Don't be so harsh, dude. The parent's questions are basically reasonable, although the tone is too hostile for a real interviewer as you point out. The news.com Daryl interview is basically a fluff piece and certainly could've been a zillion times more incisive without being hostile.
First, don't know what OP meant by shredding and pulpifying docs, but that sounds a step overboard. The joke about outrunning the slowest target is on par here... unless you're rich, don't sweat things THAT much.
A decent crosscut shredder is now $30 at Target, and yes you do want to sweat things that much, especially in urban areas. Otherwise, any dumpster-diving moron can get ahold of your vital financial information.
Got good credit? Do you get those credit card offers in the mail? Or does your dipshit credit card company send you 'free' checks to use to pay off other balances? You may be fucked if you're just throwing them out unopened and unmolested.
Get a crosscut shredder. Shred everything customized with your name, SSN or credit card numbers before throwing it out. This is really important. The US post office usually does a decent job of protecting mail en route (usually...), but once it's in your hands it's your responsibility.
This is offtopic, but I was under the impression that Commodore was run into the ground because of incredible incompetence, not fraud and extortion (even if the Commodore execs weren't nice people to do business with). Same for Atari, for that matter...
This being Slashdot, people will say that the reason Microsoft is so big is because of its monopoly position, but that is a (rather silly) chicken and egg argument. They'd have no monopoly if they weren't big to begin with -- they certainly weren't a government granted monopoly like AT&T once was.
ObReactionaryAntiSlashDotCrowd, huh? How did this get modded 'Informative' instead of 'Funny'? Where do you think monopolies come from? Microsoft began as two college students writing a BASIC interpreter in 8800 assembly language.
Further, Microsoft had their monopoly position handed to them on a platter by IBM. Almost everyone bought the IBM PC because it was from IBM. The default OS for the PC was Microsoft DOS. Until IBM came calling, Microsoft was basically a small but growing development tool vendor.
It strikes me that, for any operating system capable of interacting with a network, security should be addressed as a top-level goal. I don't see it even mentioned on the web site.
Another good example to study is Subversion, which is revisionining/versioning metadata-management layer on a top of a regular FS.
Huh? Subversion stores data in a database -- currently Berkeley DB 4. Although you could theoretically write a filesystem backend, (1) you'd probably lose a lot of performance and disk space and (2) it's not quite mature enough yet to handle multiple backends.
Bullshit. Speed always matters, unless all you want to do is run MSDOS 2.0 for the rest of your life. ("Wow, did you see that directory scroll by? Neither did I! This is some awesome 386 power, man!") Some of us want computers to advance, and you need speed to provide a foundation for real advancement.
(Actually, Apple makes the case that you also need a GPU, but that's a different argument.)
As I recall, though, Hear Music charges a premium, even above that normally charged by brick-and-mortar CD chains (Sam Goody possibly excepted). You're generally better off buying from Amazon or CD Universe, if price is your #1 objective.
Or so I recall from the Bay Area. Maybe in other areas pricing is better.
No, Optical audio means TOSLink (essentially audio transferred by light over short lengths of fiber). There's nothing "optical" about audio transferred over FireWire.
A dedicated "mLAN port" makes no sense. It's a FireWire port, why confuse the issue? Just put a third FireWire port on and be done with it.
Yamaha's mLAN is currently only a specification for connection management; FireWire audio specs are covered by various standards organizations (though many were originally developed at Yamaha as part of mLAN). MIDI is covered in the FireWire audio specs as well.
Wow. I can see using Cocoa to write an excellent GUI front-end to Portage. If Portage on OS X works just like it does on Linux, that could mean an easy port to GNUstep. Extrapolate (fantasize) a bit, and you can see a possible way out of the KDE and GNOME wars, and into Objective-C nirvana.
I would believe just the opposite, actually. If you're happy, and you believe in Christ/Satan/the Pope/Shrub/nobody, why change religions/lifestyles? No, it's the unhappy, the seekers, who convert to Buddhism. To paraphrase Shaw, "All progress depends on the unhappy man."
The Trill is far more advanced than the Roomba -- it uses ultrasound to detect the layout of the room. The Roomba keeps moving until it hits something. That would probably explain the price disparity.
You're comparing apples to oranges. "twm &; xterm" nets you an ugly xterm window. Welcome to 1983. What the hell use is that? Compare with Win98's myraid of applications, all of which run at relatively blinding speeds and in full graphical splendour...
Seriously, I'm not trolling here. What you seem to be saying is that X is inherently slow because it scales poorly. Or are you blaming GNOME and KDE for the slowness?
I think they really need to get on with it and fork, already.
It's not nice to post only a portion of a trial transcript -- especially if it's a portion that supports your position. Safe to assume FredHager.com (the apparent poster of this information) has a large stake in Rambus?
JT had a rep for being a real bastard, alienating suppliers and distributors alike with his demands. Several usually reliable sources claim that he was ultimately forced out by his investors. His replacements drove the company into the ground, of course.
X's problem isn't backwards compatibility. It's that the original X API was crap, and it seems that now XFree86 is treating backwards compatibility as the only goal worth pursuing.
Let's be a little more clear for those of you who've never used Amigas (or classic Mac OS, which also has nice versioned shared libraries):Backward compatibility implies designing APIs to be easily extended without requiring massive breakage.
Of course, there is no moral absolute. Backwards compatibility requires a lot of discipline on the part of the shared library implementor, it isn't always possible, and sometimes you have to move forward. What Simon is mainly saying (and I agree) with is that it's a damn sight better than the chaos that plagues Windows, trad Unix, and Linux systems.
Actually, it was a painful transition. Horrible hacks were required to make it work, and Apple lost considerable market share.
Well, no. Interestingly, you are technically correct on a couple of complex points, but you seem clueless on others. Perhaps your memory has faded. Think C 5's code generator was far better than MPW (Apple's) C or Symantec C++, but Metrowerks C was ultimately much, much better. MPW C tended to frequently do shit like (actual example from disassembling the 7.1-era Finder, IIRC):
mov.l a0, a5
mov.l a5, a0
Note lack of peepholing.
What you call "cooperative multiprogramming" is actually called "interrupt time." All documentation of which I'm aware refers to it as "interrupt time." No euphemism required.
Jobs had been fired for over seven years when John Sculley cut the PowerPC CPU deal, and It had nothing to do with PowerMac clones.
Most of these problems were papered over using the Jobs Reality Distortion Field. But this was the period when Apple started losing market share big-time. Arguably, the PPC transition cost Apple its preeminence.
No, dude. I was there. Apple never had "preeminence" or much market share. Apple was always struggling under the "Apple is dying" myth (and still does in some quarters today). In the mid-nineties, Apple had a series of crises caused by Sculley and his successor's ineptitude. Worse, Apple stopped playing to it's traditional strengths (industrial design and hardware/software) under Spindler, a problem that, combined with vigorous and useless penny-pinching in all the wrong places -- Apple's hardware & software quality hit the lowest point they'd ever reach at the end of Spindler's reign -- ultimately led to the ouster of Spindler. Amelio failed to recognize this (or much of anything else about Apple), which ultimately led him to buy his own doom in NeXT and the return of Jobs.
I think you meant to say "Python and Ruby." I suspect that the Handbook's editors could write a whole chapter on the line noise generator that is Perl. Yeah, I know, CPAN rocks and we don't need a decent syntax...
On a more on-topic note, I haven't seen anyone mention the excellent chapter on NFS. That one alone is worth the download. The latest incarnation of NFS (v4) finally fixes all of the major problems with NFS, but it'll be years before it's widely available...
The full story is that the original three PowerMacs were codenamed PiltDownMan, CarlSagan, and ColdFusion.
There was speculation that the reason Sagan was really upset was being lumped in seriatim with prominent scientific frauds.
Apple changed CarlSagan to BHA, for ButtHeadAstronomer, and then -- when BHA didn't fly -- LAW, for LawyersAreWimps...
NeXT already tried going the x86 software route with OpenStep, and it got them nowhere. I don't think Steve Jobs is likely to make that mistake again. Whatever else you say about him, he does learn from experience.
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Don't be so harsh, dude. The parent's questions are basically reasonable, although the tone is too hostile for a real interviewer as you point out. The news.com Daryl interview is basically a fluff piece and certainly could've been a zillion times more incisive without being hostile.
A decent crosscut shredder is now $30 at Target, and yes you do want to sweat things that much, especially in urban areas. Otherwise, any dumpster-diving moron can get ahold of your vital financial information.
Got good credit? Do you get those credit card offers in the mail? Or does your dipshit credit card company send you 'free' checks to use to pay off other balances? You may be fucked if you're just throwing them out unopened and unmolested.
Get a crosscut shredder. Shred everything customized with your name, SSN or credit card numbers before throwing it out. This is really important. The US post office usually does a decent job of protecting mail en route (usually...), but once it's in your hands it's your responsibility.
This is offtopic, but I was under the impression that Commodore was run into the ground because of incredible incompetence, not fraud and extortion (even if the Commodore execs weren't nice people to do business with). Same for Atari, for that matter...
ObReactionaryAntiSlashDotCrowd, huh? How did this get modded 'Informative' instead of 'Funny'? Where do you think monopolies come from? Microsoft began as two college students writing a BASIC interpreter in 8800 assembly language.
Further, Microsoft had their monopoly position handed to them on a platter by IBM. Almost everyone bought the IBM PC because it was from IBM. The default OS for the PC was Microsoft DOS. Until IBM came calling, Microsoft was basically a small but growing development tool vendor.
Please. Sendmail has been providing remote root since 1983 and continues to do so. Just using Google should be enough to scare you away from it.
If so, they deserve to be fired. Boredom is not an excuse for violating patient privacy.
Do you actually have a DVD player, or are you extrapolating from your experience with digital cable?
- Not Theo, but not Bill either
Huh? Subversion stores data in a database -- currently Berkeley DB 4. Although you could theoretically write a filesystem backend, (1) you'd probably lose a lot of performance and disk space and (2) it's not quite mature enough yet to handle multiple backends.
(Actually, Apple makes the case that you also need a GPU, but that's a different argument.)
That's not a "design mistake", it's just a major feature that hasn't been added yet. This will be remedied in a future version of Ruby.
A "design mistake" would be something error-prone and impossible to fix, like Python using indentation as part of the syntax.
Or so I recall from the Bay Area. Maybe in other areas pricing is better.
A dedicated "mLAN port" makes no sense. It's a FireWire port, why confuse the issue? Just put a third FireWire port on and be done with it.
Yamaha's mLAN is currently only a specification for connection management; FireWire audio specs are covered by various standards organizations (though many were originally developed at Yamaha as part of mLAN). MIDI is covered in the FireWire audio specs as well.
No, what they did was license the name "FireWire" for free. They did not release the FireWire trademark into the public domain. Big difference.
Wow. I can see using Cocoa to write an excellent GUI front-end to Portage. If Portage on OS X works just like it does on Linux, that could mean an easy port to GNUstep. Extrapolate (fantasize) a bit, and you can see a possible way out of the KDE and GNOME wars, and into Objective-C nirvana.
I would believe just the opposite, actually. If you're happy, and you believe in Christ/Satan/the Pope/Shrub/nobody, why change religions/lifestyles? No, it's the unhappy, the seekers, who convert to Buddhism. To paraphrase Shaw, "All progress depends on the unhappy man."
The Trill is far more advanced than the Roomba -- it uses ultrasound to detect the layout of the room. The Roomba keeps moving until it hits something. That would probably explain the price disparity.
Seriously, I'm not trolling here. What you seem to be saying is that X is inherently slow because it scales poorly. Or are you blaming GNOME and KDE for the slowness?
I think they really need to get on with it and fork, already.
It's not nice to post only a portion of a trial transcript -- especially if it's a portion that supports your position. Safe to assume FredHager.com (the apparent poster of this information) has a large stake in Rambus?
JT had a rep for being a real bastard, alienating suppliers and distributors alike with his demands. Several usually reliable sources claim that he was ultimately forced out by his investors. His replacements drove the company into the ground, of course.
Let's be a little more clear for those of you who've never used Amigas (or classic Mac OS, which also has nice versioned shared libraries):Backward compatibility implies designing APIs to be easily extended without requiring massive breakage.
Of course, there is no moral absolute. Backwards compatibility requires a lot of discipline on the part of the shared library implementor, it isn't always possible, and sometimes you have to move forward. What Simon is mainly saying (and I agree) with is that it's a damn sight better than the chaos that plagues Windows, trad Unix, and Linux systems.
Well, no. Interestingly, you are technically correct on a couple of complex points, but you seem clueless on others. Perhaps your memory has faded. Think C 5's code generator was far better than MPW (Apple's) C or Symantec C++, but Metrowerks C was ultimately much, much better. MPW C tended to frequently do shit like (actual example from disassembling the 7.1-era Finder, IIRC):
mov.l a0, a5
mov.l a5, a0
Note lack of peepholing.
What you call "cooperative multiprogramming" is actually called "interrupt time." All documentation of which I'm aware refers to it as "interrupt time." No euphemism required.
Jobs had been fired for over seven years when John Sculley cut the PowerPC CPU deal, and It had nothing to do with PowerMac clones.
Most of these problems were papered over using the Jobs Reality Distortion Field. But this was the period when Apple started losing market share big-time. Arguably, the PPC transition cost Apple its preeminence.
No, dude. I was there. Apple never had "preeminence" or much market share. Apple was always struggling under the "Apple is dying" myth (and still does in some quarters today). In the mid-nineties, Apple had a series of crises caused by Sculley and his successor's ineptitude. Worse, Apple stopped playing to it's traditional strengths (industrial design and hardware/software) under Spindler, a problem that, combined with vigorous and useless penny-pinching in all the wrong places -- Apple's hardware & software quality hit the lowest point they'd ever reach at the end of Spindler's reign -- ultimately led to the ouster of Spindler. Amelio failed to recognize this (or much of anything else about Apple), which ultimately led him to buy his own doom in NeXT and the return of Jobs.
On a more on-topic note, I haven't seen anyone mention the excellent chapter on NFS. That one alone is worth the download. The latest incarnation of NFS (v4) finally fixes all of the major problems with NFS, but it'll be years before it's widely available...
The full story is that the original three PowerMacs were codenamed PiltDownMan, CarlSagan, and ColdFusion. There was speculation that the reason Sagan was really upset was being lumped in seriatim with prominent scientific frauds. Apple changed CarlSagan to BHA, for ButtHeadAstronomer, and then -- when BHA didn't fly -- LAW, for LawyersAreWimps...
NeXT already tried going the x86 software route with OpenStep, and it got them nowhere. I don't think Steve Jobs is likely to make that mistake again. Whatever else you say about him, he does learn from experience.