It's a little confusing, especially if you're not on an OS X box, but this guy has built a software RAID setup. Essentially, all six disks are acting as one because he's used the OS X Disk Utility to set them up as one.
The problem with this is that OS X's Disk Utility doesn't support RAID 5 in software, at least not out of the box. So, you either have to stripe the six disks (lots of space, no redundancy) or mirror them (as much space as your smallest drive, full redundancy) . It looks like he went for the striping option, which is how he got over a terabyte. However, as it's been pointed out several times already, this is a bad idea because if one of those disks fails, his data is lost. And I seriously doubt he's backing this "disk" up...
What he should do (and quite possibly is doing for all I know, it's not detailed) is use something like Raid Toolkit to create a RAID 5 setup. Since RAID 5 uses both data striping and parity, his data is protected even if a disk gets hosed.
However, software-based RAID 5, at least in my understanding, isn't exactly a performance champ, so if he's doing a lot of reading and writing to that drive, he's probably better off getting a real RAID controller. However, this would make a killer media backup box.
The linux based software RAID HOW-TO is actually pretty informative for a general understanding of software RAID.
Actually, the fan noise issue was fixed in the latest G4 model (released January of this year, one sits silent on my desktop right now), the one that Jobs was comparing the G5 to. The model with all the noise issues that a few "fanboys" (was that a dig or just a clever play on words?) had to send back were released in August of last year.
Regardless, I'd take a noise/performance ratio test between a Mac and any comparably equipped Dell any time.
The only OS mentioned in it is mentioned by "Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner" who has no stated connection to VT.
From the article that I linked to:
"In addition to the G5 machines, the university said it is using a beta version of the latest release of OS X, new networking hardware from Mellanox and Cisco, and cutting-edge configuration and cooling technologies to build the powerful cluster for a fraction of the price of a traditional supercomputer."
(emphasis mine)
Now, you can take that any way you like, I was simply trying to add another piece of information, which is why the post has been modded as informative. I realize this may have been easy to miss, it being in the second paragraph and all rather than being burried down at the bottom with your "Dana Gardner" tidbit, but there you have it. Re-read TFA then come back and complain.
As for my "words sounce [sic] like marketing", well, that may be, but the fact is, automatic network configuration (which is exactly what Rendezvous is) would make 1100 clustered G5's easier to admin. And this flight of fancy of mine was based on the fact that Apple is already using Rendezvous-based clustering for XCode and Shake, their high end video compositing software.
Flame on if you like, just make sure you got yer facts straight first, kid.
Well, according to this story, the cluster will be running "a beta version of the latest release of OS X", presumably a beta version of Panther.
If this is true, I'd bet, and this is purely a guess, that Panther and XCode, the new development tool built by Apple, have some support for cluster applications. With technologies like Rendezvous on top of Mach/BSD, it could mean beowulf style supercomputers that are both fast and easy to maintain.
An interesting thought, but does Windows work on as many platforms as Linux?
- x86, IA-64, x86-64, X-Box. - NT 4 ran on PPC, Alpha, and MIPS.
So, you answered my question with "No, uh, no, it doesn't." Ok. I'll take a moment to point out that x86, x86-64 and X-Box should all really count as a single platform.
- AFAIK, the source code is very portable - additional platforms can be supported with minimal effort.
Also, I believe Windows CE is based on the same codebase as Windows 2000/XP/2003/etc.
You're making this assertion based on...? I'm really not trying to flame here, but without the source code, speculation about possible platforms Windows could run on with minimal effort, or used to run on back in 1997, is kinda...useless.
The point the original poster was tyring to make was that Windows sacrifices security in order to remain agile on a number of different platforms. My counter was that linux is both more secure and runs on more hardware. I don't see anything that refutes that.
The way I see this is that Windows is for good or bad popular. As such people will poke around it more and find more holes. Its not like Mac + Linux are totally secure. Now as there are more people, more holes will be found.
This is, quite simply, a canard. By even the most conservative estimates, Apache outpaces IIS by 10% penetration, and yet the most common worms that affect webservers are Windows worms. By this popularity logic, wouldn't it make sense that virus writers would exploit the more popular webserver? Or maybe it makes more sense that virus writers would use their resources more effeciently to attack the easer to kill system, not necessarily the most popular. The fact that Windows is both easy to 0wnz and popular does not make other systems inherently less secure, or even as insecure as Windows.
This suffers from the same illogical open source argument that says "more eyes looking at the code makes it better". NO. A million monkeys on typewriters won't write Shakespeare and a million linux-heads writing code won't build the perfect system. Security, just like writing operating systems, requires attention to details and knowledge. Windows undermines these by putting barriers to a secure system in the name of their own agendas.
Now from these Microsoft issues more patches etc. It should be pointed out that the holes that allowed the recent worms are fixed by a patch released over a month ago. Its just that people/admins haven't applied them meaning systems are still exploitable.
Did you bother to read the article? Because if you had, you'd notice that the author pointed out that Windows ships with five open, exploitable ports, as opposed to 0 on a stock Linux or OS X install. The author also pointed out the fact that Windows has auto-update, which must compete with a bevvy of other MS sponsored crap, like "signup for passport" and "take a tour of windows".
"Also Windows isn't designed to be totally secure from the ground up it designed to work on a wide range of hardware and appeal to all levels of people."
An interesting thought, but does Windows work on as many platforms as Linux? Does the kernel scale from embedded platforms to supercomputers? And don't even talk to me about WinCE - I'm talking about using the same kernel in your wristwatch and on your server. Hell, even Darwin, the core underneath OS X, builds on both PPC hardware and x86 hardware. I'd say by comparison, Windows works on a much more narrow range of hardware than it's more secure counterparts.
As for all levels of people, well, I'll take the MacOS interface against Windows on a usability Pepsi challenge any day of the week.
If the reporters know so little about the subject in question, why do they publish an article like this acting as authorities on the subject?
I may be stepping out of bounds, as a journalist, but it is not our job to be authorities on the subjects we write about. It is our job to report facts. Now, the study may very well have been a crackpot bit of psuedoscience, but the BBC is simply reporting the findings of a scientific study.
In fact, I'd say they did their job rather well, by reporting that the sample group was relatively small and providing a balanced look, including possible health risks. Be pissed at the wankers down in Oz running this study, not the blokes at the BBC reporting it.
If you've got evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, please, share with the rest of the class.
Gracious, those are some mighty big words. Pros-ee-cue-to-ree-orl. And then to be followed up with the brilliant, dare I say emphatic, shut your damn pie hole. That's faaantastic. I really can not wait for the school year to start up again - you should have been in bed hours ago.
When you do wander off after some warm milk and fresh rubber sheets, here's a little bedtime reading for you.
Congratulations, you seem to be blessed with the same black and white "moral clarity" that graces our President.
The Feds arrested a guy for something incriminating.
Well, not exactly. The Feds arrested him on suspicion of something incriminating, then proceeded to hold him, without legal counsel, whithout charging him with a crime, for as long as they damn well pleased. Then, they offered him a choice: we can keep holding you like this (i.e. you disappear into oblivion) or take a plea bargain. Yeah, that's a tough call.
Here's some light reading on the lengths that Ashcroft and Bush are going to to keep their perpetual war.
You people, which I somehow am one of, can't accept the fact that law enforcement has a purpose especially when it involves a "geek."
Well, that's certainly a possibility, but it's just as likely that the geeks you seem to cavort with, yet hold such disdain for, are increasingly fearful of a government that persecutes marginalized segments of the population. As long as you're white, middle class, enjoying your missionary position sex 3.4 times a week, don't worry, we know what's best for you. It's those crazy freaks and weirdos you gotta watch out for!
I say fuck the status quo and fuck anybody that's hellbent on seeing it perpetuated at any cost.
The bad guys, and I'm not talking about the blackhats, aren't going to wear armbands and shirts with epaulets and stand opposed from the other side of the battlefield waving their banner (Windows logo superimposed over AK-47s).
Brilliant logic there. So, we should just assume everyone is guilty? Or maybe just everyone that isn't white? Or how about all the non-Christians (well, except for Eric Rudolph, Christian terrorist du jour)?
I get the impression that the "geek" crowd would be a perfect place for a terrorist to lay low. Don't need a social life. Access to technology. Co-workers and comrades whose principles (or lack thereof) dismiss responsibility and reality. Simply perfect.
I don't know, that description seems to be pretty apropos to the myriad CEO's that seem bent on wrecking the U.S. economy so that they can fatten their own wallets. You know, like Mr. Bush's buddy Ken Lay.
I keep scanning my Applications directory and, for the life of me, I can't find a copy of Final Cut that came with the OS.
OH, you're talking about iMovie. Which is, in no way what so ever, competitive with Premier. Nice try, though.
The fact is, Final Cut ownz the non-linear video market now. Premier can't compete with this, so they've decided to market their software to a platform that FCP won't run on. Which is fine, but don't go spouting off ill-informed canards.
Works beautifully. I use it on my development box for web based image manipulation, using PHP. The PHP code is totally portable to the production Solaris box, too.
I run the email and web server that my parents use for their email account. It's a linux box that I run spam assassin on to kill spam. They both use Outlook 2000 as their IMAP client and I even set up webmail access for when they're away from their computer.
I'm easily the very last person in support of anything that comes from a Republican, especially a wank like Orrin Hatch, but the Republicans are likely bluffing on this to get a bill pushed through without amendments from the Democrats.
[From the NYT article] Right now, bi-partisan legislation in the Senate is being considered to "eliminate the need for federal agents seeking secret surveillance warrants to show that a suspect is affiliated with a foreign power or agent, like a terrorist group", a so-called "lone-wolf" bill. The Democrats have said that they want to add a few amendments to keep these types of secret warrants in check. Orrin Hatch parried by saying if they add these amendments, he'll add an amendment that kills the sunset clause on the Patriot Act.
Here's the tale-tell quote: "But an aide who demanded anonymity said of the 'lone wolf' bill: 'We support this bill as it is and that's how we want to see it passed. If the Democrats want to amend the bill, then we will offer an equal number of amendments to improve the bill as well. We hope the Democrats will stop holding this bill up.'" Kinda makes your skin crawl to think that this is how gubmint works, doesn't it?
Yes, the Bushies seem to be in favor of continuing the Patriot Act ad infinitum. And why not? They're all rich white guys, they only care about rich white guys, it's not like the Patriot Act is ever going to be used against them.
The good news is, they haven't formally proposed legislation to do such a heinous thing (yet), though, they're just in the middle of a pissing match with the Senate Dems. Keep calling, writing, faxing your congressman and make sure they know you won't ever support this kind of breach of civil liberties. Do it now, before it's too late.
Artists will be pressured to have every song on thier album a hit to maximize downloads. We'll also face lables promoting even more Britney Spears and N'sync type groups. Perhaps labels will just use the hit-song detecting software and just hire a little T&A to sing it for them
Here's another perspective. Some kids in a band start getting pretty good, a little local press and some regional gigs. They even get a label scout to come check them out, but she says "I like your sound, it's just not what we're pushing in the industry right now. Sorry."
Band flips a bird to the industry, spends a few thousands bucks on a used Mac and some really nice mics. They record an album and get the drummer's graphic designer girlfriend to design a fancy new logo and website. Then, they start distributing their tracks online at $.50 a pop. It gets picked up by a few indie music bloggers and then all of the sudden they're making enough money to upgrade their equipment and tour the east coast.
Towards the end of the tour, the record scout is back, ready to talk about a deal. "Nah," the drummer says. "We're making plenty of money doing what we love, we don't have to sell out to you bastards and we're going back into the studio here in a few weeks to record our second album. Feel free to download it in a few weeks!"
Every day, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper to record music. For $10,000, you can set yourself up with a near-professional quality setup. That $10,000 wouldn't even come close to the studio time required for an album. Online distribution is the last step towards breaking industry stranglehold on music.
Close. Very, very close. MS knows how to offer perceived value. No one can debate Wintel machines are cheap. But they're also frustrating to use and support. Funny how this goes unmentioned so often. What Macs lack in perceived value they offer in actual value. Easier to use and maintain, more consistent user experience, longer actual usefulness. Yes, a Mac will cost you $700-$1500 more than a bargain basement PC (if you want to actually do anything with that PC, well...) but over the lifetime of those two machines, that amount is easily made up. That's what I consider value, that's why I will always pay the upfront premium for a product that will serve me better in the long run.
1. ADC-Apple took DVI and made it propritary The ADC bundles DVI, USB and power into a single connection to avoid a tangle of wires. It's part of the simplified aesthetic that makes Apple hardware so elegant. I can still connect my VGA monitor to my brand new dual 1.4 GHZ PowerMac no problem. And I could connect a cinema display to any DVI port with an adaptor.
2. CD-ROM Drives-Yes, regular IDE drives will work in a Mac, but many are not bootable. My PC's will boot off every CDROM drive I've thrown at them I can't remember how long it's been since I couldn't buy a Mac with a CD-Rom drive. Do you really need to boot off of that extra drive you added?
3. OpenFirmware-Yes, it's OpenFirmware, but doesn't it have propritary extensions for bootstrapping the OS? I can't install OS X on like an IBM PowerPC Machine. The Mac is NOT totally open-if it was I could do this. Dammit, I can't install Windows on an IBM PowerPC Machine, either. And I can't install Mac OS 9 on my Playstation. Apple builds their software and hardware to integrate and be as open as possible. It's an easier to use machine because it doesn't try to be everything to every platform. It works really, really well on the supported platform. Don't like it? Perhaps you'd rather spend time configuring software drivers and managing DLL's.
4. 802.11b-Apple took a Standard (PCMCIA) and changed the connector a little so a standard PCMCIA card would not work in it. The Airport card is just a apple-branded Lucent Orinocco, but apple "customized" it so you had to pay extra for the apple-branded card. Well, that's certainly one possibility. Of course, I can use an Orinoco, Belkin or any other 802.11b PCMCIA in my powerbook and it works just fine. In fact, my Lombard Powerbook has an Orinoco card in the PCMCIA slot and it connects to my Airport base station just fine. Perhaps Apple didn't "customize" the Orinoco card to gouge their customers, rather they wanted to allow their customers to still have access to their PCMCIA slot while using a WiFi connection via their Airport card.
However, I don't think that apple is trying to be a better company by becomming less propritary. Rather, I think it is pure economics-using PC parts is cheaper than building your own. Certainly, the economics argument holds water. But how does that account for the standards that Apple has invented, like WiFi and Firewire? They certainly could have made them proprietary. Would you mind explaining how the contributions made to KHTML and Zeroconf (via WebCore and Rendezvous, respectively) fit into Apple's evil, proprietary, Bond-villain scheme?
Firewire? Big whoop. Sure, Apple had it first, but was it a big advance over a lot of other similar technologies? Nope.
I'll save the flaming of the rest of that rant for the other "macolytes" and just focus on this one.
Firewire is brilliant. The "standard" it replaced (if you can call the myriad forms of SCSI a standard) sucked balls in comparrison. It's powered from the bus, it's intelligent (if I unplug my firewire drive mid-transer for some reason, I get an error message, plug the thing back in, and it WORKS!), and it's easy as hell to use. Just plug it in. No configuring jumpers or dealing with compatibility issues. Not to mention that firewire has almost single handedly contributed to the surge of low budget DV.
Ok, one more point. Apple not only pioneered WiFi in personal computers, they co-invented it with Lucent. How's that for "technical innovation"?
"Boutique" computing aside, there's a lot of innovation that the PC industry owes Apple. Just look at the R&D budgets of PC manufacturers -- Dell spends 1% on R&D, and it's mostly geared towards figuring out how to make computer cases with less solder. It's fine that Dell and even Compaq just want to repackage commodity parts and slap an Intel inside sticker front, but don't claim that the PC industry doesn't owe Apple for pushing the boundaries of innovation.
Hmmm...perhaps if you'd take a moment to figure out why McLeod trademarked the phrase, you'd be able to make an informed commment on the subject.
McLeod, who was at the opening (I met him, chatted for a brief sec), trademarked the term and then named a zine "Freedom of Expression". He then got a buddy of his to start a punk zine also called "Freedom of Expression" and then sued his friend, hiring a lawyer whom he didn't let in on the gag. The whole point of the exercise was to show the ridiculousness of trademark. As McLeod said himself, "Freedom of Expression is not for sale." The entire suit was an exercise in analyzing culture and property rights.
He's also suing AT&T over the use of the phrase in an ad campaign they're running.
Amazingly enough, all of this information was readily available from the links in the story. Who knew?
This is starting to sound like a really nice entertainment box, one that I would finally consider buying. Still not enough, though. Here's what I want, and I want Apple to build it.
A box with a removable (40/60/80) gig firewire hard drive. Do the normal PVR stuff. Plays some mp3's, pictures, etc. Whatever. Make the Hard drive removable, though, so that when I record a show I like, I can plug it into my mac and burn to DVD, using a plugin to iMovie.
Maybe add some kinda 802.11 networking thingie so that I can transfer small files (mp3's, jpegs) wirelessly and I'm happy. Make it Rendezvous/zeroconf aware so that I don't have to fiddle with network settings on my teevee. Rather than have to plug the thing into a phone line, have it talk to my mac and get updates via my mac's internet connection. If I'm a dialup user, have it update the info whenever I'm connected.
Why Apple? Duh. iTunes. iMovie. iDVD. iPhoto. This device is screaming to be integrated with Apple's digital hub. Wanna show your family vacation pictures? Build a slideshow in iPhoto, upload the quicktime mov to the iBox and watch it on your teevee. Wanna listen that great mix of your favorite 50 mp3's or build a killer party sound track to play on your stereo? No problem, just upload the setlist. It could even stream the mp3's using iTunes powered Rendezvous.
Build in some intelligent DRM that doesn't restrict fair use but also doesn't turn Joe Sixpack into his own Sopranos pirating station. Disable internet file sharing of recorded shows (ugh) or delete the file once it's been burned to DVD.
This is a device I would buy. I would watch teevee with this thing. I would buy more CD's. I want it--now.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a little confusing, especially if you're not on an OS X box, but this guy has built a software RAID setup. Essentially, all six disks are acting as one because he's used the OS X Disk Utility to set them up as one.
The problem with this is that OS X's Disk Utility doesn't support RAID 5 in software, at least not out of the box. So, you either have to stripe the six disks (lots of space, no redundancy) or mirror them (as much space as your smallest drive, full redundancy) . It looks like he went for the striping option, which is how he got over a terabyte. However, as it's been pointed out several times already, this is a bad idea because if one of those disks fails, his data is lost. And I seriously doubt he's backing this "disk" up...
What he should do (and quite possibly is doing for all I know, it's not detailed) is use something like Raid Toolkit to create a RAID 5 setup. Since RAID 5 uses both data striping and parity, his data is protected even if a disk gets hosed.
However, software-based RAID 5, at least in my understanding, isn't exactly a performance champ, so if he's doing a lot of reading and writing to that drive, he's probably better off getting a real RAID controller. However, this would make a killer media backup box.
The linux based software RAID HOW-TO is actually pretty informative for a general understanding of software RAID.
Cheers
Actually, the fan noise issue was fixed in the latest G4 model (released January of this year, one sits silent on my desktop right now), the one that Jobs was comparing the G5 to. The model with all the noise issues that a few "fanboys" (was that a dig or just a clever play on words?) had to send back were released in August of last year.
Regardless, I'd take a noise/performance ratio test between a Mac and any comparably equipped Dell any time.
The only OS mentioned in it is mentioned by "Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner" who has no stated connection to VT.
From the article that I linked to:
"In addition to the G5 machines, the university said it is using a beta version of the latest release of OS X, new networking hardware from Mellanox and Cisco, and cutting-edge configuration and cooling technologies to build the powerful cluster for a fraction of the price of a traditional supercomputer."
(emphasis mine)
Now, you can take that any way you like, I was simply trying to add another piece of information, which is why the post has been modded as informative. I realize this may have been easy to miss, it being in the second paragraph and all rather than being burried down at the bottom with your "Dana Gardner" tidbit, but there you have it. Re-read TFA then come back and complain.
As for my "words sounce [sic] like marketing", well, that may be, but the fact is, automatic network configuration (which is exactly what Rendezvous is) would make 1100 clustered G5's easier to admin. And this flight of fancy of mine was based on the fact that Apple is already using Rendezvous-based clustering for XCode and Shake, their high end video compositing software.
Flame on if you like, just make sure you got yer facts straight first, kid.
OS is SuSE as it supports Infiniband.
Well, according to this story, the cluster will be running "a beta version of the latest release of OS X", presumably a beta version of Panther.
If this is true, I'd bet, and this is purely a guess, that Panther and XCode, the new development tool built by Apple, have some support for cluster applications. With technologies like Rendezvous on top of Mach/BSD, it could mean beowulf style supercomputers that are both fast and easy to maintain.
An interesting thought, but does Windows work on as many platforms as Linux?
- x86, IA-64, x86-64, X-Box.
- NT 4 ran on PPC, Alpha, and MIPS.
So, you answered my question with "No, uh, no, it doesn't." Ok. I'll take a moment to point out that x86, x86-64 and X-Box should all really count as a single platform.
- AFAIK, the source code is very portable - additional platforms can be supported with minimal effort.
Also, I believe Windows CE is based on the same codebase as Windows 2000/XP/2003/etc.
You're making this assertion based on...? I'm really not trying to flame here, but without the source code, speculation about possible platforms Windows could run on with minimal effort, or used to run on back in 1997, is kinda...useless.
The point the original poster was tyring to make was that Windows sacrifices security in order to remain agile on a number of different platforms. My counter was that linux is both more secure and runs on more hardware. I don't see anything that refutes that.
The way I see this is that Windows is for good or bad popular. As such people will poke around it more and find more holes. Its not like Mac + Linux are totally secure. Now as there are more people, more holes will be found.
This is, quite simply, a canard. By even the most conservative estimates, Apache outpaces IIS by 10% penetration, and yet the most common worms that affect webservers are Windows worms. By this popularity logic, wouldn't it make sense that virus writers would exploit the more popular webserver? Or maybe it makes more sense that virus writers would use their resources more effeciently to attack the easer to kill system, not necessarily the most popular. The fact that Windows is both easy to 0wnz and popular does not make other systems inherently less secure, or even as insecure as Windows.
This suffers from the same illogical open source argument that says "more eyes looking at the code makes it better". NO. A million monkeys on typewriters won't write Shakespeare and a million linux-heads writing code won't build the perfect system. Security, just like writing operating systems, requires attention to details and knowledge. Windows undermines these by putting barriers to a secure system in the name of their own agendas.
Now from these Microsoft issues more patches etc. It should be pointed out that the holes that allowed the recent worms are fixed by a patch released over a month ago. Its just that people/admins haven't applied them meaning systems are still exploitable.
Did you bother to read the article? Because if you had, you'd notice that the author pointed out that Windows ships with five open, exploitable ports, as opposed to 0 on a stock Linux or OS X install. The author also pointed out the fact that Windows has auto-update, which must compete with a bevvy of other MS sponsored crap, like "signup for passport" and "take a tour of windows".
"Also Windows isn't designed to be totally secure from the ground up it designed to work on a wide range of hardware and appeal to all levels of people."
An interesting thought, but does Windows work on as many platforms as Linux? Does the kernel scale from embedded platforms to supercomputers? And don't even talk to me about WinCE - I'm talking about using the same kernel in your wristwatch and on your server. Hell, even Darwin, the core underneath OS X, builds on both PPC hardware and x86 hardware. I'd say by comparison, Windows works on a much more narrow range of hardware than it's more secure counterparts.
As for all levels of people, well, I'll take the MacOS interface against Windows on a usability Pepsi challenge any day of the week.
If the reporters know so little about the subject in question, why do they publish an article like this acting as authorities on the subject?
I may be stepping out of bounds, as a journalist, but it is not our job to be authorities on the subjects we write about. It is our job to report facts. Now, the study may very well have been a crackpot bit of psuedoscience, but the BBC is simply reporting the findings of a scientific study.
In fact, I'd say they did their job rather well, by reporting that the sample group was relatively small and providing a balanced look, including possible health risks. Be pissed at the wankers down in Oz running this study, not the blokes at the BBC reporting it.
Mosaics aren't Chimeras.
However, before the launch of Safari, I was using Chimera, a descendent of Mosaic.
Told ya. Worst joke evar.
If you've got evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, please, share with the rest of the class.
Gracious, those are some mighty big words. Pros-ee-cue-to-ree-orl. And then to be followed up with the brilliant, dare I say emphatic, shut your damn pie hole. That's faaantastic. I really can not wait for the school year to start up again - you should have been in bed hours ago.
When you do wander off after some warm milk and fresh rubber sheets, here's a little bedtime reading for you.
Congratulations, you seem to be blessed with the same black and white "moral clarity" that graces our President.
The Feds arrested a guy for something incriminating.
Well, not exactly. The Feds arrested him on suspicion of something incriminating, then proceeded to hold him, without legal counsel, whithout charging him with a crime, for as long as they damn well pleased. Then, they offered him a choice: we can keep holding you like this (i.e. you disappear into oblivion) or take a plea bargain. Yeah, that's a tough call.
Here's some light reading on the lengths that Ashcroft and Bush are going to to keep their perpetual war.
You people, which I somehow am one of, can't accept the fact that law enforcement has a purpose especially when it involves a "geek."
Well, that's certainly a possibility, but it's just as likely that the geeks you seem to cavort with, yet hold such disdain for, are increasingly fearful of a government that persecutes marginalized segments of the population. As long as you're white, middle class, enjoying your missionary position sex 3.4 times a week, don't worry, we know what's best for you. It's those crazy freaks and weirdos you gotta watch out for!
I say fuck the status quo and fuck anybody that's hellbent on seeing it perpetuated at any cost.
The bad guys, and I'm not talking about the blackhats, aren't going to wear armbands and shirts with epaulets and stand opposed from the other side of the battlefield waving their banner (Windows logo superimposed over AK-47s).
Brilliant logic there. So, we should just assume everyone is guilty? Or maybe just everyone that isn't white? Or how about all the non-Christians (well, except for Eric Rudolph, Christian terrorist du jour)?
I get the impression that the "geek" crowd would be a perfect place for a terrorist to lay low. Don't need a social life. Access to technology. Co-workers and comrades whose principles (or lack thereof) dismiss responsibility and reality. Simply perfect.
I don't know, that description seems to be pretty apropos to the myriad CEO's that seem bent on wrecking the U.S. economy so that they can fatten their own wallets. You know, like Mr. Bush's buddy Ken Lay.
I keep scanning my Applications directory and, for the life of me, I can't find a copy of Final Cut that came with the OS.
OH, you're talking about iMovie. Which is, in no way what so ever, competitive with Premier. Nice try, though.
The fact is, Final Cut ownz the non-linear video market now. Premier can't compete with this, so they've decided to market their software to a platform that FCP won't run on. Which is fine, but don't go spouting off ill-informed canards.
Man, that is the ugliest case I think I've ever seen.
I have never understood the desire to have gigantic plexiglass boxes with tons of neon sitting next to my desk.
Korea and Japan pretty much tied at +15,000 each
That's Korea and China. But who cares, they all look the same to me...
Or, you could just use the precompiled Imagemagick binary, found here: http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/welcome.html #imagemagick
Works beautifully. I use it on my development box for web based image manipulation, using PHP. The PHP code is totally portable to the production Solaris box, too.
Enjoy
I run the email and web server that my parents use for their email account. It's a linux box that I run spam assassin on to kill spam. They both use Outlook 2000 as their IMAP client and I even set up webmail access for when they're away from their computer.
Actually, Dell just re-signed their retail contract with Apple, so unless they're gonna start selling iMacs, I imagine Dell will be selling iPods again soon.
I'm easily the very last person in support of anything that comes from a Republican, especially a wank like Orrin Hatch, but the Republicans are likely bluffing on this to get a bill pushed through without amendments from the Democrats.
[From the NYT article]
Right now, bi-partisan legislation in the Senate is being considered to "eliminate the need for federal agents seeking secret surveillance warrants to show that a suspect is affiliated with a foreign power or agent, like a terrorist group", a so-called "lone-wolf" bill. The Democrats have said that they want to add a few amendments to keep these types of secret warrants in check. Orrin Hatch parried by saying if they add these amendments, he'll add an amendment that kills the sunset clause on the Patriot Act.
Here's the tale-tell quote: "But an aide who demanded anonymity said of the 'lone wolf' bill: 'We support this bill as it is and that's how we want to see it passed. If the Democrats want to amend the bill, then we will offer an equal number of amendments to improve the bill as well. We hope the Democrats will stop holding this bill up.'" Kinda makes your skin crawl to think that this is how gubmint works, doesn't it?
Yes, the Bushies seem to be in favor of continuing the Patriot Act ad infinitum. And why not? They're all rich white guys, they only care about rich white guys, it's not like the Patriot Act is ever going to be used against them.
The good news is, they haven't formally proposed legislation to do such a heinous thing (yet), though, they're just in the middle of a pissing match with the Senate Dems. Keep calling, writing, faxing your congressman and make sure they know you won't ever support this kind of breach of civil liberties. Do it now, before it's too late.
Artists will be pressured to have every song on thier album a hit to maximize downloads. We'll also face lables promoting even more Britney Spears and N'sync type groups. Perhaps labels will just use the hit-song detecting software and just hire a little T&A to sing it for them
Here's another perspective. Some kids in a band start getting pretty good, a little local press and some regional gigs. They even get a label scout to come check them out, but she says "I like your sound, it's just not what we're pushing in the industry right now. Sorry."
Band flips a bird to the industry, spends a few thousands bucks on a used Mac and some really nice mics. They record an album and get the drummer's graphic designer girlfriend to design a fancy new logo and website. Then, they start distributing their tracks online at $.50 a pop. It gets picked up by a few indie music bloggers and then all of the sudden they're making enough money to upgrade their equipment and tour the east coast.
Towards the end of the tour, the record scout is back, ready to talk about a deal. "Nah," the drummer says. "We're making plenty of money doing what we love, we don't have to sell out to you bastards and we're going back into the studio here in a few weeks to record our second album. Feel free to download it in a few weeks!"
Every day, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper to record music. For $10,000, you can set yourself up with a near-professional quality setup. That $10,000 wouldn't even come close to the studio time required for an album. Online distribution is the last step towards breaking industry stranglehold on music.
Close. Very, very close. MS knows how to offer perceived value. No one can debate Wintel machines are cheap. But they're also frustrating to use and support. Funny how this goes unmentioned so often. What Macs lack in perceived value they offer in actual value. Easier to use and maintain, more consistent user experience, longer actual usefulness. Yes, a Mac will cost you $700-$1500 more than a bargain basement PC (if you want to actually do anything with that PC, well...) but over the lifetime of those two machines, that amount is easily made up. That's what I consider value, that's why I will always pay the upfront premium for a product that will serve me better in the long run.
A few counterpoints...
1. ADC-Apple took DVI and made it propritary
The ADC bundles DVI, USB and power into a single connection to avoid a tangle of wires. It's part of the simplified aesthetic that makes Apple hardware so elegant. I can still connect my VGA monitor to my brand new dual 1.4 GHZ PowerMac no problem. And I could connect a cinema display to any DVI port with an adaptor.
2. CD-ROM Drives-Yes, regular IDE drives will work in a Mac, but many are not bootable. My PC's will boot off every CDROM drive I've thrown at them
I can't remember how long it's been since I couldn't buy a Mac with a CD-Rom drive. Do you really need to boot off of that extra drive you added?
3. OpenFirmware-Yes, it's OpenFirmware, but doesn't it have propritary extensions for bootstrapping the OS? I can't install OS X on like an IBM PowerPC Machine. The Mac is NOT totally open-if it was I could do this.
Dammit, I can't install Windows on an IBM PowerPC Machine, either. And I can't install Mac OS 9 on my Playstation.
Apple builds their software and hardware to integrate and be as open as possible. It's an easier to use machine because it doesn't try to be everything to every platform. It works really, really well on the supported platform. Don't like it? Perhaps you'd rather spend time configuring software drivers and managing DLL's.
4. 802.11b-Apple took a Standard (PCMCIA) and changed the connector a little so a standard PCMCIA card would not work in it. The Airport card is just a apple-branded Lucent Orinocco, but apple "customized" it so you had to pay extra for the apple-branded card.
Well, that's certainly one possibility. Of course, I can use an Orinoco, Belkin or any other 802.11b PCMCIA in my powerbook and it works just fine. In fact, my Lombard Powerbook has an Orinoco card in the PCMCIA slot and it connects to my Airport base station just fine.
Perhaps Apple didn't "customize" the Orinoco card to gouge their customers, rather they wanted to allow their customers to still have access to their PCMCIA slot while using a WiFi connection via their Airport card.
However, I don't think that apple is trying to be a better company by becomming less propritary. Rather, I think it is pure economics-using PC parts is cheaper than building your own.
Certainly, the economics argument holds water. But how does that account for the standards that Apple has invented, like WiFi and Firewire? They certainly could have made them proprietary. Would you mind explaining how the contributions made to KHTML and Zeroconf (via WebCore and Rendezvous, respectively) fit into Apple's evil, proprietary, Bond-villain scheme?
Firewire? Big whoop. Sure, Apple had it first, but was it a big advance over a lot of other similar technologies? Nope.
I'll save the flaming of the rest of that rant for the other "macolytes" and just focus on this one.
Firewire is brilliant. The "standard" it replaced (if you can call the myriad forms of SCSI a standard) sucked balls in comparrison. It's powered from the bus, it's intelligent (if I unplug my firewire drive mid-transer for some reason, I get an error message, plug the thing back in, and it WORKS!), and it's easy as hell to use. Just plug it in. No configuring jumpers or dealing with compatibility issues. Not to mention that firewire has almost single handedly contributed to the surge of low budget DV.
Ok, one more point. Apple not only pioneered WiFi in personal computers, they co-invented it with Lucent. How's that for "technical innovation"?
"Boutique" computing aside, there's a lot of innovation that the PC industry owes Apple. Just look at the R&D budgets of PC manufacturers -- Dell spends 1% on R&D, and it's mostly geared towards figuring out how to make computer cases with less solder. It's fine that Dell and even Compaq just want to repackage commodity parts and slap an Intel inside sticker front, but don't claim that the PC industry doesn't owe Apple for pushing the boundaries of innovation.
Hmmm...perhaps if you'd take a moment to figure out why McLeod trademarked the phrase, you'd be able to make an informed commment on the subject.
McLeod, who was at the opening (I met him, chatted for a brief sec), trademarked the term and then named a zine "Freedom of Expression". He then got a buddy of his to start a punk zine also called "Freedom of Expression" and then sued his friend, hiring a lawyer whom he didn't let in on the gag. The whole point of the exercise was to show the ridiculousness of trademark. As McLeod said himself, "Freedom of Expression is not for sale." The entire suit was an exercise in analyzing culture and property rights.
He's also suing AT&T over the use of the phrase in an ad campaign they're running.
Amazingly enough, all of this information was readily available from the links in the story. Who knew?
the guy that runs the Chimera project works at Apple
I thought the "dude" in Metroid was always assumed to be a woman?
Besides, most guys I know have nipples, too.
This is starting to sound like a really nice entertainment box, one that I would finally consider buying. Still not enough, though. Here's what I want, and I want Apple to build it.
A box with a removable (40/60/80) gig firewire hard drive. Do the normal PVR stuff. Plays some mp3's, pictures, etc. Whatever. Make the Hard drive removable, though, so that when I record a show I like, I can plug it into my mac and burn to DVD, using a plugin to iMovie.
Maybe add some kinda 802.11 networking thingie so that I can transfer small files (mp3's, jpegs) wirelessly and I'm happy. Make it Rendezvous/zeroconf aware so that I don't have to fiddle with network settings on my teevee. Rather than have to plug the thing into a phone line, have it talk to my mac and get updates via my mac's internet connection. If I'm a dialup user, have it update the info whenever I'm connected.
Why Apple? Duh. iTunes. iMovie. iDVD. iPhoto. This device is screaming to be integrated with Apple's digital hub. Wanna show your family vacation pictures? Build a slideshow in iPhoto, upload the quicktime mov to the iBox and watch it on your teevee. Wanna listen that great mix of your favorite 50 mp3's or build a killer party sound track to play on your stereo? No problem, just upload the setlist. It could even stream the mp3's using iTunes powered Rendezvous.
Build in some intelligent DRM that doesn't restrict fair use but also doesn't turn Joe Sixpack into his own Sopranos pirating station. Disable internet file sharing of recorded shows (ugh) or delete the file once it's been burned to DVD.
This is a device I would buy. I would watch teevee with this thing. I would buy more CD's. I want it--now.