Any way you define "planet" outside of something simple like a mass or radius limit will have a hazy limit. "Roundness," as in relaxed into an oblate spheroid by its own gravity, has a number of borderline cases already known, not to mention a number of objects that we just don't know about yet, and icy bodies seem to form spheroids at lower masses than rocky bodies, because they're less rigid. Composition doesn't help because the composition of most of the known TNOs is approximate at best, and outright guesswork in many cases. Using some kind of orbital parameters limits the usefulness of the term to our own Solar System, since many of the extrasolar planets that have been found show that there's more than one way for a system to form. Yet, if you use something simple like "objects with a radius of at least X km" or "objets with a mass of at least Y kg" you're drawing a completely arbitrary line.
Basically, I don't think "planet" can ever be a scientific term, because, as many of the large TNOs illustrate, sub-stellar objects form a continuum with multiple axes. Defining stellar objects is relatively easy: they have enough mass to sustain fusion in their cores, or they're the "dead" remnants of such an object. Likewise, Brown Dwarfs can be easily defined as massive enough to trigger deuterium burning, assuming the object has any deuterium left. Gas Giants are also fairly easy to class: no chance of fusion (deuterium or otherwise), and no solid surface. It's not cut and dry for the smaller objects, and I thinks there's always going to be some grey area and borderline cases, no matter what the definition.
In addition, ARD is used extensively in mac-only computer labs on University campuses everywhere.
Bingo. I work in such a lab (actually, several labs scattered around a university campus), and we use ARD all the time to remote-control machines, remotely launch UNIX utilities, and remotely gather information. ("I can't remember off the top of my head if the Theatre Lab machines have enough RAM for this app...")
I'm personally looking forward to ARD 3. Curtain Mode is going to be such a nice improvement: I occasionally run into situations where I lock a screen, run a file system managemant utility (radmind, specifically) via Send UNIX Command, then control the machine after it run maintenance and restarts to test whatever new app I'm pushing out to the labs, and have some student just plop down at the machine and start using it at the same time I'm remote-controlling it. ("Oh, hey, here's an unused computer that somebody must have forgotten to log out of. Wait, it's acting like somebody's using it!")
AFAIK, none of the techniques we have right now can detect planets much smaller than the one they just found....
Actually, according to the article (last paragraph):
"Microlensing is the only way to detect Earth-mass planets from the ground with current technology," said Gaudi. "If there had been an Earth-mass planet in the same region as this super-Earth, and if the alignment had been just right, we could have detected it."
So, this technique could find ~Earth-mass planets, but only if they're aligned just right.
Not having gotten my hands on a copy of this, I don't know how it works, but it seems similar to the proof-of-concept from nearly two years ago, which exploited issues in the Finder with handling file extensions vs. type/creator codes (IIRC, the proof was an application with type code 'APPL' and extension.mp3, which made the Finder display it as an MP3 but treat it as an application when clicked).
Not quite. MP3Concept, like the one from the article (JPGConcept?;-), used the common icon for a particular file type as the application's custom icon. When MP3Concept was all the rage, I tested this by changing my default MP3 icon. (I think I just added a small, red triangle in one corner, just something that was easily visible.) I had to log out and back in for the changed icon to propagate, but once it did, all of my legitimate MP3s had the updated icon, while "virus.mp3" (MP3Concept) still had the un-modified icon. So, no, Finder wasn't getting confused about what type of file it was. Finder knew it was a program, and not an MP3, but the custom icon tricked the user into thinking it was an MP3. The reason iTunes would play an MP3 when you double-clicked on "virus.mp3" was because MP3Concept was programmed to tell iTunes to play an MP3 hidden in MP3Concept.
These won't be out until 2007, but it still raises the question: did Apple jump the gun by switching to Intel?"
Not unless you think Apple would use the POWER6 (which is designed entirely for servers) in personal computers and portables.
The whole reason for the switch was that the PowerPC had stopped being helpful to Apple's strategy. The G4 had stagnated: originally introduced in 1999, it had been updated fast enough to keep up with competitors. (Top FSB speed is a measly 167 MHz, top internal clock speed is about 1.67 GHz.) I mean, it's mostly seven year old technology. The G5 was stagnating: originally introduced in 2003 at 2 GHz, IBM promised 3 GHz by the end of the year, but here we are, almost three years later, and 2.7 GHz is the fastest available. Meanwhile, IBM managed to corner the game console market (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Revolution are all using IBM processors), so Apple's ~1 million units a quarter (which is actually split between IBM and Freescale anyway) just doesn't represent a big deal to IBM's bottom line.
Basically, the PowerPC architecture is evolving away from personal/portable computers and into game consoles, embedded devices, and computing clusters, while the POWER architecture (very similar to the PowerPC architecture, but there are differences) remains a high-end server platform. On top of that, Intel started making real progress in improving their performance-per-watt ratios, to the point that they started edging out the ratios on the PowerPC. So, no, Apple didn't jump the gun.
One last thing, why must every article about IBM microprocessor technology get spun as an Apple article on slashdot? This article, especially because it's dealing with POWER, the older brother to the architecture Apple's moving away from rather than the actual used-by-Apple architecture, would have worked as a "Look at the cool thing IBM's working on" without the unnecessary Apple connection.
...Apple's the company that *tries* things. And, the Cube notwithstanding, they have been pretty much on the mark....
Not just the Cube: the Lisa, iPod photo, Apple///, Mac TV, Copland...
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you almost totally on this. Apple's just had it's fair share of flops, above and beyond the Cube, but that's only natural when you're actually out there trying things.
My first exposure to John C. Dvorak was back in the mid-90s, when he was writing for MacUser (or was it MacWorld?). I thought he was a hack then, and he's still obviously a hack now. When he sits down his entire method to write a given column is to pick a group (Mac users, Linux users, whomever) and design the article to be as inflamitory to that group as possible. Sadly, it's an effective method to generate flow to his articles, as people in that particular group see it, get pissed off, and send it to all their friends and/or their (Mac/Linux/whatever) news source of choice where it gets posted and people click on the link just to leave a comment about how far out in outer space his article is.
I do have to grudgingly admit that his method is brilliant, as it's apparently kept him employed all these years, despite his glaring shortcomings as a writer and a journalist.
Never. As I understand it, the stuff that broke networking on a lot of applications are fundamental changes in Tiger's APIs that can't be fixed without going back to the old (Panther) way. Every major revision of Mac OS X has broken compatibility with at least a few apps.
Compatibility issues with applications will have to be fixed by the individual software vendors, specifically, they'll have to switch to the new APIs.
The good news is that one of the big things about Tiger is that Apple has supposedly reached a point where they're done making changes to the APIs that break things. This is mentioned in the first page of Ars Technica's Tiger review.
Actually, it wasn't an OS, it was the Power Macintosh 7100. Part of the reason Sagan sued was the Power Macintosh 6100 and 8100 (the other two of the three original Power Macs, developed at the same time as the 7100) were both code-named for hoaxes (Piltdown Man and Code Fusion, respectively). The implications of code-naming two of three projects for hoaxes, and the third for a famous astronomer are pretty clear.;-)
...This will mean that the US will be left behind....
This isn't a legal battle within the US. IIRC this patenting algorithms nonsense has been legal in the US for a while. This comes a result of a new ruling within the European Union, and these projects are all hosted within EU countries.
There's still a chance that this can be stopped, it still needs to pass the Euorpean parliament, so anybody within the EU who's concerned should contact your representative in the EU parliament and explain why software patents are a bad idea.
If you're going to make an April Fool's joke about a new Apple media center, at least come up with a new name, instead of re-using one that was already used for a well-known hoax when the rumors of the Mac mini first surfaced.
The good thing is that if she actually uses Linux, instead of just endorsing it, a lot of formerly unknown security vulnerabilities will be found (and exploited to leak whatever self-made porn she has on the Linux box.) Once these vulnerabilities are known, the open source community can quickly patch them.
That stubborn and insanely stubborn backward mentality is what's finally going to sink Apple. Apple needs to expand to the PC world and the PC world needs OS X.
Actually, the closest Apple ever came to dying was when they did license the Mac OS. From 1995 to 1998 Apple licensed the Mac OS to half a dozen other companies, including DayStar Digital, who made the only quad-processor Mac ever.
During that time period Apple went from a 10 billion USD company to a 2 billion USD company all because of the clones. Apple's business model is to sell hardware, and clone makers would directly compete with them for Mac sales. They wouldn't make enough off of Mac OS X sales to keep afloat when all the clone makers are undercutting them on price.
Licensing the OS works fine for Microsoft because they're primarily a software company. The more Windows manufacturers there are, there more Microsoft makes off of licenses, but the more Mac clone manufacturers there are, the more Apple would lose from lost CPU sales.
Being the company with the "only real desktop alternative" operating system is what keeps Apple afloat. People buy Apple's computers to get Mac OS X, so Apple gets money off of Mac OS X sales, and even more money off of Mac CPU sales. That's (officially) why they released the Mac mini in January: so that people that have had their eye on switching for a while, but can't afford to shell out several hundred USD for a new system just to switch or add a Mac OS X box can get that box for half the price, provided they have an old keyboard, mouse, and monitor lying around. Apple gets increased income from all the people that wouldn't/couldn't have bought a Mac because it was too expensive.
Yes, he is. Dvorak's been "quite the retard" at least since I was first exposed to him when he wrote for MacWorld magazine in the early to mid-90s, probably even before.
I think his basic approach to writing an article is "what can I write that will piss off the dedicated supporters of a minority operating system, thereby making my no-talent drivel look 'discussion provoking' to my editors when all the supporters of said minority operating system all write in to say what a talentless hack I am?"
I hope the submitter was joking because does that make any sense? For one the maximum amount of RAM you can have is 1GB, the processor is not 64bit and gigabit ethernet is not available.
Yes, I was joking about the mini cluster. Although, given that this is slashdot, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone do it just for the geeky fun of it.
This article at least has some research behind it. It specifies that Opener isn't a worm, and has no vector to spread. It also does a good job of pointing out that the weak link in Mac OS X security is arrogant users that insist on pretending that Mac OS X is invulnerable.
The Great Salt Lake is too saline for sharks. However, as a resident of Salt Lake City, I can assure you that those brine shrimp are plotting to take over the world. This is just the first test in their program to disable civilian and military aircraft with lasers, thereby establishing an empire centered on the GSL.
Slashdot Mirror
[+] troll, stupid, moron, dvorak, idiot (tagging beta)
Looks to me like the tagging is working pretty well these days.
I think one of my previous posts sums up Dvorak pretty well.
Any way you define "planet" outside of something simple like a mass or radius limit will have a hazy limit. "Roundness," as in relaxed into an oblate spheroid by its own gravity, has a number of borderline cases already known, not to mention a number of objects that we just don't know about yet, and icy bodies seem to form spheroids at lower masses than rocky bodies, because they're less rigid. Composition doesn't help because the composition of most of the known TNOs is approximate at best, and outright guesswork in many cases. Using some kind of orbital parameters limits the usefulness of the term to our own Solar System, since many of the extrasolar planets that have been found show that there's more than one way for a system to form. Yet, if you use something simple like "objects with a radius of at least X km" or "objets with a mass of at least Y kg" you're drawing a completely arbitrary line.
Basically, I don't think "planet" can ever be a scientific term, because, as many of the large TNOs illustrate, sub-stellar objects form a continuum with multiple axes. Defining stellar objects is relatively easy: they have enough mass to sustain fusion in their cores, or they're the "dead" remnants of such an object. Likewise, Brown Dwarfs can be easily defined as massive enough to trigger deuterium burning, assuming the object has any deuterium left. Gas Giants are also fairly easy to class: no chance of fusion (deuterium or otherwise), and no solid surface. It's not cut and dry for the smaller objects, and I thinks there's always going to be some grey area and borderline cases, no matter what the definition.
In addition, ARD is used extensively in mac-only computer labs on University campuses everywhere.
Bingo. I work in such a lab (actually, several labs scattered around a university campus), and we use ARD all the time to remote-control machines, remotely launch UNIX utilities, and remotely gather information. ("I can't remember off the top of my head if the Theatre Lab machines have enough RAM for this app...")
I'm personally looking forward to ARD 3. Curtain Mode is going to be such a nice improvement: I occasionally run into situations where I lock a screen, run a file system managemant utility (radmind, specifically) via Send UNIX Command, then control the machine after it run maintenance and restarts to test whatever new app I'm pushing out to the labs, and have some student just plop down at the machine and start using it at the same time I'm remote-controlling it. ("Oh, hey, here's an unused computer that somebody must have forgotten to log out of. Wait, it's acting like somebody's using it!")
AFAIK, none of the techniques we have right now can detect planets much smaller than the one they just found....
Actually, according to the article (last paragraph):
So, this technique could find ~Earth-mass planets, but only if they're aligned just right.
John Dvorak's worst attempt at generating hits on his site by trolling. Ever.
Not having gotten my hands on a copy of this, I don't know how it works, but it seems similar to the proof-of-concept from nearly two years ago, which exploited issues in the Finder with handling file extensions vs. type/creator codes (IIRC, the proof was an application with type code 'APPL' and extension .mp3, which made the Finder display it as an MP3 but treat it as an application when clicked).
Not quite. MP3Concept, like the one from the article (JPGConcept? ;-), used the common icon for a particular file type as the application's custom icon. When MP3Concept was all the rage, I tested this by changing my default MP3 icon. (I think I just added a small, red triangle in one corner, just something that was easily visible.) I had to log out and back in for the changed icon to propagate, but once it did, all of my legitimate MP3s had the updated icon, while "virus.mp3" (MP3Concept) still had the un-modified icon. So, no, Finder wasn't getting confused about what type of file it was. Finder knew it was a program, and not an MP3, but the custom icon tricked the user into thinking it was an MP3. The reason iTunes would play an MP3 when you double-clicked on "virus.mp3" was because MP3Concept was programmed to tell iTunes to play an MP3 hidden in MP3Concept.
These won't be out until 2007, but it still raises the question: did Apple jump the gun by switching to Intel?"
Not unless you think Apple would use the POWER6 (which is designed entirely for servers) in personal computers and portables.
The whole reason for the switch was that the PowerPC had stopped being helpful to Apple's strategy. The G4 had stagnated: originally introduced in 1999, it had been updated fast enough to keep up with competitors. (Top FSB speed is a measly 167 MHz, top internal clock speed is about 1.67 GHz.) I mean, it's mostly seven year old technology. The G5 was stagnating: originally introduced in 2003 at 2 GHz, IBM promised 3 GHz by the end of the year, but here we are, almost three years later, and 2.7 GHz is the fastest available. Meanwhile, IBM managed to corner the game console market (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Revolution are all using IBM processors), so Apple's ~1 million units a quarter (which is actually split between IBM and Freescale anyway) just doesn't represent a big deal to IBM's bottom line.
Basically, the PowerPC architecture is evolving away from personal/portable computers and into game consoles, embedded devices, and computing clusters, while the POWER architecture (very similar to the PowerPC architecture, but there are differences) remains a high-end server platform. On top of that, Intel started making real progress in improving their performance-per-watt ratios, to the point that they started edging out the ratios on the PowerPC. So, no, Apple didn't jump the gun.
One last thing, why must every article about IBM microprocessor technology get spun as an Apple article on slashdot? This article, especially because it's dealing with POWER, the older brother to the architecture Apple's moving away from rather than the actual used-by-Apple architecture, would have worked as a "Look at the cool thing IBM's working on" without the unnecessary Apple connection.
Not just the Cube: the Lisa, iPod photo, Apple ///, Mac TV, Copland...
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you almost totally on this. Apple's just had it's fair share of flops, above and beyond the Cube, but that's only natural when you're actually out there trying things.
P.S. There are some dubious looking bumps in the sand on Mars. I think they might be hiding WMDs!
Well, now all we have to do is make sure the US government knows that they also have oil, and there'll be a counter-invasion in record time.
My first exposure to John C. Dvorak was back in the mid-90s, when he was writing for MacUser (or was it MacWorld?). I thought he was a hack then, and he's still obviously a hack now. When he sits down his entire method to write a given column is to pick a group (Mac users, Linux users, whomever) and design the article to be as inflamitory to that group as possible. Sadly, it's an effective method to generate flow to his articles, as people in that particular group see it, get pissed off, and send it to all their friends and/or their (Mac/Linux/whatever) news source of choice where it gets posted and people click on the link just to leave a comment about how far out in outer space his article is.
I do have to grudgingly admit that his method is brilliant, as it's apparently kept him employed all these years, despite his glaring shortcomings as a writer and a journalist.
Never. As I understand it, the stuff that broke networking on a lot of applications are fundamental changes in Tiger's APIs that can't be fixed without going back to the old (Panther) way. Every major revision of Mac OS X has broken compatibility with at least a few apps.
Compatibility issues with applications will have to be fixed by the individual software vendors, specifically, they'll have to switch to the new APIs.
The good news is that one of the big things about Tiger is that Apple has supposedly reached a point where they're done making changes to the APIs that break things. This is mentioned in the first page of Ars Technica's Tiger review.
Actually, it wasn't an OS, it was the Power Macintosh 7100. Part of the reason Sagan sued was the Power Macintosh 6100 and 8100 (the other two of the three original Power Macs, developed at the same time as the 7100) were both code-named for hoaxes (Piltdown Man and Code Fusion, respectively). The implications of code-naming two of three projects for hoaxes, and the third for a famous astronomer are pretty clear. ;-)
This isn't a legal battle within the US. IIRC this patenting algorithms nonsense has been legal in the US for a while. This comes a result of a new ruling within the European Union, and these projects are all hosted within EU countries.
There's still a chance that this can be stopped, it still needs to pass the Euorpean parliament, so anybody within the EU who's concerned should contact your representative in the EU parliament and explain why software patents are a bad idea.
If you're going to make an April Fool's joke about a new Apple media center, at least come up with a new name, instead of re-using one that was already used for a well-known hoax when the rumors of the Mac mini first surfaced.
"That hot, alien babe warped my fragile, little mind."
The good thing is that if she actually uses Linux, instead of just endorsing it, a lot of formerly unknown security vulnerabilities will be found (and exploited to leak whatever self-made porn she has on the Linux box.) Once these vulnerabilities are known, the open source community can quickly patch them.
(Yes, I realize it's an April Fool's joke.)
(I think I read somewhere that Microsoft promises longhorn once they work the bugs out of the current OS.)
In other words: never?
Is it considered cruelty to animals if someone continues beating a dead horse year after year?
That stubborn and insanely stubborn backward mentality is what's finally going to sink Apple. Apple needs to expand to the PC world and the PC world needs OS X.
Actually, the closest Apple ever came to dying was when they did license the Mac OS. From 1995 to 1998 Apple licensed the Mac OS to half a dozen other companies, including DayStar Digital, who made the only quad-processor Mac ever.
During that time period Apple went from a 10 billion USD company to a 2 billion USD company all because of the clones. Apple's business model is to sell hardware, and clone makers would directly compete with them for Mac sales. They wouldn't make enough off of Mac OS X sales to keep afloat when all the clone makers are undercutting them on price.
Licensing the OS works fine for Microsoft because they're primarily a software company. The more Windows manufacturers there are, there more Microsoft makes off of licenses, but the more Mac clone manufacturers there are, the more Apple would lose from lost CPU sales.
Being the company with the "only real desktop alternative" operating system is what keeps Apple afloat. People buy Apple's computers to get Mac OS X, so Apple gets money off of Mac OS X sales, and even more money off of Mac CPU sales. That's (officially) why they released the Mac mini in January: so that people that have had their eye on switching for a while, but can't afford to shell out several hundred USD for a new system just to switch or add a Mac OS X box can get that box for half the price, provided they have an old keyboard, mouse, and monitor lying around. Apple gets increased income from all the people that wouldn't/couldn't have bought a Mac because it was too expensive.
This Dvorak chap is quite the retard.
Yes, he is. Dvorak's been "quite the retard" at least since I was first exposed to him when he wrote for MacWorld magazine in the early to mid-90s, probably even before.
I think his basic approach to writing an article is "what can I write that will piss off the dedicated supporters of a minority operating system, thereby making my no-talent drivel look 'discussion provoking' to my editors when all the supporters of said minority operating system all write in to say what a talentless hack I am?"
What's next, start patenting the AND, NOT, OR family of operations?
You know, when I first read this a long time ago, I just thought it was a funny story, but now I'm realizing how prophetic it was:
Microsoft Patents 0 and 1How completely shocking that Microsoft's Security Chief would publicly declare that his company makes a more secure product that its competitors!
I hope the submitter was joking because does that make any sense? For one the maximum amount of RAM you can have is 1GB, the processor is not 64bit and gigabit ethernet is not available. Yes, I was joking about the mini cluster. Although, given that this is slashdot, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone do it just for the geeky fun of it.
Not that anybody's gonna see this, buried as deeply as it is, but:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/ocThis article at least has some research behind it. It specifies that Opener isn't a worm, and has no vector to spread. It also does a good job of pointing out that the weak link in Mac OS X security is arrogant users that insist on pretending that Mac OS X is invulnerable.
The Great Salt Lake is too saline for sharks. However, as a resident of Salt Lake City, I can assure you that those brine shrimp are plotting to take over the world. This is just the first test in their program to disable civilian and military aircraft with lasers, thereby establishing an empire centered on the GSL.