People that just brought something they didn't want are easy to spot. You can ignore them. People that got a broken device, you should be counting them, too many is a bad signal.
The positive reviews are not normaly as informative as the negative ones. they tend to be dominated by people saying how they love the product, or the classic "I just got it, but I think it will be great". But once in a while they can tell you that feature X that you doubt would work does indeed work.
Great! if Apple keep find interesting markets to sell overpriced devices, they deserve all revenue they can get.
And we can keep waiting just a couple of years to get the new devices, with a great configuration, sane pricing and without all the absurd restrictions Apple imposes in their customers.
For a customer, if you ever used Linux you'd know the value that there is in a repository full of software. If not:
Makes instalation procedures consistent; Removes the problem of making sure you are downloading your software from the right source; Makes it easier to search for software, searching only the app store removes all the noise you get from a full web search (mostly software for other plataforms and talking without a binary to download); Makes it easier to pay for your software without trusting random people with your data (that you'll not get from a Linux repository, for obvious reasons).
For a developer there are some advantages too:
Makes instalation procedures consistent (yep, everybody gains from that); Removes the problem of billing your consumers; Makes the consumers always hit the right source (only malware writers lose here), and thus more trustfull to random software;
There are probably other advantages, for both parties. The advantage to the store owner is obvious, they get money, altough there may be other ones. The app store (also known as software repository) is just a great way to distribute software. Also, keep in mind that DRM is not required, it is a completely orthogonal concept.
You try to attribute incomatibility like it was not a reflexive chearacteristic. I have some news for you, both are incompatible. That means you can't put GPL software at the Apple App Store. There is no blame to be assigned.
Microsoft would be smart to simply do that, reduce their DRM requirements and let GPL software be available at their store. That would give them a huge competition advantage against Apple, and help level the plying field against Google.
Anyway, I don't trust them to keep their word here, as the only way to do that would be to open Windows 8 for other app stores.
Linux binaries are still compiled for 386 processors
Man, what distro are you running? The binaries on my machines are compiled to AMD64. And you are making yourself target for flame from a Gentoo user.
The lust for faster machines was driven games, not by development.
My machines were last upgraded to run simulations... You mileage may vary. Some IDEs are so heavyweight that people do indeed upgrade to use them. (Personaly, I tend to use languages that aren't fit for heavyweight IDEs.)
But why would I open a book about the same thing I'm having a class about? If the professor doesn't use the book, it is useless. And the student is probably more interested on something he'll never see in a class (and rightly so).
When I was a student, I looked at those book lists as a recomendation. Brought some of them, ignored most. I only missed a of the books I ignored once.
Why did you kept your thermonuclear weapons out of the scenario?
Just to make things clear: 1 - You have no "terrorist" problems. At least no one outside of your government. 2 - It have been centuries since England screwed with you. It was the last country to do that. Do you really keep enemies for that long?
The title is misleading, and so is the article. The problem is that (what 90% of people see) is different from (90% of what people see).
To answer the question (why is it a question? The article states as a fact), yes big media controls 90% of what is actualy distributed as old style media. That is different from saying that it owns 90% of the content, and much nearer to saying that a huge proportion of the people will only see what big media shows them.
"Please enlighten me as to what it is people do with office software that is much more advanced than this?"
Numbered lists! If you ever work with a government you'll need lots and lots and lots of numbered lists, several levels deep, with several different numbering schemas.
The interesting thing is, doing numbered lists on MS Office is a kind of torture. Some sadistic person at Microsoft though "whoever touches the government, he will suffer" and made it happen. But everybody still refuses to use Libre Office.
The computing part does indeed act on every combination your register can have at the same time. An exponential speedup here, that part is right. What is missing on your post is that reading the result is kind of hard. We only know how to get usefull data from a few kinds of calculation, and we don't know if it is possible to get anything usefull from the general case.
The good news is that if we ever discover a way to read the result of a general computation (if it is possible), we'd have discovered a nondeterministic computer. And forget about P ?= NP.
Here is a nice benchmark. It is interesting because it is based on a competition of "write the fastest program you can in language X", open to anybody and with a wide diversity of problems.
Those results aren't unique to that benchmark. You can find several that get nearly the same figure by searching, but I coulnd't find any one that is better.
That 5% lost in perfomence you cite is in practice near 90%.
Still everything else is right on. Those 90% lost in performance are worth it if they mean you'll spend less on development, and can migrate from one plataform to another at will.
I'd just like to add that the bad performance displayed by most functional languages isn't inherent. I don't know where it comes from in practice, but in theory there is no reason they should be slower (except if you optimize the hel out of your low level programs).
There are some "unoficial and unconfirmed" anouncements that some 3 sigma events were found... Well, and there are some anouncements that the Sun will raise tomorrow.
Why people would consider any of those news, I can't explain. (Except, of course the people that want and have the means to test the 3 sigma events. For them, that information is usefull.)
XP will probably be around for as long a time as ReactOS needs to emulate it well. Then it will vanish, like MS DOS vanished after FreeDOS got good enough.
But the old software will stay running. COBOL didn't go away, VB won't either.
Slashdot Mirror
That is why you actualy read the reviews.
People that just brought something they didn't want are easy to spot. You can ignore them. People that got a broken device, you should be counting them, too many is a bad signal.
The positive reviews are not normaly as informative as the negative ones. they tend to be dominated by people saying how they love the product, or the classic "I just got it, but I think it will be great". But once in a while they can tell you that feature X that you doubt would work does indeed work.
If it was only an added value, Apple wouldn't be so reactive to rooting, and would make it easier to install third party software on their products.
Apple seems to want both the hardware and the store as main revenue sources.
Great! if Apple keep find interesting markets to sell overpriced devices, they deserve all revenue they can get.
And we can keep waiting just a couple of years to get the new devices, with a great configuration, sane pricing and without all the absurd restrictions Apple imposes in their customers.
For a customer, if you ever used Linux you'd know the value that there is in a repository full of software. If not:
Makes instalation procedures consistent;
Removes the problem of making sure you are downloading your software from the right source;
Makes it easier to search for software, searching only the app store removes all the noise you get from a full web search (mostly software for other plataforms and talking without a binary to download);
Makes it easier to pay for your software without trusting random people with your data (that you'll not get from a Linux repository, for obvious reasons).
For a developer there are some advantages too:
Makes instalation procedures consistent (yep, everybody gains from that);
Removes the problem of billing your consumers;
Makes the consumers always hit the right source (only malware writers lose here), and thus more trustfull to random software;
There are probably other advantages, for both parties. The advantage to the store owner is obvious, they get money, altough there may be other ones. The app store (also known as software repository) is just a great way to distribute software. Also, keep in mind that DRM is not required, it is a completely orthogonal concept.
You try to attribute incomatibility like it was not a reflexive chearacteristic. I have some news for you, both are incompatible. That means you can't put GPL software at the Apple App Store. There is no blame to be assigned.
Microsoft would be smart to simply do that, reduce their DRM requirements and let GPL software be available at their store. That would give them a huge competition advantage against Apple, and help level the plying field against Google.
Anyway, I don't trust them to keep their word here, as the only way to do that would be to open Windows 8 for other app stores.
Then the information they gather with the site is useless.
I was thinking on some sort of phishing scam...
Honeypot for catching what? Visiting such a site is not evidence of piracy.
Man, what distro are you running? The binaries on my machines are compiled to AMD64. And you are making yourself target for flame from a Gentoo user.
My machines were last upgraded to run simulations... You mileage may vary. Some IDEs are so heavyweight that people do indeed upgrade to use them. (Personaly, I tend to use languages that aren't fit for heavyweight IDEs.)
Indeed, at my country just one company controls what 90% of the people see. It varies, but I bet it is universaly bad.
But why would I open a book about the same thing I'm having a class about? If the professor doesn't use the book, it is useless. And the student is probably more interested on something he'll never see in a class (and rightly so).
When I was a student, I looked at those book lists as a recomendation. Brought some of them, ignored most. I only missed a of the books I ignored once.
Why did you kept your thermonuclear weapons out of the scenario?
Just to make things clear:
1 - You have no "terrorist" problems. At least no one outside of your government.
2 - It have been centuries since England screwed with you. It was the last country to do that. Do you really keep enemies for that long?
The title is misleading, and so is the article. The problem is that (what 90% of people see) is different from (90% of what people see).
To answer the question (why is it a question? The article states as a fact), yes big media controls 90% of what is actualy distributed as old style media. That is different from saying that it owns 90% of the content, and much nearer to saying that a huge proportion of the people will only see what big media shows them.
That is still a problem, but a different problem.
Numbered lists! If you ever work with a government you'll need lots and lots and lots of numbered lists, several levels deep, with several different numbering schemas.
The interesting thing is, doing numbered lists on MS Office is a kind of torture. Some sadistic person at Microsoft though "whoever touches the government, he will suffer" and made it happen. But everybody still refuses to use Libre Office.
It is hard because you can't tell them apart.
The computing part does indeed act on every combination your register can have at the same time. An exponential speedup here, that part is right. What is missing on your post is that reading the result is kind of hard. We only know how to get usefull data from a few kinds of calculation, and we don't know if it is possible to get anything usefull from the general case.
The good news is that if we ever discover a way to read the result of a general computation (if it is possible), we'd have discovered a nondeterministic computer. And forget about P ?= NP.
Here is a nice benchmark. It is interesting because it is based on a competition of "write the fastest program you can in language X", open to anybody and with a wide diversity of problems.
Those results aren't unique to that benchmark. You can find several that get nearly the same figure by searching, but I coulnd't find any one that is better.
It is almost as boring as a huge discovery that shapes an entire area of knowledge can be. The only except is that we'll know the actual mass.
Just remember that your efficiency sets the upper bound of your salary.
That 5% lost in perfomence you cite is in practice near 90%.
Still everything else is right on. Those 90% lost in performance are worth it if they mean you'll spend less on development, and can migrate from one plataform to another at will.
I'd just like to add that the bad performance displayed by most functional languages isn't inherent. I don't know where it comes from in practice, but in theory there is no reason they should be slower (except if you optimize the hel out of your low level programs).
There are some "unoficial and unconfirmed" anouncements that some 3 sigma events were found... Well, and there are some anouncements that the Sun will raise tomorrow.
Why people would consider any of those news, I can't explain. (Except, of course the people that want and have the means to test the 3 sigma events. For them, that information is usefull.)
Not finding the higgs may be the most exciting thing the LHC does. Finding it will be boring.
Add there the latin languages.
XP will probably be around for as long a time as ReactOS needs to emulate it well. Then it will vanish, like MS DOS vanished after FreeDOS got good enough.
But the old software will stay running. COBOL didn't go away, VB won't either.
I dunno. If he makes Windows all that appealing, people will stop buying it.
Nobody buys good operating systems.
I'd design it to go back into friendly territory if possible (inertial navigation can stil find a country), if not possible, to self-destruct.