam explosion, with the crucial difference that the core of this reactor is totally shielded (Chernobyl's RBMK reactors were too big to contain without it costing a ridiculous amount, so the building was the secondary containment structure - and it fell apart like tissue paper, as expected).
It's also slightly different in Japan - the reactor is "off" so the uranium fission reaction has stopped, and it's just residual heat and decay product heat to be dealt with, so it's a relatively slow and controllable heating. In Reactor 4 in Chernobyl, the fission reaction was very definitely running - but was poisoned due to neutron absorbing products (the core was running at much too low power), and when these were gone, and with the rods all the way out, the reactor spiked to a massive level which flashed all the water in there to steam almost instantly, which blew the lid off the top - just like throwing an aerosol can onto a fire, or shooting it with an air rifle. They had no time to relieve the pressure.
I saw the show too, when it was on British TV and it was just a load of jobsworth security theatre nonsense. "You can't film that! It's a security risk!" when the things they "can't film" are gigantic cooling towers that are visible from miles around, and the plant layout which was supposedly the "secret" is easily visible on Google Maps - I went there specifically after watching the show to generate my own mini Streisand Effect.
If they hadn't made such a big fuss about nothing, no one would care. Anyone wanting to attack that plant just needs to drive near it, or fly over it in an aircraft, or go on Google Fucking Maps and switch to photo view. I doubt they'd be drawing up plans based on a few seconds of shots in a Discovery channel show.
The "cooling buildings" on that plant were the two enormous towers - they are an obvious target, but they are only one piece in a very redundant system, and are tertiary systems - it's just "politeness" to cool the river water back down before pumping it back out into the environment. If the towers were destroyed you'd just pump the water from the tertiary loop back out into the river while it was still warm, which would probably kill a lot of fish, but makes absolutely no odds to the power plant itself.
If they didn't want to do that they could just vent steam directly into the atmosphere to control the temperature.
It's been stated often that the iTunes and App Stores break even for Apple (or close to it) - the bulk of the cash from there goes to the developers. If they're subsidising it's from the large cash reserves they have, or bulk orders, not the App Store.
My sense is volume pricing based on prior sales and the backing of a large cash reserve.
Slashdot Mirror
Because they have choice too?
It's their store - they get to choose what's on the shelves. If you force Apple (or any distributor) to sell any app then what does that say for freedom?
In this case it's easy to say "well, I'm glad is was removed, bigotry is abhorrent", compared to something like the Mark Fiore situation (which was a decision that was eventually reversed), but regardless of how you feel about the app in question (or the good in general in the wider sense of a store), it is Apple's choice to make about what appears on their metaphorical shelves.
If you force them to carry everything that is submitted to them you do more harm to developers and users overall than allowing them free choice over what to carry. Their store, their rules.
Of course, this doesn't mean you can't criticise them for being inconsistent, but even if they are it ultimately doesn't make a difference - they're not "wrong" to do it, just arbitrary. If you (the general you, not you personally) don't like it, you can go somewhere else. This of course raises an issue that you can't go elsewhere on iOS (without jailbreaking), but it's not as if that was a secret going in.
So you are saying Apple should be *forced* to sell things in a store *it owns* because you don;t like the walled garden of the iOS ecosystem.
Either way, your loss - if you are a developer and are intentionally ignoring a 100 million customer base then there are some web designers from mid 2005 I think you should meet who think you only need to make a shopping site work on IE. :p
No, I don't live in the US and have no personal state in the well being of one of its cellular carriers.
Reminds me of the 6 or 7 publishers who turned down Harry Potter.
Or the studio that let a young director whose name rhymes with "Greedo Shot First" keep sole merchandising rights on a little space-based movie because they figured it had zero potential.
Yes, because hosting is free, right?
You'd be surprised. The Terminal is one of the most useful apps on my Dock. You soon get introduced to the potential power of bash if you read OSXHints.
The bigger problem would be that while I know that I could SSH in, I'd have to enable it, since SSH is off by default. Something to do with "security" or somesuch thing. But I wouldn't know about that, would I?
So those posts in the linked thread of the "widespread" (about 400-500 cases) problem posting that Apple have said "send it in and we'll refund or replace it" are what then? Aberration?
Clearly this is some thermal problem with the CPU halting to protect itself, which crashes the machine.
Hopefully they'll be able to fix it, or determine why these machines are the ones failing - which could be why they want them back.
In my experience with Apple tech support, including time at a former job, they were always very good. They even shipped me a free GigE card for a PowerMac G5 when the on board port was refusing to play dice with the switch we had while they had a new machine put together, just so we wouldn;t have to take the current one we had "off air" and lose productivity. I thought that was a nice gesture. (They of course, replaced the logic board in the PM G5 under Apple Care too).
That's not my only experience with them, but one of the ones that stands out beyond the much ore normal "send it n, we'll repair it for free - if it still doesn't work we'll replace it" exchanges.
Who says it's closed and I'm "not allowed" to modify it? I installed a new hard drive in it myself when the old one died (it's just a standard SATA HD, and took about an hour or so to put in since I was being slow and careful). It's not like the case is welded shut. I also "modified" it with extra aftermarket RAM, but that's easy.
Either way, show me a computer that ticks all those boxes and would be better for me than the iMac.
To recap it was:
* Easy to pack away into box (2 minutes or less, including disconnecting cables)
* Desktop size screen (20" widescreen or better)
* Desktop size HD (500GB minimum)
* Real keyboard and mouse
* box that can be carried like suitcase so I can move it easily between locations.
* Runs my choice of OS (OS X ideally, but I did say that was optional, and we'll make it optional here too so you can't just claim "you can only legally run OS X on Apple hardware so the comparison isn't fair" - hackintoshes are ok.)
* near silent is also a big plus, but I can be slightly flexible on this but would much prefer something that can wake up and run quietly while I am alseep.
Also I will make it a requirement that it be *one* machine. Why on earth would I buy two machines to do the job of one? That would just be a massive annoyance.
That's a very disingenuous statement. The majority of their profits do come from hardware. But what type of hardware? It comes from media hardware not computing hardware. Itunes, iphone, ipod greatly surpasses mac revenue. It's akin saying Target is the world's largest restaurant company. They serve prepared food in their department stores and they have revenue four times as large as the largest restaurant company.
So what you're saying is that they make the majority of their profits from hardware, thus proving my point. You are saying "they are a media company" when it clearly is not true. They are a hardware maker who happens to be a media distributor. ABC, or the BBC or Discovery - they are media companies.
You also contradict yourself with the Target statement with your earlier statement about iTunes. So, if I'm following your logic, and you can call iTunes a "shopping app" then I can call Target a restaurant, because they sell pre-made food in sit down cafe sections. Right?
Incidentally "categorise" is the UK spelling, no need for a [sic] use during quotes, it's spelled correctly.
Note the words "supposedly" and the fact that that statement is not a quote from Apple, so "Apple" does not disagree with me. At least not officially.
In terms of why someone would purchase an Apple product "from an economic standpoint", how about because it offers everything (or most) of the things someone is looking for when buying a computer (and note that this is an individual decision and will vary person to person).
For example, I can tell you exactly why I bought an iMac - it runs OS X, which I enjoy using (although I also enjoy other operating systems) and the machine itself is very well designed, as is the box it came in. I can pull a couple of cables (power, optical audio, USB mouse) and have the whole thing packed up into its box (which has a handle and can be carried like the suitcase) so I can take it anywhere I need to go. This machine has done a number of trips across the Atlantic as checked baggage, for example, as well as shorter trips to friends' houses. I needed a portable desktop that took up a small amount of space and the iMac suited that beautifully.
It was the best £1100 I ever spent on a computer (I was using a laptop before this and was frustrated with a little too much compromise to make it portable [and I know the iMac is still 'compromised' compared to a normal desktop]), and I do not regret my purchase for a moment.
There was nothing else out there that fit my criteria (and the OS X thing is flexible, I can go with something else), and even to this day there really isn't anything so my next purchase will most likely be another iMac. Sure, it costs a lot more than some bargain basement Dell (and similar price to well specced Dells), but the value for money is well worth it to me.
*That* is why it makes economic sense - because it fits a role and my requirements very well. My personal story is one anecdote, but I assure you there are many people who look at the options available and pick something that *works for them*.
If you can't see the value in a more expensive product (and hey, I wish they were cheaper), and find that a cheaper computer works for you then great. Just don't try to pretend that they are merely white elephants, or that "only fashionistas buy them". That sort of thing is just as untrue as categorising everyone who uses Linux as a parental-basement-dwelling, two-tone neckbeard with an addiction to Cheez Its.
Also, I think it's (likely wilfully) disingenuous to classify iTunes as "a shopping program", since it is also a media manager/iPod manager/media playbac device. No one is forcing you to use the iTunes Music Store, and you can even turn it off if you want. You're not limited to iTunes-purchased music on your iPod and you can go your whole life without ever opening the store page (or even showing the link to the store in the program). You just have the option there if you want it.
It's also interesting that you categorise them as a media company when the bulk of their profits (the vast, vast bulk) come from hardware sales. The access to media (which they are not the owners of, merely the third party resellers of) is provided as a way to sell hardware - and very successful it is too. Again, no one is forcing you to consume that content, even if you have an Apple device - I don;t buy the movies, for example, due to the DRM, but I do have a lot of music from the iTunes store (which I also listen to on my Ubuntu machine). The bulk of my music library was ripped from CDs though.
Why exactly?
If it can be corrected by being blocked by the password, as it should have been to start with, there is no problem.
How is it different to a child learning the value of money in other ways? Like saving for candy, or a toy?
So, your kids are "scammers" now?
And it sounds like this is exactly what Apple are doing - ensuring that purchases are confirmed with a password, even if the "15 minute convenience grace" of entering your password is still in effect, sort of like how sudo escalates for a small amount of time, so you can execute a few commands before you need to authenticate again.
(although I haven't sudo'ed [sudone?] for a while, so I might be misremembering, and for the sake of a slashdot comment I'm not invoking root just to test it! rm -rf your own hard drive :D )
I typed "SOS RMS MY SMS R @ WRNG ADD-RESS"
lamenes filter lamenes filter lamenes filter lamenes filter lamenes filter lamenes filter
Who said that?
Genuinely, who said that?
[citation needed]
There are plenty of documented exploits that have been fixed on both platforms. The only people who claim that Platform A's fans claim that there are "no exploits" are people who hate Platform A and believe everyone should use Platform B.
Everyone else is aware that no OS is safe. Well, except the users of BeOS. Both of them said they were pretty safe.
One man's "fact" is another man's "value for money", since you're not just buying hardware, but I have noticed the trend has shifted form "Macs are overpriced" to "Macs are overpriced for the hardware they have".
I was being facetious with my comments, but all three were accurate at one point: you were stuck at 640x480 resolution in Ubuntu because the settings window was taller than that and there was no way to select or click "ok" to change it. This bug has been fixed.
Android phones were sending text messages to the wrong recipients. This bug has been fixed. Both were "errors on the producer side". The bit about Canonical forcing users to use crippled systems was a little hyperbole, just to balance out all the "Apple is evil and Steve Jobs wants to control everything you do" nonsense.
This iOS bug will be fixed, to enable home-launched apps to use the new javascript engine. (and note carefully that Apple didn't "handcuff" or "cripple" anything, they made these same web apps that they are meant to be "crippling because it threatens their profits" actually FASTER with the new JS engine, but due to the way the home screen is launching these shortcuts (with the old safari JS engine) they are the same speed that they have always been, but now slower than the improved versions in the new Safari. This too will be fixed.
FTR, I run Ubuntu and OS X side by side, but I'm not averse to taking a pop at it for comic effect and to make a point now and again.
Yes, the same thing happened to me when I tried to change the resolution of my Ubuntu box above 640x480, but I couldn't because the "ok" button is off the screen with no way to get to it. This is clearly Canonical forcing users to use hobbled systems.
I tried to send a text message to them about it on my Android phone, but for some reason it was sent to RMS instead, who told me my phone was a tool of Stalin.
In the end I gave up and bought a Mac.
It's funny you mention that, I was just telling someone today that there's no longer such a thing as AFK.
You try telling that to 24 people waiting to pull the boss because the tank has gone to put more hot pockets in.
Because it is *much* easier to decommission the reactor if it's not a melted puddle of crap in the bottom of the shield. If it stays intact, but damaged, it will be cheaper and easier to dismantle when the core is cold.
The iPod Touch still sells well since it does all of the App Store stuff that the iPhone does, but is *considerably* cheaper, if you don't want a phone.
Unlikely - the core is surrounded by a massive block of rebar-reinforced concrete, and then a large steel pressure vessel that is designed to withstand serious pressure just during normal operating conditions.
The explosions we've been seeing are outside of this concrete block (actually above it, in the building), and the bulk of the pressure has been blasting the building apart - not great, but it's cosmetic/structural damage as far as the reactor containment measures are concerned (well, the primary and secondary measures - the third is the building itself, which is not compromised, but it was never designed to withstand this sort of explosion).
The explosions thus far have been able to relieve their force out into the atmosphere - which is better than the building containing it and thus increasing the blast wave on the reactor shield. Even then, it's a pretty tough cookie - it survived a 9.1 magnitude earthquake without any damage, for example.
Yes, the explosions are not good - ideally they wanted the venting to happen without the hydrogen gas igniting, but in the grand scale of things, it is not going to seriously threaten to expose the core.
The core is already subcritical, adding boric acid just acts as a neutron sponge to capture thermalised neutrons (that are being moderated by the water they're pumping in). The source of these neutrons is the short lives radionuclides that form as part of the normal operating reaction, ie, not the uranium.
With adequate cooling you don;t have to worry about them - there aren't all that many, relative to the normal running of the reactor and normal cooling is enough to deal with the heat produced as these products decay, but cooling is an issue, hence anything they can do to limit heat sources is being done - and thermalised neutrons are an indirect source of heat (since they bang into things and cause fission events).
These reactors don't have concrete containment shields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BWR_Mark_I_Containment,_cutaway.jpg
" Cutaway drawing of a typical Boiling water reactor (BWR) Mark I Concrete Containment with Steel Torus (suppression pool), as used in the BWR/1, BWR/2, BWR/3 and some BWR/4 model reactors."
(Reactor 1 is a BWR3, Reactor 3 is a BWR4)
Those reactors are already destroyed. They will never be operational gain (it says that in the article I linked to).
A complete meltdown will lead to a huge discharge of radioactive waste similiar to Chernobyl. That's what they are trying to avoid at all costs. The fact that the reactor is "off" is irrelevant.
No it won't - if these cores completely melt down they will be safely contained within the enclosing concrete containment (which is inside the building), and completely encloses the reactor.
If they melt down there will just be a puddle of fuel and melted reactor in the bottom of this structure, which is designed like a dish to spread it out thinly so it cools quickly, but it will all still be totally sealed inside.
There is no way it will be spread over hundreds of miles (or even just outside the plant itself in the local area), since it was designed to fail this way,
Think of it like a bar of chocolate inside sealed tin can. If you left it in the sun without pouring cold water over it, the chocolate would melt, but it would not escape from the can.
Yes, they could just drain off all the water completely (so no more steam generation and no risk of pressure build up) but it would totally wreck the core since it would melt into its concrete containment system, then you'd have a big, broken mess left over (although with all the radiation contained) that you'd have to clean up.
This way they are hoping the core is not totally wrecked (although it will definitely be damaged and require extensive repairs before being used again, if ever), so that it is easier to clean up and reprocess the fuel, with the problem that because you are pumping water in there (at less than required flow rate) it's boiling off quickly raising the pressure very high and cracking to H2 and O2, which just love to react very exothermically - causing those explosions we have seen when they vent this pressure out into the atmosphere.
The best case is that they keep doing what they're doing, and try to minimise the chance of H2 explosions, so that it will be easy to dismantle the core when it is cold. If they just let it melt there will be no more hydrogen explosions, but they'll have a molten mess of fuel and reactor parts spread out inside the concrete containment shield that will be considerably more annoying to clean up (but still completely safe from an external observer point of view - it;s designed to fail this way in the event of a full meltdown).
I think the problem is that everyone is equating "meltdown" to mean "will explode like Chernobyl", which is not what happened there - the Chernobyl explosion was a catastrophic steam explosion like a pressure cooker exploding. The core didn't melt down until after the explosion happened.
These "little" explosions we are seeing in Japan are because they are releasing the pressure in a controlled manner - if they just left it (and disabled the safety systems) then it could face a similar problem to Chernobyl, with the reactor being destroyed by a steam explosion, with the crucial difference that the core of this reactor is totally shielded (Chernobyl's RBMK reactors were too big to contain without it costing a ridiculous amount, so the building was the secondary containment structure - and it fell apart like tissue paper, as expected).
It's also slightly different in Japan - the reactor is "off" so the uranium fission reaction has stopped, and it's just residual heat and decay product heat to be dealt with, so it's a relatively slow and controllable heating. In Reactor 4 in Chernobyl, the fission reaction was very definitely running - but was poisoned due to neutron absorbing products (the core was running at much too low power), and when these were gone, and with the rods all the way out, the reactor spiked to a massive level which flashed all the water in there to steam almost instantly, which blew the lid off the top - just like throwing an aerosol can onto a fire, or shooting it with an air rifle. They had no time to relieve the pressure.
I saw the show too, when it was on British TV and it was just a load of jobsworth security theatre nonsense. "You can't film that! It's a security risk!" when the things they "can't film" are gigantic cooling towers that are visible from miles around, and the plant layout which was supposedly the "secret" is easily visible on Google Maps - I went there specifically after watching the show to generate my own mini Streisand Effect.
If they hadn't made such a big fuss about nothing, no one would care. Anyone wanting to attack that plant just needs to drive near it, or fly over it in an aircraft, or go on Google Fucking Maps and switch to photo view. I doubt they'd be drawing up plans based on a few seconds of shots in a Discovery channel show.
The "cooling buildings" on that plant were the two enormous towers - they are an obvious target, but they are only one piece in a very redundant system, and are tertiary systems - it's just "politeness" to cool the river water back down before pumping it back out into the environment. If the towers were destroyed you'd just pump the water from the tertiary loop back out into the river while it was still warm, which would probably kill a lot of fish, but makes absolutely no odds to the power plant itself.
If they didn't want to do that they could just vent steam directly into the atmosphere to control the temperature.
Number 4 on this list, Colloquy, is GPLv2.
http://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-store-apps-updated-with-10-new-apps/
It's been stated often that the iTunes and App Stores break even for Apple (or close to it) - the bulk of the cash from there goes to the developers. If they're subsidising it's from the large cash reserves they have, or bulk orders, not the App Store.
My sense is volume pricing based on prior sales and the backing of a large cash reserve.