ote, I'm an independent, I hate both parties, but really the Tea Party Republicans are being idiots here...and at least some of the non-Tea Party Republicans seem to agree with that sentiment.
Sure doesn't sound like an independent. I am a fiscal conservative. I do not care about the Republicans, nor do I care about the Democrats. I care about the fiscal budget, keeping the government small, and keeping them out of my pocket.
When this fiscal bloating began I disagreed from the beginning. The fact that some people in the government are trying to continue the status quo is both scary and downright stupid.
It's called negotiating; what we instead have is "I'm taking my ball and going home!!"
Furthermore, it's all really idiotic, because that $40 billion or whatever in cuts doesn't apply to this year's budget only. It applies to this year and the next several years! The actual cuts in any given year are relatively small, but they multiply them out over several years to make the numbers look bigger so we're all impressed by how Congress is cracking the whip. And it's moot, since Congress passes a new budget every year (roughly), because next year they could change what's funded/cut anyway; there's nothing forcing them to uphold the cuts/spending made in a previous year.
If it's all so small, then there should be no fear there except on possible exceptions to the cuts that people might have. Raise those concerns. Blocking cuts for the sake of a number is stupid, especially considering the size of the deficits that the last Congress and the current President ran on top of the already existing deficit spending.
If someone comes up with an identically coded solution then it seems obvious to me that the idea was not a very original piece of work.
You had me with most of your post, except that.
In programming--as in life--hindsight is 20/20. There are many times where a problem can be solved in many ways, but often times the best way presents itself after someone else solves it. Look at the implementation of many duplicate UNIX/Linux services to see this.
Even so, "exact" matches would still represent some sort of breach, but proving it would be quite difficult I imagine.
Still, I fully agree that software patents need to go, at least in their current form. Inventors do deserve some sort of protection, especially from big companies, but the current system is ridiculous.
I generally agree with the point, but I wonder if there is a better way than simply expanding cities?
Why not try spreading things out instead of concentrating everything? If towns were not all ridiculously sized, then people could actually afford to live where they worked, and as long utilities and shopping existed nearby.
This would also help to ease power consumption in dense areas. Also, it will ease crime, lower city temperatures and speed up travel times due to a lack of overly concentrated populations, plus lower gas consumption that results from sitting in gridlock or city lights expecting it. After all, cars are designed to be most efficient around 60 mph, rather than the general 15-45 mph that result from highway congestion and city lights. Not to mention road maintenance is a nightmare in high traffic areas.
As population grows, city growth is inevitable, but the longer you can delay it, then the better the population is. At least until we have some better alternatives for energy and better, longer lasting materials for building roads.
I have no interest in living in a small town, but now that I have lived in a big city I have decided that I don't want to live in a big city either. Medium sized towns are the sweet spot. Just enough commercialization, and utilities present, without the constricting results of overly-dense populations.
I actually did know that, but until they actually invest in LTE (and move their users over to it), then it's just a waste of Verizon's money. They'd be investing in old technology, and technology that they don't even want (WiMAX).
It will be interesting to see how Sprint decides to handle the wedge that a WiMAX and LTE future drives between its existing 4G customers.
Exactly. If anything, your story reinforces why people should actively try to do their civic duty when asked. If not, then anyone on trial is left depending on someone smart that didn't get out of their jury duty.
Maybe they deserve it, but maybe they don't.
Just to be clear, as well, judges can be just as stupid as juries.
First, read the whole post. I practically ended with your last sentence.
Second, the myTouch 4G is more expensive than every phone on AT&T, except the larger capacity iPhone 4. A lot of the smartphones on AT&T are actually quite fairly priced, if you purchase under contract.
Third, the T-Mobile lie is a lie. A bold faced one that they use in their marketing as the basis to switch to T-Mobile. If that's not bad customer service, then I'm not sure what is. Even AT&T originally called them out for it. Unfortunately, T-Mobile persisted and actually forced AT&T's hand, which shockingly tried to do the right thing originally. Now, AT&T is calling HSPA+ 4G.
Finally, I do not know for certain, but I strongly doubt that AT&T and T-Mobile share their towers unless they lack the coverage in an area themselves. Not to mention the need and talk of dualband access (between their 3G frequencies) would not have been mentioned in the merger's press release if it was already done. Besides, it's a distinct advantage in cities to have more towers than the other company considering the bureaucratic nightmare involved in building these towers in large cities.
It sounds like T-Mobile had a tower closer to your house than AT&T. Now, it will be AT&T's tower and you will get their "new" signal.
In general, GSM is the safe way to get a global phone. Though, there are certain CDMA phones that are marketed as global. I believe that they support both modes similar to the Verizon iPhone (although the Verizon iPhone has no place to put a SIM card).
I would think that Verizon might at least wait to purchase Sprint because Sprint is trying to make a-go with WiMAX rather than LTE for their 4G technology. I also don't think Sprint has much to offer Verizon in terms of gained voice/data coverage with respect to 2G and 3G.
At least with respect to T-Mobile and AT&T, T-Mobile will bring a lot of infrastructure that AT&T wants (towers) because of the inherent weaknesses with GSM in populated areas. This should increase voice quality as well as help to avoid dropped calls. With that said, AT&T and T-Mobile do not use the same frequencies for 3G, so this would not benefit 3G users in the short term. However, in the the long term, it would provide AT&T more towers to dump its 3G and future 4G (LTE) antennae onto.
And considering that it can take years to put up individual towers in certain areas, that is very good news for AT&T customers, as well as T-Mobile customers in the long term (as they buy newer hardware that runs on AT&T's 3G network, or possibly even a newer dual mode).
I'm a t-mobile customer, and I for one DO NOT like the idea of the merger... I will have poorer service, higher rates, and less selection on phones... But then, I'm just a customer and my opinion doesn't count.. does it...
As an AT&T customer that specifically chose AT&T over T-Mobile and Verizon (I was leaving Verizon due to terrible customer service and Sprint was not in my area at the time), I feel like it's worth reminding people that the service is largely dependent on your area and that as a result of this merger, there will be more towers able to serve your voice calls, as well as EDGE (2G Data) service. Given that GSM is particularly vulnerable to over saturation compared to CDMA, having more towers should mean less dropped calls as well as higher quality service in general. As they begin to equip the T-Mobile towers with dualband antennae for 3G use on AT&T, then your future AT&T phone will be that much better.
The only thing that might change for you is customer service, which has been very good for me at AT&T. It's certainly better than I ever received from Verizon, which literally disabled my ability to receive phone calls followed by a refusal for any refund due to my continued use of the phone (I could call out, and talk to people, but all calls to me went directly to voicemail, which they could choose to use or not) during the month that I wondered how I always missed calls. To be frank, it really cannot be much worse that T-Mobile, which has made it its business to lie to its customers and push 3G as the new 4G. They even forced AT&T's hand in that regard.
In the long run, it does mean that there will be less cell phone options overall, and if I were a T-Mobile customer, then I'd be upset by a longterm future without 3G support on your current phone (unless you actually upgrade your phone every 2-3 years like most people). Still, there really is not much cell phone differentiation these days anyway. The only serious phones that I can name on T-Mobile is the myTouch series and the Nexus S, which will eventually make its way to AT&T anyway.
Now, my biggest peeve out of this whole merger is the fact that AT&T continues to charge outrageous amounts for data plans and texting, and having one less big player seeking to bleed customers from the larger pack means that they can continue this process. Without T-Mobile, then the only serious competitor with good bandwidth rates is Sprint, and I'm sure that I am not alone in wondering how long that will last. It's for this reason alone that I somewhat hope that the merger is blocked, and AT&T gets forced to pay $3 billion to T-Mobile, which can be used upgrade its network and push true 4G (LTE), wishfully without caps, to its customers.
Order does not matter, but the IE8 story that you linked to points out just how much more difficult it really is to exploit IE8 compared to Safari.
Not only was the exploiter an experienced Windows hacker, but he also had to exploit multiple exploits, and tune them to get it to work reliably. On the other hand, the only hurdle that the Safari hacker's had was actually learning to make an exploit work on Mac's. Not only did they not find it challenging to find one, but they noticed many other vulnerabilities to go along with it.
It definitely does help patent trolls. Prior art is still a blocking requirement, but now if the patent troll is able to file first, then your invention is unpatentable, and you are open to a lawsuit from the troll, which you must defend at your own cost.
All the while they can sue everyone else as well. Fabulous...
From the article:
Excluded from the bill was a controversial amendment, backed by many tech companies, that would have eased the process for initiating an in-house administrative review process at the Patent Office for challenges to patents that have been granted, a measure billed as a less costly alternative to private litigation.
Ed Black, the president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group whose members include Google, Microsoft and Oracle, warned that excluding the post-grant review provisions from the patent reform bill could make "the current situation even worse for the tech industry."
It will be higher than version 20 in two years because they are increasing their release pace. Let's assume they slow down to their desired six week release pace, then that's almost 8 versions in a single year.
I agree with the sentiment that version numbers are mostly meaningless, but I have grown accustom to only bumping the major numbers on major feature releases. Improving the JavaScript engine to the degree that they have in the past few releases is impressive, but they are the same effort realized over a short span of time.
Now, I do not mind getting frequent releases, but the version number is a bit of a nuisance. However, I do think that has to do with being a developer rather than being a user (as I know non-developers do not even notice). I also thought that was the purpose of their Courgette project was to increase the pace of updates sent to us, making major releases largely less relevant to begin with, except when major new feature releases made it useful (larger code base changes more aligned with "major" releases).
Considering that version 8 apparently increased JavaScript performance by 100% over version 7, version 9 increased it by 50% over version version 8 and now version 10 increased it 66% over version 9, I cannot help but wonder when JavaScript performance will become more maxed out.
Obviously not all JavaScript performance tests are created equally, but their gains are quite impressive nonetheless. Wonder what will happen if when they start using the GPU like IE9?
I would bet that it depends on the use of the shoes. In the shoes that I use to work out in, then I get less than a year out of them before they are done. Shoes that I only wear to work tend to last about two years before they either look too ratty (one too many trips in the rain), or they themselves wear out (usually because I'll forget my workout shoes occasionally, and use these instead).
On the other hand, my Bostonians are going on 3+ years now. But they better, because I take good care of them and hardly use them!
Unfortunately, people like the AC that posted in a thread below kind of suggest otherwise.
I am like h4rr4r. I watch a ton of Netflix, Hulu and download large, legal files (lately, development related ISOs). I'm sure that I am a high bandwidth user, but I am definitely in the minority on Slashdot, and-the-like, because I am not pirating anything.
That statement simply means that it has not been finalized. Hence it's still a "planned" partnership. There are a lot of lawyers on both sides making sure that their side "wins."
.NET compilation enables very real, near-native code speeds. The same can be said for the better JVMs that exist these days, such as Google's implementation that exists on Android 2.2+.
However, the shifting development could be a hurdle to developers hoping to make their app multiplatform will little-to-no work.
3) Buy or co-develop a new OS with RIMM. I've read they asked them but RIMM wasn't interested, or something such. QNX-based OS with QT and Alien Dalvik?
Make that two options. They clearly pursued and then dropped option three because it was a no-go. You're going to have trouble using the OS when the other company won't let you.
Slashdot Mirror
Spend more implies that they actually spent more money. The past two years would beg to differ with you, quite dramatically.
Sure doesn't sound like an independent. I am a fiscal conservative. I do not care about the Republicans, nor do I care about the Democrats. I care about the fiscal budget, keeping the government small, and keeping them out of my pocket.
When this fiscal bloating began I disagreed from the beginning. The fact that some people in the government are trying to continue the status quo is both scary and downright stupid.
Furthermore, it's all really idiotic, because that $40 billion or whatever in cuts doesn't apply to this year's budget only. It applies to this year and the next several years! The actual cuts in any given year are relatively small, but they multiply them out over several years to make the numbers look bigger so we're all impressed by how Congress is cracking the whip. And it's moot, since Congress passes a new budget every year (roughly), because next year they could change what's funded/cut anyway; there's nothing forcing them to uphold the cuts/spending made in a previous year.
If it's all so small, then there should be no fear there except on possible exceptions to the cuts that people might have. Raise those concerns. Blocking cuts for the sake of a number is stupid, especially considering the size of the deficits that the last Congress and the current President ran on top of the already existing deficit spending.
Amazon. It's making a comeback.
You had me with most of your post, except that.
In programming--as in life--hindsight is 20/20. There are many times where a problem can be solved in many ways, but often times the best way presents itself after someone else solves it. Look at the implementation of many duplicate UNIX/Linux services to see this.
Even so, "exact" matches would still represent some sort of breach, but proving it would be quite difficult I imagine.
Still, I fully agree that software patents need to go, at least in their current form. Inventors do deserve some sort of protection, especially from big companies, but the current system is ridiculous.
Why not PriorArt.com?
I generally agree with the point, but I wonder if there is a better way than simply expanding cities?
Why not try spreading things out instead of concentrating everything? If towns were not all ridiculously sized, then people could actually afford to live where they worked, and as long utilities and shopping existed nearby.
This would also help to ease power consumption in dense areas. Also, it will ease crime, lower city temperatures and speed up travel times due to a lack of overly concentrated populations, plus lower gas consumption that results from sitting in gridlock or city lights expecting it. After all, cars are designed to be most efficient around 60 mph, rather than the general 15-45 mph that result from highway congestion and city lights. Not to mention road maintenance is a nightmare in high traffic areas.
As population grows, city growth is inevitable, but the longer you can delay it, then the better the population is. At least until we have some better alternatives for energy and better, longer lasting materials for building roads.
I have no interest in living in a small town, but now that I have lived in a big city I have decided that I don't want to live in a big city either. Medium sized towns are the sweet spot. Just enough commercialization, and utilities present, without the constricting results of overly-dense populations.
I actually did know that, but until they actually invest in LTE (and move their users over to it), then it's just a waste of Verizon's money. They'd be investing in old technology, and technology that they don't even want (WiMAX).
It will be interesting to see how Sprint decides to handle the wedge that a WiMAX and LTE future drives between its existing 4G customers.
Exactly. If anything, your story reinforces why people should actively try to do their civic duty when asked. If not, then anyone on trial is left depending on someone smart that didn't get out of their jury duty.
Maybe they deserve it, but maybe they don't.
Just to be clear, as well, judges can be just as stupid as juries.
First, read the whole post. I practically ended with your last sentence.
Second, the myTouch 4G is more expensive than every phone on AT&T, except the larger capacity iPhone 4. A lot of the smartphones on AT&T are actually quite fairly priced, if you purchase under contract.
Third, the T-Mobile lie is a lie. A bold faced one that they use in their marketing as the basis to switch to T-Mobile. If that's not bad customer service, then I'm not sure what is. Even AT&T originally called them out for it. Unfortunately, T-Mobile persisted and actually forced AT&T's hand, which shockingly tried to do the right thing originally. Now, AT&T is calling HSPA+ 4G.
Finally, I do not know for certain, but I strongly doubt that AT&T and T-Mobile share their towers unless they lack the coverage in an area themselves. Not to mention the need and talk of dualband access (between their 3G frequencies) would not have been mentioned in the merger's press release if it was already done. Besides, it's a distinct advantage in cities to have more towers than the other company considering the bureaucratic nightmare involved in building these towers in large cities.
Google has a very small number of patents compared to Apple and Microsoft.
It sounds like T-Mobile had a tower closer to your house than AT&T. Now, it will be AT&T's tower and you will get their "new" signal.
In general, GSM is the safe way to get a global phone. Though, there are certain CDMA phones that are marketed as global. I believe that they support both modes similar to the Verizon iPhone (although the Verizon iPhone has no place to put a SIM card).
I would think that Verizon might at least wait to purchase Sprint because Sprint is trying to make a-go with WiMAX rather than LTE for their 4G technology. I also don't think Sprint has much to offer Verizon in terms of gained voice/data coverage with respect to 2G and 3G.
At least with respect to T-Mobile and AT&T, T-Mobile will bring a lot of infrastructure that AT&T wants (towers) because of the inherent weaknesses with GSM in populated areas. This should increase voice quality as well as help to avoid dropped calls. With that said, AT&T and T-Mobile do not use the same frequencies for 3G, so this would not benefit 3G users in the short term. However, in the the long term, it would provide AT&T more towers to dump its 3G and future 4G (LTE) antennae onto.
And considering that it can take years to put up individual towers in certain areas, that is very good news for AT&T customers, as well as T-Mobile customers in the long term (as they buy newer hardware that runs on AT&T's 3G network, or possibly even a newer dual mode).
As an AT&T customer that specifically chose AT&T over T-Mobile and Verizon (I was leaving Verizon due to terrible customer service and Sprint was not in my area at the time), I feel like it's worth reminding people that the service is largely dependent on your area and that as a result of this merger, there will be more towers able to serve your voice calls, as well as EDGE (2G Data) service. Given that GSM is particularly vulnerable to over saturation compared to CDMA, having more towers should mean less dropped calls as well as higher quality service in general. As they begin to equip the T-Mobile towers with dualband antennae for 3G use on AT&T, then your future AT&T phone will be that much better.
The only thing that might change for you is customer service, which has been very good for me at AT&T. It's certainly better than I ever received from Verizon, which literally disabled my ability to receive phone calls followed by a refusal for any refund due to my continued use of the phone (I could call out, and talk to people, but all calls to me went directly to voicemail, which they could choose to use or not) during the month that I wondered how I always missed calls. To be frank, it really cannot be much worse that T-Mobile, which has made it its business to lie to its customers and push 3G as the new 4G. They even forced AT&T's hand in that regard.
In the long run, it does mean that there will be less cell phone options overall, and if I were a T-Mobile customer, then I'd be upset by a longterm future without 3G support on your current phone (unless you actually upgrade your phone every 2-3 years like most people). Still, there really is not much cell phone differentiation these days anyway. The only serious phones that I can name on T-Mobile is the myTouch series and the Nexus S, which will eventually make its way to AT&T anyway.
Now, my biggest peeve out of this whole merger is the fact that AT&T continues to charge outrageous amounts for data plans and texting, and having one less big player seeking to bleed customers from the larger pack means that they can continue this process. Without T-Mobile, then the only serious competitor with good bandwidth rates is Sprint, and I'm sure that I am not alone in wondering how long that will last. It's for this reason alone that I somewhat hope that the merger is blocked, and AT&T gets forced to pay $3 billion to T-Mobile, which can be used upgrade its network and push true 4G (LTE), wishfully without caps, to its customers.
Order does not matter, but the IE8 story that you linked to points out just how much more difficult it really is to exploit IE8 compared to Safari.
Not only was the exploiter an experienced Windows hacker, but he also had to exploit multiple exploits, and tune them to get it to work reliably. On the other hand, the only hurdle that the Safari hacker's had was actually learning to make an exploit work on Mac's. Not only did they not find it challenging to find one, but they noticed many other vulnerabilities to go along with it.
Here is an even better story.
It definitely does help patent trolls. Prior art is still a blocking requirement, but now if the patent troll is able to file first, then your invention is unpatentable, and you are open to a lawsuit from the troll, which you must defend at your own cost.
All the while they can sue everyone else as well. Fabulous...
From the article:
My concern is that it does not work very well: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=java+based+exploits+on+the+rise
It will be higher than version 20 in two years because they are increasing their release pace. Let's assume they slow down to their desired six week release pace, then that's almost 8 versions in a single year.
I agree with the sentiment that version numbers are mostly meaningless, but I have grown accustom to only bumping the major numbers on major feature releases. Improving the JavaScript engine to the degree that they have in the past few releases is impressive, but they are the same effort realized over a short span of time.
Now, I do not mind getting frequent releases, but the version number is a bit of a nuisance. However, I do think that has to do with being a developer rather than being a user (as I know non-developers do not even notice). I also thought that was the purpose of their Courgette project was to increase the pace of updates sent to us, making major releases largely less relevant to begin with, except when major new feature releases made it useful (larger code base changes more aligned with "major" releases).
Considering that version 8 apparently increased JavaScript performance by 100% over version 7, version 9 increased it by 50% over version version 8 and now version 10 increased it 66% over version 9, I cannot help but wonder when JavaScript performance will become more maxed out.
Obviously not all JavaScript performance tests are created equally, but their gains are quite impressive nonetheless. Wonder what will happen if when they start using the GPU like IE9?
Now, I hope the next one on their list to add Sandboxing support to is Java. Until then, Java will remain disabled in Chrome.
I would bet that it depends on the use of the shoes. In the shoes that I use to work out in, then I get less than a year out of them before they are done. Shoes that I only wear to work tend to last about two years before they either look too ratty (one too many trips in the rain), or they themselves wear out (usually because I'll forget my workout shoes occasionally, and use these instead).
On the other hand, my Bostonians are going on 3+ years now. But they better, because I take good care of them and hardly use them!
They also offer the equipment to push throughput up to 322 terabits/s.
Unfortunately, people like the AC that posted in a thread below kind of suggest otherwise.
I am like h4rr4r. I watch a ton of Netflix, Hulu and download large, legal files (lately, development related ISOs). I'm sure that I am a high bandwidth user, but I am definitely in the minority on Slashdot, and-the-like, because I am not pirating anything.
That statement simply means that it has not been finalized. Hence it's still a "planned" partnership. There are a lot of lawyers on both sides making sure that their side "wins."
.NET compilation enables very real, near-native code speeds. The same can be said for the better JVMs that exist these days, such as Google's implementation that exists on Android 2.2+.
However, the shifting development could be a hurdle to developers hoping to make their app multiplatform will little-to-no work.
Make that two options. They clearly pursued and then dropped option three because it was a no-go. You're going to have trouble using the OS when the other company won't let you.