Wouldn't be the first time. E.g. Linux supported FAT32 long before Microsoft's main line of OSs (the NT line) could. MS Word is also the only app amongst WordPerfect, OpenOffice and even WordPad that is full of bugs importing RTF files - MS's own format.
WTF? Windows XP help is about as useful a brick in solving problems. It's of the "Did you check that the printer is turned on? Yes? Oh sorry we can't help you" variety.
I'm not sure why Linux would need a built-in anti-virus. Microsoft seem to have (intentionally or not) convinced 99% of the world that it's perfectly normal for an operating system to have hundreds of thousands of viruses, rather than mostly being due to design flaws. (Some could also argue that enabling the firewall by default should not be necessary if software was actually designed properly i.e. built securely, then we could actually use all those cool networking features that we now just, well, turn off, because we know some script kiddie's gonna exploit a bug in 'em.)
I have to agree the Linux community 'screwed up' a bit when it comes to standardising on package management. I mean, this has been a known problem for years. It's become like the weather: everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Making it easy to install apps in a way that works across all of the major distros will go a long way. Making an "installer creator" that creates such installation packages would also help developers create easily installable software that runs on multiple distros, so that developers don't have to worry about manually building and testing installers on many platforms. (Yes I know about "configure", but somehow I don't think asking Gran to compile the source code for apps is the 'right solution').
This manipulates the supply side, not the demand side, as was implied. They're not "creating demand" they're "preventing a supply spike" caused by old and new models overlapping. You can't "create demand" by manipulating supply, you create demand by e.g. doing more marketing. Most shoppers aren't after a particular model, they just want a X or a Y, and could go either way while shopping depending on how they feel that day, which means X and Y effectively compete. By clearing stock of X before introducing Y you lower the supply and variety of choice.
Of course, by clearing stock totally before introducing a new product, and leaving a gap inbetween, with the hopes that those shopping during the gap will then wait until Y because they can't buy an X, is unwise because that shopper is more likely to just use that gap to switch to a competitor's product Z.. this is especially true in the PC market, where there is mostly competition amongst component manufacturers, e.g. ATI vs NVIDIA, Seagate vs Western Digital, and so on. For an Apple user it might mean buying a PC.
Stupid? I wonder why everyone does it then. The PC world is the same (e.g. I recently bought a Centrino laptop at about the same time Banias came out --- everyone was trying hard to clear Centrino stock). It's not so much to artificially create demand, but to prevent the old models and the new models from competing with one another, which if you're not careful can put downward price pressure on BOTH the old and new models.
Replying to yourself now, are you.. shame. Look, I have an engineering degree and over twelve years experience doing c++ (and some assembly language) development mostly on Windows at various levels of the system, from user interface to threads to networking to 3d graphics (OpenGL and Direct3D) amongst other things, have cross-platform application and system driver development experience for Mac, Linux and Windows, so if you want to debate about this academically, go ahead, please, do feel free to point out any of the aspects of the "superior Windows operating system design", so that I can debunk you in as technical, academic, in-depth and "non-zealous" a manner as possible. Or, gee, I could bring up a few retarded aspects of Win32 design, such as the Win16Mutex (global system mutex, really bad idea, race condition nightmares between DirectX and sockets API calls for example), these are mistakes that have not been made in Mac architecture design, these are objective facts and have nothing to do with zealotry, but feel free to go ahead and try debunk facts. If you want to keep calling me a zealot, I will call you on that, and if you can't back up your stance on PCs, I guess that makes you a PC zealot.
Hate to break it to you, but you're way past "Joe Public" there.. you're selling mostly to geeks/gamers etc., who are mostly relatively non-technical (i.e. not programmers/engineers) but are still relatively "hardcore" (e.g. can put a PC together, install system drivers etc.). That's what, 10% of people? The other 90% outside of that culture honestly really couldn't give a crap about sitting downloading private movie collections via p2p in their free time and recording them to DVDs, blah blah blah, because really, most people do actually have 'better things to do' and don't want to be using the computer when they don't have to. Look further, you'll start seeing these people, trust me. I know it's hard to imagine when you're part of that crowd, but you'll probably start seeing it when you hit the working world.
BTW, Mac systems do support DVD writers (I think even the Mac Mini does IIRC), digital cameras, big hard disks, in fact everything you've mentioned except the games. (There's also Virtual PC software to run any of your Windows apps, including old Win 3.1 apps, although obviously that won't work for games).
Uh, what do you mean "Try again"? I didn't notice you 'rebut' anything in the GP post, which was just your point exactly (making yours 'redundant') that trademarks may enter the language and become associated with the generic form of the product they originally referred to. Or were you just trying to show us how clever you are by saying "I know this isn't the first time this happened to a product". But the GP poster never said it was the first time.
If you're paranoid you should worry more about Google than about Microsoft because what Google does actually matters
Good grief, are you stupid, trolling, or shilling? Microsoft has a proven track-record of frequent, regular and ongoing unethical behaviour that stretches back some two decades or so, and they've shown no signs of changing. Google have so far not shown any signs of unethical behaviour at all. Where the hell do you get the idea that this has anything to do with "paranoia", it's just bloody common sense to judge companies by their actions in this way. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Of course one can never tell for sure, but it's the best gauge we have (gosh, if you lack this basic common sense I don't know how you manage personal relationships)... if Google starts behaving unethically, or if Microsoft starts behaving ethically, of course I'll re-evaluate my opinions of them. But it's just plain stupid to suddenly ignore the "known criminal" and worry about the "known well-behaver".
Your copyright arguments are so ridiculous I suspect I'm feeding a troll here, but if you're really that worried about it just add Google to your friggin "robots.txt" and 'the bad Google will go away, little Joey'.
It has nothing to do with pipelining, and what he/she said is correct, I think you've missed his/her point; in CISC architectures the number of clock cycles per instruction varies depending on the complexity of the instruction, whereas in "traditional" RISC architectures you had 1 instruction per clock.
If you think the differences lie only in looks, then you are revealing a rather stark lack of knowledge about OS X and, well, operating system design in general.. sounds more like you're just repeating a mantra that you heard from others, which makes you no less "biased" than me. The fact is, OS X really is a better designed operating system, it really is "good engineering" as opposed to Windows which really is sloppy so-called "good enough" engineering. Just like Ferrari really is a better engineered car, and nicer to drive than, say, a Ford. Or would you call someone a "zealot" for wanting to drive a Ferrari over a Ford, or claim someone "biased" for stating that Ferrari is better engineering? I mean after all, a car's a car right? They're all "nice enough", they all have four tyres and a steering wheel, a Ferrari only "looks a bit better", right? Riiight.. you keep telling yourself that, but believe me, standing there obviously advocating mediocrity doesn't make you look smart. I don't know why you apply a different standard here. Or perhaps you really believe that it's OK for mankind to aim for mediocrity in computer design, but of that's the case you probably shouldn't have anything to do with either computer design or the advocacy of specific systems.
You are probably right though that Windows is "good enough" for most people (if you ignore all the virus/spyware/security problems), but that's all it is, "good enough". It's certainly not "nice". It puzzles me how people like you can stand there and actively defend mediocrity. (Is it that you feel you have to defend your own personal choices? I mean, you presumably use Windows, so saying "Windows is a poor choice" implies *you* made a poor choice, perhaps you are rationalising your choice?) I don't get it... "You should buy Windows, even though it looks worse, and you'll need to install anti-virus which slow down your PC, and you'll be cleaning spyware every other week, etc. etc., this is the right choice!"
Still, you are probably right that most of the things that annoy me about Windows stem from me being an 'advanced user', and are in features that most "Joe Public" users don't use (for example Windows SMB networking, which is *genuinely* bad from any kind of engineering perspective). But most users don't use it, and even fewer use it all the time.
Anyway, if you're going to be comparing platforms, I suggest you at least make sure to have some genuine knowledge of the platforms you're comparing next time. Claiming that the difference between XP and OS X is mainly looks makes it pitifully obvious that you don't.
Still, what kind of moron bases their decision of which computer platform to purchase on the perceived political opinions of most other users of that platform, rather than e.g. it's technical capabilities, usability, design strengths etc.
How can a computer be "right" or "left" anyway? Does the G4's assembly language have instructions for creating socialist socio-economic systems? Give me a break --- what a load of crap.
You're missing the point, like most people on this forum, seemingly. Fact is, outside of the tiny minority of humans that constitute the "geeky" market segment, the vast majority of people who buy computers really honestly couldn't give a crap about either "raw horsepower" or "small form factor". They just want a computer that is NICE TO USE and is not overly expensive. Read that part in caps again... PCs just do not fit the bill (certainly neither Windows nor Linux), Mac Mini does.
You can do whatever you like to a PC, make it fast, small, whatever, doesn't matter, because no matter what you do it will still be "just a PC". Until someone makes a decent, usable operating system for the PC platform, I'll stick with the Mac, because I'd actually like to be able to use a computer for more than a few hours straight without wanting to put a brick through the screen.
I'm sorry for you if you think that only a "Mac cultist" would think Mac's have a vastly better designed operating system that is also more aesthetically pleasing.. obviously you haven't even used a Mac. Windows sucks no matter how much "raw horsepower" you give it, and Linux is not ready for Joe Public.
This is harder than you think. We already know of animals that can carry, but are immune to the effects of, current viruses like HIV, Ebola etc., but I don't see any magic cure. It's a little more complex than just looking into the bunny with a microscope, seeing "hey that blobby there, that's the cure" and pulling it out and plopping it into a vaccine solution. There are also humans who carry HIV but seem to take much much longer to develop AIDS. They may have a partial solution inside them, but I don't see anyone quickly pulling it out.
That's interesting.. would like to know more about it, will google. I've been wondering what the mechanism might to evolve a species from one with one number of chromosome pairs to another number of chromosome pairs, since if it happened 'by chance now and then' there would be noone for the new creature to breed with - it would have to happen to a whole lot of members of a species at once, and one possibility I thought of that might cause that would be some sort of virus or other typical disease agent.
Of course that's a good question, and there's a good answer too... they developed and tried many models, and they chose the models that were most accurately able to predict the past climate changes. These models were tested, in other words, and performed well. Now of course that doesn't mean they're necessarily highly accurate, but it does imply that it's very likely that we have some good reasons to at least sit up and take notice of these results, and do a lot more research on this... i.e. this is a huge signpost shouting "it would be a very good idea to do more research in this direction", and it would be highly prudent to follow that signpost, and highly stupid to ignore it.
I honestly do not understand how anyone can doubt that humans cause climate change.
(1) Because people (including many here on/. apparently) don't think for themselves and easily believe the (politically and economically based) propaganda claiming otherwise.
(2) People simply don't like being told that their current lifestyles are unsustainable and that they'll have to make changes if we are to survive (i.e. they just don't like hearing that there is something "wrong" with the way they are living, so they'd rather just bury their head in the sand). I mean, nobody likes hearing that there is something wrong with something they rather like, and have grown accustomed to, doing.
(3) The problem "feels" too big to solve, essentially insurmountable, so many people feel helpless so they'd rather just deny there is a problem (again, head-in-the-sand syndrome), it feels more comforting that way, and...
... (4) many people prefer to believe a comforting falsehood than a discomforting truth.
(5) Peer pressure (which is for adults as much as it is for teens). Certain opinions, even though they're wrong, are "cool" to have, purely by virtue of most of your peer group having them. If everyone else at school or at work acts like it's cool to blew out blatantly false statements like "volcanoes generate more greenhouse gasses than mankind's activities" or to reject pro-sustainability advocates as "tree-hugging hippies", then it becomes "cool" to do that, so if you want to be cool and not be uncool you say the same things.
(6) Group-think/sheeple etc. Most people don't behave based on rational thought and analysis of problems, rather they simply imitate what other people do. So if other people laugh and say "damn bunny-hugging liberals screaming chick little", then they imitate that behaviour, regardless of how immensely stupid it might be to ignore a massive climate change problem, because that seems like more "fun" behaviour.
(7) Combining (2) and (5), nobody likes a "party pooper", i.e. nobody likes the guy that points out the problem with what you're doing. So many otherwise rational, intelligent people don't pipe up and criticise stupid behaviour.. they just watch quietly, not wanting to be the "party pooper".
(8) Another reason people prefer to ignore the problem is that humans are generally evolved for short-term thinking. Only a tiny percentage of the population can think further into the future, so for more people it all just seems way too far in the future to really be something to worry about.
Of course, all these things are so dumb and trivial compared to the problem we're facing.
And yes, the comparative seriousness of terrorism vs. global warming is probably about equatable to the comparative seriousness of a mosquito vs. an oncoming truck. I know the US is full of fear-inducing propaganda at the moment about terrorism alerts and threats, but on any broader scale the threat of terrorism is absolutely miniscule. Honestly, if you want to prioritize based on this "immediate threat", you should be aiming at smoking or something, because even cigarettes kill millions more people each year than terrorism ever will, and for no good reason or benefit.
Right: so if there's an oncoming truck in the distance heading for you in your lane, but there's a mosquito biting you right now, you should first take care of killing the mosquito? Way to intelligently prioritize man!
It is impossible to exaggerate just what a HUGE friggin problem global warming is to mankind, the problem of solving it should be occupying every one of us every day in some way, because we're SO TOTALLY F*CKED, and sooner than we think, if we don't start doing something about it yesterday. This is very big, very scary, and very real; it's the biggest problem mankind has ever faced. This is not chicken little tinfoil-hat paranoia, because it really is real. I'm sorry if worrying about anything further than 20 years into the future is too difficult for you and seemingly most other people, I know most humans haven't evolved long-term thinking capabilities, but this is one time we have to start trying.
One of my parents has a genetic neuro-degenerative disease, which I have a 50/50 chance of inheriting, that is destroying her brain, and all we can do is watch helplessly as she deteriorates day by day. It will probably kill her within two or three years. If I've inherited it, the same thing will happen to me within about 20 years. There is no cure because science does not know enough to stop the degeneration and promote regrowth of brain tissue. Even if it's too late to cure her, this type of research can possibly save myself, and the millions of other people who suffer from disorders like this. I say bring it on. I'm sorry if a few mice have some weird cognitive experiences, I don't think that holds a candle to the millions of humans who we know are suffering right now.
I don't know the answer, but I'm willing to bet that Microsoft bought up several smaller competing firewalls and picked one to extend and integrate and call it "personal firewall". This is and always has been their MO, they never write ANYTHING, they buy everything. This gets rid of potential competitors at the time they want to enter a market.
I remember it used to be often claimed that the Visual C compiler was 'derived from a product called Lattice C'. I once met one of the original 'Visual C++ version 1' developers, I asked him if it was true, and he said very offhandedly "oh sure, at that time Microsoft bought a whole lot of compilers, and Lattice was one of them". You can name pretty much any Microsoft product and you'll find it was 'bought and extended/integrated', e.g. SourceSafe was LoneTree, DirectX was bought from a London company called RenderMorphics, Internet Explorer was Spyglass, etc, and even recently with their new anti-spyware system, they just bought someone else's product. All Microsoft games were simply bought too (e.g. age of empires). Gates established this MO very early on with the purchase of DOS. Even friggin PaintBrush (a very poor clone of MacPaint) was bought. Why make anything when you have 80% profit margins giving you so much cash that you can just buy everyone else that appears?
Used to be a site called 'the whole microsoft catalog' that tried to track and log MS acquisitions. I guess it got too difficult to keep updated, since MS buys companies just about every day.
In other words, the "method" is not much of an invention if just about any programmer (i.e. 'person skilled in the field') can come up with the method in a few minutes, which is CERTAINLY true in this case. Note I'm referring to the method, not the idea of doing it: you can't patent an "idea" (e.g. "show geographical location of incoming firewall connections"), you patent a method for implementing an idea. You can take any programmer off the street, tell him/her to "show geographical location of incoming firewall connections", and in under five minutes (and without any knowledge of McAfee's "invention") they'll probably pretty much all be linking the logs to a visual traceroute, none of which are new things.
I've heard it often that a patent can't be "obvious to a person skilled in the field" - any lawyers here who can confirm if its true?
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Wouldn't be the first time. E.g. Linux supported FAT32 long before Microsoft's main line of OSs (the NT line) could. MS Word is also the only app amongst WordPerfect, OpenOffice and even WordPad that is full of bugs importing RTF files - MS's own format.
"Windows XP had excellent help files"
WTF? Windows XP help is about as useful a brick in solving problems. It's of the "Did you check that the printer is turned on? Yes? Oh sorry we can't help you" variety.
I'm not sure why Linux would need a built-in anti-virus. Microsoft seem to have (intentionally or not) convinced 99% of the world that it's perfectly normal for an operating system to have hundreds of thousands of viruses, rather than mostly being due to design flaws. (Some could also argue that enabling the firewall by default should not be necessary if software was actually designed properly i.e. built securely, then we could actually use all those cool networking features that we now just, well, turn off, because we know some script kiddie's gonna exploit a bug in 'em.)
I have to agree the Linux community 'screwed up' a bit when it comes to standardising on package management. I mean, this has been a known problem for years. It's become like the weather: everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Making it easy to install apps in a way that works across all of the major distros will go a long way. Making an "installer creator" that creates such installation packages would also help developers create easily installable software that runs on multiple distros, so that developers don't have to worry about manually building and testing installers on many platforms. (Yes I know about "configure", but somehow I don't think asking Gran to compile the source code for apps is the 'right solution').
True, that was a bit ludicrous :)
This manipulates the supply side, not the demand side, as was implied. They're not "creating demand" they're "preventing a supply spike" caused by old and new models overlapping. You can't "create demand" by manipulating supply, you create demand by e.g. doing more marketing. Most shoppers aren't after a particular model, they just want a X or a Y, and could go either way while shopping depending on how they feel that day, which means X and Y effectively compete. By clearing stock of X before introducing Y you lower the supply and variety of choice.
Of course, by clearing stock totally before introducing a new product, and leaving a gap inbetween, with the hopes that those shopping during the gap will then wait until Y because they can't buy an X, is unwise because that shopper is more likely to just use that gap to switch to a competitor's product Z .. this is especially true in the PC market, where there is mostly competition amongst component manufacturers, e.g. ATI vs NVIDIA, Seagate vs Western Digital, and so on. For an Apple user it might mean buying a PC.
Funny, I just meta-moderated Mr. "This demo is staged" unfair, and came to this discussion after (and because of) that :)
Stupid? I wonder why everyone does it then. The PC world is the same (e.g. I recently bought a Centrino laptop at about the same time Banias came out --- everyone was trying hard to clear Centrino stock). It's not so much to artificially create demand, but to prevent the old models and the new models from competing with one another, which if you're not careful can put downward price pressure on BOTH the old and new models.
Hmm .. actually, now that you mention it, I don't know. That was my "intuitive" reaction, but I can't offer a legal opinion :/
Replying to yourself now, are you .. shame. Look, I have an engineering degree and over twelve years experience doing c++ (and some assembly language) development mostly on Windows at various levels of the system, from user interface to threads to networking to 3d graphics (OpenGL and Direct3D) amongst other things, have cross-platform application and system driver development experience for Mac, Linux and Windows, so if you want to debate about this academically, go ahead, please, do feel free to point out any of the aspects of the "superior Windows operating system design", so that I can debunk you in as technical, academic, in-depth and "non-zealous" a manner as possible. Or, gee, I could bring up a few retarded aspects of Win32 design, such as the Win16Mutex (global system mutex, really bad idea, race condition nightmares between DirectX and sockets API calls for example), these are mistakes that have not been made in Mac architecture design, these are objective facts and have nothing to do with zealotry, but feel free to go ahead and try debunk facts. If you want to keep calling me a zealot, I will call you on that, and if you can't back up your stance on PCs, I guess that makes you a PC zealot.
Hate to break it to you, but you're way past "Joe Public" there .. you're selling mostly to geeks/gamers etc., who are mostly relatively non-technical (i.e. not programmers/engineers) but are still relatively "hardcore" (e.g. can put a PC together, install system drivers etc.). That's what, 10% of people? The other 90% outside of that culture honestly really couldn't give a crap about sitting downloading private movie collections via p2p in their free time and recording them to DVDs, blah blah blah, because really, most people do actually have 'better things to do' and don't want to be using the computer when they don't have to. Look further, you'll start seeing these people, trust me. I know it's hard to imagine when you're part of that crowd, but you'll probably start seeing it when you hit the working world.
BTW, Mac systems do support DVD writers (I think even the Mac Mini does IIRC), digital cameras, big hard disks, in fact everything you've mentioned except the games. (There's also Virtual PC software to run any of your Windows apps, including old Win 3.1 apps, although obviously that won't work for games).
Uh, what do you mean "Try again"? I didn't notice you 'rebut' anything in the GP post, which was just your point exactly (making yours 'redundant') that trademarks may enter the language and become associated with the generic form of the product they originally referred to. Or were you just trying to show us how clever you are by saying "I know this isn't the first time this happened to a product". But the GP poster never said it was the first time.
If you're paranoid you should worry more about Google than about Microsoft because what Google does actually matters
Good grief, are you stupid, trolling, or shilling? Microsoft has a proven track-record of frequent, regular and ongoing unethical behaviour that stretches back some two decades or so, and they've shown no signs of changing. Google have so far not shown any signs of unethical behaviour at all. Where the hell do you get the idea that this has anything to do with "paranoia", it's just bloody common sense to judge companies by their actions in this way. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Of course one can never tell for sure, but it's the best gauge we have (gosh, if you lack this basic common sense I don't know how you manage personal relationships) ... if Google starts behaving unethically, or if Microsoft starts behaving ethically, of course I'll re-evaluate my opinions of them. But it's just plain stupid to suddenly ignore the "known criminal" and worry about the "known well-behaver".
Your copyright arguments are so ridiculous I suspect I'm feeding a troll here, but if you're really that worried about it just add Google to your friggin "robots.txt" and 'the bad Google will go away, little Joey'.
It has nothing to do with pipelining, and what he/she said is correct, I think you've missed his/her point; in CISC architectures the number of clock cycles per instruction varies depending on the complexity of the instruction, whereas in "traditional" RISC architectures you had 1 instruction per clock.
See here for examples: http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~lockwood/class/cs306/res ources/helppc/asm.txt.html. Pipelining only came in on the 586 (i.e. Pentium).
If you think the differences lie only in looks, then you are revealing a rather stark lack of knowledge about OS X and, well, operating system design in general .. sounds more like you're just repeating a mantra that you heard from others, which makes you no less "biased" than me. The fact is, OS X really is a better designed operating system, it really is "good engineering" as opposed to Windows which really is sloppy so-called "good enough" engineering. Just like Ferrari really is a better engineered car, and nicer to drive than, say, a Ford. Or would you call someone a "zealot" for wanting to drive a Ferrari over a Ford, or claim someone "biased" for stating that Ferrari is better engineering? I mean after all, a car's a car right? They're all "nice enough", they all have four tyres and a steering wheel, a Ferrari only "looks a bit better", right? Riiight .. you keep telling yourself that, but believe me, standing there obviously advocating mediocrity doesn't make you look smart. I don't know why you apply a different standard here. Or perhaps you really believe that it's OK for mankind to aim for mediocrity in computer design, but of that's the case you probably shouldn't have anything to do with either computer design or the advocacy of specific systems.
You are probably right though that Windows is "good enough" for most people (if you ignore all the virus/spyware/security problems), but that's all it is, "good enough". It's certainly not "nice". It puzzles me how people like you can stand there and actively defend mediocrity. (Is it that you feel you have to defend your own personal choices? I mean, you presumably use Windows, so saying "Windows is a poor choice" implies *you* made a poor choice, perhaps you are rationalising your choice?) I don't get it ... "You should buy Windows, even though it looks worse, and you'll need to install anti-virus which slow down your PC, and you'll be cleaning spyware every other week, etc. etc., this is the right choice!"
Still, you are probably right that most of the things that annoy me about Windows stem from me being an 'advanced user', and are in features that most "Joe Public" users don't use (for example Windows SMB networking, which is *genuinely* bad from any kind of engineering perspective). But most users don't use it, and even fewer use it all the time.
Anyway, if you're going to be comparing platforms, I suggest you at least make sure to have some genuine knowledge of the platforms you're comparing next time. Claiming that the difference between XP and OS X is mainly looks makes it pitifully obvious that you don't.
Still, what kind of moron bases their decision of which computer platform to purchase on the perceived political opinions of most other users of that platform, rather than e.g. it's technical capabilities, usability, design strengths etc.
How can a computer be "right" or "left" anyway? Does the G4's assembly language have instructions for creating socialist socio-economic systems? Give me a break --- what a load of crap.
I suggest you take your own advice and re-read the GPL, carefully this time, you couldn't be more wrong.
BTW most useful OpenSource code is LGPL, which allows you to link to the compiled libraries without releasing any of your source code at all.
You're missing the point, like most people on this forum, seemingly. Fact is, outside of the tiny minority of humans that constitute the "geeky" market segment, the vast majority of people who buy computers really honestly couldn't give a crap about either "raw horsepower" or "small form factor". They just want a computer that is NICE TO USE and is not overly expensive. Read that part in caps again ... PCs just do not fit the bill (certainly neither Windows nor Linux), Mac Mini does.
You can do whatever you like to a PC, make it fast, small, whatever, doesn't matter, because no matter what you do it will still be "just a PC". Until someone makes a decent, usable operating system for the PC platform, I'll stick with the Mac, because I'd actually like to be able to use a computer for more than a few hours straight without wanting to put a brick through the screen.
I'm sorry for you if you think that only a "Mac cultist" would think Mac's have a vastly better designed operating system that is also more aesthetically pleasing .. obviously you haven't even used a Mac. Windows sucks no matter how much "raw horsepower" you give it, and Linux is not ready for Joe Public.
This is harder than you think. We already know of animals that can carry, but are immune to the effects of, current viruses like HIV, Ebola etc., but I don't see any magic cure. It's a little more complex than just looking into the bunny with a microscope, seeing "hey that blobby there, that's the cure" and pulling it out and plopping it into a vaccine solution. There are also humans who carry HIV but seem to take much much longer to develop AIDS. They may have a partial solution inside them, but I don't see anyone quickly pulling it out.
That's interesting .. would like to know more about it, will google. I've been wondering what the mechanism might to evolve a species from one with one number of chromosome pairs to another number of chromosome pairs, since if it happened 'by chance now and then' there would be noone for the new creature to breed with - it would have to happen to a whole lot of members of a species at once, and one possibility I thought of that might cause that would be some sort of virus or other typical disease agent.
Of course that's a good question, and there's a good answer too... they developed and tried many models, and they chose the models that were most accurately able to predict the past climate changes. These models were tested, in other words, and performed well. Now of course that doesn't mean they're necessarily highly accurate, but it does imply that it's very likely that we have some good reasons to at least sit up and take notice of these results, and do a lot more research on this ... i.e. this is a huge signpost shouting "it would be a very good idea to do more research in this direction", and it would be highly prudent to follow that signpost, and highly stupid to ignore it.
I honestly do not understand how anyone can doubt that humans cause climate change.
(1) Because people (including many here on /. apparently) don't think for themselves and easily believe the (politically and economically based) propaganda claiming otherwise.
(2) People simply don't like being told that their current lifestyles are unsustainable and that they'll have to make changes if we are to survive (i.e. they just don't like hearing that there is something "wrong" with the way they are living, so they'd rather just bury their head in the sand). I mean, nobody likes hearing that there is something wrong with something they rather like, and have grown accustomed to, doing.
(3) The problem "feels" too big to solve, essentially insurmountable, so many people feel helpless so they'd rather just deny there is a problem (again, head-in-the-sand syndrome), it feels more comforting that way, and ...
... (4) many people prefer to believe a comforting falsehood than a discomforting truth.
(5) Peer pressure (which is for adults as much as it is for teens). Certain opinions, even though they're wrong, are "cool" to have, purely by virtue of most of your peer group having them. If everyone else at school or at work acts like it's cool to blew out blatantly false statements like "volcanoes generate more greenhouse gasses than mankind's activities" or to reject pro-sustainability advocates as "tree-hugging hippies", then it becomes "cool" to do that, so if you want to be cool and not be uncool you say the same things.
(6) Group-think/sheeple etc. Most people don't behave based on rational thought and analysis of problems, rather they simply imitate what other people do. So if other people laugh and say "damn bunny-hugging liberals screaming chick little", then they imitate that behaviour, regardless of how immensely stupid it might be to ignore a massive climate change problem, because that seems like more "fun" behaviour.
(7) Combining (2) and (5), nobody likes a "party pooper", i.e. nobody likes the guy that points out the problem with what you're doing. So many otherwise rational, intelligent people don't pipe up and criticise stupid behaviour .. they just watch quietly, not wanting to be the "party pooper".
(8) Another reason people prefer to ignore the problem is that humans are generally evolved for short-term thinking. Only a tiny percentage of the population can think further into the future, so for more people it all just seems way too far in the future to really be something to worry about.
Of course, all these things are so dumb and trivial compared to the problem we're facing.
And yes, the comparative seriousness of terrorism vs. global warming is probably about equatable to the comparative seriousness of a mosquito vs. an oncoming truck. I know the US is full of fear-inducing propaganda at the moment about terrorism alerts and threats, but on any broader scale the threat of terrorism is absolutely miniscule. Honestly, if you want to prioritize based on this "immediate threat", you should be aiming at smoking or something, because even cigarettes kill millions more people each year than terrorism ever will, and for no good reason or benefit.
Right: so if there's an oncoming truck in the distance heading for you in your lane, but there's a mosquito biting you right now, you should first take care of killing the mosquito? Way to intelligently prioritize man!
It is impossible to exaggerate just what a HUGE friggin problem global warming is to mankind, the problem of solving it should be occupying every one of us every day in some way, because we're SO TOTALLY F*CKED, and sooner than we think, if we don't start doing something about it yesterday. This is very big, very scary, and very real; it's the biggest problem mankind has ever faced. This is not chicken little tinfoil-hat paranoia, because it really is real. I'm sorry if worrying about anything further than 20 years into the future is too difficult for you and seemingly most other people, I know most humans haven't evolved long-term thinking capabilities, but this is one time we have to start trying.
One of my parents has a genetic neuro-degenerative disease, which I have a 50/50 chance of inheriting, that is destroying her brain, and all we can do is watch helplessly as she deteriorates day by day. It will probably kill her within two or three years. If I've inherited it, the same thing will happen to me within about 20 years. There is no cure because science does not know enough to stop the degeneration and promote regrowth of brain tissue. Even if it's too late to cure her, this type of research can possibly save myself, and the millions of other people who suffer from disorders like this. I say bring it on. I'm sorry if a few mice have some weird cognitive experiences, I don't think that holds a candle to the millions of humans who we know are suffering right now.
I don't know the answer, but I'm willing to bet that Microsoft bought up several smaller competing firewalls and picked one to extend and integrate and call it "personal firewall". This is and always has been their MO, they never write ANYTHING, they buy everything. This gets rid of potential competitors at the time they want to enter a market.
I remember it used to be often claimed that the Visual C compiler was 'derived from a product called Lattice C'. I once met one of the original 'Visual C++ version 1' developers, I asked him if it was true, and he said very offhandedly "oh sure, at that time Microsoft bought a whole lot of compilers, and Lattice was one of them". You can name pretty much any Microsoft product and you'll find it was 'bought and extended/integrated', e.g. SourceSafe was LoneTree, DirectX was bought from a London company called RenderMorphics, Internet Explorer was Spyglass, etc, and even recently with their new anti-spyware system, they just bought someone else's product. All Microsoft games were simply bought too (e.g. age of empires). Gates established this MO very early on with the purchase of DOS. Even friggin PaintBrush (a very poor clone of MacPaint) was bought. Why make anything when you have 80% profit margins giving you so much cash that you can just buy everyone else that appears?
Used to be a site called 'the whole microsoft catalog' that tried to track and log MS acquisitions. I guess it got too difficult to keep updated, since MS buys companies just about every day.
In other words, the "method" is not much of an invention if just about any programmer (i.e. 'person skilled in the field') can come up with the method in a few minutes, which is CERTAINLY true in this case. Note I'm referring to the method, not the idea of doing it: you can't patent an "idea" (e.g. "show geographical location of incoming firewall connections"), you patent a method for implementing an idea. You can take any programmer off the street, tell him/her to "show geographical location of incoming firewall connections", and in under five minutes (and without any knowledge of McAfee's "invention") they'll probably pretty much all be linking the logs to a visual traceroute, none of which are new things.
I've heard it often that a patent can't be "obvious to a person skilled in the field" - any lawyers here who can confirm if its true?