One of Linux's biggest problems is the lack of device drivers for common devices, especially newer video cards. Let's face it, companies like ATI and NVIDIA aren't going to release fully open-source drivers. It would be wonderful if they would, but it would also be wonderful if we had flying cars.
Having a stable binary driver interface would make it easier for hardware manufacturers to embrace Linux, give things like wireless chipsets more usability on Linux and drive further adoption of Linux as a viable competitor to more proprietary solutions
The perfect is the enemy of the good, and the more Linux gains a foothold the better it is for open source. Insisting that device manufacturers need to have on-staff kernel hackers in order to keep ahead of a frequently-changing kernel makes it that much harder for manufacturers to support Linux as a viable alternative.
Provided Linux can have a stable binary driver infrastructure that doesn't harm stability, it would greatly help in the adoption of Linux worldwide.
AJAX is just buzz. Yes, it's a great tool for making better use of the web. Yes, it's relatively simple. Yes, it's flashy.
But it's still just a tool - and it can be used for good (see any of 37signal's apps) or evil (sites that use AJAX for navigation and break the back/forwards buttons). It won't make a badly designed web app better - in fact, incorrectly used, it can make things worse.
The Web 2.0 is about more than just flashy technologies like AJAX: it's about open architectures, semantic code, separation of content, presentation, and now behavior, and better user experiences. AJAX can enable any of those, but it can also destroy any of those. In fact, it's probably made web designers lives harder: now designers need to be familiar with separating not only content from presentation, but behavior from content and presentation as well. That can be very tricky, and it's tempting just to slap on some onclick handlers to your links rather than using the DOM and separating behavior from content. Furthermore, it's very tempting to have AJAX-enabled sites to that don't gracefully degrade in browsers without JavaScript - which defeats the point of the accessible web.
AJAX is a great technique, but it's not a panacea, and it's not a replacement for sound design and UI architecture.
I'm not so sure the.mobi TLD had much of a chance to begin with, but this will certainly kill adoption. Mobile design is still in its infancy, and there's nothing close to a reasonable and unified standard for mobile page design. There's no real agreement on how content will display on a given device.
Ultimately, compliance with standards should be on a user agent level. If your device can't parse the code that a certain site is sending, it can either fall back to a "quirks mode" rendering scheme (as standard browsers do) or refuse to display the data at all. If you don't follow the standard, too bad, you get left out of the market.
By making.mobi domains contingent on certain standards, it will only insure that fewer people are going to be willing to create.mobi domains. What if the standard changes with the next generation of mobile devices? Who decides what the standard is? What if adopting the "standard" means leaving a significant fraction of users out in the cold? Why bother with a.mobi TLD when you can simply use device detection to provide the user agent with a proper version of the file. If you're already doing the right thing and developing sites with separate content and presentation layers, that should be a piece of cake.
With all the hassles inherent under those rules, why would anyone bother with a.mobi domain?
Dvorak didn't just jump the shark with this one, he did a backflip, danced on its snout, and drank a tall glass of Microsoft Kool-Aid while doing it...
First of all, "it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer"? Is Dvorak really insinuating that only the elite use Windows these days? I mean, c'mon, by virtual of nothing less than market share Windows is used by the vast majority of people who still wonder what that cup holder thingy is supposed to do. Mac users by and large tend to be infinitely more technically astute than Windows users. His argument as as asinine as it comes here.
The fact is that Macintosh has undoubtedly attracted a large following with members of the media. Dvorak's essential thesis is right on the money. Time might as well be a division of Apple's PR department. Walter Mossberg gives glowing reviews to anything Apple. David Pogue at The New York Times tends to be a big Apple booster as well. Apple users are known for their fanatical devotion to the brand, and Apple has a lot more mindshare in the media industry than Microsoft.
The problem with Dvorak's article is that it takes a good argument and turns it into a piece with all the coherency and logic of a USENET troll. Let's face it, at least Apple boosters are part of the in crowd. People who continually make such ad hominem excuses for the fact that Microsoft is losing mindshare at a massive rate end up looking like a bunch of crochety Kool-Aid guzzlers. Yes, Apple has a disproportionate influence in the media, but its hard to argue with the fact that much of it is due to the fact that they make a better set of products and they work harder to ensure customer loyalty than Microsoft.
I think Firefox usage is quite a bit higher than people think. A lot of blogs contain public Sitemeter information that includes browser share. For sites like Instapundit, Daily Kos, or Red State Firefox usage is anywhere from 25-40% of total browsers. My own site has IE just under 50%, Firefox with 35-40%, and Safari hovering around 10% depending on the time of the survey.
Granted, blog readers tend to be somewhat more ahead of the curve than Joe or Jane Sixpack, but they're also indicative of where the market will be a few years down the road. The problem IE and Microsoft faces is that while they have a very high marketshare, their mindshare sucks - everyone uses Microsoft products but only those who take return trips to the Kool Aid bowl particularly like doing it. When an alternative like Firefox comes along that doesn't take a CS degree to use, people start switching, and the stats on more technically-oriented sites bear that out.
If one wanted to get out the tin-foil hat. Life insurance company wants to check on a person to see their health history. Using the data that google currently has, they could identify you has a probable high-risk by:
I work for a life insurance company. (No, I won't name it, and I'm not speaking on behalf of them in any way.) If we tried anything of the sort, we'd get sued into oblivion. Insurers have to be very careful about making sure that every bit of information we have on file has been personally authorized by you. Any information that would reveal your health history and wasn't personally authorized by you would be covered under the Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA violations are serious business and doing something like you described would undoubtedly lead to a major lawsuit.
That information isn't public. Google would be idiotic to share it. If they did, I and a whole lot of other people would stop using Google's services for good.
"Don't be evil" isn't a buzzword for Google, it's a matter of survival - as it should be.
I watched a few episodes of Lost through iTunes the other day. The quality wasn't great, but on my iBook's 12.1" screen it was good enough. That H.264 codec makes even low-res video seem much better than you'd think. Would I pay $40+ for a season of a show on iTunes? Nope - I'd rather buy the DVDs and get the extras and better video quality.
What this represents is a step. The biggest hurdle isn't technical - it's legal and cultural. Apple could offer full-resolution versions of these shows at any time. They could do the same with movies. The technology may be in its infancy, but it's here today.
If Apple can prove that this works, we'll start getting things like a true video iPod, more shows, more networks, and wireless streaming of shows through an AirPort-like base station - or better yet the iMac with Front Row will morph into an Apple PVR/media center. And unlike MCE, that solution will look good inside and out.
Apple's testing the waters, making sure this thing will actually work before they throw themselves fully into becoming a media distribution company. They're making evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes, which is the way to go when you're navigating a legal minefield of IP law and business relationships. The networks are facing the possibility of drastic changes to the way their products are distributed, and dragging them kicking and screaming into the future just won't work.
I think had this new form of direct distribution been around, shows like Firefly, Wonderfalls, Greg the Bunny, etc that were well-written, well-acted, and deserving of viewer support but were killed by networks who didn't understand what they had would get a chance. Shlock like Joey, whatever other sitcom-of-the-moment, or the latest reality show may still get the big ratings, but more challenging shows could show a real bottom-line profit that would mean that the horribly flawed Nielson system wouldn't cause them to be prematurely axed.
But that will take some time, which is why the long-awaited video iPod is somewhat underwhelming - but make no mistake, this is just a way of laying the groundwork for what will be a revolutionary way in which we view TV.
Yes, the new remote will be available for separate purchase - it's $29. I'd imagine that includes FrontRow. However, the wait times are 2-3 weeks at the moment, which probably explains why they're not publicizing that.
RealClimate is not a credible source. It's run by an environmentalist lobbying group out of Washington DC - do a WHOIS on the domain.
Using them as a source is like producing a GOP press release that says that George W. Bush is the best President ever. That may or may not be true, but one can't expect impartial analysis from someone who has a definite interest in pushing one side or the other.
Michael Chricton had an excellent piece on the decline of science reporting in an address at Caltech. His observations should be required reading because they get to the heart of what's wrong with "science" these days. (I use science in quote marks because it's only tangentally related to real science.) A sample:
Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.
That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.
Hell, I remember as a kid reading "50 Things You Can Do To Save The Earth" or some other such claptrap that argued that some massive amount of the rainforest disappared every day - and a little multiplication found that if such a figure were true the rainforest (and all forests on Earth) would have disappared in a year.
Whether "intelligent design" or "global warming", science is being used as a tool of politics - which is something it is not and never should be.
Apple didn't choose AMD for a couple big reason. One of them was given by Steve Jobs when he announced the transition - Intel's roadmap offers better performance per watt of power than AMD or IBM can. Because laptops are taking a greater marketshare than desktops, it only makes sense for Apple to have a portable chip that produces the most bang for the least amount of power.
The other issue is fab capacity. AMD doesn't have the capacity that Intel does. Apple got burned more than once by a lack of chips coming from Freescale/IBMs fabs. They do not want to go through that again, and AMD has trouble delivering large volumes of their top-of-the-line processors. They've gotten better, but Apple doesn't want to be held back by a lack of fab capacity.
I use AMD for Windows and Linux, but Apple's business plan makes Intel the best fit for their future directions.
Get a manual. An automatic would make it much less fun to drive and reduces the gas mileage. The power package is a must. The other packages really aren't necessary unless you really want the extra features. If you've never driven a manual, it's not too hard to learn. By week two I had it down pat. YMMV, of course. I bought the 3i, but I've heard the hatchback is fun as well.
You should get a 4 year/48,000 mile warranty - and that includes roadside assistance and should the car ever be in the shop for more than a few hours, Mazda will pay for a loaner vehicle.
It's a fun car to drive, it's cheap, and the interior is better than a car that's 3 times the price. You'll love it. The steering isn't quite as good as the old Protege, but once you realize that it's a car where 60% of the weight is in the front you get used to the difference and you really can have fun with it. You can drive at some pretty low speeds in 3rd gear without stalling the engine, which is nice in traffic. The gearing is very docile, and the shifting mechanism is very easy to work with. (Japanese cars are much better than European ones in that way.)
I've had it for less than a month, and by driving carefully and not going over the limit, I've managed to get 27 mpg so far - 80 miles on a quarter of a tank of gas. And usually gas mileage goes up as the car gets broken in.
Rumor has it that Mazda will introduce the new flash-drive technology on the 2006 Mazda 3.1. In the future they intend to make a version that can start via a network and is outfitted for carpooling - the Mazda 3.11 for Workgroups - until they get an 8-cylinder version, the Mazda 95.
(And while I may poke fun, I'm a happy owner of a 2005 Mazda 3, which is a damn good car - especially for the gas mileage...)
Trusted Computing will be DOA. It's a pipe dream, and it will never work.
Not because it's technically unfeasible, but because the market won't stand for it. Let's say that Microsoft declares that Word 2006 will only open "trusted" documents. Total lock-in. Would any sane business buy in?
Absolutely not. My company still uses Word 2000 - and many of Microsoft's problems stem from the fact that they have to bend over backwards not to break legacy APIs and file formats. If Joe and Jane Sixpack find that they can't play their old DVDs on their new PeeCee, they're taking the thing back. If their old MP3s don't play, they'll take it back.
Look at the failure of Divx (the self-destructing DVD format). It had some major studio support, and yet it was practically stillborn. Users drive technology, and users don't like to have to deal with jumping through hoops. The only reason XP's Product Activation crap didn't result in a backlash is because 99% of users never had to deal with it since they got XP with their new PC - preinstalled and pre-activated.
That's why Trusted Computing will fail, even though parts of it are a good idea. Microsoft can't force people to accept it. The real world of economics doesn't work that way. They can't force people to upgrade, and as long as they have to support legacy data, they can't totally lock down the system.
I dislike Microsoft as much as anyone, and for all the clout they have in the market, they can't do everything. Trusted Computing will either be full of holes (likely) or a major flop depending on how much security they apply.
WinFS is not a separate filesystem. It uses NTFS as the filesystem, but then stores metadata on top of that (the same way other filesystems like HFS+ have for years).
You don't need to reform to WinFS, it's not a filesystem, but a relational database that carries metadata about existing files on an NTFS partition.
Yes, flash memory has a limited lifespan. So too does magnetic media. One can reasonably expect at least 10,000 write cycles on a particular NAND gate for consumer level flash memory - and that's the barest minimum. It's even more likely that you'll get a million cycles out of consumer NAND flash memory these days. And even that is conservative - it could be several million.
In normal operation, how long would it take before you would use up a million writes on a particular sector? And with arranging files intelligently on the memory, that's going to be less of a concern. Do you completely recreate your entire music library on your iPod every single time you add a song? Probably not. Would you do this a million times before buying a new iPod. I'm guessing no.
The number of cycles on current NAND flash technology is more than enough to last for years. Granted, I wouldn't want to use it for a swap partition, but for storing your music library you should be perfectly fine.
Let's assume RSS "won" something. (Which in itself is baloney - Atom is still very much around and well-supported.)
Which RSS "won"? RSS 2.0? RSS 1.0? RSS 0.91? Any of the 9 different incompatible versions of RSS?
There's a reason why non-XML formats like JSON-RPC and RSS3.0 never caught on - it's because they're not based on XML. XML, for all its shortcomings, is supported by damn near everything under the sun. You can query it with XPath, transform it back into XHTML with XSTL, slice it, dice it, and turn it into delicious Julienne fries. XML is the information interchange format right now, and that's why formats that aren't based off of valid XML schemas are pretty much doomed to failure.
Atom has the backing of the IETF. Every toolkit on the planet supports Atom - as will Vista. RSS won't be going away, but saying one format or another will "win" is assuming that this is a zero-sum game when it really isn't.
The real battle was between XML formats and non-XML formats, and the non-XML formats like Netscape's old versions of RDF died out a long time ago.
To be honest, the RSS vs. Atom thing is a lot like DVD+R and DVD-R - at this point they might as well be interchangeable.
Just about every feed parser handles both Atom and RSS feeds. Using a tool like Magpie RSS (PHP) or the Universal Feed Parser (Python) the format of any given feed is entirely transparent to application developers. RSS 1.0? RSS 2.0? Atom 0.3? It all gets processed by the parser in a nearly identical way.
Already tools like Movable Type/Typepad or WordPress generate both RSS and Atom feeds by default. The vast majority of users don't know and don't care which feed format they're reading so long as it works. Both the toolkits and the applications use both formats and there's really little reason why they can't continue to support both.
There doesn't have to be a single "winner" in the syndication feed wars. Atom and RSS can exist together for some time, and arguing that this is a zero-sum game in which one and only one feed format can exist is ridiculous. As long as the difference is transparent to end users, and relatively transparent to developers, neither format will totally conquer the other.
My point, if it's not clear, is that embryonic stem cells are taken at a stage when it is not individually unique. A lot of people also seem to be happy with either in vitro fertilization or birtch control pills while opposing embryonic stem cell research.
That isn't entirely accurate. A blastocyst is a genetically unique individual, it has DNA that differs from both mother and father.
I don't have problems with birth control, since embryos don't always implant naturally. I do have a problem with an environment where human beings become little more than commodities to be exploited. Where's the difference between harvesting "unwanted" children for medical research and ESCR? There are plenty of overpopulated countries where kids would just die of diseases anyway? Why not use them for research?
Embryos are genetically unique individuals, which is why they deserve some measure of protection. A society that starts viewing certain human lives as less worthy of protection than others is not a society that's on a healthy ethical footing.
The size of this object is very small, and it's quite a bit inclined relative to the ecliptic. It's too distant and too small to be responsible for altering the speed of a spacecraft. It's not impossible, but it is very doubtful.
After dumpster diving outside Redmond, I managed to come up with this list of alternate names compiled by Microsoft's marketing team:
New Windows
Windows Edsel
Windows Nova (with an extra push for sales in Latin America)
Microsoft Bob 2.0
Windows: Ishtar Edition
Windows: Enterprise
Windowfalls (To be paired with a quirky yet brilliant drama/comedy on the Fox network)
Windows Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Windows XP 2: Electric Bugaloo
For the launch of Windows 95, Microsoft used The Rolling Stones, for Windows XP it was Jay Leno. For the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft will use a celebrity guest that represents the future of the product: Microsoft is considering David Caruso, Shelley Long, John Travolta, or Kevin Costner...
Something about this reminds me of the bad old days of Active Desktop and Netcaster, "push" technologies that were supposed to revolutionize the way people worked on the Internet - and quickly faded into obscurity.
Corporate RSS can work, but it needs to be less annoying than push technologies were. The problem is that once RSS gets integrated into Longhorn everyone and the dog will use it just like "push" technologies - "pushing" annoying ads into everyone's faces and "pushing" the signal to noise ratio down into nothingness.
Isn't XMLHTTPRequest only supposed to work within a single domain (e.g. I can't send any requests from one of my servers to one of my blogs)? If so then why has this become a problem? And why some developers have disabled some security measures built in by other developers into the object?
Second, the domain of the URL request destination must be the same as the one that serves up the page containing the script. This means, unfortunately, that client-side scripts cannot fetch web service data from other sources, and blend that data into a page. Everything must come from the same domain. Under these circumstances, you don't have to worry about security alerts frightening your users.
The GM_* methods in Greasemonkey bypass the normal JavaScript security "sandbox" and are therefore open to many potential security holes. Greasemonkey is a great idea, but the fact is that the security aspect of it was not thought through at all.
Then again, it's 0.3 software. Running bleeding-edge code is a sure way of ensuring that you have the potential to open yourself up to a whole host of potential exploits.
Actually, Apple's Phil Schiller stated flatly that a Mac/Intel machine will be able to dual-boot into Windows. Of course, as virtualization technologies advance in the next few years, you'd probably be just as well off to run a virtualized copy of Windows inside OS X.
However, there will be nothing to stop you from dual-booting into Windows from an Intel Mac.
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One of Linux's biggest problems is the lack of device drivers for common devices, especially newer video cards. Let's face it, companies like ATI and NVIDIA aren't going to release fully open-source drivers. It would be wonderful if they would, but it would also be wonderful if we had flying cars.
Having a stable binary driver interface would make it easier for hardware manufacturers to embrace Linux, give things like wireless chipsets more usability on Linux and drive further adoption of Linux as a viable competitor to more proprietary solutions
The perfect is the enemy of the good, and the more Linux gains a foothold the better it is for open source. Insisting that device manufacturers need to have on-staff kernel hackers in order to keep ahead of a frequently-changing kernel makes it that much harder for manufacturers to support Linux as a viable alternative.
Provided Linux can have a stable binary driver infrastructure that doesn't harm stability, it would greatly help in the adoption of Linux worldwide.
AJAX is just buzz. Yes, it's a great tool for making better use of the web. Yes, it's relatively simple. Yes, it's flashy.
But it's still just a tool - and it can be used for good (see any of 37signal's apps) or evil (sites that use AJAX for navigation and break the back/forwards buttons). It won't make a badly designed web app better - in fact, incorrectly used, it can make things worse.
The Web 2.0 is about more than just flashy technologies like AJAX: it's about open architectures, semantic code, separation of content, presentation, and now behavior, and better user experiences. AJAX can enable any of those, but it can also destroy any of those. In fact, it's probably made web designers lives harder: now designers need to be familiar with separating not only content from presentation, but behavior from content and presentation as well. That can be very tricky, and it's tempting just to slap on some onclick handlers to your links rather than using the DOM and separating behavior from content. Furthermore, it's very tempting to have AJAX-enabled sites to that don't gracefully degrade in browsers without JavaScript - which defeats the point of the accessible web.
AJAX is a great technique, but it's not a panacea, and it's not a replacement for sound design and UI architecture.
I'm not so sure the .mobi TLD had much of a chance to begin with, but this will certainly kill adoption. Mobile design is still in its infancy, and there's nothing close to a reasonable and unified standard for mobile page design. There's no real agreement on how content will display on a given device.
Ultimately, compliance with standards should be on a user agent level. If your device can't parse the code that a certain site is sending, it can either fall back to a "quirks mode" rendering scheme (as standard browsers do) or refuse to display the data at all. If you don't follow the standard, too bad, you get left out of the market.
By making .mobi domains contingent on certain standards, it will only insure that fewer people are going to be willing to create .mobi domains. What if the standard changes with the next generation of mobile devices? Who decides what the standard is? What if adopting the "standard" means leaving a significant fraction of users out in the cold? Why bother with a .mobi TLD when you can simply use device detection to provide the user agent with a proper version of the file. If you're already doing the right thing and developing sites with separate content and presentation layers, that should be a piece of cake.
With all the hassles inherent under those rules, why would anyone bother with a .mobi domain?
Dvorak didn't just jump the shark with this one, he did a backflip, danced on its snout, and drank a tall glass of Microsoft Kool-Aid while doing it...
First of all, "it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer"? Is Dvorak really insinuating that only the elite use Windows these days? I mean, c'mon, by virtual of nothing less than market share Windows is used by the vast majority of people who still wonder what that cup holder thingy is supposed to do. Mac users by and large tend to be infinitely more technically astute than Windows users. His argument as as asinine as it comes here.
The fact is that Macintosh has undoubtedly attracted a large following with members of the media. Dvorak's essential thesis is right on the money. Time might as well be a division of Apple's PR department. Walter Mossberg gives glowing reviews to anything Apple. David Pogue at The New York Times tends to be a big Apple booster as well. Apple users are known for their fanatical devotion to the brand, and Apple has a lot more mindshare in the media industry than Microsoft.
The problem with Dvorak's article is that it takes a good argument and turns it into a piece with all the coherency and logic of a USENET troll. Let's face it, at least Apple boosters are part of the in crowd. People who continually make such ad hominem excuses for the fact that Microsoft is losing mindshare at a massive rate end up looking like a bunch of crochety Kool-Aid guzzlers. Yes, Apple has a disproportionate influence in the media, but its hard to argue with the fact that much of it is due to the fact that they make a better set of products and they work harder to ensure customer loyalty than Microsoft.
I think Firefox usage is quite a bit higher than people think. A lot of blogs contain public Sitemeter information that includes browser share. For sites like Instapundit, Daily Kos, or Red State Firefox usage is anywhere from 25-40% of total browsers. My own site has IE just under 50%, Firefox with 35-40%, and Safari hovering around 10% depending on the time of the survey.
Granted, blog readers tend to be somewhat more ahead of the curve than Joe or Jane Sixpack, but they're also indicative of where the market will be a few years down the road. The problem IE and Microsoft faces is that while they have a very high marketshare, their mindshare sucks - everyone uses Microsoft products but only those who take return trips to the Kool Aid bowl particularly like doing it. When an alternative like Firefox comes along that doesn't take a CS degree to use, people start switching, and the stats on more technically-oriented sites bear that out.
I work for a life insurance company. (No, I won't name it, and I'm not speaking on behalf of them in any way.) If we tried anything of the sort, we'd get sued into oblivion. Insurers have to be very careful about making sure that every bit of information we have on file has been personally authorized by you. Any information that would reveal your health history and wasn't personally authorized by you would be covered under the Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA violations are serious business and doing something like you described would undoubtedly lead to a major lawsuit.
That information isn't public. Google would be idiotic to share it. If they did, I and a whole lot of other people would stop using Google's services for good.
"Don't be evil" isn't a buzzword for Google, it's a matter of survival - as it should be.
I watched a few episodes of Lost through iTunes the other day. The quality wasn't great, but on my iBook's 12.1" screen it was good enough. That H.264 codec makes even low-res video seem much better than you'd think. Would I pay $40+ for a season of a show on iTunes? Nope - I'd rather buy the DVDs and get the extras and better video quality.
What this represents is a step. The biggest hurdle isn't technical - it's legal and cultural. Apple could offer full-resolution versions of these shows at any time. They could do the same with movies. The technology may be in its infancy, but it's here today.
If Apple can prove that this works, we'll start getting things like a true video iPod, more shows, more networks, and wireless streaming of shows through an AirPort-like base station - or better yet the iMac with Front Row will morph into an Apple PVR/media center. And unlike MCE, that solution will look good inside and out.
Apple's testing the waters, making sure this thing will actually work before they throw themselves fully into becoming a media distribution company. They're making evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes, which is the way to go when you're navigating a legal minefield of IP law and business relationships. The networks are facing the possibility of drastic changes to the way their products are distributed, and dragging them kicking and screaming into the future just won't work.
I think had this new form of direct distribution been around, shows like Firefly, Wonderfalls, Greg the Bunny, etc that were well-written, well-acted, and deserving of viewer support but were killed by networks who didn't understand what they had would get a chance. Shlock like Joey, whatever other sitcom-of-the-moment, or the latest reality show may still get the big ratings, but more challenging shows could show a real bottom-line profit that would mean that the horribly flawed Nielson system wouldn't cause them to be prematurely axed.
But that will take some time, which is why the long-awaited video iPod is somewhat underwhelming - but make no mistake, this is just a way of laying the groundwork for what will be a revolutionary way in which we view TV.
Yes, the new remote will be available for separate purchase - it's $29. I'd imagine that includes FrontRow. However, the wait times are 2-3 weeks at the moment, which probably explains why they're not publicizing that.
RealClimate is not a credible source. It's run by an environmentalist lobbying group out of Washington DC - do a WHOIS on the domain.
Using them as a source is like producing a GOP press release that says that George W. Bush is the best President ever. That may or may not be true, but one can't expect impartial analysis from someone who has a definite interest in pushing one side or the other.
Michael Chricton had an excellent piece on the decline of science reporting in an address at Caltech. His observations should be required reading because they get to the heart of what's wrong with "science" these days. (I use science in quote marks because it's only tangentally related to real science.) A sample:
Hell, I remember as a kid reading "50 Things You Can Do To Save The Earth" or some other such claptrap that argued that some massive amount of the rainforest disappared every day - and a little multiplication found that if such a figure were true the rainforest (and all forests on Earth) would have disappared in a year.
Whether "intelligent design" or "global warming", science is being used as a tool of politics - which is something it is not and never should be.
But can you run Linux on it?
Apple didn't choose AMD for a couple big reason. One of them was given by Steve Jobs when he announced the transition - Intel's roadmap offers better performance per watt of power than AMD or IBM can. Because laptops are taking a greater marketshare than desktops, it only makes sense for Apple to have a portable chip that produces the most bang for the least amount of power.
The other issue is fab capacity. AMD doesn't have the capacity that Intel does. Apple got burned more than once by a lack of chips coming from Freescale/IBMs fabs. They do not want to go through that again, and AMD has trouble delivering large volumes of their top-of-the-line processors. They've gotten better, but Apple doesn't want to be held back by a lack of fab capacity.
I use AMD for Windows and Linux, but Apple's business plan makes Intel the best fit for their future directions.
Get a manual. An automatic would make it much less fun to drive and reduces the gas mileage. The power package is a must. The other packages really aren't necessary unless you really want the extra features. If you've never driven a manual, it's not too hard to learn. By week two I had it down pat. YMMV, of course. I bought the 3i, but I've heard the hatchback is fun as well.
You should get a 4 year/48,000 mile warranty - and that includes roadside assistance and should the car ever be in the shop for more than a few hours, Mazda will pay for a loaner vehicle.
It's a fun car to drive, it's cheap, and the interior is better than a car that's 3 times the price. You'll love it. The steering isn't quite as good as the old Protege, but once you realize that it's a car where 60% of the weight is in the front you get used to the difference and you really can have fun with it. You can drive at some pretty low speeds in 3rd gear without stalling the engine, which is nice in traffic. The gearing is very docile, and the shifting mechanism is very easy to work with. (Japanese cars are much better than European ones in that way.)
I've had it for less than a month, and by driving carefully and not going over the limit, I've managed to get 27 mpg so far - 80 miles on a quarter of a tank of gas. And usually gas mileage goes up as the car gets broken in.
Rumor has it that Mazda will introduce the new flash-drive technology on the 2006 Mazda 3.1. In the future they intend to make a version that can start via a network and is outfitted for carpooling - the Mazda 3.11 for Workgroups - until they get an 8-cylinder version, the Mazda 95.
(And while I may poke fun, I'm a happy owner of a 2005 Mazda 3, which is a damn good car - especially for the gas mileage...)
Trusted Computing will be DOA. It's a pipe dream, and it will never work.
Not because it's technically unfeasible, but because the market won't stand for it. Let's say that Microsoft declares that Word 2006 will only open "trusted" documents. Total lock-in. Would any sane business buy in?
Absolutely not. My company still uses Word 2000 - and many of Microsoft's problems stem from the fact that they have to bend over backwards not to break legacy APIs and file formats. If Joe and Jane Sixpack find that they can't play their old DVDs on their new PeeCee, they're taking the thing back. If their old MP3s don't play, they'll take it back.
Look at the failure of Divx (the self-destructing DVD format). It had some major studio support, and yet it was practically stillborn. Users drive technology, and users don't like to have to deal with jumping through hoops. The only reason XP's Product Activation crap didn't result in a backlash is because 99% of users never had to deal with it since they got XP with their new PC - preinstalled and pre-activated.
That's why Trusted Computing will fail, even though parts of it are a good idea. Microsoft can't force people to accept it. The real world of economics doesn't work that way. They can't force people to upgrade, and as long as they have to support legacy data, they can't totally lock down the system.
I dislike Microsoft as much as anyone, and for all the clout they have in the market, they can't do everything. Trusted Computing will either be full of holes (likely) or a major flop depending on how much security they apply.
WinFS is not a separate filesystem. It uses NTFS as the filesystem, but then stores metadata on top of that (the same way other filesystems like HFS+ have for years).
You don't need to reform to WinFS, it's not a filesystem, but a relational database that carries metadata about existing files on an NTFS partition.
This is getting to be an urban legend...
Yes, flash memory has a limited lifespan. So too does magnetic media. One can reasonably expect at least 10,000 write cycles on a particular NAND gate for consumer level flash memory - and that's the barest minimum. It's even more likely that you'll get a million cycles out of consumer NAND flash memory these days. And even that is conservative - it could be several million.
In normal operation, how long would it take before you would use up a million writes on a particular sector? And with arranging files intelligently on the memory, that's going to be less of a concern. Do you completely recreate your entire music library on your iPod every single time you add a song? Probably not. Would you do this a million times before buying a new iPod. I'm guessing no.
The number of cycles on current NAND flash technology is more than enough to last for years. Granted, I wouldn't want to use it for a swap partition, but for storing your music library you should be perfectly fine.
Let's assume RSS "won" something. (Which in itself is baloney - Atom is still very much around and well-supported.)
Which RSS "won"? RSS 2.0? RSS 1.0? RSS 0.91? Any of the 9 different incompatible versions of RSS?
There's a reason why non-XML formats like JSON-RPC and RSS3.0 never caught on - it's because they're not based on XML. XML, for all its shortcomings, is supported by damn near everything under the sun. You can query it with XPath, transform it back into XHTML with XSTL, slice it, dice it, and turn it into delicious Julienne fries. XML is the information interchange format right now, and that's why formats that aren't based off of valid XML schemas are pretty much doomed to failure.
Atom has the backing of the IETF. Every toolkit on the planet supports Atom - as will Vista. RSS won't be going away, but saying one format or another will "win" is assuming that this is a zero-sum game when it really isn't.
The real battle was between XML formats and non-XML formats, and the non-XML formats like Netscape's old versions of RDF died out a long time ago.
To be honest, the RSS vs. Atom thing is a lot like DVD+R and DVD-R - at this point they might as well be interchangeable.
Just about every feed parser handles both Atom and RSS feeds. Using a tool like Magpie RSS (PHP) or the Universal Feed Parser (Python) the format of any given feed is entirely transparent to application developers. RSS 1.0? RSS 2.0? Atom 0.3? It all gets processed by the parser in a nearly identical way.
Already tools like Movable Type/Typepad or WordPress generate both RSS and Atom feeds by default. The vast majority of users don't know and don't care which feed format they're reading so long as it works. Both the toolkits and the applications use both formats and there's really little reason why they can't continue to support both.
There doesn't have to be a single "winner" in the syndication feed wars. Atom and RSS can exist together for some time, and arguing that this is a zero-sum game in which one and only one feed format can exist is ridiculous. As long as the difference is transparent to end users, and relatively transparent to developers, neither format will totally conquer the other.
Probably not.
The size of this object is very small, and it's quite a bit inclined relative to the ecliptic. It's too distant and too small to be responsible for altering the speed of a spacecraft. It's not impossible, but it is very doubtful.
After dumpster diving outside Redmond, I managed to come up with this list of alternate names compiled by Microsoft's marketing team:
For the launch of Windows 95, Microsoft used The Rolling Stones, for Windows XP it was Jay Leno. For the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft will use a celebrity guest that represents the future of the product: Microsoft is considering David Caruso, Shelley Long, John Travolta, or Kevin Costner...
Something about this reminds me of the bad old days of Active Desktop and Netcaster, "push" technologies that were supposed to revolutionize the way people worked on the Internet - and quickly faded into obscurity.
Corporate RSS can work, but it needs to be less annoying than push technologies were. The problem is that once RSS gets integrated into Longhorn everyone and the dog will use it just like "push" technologies - "pushing" annoying ads into everyone's faces and "pushing" the signal to noise ratio down into nothingness.
Isn't XMLHTTPRequest only supposed to work within a single domain (e.g. I can't send any requests from one of my servers to one of my blogs)? If so then why has this become a problem? And why some developers have disabled some security measures built in by other developers into the object?
Yes, indeed the vanilla XMLHttpRequest object doesn't have this security vulnerability:
The GM_* methods in Greasemonkey bypass the normal JavaScript security "sandbox" and are therefore open to many potential security holes. Greasemonkey is a great idea, but the fact is that the security aspect of it was not thought through at all.
Then again, it's 0.3 software. Running bleeding-edge code is a sure way of ensuring that you have the potential to open yourself up to a whole host of potential exploits.
Actually, Apple's Phil Schiller stated flatly that a Mac/Intel machine will be able to dual-boot into Windows. Of course, as virtualization technologies advance in the next few years, you'd probably be just as well off to run a virtualized copy of Windows inside OS X.
However, there will be nothing to stop you from dual-booting into Windows from an Intel Mac.