Any here more interested in Dr. Hawking's thoughts on the possibility that neutrinos are faster than light ? Seems a bit more timely concern, though I do see his point about human survival.
While I want to think that we could be on the verge of some new physics discoveries...
18 or 19 years.
The time between Michelson-Morley and Annus Mirabilis 1905.
If, by "on the verge", you actually mean possibly 20 years away from a theory explaining this result once confirmed -- then you could be spot on right.
Quote From Daring Firewhatnot: "It’s almost hard to remember now, but just a few short years ago, Yahoo was the place for hot startups to find a home."
You mean Yahoo was the company with money to burn buying into hokey startups (exception for Delicious and a *few* others I'm sure).
I think there's a general misunderstanding about what's going on here. So let me try to clear it up (and hope I succeed). As an independent company, Sun was essentially a failing concern. Pure and simple. When Oracle purchased Sun, they purchased them for the assets that Sun happened to own (either through in-house R&D or through either shrewd or lucky acquisition - choose your poison). They did *not* purchase Sun for business strategy. I can guarantee you on that. Thus, there is a new business strategy in place with respect to capitalizing on Sun's assets.
So by this reasoning, the alienation of the OO, MySQL and Java communities is by no means a random occurrence. Oracle's new business strategy with respect to these products is what is alienating these communities. If you want to pretend that Oracle and Ellison are not behind this, either you're simply in denial, you're heavily invested in Oracle technologies, or Oracle writes your paycheque (again, choose your poison).
oh ya, to all those who saw no harm in the Sun acquisition....
Even if Apple stopped doing anything today, I think it's safe to say their products will be around and developers will be developing for them five years from now because there'd still be enough somebodies somewhere using an iPhone or iPad. If you're not convinced, just look to Palm;)
That's pretty amazing. Except that the letters a, e, and o are nearly indistinguishable. To prove it is the smallest legible font, one would have to show that a long enough sequence of just the letters a, e and o could be spelled back by a reader. aeoeoaoeoeoaoeoaoeeeoaaaoeoaoa. I doubt it.
Practically speaking, that would mean a word like onomatopeia would be hard to identify. Of course, the context in which a word shows up probably accounts for more than half of the reason a reader can identify that word so quickly in a sentence.
Guaranteed that most of the artists you listen to, including the few that you worship, would disagree with you on that statement. Unless you were born in the before the early 50s, there is very little of any music released in the past 40 yearsincluding electronic music, and heavy that wasn't influenced by them.
To illustrate... take Kraftwerk & Neu! who are the cornerstones of modern electronic, dance, etc., they were influenced by Beatles pop and lyrical style. As for heavy, listen to the Beatles' Helter Skelter.. it is considered proto-metal, their only song of the kind, very influential on metal, and it's still an insane listen today.
Oh, so now I've got to buy the White Album *again*?
Yes, but if there is one album worth buying again and again, that would be the White Album.
40 years later, it awakened the Holy See, which was never really a fan of the Beatles or John Lennon particularly (read the history yourself), to the Beatles' genius.
Google should invest R&D in rewriting and optimizing the Ruby interpreter and "adopt" it the way they did Java. It definitely has potential for application development on mobile platforms. Maybe optimized for the VM-environment à la JRuby. Apple already sees its potential on the desktop - hence, MacRuby. Yes, Ruby. The force is strong in that one.
Apple sees the writing on the wall: the mainframe era is back, with Linux as the server and iOS devices like iPhone/iPad as the client. Non-standard servers running UNIX variants other than Linux are irrelevant.
I guess Jobs forgot to forward that memo to his buddy Ellison;)
... Ballmer et al are wringing their hands nefariously
Ya, I'm sure they are. But too bad I see this as more a win for the true open source development and dare I say even Stallman et al. and his philosophy. Anyone with huge investments in Java should have had second thoughts when it became clear that Sun wasn't going to "donate" its control of the language, its libraries and its VM-licensing to a non-profit industry-run consortium which should have been setup as early as ten or even fifteen years ago.
This is not a win for MS at all for a simple reason: once bitten, twice shy.
Either Larry Ellison is smart beyond my imagination, or he's too stupid to understand that he's basically killing MySQL, OpenOffice and Java - arguably the three most valuable software assets he bought with Sun.
It's easily argued that these three most valuable assets acquired in the Sun purchase are, taken as a whole, not even worth a fraction of the existing and potential business of the product they've already had, Oracle. They couldn't give a shit about Java, MySQL or gawd OpenOffice. It's more likely he was thinking: "hmmm, how do I squash three great products at least one of which had terrifying potential???"
You're paying the ISP to transfer the data, Hulu is providing the content which is supported by the ads. If you're paying the ISP for data, and paying Hulu for the content, then having to watch the ads seem to be a pretty poor deal.
Yet no one seems to mind watching trailers (and now ads for new gadgets or deals at local businesses) before a movie at the theatre.
oh wait, on second thought... that's probably why attendance is down at the theatre (despite this new rage called 3D:p)
It's an oversimplification, but people do vote with their wallet.
I'm surprised Google killed Wave when they haven't killed many other long-standing projects they have going that are much less popular with users and, as a result, much less lucrative. I think it was a clash of heads between Rasmussen and the top over what his priorities should be. They probably wanted something that would be as instantly popular as Maps. Wave did have potential especially if they marketed it alongside Google Apps for Business, but it's definitely not going to drive the kind people who use Facebook to start switching in droves to using Wave instead -- that's a bit unrealistic. If that's what Lars was looking for, everyone's probably better off with him at Facebook.
For all Americans who think this will never happen to them, you should read this article from Reuters just this past Wednesday. Looks like the Canadian telecom industry is the role model our boys are looking to follow. But unlike what the article says, Canadians are not accepting this situation lying down. They are actively seeking out and subscribing to the new disruptive competition like Wind Mobile and Mobilicity.
I suspect some people (myself included) would happily pay a monthly $5 or $10 to access a search engine that was completely free of adverts or bias. If the market were big enough...
One would be surprised how many people would rather see adverts than knowingly or inadvertently revealing more private data to them via their billing information by paying for the service.
Well, if they're technically suing the kid (and not the parents), then just have the kid declare bankruptcy.
Interesting. Actually, that begs the question of what exactly is the plaintiff seeking in damages against this kid? If they aren't seeking any real damages, then they want a symbolic victory and are potentially trying to teach the child a lesson. If so, this will get squashed before it goes to trial because they will deem that it's up to the state to decide if the child's life should be affected by what happened. The plaintiff obviously doesn't have the child's best interest in mind. And the child's best interests is usually the most important thing to the state at such a young age... and continues to be a major factor in court cases until the age of majority.
The law (which he probably didn't write) says that accountability starts at four years old. The child was four.
What else was the judge supposed to do?
Can a four-year-old vote? No. Can a four-year-old get married? No. Can a four-year-old do much anything outside of the house without adult supervision? No.
Looks like the issue isn't with the judge or this ruling, but with the legislation that says accountability starts at 4.
Oracle should never have been allowed to buy Sun. Instead it should have been liquidated (since that's what happening anyways... particularly with the high-profile Sun departures).
NASA hurts it's own reputation horribly by auctioning software patents rather than holding them for the public trust and acknowledging the obvious: software patents are incompatible with a software industry.
Agreed. Moreover (but completely the opposite of you), I fully expect NASA to receive substantially less than what these assets are worth. Government auctions have the habit of turning into fire sales on public investment.
Seriously, these software patent disputes are pissing me off. It's like watching children fighting in a playground about who gets to go on the swings first...
That is.. until you realize that it's nothing personal to the companies involved (i.e. it's just business). Particularly nowadays, being on both the filing and receiving end of lawsuits are a healthy part of every businessman's diet. My.. it must be good to be a patent lawyer in Silicon Valley;)
Once carriers develop a firmware/platform for a specific phone and it works reasonably well, there's really no reason to fix it unless there are a bunch of complaints about usability, or a bunch of gaping security holes that need to be fixed (which is common on desktop platforms, but isn't discussed much when it comes to mobile platforms).
Personally, I think Google needs to take a serious look at taking over supporting OTA updates. Yes, there are currently practical obstacles like how to separate core Android from the carrier's aesthetic modifications, but I don't think that would be impossible to address. People mention the specific low-level tuning done by carriers and their manufacturer partners as a major issue. This is something that Google should clamp down on now that they have gained significant market share. They should ensure that Android manufacturer pass all certification tests and don't fool around with anything that Google can't support themselves (besides trivial aesthetic concerns). Now is also the time to start adopting the Fuck off! strategy for dealing with manufacturers who want to use Android but don't want to obey the rules. Google now has clout. Before anyone says Google would end up looking like Apple, to that I respond that they should ensure the industry has some level of influence in their design decisions for Android going forward, but all OEMs going rogue with certified Android is simply not Option 2.
Heh, still waiting for OTA updates from T-mobile for my wife's Android 1.6 myTouch 3G. They've been promising it "just next month" since February:P
Tell me if I'm wrong, but what incentive do the carriers have to provide OTA updates after a customer has purchased a phone and data plan? I think the answer is: very little and probably not at all. I myself would like to believe that customer satisfaction would be a good reason, but I think it's the just a matter of.. once they have your money and updates are not specifically scheduled in the contract then tough luck.
Slashdot Mirror
...said someone in 1890. In Manhattan. About the real estate market.
You could be right, and you probably are, but only with respect to, at most, the medium-term.
Any here more interested in Dr. Hawking's thoughts on the possibility that neutrinos are faster than light ? Seems a bit more timely concern, though I do see his point about human survival.
While I want to think that we could be on the verge of some new physics discoveries...
18 or 19 years.
The time between Michelson-Morley and Annus Mirabilis 1905.
If, by "on the verge", you actually mean possibly 20 years away from a theory explaining this result once confirmed -- then you could be spot on right.
Quote From Daring Firewhatnot:
"It’s almost hard to remember now, but just a few short years ago, Yahoo was the place for hot startups to find a home."
You mean Yahoo was the company with money to burn buying into hokey startups (exception for Delicious and a *few* others I'm sure).
I think there's a general misunderstanding about what's going on here. So let me try to clear it up (and hope I succeed). As an independent company, Sun was essentially a failing concern. Pure and simple. When Oracle purchased Sun, they purchased them for the assets that Sun happened to own (either through in-house R&D or through either shrewd or lucky acquisition - choose your poison). They did *not* purchase Sun for business strategy. I can guarantee you on that. Thus, there is a new business strategy in place with respect to capitalizing on Sun's assets.
So by this reasoning, the alienation of the OO, MySQL and Java communities is by no means a random occurrence. Oracle's new business strategy with respect to these products is what is alienating these communities. If you want to pretend that Oracle and Ellison are not behind this, either you're simply in denial, you're heavily invested in Oracle technologies, or Oracle writes your paycheque (again, choose your poison).
oh ya, to all those who saw no harm in the Sun acquisition....
Even if Apple stopped doing anything today, I think it's safe to say their products will be around and developers will be developing for them five years from now because there'd still be enough somebodies somewhere using an iPhone or iPad. If you're not convinced, just look to Palm ;)
That's pretty amazing. Except that the letters a, e, and o are nearly indistinguishable. To prove it is the smallest legible font, one would have to show that a long enough sequence of just the letters a, e and o could be spelled back by a reader. aeoeoaoeoeoaoeoaoeeeoaaaoeoaoa. I doubt it.
Practically speaking, that would mean a word like onomatopeia would be hard to identify. Of course, the context in which a word shows up probably accounts for more than half of the reason a reader can identify that word so quickly in a sentence.
Meh. The Beatles are overrated.
Guaranteed that most of the artists you listen to, including the few that you worship, would disagree with you on that statement. Unless you were born in the before the early 50s, there is very little of any music released in the past 40 yearsincluding electronic music, and heavy that wasn't influenced by them.
To illustrate... take Kraftwerk & Neu! who are the cornerstones of modern electronic, dance, etc., they were influenced by Beatles pop and lyrical style. As for heavy, listen to the Beatles' Helter Skelter.. it is considered proto-metal, their only song of the kind, very influential on metal, and it's still an insane listen today.
Oh, so now I've got to buy the White Album *again*?
Yes, but if there is one album worth buying again and again, that would be the White Album.
40 years later, it awakened the Holy See, which was never really a fan of the Beatles or John Lennon particularly (read the history yourself), to the Beatles' genius.
Google should invest R&D in rewriting and optimizing the Ruby interpreter and "adopt" it the way they did Java. It definitely has potential for application development on mobile platforms. Maybe optimized for the VM-environment à la JRuby. Apple already sees its potential on the desktop - hence, MacRuby. Yes, Ruby. The force is strong in that one.
Apple sees the writing on the wall: the mainframe era is back, with Linux as the server and iOS devices like iPhone/iPad as the client. Non-standard servers running UNIX variants other than Linux are irrelevant.
I guess Jobs forgot to forward that memo to his buddy Ellison ;)
Looks like Apple gave... some bottom of the barrel IT guys (at least in the risk assessment part of the job)... a rope.
And they hung themselves and their employers with it.
... Ballmer et al are wringing their hands nefariously
Ya, I'm sure they are. But too bad I see this as more a win for the true open source development and dare I say even Stallman et al. and his philosophy. Anyone with huge investments in Java should have had second thoughts when it became clear that Sun wasn't going to "donate" its control of the language, its libraries and its VM-licensing to a non-profit industry-run consortium which should have been setup as early as ten or even fifteen years ago.
This is not a win for MS at all for a simple reason: once bitten, twice shy.
Either Larry Ellison is smart beyond my imagination, or he's too stupid to understand that he's basically killing MySQL, OpenOffice and Java - arguably the three most valuable software assets he bought with Sun.
It's easily argued that these three most valuable assets acquired in the Sun purchase are, taken as a whole, not even worth a fraction of the existing and potential business of the product they've already had, Oracle. They couldn't give a shit about Java, MySQL or gawd OpenOffice. It's more likely he was thinking: "hmmm, how do I squash three great products at least one of which had terrifying potential???"
You're paying the ISP to transfer the data, Hulu is providing the content which is supported by the ads. If you're paying the ISP for data, and paying Hulu for the content, then having to watch the ads seem to be a pretty poor deal.
Yet no one seems to mind watching trailers (and now ads for new gadgets or deals at local businesses) before a movie at the theatre.
oh wait, on second thought... that's probably why attendance is down at the theatre (despite this new rage called 3D :p)
It's an oversimplification, but people do vote with their wallet.
I'm surprised Google killed Wave when they haven't killed many other long-standing projects they have going that are much less popular with users and, as a result, much less lucrative. I think it was a clash of heads between Rasmussen and the top over what his priorities should be. They probably wanted something that would be as instantly popular as Maps. Wave did have potential especially if they marketed it alongside Google Apps for Business, but it's definitely not going to drive the kind people who use Facebook to start switching in droves to using Wave instead -- that's a bit unrealistic. If that's what Lars was looking for, everyone's probably better off with him at Facebook.
For all Americans who think this will never happen to them, you should read this article from Reuters just this past Wednesday. Looks like the Canadian telecom industry is the role model our boys are looking to follow. But unlike what the article says, Canadians are not accepting this situation lying down. They are actively seeking out and subscribing to the new disruptive competition like Wind Mobile and Mobilicity.
I suspect some people (myself included) would happily pay a monthly $5 or $10 to access a search engine that was completely free of adverts or bias. If the market were big enough ...
One would be surprised how many people would rather see adverts than knowingly or inadvertently revealing more private data to them via their billing information by paying for the service.
Well, if they're technically suing the kid (and not the parents), then just have the kid declare bankruptcy.
Interesting. Actually, that begs the question of what exactly is the plaintiff seeking in damages against this kid? If they aren't seeking any real damages, then they want a symbolic victory and are potentially trying to teach the child a lesson. If so, this will get squashed before it goes to trial because they will deem that it's up to the state to decide if the child's life should be affected by what happened. The plaintiff obviously doesn't have the child's best interest in mind. And the child's best interests is usually the most important thing to the state at such a young age... and continues to be a major factor in court cases until the age of majority.
The law (which he probably didn't write) says that accountability starts at four years old. The child was four.
What else was the judge supposed to do?
Can a four-year-old vote? No.
Can a four-year-old get married? No.
Can a four-year-old do much anything outside of the house without adult supervision? No.
Looks like the issue isn't with the judge or this ruling, but with the legislation that says accountability starts at 4.
Oracle should never have been allowed to buy Sun. Instead it should have been liquidated (since that's what happening anyways... particularly with the high-profile Sun departures).
And so it begins...
NASA hurts it's own reputation horribly by auctioning software patents rather than holding them for the public trust and acknowledging the obvious: software patents are incompatible with a software industry.
Agreed. Moreover (but completely the opposite of you), I fully expect NASA to receive substantially less than what these assets are worth. Government auctions have the habit of turning into fire sales on public investment.
Seriously, these software patent disputes are pissing me off. It's like watching children fighting in a playground about who gets to go on the swings first...
That is.. until you realize that it's nothing personal to the companies involved (i.e. it's just business). Particularly nowadays, being on both the filing and receiving end of lawsuits are a healthy part of every businessman's diet. My.. it must be good to be a patent lawyer in Silicon Valley ;)
Once carriers develop a firmware/platform for a specific phone and it works reasonably well, there's really no reason to fix it unless there are a bunch of complaints about usability, or a bunch of gaping security holes that need to be fixed (which is common on desktop platforms, but isn't discussed much when it comes to mobile platforms).
Personally, I think Google needs to take a serious look at taking over supporting OTA updates. Yes, there are currently practical obstacles like how to separate core Android from the carrier's aesthetic modifications, but I don't think that would be impossible to address. People mention the specific low-level tuning done by carriers and their manufacturer partners as a major issue. This is something that Google should clamp down on now that they have gained significant market share. They should ensure that Android manufacturer pass all certification tests and don't fool around with anything that Google can't support themselves (besides trivial aesthetic concerns). Now is also the time to start adopting the Fuck off! strategy for dealing with manufacturers who want to use Android but don't want to obey the rules. Google now has clout. Before anyone says Google would end up looking like Apple, to that I respond that they should ensure the industry has some level of influence in their design decisions for Android going forward, but all OEMs going rogue with certified Android is simply not Option 2.
Heh, still waiting for OTA updates from T-mobile for my wife's Android 1.6 myTouch 3G. They've been promising it "just next month" since February :P
Tell me if I'm wrong, but what incentive do the carriers have to provide OTA updates after a customer has purchased a phone and data plan? I think the answer is: very little and probably not at all. I myself would like to believe that customer satisfaction would be a good reason, but I think it's the just a matter of.. once they have your money and updates are not specifically scheduled in the contract then tough luck.