As someone who uses KDE, OS X, Windows etc. a lot in his daily life, I don't know what you're talking about. More information please.
You have to imagine that you don't know how to use bash or edit/etc/foobar.conf.
Think like someone for whom "open a terminal and type 'apt-get install foo_bar'" reads like "remodulate the man deflector array and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow".
Imagine that you don't know - and don't care - about the distinction between the kernel, the window manager, the X server etc.
...then I think you'll find that KDE and Gnome are perfectly fine ways of launching OpenOffice provided you have a pet Linux geek to set up your machine handle anything more complicated. Of course, if you're a linux dev or even an average slashdotter, thinking down to that level gives you a headache.
Right, because at Apple they dont do marketing and all their managers are geniuses.
"PHBs and marketdroids" is not the same as "managers and marketing experts".
Wow, talk about fanboyism.
Come on - I admitted that they were fallible. Is a fanboy now anybody who doesn't slag Apple off unconditionally?
Its just a company, mind you, and up until recently a pretty terrible one.
Which, alongside Commodore, Tandy, Sol, et. al. produced one of the first batch of plug-in-and-go "appliance" PCs and is about the only survivor from that era (maybe Research Machines in the UK?). Which may not have invented the GUI but made the first commercially successfull GUI-based product. Which more-or-less invented the DTP industry. Which produced the first personal/small group laser printer. Who didn't invent networking, but were the first to ship a PC with networking as standard (mainly to use the aforementioned laser printer). That defined (maybe with some help from Sony) the current laptop form factor (with the set-back keyboard and central pointing device). That kickstarted the use of USB after the ports had been sitting unused on Wintel PC for a while (even if it did mean that all USB peripherals had to come in Bondai Blue for a while). That popularised (even if they didn't invent) the "MP3" player. That introduced the 3.5" floppy drive with the first Mac, and then put it out of its misery with the iMac. That actually got UNIX adopted as a mainstream desktop computer operating system with a significant market share after the industry had spent 25 years thinking about it (even if Linux figures now, remember we're talking 2002 - that's skipping 10.0 and counting from when they started enabling OSX by default). Not a bad CV.
i installed xp recently for some contract work and was amazed how less usable it was then the default install of xubuntu (this is without taking the blinding speed of xubuntu into account).
Hmm. Maybe - but you can't really compare xubuntu (XFCE) with "full featured" window managers like XP, Gnome or KDE because, er, because... hang on... why can't he compare XFCE with XP, Gnome or KDE??? Can't say I've used it much except when I want to run X over a network without that "VNC over a 28K modem" feeling you get with Gnome/KDE.
Furthermore i got a new laptop with vista on it and it was not only infuriatingly slow, but just really hard to use.
Sorry, preacher - the choir is over there:-)
And I would be willing to contend with a bit more consolidation and simplification in system prefs, linux distros will be as usable or more so than OSX!
They do have to cope with issues such as the disctinction between (e.g.) OS-level settings (possibly distro-specific), window manager/desktop settings, X server settings and the various cans of worms surrounding video drivers and 3D. These are of great significance to Linux techies and completely opaque to users... If your PHB can't plug his laptop into the projector and get it to work its no good explaining to him that ATI and Nvidia won't open source their video drivers (OK, even with windows/Mac this involves the usual pantomime where someone, usually me, has to come to the front and press Fn-F7 and find the "VGA2" button on the projector - but I'd rather not have to do a quick edit on their xorg.conf ta very much).
I doubt very much that you've used a recent version of KDE or Gnome.
I don't deny that they're improving all the time - but its been a very slow process and IMHO they are still playing catchup with OS/X and even the WIndows XP GUI (which IMHO is NOT windows' weak spot) in terms of usability.
Yeah, but it's more like Scientology than the Hare Krishnas - it costs more, but everyone dresses snappily and there are lots of networking opportunities, and all the cool people belong.
...and if you reveal their secrets they'll set the copyright lawyers on you:-)
I find it interesting (and funny?) that all these years I've had a PC (built myself, not from Dell or such) and never once purchased a copy of Windows or felt bad about it. Now that I've had a Macbook Pro for 5 months, and have been so happy with it, I'm eagerly awaiting Leopard so that I can actually buy it
Apple are not perfect - they have priorities and make assumptions that may not suit everyone. They tend towards a "closed" PC-as-appliance mentality, and would probably be just as monopolistic as MS if they could get away with it. They over-hype things. Sometimes they just plain screw up...
but...
...you at least get the impression that you have been deprioritised, locked-in, monopolized and possibly screwed by someone with some sort of vision making an intelligent and possibly risky effort to turn out a better product rather than a committee of PHBs and marketdroids taking input from a focus group.
Also, Apple have managed to take UNIX and wrap it in a genuinely friendly GUI front end, c.f. KDE/Gnome/X who have taken Linux and wrapped it in a usable but clunky and over-engineered GUI that is still suffering from its ancestry as a way of letting Unix geeks run 8 simultaneous instances of their favorite CLI shell in translucent windows.
What I want to know if $MOBILE_DATA_PROTOCOL is still usable once the train is doing 200 km/h in the middle of nowhere.
I'm from the UK you insensitive clod!
"Real world conditions" is that the train is stopped in the middle of nowhere because the rail system is being run at 150% capacity and if one train has to slow down (because, e.g. some slippery leaves have fallen on the track; its a bit windy; its a bit sunny; we've had the "wrong type of snow" or the embankment has collapsed because the cut down all the trees to stop the leaves falling on the line...) the entire rail system gridlocks (usually shortly followed by the mobile phone system collapsing as everybody tries to phone home).
She was guilty, clearly, obviously and transparently. she got caught. WTF is going through her head? if she had common sense she would have taken the very low settlement fine that was originally requested.
Even if someone is as guilty as sin then they deserve justice and a "punishment" that is proportionate to the "crime" ( whether or not "crime", "punishment" or "guilty" are appropriate words in a copyright case, charging a private individual a six-figure sum sounds like a "punishment" to me). "Waive your right to a fair trial and pay us $2000 now, or enjoy your right to a trial and risk us taking your house" is not justice, it is a license to extort.
If a civil court feels that a defendant has lied, it should bring a criminal charge of perjury and let a criminal court decide the punishment. It should not be the place of a civil court to punish someone, without trial, for a criminal offence ramping up the so-called "damages".
If a civil court feels that a defendant has wasted their time and the plaintiff's money by fighting bringing a meritless case, they should add to the reasonable and audit-able damages, some or all of the reasonable and audit-able costs of the case (...bearing in mind that the defendant already has their own costs and that a large, corporate plaintiff may have lawyers on staff, and that its not unreasonable for the main beneficiaries of artificial laws like copyright to bear some of the cost of enforcement ). They should not leave it to a jury to pull some figure out of a hat and call it "damages".
whos next? are they going to sue automobile manufacturers because they dont make automobiles with accessibility for blind drivers?
There is no magic wand to make a blind person capable of safely driving a car. There are a number of fairly resonable guidelines that give disabled persons with assistive technologies a fighting chance of using your website. Better still, many of these guidelines are firmly in the "what's not to like?" category for non-disabled users - e.g. not abusing Flash, allowing end-users to adjust the window and font size, using standards-complient HTML... These have been around for years - any half-competent web designer should be aware of them and (as with any good rules) at least think before breaking them.
Now, whether these should be mandated by government is a bit more tricky - but since some firms seem quite happy to piss off even the able-bodied majority with annoying site designs, expecting them to voluntarily cater for minorities seems a bit optimistic.
The main problem is when technically ignorant bureaucrats (esp. govenment clients) "gold plate" the guidelines and treat them as black & white rules that must all be blindly (er...) obeyed (e.g. no Flash ever even when there is a good case for an inteactive applet or a failure to recognise that CSS is only marginally fit for purpose).
The other problem is that any well intentioned law will be perverted as long as it offers fallible Human Beings and their lawyers the possibility of windfall payouts.
Deckard as a replicant with implanted memories is a crude, movie-friendly way of getting over one point of the book..
... in which Deckard isn't a replicant (probably - but he meets other unwitting replicants) but discovers that pretty much everything he knows and values is artificial (his religion, his favorite DJ, his pet animals...) so what is the difference?
Besides, the main evidence for the "inhumanity" of the replicants is their inability to participate in the bogus empathic communion of the fatalistic Mercerist "religion" which has been invented to keep the earthbound dregs of humanity content (the VK test is clearly inspired by Mercerism).
...and perhaps they could slap on a cheesy voiceover explaining that, if you'd read the book, you'd realise that the VK test questions were founded in the ficticious religion of Mercerism and had precious little to do with psychology...
Ought not a Nobel Peace Prize winner practice [snopes.com] what he preaches?
If so, then perhaps the President of the USA should practice what he preaches, and live in a giant house illegally built in someone else's country, made out of solid ivory and heated by nucular* energy...
(* nucular energy is made by printing hundreds of copies of "The Origin of The Species", "The God Delusion", "His Dark Materials" or anything by Al Gore, dousing them in gasoline and burning them - not to be confused with nuclear energy which is made from atoms and is totally clean and safe provided it doesn't go wrong).
I currently have an O2 contract phone (W810i - very pleased with both phone and network)
So why do you feel compelled to get a new one?
Personally, I'd give it another year before going iPhone and see what the second-gen ones are like (esp. with respect to 3G/HSPDA which may have been a defensible decision in the US but its a bit of a joke in the UK).
As other posters have said, if you're going for a new not-iPhone then T-Mobile do much better "unlimited" data deals.
excpet there would be competition, amd MS would have to lower it's price. It gets away with it's current pricing because it's a monopoly and has tied up the OEM market.
Competition would not necessarily stop them from reaming people for "full" versions of Windows. The "full" price is an artifice to make the bundle irresistible. The danger is that all the EU will achieve is that Dell and co. will offer you the Hobson's choice of:
Have Windows pre-installed now for $100 (remove it if you want)
Have Ubuntu pre-installed for $100 (or download it for free later)
Buy a "naked" PC. If you decide to buy Windows later it will cost you $300
...probably with box (1) pre-ticked if the EU don't cross all the t's when they draft the order. That is not going to change anything. Also remember that the majority of users will want the shop to pre-install the OS for them.
The problem is that once the regulators fall asleep on the job and let something like the MS monopoly develop, the system will develop considerable inertia, and merely levelling the playing field won't do, someone has to carry the ball back to the centre line.
Personally, If I bought a new desktop or laptop PC for general use, even if I was planning to install an alternative OS, I'd probably accept the offer of a bundled version of windows.
Why? Well, in this Windows-dominated world I might well find myself needing to run Windows anyway (or wanting to sell the machine on), and to buy a "full" copy of Windows costs over three times as much as a bundled OEM copy - and thats a "retail" OEM copy (contradictory, but you know what I mean) - not what a big bundler actually pays. Its not a good gamble.
No way is that a mark-up of that size justified by any extra "support" that Microsoft might offer (beyond troubleshooting their DRM) - its part of the lock-in game.
(Oh, another little wrinkle: TFA mentioned businesses avoiding "white box" suppliers who offer naked PCs and suggests that its because they don't trust them - where I work, I'd classify the usual suppliers as (reputable) white boxers, but the "site license" for Windows allows us to install any version of windows we like on a new PC provided that the PC came bundled with some version of windows... chew on that one.)
Ultimately, anything the EU can do directly to Microsoft is going to be re-arranging deckchairs on the boat deck of the Titanic. The only real way to break up the MS monoculture is for the customers - particularly government and corporate - to wise up and start insisting on standards compliance and data portability (...and to a greater level of sophistication than "does it have an ISO number" given that MS will probably eventually win the war of attrition to get OOXML certified).
I always thought it was much better than any of the Hitchhiker's novels.
Well, Hitchhiker's - at least the original radio show and the first two books based on it - was basically a series of sketches with a rather loose linking plot (which varied considerably between the Radio, book and TV show). As such it worked well on radio.
The two Dirk Gently books, however, have really, really clever plots in which lots of bizarre, random events get pulled together at the end using some wonderful fantasy logic. I'm not sure that will work so well on radio - having heard the first episode I think its going to be hard to follow if you haven't read the book.
The later novel-based Hitchhiker stories tried the same sort of trick, but didn't pull it off quite as well.
I particularly love Adams' debunking of the Sherlock Holmes axiom "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth" in the second book...
(Basically, "Impossible" could just mean that there is something in the universe that you don't understand, and there are plenty of those, "Improbable" suggests something that you do understand and know to be very, very unlikely. It makes sense in the context of the book, although I hope the creationists don't latch on to it:-) )
One QUID is equivalent to about 6.25 pounds, 12.50 dollars
Except in any Travelex the Microsoft Star Empire, the Adobe Quadrant or the iTunes Confederacy where they will sell you a QUID for 12.50 pounds...
On any British run outer space trading posts we should use the Basic Unit of Cosmological (oh, damn) Kurrency so we can confuse the Americans for a change...
(Note for USAians: "quid" is fairly universal slang for "1 pound" in the UK so its a bloody stupid name for a new currency. Not to be confused with quantities like the "pony", "monkey" etc. which only ever get used by ficticious Londoners in those BBC programs that PBS has to put subtitles on).
As for the base video card in the mac pro you should get a dual dual-link dvi with 256 or more of video ram video card
No, what should happen is that graphics card manufacturers should be offering a range Mac compatible cards for sensible prices and only people with more money than sense should have to buy them through Apple (just like RAM and hard drives). I have no idea whether Apple is obstructing this or if its the card manufacturers who "prefer not to". If it really does just need EFI compatible ROMs then we can blame Microsoft for dropping EFI support from Vista.
However, the Mac Pro is due for a refesh, anyway (we can but hope that this brings some new graphics card options).
As I understand it (IANAL) you can include chunks of BSD licenced code in a GPL product & distribute it under the GPL provided its possible to tell which bits of code is covered by which license, so a downstream recipient could potentially extract just the BSD-licensed elements and redistribute them under BSD terms. Unlike the GPL, BSD is not fussy about whether the code is linked or "merely aggregated".
The can of worms is opened when people create derivative works that can't sensibly be separated into BSD and GPL parts and want the added "protection" of GPL to apply to "their" contibution - but trying to distribute the same bit of code under both licenses is nonsensical since either the extra obligations in the GPL would prevent recipients re-using the code under the terms of BSD or the more permissive BSD license would trump the more restrictive GPL. Pay a lawyer lots of cash to find out which would prevail in a dispute (then pay another one more to get the answer you wanted).
Fortunately, it looks as if saner minds have ignored the flames and got together and sorted it all out like sentient beings. Which is nice.
Apple needs better hardware for gameing the mac pro with 1gb of FB-DIMM ram and only a 7300 gt in the base system for $2200 is too costly and $250 more to upgrade to a X1900 XT is ripoff.
People need to be more specific - its not that the Mac is unsuitable for games, its unsuitable for high-performance 3D games - mostly first-person shooters - used by people who would get beaten up at LAN parties if their rig couldn't pull 60fps at 1800x1200 in the latest game with all the quality options set to 11 - and I'd have thought that even in the PC world that is in danger of becoming a niche market, pwned by cheap gaming-grade PC hardware. Apple would find it very hard to break in to that niche, which will always demand this week's latest software and graphics hardware (oh, and hideously tasteless neon-encrusted cases that would force Johnathan Ive pluck his eyes out in disgust).
...and as for consoles, I suspect that the typical non-/.er Mac user is more likely to go for a Wii than an PS3.
As for the Mac Pro, I agree that the X1900 option needs "updating", but really the Mac Pro is not intended to be a FPS gaming machine - its a "serious computing" workstation using expensive workstation/server processor & memory technologies. The 7300 is more than adequate for non-3D work (and the occasional bout of Unreal) and the card is passively cooled so its quiet and you can fit 4 of them (for multiple displays, not SLI) if you feel inclined. I assume that the other, really pricey, nvidia cards they offer have some attractions to serious graphics users but they obviously ain't gaming cards and not many people would buy a Mac Pro for FPS gaming.
If a judge asked you to hand over the keys to your house.. or your car.. or your safety deposit box.. you are legally required to follow that order....
But...
That will typically require a court hearing "on the public record"
Even a technically ignorant judge should be able to decide (a) whether its your house/car/box (b) whether its plausible that you have lost the keys (c) whether the police have a reasonable justification for wanting access and (d) whether the fact that you have a lock on your door or possess a saftey deposit box is, in itself, suspicious.
Unfortunately, as soon as computer technology is involved, even some otherwise highly intelligent people instinctively turn off their brain and may be convinced that the existence of an encrypted file on your hard drive is tantamount to being found in possession of a giant underground bunker complete with piranha tank, spy-bisecting laser and fluffy white cat.
If it is meant to be a video iPod with a built-in phone and web browser then all this talk about openness is pretty irrelevant - and keeping it closed will help ensure that it "just works".
If, however, its supposed to be a pocket computer then keeping it closed is a major handicap.
I suspect that Apple see it more as an iPod + Phone - but/.ers are more interested in a pocket computer.
The other Big Question is how enthusiastic Apple really are about making a 'phone, or whether they're just hedging their bets against the prediction that phones will eventually take over the iPod market. Now, having struggled with a Windows Mobile stupidphone for a few months I'm coming to the conclusion that next time round I'll get:
An iPod (or other dedicated music player) for listening to music
even if my 'phone batteries are running low.
A cheap-n-cheerful phone that just makes/receives calls even when I've used up the batteries on the MP3 player
An in-car GPS with a nice big (but not necessarily very high-res) screen designed to mount in a car that will give directions even if my 'phone and MP3 player are out of juice...
And, if I really,really want email, spreadsheet and word-processor, I'll take my laptop and find a hotspot...
A filofax full of dead trees for diary/contact info (so I'm not still trying to enter the date for the next meeting when everybody else is climbing into a cab) - unless someone finds a way of getting a Psion Series 3 to sync over USB.
What would be nice is if all of these things had standard power connections so I didn't also have to lug around a suitcase full of wall-warts... we're getting there, as more and more things charge from USB. But, basically, they all have different user interface requirements and (these days) carrying all of them is hardly a chore.
I know it is a depressing thought, but no - its not random, its pre-determined. However, any random number could be a Britney song (if an infinite number of monkeys can type the works of Shakespeare then Britney should be a cinch!) so any random number generator is a potentially infringing device under the DMCA.
If God does play dice with the universe he better not roll the HD-DVD encryption key...
So use the quantum cryptography to exchange a large classic private key.
AFAIK that's basically how it works - the quantum link can't transmit any actual "information" - it just allows Alice and Bob to exchange a big random number in a way that allows them to detect whether Eve is listening in. Even that requires a "conventional" information link and several rounds of back-and-forth commuinication to "agree" on the key.
I guess the other problem is that to be 100% guanranteed uncrackable the key needs to be the same length as the plaintext - "cycling" the key introduces redundancy that could be open to a "brute force" attack, and part of the motivation behind quantum cryptography is that the guys in the next lab are trying to build quantum computers that could eat that sort of calculation for breakfast...
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You have to imagine that you don't know how to use bash or edit /etc/foobar.conf.
Think like someone for whom "open a terminal and type 'apt-get install foo_bar'" reads like "remodulate the man deflector array and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow".
Imagine that you don't know - and don't care - about the distinction between the kernel, the window manager, the X server etc.
...then I think you'll find that KDE and Gnome are perfectly fine ways of launching OpenOffice provided you have a pet Linux geek to set up your machine handle anything more complicated. Of course, if you're a linux dev or even an average slashdotter, thinking down to that level gives you a headache.
"PHBs and marketdroids" is not the same as "managers and marketing experts".
Come on - I admitted that they were fallible. Is a fanboy now anybody who doesn't slag Apple off unconditionally?
Which, alongside Commodore, Tandy, Sol, et. al. produced one of the first batch of plug-in-and-go "appliance" PCs and is about the only survivor from that era (maybe Research Machines in the UK?). Which may not have invented the GUI but made the first commercially successfull GUI-based product. Which more-or-less invented the DTP industry. Which produced the first personal/small group laser printer. Who didn't invent networking, but were the first to ship a PC with networking as standard (mainly to use the aforementioned laser printer). That defined (maybe with some help from Sony) the current laptop form factor (with the set-back keyboard and central pointing device). That kickstarted the use of USB after the ports had been sitting unused on Wintel PC for a while (even if it did mean that all USB peripherals had to come in Bondai Blue for a while). That popularised (even if they didn't invent) the "MP3" player. That introduced the 3.5" floppy drive with the first Mac, and then put it out of its misery with the iMac. That actually got UNIX adopted as a mainstream desktop computer operating system with a significant market share after the industry had spent 25 years thinking about it (even if Linux figures now, remember we're talking 2002 - that's skipping 10.0 and counting from when they started enabling OSX by default). Not a bad CV.
Hmm. Maybe - but you can't really compare xubuntu (XFCE) with "full featured" window managers like XP, Gnome or KDE because, er, because... hang on... why can't he compare XFCE with XP, Gnome or KDE??? Can't say I've used it much except when I want to run X over a network without that "VNC over a 28K modem" feeling you get with Gnome/KDE.
Sorry, preacher - the choir is over there :-)
They do have to cope with issues such as the disctinction between (e.g.) OS-level settings (possibly distro-specific), window manager/desktop settings, X server settings and the various cans of worms surrounding video drivers and 3D. These are of great significance to Linux techies and completely opaque to users... If your PHB can't plug his laptop into the projector and get it to work its no good explaining to him that ATI and Nvidia won't open source their video drivers (OK, even with windows/Mac this involves the usual pantomime where someone, usually me, has to come to the front and press Fn-F7 and find the "VGA2" button on the projector - but I'd rather not have to do a quick edit on their xorg.conf ta very much).
I don't deny that they're improving all the time - but its been a very slow process and IMHO they are still playing catchup with OS/X and even the WIndows XP GUI (which IMHO is NOT windows' weak spot) in terms of usability.
...and if you reveal their secrets they'll set the copyright lawyers on you :-)
Apple are not perfect - they have priorities and make assumptions that may not suit everyone. They tend towards a "closed" PC-as-appliance mentality, and would probably be just as monopolistic as MS if they could get away with it. They over-hype things. Sometimes they just plain screw up...
but...
...you at least get the impression that you have been deprioritised, locked-in, monopolized and possibly screwed by someone with some sort of vision making an intelligent and possibly risky effort to turn out a better product rather than a committee of PHBs and marketdroids taking input from a focus group.
Also, Apple have managed to take UNIX and wrap it in a genuinely friendly GUI front end, c.f. KDE/Gnome/X who have taken Linux and wrapped it in a usable but clunky and over-engineered GUI that is still suffering from its ancestry as a way of letting Unix geeks run 8 simultaneous instances of their favorite CLI shell in translucent windows.
I'm from the UK you insensitive clod!
"Real world conditions" is that the train is stopped in the middle of nowhere because the rail system is being run at 150% capacity and if one train has to slow down (because, e.g. some slippery leaves have fallen on the track; its a bit windy; its a bit sunny; we've had the "wrong type of snow" or the embankment has collapsed because the cut down all the trees to stop the leaves falling on the line...) the entire rail system gridlocks (usually shortly followed by the mobile phone system collapsing as everybody tries to phone home).
OK, that's slightly cynical, but...
Even if someone is as guilty as sin then they deserve justice and a "punishment" that is proportionate to the "crime" ( whether or not "crime", "punishment" or "guilty" are appropriate words in a copyright case, charging a private individual a six-figure sum sounds like a "punishment" to me). "Waive your right to a fair trial and pay us $2000 now, or enjoy your right to a trial and risk us taking your house" is not justice, it is a license to extort.
If a civil court feels that a defendant has lied, it should bring a criminal charge of perjury and let a criminal court decide the punishment. It should not be the place of a civil court to punish someone, without trial, for a criminal offence ramping up the so-called "damages".
If a civil court feels that a defendant has wasted their time and the plaintiff's money by fighting bringing a meritless case, they should add to the reasonable and audit-able damages, some or all of the reasonable and audit-able costs of the case (...bearing in mind that the defendant already has their own costs and that a large, corporate plaintiff may have lawyers on staff, and that its not unreasonable for the main beneficiaries of artificial laws like copyright to bear some of the cost of enforcement ). They should not leave it to a jury to pull some figure out of a hat and call it "damages".
There is no magic wand to make a blind person capable of safely driving a car. There are a number of fairly resonable guidelines that give disabled persons with assistive technologies a fighting chance of using your website. Better still, many of these guidelines are firmly in the "what's not to like?" category for non-disabled users - e.g. not abusing Flash, allowing end-users to adjust the window and font size, using standards-complient HTML... These have been around for years - any half-competent web designer should be aware of them and (as with any good rules) at least think before breaking them.
Now, whether these should be mandated by government is a bit more tricky - but since some firms seem quite happy to piss off even the able-bodied majority with annoying site designs, expecting them to voluntarily cater for minorities seems a bit optimistic.
The main problem is when technically ignorant bureaucrats (esp. govenment clients) "gold plate" the guidelines and treat them as black & white rules that must all be blindly (er...) obeyed (e.g. no Flash ever even when there is a good case for an inteactive applet or a failure to recognise that CSS is only marginally fit for purpose).
The other problem is that any well intentioned law will be perverted as long as it offers fallible Human Beings and their lawyers the possibility of windfall payouts.
Deckard as a replicant with implanted memories is a crude, movie-friendly way of getting over one point of the book..
... in which Deckard isn't a replicant (probably - but he meets other unwitting replicants) but discovers that pretty much everything he knows and values is artificial (his religion, his favorite DJ, his pet animals...) so what is the difference?
Besides, the main evidence for the "inhumanity" of the replicants is their inability to participate in the bogus empathic communion of the fatalistic Mercerist "religion" which has been invented to keep the earthbound dregs of humanity content (the VK test is clearly inspired by Mercerism).
...and perhaps they could slap on a cheesy voiceover explaining that, if you'd read the book, you'd realise that the VK test questions were founded in the ficticious religion of Mercerism and had precious little to do with psychology...
If so, then perhaps the President of the USA should practice what he preaches, and live in a giant house illegally built in someone else's country, made out of solid ivory and heated by nucular* energy...
(* nucular energy is made by printing hundreds of copies of "The Origin of The Species", "The God Delusion", "His Dark Materials" or anything by Al Gore, dousing them in gasoline and burning them - not to be confused with nuclear energy which is made from atoms and is totally clean and safe provided it doesn't go wrong).
So why do you feel compelled to get a new one?
Personally, I'd give it another year before going iPhone and see what the second-gen ones are like (esp. with respect to 3G/HSPDA which may have been a defensible decision in the US but its a bit of a joke in the UK).
As other posters have said, if you're going for a new not-iPhone then T-Mobile do much better "unlimited" data deals.
Competition would not necessarily stop them from reaming people for "full" versions of Windows. The "full" price is an artifice to make the bundle irresistible. The danger is that all the EU will achieve is that Dell and co. will offer you the Hobson's choice of:
...probably with box (1) pre-ticked if the EU don't cross all the t's when they draft the order. That is not going to change anything. Also remember that the majority of users will want the shop to pre-install the OS for them.
The problem is that once the regulators fall asleep on the job and let something like the MS monopoly develop, the system will develop considerable inertia, and merely levelling the playing field won't do, someone has to carry the ball back to the centre line.
Personally, If I bought a new desktop or laptop PC for general use, even if I was planning to install an alternative OS, I'd probably accept the offer of a bundled version of windows.
Why? Well, in this Windows-dominated world I might well find myself needing to run Windows anyway (or wanting to sell the machine on), and to buy a "full" copy of Windows costs over three times as much as a bundled OEM copy - and thats a "retail" OEM copy (contradictory, but you know what I mean) - not what a big bundler actually pays. Its not a good gamble.
No way is that a mark-up of that size justified by any extra "support" that Microsoft might offer (beyond troubleshooting their DRM) - its part of the lock-in game.
(Oh, another little wrinkle: TFA mentioned businesses avoiding "white box" suppliers who offer naked PCs and suggests that its because they don't trust them - where I work, I'd classify the usual suppliers as (reputable) white boxers, but the "site license" for Windows allows us to install any version of windows we like on a new PC provided that the PC came bundled with some version of windows... chew on that one.)
Ultimately, anything the EU can do directly to Microsoft is going to be re-arranging deckchairs on the boat deck of the Titanic. The only real way to break up the MS monoculture is for the customers - particularly government and corporate - to wise up and start insisting on standards compliance and data portability (...and to a greater level of sophistication than "does it have an ISO number" given that MS will probably eventually win the war of attrition to get OOXML certified).
Well, Hitchhiker's - at least the original radio show and the first two books based on it - was basically a series of sketches with a rather loose linking plot (which varied considerably between the Radio, book and TV show). As such it worked well on radio.
The two Dirk Gently books, however, have really, really clever plots in which lots of bizarre, random events get pulled together at the end using some wonderful fantasy logic. I'm not sure that will work so well on radio - having heard the first episode I think its going to be hard to follow if you haven't read the book.
The later novel-based Hitchhiker stories tried the same sort of trick, but didn't pull it off quite as well.
I particularly love Adams' debunking of the Sherlock Holmes axiom "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth" in the second book...
(Basically, "Impossible" could just mean that there is something in the universe that you don't understand, and there are plenty of those, "Improbable" suggests something that you do understand and know to be very, very unlikely. It makes sense in the context of the book, although I hope the creationists don't latch on to it :-) )
Except in any Travelex the Microsoft Star Empire, the Adobe Quadrant or the iTunes Confederacy where they will sell you a QUID for 12.50 pounds...
On any British run outer space trading posts we should use the Basic Unit of Cosmological (oh, damn) Kurrency so we can confuse the Americans for a change...
(Note for USAians: "quid" is fairly universal slang for "1 pound" in the UK so its a bloody stupid name for a new currency. Not to be confused with quantities like the "pony", "monkey" etc. which only ever get used by ficticious Londoners in those BBC programs that PBS has to put subtitles on).
No, what should happen is that graphics card manufacturers should be offering a range Mac compatible cards for sensible prices and only people with more money than sense should have to buy them through Apple (just like RAM and hard drives). I have no idea whether Apple is obstructing this or if its the card manufacturers who "prefer not to". If it really does just need EFI compatible ROMs then we can blame Microsoft for dropping EFI support from Vista.
However, the Mac Pro is due for a refesh, anyway (we can but hope that this brings some new graphics card options).
As I understand it (IANAL) you can include chunks of BSD licenced code in a GPL product & distribute it under the GPL provided its possible to tell which bits of code is covered by which license, so a downstream recipient could potentially extract just the BSD-licensed elements and redistribute them under BSD terms. Unlike the GPL, BSD is not fussy about whether the code is linked or "merely aggregated".
The can of worms is opened when people create derivative works that can't sensibly be separated into BSD and GPL parts and want the added "protection" of GPL to apply to "their" contibution - but trying to distribute the same bit of code under both licenses is nonsensical since either the extra obligations in the GPL would prevent recipients re-using the code under the terms of BSD or the more permissive BSD license would trump the more restrictive GPL. Pay a lawyer lots of cash to find out which would prevail in a dispute (then pay another one more to get the answer you wanted).
Fortunately, it looks as if saner minds have ignored the flames and got together and sorted it all out like sentient beings. Which is nice.
People need to be more specific - its not that the Mac is unsuitable for games, its unsuitable for high-performance 3D games - mostly first-person shooters - used by people who would get beaten up at LAN parties if their rig couldn't pull 60fps at 1800x1200 in the latest game with all the quality options set to 11 - and I'd have thought that even in the PC world that is in danger of becoming a niche market, pwned by cheap gaming-grade PC hardware. Apple would find it very hard to break in to that niche, which will always demand this week's latest software and graphics hardware (oh, and hideously tasteless neon-encrusted cases that would force Johnathan Ive pluck his eyes out in disgust).
...and as for consoles, I suspect that the typical non-/.er Mac user is more likely to go for a Wii than an PS3.
As for the Mac Pro, I agree that the X1900 option needs "updating", but really the Mac Pro is not intended to be a FPS gaming machine - its a "serious computing" workstation using expensive workstation/server processor & memory technologies. The 7300 is more than adequate for non-3D work (and the occasional bout of Unreal) and the card is passively cooled so its quiet and you can fit 4 of them (for multiple displays, not SLI) if you feel inclined. I assume that the other, really pricey, nvidia cards they offer have some attractions to serious graphics users but they obviously ain't gaming cards and not many people would buy a Mac Pro for FPS gaming.
I guess those ugly hairless cats would be best - cat hair getting into the doomsday machine can really spoil an evil master plan.
But...
Unfortunately, as soon as computer technology is involved, even some otherwise highly intelligent people instinctively turn off their brain and may be convinced that the existence of an encrypted file on your hard drive is tantamount to being found in possession of a giant underground bunker complete with piranha tank, spy-bisecting laser and fluffy white cat.
No, seriously, what is it?
If it is meant to be a video iPod with a built-in phone and web browser then all this talk about openness is pretty irrelevant - and keeping it closed will help ensure that it "just works".
If, however, its supposed to be a pocket computer then keeping it closed is a major handicap.
I suspect that Apple see it more as an iPod + Phone - but /.ers are more interested in a pocket computer.
The other Big Question is how enthusiastic Apple really are about making a 'phone, or whether they're just hedging their bets against the prediction that phones will eventually take over the iPod market. Now, having struggled with a Windows Mobile stupidphone for a few months I'm coming to the conclusion that next time round I'll get:
even if my 'phone batteries are running low.
What would be nice is if all of these things had standard power connections so I didn't also have to lug around a suitcase full of wall-warts... we're getting there, as more and more things charge from USB. But, basically, they all have different user interface requirements and (these days) carrying all of them is hardly a chore.
I know it is a depressing thought, but no - its not random, its pre-determined. However, any random number could be a Britney song (if an infinite number of monkeys can type the works of Shakespeare then Britney should be a cinch!) so any random number generator is a potentially infringing device under the DMCA.
If God does play dice with the universe he better not roll the HD-DVD encryption key...
AFAIK that's basically how it works - the quantum link can't transmit any actual "information" - it just allows Alice and Bob to exchange a big random number in a way that allows them to detect whether Eve is listening in. Even that requires a "conventional" information link and several rounds of back-and-forth commuinication to "agree" on the key.
I guess the other problem is that to be 100% guanranteed uncrackable the key needs to be the same length as the plaintext - "cycling" the key introduces redundancy that could be open to a "brute force" attack, and part of the motivation behind quantum cryptography is that the guys in the next lab are trying to build quantum computers that could eat that sort of calculation for breakfast...