One problem is with systems that automatically fill in forms from a postcode/zip code, customer number, email address... This is why it can be a lottery getting goods delivered in the UK: the postcode is accurate to within a "block" or smaller and, along with a house number, usually pinpoints your address. Except when it doesn't. In that case, however meticulously you provide your company, buidling name, department etc. it is liable to be translated to "Your Name Misspelt @ Random address sharing your postcode". Worse, if the company has other customers at your postcode and the operator mis-clicks the menu, the goods will be addressed to Real Person [Not you] @ Real Address [Not yours].
Software designers who produce forms which assumes that everybody's address is "House Number; Street; City; State; Country; Zip" are also culpable. (I've never worked out what people outside the US are meant to put for "state").
A more "billing" related example: While doing freelance work, I helped a client set up a website, for which they needed hosting. I didn't want to "own" the site myself (one less thing to worry about on the tax form), so I helped them fill out the forms for a hosting account with the ISP I was happily using at the time. The forms clearly gave the client's address for billing and included a purchase order from the client. However, I did include my email under "contact person for technical queries". Big mistake!
Some (probaby underpaid and overworked) keyboard operator just enters my email address and lets the computer fill out all the details, completely ignoring the rest of the form. I am now the unknowing owner of a nice new web hosting account.
Sure enough, along comes an invoice addressed to me. Simple mistake, I think, and call up the provider. Underpaid, overworked call centre droid assures me that it will be sorted. 30 days later, reminder (for me) arrives.
Repeat {Phone/write/fax again - "all sorted"; wait 2 weeks; new nastygram arrives} until (sick)
Just paying up and trying to recover the money from client would just open a new battlefront - they have no contract with me to supply web hosting.
Salvation actually arrives when the issue finally gets passed to the debt recovery department, at which point I get to talk to a human being paid enough to bring their brain to work.
Except when billing time rolls around next year and the whole sorry dance begins again...
One thing I love about that movie is Tim Robbins looking through Milo's code and saying it's perfect, based on the indentation.
Yes - the guy is a true method actor - he probably spent 3 months marking Comp. Sci. 101 C++ assignments in order to master the art of indentation style pedantry. Seriously, though - He looks at Milo's code and Sees That It Is Good - how do you get that across without him spounting a ream of technical jargon and alienating 97.5% of the audience? (that's 95% for the non-techies, plus half the techies who violently disagree with his use of capitalization in member names).
Yes, I thought that was uncalled for, too. Antitrust deserves kudos for being one of the more convincing Hollywood tech movies (admittedly, an easy target). Sure, grabbing text off a screen using a hidden camera (designed and placed specifically for this purpose) and OCR software sounds tricky, but step back and look at the message: hey, it isn't true that you can automatically hack into any system in 30 seconds (especially one set up by a networking ubergeek) - sometimes you're better off with physical surveilance, honey traps etc.
Plus, it was one of the few films where the "genius" protagonist actually wins the day by being clever and outsmarting the baddie, instead of stripping down to a vest, morphing into an action hero and chasing him up the scaffolding!
Add to that the fact that the director actually cut out the gratuitous sex scene that detracted from the plot (Milo bonking Lisa is amongst the DVD "delete secenes") and you have a film which really doesn't deserve to be mocked.
So, after you've written 3 or 4 papers in a row that have come up with a 30% chance of copying, a sensible teacher will find a few minutes to discuss your last paper with you. If you don't seem to have a clue about what you wrote about then they can investigate further.
If schools start reacting with "OMFG! This straight-A student has just come up with a 30% chance of cheating! The computer never lies! OMFG! Suspend him!" then it is the fault of stupid people, not the software.
As for the copyright issues - building a database purely to detect plagarism sounds like "fair use" to me. The fact that schools "grab" copyright of students work is partly a symptom of a broken copyright system based on the act of reproduction (oohh, behave!) instead of distribution and commercial exploitation - when you need the author's agreement just to make a xerox of an essay for the school records then, if you can, its easier just to grab the rights than enter into a complex licensing agreement.
The thing about Elite was that the minimalist graphics (amazing for the time, pathetic by modern standards) and open-ended nature of the game made it a great hook for the imagination, but unlike modern photo-realistic (well...) games you had to think yourself into it. The manual (not the first to be written "in character" but the idea was still fresh) had all sorts of fun BS about space dredgers, generation ships etc. which, along with the vast size of the universe gave the impression that there was "something out there". There wasn't - but it was fun proving the negative.
If you have any work that needs doing in the next few months, don't check out Oolite - a fairly faithful re-creation of Elite with more modern (but not overdone) graphics and a few modest new wrinkles (plus shedloads of optional add-on ships, missions etc.
You may have to be an Elite fan to appreciate it, though.
I've spent three solid days over the last 18 months on various attempts to get Myth working
Ah, a casual user then:-) Took me at least a week (but then I was compiling Gentoo on a diddy 1.2GHz Epia box)
MythTV is complex to set up because it is doing complex stuff - plus its supporting lots of different modes of use (analogue TV, DVB, with/without hardware MPEG are all rather different kettles of fish).
Any free/open (and especially non-windows) media centre is liable to be driver hell - there is not much that developers can do when TV cards rely on firmware "blobs" and manufacturers play musical chairs with chipsets without changing model numbers or packaging - and a media centre relies on so many different drivers.
When MythTV is working it is jolly impressive - the new release sounds like it fills a lot of important gaps (DVD archiving was a glaring ommission).
Their os userbase would expand greatly, their hardware userbase would probably stay very close in size, iPods would be unaffected or perhaps grow in sales...
The problem with trying to sell an alternative OS to PC users is that the vast majority of PC users get Windows pre-installed - and even if you can opt out you don't save much (because of the way licenses are sold). Its always harder to sell people something that they've already got...
Installing an OS is not something the average user can cope with (even though its a no-brainer for the typical/.er) especially if it involves setting up a dual-boot system and problems such as windows being unable to read HFS and OSX not being happy with NTFS. They'd also be in direct competition with Linux (which probably has a head start on the hardware support front).
Maybe if they could produce something like Boot Camp for Windows...?
Sadly, if Apple wanted to get into the PC software business, they'd be better off porting iLife to Windows - and hope that people who liked that would consider a Mac as their next computer. Its worked a bit with iTunes.
Intel's view was that unlike in the MicroVAX case, the long/complex instructions were commonly-used by compilers, and putting them in software would unacceptably impact performance. Therefore, they implemented a hardware decoder front-end, which breaks down the more complex instructions into simpler micro-ops, or uops. These, together with the simpler instructions, are then sent to a high-performance RISC processor for execution.
The Pentium Pro (P6) core featured an array of advanced RISC technologies, here used for the first time in an x86 CPU. Perhaps the most obvious sign that things had changed was that the CPU's "front end" decoded the old IA32 instructions into micro-instructions which the Pro's RISC core then processed.
...and more if you google "pentium risc core". OK they're talking about the Pentium Pro - but my understanding was that the Pentium M/Yonah/Conroe line evolved from the Pro design.
the US could have those air blowing detectors at every airport to at least catch many solid explosives.
...and potential terrorists would just have to learn to pack their bombs in airtight containers and wash their hands. Duh!
Alternatively, they could improve baggage handling so that people felt safer checking in delicate items, then start enforcing fairly strict but sensible carry-on limits (only a little tighter that the ones they currently ignore).
If people were only carrying a small bag with a few essential items (I could live with a book or two) and not a girt great roll-along big enough to provision a fricking polar expedition not only would security checks and searches be far more managable, but they'd get the plane boarded in half the time and I might actually manage to get my little bag into a locker somewhere near my seat!
Yes, mister "oh, I never check in any luggage" - I'm talking to you (unless you really do just shove a toothbrush and change of underwear in a tiny bag).
Welcome to Cockup Airlines flight 1234. We will be boarding passengers starting at the rear of the plane, a jolly sensible plan which we'd like to totally fsck up by inviting all our super-platinum club members to come stand in the aisle with their roll-alongs while they phone the office one last time. Thank you for being forced to fly Cockup Airlines by your employer's procurement department.
The naive conclusion was that complex instructions are useless. The correct conclusion was that the original VAX compiler was a pile of manure.
Perhaps the intended conclusion was that it was feasible to write an efficient compiler using only a small, intelligently chosen with compiler optimization in mind, subset of the instruction set. Perhaps the fact that the original compiler was (as you assert) "a pile of manure" was not unconnected to the fact that it tried to achieve speed by exploiting the entire, eclectic, VAX instruction set (wonder how they worked the famous polynomial instruction in?) instead of sticking to a subset and applying generalised optimization techniques.
PS: If you think RISC lost the war, then remember that modern x86 processors consist of a RISC core with a translator stage to handle all those pesky, legacy CISC instructions.
It's a case of persuading the the Mac product team to write a Cocoa UI for the Intel-based backend, as the backend already exists for VPC for Windows.
You're right, of course, and this is why Parallels is in the shops and VMWare is being demo'd as we speak. Both products have supported multiple operating systems (Windows and Linux) since the get go, so its a no-brainer that they've done their best to keep as much code as possible common to both platforms.
I'm sure Microsoft will have invested equal time, care & money to keep the VPC/Win backend completely portable (even assuming they inherited it from Connectix in that state) against the day when they might possibly want to port it to a *nix-style operating system. They have such a good reputation for producing robust, reliable, well-engineered and, above all, portable software.
And what you seem to forget is that VirtualPC for Windows does exactly what VMWare and Parallels do.
Correction: VirtualPC for Windows does exactly what VMWare for Windows and Parallels for Windows do. Different products. One can only speculate (this is/. after all) how much code VPC/Mac and VPC/Windows share. Point is, this isn't just a case of persuading the existing Mac product to compile for Intel.
What some of the pundits (on Macrumours and elsewhere) seem to be forgetting is that what VirtualPC does (runs x86 code on a PowerPC by emulating the x86 processor in software) is technically very different to what Parallels and VMWare do (allow x86 code to run "natively" within a virtual sandbox) - even if the end result (Windows running in a window on your Mac) is similar. A simple port of VPC to Mactel would have its ass handed to it by Parallels and VMWare. So when MS say:
The amount of time it would take to bring Virtual PC to Intel would be roughly equivalent to creating the product from scratch
I've been looking at replacing my gaming machine with a Mac Pro
Bear in mind that this machine is aimed at graphics and video professionals - neither of which require insane frame rates - and there's a $$$$how much!?? professional card for serious 3D visulaization.
You're paying a hefty premium to get quad cores - great for high-end graphics, video and (non-real-time) rendering using pro applications written for multiprocessor systems, probably not money well spent for gaming.
Geek techno-pr0n value - Apple is actually doing a service here by using TPM and ensuring only uber-Geeks who are 1337 crax0rz can play this game:-)
Developers testing on multiple systems - but then why not use the Mac as your host system, since it can do most of the stuff that Linux can do AND run Windows in a VM.
As a "live CD" demo to woo people to Mac. Danger here is (a) it could get cracked and (b) if there are gliches with graphics, device support etc. it could backfire. Also - switching OSs is always initially frustrating - you really need to have convinced the punter before they get hands-on. (Where's the freaking key that looks like a pretzel!!!??)
To short circuit some of the objections to making OS X available on PCs: (a) How to support all the various PC hardware (have the VM present windows drivers as standard hardware) (b) The difficulty/hesitation most Windows lusers would have setting up a dual-boot system and (c) Loss of sales - people, once converted, would still prefer to run OS X on a real mac (but see again the drawbacks of point 3).
VMware says "software developers" [vmware.com] are one of the primary targets of their Workstation product, and web developers are a part of that. Web sites are naturally quite portable, so you can test in IE and Firefox and Opera under Windows and just hope that it is good enough in Safari. There's not enough reason to go out and buy a Mac to test your web site, because it's expensive and your site probably works 'okay' anyway. But that means Mac users visiting your site in Safari will see an untested and imperfect design - it should still be usable, but lacking the polish that was given to other browsers.
Having Apple making money is a bigger benefit to mac users.
I suspect that Apple would prefer web developers to buy a Mac, take advantage of being able to run their server-side stuff under a proper unix-y environment, and use Parallels to check for PC compatibility. The cost of buying a Mac is insignificant c.f. the person-hours needed to support it properly. If a commercial developer won't fork out for a Mac or two then they're not serious about Mac support.
Like I said, they might have a beta, but they won't be production ready. If they announce a beta now, that doesn't contradict my theory on the subject.
But the original poster's suggestion was that OS X 10.5 will be 64-bit. AFAIK 10.5 isn't slated for production release until late 2006/early 2007 so a similar timeline to last year's Intel roll-out would be quite feasible.
Basically, it isn't possible for them to have a production-ready x86-64 OS without a significant period spent in beta
Darn right - Apple would never announce a major architecture change at WWDC, have beta code with developers a few weeks later and product in the shops the following year. Oh, wait...:-)
Seriously - if Apple didn't start planning for Intel 64 bit support before last summer's Little Surprise then they are bonkers. If they haven't been talking to Adobe about 64-bit products then they are nuts.
Having 32-bit iMacs and Minis is no real handicap, and Apple never did have 64 bit PPC laptops - but the Mac Pro customers are really going to want to know about 64 bits for their video and high-end graphics. Come to think of it, there's no particular hurry to launch Mac Pros until Adobe have released the universal version of Photoshop...
The thing is, all the major software makers are desperate to find some sort of subscription or rental model so they can get a guaranteed revenue stream without having to stay on the product improvement treadmill.
The question is, how much longer will the "product improvement treadmill" last? So far, its been driven indirectly by hardware improvements, but its obvious that those are now shifting from raw power and capacity to more "refined" things like power consumption and ergonomics. In fact, the tail is now starting to wag the dog - Vista (or rather Aero) is pretty transparently (hah!) an attempt to sell kick-ass hardware to non-gamers for whom a 2GHz Celeron and integrated graphics is otherwise more than adequate.
People expect a TV set last 5-10 years, and a washing machine or fridge even longer. CD players didn't change fundamentally between the late '80s and the early '00s. You don't eagerly read the microwave oven press every month to see if the dual magnetron version of your current oven is out yet - yet the manufacturers seem to stay in business.
Someday, possibly soon, "workhorse" computing (hard and soft) will have to settle down to an incremental, rather then excre^H^H^Hponential development cycle. Yes, there will still be the "bleeding edge" for specialists and gadget freaks, and maybe a Big New Thing every 5-10 years - but if the mainstream doesn't settle down there will eventually be a meltdown.
For one thing, It is impossible to develop expertise - either as a user or developer - if, by the time you finish any substantial project, the skills and technologies you used are obsolete.
couldn't you just share the printer from a computer?
Sure, but with affordable network printers now available (albeit on the "get the printer free with the first batch of toner" model), ethernet is looking like the sensible way of hooking up printers.
Also, newer HP printers (like the 2600n and 1320 mentioned here) have embedded web servers that let you do all the configuration etc. from a browser - which is nice. However, if you plug them in via USB you need to install proprietary "toolkbox" software that effectively runs the same embedded web server on your machine. Joy - another service running.
I recently wasted a morning trying to get a HP 1320 running via USB on a Mac, and the problem turned out to be the crufty toolbox software was stopping it from working.
This seems to assume that journalism on non-technology subjects is wonderful and, e.g:
Rarely makes mistakes, or simplifies a subject to the point of inaccuracy
Values in-depth discussion over sound-bites
Is concerned with facts and evidence, rather than rhetoric and opinion
Seeks genuine debate and inquiry rather than encouraging conflict and mudslinging
Asks interviewees sensible questions that they can be reasonably expected to answer clearly, and avoids accusatory or leading questions
Is more interested in informing the electorate than nailing ministerial scalps to the mantlepiece
Waits until the rubble has stopped rolling before broadcasting the number of casualties
If you want to see the same standards in technology reporting as (e.g.) the reporting of politics then get An Industry Leader and An Open Source Guy in a studio, ask Indurstry Leader whether throwing furniture is a good management tactic and ask Open Source Guy when he is going to stop encouraging people to illegally copy software. It'll be lively, and do wonders for ratings, but nobody will learn much and technology experts will learn how to avoid answering questions.
In the "golden age" of movies (whenever you consider that to be) movies were made by writers, directors, and actors who considered it an art form. Today, the studios are run by people who consider it a profit-oriented business.
Ding! What's more we now have a short-term-ist commercial philosophy which demands instant windfall profits, and drops something like a stone if it doesn't go into profit on the opening weekend
Sure, the studios always wanted to make money. But technology has improved and now it is extremely expensive to produce a movie to modern technological standards, so budgets have skyrocketed.
I don't think its technology per se - that should be vastly cheaper to make "simple" films. But cinema has spent the last 30+ years in a death struggle with TV (and the "wait till it comes out on video" issue). The technical quality of TV has been improving dramatically and - thanks to the smaller screen - has been the
first to benefit from the cost savings of first video then digital technology. If you ignore all the dross, the best of modern TV is excellent. That leads to the philosophy that movies have to be "too big for the small screen" - which accounts for the cycle of spending obscene amounts of money then panicking about the risk.
One example which blew me away was - on the LOTR films - the talk about making masses of real swords, making real chain mail, planting trees and shrubs a year before filming and even blowing custom glassware for the tavern. The "golden age" solutions would have been (a) wooden swords - at least for extras - (b) grey wool (c) pot plants and (d) anything off the skip that wasn't obviously a coca-cola bottle. Would modern audiences spot this and laugh, or have filmmakers lost the art of "illusion"?
I've never been to outer space, and I probably never will. If a FICTIONAL story can't have ships the follow physics and AREN'T extremely ugly, then I would rather have the pretty ones. Call me crazy.
The Earth ships were MEANT to be ugly! Humans were not supposed to be the most technologically advanced race: no artificial gravity, reactionless thrusters, inertial dampers or organic tech. They were expanding because they were younger, more vigorous and (occasionally) more stupid than the older races. They'd just come out of a period of expansion followed by a near-terminal war - so you'd be looking at mass-produced, no-frills, lowest bidder "utility" models, too. The elder races, with far more advanced tech, could indulge in more whimsical ship designs without the constraints of rotating sections and G-forces. You could tell that someone had sat down and decided the "tech level" of each race and designed ships to match. The organic-tech Shadow "spiders" even shrivelled up and died rather than exploding in flames.
Personally, I'm more interested in imagination behind a SF show than the resolution of the CGI. B5 pushed the limits of what was possible - and sometimes got it wrong. Trek stayed within their securely-funded comfort zone.
Funny thing is, that Apple could still pick this up again and use it inconjunction with ipod and the desktop. This is the one place that I believe that jobs is missing.
Nah - I think that the whole PDA/Desktop concept will be squeezed out between laptops, media players and phones.
A MacBook (or similar form factor Windows PC) is now more than sufficient as a main computer for most "office" users, and eminently portable. Desktop systems are looking increasingly niche (important niches, maybe, but niches). The logical ergonomic place for "portable" contacts/diary/email is on a phone (which can be synced to your laptop). Having a separate media player (a) means that you don't run down the batteries on your "mission-critical" gadgets and (b) keeps business separate from pleasure (if your 'phone and laptop belong to your employer) - and iPods can act as a backup contact/calendar device.
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One problem is with systems that automatically fill in forms from a postcode/zip code, customer number, email address... This is why it can be a lottery getting goods delivered in the UK: the postcode is accurate to within a "block" or smaller and, along with a house number, usually pinpoints your address. Except when it doesn't. In that case, however meticulously you provide your company, buidling name, department etc. it is liable to be translated to "Your Name Misspelt @ Random address sharing your postcode". Worse, if the company has other customers at your postcode and the operator mis-clicks the menu, the goods will be addressed to Real Person [Not you] @ Real Address [Not yours].
Software designers who produce forms which assumes that everybody's address is "House Number; Street; City; State; Country; Zip" are also culpable. (I've never worked out what people outside the US are meant to put for "state").
A more "billing" related example: While doing freelance work, I helped a client set up a website, for which they needed hosting. I didn't want to "own" the site myself (one less thing to worry about on the tax form), so I helped them fill out the forms for a hosting account with the ISP I was happily using at the time. The forms clearly gave the client's address for billing and included a purchase order from the client. However, I did include my email under "contact person for technical queries". Big mistake!
Some (probaby underpaid and overworked) keyboard operator just enters my email address and lets the computer fill out all the details, completely ignoring the rest of the form. I am now the unknowing owner of a nice new web hosting account.
Sure enough, along comes an invoice addressed to me. Simple mistake, I think, and call up the provider. Underpaid, overworked call centre droid assures me that it will be sorted. 30 days later, reminder (for me) arrives.
Repeat {Phone/write/fax again - "all sorted"; wait 2 weeks; new nastygram arrives} until (sick)
Just paying up and trying to recover the money from client would just open a new battlefront - they have no contract with me to supply web hosting.
Salvation actually arrives when the issue finally gets passed to the debt recovery department, at which point I get to talk to a human being paid enough to bring their brain to work.
Except when billing time rolls around next year and the whole sorry dance begins again...
Yes, I thought that was uncalled for, too. Antitrust deserves kudos for being one of the more convincing Hollywood tech movies (admittedly, an easy target). Sure, grabbing text off a screen using a hidden camera (designed and placed specifically for this purpose) and OCR software sounds tricky, but step back and look at the message: hey, it isn't true that you can automatically hack into any system in 30 seconds (especially one set up by a networking ubergeek) - sometimes you're better off with physical surveilance, honey traps etc.
Plus, it was one of the few films where the "genius" protagonist actually wins the day by being clever and outsmarting the baddie, instead of stripping down to a vest, morphing into an action hero and chasing him up the scaffolding!
Add to that the fact that the director actually cut out the gratuitous sex scene that detracted from the plot (Milo bonking Lisa is amongst the DVD "delete secenes") and you have a film which really doesn't deserve to be mocked.
So, after you've written 3 or 4 papers in a row that have come up with a 30% chance of copying, a sensible teacher will find a few minutes to discuss your last paper with you. If you don't seem to have a clue about what you wrote about then they can investigate further.
If schools start reacting with "OMFG! This straight-A student has just come up with a 30% chance of cheating! The computer never lies! OMFG! Suspend him!" then it is the fault of stupid people, not the software.
As for the copyright issues - building a database purely to detect plagarism sounds like "fair use" to me. The fact that schools "grab" copyright of students work is partly a symptom of a broken copyright system based on the act of reproduction (oohh, behave!) instead of distribution and commercial exploitation - when you need the author's agreement just to make a xerox of an essay for the school records then, if you can, its easier just to grab the rights than enter into a complex licensing agreement.
The thing about Elite was that the minimalist graphics (amazing for the time, pathetic by modern standards) and open-ended nature of the game made it a great hook for the imagination, but unlike modern photo-realistic (well...) games you had to think yourself into it. The manual (not the first to be written "in character" but the idea was still fresh) had all sorts of fun BS about space dredgers, generation ships etc. which, along with the vast size of the universe gave the impression that there was "something out there". There wasn't - but it was fun proving the negative.
If you have any work that needs doing in the next few months, don't check out Oolite - a fairly faithful re-creation of Elite with more modern (but not overdone) graphics and a few modest new wrinkles (plus shedloads of optional add-on ships, missions etc.
You may have to be an Elite fan to appreciate it, though.
Well, if they want to use the name iTV in the UK they'll have to buy off (or just buy) these guys first. Well, better Jobs than Murdoch...
Ah, a casual user then :-) Took me at least a week (but then I was compiling Gentoo on a diddy 1.2GHz Epia box)
MythTV is complex to set up because it is doing complex stuff - plus its supporting lots of different modes of use (analogue TV, DVB, with/without hardware MPEG are all rather different kettles of fish).
Any free/open (and especially non-windows) media centre is liable to be driver hell - there is not much that developers can do when TV cards rely on firmware "blobs" and manufacturers play musical chairs with chipsets without changing model numbers or packaging - and a media centre relies on so many different drivers.
When MythTV is working it is jolly impressive - the new release sounds like it fills a lot of important gaps (DVD archiving was a glaring ommission).
The problem with trying to sell an alternative OS to PC users is that the vast majority of PC users get Windows pre-installed - and even if you can opt out you don't save much (because of the way licenses are sold). Its always harder to sell people something that they've already got...
Installing an OS is not something the average user can cope with (even though its a no-brainer for the typical /.er) especially if it involves setting up a dual-boot system and problems such as windows being unable to read HFS and OSX not being happy with NTFS. They'd also be in direct competition with Linux (which probably has a head start on the hardware support front).
Maybe if they could produce something like Boot Camp for Windows...?
Sadly, if Apple wanted to get into the PC software business, they'd be better off porting iLife to Windows - and hope that people who liked that would consider a Mac as their next computer. Its worked a bit with iTunes.
From http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/~csneal/HPM/p6.html :
And from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_Pro...and more if you google "pentium risc core". OK they're talking about the Pentium Pro - but my understanding was that the Pentium M/Yonah/Conroe line evolved from the Pro design.
...and potential terrorists would just have to learn to pack their bombs in airtight containers and wash their hands. Duh!
Alternatively, they could improve baggage handling so that people felt safer checking in delicate items, then start enforcing fairly strict but sensible carry-on limits (only a little tighter that the ones they currently ignore).
If people were only carrying a small bag with a few essential items (I could live with a book or two) and not a girt great roll-along big enough to provision a fricking polar expedition not only would security checks and searches be far more managable, but they'd get the plane boarded in half the time and I might actually manage to get my little bag into a locker somewhere near my seat!
Yes, mister "oh, I never check in any luggage" - I'm talking to you (unless you really do just shove a toothbrush and change of underwear in a tiny bag).
Welcome to Cockup Airlines flight 1234. We will be boarding passengers starting at the rear of the plane, a jolly sensible plan which we'd like to totally fsck up by inviting all our super-platinum club members to come stand in the aisle with their roll-alongs while they phone the office one last time. Thank you for being forced to fly Cockup Airlines by your employer's procurement department.
Perhaps the intended conclusion was that it was feasible to write an efficient compiler using only a small, intelligently chosen with compiler optimization in mind, subset of the instruction set. Perhaps the fact that the original compiler was (as you assert) "a pile of manure" was not unconnected to the fact that it tried to achieve speed by exploiting the entire, eclectic, VAX instruction set (wonder how they worked the famous polynomial instruction in?) instead of sticking to a subset and applying generalised optimization techniques.
PS: If you think RISC lost the war, then remember that modern x86 processors consist of a RISC core with a translator stage to handle all those pesky, legacy CISC instructions.
You're right, of course, and this is why Parallels is in the shops and VMWare is being demo'd as we speak. Both products have supported multiple operating systems (Windows and Linux) since the get go, so its a no-brainer that they've done their best to keep as much code as possible common to both platforms.
I'm sure Microsoft will have invested equal time, care & money to keep the VPC/Win backend completely portable (even assuming they inherited it from Connectix in that state) against the day when they might possibly want to port it to a *nix-style operating system. They have such a good reputation for producing robust, reliable, well-engineered and, above all, portable software.
(Cough)
Correction: VirtualPC for Windows does exactly what VMWare for Windows and Parallels for Windows do. Different products. One can only speculate (this is /. after all) how much code VPC/Mac and VPC/Windows share. Point is, this isn't just a case of persuading the existing Mac product to compile for Intel.
What some of the pundits (on Macrumours and elsewhere) seem to be forgetting is that what VirtualPC does (runs x86 code on a PowerPC by emulating the x86 processor in software) is technically very different to what Parallels and VMWare do (allow x86 code to run "natively" within a virtual sandbox) - even if the end result (Windows running in a window on your Mac) is similar. A simple port of VPC to Mactel would have its ass handed to it by Parallels and VMWare. So when MS say:
...they probably have a point.
Bear in mind that this machine is aimed at graphics and video professionals - neither of which require insane frame rates - and there's a $$$$how much!?? professional card for serious 3D visulaization.
You're paying a hefty premium to get quad cores - great for high-end graphics, video and (non-real-time) rendering using pro applications written for multiprocessor systems, probably not money well spent for gaming.
Having Apple making money is a bigger benefit to mac users.
I suspect that Apple would prefer web developers to buy a Mac, take advantage of being able to run their server-side stuff under a proper unix-y environment, and use Parallels to check for PC compatibility. The cost of buying a Mac is insignificant c.f. the person-hours needed to support it properly. If a commercial developer won't fork out for a Mac or two then they're not serious about Mac support.
But the original poster's suggestion was that OS X 10.5 will be 64-bit. AFAIK 10.5 isn't slated for production release until late 2006/early 2007 so a similar timeline to last year's Intel roll-out would be quite feasible.
Darn right - Apple would never announce a major architecture change at WWDC, have beta code with developers a few weeks later and product in the shops the following year. Oh, wait... :-)
Seriously - if Apple didn't start planning for Intel 64 bit support before last summer's Little Surprise then they are bonkers. If they haven't been talking to Adobe about 64-bit products then they are nuts.
Having 32-bit iMacs and Minis is no real handicap, and Apple never did have 64 bit PPC laptops - but the Mac Pro customers are really going to want to know about 64 bits for their video and high-end graphics. Come to think of it, there's no particular hurry to launch Mac Pros until Adobe have released the universal version of Photoshop...
People expect a TV set last 5-10 years, and a washing machine or fridge even longer. CD players didn't change fundamentally between the late '80s and the early '00s. You don't eagerly read the microwave oven press every month to see if the dual magnetron version of your current oven is out yet - yet the manufacturers seem to stay in business.
Someday, possibly soon, "workhorse" computing (hard and soft) will have to settle down to an incremental, rather then excre^H^H^Hponential development cycle. Yes, there will still be the "bleeding edge" for specialists and gadget freaks, and maybe a Big New Thing every 5-10 years - but if the mainstream doesn't settle down there will eventually be a meltdown.
For one thing, It is impossible to develop expertise - either as a user or developer - if, by the time you finish any substantial project, the skills and technologies you used are obsolete.
Also, newer HP printers (like the 2600n and 1320 mentioned here) have embedded web servers that let you do all the configuration etc. from a browser - which is nice. However, if you plug them in via USB you need to install proprietary "toolkbox" software that effectively runs the same embedded web server on your machine. Joy - another service running.
I recently wasted a morning trying to get a HP 1320 running via USB on a Mac, and the problem turned out to be the crufty toolbox software was stopping it from working.
- Rarely makes mistakes, or simplifies a subject to the point of inaccuracy
- Values in-depth discussion over sound-bites
- Is concerned with facts and evidence, rather than rhetoric and opinion
- Seeks genuine debate and inquiry rather than encouraging conflict and mudslinging
- Asks interviewees sensible questions that they can be reasonably expected to answer clearly, and avoids accusatory or leading questions
- Is more interested in informing the electorate than nailing ministerial scalps to the mantlepiece
- Waits until the rubble has stopped rolling before broadcasting the number of casualties
If you want to see the same standards in technology reporting as (e.g.) the reporting of politics then get An Industry Leader and An Open Source Guy in a studio, ask Indurstry Leader whether throwing furniture is a good management tactic and ask Open Source Guy when he is going to stop encouraging people to illegally copy software. It'll be lively, and do wonders for ratings, but nobody will learn much and technology experts will learn how to avoid answering questions.Ding! What's more we now have a short-term-ist commercial philosophy which demands instant windfall profits, and drops something like a stone if it doesn't go into profit on the opening weekend
I don't think its technology per se - that should be vastly cheaper to make "simple" films. But cinema has spent the last 30+ years in a death struggle with TV (and the "wait till it comes out on video" issue). The technical quality of TV has been improving dramatically and - thanks to the smaller screen - has been the first to benefit from the cost savings of first video then digital technology. If you ignore all the dross, the best of modern TV is excellent. That leads to the philosophy that movies have to be "too big for the small screen" - which accounts for the cycle of spending obscene amounts of money then panicking about the risk.One example which blew me away was - on the LOTR films - the talk about making masses of real swords, making real chain mail, planting trees and shrubs a year before filming and even blowing custom glassware for the tavern. The "golden age" solutions would have been (a) wooden swords - at least for extras - (b) grey wool (c) pot plants and (d) anything off the skip that wasn't obviously a coca-cola bottle. Would modern audiences spot this and laugh, or have filmmakers lost the art of "illusion"?
Personally, I'm more interested in imagination behind a SF show than the resolution of the CGI. B5 pushed the limits of what was possible - and sometimes got it wrong. Trek stayed within their securely-funded comfort zone.