To some degree you're right, but a more accurate description would be that education is distributed very unequal across working classes, countries, ethnic and age groups. Related is the problem that there is always some mismatch between education/skills of workers, and what's needed in the marketplace.
To solve those problems, one would need a more targeted approach to education. Target people who have little or no education, so they don't get stuck in low-paying, unskilled jobs for the rest of their life. Make it more attractive to choose studies that will be useful in the marketplace at the time people finish their study. And so on.
But you know what? These things are hard. If a study takes 4 years, the market will be 4 years further when students are done. A lot can change in that period. A new research area may open up, that creates an instant demand for people with a very specific knowledge/skill set. Some studies may be useful, but not to the degree that spending (taxpayer?) money on them has a net positive effect. But how to determine or predict all this?
So if anything, your point really over-simplifies things.
You're assuming your upload capacity must be sufficient to keep another viewer happy? Not necessarily. You only need sufficient upload capacity at the point where the stream originates. Everywhere else, each viewer can download some chunk of the stream from one peer, and other chunks from another peer. Say, 0.5 Mbit/s from 3 different peers, to view incoming 1.5 Mbit/s continuous.
For this to work for all viewers, only the total upload capacity (for all peers combined) needs to exceed the total of what's currently streamed to downloading clients. I think current networks are good enough for that to work, for a number of reasons:
Although limited, much of that upload capacity isn't used. There may be plenty users out there who don't mind streaming data to others, as long as it doesn't interfere with their own internet use. Also, they wouldn't be downloading all the time: if you watch P2P streamed video 2 hours a day, and you have your box switched on 8 hours a day, that leaves 6 hours a day where you can stream data out, while not using much up/down bandwidth yourself. This improves if you have a dedicated box, like an always-on BT download / MythTV box or similar.
Oh, and besides: a near DVD-quality DivX stream (~700M in 90 minutes) is just over 1 Mbit/s, so that would go easily as upload over your line. What you have as upload may appear limited, but still exceed what others have as download. And: there are better codecs than DivX today, and lower quality streams may be fine for many applications (compare the average YouTube vid).
Before anyone mods parent as informative, a quote from the article (near the end):
"RRAMs are our near term goal, but our second target for memristors, in the long term, is to transform computing by building adaptive control circuits that learn," said Stewart. "Analog circuits using electronic synapses will require at least five more years of research."
So they're looking at future applications where devices would store 'gray scale' type of information, as opposed to 'black & white' that's used in current computer-style devices. 'Black & white' type devices should be out somewhere next year, and I doubt it will take a giant like HP long to go from prototype to commercial devices.
But the hardware will wear out eventually, and nobody's making any more, (..)
Not any time soon - a couple hundred thousand C64's were built just a few years ago, battery-powered and all. Although the build quality isn't very good, these are real C64's, and solder-friendly too. Take out the circuit board, fix the video, wire up an additional joystick and a real keyboard, and you're all set.
Phones based on OpenMoko might be a lot harder to bug using the built-in mic (without the user knowing it), but this story is about location data.
Where your phone is at, is already tracked as a normal function of the cellphone network, because the network needs to determine what cell tower(s) your calls are routed through. So any time your phone is ready to make or receive calls, your provider knows where it is.
It's safe to assume that some (or all) of that data is recorded somehow. In the European Union, there's a EU-wide directive that would require such location data to be kept for at least a year or so. AFAIK that's already been passed despite protests from many sides, and now in the process of implementation in national laws. That is, where implementation isn't blocked by national governments, legal or technical problems. And there have been some high-profile court cases already, where cellphone location data was at stake.
The story is about how that location data could be used. How long is it kept? Who has access to it? Do you need a court order to get access? If so, on what grounds should it be granted? Is there any supervision? What other uses are there? What control (as a consumer) do you have over use of your cellphone location data?
Interesting questions - I can't say I know any clear answers for where I live. I guess that location data is recorded, may be kept for a loooong time, and that mis-use is possible by parties who have no right snooping in there. Like criminals, shady business, or government/law enforcement that may or may not honour applicable laws. If you don't like that, then: a) don't carry a cellphone, or b) pull out the battery when you're not calling.
That's a good thing: would you like it if this car would be produced in unlimited quantities? Filling up the oceans, and covering the surface of the planet with a 5-meter layer of cars, none of which were able to move?
Stallman's idea has caught on too, just not as well YET as the Microsoft one
It's kind of ironic that FOSS is gaining in popularity for a number of reasons, different from what Stallman is promoting it for.
Firefox has become a huge success mostly because it causes fewer *security* problems for average users. Linux and *BSD variants are mostly found on servers for performance/security/easy maintenance reasons. Linux is used to bring older PC's back to life, because it can be tailored to run well on systems where modern MS offerings wouldn't do. And it's found a new spot in the ultramobile PC market for the same reason, and because avoiding the MS tax makes a big difference when the hardware is cheap and the competition strong. From the looks of it, the 'freedom' or 'source code available' aspect isn't on top of anyones list.
Stallman is right, but he should realize that for average Janes and Joes, the 'freedom' and 'source code available' aspect matter *shit* when it comes to software. And these average Janes and Joes are who matters, because they're the biggest group of computer users (embedded systems aside).
Why not focus on practical advantages? "No nag screens or searching for cracks on shady websites". "No need to feel guilty if you didn't pay for it". "The authors would be happy if you pass a copy to your friends (and it's legal to do so)". "Promotes free standards so that computers inter-operate better (and make it easier for you swap hardware platform)". "Easier to fit on whatever hardware you've got". "No forced upgrades to the latest and shiniest that you don't really need". Are these reasons not good enough?
To Stallman I'd say: for each and every Jane or Joe that picks FOSS for these reasons, just be happy with the 'freedom' side-effect that comes with it (for them). Those who know what to look for, already appreciate your contribution. I know I do (free beer available if you ever travel to a place near me!).
Why wouldn't you put a different CPU in an UMPC? Sure, an Atom CPU is low-power, but it's also held back by the x86 architecture. Drop that, and you lose binary compatibility (a small loss for this application) in exchange for even better battery life. An UMPC based on ARM, Mips or low-power PPC core could be even more awesome than one based on Atom.
I can understand that people want x86 compatibility, even for a small UMPC running Linux. But with this market exploding, I'm sure there is (or will be) room for a niche market of non-x86 UMPC's. Let's hope some manufacturer steps in there.
What a coincidence that they make an enormous overreaction which frees up countless gigabits of bandwidth! Perhaps not. Isn't the whole point of carrying newsgroups for a provider to have a local copy (local to the ISP, that is)? Bandwidth from that local copy to users is cheap for an ISP.
Ditch that local copy and what happens? Some users will stop downloading these things. But many users would just find another way. For example: other provider's usenet servers, sites elsewhere on the web, P2P programs, etc. I reckon most of these forms would mean traffic from users to random places on the internet, read: much more expensive/troublesome for the ISP than if traffic came from their own servers.
Personally, I would vote with my feet ASAP if my ISP stopped passing on data for anything other than technical or legal reasons.
If they were just reclassified as POWs, then they could be held until the war is over -- which, like the war on drugs, it never will be. That is BS. If what you're saying were true, anyone caught with drugs could be held indefinitely without trial too - you know that's not the case.
I have have totally lost my respect for the US as a nation since this 'war on terror' crap started. The US would have more success fighting terrorists if they'd just pull out of Iraq ASAP, free those guys from Guantanamo Bay immediately (or give them a fair trial *now*), and pay proper compensation to anyone wrongfully accused or imprisoned. The US won't regain any respect from me until they do that, and acknowledge that the rule of law applies to *everyone*, criminals, terrorists, presidents and emperors included. Fixing these things would stop more terrorists in their tracks than years of military success in Iraq (if there were any).
After all, you and I know that most of those in Guantanamo Bay were grabbed in their home country, meaning either they were fighting foreign soldiers on their home soil (or helping with that), or (even worse) they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Terrorists my ass - the US invaded Iraq, remember? Or has it been too long?
I wonder if anyone in Guantanamo Bay will ever get proper compensation, excuses or things like that. Has this happened already for at least 1 person?
eBay is all about making the seller unable to get around eBay's exorbitant fees in any way possible. That is their entire basis for forcing PayPal. eBay takes a fee on items sold. This fee is based on what the item sells for, not what it costs to ship it (buyer pays that).
Ofcourse if you pay through PayPal, PayPal will also take a fee, this time depending on the total amount (item price + shipping).
With eBay & PayPal being 2 hands on one belly, making PayPal compulsory is something I read as an attempt to double the standard eBay fees, and grab a bit of the shipping costs as well.
Not that I care much. Read carefully what you sign up for if you sell items through eBay. Read even better what you sign up for when you open a PayPal account. Use both for what they're good for, not for everything. PayPal is just a payment option. I'd quickly drop eBay if that was not the case.
Nobody has the balls to use force anymore. You mean physical force, the force, or brute force?
Slow release cycles aren't bad for core projects
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The State of X.Org
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Too slow release cycles of Xorg can slow down the adoption of Linux in the desktop market. As someone once said: "operating system kernels should be boring". I agree. It's user-visible applications (and full distributions) that should evolve quicky, to add new functionality as it becomes available.
But not low level code like Xorg. These kind of projects should focus on stability and reliability, in other words, make sure that whatever they release, is working and well tested. If that means a new feature (or bugfix?) needs more time for testing, I'm all for taking that time.
Because such core projects are used as the basis for many others, it also means that any shortcoming in it may hang around for a long time in projects that use it. The usual approach seems to be "let core projects move quickly, and have downstream projects apply their own fixes". I think that's a bad approach. Quality-wise, the lower-level you get, the more stable/reliable (boring if you will) code should be. New features & fixes should be added downstream, and then slowly make their way back upstream, similar to how changes for Debian testing make their way back to Debian stable.
True. All these copy prevention mechanism just have an economic effect. Any mechanism will be cracked quickly once a product is out in numbers. After that, there's a 'free' version that is easy to copy, but comes in a form that takes time on the user side: time to find on a P2P network, time & bandwidth to download, perhaps time to burn a CD/DVD. It also misses some things that come with the original: an original box, paper manual, CD artwork and perhaps a warm feeling inside from knowing you supported the creators.
These 2 versions compete, and a copy protection has influence on how attractive each version is. Make it too cumbersome, and the illegal (free) version becomes more attractive. Make it weak, and it becomes extremely easy to create an illegal copy from an original. Make the original too expensive, and you make the illegal version more attractive.
For a small numbers product I can understand a cumbersome copy protection scheme. But why for a mass market product? If your product is good enough, then your potential market is everyone that is interested, and has the hardware to run it. If you price it ridiculously cheap, say production cost + $1 for a plain CD/DVD in jewel case, then who will bother to search on P2P network, download a full ISO (or multiple ISO's), and burn the whole thing (on discs that are cheap, but not free either)? Nobody. Time is precious, so people are willing to spend money to save time.
So the solution for software makers is easy: if the potential market for your product is big (in terms of number of customers), then:
Provide your product in any form that customers desire: downloads via fast servers/BT, plain physical media, collectors boxes / limited editions that include extra goodies.
Make your product easy to obtain. Read: get a copy through a 5-minute effort without leaving your home.
Payment through any means you can think of, delivery as download via fast servers/BT, or physical media at near production-cost.
Forget about copy-protection, since they reduce the value of your product, make the illegal version more attractive, and... increase your development costs (slightly perhaps, but still)
No matter how high the development costs, you will recoup those if enough people give you $1 a pop. Size your development budget according to an estimate of how sensational/desirable your product will be.
On the contrary the internet makes knowing 'facts' irrelevant, no one has to memorise information anymore. You'd be right if the internet has an answer to every possible question, and the answers you find are correct. Neither of those is true.
In general you can find answers on the weirdest subjects, and in most cases what you find reflects reality, especially if you compare unrelated sources. But the internet is no more reliable than traditional mass media, it is wrong sometimes. Don't tell me you haven't ever read stuff on the internet that (from personal experience) you *know* to be incorrect. I know I have.
Personally, I prefer the internet to provide material, 'leads' if you will, but then do fact-finding by combining that info with your own knowledge and real-world experience. The internet may tell you if something is likely true, but before claiming to others it is, you should determine the facts yourself. The internet can help you with that, but does NOT hold all the answers.
(..) then why did things like the AMD geode or the recent (forgetting the name) $20/month balck box computer catch fire? Got more info on that? In the case of the AMD Geode, I think you're mistaken. I've got one of these (Geode NX1750) lying around somewhere, and it's one of the coolest running chips you can find in a desktop (more likely found in industrial board, media player/set-top boxes or similar). Performs like an Athlon XP1600+, uses 25W tops (around 14W average). If you manage to overheat that, perhaps it'll smoke a bit, maybe crack, but not burn. CPU sockets surely use some flame-retardant material, and a metal CPU cooler doesn't help either to start a fire.
Me thinks you're talking about some machine with a Geode *in it* (maybe powersupply burnout), or perhaps a laptop battery catching fire?
It would be grand to be able to buy a low watt, small box gaming machine that doesn't require 6 fans to keep it cool.
However, with the way things are at the moment in the pc gamespace, I'd be pretty cautious expecting any decent performance, even with their Crysis and Bioshock demoes. Who cares? The latest games are always written to 'barely' run on top-of-the-line consumers PC's. But who needs a box like that? For myself, I normally put together a box that is behind the latest tech a year or so, if not more. That way, you can run almost anything you want, at a fraction of what it would cost you to buy the latest & greatest. Right now I've got a box that is 2~3 years old, but it still meets minimum specs for Crysis, and Bioshock. I don't expect either of those to run smoothly, but I could run them if I wanted to. Doom 3 runs fine (at 1600 x 1200), any game released before that runs super-smooth.
Basically, you can buy a certain 'class of performance' to run a certain 'class of applications'. You can get it fast, cheap or small. Pick 2 of those. My current machine qualifies as 'fast enough, cheap', my next build will probably be 'how much gaming performance can I cram into a breadbox?'.
So yes you can say "it won't run the latest games". But along the same lines you can say "yes but it doesn't have 8 cores, 16 GB RAM and 10 TB diskspace. Do you really need that? Ofcourse not, you just pick what you can afford, and best fits your needs.
Adding a few little tweaks to devices was a heck of a lot more expensive in the 80s than it is today. The reality is that had Intel done what you asked, the x86 might not have succeeded this long at all. You mean those tweaks would have been succesful, then?
What Intel should do is expose both sets of instructions, act like an x86 if the OS expects it, or act RISC-like if the OS expects that. Not that there's any point. From what I understand, many common compilers only use a limited subset of the x86 instruction set anyway. To take advantage of that fact, you'd have to create a new CPU with just the set of instructions that are used, or modify compilers to use a specific subset, and create an optimized CPU for that. The most important thing: ditch the unneeded extra ballast of the x86 instruction set, and perhaps re-arrange the remainder.
Oh wait, that's been done. It's called porting to a different, more elegant and/or power efficient architecture (like ARM, Mips or other). What you need for that is source code for the software. If you have source code for all the software you need, nothing keeps you from moving to a better CPU architecture. If you don't (like with closed-source apps on Windows), then you can't.
If manufacturers of those mini-PC's like the Asus EeePC can take a hint, they'd do the smart thing and move the Linux-based versions onto a more power-efficient architecture. You'd lose the binary compatibility, but that would be a small loss if you're running Linux and not do serious PC gaming anyway. In return you could have vastly improved battery life for the Linux-based versions.
from what I gather it's only able to print the plastic connection parts, so I'm not sure how this counts as "self-replicating" It doesn't. I'd say you can call something self-replicating if it can reproduce itself using only the essential raw materials. In this case: plastics, metal(s), energy. Perhaps a lot more ingredients, but at least those.
A good comparison is reproducing an OS in a Linux-From-Scratch style (using only source code, disk space and CPU cycles). *THE* thing you need is a C compiler. But to run that, you need a kernel, and a C library below. Then you need shell scripts to automate it, thus a shell. Most sources include makefiles, therefore you need 'make'. And bigger components use all sorts of preprocessing utilities like awk, lex, sed, grep, and so on. All these programs use a variety of standard utilities for copying/removing files, creating directories, etc. So before you get 'full circle', you need a pretty big set of things to reproduce what you start with (think of a compressed Gentoo stage 1).
Maybe this would be a good idea for an X-Prize kind of challenge: create a factory that makes *any commodity of choice*, and keeps itself working indefinitely using just the raw materials, and energy. That is, repairs/rebuilds machines if they break, does maintenance, etc. Say that the only role of humans would be to hit the 'on' switch, stock up supplies/energy, and to keep roof & walls of the building in place. I suspect that even for the simplest kind of product, the minimum size for such a factory would be *huge* if you include stuff like electronics (create new IC's from raw silicium to replace failed ones).
Perhaps all the required technology to do this already exists, but we're still a long way from putting all those parts together.
My guess: like so many custom/business apps, something gets developed, and once it works, all effort is done to change the existing software environment as little as possible. Or no effort at all, don't change anything unless it's absolutely necessary. Read: apply security updates to OS, and for the custom app: f**k maintenance, as long as it doesn't break badly, don't fix/update it.
Now perhaps this test software was written some years ago, at a time when IE alternatives weren't as 'visible' as they are now? And today, they have something working and would probably rather throw money at it to keep what they have, than spend (less?) money make a shift to new platform/application. It may not be smart use of tax Euros, but it's definitely easy to understand. A bit of lobbying by original vendor(s) removes any second thoughts.
But not that it matters, it's the mental capabilities that makes the difference. Suppose that primitive human from 10,000 years ago and yourself were pitted against each other. Let's say the battlefield would include the entire planet, each contestant could pick a random place to start (undisclosed to the other), and the reward would be substantial... say, live out the rest of your live in permanent wealth.
So yes that caveman would beat your head in when he'd get his hands on you, but would you let him? Ofcourse not. The cavemen would be finished before he saw you coming. You'd find him quicker than he'd find you. You'd find those 'advanced weapons' and bring them with you, before the cavemen would know what those weapons are, or how to use them. Starting out on an empty planet would shift the odds in the caveman's direction, but the modern human would probably still win. Why do you think primitive humans are extinct now, even though they where perfectly capable of surviving harsh environments? Because modern humans outsmarted them.
For the same reason, any superhuman intelligent being could kick normal human asses, in one way or another.
Maybe with 20% market share I will start meeting web site designers who know that Microsoft is not "the internet", that there are other browsers and that the W3 sets the standards. Web site designers will know this already, unless they're even more stupid than some of their users. But this isn't even relevant. What is relevant, is that there's a significant percentage that uses something other than what's most popular (and that this percentage consists of several 'others').
If you're a company and ignore a significant percentage of potential customers, that will cost you. Few companies can afford to lose out on those customers, when the competition is happy to serve them. Darwinian selection will do the rest, and (after time) leave only companies where you can use any reasonable popular browser to do business with. Ofcourse for government institutions, or companies in some sort of monopoly position (like the only provider of goods/services in a specific market) these rules may work different, but that's the general idea.
Slashdot Mirror
To some degree you're right, but a more accurate description would be that education is distributed very unequal across working classes, countries, ethnic and age groups. Related is the problem that there is always some mismatch between education/skills of workers, and what's needed in the marketplace.
To solve those problems, one would need a more targeted approach to education. Target people who have little or no education, so they don't get stuck in low-paying, unskilled jobs for the rest of their life. Make it more attractive to choose studies that will be useful in the marketplace at the time people finish their study. And so on.
But you know what? These things are hard. If a study takes 4 years, the market will be 4 years further when students are done. A lot can change in that period. A new research area may open up, that creates an instant demand for people with a very specific knowledge/skill set. Some studies may be useful, but not to the degree that spending (taxpayer?) money on them has a net positive effect. But how to determine or predict all this?
So if anything, your point really over-simplifies things.
You're assuming your upload capacity must be sufficient to keep another viewer happy? Not necessarily. You only need sufficient upload capacity at the point where the stream originates. Everywhere else, each viewer can download some chunk of the stream from one peer, and other chunks from another peer. Say, 0.5 Mbit/s from 3 different peers, to view incoming 1.5 Mbit/s continuous.
For this to work for all viewers, only the total upload capacity (for all peers combined) needs to exceed the total of what's currently streamed to downloading clients. I think current networks are good enough for that to work, for a number of reasons:
Although limited, much of that upload capacity isn't used. There may be plenty users out there who don't mind streaming data to others, as long as it doesn't interfere with their own internet use. Also, they wouldn't be downloading all the time: if you watch P2P streamed video 2 hours a day, and you have your box switched on 8 hours a day, that leaves 6 hours a day where you can stream data out, while not using much up/down bandwidth yourself. This improves if you have a dedicated box, like an always-on BT download / MythTV box or similar.
Oh, and besides: a near DVD-quality DivX stream (~700M in 90 minutes) is just over 1 Mbit/s, so that would go easily as upload over your line. What you have as upload may appear limited, but still exceed what others have as download. And: there are better codecs than DivX today, and lower quality streams may be fine for many applications (compare the average YouTube vid).
"RRAMs are our near term goal, but our second target for memristors, in the long term, is to transform computing by building adaptive control circuits that learn," said Stewart. "Analog circuits using electronic synapses will require at least five more years of research."
So they're looking at future applications where devices would store 'gray scale' type of information, as opposed to 'black & white' that's used in current computer-style devices. 'Black & white' type devices should be out somewhere next year, and I doubt it will take a giant like HP long to go from prototype to commercial devices.
But the hardware will wear out eventually, and nobody's making any more, (..)
Not any time soon - a couple hundred thousand C64's were built just a few years ago, battery-powered and all. Although the build quality isn't very good, these are real C64's, and solder-friendly too. Take out the circuit board, fix the video, wire up an additional joystick and a real keyboard, and you're all set.
Phones based on OpenMoko might be a lot harder to bug using the built-in mic (without the user knowing it), but this story is about location data.
Where your phone is at, is already tracked as a normal function of the cellphone network, because the network needs to determine what cell tower(s) your calls are routed through. So any time your phone is ready to make or receive calls, your provider knows where it is.
It's safe to assume that some (or all) of that data is recorded somehow. In the European Union, there's a EU-wide directive that would require such location data to be kept for at least a year or so. AFAIK that's already been passed despite protests from many sides, and now in the process of implementation in national laws. That is, where implementation isn't blocked by national governments, legal or technical problems. And there have been some high-profile court cases already, where cellphone location data was at stake.
The story is about how that location data could be used. How long is it kept? Who has access to it? Do you need a court order to get access? If so, on what grounds should it be granted? Is there any supervision? What other uses are there? What control (as a consumer) do you have over use of your cellphone location data?
Interesting questions - I can't say I know any clear answers for where I live. I guess that location data is recorded, may be kept for a loooong time, and that mis-use is possible by parties who have no right snooping in there. Like criminals, shady business, or government/law enforcement that may or may not honour applicable laws. If you don't like that, then: a) don't carry a cellphone, or b) pull out the battery when you're not calling.
2 - It's going into limited production
That's a good thing: would you like it if this car would be produced in unlimited quantities? Filling up the oceans, and covering the surface of the planet with a 5-meter layer of cars, none of which were able to move?
Stallman's idea has caught on too, just not as well YET as the Microsoft one
It's kind of ironic that FOSS is gaining in popularity for a number of reasons, different from what Stallman is promoting it for.
Firefox has become a huge success mostly because it causes fewer *security* problems for average users. Linux and *BSD variants are mostly found on servers for performance/security/easy maintenance reasons. Linux is used to bring older PC's back to life, because it can be tailored to run well on systems where modern MS offerings wouldn't do. And it's found a new spot in the ultramobile PC market for the same reason, and because avoiding the MS tax makes a big difference when the hardware is cheap and the competition strong. From the looks of it, the 'freedom' or 'source code available' aspect isn't on top of anyones list.
Stallman is right, but he should realize that for average Janes and Joes, the 'freedom' and 'source code available' aspect matter *shit* when it comes to software. And these average Janes and Joes are who matters, because they're the biggest group of computer users (embedded systems aside).
Why not focus on practical advantages? "No nag screens or searching for cracks on shady websites". "No need to feel guilty if you didn't pay for it". "The authors would be happy if you pass a copy to your friends (and it's legal to do so)". "Promotes free standards so that computers inter-operate better (and make it easier for you swap hardware platform)". "Easier to fit on whatever hardware you've got". "No forced upgrades to the latest and shiniest that you don't really need". Are these reasons not good enough?
To Stallman I'd say: for each and every Jane or Joe that picks FOSS for these reasons, just be happy with the 'freedom' side-effect that comes with it (for them). Those who know what to look for, already appreciate your contribution. I know I do (free beer available if you ever travel to a place near me!).
Not to its full potential, though...
Why wouldn't you put a different CPU in an UMPC? Sure, an Atom CPU is low-power, but it's also held back by the x86 architecture. Drop that, and you lose binary compatibility (a small loss for this application) in exchange for even better battery life. An UMPC based on ARM, Mips or low-power PPC core could be even more awesome than one based on Atom.
I can understand that people want x86 compatibility, even for a small UMPC running Linux. But with this market exploding, I'm sure there is (or will be) room for a niche market of non-x86 UMPC's. Let's hope some manufacturer steps in there.
Ditch that local copy and what happens? Some users will stop downloading these things. But many users would just find another way. For example: other provider's usenet servers, sites elsewhere on the web, P2P programs, etc. I reckon most of these forms would mean traffic from users to random places on the internet, read: much more expensive/troublesome for the ISP than if traffic came from their own servers.
Personally, I would vote with my feet ASAP if my ISP stopped passing on data for anything other than technical or legal reasons.
I have have totally lost my respect for the US as a nation since this 'war on terror' crap started. The US would have more success fighting terrorists if they'd just pull out of Iraq ASAP, free those guys from Guantanamo Bay immediately (or give them a fair trial *now*), and pay proper compensation to anyone wrongfully accused or imprisoned. The US won't regain any respect from me until they do that, and acknowledge that the rule of law applies to *everyone*, criminals, terrorists, presidents and emperors included. Fixing these things would stop more terrorists in their tracks than years of military success in Iraq (if there were any).
After all, you and I know that most of those in Guantanamo Bay were grabbed in their home country, meaning either they were fighting foreign soldiers on their home soil (or helping with that), or (even worse) they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Terrorists my ass - the US invaded Iraq, remember? Or has it been too long?
I wonder if anyone in Guantanamo Bay will ever get proper compensation, excuses or things like that. Has this happened already for at least 1 person?
Ofcourse if you pay through PayPal, PayPal will also take a fee, this time depending on the total amount (item price + shipping).
With eBay & PayPal being 2 hands on one belly, making PayPal compulsory is something I read as an attempt to double the standard eBay fees, and grab a bit of the shipping costs as well.
Not that I care much. Read carefully what you sign up for if you sell items through eBay. Read even better what you sign up for when you open a PayPal account. Use both for what they're good for, not for everything. PayPal is just a payment option. I'd quickly drop eBay if that was not the case.
But not low level code like Xorg. These kind of projects should focus on stability and reliability, in other words, make sure that whatever they release, is working and well tested. If that means a new feature (or bugfix?) needs more time for testing, I'm all for taking that time.
Because such core projects are used as the basis for many others, it also means that any shortcoming in it may hang around for a long time in projects that use it. The usual approach seems to be "let core projects move quickly, and have downstream projects apply their own fixes". I think that's a bad approach. Quality-wise, the lower-level you get, the more stable/reliable (boring if you will) code should be. New features & fixes should be added downstream, and then slowly make their way back upstream, similar to how changes for Debian testing make their way back to Debian stable.
These 2 versions compete, and a copy protection has influence on how attractive each version is. Make it too cumbersome, and the illegal (free) version becomes more attractive. Make it weak, and it becomes extremely easy to create an illegal copy from an original. Make the original too expensive, and you make the illegal version more attractive.
For a small numbers product I can understand a cumbersome copy protection scheme. But why for a mass market product? If your product is good enough, then your potential market is everyone that is interested, and has the hardware to run it. If you price it ridiculously cheap, say production cost + $1 for a plain CD/DVD in jewel case, then who will bother to search on P2P network, download a full ISO (or multiple ISO's), and burn the whole thing (on discs that are cheap, but not free either)? Nobody. Time is precious, so people are willing to spend money to save time.
So the solution for software makers is easy: if the potential market for your product is big (in terms of number of customers), then:
- Provide your product in any form that customers desire: downloads via fast servers/BT, plain physical media, collectors boxes / limited editions that include extra goodies.
- Make your product easy to obtain. Read: get a copy through a 5-minute effort without leaving your home.
- Payment through any means you can think of, delivery as download via fast servers/BT, or physical media at near production-cost.
- Forget about copy-protection, since they reduce the value of your product, make the illegal version more attractive, and... increase your development costs (slightly perhaps, but still)
No matter how high the development costs, you will recoup those if enough people give you $1 a pop. Size your development budget according to an estimate of how sensational/desirable your product will be.In general you can find answers on the weirdest subjects, and in most cases what you find reflects reality, especially if you compare unrelated sources. But the internet is no more reliable than traditional mass media, it is wrong sometimes. Don't tell me you haven't ever read stuff on the internet that (from personal experience) you *know* to be incorrect. I know I have.
Personally, I prefer the internet to provide material, 'leads' if you will, but then do fact-finding by combining that info with your own knowledge and real-world experience. The internet may tell you if something is likely true, but before claiming to others it is, you should determine the facts yourself. The internet can help you with that, but does NOT hold all the answers.
Well, as long as it's your wife, and not your girlfriend, that may be worth considering for some users.
Anyway it's a wonderful story. So when is the movie due?
Me thinks you're talking about some machine with a Geode *in it* (maybe powersupply burnout), or perhaps a laptop battery catching fire?
Basically, you can buy a certain 'class of performance' to run a certain 'class of applications'. You can get it fast, cheap or small. Pick 2 of those. My current machine qualifies as 'fast enough, cheap', my next build will probably be 'how much gaming performance can I cram into a breadbox?'.
So yes you can say "it won't run the latest games". But along the same lines you can say "yes but it doesn't have 8 cores, 16 GB RAM and 10 TB diskspace. Do you really need that? Ofcourse not, you just pick what you can afford, and best fits your needs.
I'm counting a subject line and exactly 9 full sentences below that.
Ah well, not that it matters if you don't read it anyway, and comments will surely be more interesting than the story (as usual).
Oh wait, that's been done. It's called porting to a different, more elegant and/or power efficient architecture (like ARM, Mips or other). What you need for that is source code for the software. If you have source code for all the software you need, nothing keeps you from moving to a better CPU architecture. If you don't (like with closed-source apps on Windows), then you can't.
If manufacturers of those mini-PC's like the Asus EeePC can take a hint, they'd do the smart thing and move the Linux-based versions onto a more power-efficient architecture. You'd lose the binary compatibility, but that would be a small loss if you're running Linux and not do serious PC gaming anyway. In return you could have vastly improved battery life for the Linux-based versions.
A good comparison is reproducing an OS in a Linux-From-Scratch style (using only source code, disk space and CPU cycles). *THE* thing you need is a C compiler. But to run that, you need a kernel, and a C library below. Then you need shell scripts to automate it, thus a shell. Most sources include makefiles, therefore you need 'make'. And bigger components use all sorts of preprocessing utilities like awk, lex, sed, grep, and so on. All these programs use a variety of standard utilities for copying/removing files, creating directories, etc. So before you get 'full circle', you need a pretty big set of things to reproduce what you start with (think of a compressed Gentoo stage 1).
Maybe this would be a good idea for an X-Prize kind of challenge: create a factory that makes *any commodity of choice*, and keeps itself working indefinitely using just the raw materials, and energy. That is, repairs/rebuilds machines if they break, does maintenance, etc. Say that the only role of humans would be to hit the 'on' switch, stock up supplies/energy, and to keep roof & walls of the building in place. I suspect that even for the simplest kind of product, the minimum size for such a factory would be *huge* if you include stuff like electronics (create new IC's from raw silicium to replace failed ones).
Perhaps all the required technology to do this already exists, but we're still a long way from putting all those parts together.
My guess: like so many custom/business apps, something gets developed, and once it works, all effort is done to change the existing software environment as little as possible. Or no effort at all, don't change anything unless it's absolutely necessary. Read: apply security updates to OS, and for the custom app: f**k maintenance, as long as it doesn't break badly, don't fix/update it.
Now perhaps this test software was written some years ago, at a time when IE alternatives weren't as 'visible' as they are now? And today, they have something working and would probably rather throw money at it to keep what they have, than spend (less?) money make a shift to new platform/application. It may not be smart use of tax Euros, but it's definitely easy to understand. A bit of lobbying by original vendor(s) removes any second thoughts.
But not that it matters, it's the mental capabilities that makes the difference. Suppose that primitive human from 10,000 years ago and yourself were pitted against each other. Let's say the battlefield would include the entire planet, each contestant could pick a random place to start (undisclosed to the other), and the reward would be substantial... say, live out the rest of your live in permanent wealth.
So yes that caveman would beat your head in when he'd get his hands on you, but would you let him? Ofcourse not. The cavemen would be finished before he saw you coming. You'd find him quicker than he'd find you. You'd find those 'advanced weapons' and bring them with you, before the cavemen would know what those weapons are, or how to use them. Starting out on an empty planet would shift the odds in the caveman's direction, but the modern human would probably still win. Why do you think primitive humans are extinct now, even though they where perfectly capable of surviving harsh environments? Because modern humans outsmarted them.
For the same reason, any superhuman intelligent being could kick normal human asses, in one way or another.
If you're a company and ignore a significant percentage of potential customers, that will cost you. Few companies can afford to lose out on those customers, when the competition is happy to serve them. Darwinian selection will do the rest, and (after time) leave only companies where you can use any reasonable popular browser to do business with. Ofcourse for government institutions, or companies in some sort of monopoly position (like the only provider of goods/services in a specific market) these rules may work different, but that's the general idea.