I have a 10 year old Dell Dimension XPS T500 next to me that I use for testing. It has a Pentium III running at 500MHz (and is still fine for most common tasks today btw).
In my pocket I have an iPhone 3GS which has an ARM Cortex A8 running at 600MHz.
I don't know anything about CPU internals but I suspect the ARM is of a more advanced and modern design, so the difference is probably greater than it seems with a straight MHz comparison. The iPhone also has more RAM.
What do you call someone from the UK? I wanted to say British but that excludes Northern Ireland.
'British' is used for UK residents, not just the residents of Great Britain. It therefore includes Northern Ireland. For example 'British Government' is a term often used by the UK government.
OK, this might not be important for you, but I think it's important that the development team continue to improve the performance of the engine. Not everyone has a dual core machine. It's useful if the engine runs nicely on older hardware or portable low power hardware such as netbooks.
Adding CPU power is no substitute for writing good code and constantly optimising that code.
Further, tabs should be attached to the pages they represent
Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Mac dev preview of Google Chrome, which has the tabs above the location / tool bar?
Firefox 3.5 didn't change the tab locations for me (on OS X 10.4). But it wasn't particularly fast, like the previous version, and I've now gone back to Safari which is much faster.
Within about 10 minutes I knew that Star Trek was back, and that this film is exactly what the franchise needs: some life breathing in to it - and who better to provide a new direction than J. J. Abrams, the co-creator of the hit series Lost.
This is not a complete reboot or re-imagining but a prequel set just before the original series from the 1960s. It features a new cast taking up the original roles of Kirk, Spock and the crew.
The sets and props from the original series would look out of place today so things have been updated visually. It's a fairly believable and realistic looking future based on the technology of today - so in place of the dials and buttons of the sixties series we have flat black touch screens; The Enterprise interior, instead of being multi-colour and angular is now clean and white with simple curved lines.
As this is set before the original series it's nice to see that the characters are not their usual calm, professional and mature selves and are unrefined, undeveloped and rough around the edges. Kirk is like an immature teenager and angry at the world. Spock has not yet fully given up his emotions. Sulu is having trouble getting to grips with the ship's controls.
Zachary Quinto is superb as Spock... as many have said, it's as if he was born to play the part.
I'd heard good things about Simon Pegg's portrayal as Scotty but in truth his screen time is minimal and limited to the odd one or two mildly amusing one liners, not too dissimilar to the Scotty of the original series and films. His odd ewok-like alien sidekick was completely pointless, no doubt an attempt to add comic relief and appeal to younger viewers as with Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, and the humour grates just as much.
There are no complaints with the casting for the rest of the crew. McCoy, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov were all completely believable and worthy to take the places as the younger versions of the original crew.
Story wise, the back story regarding characters is great. For me this would almost be enough, but there is also a non-too-original plot involving yet another super-villain hell bent on destroying the earth. (Why is it they always go for the earth anyway - doesn't that seem a bit earth-centric? Wasn't it established pretty early on that the federation already existed long before the earth joined? Anyway... moving on...).
The plot reminded me a lot of the last Star Trek film - Nemesis - which also involved a rogue Romulan (OK, technically a Reman) who tried to destroy Earth. Given the overwhelmingly negative response to that film it would have been wise to come up with a completely different plot, but fortunately it doesn't spoil things too much.
The plot also doesn't make a lot of sense. The villain - Nero - travels back in time to avenge the destruction of his home planet after the older Spock fails to save it. If he's travelled back in time though, why not attempt to avoid the future destruction of his home planet instead of going after Spock? And why go after someone who was only trying to help? You could put all this down to him being a maniac I suppose, but it just doesn't seem that credible, even for a Star Trek film involving time travel and warp drives and all the rest.
One thing that surprised me was that it stuck to canon at all. Some differences can be explained by rift in the timeline (time t
A more accurate method would be to take a random sample of a few hundred desktop PCs, but to be honest I have better things to do with my time:)
So... the stats will have to do. It at least gives an indication, and pretty much matches my own experience i.e. home users are mainly Windows and as you move to office professional and onward to IT professional the Mac/Linux share ramps up.
Linux is still very much a minority in my experience. Even at the geekiest end of the scale (open source coders) I only know a couple of people who run GNU/Linux on their main desktop. Personally I think it's a great server OS but the front end just doesn't cut it for me (yet).
I'd like to see a unified desktop environment instead of the KDE/Gnome split, and usability / simplicity to match OS X (still far too much config/hacking required for my liking and I prefer to spend my time being productive). Until that happens, OS X is fine for me.
If you had another site catering to users of some specific Linux tool and it had a break-down showing 95% Linux users, would you conclude that the actual number is therefore between 1.5% and 95% ?
I run a couple of sites that probably cover both extremes in terms of Linux desktop market share. The stats are as follows:
Site 1: A local community site based in the UK; so the profile here is 'UK home user' (I find similar figures for other UK home focused sites I manage).
Windows 92% Mac 6% Linux 1.5%
Site 2: A site for an open source business application; the profile is therefore 'global IT worker / developer'. The picture is very different.
Windows 60% Mac 30% Linux 9%
The actual figure is between 1.5% and 9% then, depending on the ratio between home/office workers. As I imagine there are more home desktops than work desktops, my leaning would be towards the lower end of the scale.
That is surprisingly simple, and obvious now that you mention it. My first thought as I read your post was that you'd need some sort of mirror arrangement:)
Anything beyond the moon looks like the same distance to our eyes.
I'd have thought something was effectively 'at infinity' at more like a few hundred metres, or perhaps even less, but I can't find anything to back this up after a couple of quick searches.
The BBC Micro was a completely different machine to the C64. It was built for schools, and so had a large metal case for robustness and extra slots on the PCB for upgrades (it could be upgraded significantly).
Regarding the Apple II, I'm not sure it was even sold in the UK. Certainly I never saw one. The first Apple I saw or even heard of was a Mac which many schools had just one of (due to a supermarket-run Computers For Schools scheme iirc).
Atari machines on the other hand were popular in the UK, but mainly with the 16 bit ST line... the 8 bit range were around but didn't sell as well.
Fashion including music moves in circles, and Beatles-style music has already been back once in the form of Blur/Oasis etc in the 1990s. It's bound to be back again at which point the Beatles name will come up, probably sparking new interest.
It depends on the license. BSD-style licenses do allow you to take open source code and effectively make it closed source.
As far as I know the GPL license allows for this too, but states that any modifications to that code must also be released under an open source license if the code is released externally to your organisation. This was done with the TomTom GPS unit.
There is nothing to stop someone taking a project released under a BSD-style license then doing something as simple as, say, renaming the software then selling it commercially.
You can do the same thing with GPLd software, except you'd have to release any changes as open source. It doesn't stop the commercial/propriety release but it might remove any commercial benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, according to TFA (Washington Post), they simply added some images to cover up the dead video feeds.
Original image here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071905256.html
Thanks, I was trying to find those figures :)
Absolutely.
I have a 10 year old Dell Dimension XPS T500 next to me that I use for testing. It has a Pentium III running at 500MHz (and is still fine for most common tasks today btw).
In my pocket I have an iPhone 3GS which has an ARM Cortex A8 running at 600MHz.
I don't know anything about CPU internals but I suspect the ARM is of a more advanced and modern design, so the difference is probably greater than it seems with a straight MHz comparison. The iPhone also has more RAM.
He's a Professor of Radiology and he's talking about ionising radiation. It seems to be within his field?
Except it's not Ben Heck, it's 'OMGpedobear'.
What do you call someone from the UK? I wanted to say British but that excludes Northern Ireland.
'British' is used for UK residents, not just the residents of Great Britain. It therefore includes Northern Ireland. For example 'British Government' is a term often used by the UK government.
I'm not sure it would be that obvious. Apparently Deanna Troi wore black contacts for all of TNG (as did other betazoids) and I can't say I noticed.
"Country" is very loosely defined, to the point that a statement like "The UK isn't a country" is completely baseless and meaningless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country
OK, this might not be important for you, but I think it's important that the development team continue to improve the performance of the engine. Not everyone has a dual core machine. It's useful if the engine runs nicely on older hardware or portable low power hardware such as netbooks.
Adding CPU power is no substitute for writing good code and constantly optimising that code.
Further, tabs should be attached to the pages they represent
Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Mac dev preview of Google Chrome, which has the tabs above the location / tool bar?
Firefox 3.5 didn't change the tab locations for me (on OS X 10.4). But it wasn't particularly fast, like the previous version, and I've now gone back to Safari which is much faster.
Dan
There's not just audio on this thing, there's imagery too using a very basic analogue encoding.
Here's my own review, for what it's worth:
Within about 10 minutes I knew that Star Trek was back, and that this film is exactly what the franchise needs: some life breathing in to it - and who better to provide a new direction than J. J. Abrams, the co-creator of the hit series Lost.
This is not a complete reboot or re-imagining but a prequel set just before the original series from the 1960s. It features a new cast taking up the original roles of Kirk, Spock and the crew.
As the film opens we're placed in the middle of a space battle and straight away stylistic differences are apparent. The feel is much more gritty and realistic. When a hole is ripped in the ship, as well as the usual exterior shot this time we're shown the crew member's view as they are violently blown out of the ship, followed by the cold silence and emptiness of space. Camera work is sometimes of the cinéma vérité style often used today (e.g. with the reimagined Battlestar Galactica) which adds to the realism but can be a little headache inducing on the big screen.
The sets and props from the original series would look out of place today so things have been updated visually. It's a fairly believable and realistic looking future based on the technology of today - so in place of the dials and buttons of the sixties series we have flat black touch screens; The Enterprise interior, instead of being multi-colour and angular is now clean and white with simple curved lines.
As this is set before the original series it's nice to see that the characters are not their usual calm, professional and mature selves and are unrefined, undeveloped and rough around the edges. Kirk is like an immature teenager and angry at the world. Spock has not yet fully given up his emotions. Sulu is having trouble getting to grips with the ship's controls.
Zachary Quinto is superb as Spock... as many have said, it's as if he was born to play the part.
I'd heard good things about Simon Pegg's portrayal as Scotty but in truth his screen time is minimal and limited to the odd one or two mildly amusing one liners, not too dissimilar to the Scotty of the original series and films. His odd ewok-like alien sidekick was completely pointless, no doubt an attempt to add comic relief and appeal to younger viewers as with Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, and the humour grates just as much.
There are no complaints with the casting for the rest of the crew. McCoy, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov were all completely believable and worthy to take the places as the younger versions of the original crew.
Story wise, the back story regarding characters is great. For me this would almost be enough, but there is also a non-too-original plot involving yet another super-villain hell bent on destroying the earth. (Why is it they always go for the earth anyway - doesn't that seem a bit earth-centric? Wasn't it established pretty early on that the federation already existed long before the earth joined? Anyway... moving on...).
The plot reminded me a lot of the last Star Trek film - Nemesis - which also involved a rogue Romulan (OK, technically a Reman) who tried to destroy Earth. Given the overwhelmingly negative response to that film it would have been wise to come up with a completely different plot, but fortunately it doesn't spoil things too much.
The plot also doesn't make a lot of sense. The villain - Nero - travels back in time to avenge the destruction of his home planet after the older Spock fails to save it. If he's travelled back in time though, why not attempt to avoid the future destruction of his home planet instead of going after Spock? And why go after someone who was only trying to help? You could put all this down to him being a maniac I suppose, but it just doesn't seem that credible, even for a Star Trek film involving time travel and warp drives and all the rest.
One thing that surprised me was that it stuck to canon at all. Some differences can be explained by rift in the timeline (time t
Of course the method is flawed.
A more accurate method would be to take a random sample of a few hundred desktop PCs, but to be honest I have better things to do with my time :)
So... the stats will have to do. It at least gives an indication, and pretty much matches my own experience i.e. home users are mainly Windows and as you move to office professional and onward to IT professional the Mac/Linux share ramps up.
Linux is still very much a minority in my experience. Even at the geekiest end of the scale (open source coders) I only know a couple of people who run GNU/Linux on their main desktop. Personally I think it's a great server OS but the front end just doesn't cut it for me (yet).
I'd like to see a unified desktop environment instead of the KDE/Gnome split, and usability / simplicity to match OS X (still far too much config/hacking required for my liking and I prefer to spend my time being productive). Until that happens, OS X is fine for me.
If you had another site catering to users of some specific Linux tool and it had a break-down showing 95% Linux users, would you conclude that the actual number is therefore between 1.5% and 95% ?
Yes. And it probably would be :)
I'm using Google Analytics which shows 'visits' but not individual IP addresses.
As it uses cookies though it can show 'new visits' separately, which is probably even more reliable than using IP addresses.
The figures for this are pretty similar though, so I don't think that it is the same user several times.
I run a couple of sites that probably cover both extremes in terms of Linux desktop market share. The stats are as follows:
Site 1: A local community site based in the UK; so the profile here is 'UK home user' (I find similar figures for other UK home focused sites I manage).
Windows 92%
Mac 6%
Linux 1.5%
Site 2: A site for an open source business application; the profile is therefore 'global IT worker / developer'. The picture is very different.
Windows 60%
Mac 30%
Linux 9%
The actual figure is between 1.5% and 9% then, depending on the ratio between home/office workers. As I imagine there are more home desktops than work desktops, my leaning would be towards the lower end of the scale.
3% to 5% seems like a reasonable estimate.
Dan
I agree. Sci-Fi is probably too non-specific a label to be useful.
A film could have almost any theme, but if it's not set on this planet or if it's set in the future, it's 'sci-fi'.
Even if it uses current science rather than fictional science.
That is surprisingly simple, and obvious now that you mention it. My first thought as I read your post was that you'd need some sort of mirror arrangement :)
It's a combination of both.
Anything beyond the moon looks like the same distance to our eyes.
I'd have thought something was effectively 'at infinity' at more like a few hundred metres, or perhaps even less, but I can't find anything to back this up after a couple of quick searches.
Confusing 'famous' with 'infamous' probably.
The BBC Micro was a completely different machine to the C64. It was built for schools, and so had a large metal case for robustness and extra slots on the PCB for upgrades (it could be upgraded significantly).
Regarding the Apple II, I'm not sure it was even sold in the UK. Certainly I never saw one. The first Apple I saw or even heard of was a Mac which many schools had just one of (due to a supermarket-run Computers For Schools scheme iirc).
Atari machines on the other hand were popular in the UK, but mainly with the 16 bit ST line... the 8 bit range were around but didn't sell as well.
I would bet that they will be.
Fashion including music moves in circles, and Beatles-style music has already been back once in the form of Blur/Oasis etc in the 1990s. It's bound to be back again at which point the Beatles name will come up, probably sparking new interest.
You take open source, modify it, don't release the modification - it's now closed source.
How is that an 'interesting definition'?
It depends on the license. BSD-style licenses do allow you to take open source code and effectively make it closed source.
As far as I know the GPL license allows for this too, but states that any modifications to that code must also be released under an open source license if the code is released externally to your organisation. This was done with the TomTom GPS unit.
Exactly.
There is nothing to stop someone taking a project released under a BSD-style license then doing something as simple as, say, renaming the software then selling it commercially.
You can do the same thing with GPLd software, except you'd have to release any changes as open source. It doesn't stop the commercial/propriety release but it might remove any commercial benefit.