I can imagine a time when the government can track every dollar - where it goes and where it came from.
Personally, I wish this happens as soon as possible. I am tired of being considered a sucker, just because I am honest, while most of the people around me are dishonest and keep their money from being taxed by illegal means.
There is so much technological progress now that U.S.A. is not on war with anybody, imagine if U.S.A. was on war!!!!
A browser is a different thing than an O/S.
on
Where Is Firefox OS?
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· Score: 1
It seems to me that many slashdotters use an O/S and a browser as interchangeable things. They are not. When we say "a browser O/S", we mean an operating system with a browser as its user interface.
Firefox can already be a "Browser O/S", if the default program to start when the X-Window server starts in a Unix-based operating system is Firefox.
Capitalism as presented in theory is good. In practice, it leads to monopolies, oligopolies, and market abuse by the most powerful players.
As it is right now, applied capitalism has big problems, in a similar way applied communism had big problems: the elite, in both cases, milk the system in their favor.
I wish there was true capitalism, i.e. equal opportunities for all to flourish in a competitive market open to new players. But that does not exist, due to the anticompetitive practices of all the major economic powers.
Why should the average Joe care if a virus creates a DoS attack on Microsoft or SCO? all that he cares about (and he is right to do) is if his computer does the job he wants. If it is too slow, he can always service it or buy a new one.
Instead of blaming the people actually responsible for the mess (i.e. the developers of the virus or of the operating system that let this happen), it is the users that are blamed? WTF?
The document you posted (new top level domains considered harmful) argues more about why TLDs are harmful than why new TLDs are harmful.
TLDs should have not existed in the first place. All that it was required is a unique name per IP, in a flat database. The rest is pure unnecessary bureaucracy.
Instead of contributing to open efforts regarding MP, they go on and do their own API. And a few years down the road, where everyone else uses the open API, they will let down their developers by supporting the open API, since it will no longer be viable economically to use their own API any more (like Silverlight/.NET in Windows 8).
Microsoft, when will you learn your lesson? instead of locking us in, why don't you contribute to the efforts of the community to solve the same problem?
Reference-counting smart pointers do not completely deal with the problem, as you can still have reference cycles.
True, but the need to have cyclically referenced data structures doesn't come up very often in code. I've been programming for 14 years, and I rarely had to deal to with cyclic references.
Also, a long-standing problem with smart pointers in C++ has been that the only standard one was auto_ptr, and it was
Boost had smart pointers for a long time now. The new C++ has them in the standard library.
Finally, until move semantics were added in C++0x, there was a general problem using smart pointers in STL containers such as std::vector - you were effectively forced to use something that permitted sharing (such as shared_ptr), even though the container was the only owner of the pointer in practice, just so that the container could create temporary copies while reallocating the underlying storage. The problem with this arrangement is that shared_ptr and similar solutions have a fairly noticeable perf penalty - you pay to allocate the refcounted block for every object
When a shared_ptr vector reallocates its storage, the newly created ptrs are copy-constructed from the old ones, and so there is no allocation of refcounted block.
(unless using intrusive smart pointers, where counter is part of every object), and then you also pay for updating those refcounts.
Well, now that C++ has move semantics, and shared ptrs in the standard library, are there any other complaints? these problems are solved, so I don't see how C++ cannot be a viable solution for long and big projects.
I've read the entire thread, and one common complain about c++ is manual memory management.
So, my question is this: why don't people use smart pointers? boost has the class boost::shared_ptr which works with lots of compilers, and the upcoming c++ will have std::shared_ptr.
With smart pointers, there is no need to manage memory manually. I've written whole apps (130-150Kloc) without a single delete statement and without a single memory issue by using smart pointers.
Seriously, why are people still managing memory manually in c++? I haven't done so a few years now, using boost smart pointers, and now I am planning for using std::shared_ptr.
That's the reason proprietary software is bad: almost always, there comes the day that the software stack you use are no longer supported or even available.
It is no surprise to me. There exists a movement in the Elite (banksters, politicians, etc) to cut down wages in those countries, as well as cut down the social welfare services, increase the number of working hours per week etc.
There was a proposal in the EU a few years back to make the 40 hour work week a 65 hour work week, with no changes in wages, of course.
German workers have not seen a raise in their paychecks the last 10 years, because they are told the economy cannot sustain those raises, but most German businesses have huge profits over the last years.
They have got to "persuade" us somehow that we should accept lower salaries, and a good way to do that is the threat of overpopulation: if we have smaller salaries, then the money will be used for more jobs; but that does not happen in reality.
I think that this kind of interface is very good for computer novices. I've seen many computer-illiterate people to struggle with the WIMP interface; this interface feels a lot more natural to them.
I hope they have a button to take the glitz away though, since Windows is also heavily used by professionals.
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> Since DRM hasn't stopped anything in this regard then what does it matter really?
DRM has stopped the average Joe to pirate stuff. If it wasn't for DRM, sales would drop quite a lot.
And what makes sure that the form of distribution you ask for (basically, the plain files without any sort of protection) are not massively pirated?
They are not real friends if they forget you because you don't use Facebook.
Eventually, all human activities will be performed by computers. So, the future has two choices for mankind:
1) socialist utopia ala Star Trek and
2) mankind slaves to machines, ala Terminator.
I hope mankind gets its act together and chooses #1 over #2.
I can imagine a time when the government can track every dollar - where it goes and where it came from.
Personally, I wish this happens as soon as possible. I am tired of being considered a sucker, just because I am honest, while most of the people around me are dishonest and keep their money from being taxed by illegal means.
Price is no excuse for piracy. If you do not like the price, don't buy the product. You have no right to pirate it.
I would do that, but there are none.
If you want to consume media, then media has value.
And if that media has value, you should pay.
Stop being so hypocrite. Please.
So all you want is for everything to be free of charge.
Nice. Didn't you hear? socialism failed.
Has the previous FCP version magically disppeared from their hard drives?
There is so much technological progress now that U.S.A. is not on war with anybody, imagine if U.S.A. was on war!!!!
It seems to me that many slashdotters use an O/S and a browser as interchangeable things. They are not. When we say "a browser O/S", we mean an operating system with a browser as its user interface.
Firefox can already be a "Browser O/S", if the default program to start when the X-Window server starts in a Unix-based operating system is Firefox.
Capitalism as presented in theory is good. In practice, it leads to monopolies, oligopolies, and market abuse by the most powerful players.
As it is right now, applied capitalism has big problems, in a similar way applied communism had big problems: the elite, in both cases, milk the system in their favor.
I wish there was true capitalism, i.e. equal opportunities for all to flourish in a competitive market open to new players. But that does not exist, due to the anticompetitive practices of all the major economic powers.
Why should the average Joe care if a virus creates a DoS attack on Microsoft or SCO? all that he cares about (and he is right to do) is if his computer does the job he wants. If it is too slow, he can always service it or buy a new one.
Instead of blaming the people actually responsible for the mess (i.e. the developers of the virus or of the operating system that let this happen), it is the users that are blamed? WTF?
The document you posted (new top level domains considered harmful) argues more about why TLDs are harmful than why new TLDs are harmful.
TLDs should have not existed in the first place. All that it was required is a unique name per IP, in a flat database. The rest is pure unnecessary bureaucracy.
...for scanning human life signs.
Well, that is, if you have 24th century technology :-).
Instead of contributing to open efforts regarding MP, they go on and do their own API. And a few years down the road, where everyone else uses the open API, they will let down their developers by supporting the open API, since it will no longer be viable economically to use their own API any more (like Silverlight/.NET in Windows 8).
Microsoft, when will you learn your lesson? instead of locking us in, why don't you contribute to the efforts of the community to solve the same problem?
Reference-counting smart pointers do not completely deal with the problem, as you can still have reference cycles.
True, but the need to have cyclically referenced data structures doesn't come up very often in code. I've been programming for 14 years, and I rarely had to deal to with cyclic references.
Also, a long-standing problem with smart pointers in C++ has been that the only standard one was auto_ptr, and it was
Boost had smart pointers for a long time now. The new C++ has them in the standard library.
Finally, until move semantics were added in C++0x, there was a general problem using smart pointers in STL containers such as std::vector - you were effectively forced to use something that permitted sharing (such as shared_ptr), even though the container was the only owner of the pointer in practice, just so that the container could create temporary copies while reallocating the underlying storage. The problem with this arrangement is that shared_ptr and similar solutions have a fairly noticeable perf penalty - you pay to allocate the refcounted block for every object
When a shared_ptr vector reallocates its storage, the newly created ptrs are copy-constructed from the old ones, and so there is no allocation of refcounted block.
(unless using intrusive smart pointers, where counter is part of every object), and then you also pay for updating those refcounts.
Well, now that C++ has move semantics, and shared ptrs in the standard library, are there any other complaints? these problems are solved, so I don't see how C++ cannot be a viable solution for long and big projects.
I've read the entire thread, and one common complain about c++ is manual memory management.
So, my question is this: why don't people use smart pointers? boost has the class boost::shared_ptr which works with lots of compilers, and the upcoming c++ will have std::shared_ptr.
With smart pointers, there is no need to manage memory manually. I've written whole apps (130-150Kloc) without a single delete statement and without a single memory issue by using smart pointers.
Wow. As if smart pointer classes never existed.
Seriously, why are people still managing memory manually in c++? I haven't done so a few years now, using boost smart pointers, and now I am planning for using std::shared_ptr.
...other cases, like corrupted politicians, cartels, drug and people trafficking, the world would be a much better place.
That's the reason proprietary software is bad: almost always, there comes the day that the software stack you use are no longer supported or even available.
It is no surprise to me. There exists a movement in the Elite (banksters, politicians, etc) to cut down wages in those countries, as well as cut down the social welfare services, increase the number of working hours per week etc.
There was a proposal in the EU a few years back to make the 40 hour work week a 65 hour work week, with no changes in wages, of course.
German workers have not seen a raise in their paychecks the last 10 years, because they are told the economy cannot sustain those raises, but most German businesses have huge profits over the last years.
They have got to "persuade" us somehow that we should accept lower salaries, and a good way to do that is the threat of overpopulation: if we have smaller salaries, then the money will be used for more jobs; but that does not happen in reality.
Why? it's quite easy and makes sense.
I think that this kind of interface is very good for computer novices. I've seen many computer-illiterate people to struggle with the WIMP interface; this interface feels a lot more natural to them.
I hope they have a button to take the glitz away though, since Windows is also heavily used by professionals.