The thing is; can you really call this "executable code"? From the point-of-view of an iPhone, 6510 machine code is no more "executable code" than any random game parsing it's level data.
On the other hand it is running the 6510 code at a much faster speed than the original 6510 could run. So in theory you could write a GCC backend for the 6510 and run anything which GCC can compile.
Controlling what is available via their own app store != controlling what people can run.
Actually, that's exactly what it is. Apple uses DRM to ensure the app store is the only legitimate way to install applications. Banning an application from the app store is tantamount to banning it from the platform. (Jailbreaking isn't widespread enough to count.) If Apple simply ran an app store without the monopoly lock on applications, I'd have no problem whatsoever with its behavior.
I won't buy an iPhone. But most of the software engineers I work with, who appreciate the freedom their linux desktops give them, either own one or are about to buy one.
You don't send actual messages about riots in cleartext. You hide the message inside the normal crap which flows through the cell phone networks. Makes it hard to grep for intelligence or evidence.
But consider what would happen if the secret police catch an Iranian rioter with a FreeRunner. For me it might be better to carry a cheap commodity dumb phone. For secure communication use a simple voice code committed to memory. Send messages by voice or SM
I use Firefox and Safari regularly. I use two web browsers because each one does something vastly better than the other. Firefox for porn and online transactions, Safari for basic day-to-day anything that might include bookmark management... When the system is shitting gold plated bricks trying to deal with the demands After Effects or Photoshop or Final Cut Pro is putting on it, Safari is beyond useless... and Firefox is responsive.
So, you watch porn whilst using Photoshop or Final Cut Pro?
That doesn't sound amateur at all. In fact it sounds fiendishly complicated to get right, and would require highly advanced laser technology for the satellite.
Well many amateur satellites are fiendishly complicated right now. I don't see the laser up link being too much of a technical issue. The down link could probably be done with radio and a low gain antenna. Hiding the up link signal is the main issue I think.
Okay how's this for an amateur satellite project? You put a bird into lowish polar orbit. It is basically a store and forward communications satellite which uses lasers for up link and down link. Ground stations can be kept fairly simple. A gun sight for aiming. Transmit data with a laser. Receive data with a photo diode.
Users invent their own identifiers. Messages are point to point or point to multi point. To exchange data with the satellite you need to send it your identifier, then the satellite points a laser your way to send a reply.
Interface definitions and example implementations would be open source and freely available.
But consider what would happen if the secret police catch an Iranian rioter with a FreeRunner. For me it might be better to carry a cheap commodity dumb phone. For secure communication use a simple voice code committed to memory. Send messages by voice or SMS. Relay through an innocent cutout. Somebody who you legitimately would talk to, but who can't be easily be pulled in for questioning.
Not to mention how sad it is for a science fiction writer to not understand the importance of the Internet.
Bradbury isn't an SF writer the way Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov were. His work always had the thinnest possible skin of technology surrounding a story about people. We was one of the more humanist writers of the day and the technology in his stories often made little sense.
I remember him ranting after the 2001 movie came out that it was 90% due to Clarke and 10% to Kubrick. His friend Clarke politely told him to shut up.
I think this is just Ray being Ray. His contemparories wouldn't have acted the same way. In fact, Clarke was a strong advocate of communications technology to the end.
Its just that the Chinese have a thing about death. Its not discussed in polite company. They avoid the number 4 because the way it is spoken it sounds like death.
You're thinking of the japanese language - "shi" means "four" or "death" depending on the character used to spell it.
I don't know much about the Japanese but the Chinese definitely have a thing about the number four. They won't sit at table number four in a restaurant. Several times after we have got a new phone service my wife has told me we have to change the number because (she says) her mother thinks there are too many fours in it.
Can someone who understands Chinese culture a little better than I explain why skeletons are considered so taboo?
My wife is Malaysian Chinese. I don't have a complete answer for you but I can make a couple of observations:
Chinese cemeteries in Malaysia are unmaintained and overgrown. Once your relatives get buried there nobody goes back to clean out the weeds and repair damage. There are whole herds of buffalo in the Ipoh chinese cemetery which nobody seems to know about. I found one when I went over a small hill to take a leak.
They take ghost stories much more seriously than westerners. I got a tour of my wife's home city and was pointed to an empty house site. Apparently a rich man had built a house there but pulled it down when it turned out to be haunted. I said they should just rent it to westerners looking for a spooky experience. They acted like the crazy westerners wanted to get killed or something.
Walking through the streets I noticed a little shrine. It had burning stuff and fruit like an offering. I ask my wife what that was. She snapped don't go near it. Ancestor worship and we walked on.
Its just that the Chinese have a thing about death. Its not discussed in polite company. They avoid the number 4 because the way it is spoken it sounds like death.
Here at work I once got roped into putting a big purchase through our totally screwed purchasing webapp. The finance person who passed the job to me asked for my password so he could go in to fix things and seemed surprised when I refused to give it to him. Apparently where he works that is just the normal way that people collaborate on things.
Of course in my team we all know enough root passwords to be able to su into any account we want. But most of us only use su for late night code reviews.
The problem with that line of thinking is that the Chinese government do not need to justify their military spending or development to anyone, so why would they hide it? They already have intercontinental capable missiles, which they are improving on regularly anyway.
North Korea tries to do this with their "satellite launchers". Everybody knows they are developing missiles. The civilian space program in China just gives other Governments an excuse to threaten NK, while ignoring ICBM development in China. They do that because NK is worth nothing economically, while trade with China is important for everybody.
Speed humps steal energy now for all vehicles including my bicycle. It did occur to me that shock absorbers could be built to recover energy with a coil and a fixed magnet. It might be better than heating up oil or gas. I've got two shock absorbers on my bike. Hmmm......
Well maybe they can integrate it into the bazillion speed humps then. The energy may not be "free" but I certainly think all the arguments I've read on this article are ridiculous. The energy "Stolen" from drivers would be negligible, most of the energy would be coming from that wonderful thing called gravity!
How can energy come from gravity, other than building a one way system when things up high (say asteroids) and moved to somewhere low (say Sydney) and the potential energy recovered in the process.
The picture shows those plates as being... flat plates.
Shame on me for not reading TFA but the energy situation is the same. You drive on to the plate and it drops, turning potential energy into electrical energy. The the vehicle then has to use energy from the drive line, or its existing kinetic energy to climb out of a hole.
Traffic signals use active induction loops to detect ferrous objects above them. If you move a magnet through a magnetic field so that it crosses field lines energy can be recovered from the motion. Thats how generators work of course. But then you may as well use trains with linear motors instead of cars.
I have read suggestions that pipes could be buried under roads to recover energy in the form of sound waves. Of course the energy you get that way is very low quality so using it to power (say) public lighting might not be straightforward.
Slashdot Mirror
Landing on Titan would be about as difficult now as landing on the moon in the 1960s.
The thing is; can you really call this "executable code"? From the point-of-view of an iPhone, 6510 machine code is no more "executable code" than any random game parsing it's level data.
On the other hand it is running the 6510 code at a much faster speed than the original 6510 could run. So in theory you could write a GCC backend for the 6510 and run anything which GCC can compile.
Actually, that's exactly what it is. Apple uses DRM to ensure the app store is the only legitimate way to install applications. Banning an application from the app store is tantamount to banning it from the platform. (Jailbreaking isn't widespread enough to count.) If Apple simply ran an app store without the monopoly lock on applications, I'd have no problem whatsoever with its behavior.
I won't buy an iPhone. But most of the software engineers I work with, who appreciate the freedom their linux desktops give them, either own one or are about to buy one.
In a world without copyright, all commercial software money would be made off support contracts.
In a world without copyright more code would be closed source.
SMS is actively monitored in Iran. Bad idea.
You don't send actual messages about riots in cleartext. You hide the message inside the normal crap which flows through the cell phone networks. Makes it hard to grep for intelligence or evidence.
Have pity on him for having such a bad phone?
I don't get your point.
I use Firefox and Safari regularly. I use two web browsers because each one does something vastly better than the other. Firefox for porn and online transactions, Safari for basic day-to-day anything that might include bookmark management... When the system is shitting gold plated bricks trying to deal with the demands After Effects or Photoshop or Final Cut Pro is putting on it, Safari is beyond useless... and Firefox is responsive.
So, you watch porn whilst using Photoshop or Final Cut Pro?
Better than coding for a living I bet.
That doesn't sound amateur at all. In fact it sounds fiendishly complicated to get right, and would require highly advanced laser technology for the satellite.
Well many amateur satellites are fiendishly complicated right now. I don't see the laser up link being too much of a technical issue. The down link could probably be done with radio and a low gain antenna. Hiding the up link signal is the main issue I think.
Okay how's this for an amateur satellite project? You put a bird into lowish polar orbit. It is basically a store and forward communications satellite which uses lasers for up link and down link. Ground stations can be kept fairly simple. A gun sight for aiming. Transmit data with a laser. Receive data with a photo diode.
Users invent their own identifiers. Messages are point to point or point to multi point. To exchange data with the satellite you need to send it your identifier, then the satellite points a laser your way to send a reply.
Interface definitions and example implementations would be open source and freely available.
But consider what would happen if the secret police catch an Iranian rioter with a FreeRunner. For me it might be better to carry a cheap commodity dumb phone. For secure communication use a simple voice code committed to memory. Send messages by voice or SMS. Relay through an innocent cutout. Somebody who you legitimately would talk to, but who can't be easily be pulled in for questioning.
Yeah yeah. Great for the 2 or 3 guys on the top. Everyone else gets fucked though.
Since VI customers are being screwed too, maybe the sacked staff can work for their ex customers?
Not to mention how sad it is for a science fiction writer to not understand the importance of the Internet.
Bradbury isn't an SF writer the way Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov were. His work always had the thinnest possible skin of technology surrounding a story about people. We was one of the more humanist writers of the day and the technology in his stories often made little sense.
I remember him ranting after the 2001 movie came out that it was 90% due to Clarke and 10% to Kubrick. His friend Clarke politely told him to shut up.
I think this is just Ray being Ray. His contemparories wouldn't have acted the same way. In fact, Clarke was a strong advocate of communications technology to the end.
Same here in Australia. One new Government created a distinction between "core promises" and "non-core promises". Simple as that.
Its just that the Chinese have a thing about death. Its not discussed in polite company. They avoid the number 4 because the way it is spoken it sounds like death.
You're thinking of the japanese language - "shi" means "four" or "death" depending on the character used to spell it.
I don't know much about the Japanese but the Chinese definitely have a thing about the number four. They won't sit at table number four in a restaurant. Several times after we have got a new phone service my wife has told me we have to change the number because (she says) her mother thinks there are too many fours in it.
He's quite an enigma this Barack Obama. Don't you think?
So. The British press is shit.
Hey! What about The Register?
Can someone who understands Chinese culture a little better than I explain why skeletons are considered so taboo?
My wife is Malaysian Chinese. I don't have a complete answer for you but I can make a couple of observations:
Its just that the Chinese have a thing about death. Its not discussed in polite company. They avoid the number 4 because the way it is spoken it sounds like death.
Here at work I once got roped into putting a big purchase through our totally screwed purchasing webapp. The finance person who passed the job to me asked for my password so he could go in to fix things and seemed surprised when I refused to give it to him. Apparently where he works that is just the normal way that people collaborate on things.
Of course in my team we all know enough root passwords to be able to su into any account we want. But most of us only use su for late night code reviews.
You make a good point. "Email me privately" - your e-mail isn't public.
Follow his homepage link.
The problem with that line of thinking is that the Chinese government do not need to justify their military spending or development to anyone, so why would they hide it? They already have intercontinental capable missiles, which they are improving on regularly anyway.
North Korea tries to do this with their "satellite launchers". Everybody knows they are developing missiles. The civilian space program in China just gives other Governments an excuse to threaten NK, while ignoring ICBM development in China. They do that because NK is worth nothing economically, while trade with China is important for everybody.
Speed humps steal energy now for all vehicles including my bicycle. It did occur to me that shock absorbers could be built to recover energy with a coil and a fixed magnet. It might be better than heating up oil or gas. I've got two shock absorbers on my bike. Hmmm......
Well maybe they can integrate it into the bazillion speed humps then. The energy may not be "free" but I certainly think all the arguments I've read on this article are ridiculous. The energy "Stolen" from drivers would be negligible, most of the energy would be coming from that wonderful thing called gravity!
How can energy come from gravity, other than building a one way system when things up high (say asteroids) and moved to somewhere low (say Sydney) and the potential energy recovered in the process.
The picture shows those plates as being... flat plates.
Shame on me for not reading TFA but the energy situation is the same. You drive on to the plate and it drops, turning potential energy into electrical energy. The the vehicle then has to use energy from the drive line, or its existing kinetic energy to climb out of a hole.
Traffic signals use active induction loops to detect ferrous objects above them. If you move a magnet through a magnetic field so that it crosses field lines energy can be recovered from the motion. Thats how generators work of course. But then you may as well use trains with linear motors instead of cars.
I have read suggestions that pipes could be buried under roads to recover energy in the form of sound waves. Of course the energy you get that way is very low quality so using it to power (say) public lighting might not be straightforward.