I'm not an expert on Cider but wouldn't it be native in the same way that OpenGL and SDL are native to many platforms? They're not providing binary translation, they're providing APIs that wouldn't otherwise be available.
Sure there may be some optimisation issues but you could say the same about a shell script being moved from OpenBSD to GNU/Linux.
Previously on Slashdot.. Judge: "Double-you-tee-eff? You idiot! Do you know what inkjet cartridges cost nowadays!? IT COSTS AT LEAST $20 TO PRINT ONE OF THOSE COUPONS!" John: It's pretty cheap actually. I worked out how the print cartridge was protected and managed to refill it for pennies. HP Lawyer: Your honour. When Coupons.com are through with him, his arse is mine. John: Mamma mia!
Intent plays an important role but it isn't a general 'get out of jail free card'. The difference between manslaughter and murder is a good example of intent influencing the penalty but not changing that basic fact that a crime was committed. In the case of the shoplifting, it'll be a question of whether the store-owner decides to press-charges, and then if the government agency (the Crown Prosectution Service in the UK) as an example decides that there is a case. If there is no case, the store-owner could still bring a private case. The private case may be easier if the store-owner want to make an example since the burden of proof is lower. They'd rarely do that though in such a dubious case since the prospect of bad PR tends to keep them honest.
In quite a few cases, it depends on whether you stick to the letter of the law or the spirit of it.
Transporters and replicators are probably the biggest issues. You're right that it's strange that they can't just teleport someone over longer distances. Replicators are strange since they are casually used for most supplies on the ships yet they don't use larger replicators to make new ships. Voyager was the only series in which they seemed to suggest that replicators were heavy on resources. In others it was a case of "Earl grey hot, and while you're at it, make me a sofa, sixteen pizzas and a pound of lead"
If the popularity of Big Brother is anything to go by, we can expect to see "Die Hard 7 : McClain Walks around the house, does some laundry, stares at a patch on the wall and then goes to sleep."
Well played. I think that's the same argument often used against creationists who claim that the existence of life is too improbable to happen. Never imagined it would ever be used regarding Die Hard though.
With volunteers, they can work as long as the group is pretty well motivated. A volunteer admin can do a superior job if they feel that there is enough prestige associated with them doing things well. You do have to find the good people though, just as you would do with a paid employee.
That's my bad, I should have been referring to the iPhone not the iPod. The 'i' stuff has a habit of blurring together at times for me.
Without doubt, the hype machine has kicked in but the iPhone is genuinally a nice product. Have you tried one yet? Some people will buy an iPhone purely because it's cool or to maintain fanboi status but that doesn't mean that the product has no technical or design merits. The same criticisms (lack of features and lack of replaceable battery) have been levelled against the iPod, but the success of the products comes down to a few points.
1) Cool factor. I won't deny that the products sell because they are cool. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable. I don't think anyone can honestly say that they have never allowed coolness to influence a buying decision.
2) Features. Features aren't the be all and end all, it's a case of providing enough functionality for the majority and leaving out features that would appeal to a niche while confusing the majority. If a company can get the feature-list right, they'll sell a product. If they leave out a sufficiently important feature, the product will fail. I like Firefox because it's sleeker and more focussed than Mozilla was, I think that's a reason why it has wider appeal. Realistically, how many Mozilla users wanted a newsgroup reader and a HTML editor - not that many I suspect.
Tommy Hilfiger can sell fragrances, by mainly trading on their name, but if they fail to make the smell appealing the product will not sell. No-one is going to buy 'Rotting Fish by Tommy'. Saying that though, I've just seen an advert for a skin-care product and one of their selling points is "Contains 15% oxygen". Jesus wept, they're actually selling air. Maybe there are some exceptions.
3) Implementation. Although a product may not contain original features or be the first to market, it's how it's all brought together. BMW engines are notoriously locked-down but buyers are willing to make that trade-off. Perhaps BMW owners are less likely to want to pop the hood and start changing parts anyway so it's not a feature they really want.
I'd reason that the only reason that Sony sold any Walkmans is because of the innovation of the cassette housing for magnetic storage tape. Without the one innovation, the second innovation would not have come along. (Trying to imagine an 8-Track Walkman. *CLICK*) It really doesn't matter where the technology comes from, it's how it's used. Linux is basically a clone of Unix but that doesn't mean it's not innovative. The trick is in bringing the technology together in a package that people will buy. Of course, there is a certain amount of marketing spin involved but it's not the be-all and end-all. Walkmans sold well for a number of reasons, the reason you quoted is just one of them.
I for one, do think this is the case. You can only reach that conclusion by assuming that Apple had far more brand influence than it actually had. The Apple brand was widely recognisable but it was hardly a brand capable of creating a music player from scratch and making it the most popular family of devices on the market. At least this wasn't possible unless the product itself was reasonably compelling. The iMac launch definitely increased the profile of the company but not enough to support your claim.
Apple was not exactly a household name prior to the iPod. Some people would know of them as a cool computer company but they certainly didn't have the brand strength of a company like Sony. The new iPod sold well because it was a well designed product that met a demand. It continues to sell due to its design and clever marketing. Now that the iPod has become a household name, I've no doubt that the Apple brand does encourage sales but that's far from being the only reason why it sells well. You may as well say that the only reason Sony sold any walkmans was because they had the Sony logo on them. Not all Walkmans were brilliant but any I owned were reliable, designed well and gave me the features I needed.
That's 13 now, I just picked up the disks a little while ago.
OpenBSD will never have the popularity or wide range of ports that FreeBSD has but it's a pretty solid system designed with a clear mandate. It's worth installing, even just to see the security decisions that have been taken so you can apply them to another Unix-like system. Like Dan Ost said, the documentation is excellent and the developers and mailing list users have been pretty helpful. The only thing I'm missing is WPA support.
British Telecom discovered that they have a patent on line feeds, so Slashdot is automatically removing them from all now posts.
I'm allowed to use them only because I they agreed to grant me a licence in exchange for my patent to make sentences easier to read by adding small gaps between each word. You however shall be hearing from my lawyers.
(or you might have chosen to post in HTML code but didn't manually add the line-break tags)
I think the other poster makes a valid point. You took a very sensationalist approach in your post and made some assertions that just don't stand-up.
Although you say that the applications and user data are available for all to see, this is only true if you've chosen very bad passwords. You can disable sharepoints by removing the Sharedir property. Also, a change of permissions will yield similar results. Personally I prefer a more locked-down system by default but this isn't OpenBSD we're talking about, so it's reasonable to expect that you'd need to harden the system a bit - particularly when it comes to relatively minor risks like this one. All of what you ask can be configured manually but few users will need to. Those that need to will be able to find out how and those that don't will appreciate the current functionality.
Since guest logins can only access the public folders, it's not quite as open as your post would suggest.
"2) Some small businesses don't care about computers at all. The companies that need Sun will buy Sun. The companies who can run their business out of a box of post-it notes will do the *latter*."
1) Sun is not trying to win the hearts and minds of home users - that is not their market. Sun would see few benefits from pushing their products in the mainstream media. Trade press is where they reach the decision makers. How many Oracle adverts do you see in game magazines and tabloid newspapers? Not very many, they tend to advertise in business oriented outlets such as The Economist. 2) Some small businesses don't care about computers at all. The companies that need Sun will buy Sun. The companies who can run their business out of a box of post-it notes will do the former. 3) When you buy mission critical hardware, you don't look for a '3 year warranty'. You look for a service and support contract based on how critical the hardware is to your business. If you can run your business on a home-made 486dx system running Minix then that is probably the best option. 4) Sun being worth 10% of Intel is irrelevant. The Economist sells far fewer copies than The Sun (a pretty terrible UK tabloid) but I know which one I'd chose for a serious overview of world news. 5) This is a techie web site so news like this seems pretty relevant here, even if most of us can't afford to buy the kit.
The big problem is with the attitude of the content producers and to a lesser extent, the player manufacturers. The content producers look for the best DRM and the player manufacturers race to see who can provide the necessary protection that will impress the content producers, therefore making sure that their platform will have lots of content available for it.
It's fortunate that DVD isn't quite as secure as they would like it to be - we still have the analogue hole if all else fails. With the move to HDMI and similar secure systems, the choice to buy a device that will ignore these restrictions may no longer exist.
"So rip the damn thing and be quiet about it.* As long as you don't distribute no one gives a damn what you do with the disc.
*sheesh* You all are like children sometimes."
That may work in some countries but there are some flaws.
1) It's illegal to do what you're suggesting in some countries, the UK for example.
2) The problem here is not so much a technical one, it's more the attitude of the DVD producer. It's like arguing, who cares about all the security cameras in the UK? We can just wear masks all the time.
It's clear that large corporations are normally the early adopters and it's highly unusual that we didn't see CTOs standing outside Circuit City at midnight waiting for Vista to be released so they could immediately install it on their mission-critical machines.
Even for a small company, there seems to be little information available on this company - certainly no stock listing, press releases or technical information at all. I assume that they're either a tiny tech company, one that IBM could crush, or they're yet another company making a living by creating patents, with no plans to do anything other than suing people who infringe them. If that's the case, IBM would have to overturn the patent since there's no chance of cross-licencing.
It's very interesting that there's been no sign of this company on the web until this legal case began.
Unfortunately there isn't. At any time, I could go digging in my loft, find a patent for a widely used technology and wreak havoc. Indeed, it's in my interests to conveniently forget about the patent untill it's been widely infringed. If I didn't I might actually have to use the patented device for something useful.
Your only hope is that the patents in my loft expire before I find them.
Slashdot Mirror
A girl robot?
Damn this political correctness. In my day, we called them pleasure-bots.
I'm not an expert on Cider but wouldn't it be native in the same way that OpenGL and SDL are native to many platforms? They're not providing binary translation, they're providing APIs that wouldn't otherwise be available.
Sure there may be some optimisation issues but you could say the same about a shell script being moved from OpenBSD to GNU/Linux.
Well, yes, WINE could be called an emulator in the same way that some people would describe "I can't believe it's not butter" as being butter.
And the sequel.
Previously on Slashdot..
Judge: "Double-you-tee-eff? You idiot! Do you know what inkjet cartridges cost nowadays!? IT COSTS AT LEAST $20 TO PRINT ONE OF THOSE COUPONS!"
John: It's pretty cheap actually. I worked out how the print cartridge was protected and managed to refill it for pennies.
HP Lawyer: Your honour. When Coupons.com are through with him, his arse is mine.
John: Mamma mia!
Intent plays an important role but it isn't a general 'get out of jail free card'. The difference between manslaughter and murder is a good example of intent influencing the penalty but not changing that basic fact that a crime was committed. In the case of the shoplifting, it'll be a question of whether the store-owner decides to press-charges, and then if the government agency (the Crown Prosectution Service in the UK) as an example decides that there is a case. If there is no case, the store-owner could still bring a private case. The private case may be easier if the store-owner want to make an example since the burden of proof is lower. They'd rarely do that though in such a dubious case since the prospect of bad PR tends to keep them honest.
In quite a few cases, it depends on whether you stick to the letter of the law or the spirit of it.
Transporters and replicators are probably the biggest issues. You're right that it's strange that they can't just teleport someone over longer distances. Replicators are strange since they are casually used for most supplies on the ships yet they don't use larger replicators to make new ships. Voyager was the only series in which they seemed to suggest that replicators were heavy on resources. In others it was a case of "Earl grey hot, and while you're at it, make me a sofa, sixteen pizzas and a pound of lead"
If the popularity of Big Brother is anything to go by, we can expect to see "Die Hard 7 : McClain Walks around the house, does some laundry, stares at a patch on the wall and then goes to sleep."
Well played. I think that's the same argument often used against creationists who claim that the existence of life is too improbable to happen. Never imagined it would ever be used regarding Die Hard though.
With volunteers, they can work as long as the group is pretty well motivated. A volunteer admin can do a superior job if they feel that there is enough prestige associated with them doing things well. You do have to find the good people though, just as you would do with a paid employee.
Without doubt, the hype machine has kicked in but the iPhone is genuinally a nice product. Have you tried one yet? Some people will buy an iPhone purely because it's cool or to maintain fanboi status but that doesn't mean that the product has no technical or design merits. The same criticisms (lack of features and lack of replaceable battery) have been levelled against the iPod, but the success of the products comes down to a few points.
1) Cool factor. I won't deny that the products sell because they are cool. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable. I don't think anyone can honestly say that they have never allowed coolness to influence a buying decision.
2) Features. Features aren't the be all and end all, it's a case of providing enough functionality for the majority and leaving out features that would appeal to a niche while confusing the majority. If a company can get the feature-list right, they'll sell a product. If they leave out a sufficiently important feature, the product will fail. I like Firefox because it's sleeker and more focussed than Mozilla was, I think that's a reason why it has wider appeal. Realistically, how many Mozilla users wanted a newsgroup reader and a HTML editor - not that many I suspect.
Tommy Hilfiger can sell fragrances, by mainly trading on their name, but if they fail to make the smell appealing the product will not sell. No-one is going to buy 'Rotting Fish by Tommy'. Saying that though, I've just seen an advert for a skin-care product and one of their selling points is "Contains 15% oxygen". Jesus wept, they're actually selling air. Maybe there are some exceptions.
3) Implementation. Although a product may not contain original features or be the first to market, it's how it's all brought together. BMW engines are notoriously locked-down but buyers are willing to make that trade-off. Perhaps BMW owners are less likely to want to pop the hood and start changing parts anyway so it's not a feature they really want. I'd reason that the only reason that Sony sold any Walkmans is because of the innovation of the cassette housing for magnetic storage tape. Without the one innovation, the second innovation would not have come along. (Trying to imagine an 8-Track Walkman. *CLICK*) It really doesn't matter where the technology comes from, it's how it's used. Linux is basically a clone of Unix but that doesn't mean it's not innovative. The trick is in bringing the technology together in a package that people will buy. Of course, there is a certain amount of marketing spin involved but it's not the be-all and end-all. Walkmans sold well for a number of reasons, the reason you quoted is just one of them.
Apple was not exactly a household name prior to the iPod. Some people would know of them as a cool computer company but they certainly didn't have the brand strength of a company like Sony. The new iPod sold well because it was a well designed product that met a demand. It continues to sell due to its design and clever marketing. Now that the iPod has become a household name, I've no doubt that the Apple brand does encourage sales but that's far from being the only reason why it sells well. You may as well say that the only reason Sony sold any walkmans was because they had the Sony logo on them. Not all Walkmans were brilliant but any I owned were reliable, designed well and gave me the features I needed.
Hardly. Few end users are going to boast about the hardness of the DRM on their platform of choice.
Ha, Windows DRM was broken but the DRM on my platform is secure. Huzzah!! No sharing of media for me!
That's 13 now, I just picked up the disks a little while ago.
OpenBSD will never have the popularity or wide range of ports that FreeBSD has but it's a pretty solid system designed with a clear mandate. It's worth installing, even just to see the security decisions that have been taken so you can apply them to another Unix-like system. Like Dan Ost said, the documentation is excellent and the developers and mailing list users have been pretty helpful. The only thing I'm missing is WPA support.
He should have used 'unpossible'.
British Telecom discovered that they have a patent on line feeds, so Slashdot is automatically removing them from all now posts.
I'm allowed to use them only because I they agreed to grant me a licence in exchange for my patent to make sentences easier to read by adding small gaps between each word. You however shall be hearing from my lawyers.
(or you might have chosen to post in HTML code but didn't manually add the line-break tags)
I think the other poster makes a valid point. You took a very sensationalist approach in your post and made some assertions that just don't stand-up.
Although you say that the applications and user data are available for all to see, this is only true if you've chosen very bad passwords. You can disable sharepoints by removing the Sharedir property. Also, a change of permissions will yield similar results. Personally I prefer a more locked-down system by default but this isn't OpenBSD we're talking about, so it's reasonable to expect that you'd need to harden the system a bit - particularly when it comes to relatively minor risks like this one. All of what you ask can be configured manually but few users will need to. Those that need to will be able to find out how and those that don't will appreciate the current functionality.
Since guest logins can only access the public folders, it's not quite as open as your post would suggest.
If you were a real grammar nazi, you'd be able to point out all the other errors I made. I demand to see your badge!
Argh, I'll preview next time.
Point 2 should have read:
"2) Some small businesses don't care about computers at all. The companies that need Sun will buy Sun. The companies who can run their business out of a box of post-it notes will do the *latter*."
A few points.
1) Sun is not trying to win the hearts and minds of home users - that is not their market. Sun would see few benefits from pushing their products in the mainstream media. Trade press is where they reach the decision makers. How many Oracle adverts do you see in game magazines and tabloid newspapers? Not very many, they tend to advertise in business oriented outlets such as The Economist.
2) Some small businesses don't care about computers at all. The companies that need Sun will buy Sun. The companies who can run their business out of a box of post-it notes will do the former.
3) When you buy mission critical hardware, you don't look for a '3 year warranty'. You look for a service and support contract based on how critical the hardware is to your business. If you can run your business on a home-made 486dx system running Minix then that is probably the best option.
4) Sun being worth 10% of Intel is irrelevant. The Economist sells far fewer copies than The Sun (a pretty terrible UK tabloid) but I know which one I'd chose for a serious overview of world news.
5) This is a techie web site so news like this seems pretty relevant here, even if most of us can't afford to buy the kit.
The Polish government has one purpose - to make Italian politics seem effective, honest and logical.
The big problem is with the attitude of the content producers and to a lesser extent, the player manufacturers. The content producers look for the best DRM and the player manufacturers race to see who can provide the necessary protection that will impress the content producers, therefore making sure that their platform will have lots of content available for it.
It's fortunate that DVD isn't quite as secure as they would like it to be - we still have the analogue hole if all else fails. With the move to HDMI and similar secure systems, the choice to buy a device that will ignore these restrictions may no longer exist.
"So rip the damn thing and be quiet about it.* As long as you don't distribute no one gives a damn what you do with the disc.
*sheesh* You all are like children sometimes."
That may work in some countries but there are some flaws.
1) It's illegal to do what you're suggesting in some countries, the UK for example.
2) The problem here is not so much a technical one, it's more the attitude of the DVD producer. It's like arguing, who cares about all the security cameras in the UK? We can just wear masks all the time.
Shh, stop spoiling the fun.
It's clear that large corporations are normally the early adopters and it's highly unusual that we didn't see CTOs standing outside Circuit City at midnight waiting for Vista to be released so they could immediately install it on their mission-critical machines.
Even for a small company, there seems to be little information available on this company - certainly no stock listing, press releases or technical information at all. I assume that they're either a tiny tech company, one that IBM could crush, or they're yet another company making a living by creating patents, with no plans to do anything other than suing people who infringe them. If that's the case, IBM would have to overturn the patent since there's no chance of cross-licencing.
It's very interesting that there's been no sign of this company on the web until this legal case began.
Unfortunately there isn't. At any time, I could go digging in my loft, find a patent for a widely used technology and wreak havoc. Indeed, it's in my interests to conveniently forget about the patent untill it's been widely infringed. If I didn't I might actually have to use the patented device for something useful.
Your only hope is that the patents in my loft expire before I find them.