Let t1 = time required to make first version of the app.
Let t2 = time required to make some refinements of version of app.
You seem to be saying that the OP should only be paid for t2, not t1. And frankly, what if the author showed some creativity in creating that first version, i.e., conceptual stuff that may not itself have required programming time, but serious thinking time, bookwork, mathematics, a Ph.D., etc. None of this has value?
The answer is simple. USE your new hammer to build things instead of calling a halt to your problem solving career and trying to open a hammer store. Are not these "things" to be built with this hammer themselves potentially hammers for still other things? Re-applying your argument, potential-hammers shouldn't generate revenue either (or at least their potential hammerness should not generate revenue). So it's primarily the things one makes that aren't themselves useful (by having a hammerness property) that generate revunue, i.e., one should be paid to create useless things!
Gotta admit that's a pretty fair assessment of the appeal of most consumer goods.
Hey, it's not like I'm asking you for personalized support to help me get an obscure piece of hardware running on my own workstation. You made a controversial claim, esp. since it directly contradicts the OP, so the burden is on you to back it up. (I know it seems unfair, but it's a rule that has pinched me too. Science works that way too....)
Just the same, thanks for the w3schools ref.; it didn't come up in the first page of a google search for "mac linux market share".
Make no mistake what I want is radical, it's flushing the idea of equality away and letting merit stand on it's own. To the winners the spoils. So those already born with blessings deserve more? Sounds a lot like how the aristocracy enjoyed extra benefits due to their birth. Were there no revolutions to purge such unfairness?
The "radeon" X driver supports DRI for the 9200 Radeon. For a long time, that was the best 3d card with a working free software 3d driver. I think ATI no longer supports that card for their proprietary driver, which is more evidence of the peril of proprietary software.
Macs are more expensive on the low end, but suprisingly cheaper on the high end. I recently saved $800 buying an 8-core Mac Pro instead of a similar spec'd Dell. Indeed, the Dell didn't have 3GHz chips, nor could I buy them separately to make the PC myself (which I confess I didn't want to do for the consulting gig the machine's for). It runs Ubuntu Feisty quite nicely; I don't even have OS X on it!
I think the even bigger question is why run Mac apps at all. Sure, there are some proprietary apps that are really convenient, but if you take a real hard look at functionality, some kind of free software workflow usually suffices, and over my 14 years with GNU/Linux, the sacrifices have diminished into pettiness. If you must, run Windows apps under wine, or install a bare-bones XP under vmware but use it rarely. You can even install OS X under vmware, apparently.
Except that nobody is forcing you to drive a car, so you can therefore choose not to pay for car liability insurance. (You only need to insure yourself against damages to others. I regularly do not pay for the extra collision insurance for damage to my car due to my own incompetence.) Massachusetts' health ins. law forces you to buy insurance because you exist; therefore it's my parents who ought to pay for their hanky-panky. Somehow I can't believe this law is constitutional. This law basically blames the victim.
If you live in North America, you're benefiting from the booty of the crimes of the whites who persecuted the natives. Yes, even if you or your family immigrated afterward. For example, you benefit from the European private property rights notion that is enforced by a government whose existence depends on the natives having been crushed. Oh yeah, the land you live on may simply have been stolen from natives. Even if there was a treaty, it was likely written under conditions highly unfavourable to the natives, due to, say, the fact that they'd probably never seen a contract before, unlike Europeans.
But at $299 I don't think we can expect a tuner, given that USB HDTV tuners are $150+ and PCI HDTV tuners are around $100. And given the limitation to 720p, making it a full-bore Tivo won't work (my guess is that downconverting 1080i to 720p is at least as hard as playing 1080i). Then again, maybe Apple didn't want have a fight (because of Tivo-style commercial skip) with media companies it's trying to coax onto iTunes.
I know it's only got a 40gig drive, but it seems pretty decked out with interfaces; with a USB HDTV tuner and a bigger drive it would be a pretty good mythtv box.
...we hacked off the fingers of our enemies the Cro Magnon and painted in red with them on cave walls to show off our victories: truly DIGITal art! MacPaint was only black and white!
Even if you only want the result of a calculation to single precision (with an error of around 3 parts in a billion), you may *require* far more precision for intermediate results. For example, in solving linear systems of equations you may need double precision for the computation for single precision accuracy in the result (basically the result will be stored in 64-bits, but only 32-bits worth are reliable... the rest is noise). This occurs when the matrix associated with the linear system has a large "condition number", a measure of the instability of error sensitivity. You can require arbitrary amounts of intermediate precion (1024 bits per number!) depending on how big the condition number is.
I'm certainly not trying to expose weaker minorities, and I believe current hate speech laws do not affect them. I believe hate speech laws go too far, but shouldn't be eliminated entirely: the "punishment" should be the loss of anonymity, and, again, only if there's hate speech, and the set of what's hate speech should be very small, but nonzero. I think there's a worthwhile debate to be had on what exactly should be considered hateful. And if anything it should start on a more limited basis, e.g., toward minors.
Are you honestly suggesting that you should be allowed to practice free speech anonymously?
I think you mean "not allowed".
Basically, there is a tension between free speech and it's consequences. In the US, you can largely talk without consequences, but in Europe and Canada, there are hate speech laws that I'm largely trying to address: I think the hate speech laws go to far, by trying to stop hate speech by decree. I'm suggesting that instead of imprisoning those expressing hate speech, do not let them speak hate anonymously. The standard for hate speech has to be bloody high, and cannot be invoked at whim. I don't think Common Sense would be considered hate speech, but merely speech against the government. Now I know everyone will scream "Slippery slope!" and worry that the definition of hate can be manipulated, to which I reply that there are other places in law, like search warrants, that have limitations to when they can be applied. I think people believe that search warrants are a necessary evil for maintaining law and order, and yet the criteria for getting a warrant can change with political climite. I don't like what the Patriot Act in the US has done, but is the reasonable response that all government investigation be banned? Some wise person said that democracy requires constant vigilance. Just because we all should keep an eye on the definition of hate doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge that hate expression matters and destroys society.
Huh? Maybe you're just trolling, but I'll try anyway. I'm in fact not trying to stop you from saying anything, but if it hurts, you shouldn't be anonymous. Yes, you can call me an idiot in the subway, but then everyone there sees you do it, as do I. If you do that a lot, people get to know what kind of guy you are, and will ignore you. That's my point: the payback for being a verbal dinkus is that no one will take you seriously.
About the 16-year-old: that's physical, and currently illegal.
About big brother protecting us from mean people: I'm not saying big brother should stop people from freely speaking garbage to unconsenting minors, etc., but that big brother shouldn't protect your anonymity you if you choose to do it. Basically, there are a lot of people that have suffered systematically from speech acts, like say, women and visible minorities, and for millenia.
It strikes me that what I was trying to get at in the parent was that mutually consenting adults should be able to say whatever they want about each other, to each other. But when talking to others, or about others, there should be no protections afforded unless you're willing to reveal your idendity so that you have to take your reputation into account: what goes around comes around.
While I'm pretty sympathetic to electronic free speech, only the most ardent advocates would deny that statements can cause real damage unless all parties are into the online trolling game. That's why I think it's reasonable to give people freedom to say what they want, but they have to stand behind what they say: with their real name! Basically, the veil of anonymity should only last as long as someone isn't offended enough (by standards similar to what one would need for a search warrant) to want to know who's doing the talking. This could apply to racist statements and hate speech against women and gays: no lobbing mortars from a safe distance, ya gotta do it in the public eye! I think this is a pretty fair compromise between the brutal damage "speech acts" (and other verbal abuse that many in history have suffered) and free speech.
Huh? So being lied to is an accepted part of the free market? What about perfect information, and the infinitessimal size of every producer/consumer to ensure perfect/fair competition?
Here, here! I nearly lost my lunch at the suggestion that taking lower wages for longer hours and with a public ridicule "grape" system is somehow more efficient? For whom? Your therapist?
No doubt you all have struggled with what laptop hardware will work well with free OSs, and you've had to resort to extensive manual websearching and reading of individual reports. But frankly manual problem reporting is a chore, and it begs to be automated. Basically what's needed is a small app that probes your hardware (lspci,dmesg mining, etc.), and sends it to a server. The very fact that the hardware is listed is an (imperfect) measure of how good the drivers are; but we could also poll the user with one or two opinions as well, depending on what drivers don't have a lot of data. The incentive for you is that you get to look at the online hardware database if you're willing to "contribute" in this way. And the contribution is only required if you're running GNU/Linux or another free OS; if you're running Windows or OS X no contribution is required (since we want to encourage you to switch). I think people would be happy to allow the probing to occur, and wouldn't treat it like spyware, if only because the source code of the probing app would be free and you could check if you were being invaded.
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Linux is a fantastic OS but many of the applications that run on it are just not mature enough to be used by laymen.
Maybe some laymen are just not mature enough to use applications?
Let t1 = time required to make first version of the app. Let t2 = time required to make some refinements of version of app. You seem to be saying that the OP should only be paid for t2, not t1. And frankly, what if the author showed some creativity in creating that first version, i.e., conceptual stuff that may not itself have required programming time, but serious thinking time, bookwork, mathematics, a Ph.D., etc. None of this has value?
Gotta admit that's a pretty fair assessment of the appeal of most consumer goods.
Hey, it's not like I'm asking you for personalized support to help me get an obscure piece of hardware running on my own workstation. You made a controversial claim, esp. since it directly contradicts the OP, so the burden is on you to back it up. (I know it seems unfair, but it's a rule that has pinched me too. Science works that way too....) Just the same, thanks for the w3schools ref.; it didn't come up in the first page of a google search for "mac linux market share".
Could you point me to where I can find evidence to support this over/under-estimation?
Obsolete? I guess you must mean Apple selling proprietary/closed stuff is obsolete then too, no? Last spasms of a failed regime?
The "radeon" X driver supports DRI for the 9200 Radeon. For a long time, that was the best 3d card with a working free software 3d driver. I think ATI no longer supports that card for their proprietary driver, which is more evidence of the peril of proprietary software.
Macs are more expensive on the low end, but suprisingly cheaper on the high end. I recently saved $800 buying an 8-core Mac Pro instead of a similar spec'd Dell. Indeed, the Dell didn't have 3GHz chips, nor could I buy them separately to make the PC myself (which I confess I didn't want to do for the consulting gig the machine's for). It runs Ubuntu Feisty quite nicely; I don't even have OS X on it!
I think the even bigger question is why run Mac apps at all. Sure, there are some proprietary apps that are really convenient, but if you take a real hard look at functionality, some kind of free software workflow usually suffices, and over my 14 years with GNU/Linux, the sacrifices have diminished into pettiness. If you must, run Windows apps under wine, or install a bare-bones XP under vmware but use it rarely. You can even install OS X under vmware, apparently.
Except that nobody is forcing you to drive a car, so you can therefore choose not to pay for car liability insurance. (You only need to insure yourself against damages to others. I regularly do not pay for the extra collision insurance for damage to my car due to my own incompetence.) Massachusetts' health ins. law forces you to buy insurance because you exist; therefore it's my parents who ought to pay for their hanky-panky. Somehow I can't believe this law is constitutional. This law basically blames the victim.
If you live in North America, you're benefiting from the booty of the crimes of the whites who persecuted the natives. Yes, even if you or your family immigrated afterward. For example, you benefit from the European private property rights notion that is enforced by a government whose existence depends on the natives having been crushed. Oh yeah, the land you live on may simply have been stolen from natives. Even if there was a treaty, it was likely written under conditions highly unfavourable to the natives, due to, say, the fact that they'd probably never seen a contract before, unlike Europeans.
But at $299 I don't think we can expect a tuner, given that USB HDTV tuners are $150+ and PCI HDTV tuners are around $100. And given the limitation to 720p, making it a full-bore Tivo won't work (my guess is that downconverting 1080i to 720p is at least as hard as playing 1080i). Then again, maybe Apple didn't want have a fight (because of Tivo-style commercial skip) with media companies it's trying to coax onto iTunes.
I know it's only got a 40gig drive, but it seems pretty decked out with interfaces; with a USB HDTV tuner and a bigger drive it would be a pretty good mythtv box.
...we hacked off the fingers of our enemies the Cro Magnon and painted in red with them on cave walls to show off our victories: truly DIGITal art! MacPaint was only black and white!
Even if you only want the result of a calculation to single precision (with an error of around 3 parts in a billion), you may *require* far more precision for intermediate results. For example, in solving linear systems of equations you may need double precision for the computation for single precision accuracy in the result (basically the result will be stored in 64-bits, but only 32-bits worth are reliable... the rest is noise). This occurs when the matrix associated with the linear system has a large "condition number", a measure of the instability of error sensitivity. You can require arbitrary amounts of intermediate precion (1024 bits per number!) depending on how big the condition number is.
I'm certainly not trying to expose weaker minorities, and I believe current hate speech laws do not affect them. I believe hate speech laws go too far, but shouldn't be eliminated entirely: the "punishment" should be the loss of anonymity, and, again, only if there's hate speech, and the set of what's hate speech should be very small, but nonzero. I think there's a worthwhile debate to be had on what exactly should be considered hateful. And if anything it should start on a more limited basis, e.g., toward minors.
Oops, I read "hitting", not "hitting on", my bad. So sure you can continue to get rejected by 16-year-olds.
Huh? Maybe you're just trolling, but I'll try anyway. I'm in fact not trying to stop you from saying anything, but if it hurts, you shouldn't be anonymous. Yes, you can call me an idiot in the subway, but then everyone there sees you do it, as do I. If you do that a lot, people get to know what kind of guy you are, and will ignore you. That's my point: the payback for being a verbal dinkus is that no one will take you seriously. About the 16-year-old: that's physical, and currently illegal. About big brother protecting us from mean people: I'm not saying big brother should stop people from freely speaking garbage to unconsenting minors, etc., but that big brother shouldn't protect your anonymity you if you choose to do it. Basically, there are a lot of people that have suffered systematically from speech acts, like say, women and visible minorities, and for millenia.
It strikes me that what I was trying to get at in the parent was that mutually consenting adults should be able to say whatever they want about each other, to each other. But when talking to others, or about others, there should be no protections afforded unless you're willing to reveal your idendity so that you have to take your reputation into account: what goes around comes around.
While I'm pretty sympathetic to electronic free speech, only the most ardent advocates would deny that statements can cause real damage unless all parties are into the online trolling game. That's why I think it's reasonable to give people freedom to say what they want, but they have to stand behind what they say: with their real name! Basically, the veil of anonymity should only last as long as someone isn't offended enough (by standards similar to what one would need for a search warrant) to want to know who's doing the talking. This could apply to racist statements and hate speech against women and gays: no lobbing mortars from a safe distance, ya gotta do it in the public eye! I think this is a pretty fair compromise between the brutal damage "speech acts" (and other verbal abuse that many in history have suffered) and free speech.
Huh? So being lied to is an accepted part of the free market? What about perfect information, and the infinitessimal size of every producer/consumer to ensure perfect/fair competition?
Here, here! I nearly lost my lunch at the suggestion that taking lower wages for longer hours and with a public ridicule "grape" system is somehow more efficient? For whom? Your therapist?
No doubt you all have struggled with what laptop hardware will work well with free OSs, and you've had to resort to extensive manual websearching and reading of individual reports. But frankly manual problem reporting is a chore, and it begs to be automated. Basically what's needed is a small app that probes your hardware (lspci,dmesg mining, etc.), and sends it to a server. The very fact that the hardware is listed is an (imperfect) measure of how good the drivers are; but we could also poll the user with one or two opinions as well, depending on what drivers don't have a lot of data. The incentive for you is that you get to look at the online hardware database if you're willing to "contribute" in this way. And the contribution is only required if you're running GNU/Linux or another free OS; if you're running Windows or OS X no contribution is required (since we want to encourage you to switch). I think people would be happy to allow the probing to occur, and wouldn't treat it like spyware, if only because the source code of the probing app would be free and you could check if you were being invaded.