Odd; I've used the AIDE app as a tablet-hosted development environment, so it has seemed to me that any tablet with that (or another dev environment) is programmable. It's just a little more painful to do it on-device that it would be to use a personal computer for the development before deploying the app to the tablet. The big issue is the closed driver blobs that are used in these devices; that's really what stops us from actually unlocking their potential. Still, the problem is in the software, not in the hardware; there's nothing inherently wrong with tablet hardware, itself.
It's funny to me as a theoretical thing. As a practical one, it's pointless and not a workable prank. Proving that a code change compiles is part of the review process. If someone checks in broken code anyhow, it'll cause the build gate to fail, and won't be pushed to the main repository. Release engineering and QA will get upset with them, and they'll have to fix it anyhow. No one else will be inconvenienced; releng will just have to track down who caused the problem, and QA might have to wait an extra day for whichever other changes were stuck behind the build gate.
Well, from past discussions, it's clear that your requirements often seem to run counter to what the market is doing. Netbooks have basically split three ways: Ultrabooks (often still small, often expensive, almost always Windows-only), Chromebooks (often cheap, locked into ChromeOS if you like your warranty, often small), and tablets/convertibles (usually ARM with binary blob drivers, usually difficult to get an alternate OS on). So, I see the dilemma; you're basically relegated to unpopular use-cases of hardware that may not be supported long.
That's sad to hear. The impression of a review that I found was that the system's flawed at even a hardware level (basic things like the mouse and keyboard, even). It looks like a beautiful machine, and I'm sure it would be great if the kinks can be worked around in software, but I don't think I'd blame anyone for returning the thing as defective , especially if they're going pay a premium for nicer hardware.
So? Is paying the price for hardware that does what you want the problem, or is it the idea of inadvertently supporting the argument of someone that you disagree with? It looks like the Lenovo S21e will work with kernel 4.2 (and has some issues with earlier versions, due to the touchpad and wifi). Something like Dell's XPS13 "Developer Edition" comes preloaded with Ubuntu. Although it's a 13" screen, it's got a tiny bezel, so it should be similar in size to a smaller-screened laptop. Of course, it hits on your apparent cost constraints again;-)
Canonical has 161 laptops certified for Ubuntu 14.04. You could cross-reference that list with a list of 10 and 11.6 inch machines to find one that you'd consider suitable.
Looks like they've got more than most sites will list. Samsung's site shows that they've got more connection options than were listed on the two sales sites that I looked at. I'd still need more splitters than I already have, for most of the TVs listed.
My 40" Samsung works fine with everything going back to my Atari 2600. What's wrong with yours? *Looks at current Samsung TVs* Hmmmm, really? 2-4 HDMI ports, 1-3 USB ports, and no other connection options? What a sorry selection =( Mine has 2 A/V, Coax, 1 Component, VGA, 3.5mm audio, Toslink audio, 4 HDMI, and 2 USB ports. I'm not looking forward to buying extra conversion hardware when it eventually gives up the ghost...
Games any more are getting so large, I have to ask what is the realistic future of gaming. Cartridges can only hold so much data without getting unrealistically expensive. But if you want something that will play on both a larger at home console and a smaller portable console, it seems like the way to go.
Of course, mini discs can do the job as well. According to wikipedia, mini blu-ray discs can hold 15 GB. That seems sufficient for the current generation of gaming.
I just bought 2 32GB microSD cards for about $20. Memory prices are lower than they've ever been. There's a reason that I use memory cards to run my PSP's games, rather than using the UMDs directly.
So, it's possible, but saying that the Wii U supports GC is equivalent to saying that the Wii supports ripping game disks to ISOs and playing them from an external HDD. That is, if you do some unsupported things, you can expand the system beyond its originally-supported capabilities, but you can also probably say goodbye to any warranty support (if that matters to you) until you return the ios's to their original state.
Loop constructs and jump tables are just syntactic sugar on top of gotos. Function calls are just gotos with side effects (and we all know, if there's one thing worse than goto, it's unrelated side effects!). Clearly we just need to ditch the whole operational model and start over from scratch with CPUs that natively support modern programming practices.
Humans are pretty good about dealing with it. In this case, it's impossible to find evidence to contradict the statement "God created the universe in its current state 10 seconds ago." On the other hand, the behavior of an electronic circuit is immediately measurable and verifiable. Even people that try to behave perfectly rationally end up with dissonant thoughts coexisting in their minds.
It's been heading that direction for a long time. There are plenty of things, mostly related to entertainment, that my computer's hardware is technically capable of doing, but which software forbids, and the law forbids me from working around the defective-by-design software. That sounds like it's a good start toward my computer being controlled by someone else, and not by me.
A file only needs to be broken out of DRM-jail once to be made available to the "average user" on an "average day", same way that video rips have been working for years.
"Jersey Shore" is a term for the New Jersey coastline. The show was named after an already well-known area; maybe the writer was more familiar with the area than the crappy show.
Because police are put into a position of power and authority, and they need to be held to a higher standard than the citizens that they have power over. When the police can be trusted, and when they're unfailingly held personally accountable when they break that trust, that is the time to consider trusting them; not before.
OK. another test by a Chinese site that has very similar numbers. If this is really a practical problem (which I have no reason to doubt), we'll continue seeing things like this published.
You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately.
No that's not what I said. I said you don't know how Apple tested their chips.
Either Apple found the issue, or they tested their chips inadequately. By definition, tests that don't find significant problems are inadequate.
Well, and that Chinese site that found the same issues, with numbers that match very closely to the Reddit guy's, but with more explanation of the methodology...
From what I can tell by the Chipworks assessment, they appear the same with one being smaller. But then again I didn't look at the billions of transistors to determine if there are minor differences.
You don't have to look at the billions of transistors. You just have to run a widely-available benchmark on the two models of phone. Not even "you" personally; I'm sure that we'll quickly have documentation of the difference, independently supported by large numbers of tech enthusiasts.
They perform differently according to a Reddit user using a test Apple may not have used. How do you know that Apple should have known?
Because battery life in a mobile device is a highly-advertised, important aspect of selling the device, and it would be foolish to advertise performance metrics without thoroughly testing them beforehand.
The AC contended that Apple knew that there was a performance problem.
I'd contend the same thing, but I would classify it as a "difference", not a "problem".
That requires that they did the test the Reddit user did
It does not. It requires that they at least did an equivalent test that would expose the same difference. I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that assumption.
But what are the parameters of this "bare minimum"?
Presumably Apple has an internal test suite that they are convinced would give them performance numbers for various use-cases of the phone, and they required that suppliers' test results met or exceeded certain standards.
That is supposition. First, I haven't performed the test as I don't have iPhone 6s with two different processors to confirm it. Second, I don't know (and you don't know) how Apple tested their A9s.
I'm just following your lead;-) You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately. You suppose that Apple released hardware without knowing about performance problems. You suppose (alternately) that they knew about the difference and released the hardware anyhow. I suppose that Geekbench is the 2nd item listed on the App Store when I search for "benchmark", and that it would make sense for Apple to test its hardware with the same software that large numbers of customers will be testing it with.
And you know for sure that Apple tests their phones in exactly the same way that someone on Reddit did and just ignored the results?
I know for sure that you don't take a vendor's performance claims as truth until you verify for yourself. Measurements of power consumption and processing speed for the parts from each vendor are the bare minimum of what I'd expect, since Apple has to know what kinds of marketing claims it can make. To do anything else would be negligent. What it seems that Apple has done is to base is marketing claims on the lesser of the two CPU models. Anyone that receives the TSMC CPU by chance just got lucky, since they'll get a phone that performs significantly above Apple's advertised specs.
And you fail to understand the whole point of using multiple suppliers. The parts ARE NOT supposed to be different in terms of function. They are made by different people/processes.
Well, they are. They vary in a metric that's very important in a mobile device. I'll just wait here while Apple fixes the problems with the inferior version of the CPU that they accidentally released in their hardware, shall I? If Apple sent a design to multiple manufacturers, I'd expect those manufacturers to produce identical parts. As you note, that's the whole point of using multiple suppliers. As everyone else has been trying to point out: these parts aren't identical. Either Apple sent out 2 designs, for the different lithography scales, or one of the suppliers modified Apple's design. Either way, Apple has to know about the difference from internal testing, and implicitly agreed that knowingly releasing two differently-performing pieces of hardware under the same model number was acceptable.
My work MITMs https. The browsers that the company installs include their CA certs, so detecting it takes manual effort ("hmmm, why is Google's cert issued by " SSL Decryption Authority"??"). If you install another browser without the certs, you'll get a nice warning screen saying that someone is doing something nasty, and it takes some effort to tell the browser to ignore the problem. So I'd assume that even an unsophisticated user would recognize that there's a problem...although they wouldn't know why it was a problem, what it meant, or what to do about it.
I'd forgotten about that. Thank you for reminding me. It's one more reason to actually get around to rooting a couple of my devices that aren't going to get Marshmallow.
I see three statements: 1. "Eventually, Apple will be gathering all that data too." It would be reasonable for them to do so, but I agree that it seems like it's not in their plans, so far (or, at least it couldn't be proven, if claimed) 2. "Because people will demand it." I don't believe that most people will. If I really want access to that data, I have a bluetooth OBD-2 dongle and an app to read/log/whatever it. I don't really need or want some screen echoing that data right now, although I wouldn't actually be opposed. 3. "Google on the otherhand is just asking for the data now, so they can provide a more complete diagnostic and failure predictive warnings." They're obviously asking for the data now, but the rest of the statement is speculation (and may be incomplete, since Google likely wants the data for other purposes as well).
What I don't understand is your reaction. It's not like they're accusing Apple of wrongdoing; they're saying that Apple may want to provide access to a larger feature set in the future. I don't have a problem with that.
Slashdot Mirror
Odd; I've used the AIDE app as a tablet-hosted development environment, so it has seemed to me that any tablet with that (or another dev environment) is programmable. It's just a little more painful to do it on-device that it would be to use a personal computer for the development before deploying the app to the tablet. The big issue is the closed driver blobs that are used in these devices; that's really what stops us from actually unlocking their potential. Still, the problem is in the software, not in the hardware; there's nothing inherently wrong with tablet hardware, itself.
It's funny to me as a theoretical thing. As a practical one, it's pointless and not a workable prank. Proving that a code change compiles is part of the review process. If someone checks in broken code anyhow, it'll cause the build gate to fail, and won't be pushed to the main repository. Release engineering and QA will get upset with them, and they'll have to fix it anyhow. No one else will be inconvenienced; releng will just have to track down who caused the problem, and QA might have to wait an extra day for whichever other changes were stuck behind the build gate.
Well, from past discussions, it's clear that your requirements often seem to run counter to what the market is doing. Netbooks have basically split three ways: Ultrabooks (often still small, often expensive, almost always Windows-only), Chromebooks (often cheap, locked into ChromeOS if you like your warranty, often small), and tablets/convertibles (usually ARM with binary blob drivers, usually difficult to get an alternate OS on). So, I see the dilemma; you're basically relegated to unpopular use-cases of hardware that may not be supported long.
That's sad to hear. The impression of a review that I found was that the system's flawed at even a hardware level (basic things like the mouse and keyboard, even). It looks like a beautiful machine, and I'm sure it would be great if the kinks can be worked around in software, but I don't think I'd blame anyone for returning the thing as defective , especially if they're going pay a premium for nicer hardware.
So? Is paying the price for hardware that does what you want the problem, or is it the idea of inadvertently supporting the argument of someone that you disagree with? It looks like the Lenovo S21e will work with kernel 4.2 (and has some issues with earlier versions, due to the touchpad and wifi). Something like Dell's XPS13 "Developer Edition" comes preloaded with Ubuntu. Although it's a 13" screen, it's got a tiny bezel, so it should be similar in size to a smaller-screened laptop. Of course, it hits on your apparent cost constraints again ;-)
Canonical has 161 laptops certified for Ubuntu 14.04. You could cross-reference that list with a list of 10 and 11.6 inch machines to find one that you'd consider suitable.
Looks like they've got more than most sites will list. Samsung's site shows that they've got more connection options than were listed on the two sales sites that I looked at. I'd still need more splitters than I already have, for most of the TVs listed.
My 40" Samsung works fine with everything going back to my Atari 2600. What's wrong with yours? *Looks at current Samsung TVs* Hmmmm, really? 2-4 HDMI ports, 1-3 USB ports, and no other connection options? What a sorry selection =( Mine has 2 A/V, Coax, 1 Component, VGA, 3.5mm audio, Toslink audio, 4 HDMI, and 2 USB ports. I'm not looking forward to buying extra conversion hardware when it eventually gives up the ghost...
Games any more are getting so large, I have to ask what is the realistic future of gaming. Cartridges can only hold so much data without getting unrealistically expensive. But if you want something that will play on both a larger at home console and a smaller portable console, it seems like the way to go.
Of course, mini discs can do the job as well. According to wikipedia, mini blu-ray discs can hold 15 GB. That seems sufficient for the current generation of gaming.
I just bought 2 32GB microSD cards for about $20. Memory prices are lower than they've ever been. There's a reason that I use memory cards to run my PSP's games, rather than using the UMDs directly.
So, it's possible, but saying that the Wii U supports GC is equivalent to saying that the Wii supports ripping game disks to ISOs and playing them from an external HDD. That is, if you do some unsupported things, you can expand the system beyond its originally-supported capabilities, but you can also probably say goodbye to any warranty support (if that matters to you) until you return the ios's to their original state.
Loop constructs and jump tables are just syntactic sugar on top of gotos. Function calls are just gotos with side effects (and we all know, if there's one thing worse than goto, it's unrelated side effects!). Clearly we just need to ditch the whole operational model and start over from scratch with CPUs that natively support modern programming practices.
Humans are pretty good about dealing with it. In this case, it's impossible to find evidence to contradict the statement "God created the universe in its current state 10 seconds ago." On the other hand, the behavior of an electronic circuit is immediately measurable and verifiable. Even people that try to behave perfectly rationally end up with dissonant thoughts coexisting in their minds.
It's been heading that direction for a long time. There are plenty of things, mostly related to entertainment, that my computer's hardware is technically capable of doing, but which software forbids, and the law forbids me from working around the defective-by-design software. That sounds like it's a good start toward my computer being controlled by someone else, and not by me.
A file only needs to be broken out of DRM-jail once to be made available to the "average user" on an "average day", same way that video rips have been working for years.
"Jersey Shore" is a term for the New Jersey coastline. The show was named after an already well-known area; maybe the writer was more familiar with the area than the crappy show.
Because police are put into a position of power and authority, and they need to be held to a higher standard than the citizens that they have power over. When the police can be trusted, and when they're unfailingly held personally accountable when they break that trust, that is the time to consider trusting them; not before.
Tech companies have a few hundred employees at most? You mean like the 70,000 at EMC and the 109,000 at Dell?
You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately.
No that's not what I said. I said you don't know how Apple tested their chips.
Either Apple found the issue, or they tested their chips inadequately. By definition, tests that don't find significant problems are inadequate.
Well, and that Chinese site that found the same issues, with numbers that match very closely to the Reddit guy's, but with more explanation of the methodology...
From what I can tell by the Chipworks assessment, they appear the same with one being smaller. But then again I didn't look at the billions of transistors to determine if there are minor differences.
You don't have to look at the billions of transistors. You just have to run a widely-available benchmark on the two models of phone. Not even "you" personally; I'm sure that we'll quickly have documentation of the difference, independently supported by large numbers of tech enthusiasts.
They perform differently according to a Reddit user using a test Apple may not have used. How do you know that Apple should have known?
Because battery life in a mobile device is a highly-advertised, important aspect of selling the device, and it would be foolish to advertise performance metrics without thoroughly testing them beforehand.
The AC contended that Apple knew that there was a performance problem.
I'd contend the same thing, but I would classify it as a "difference", not a "problem".
That requires that they did the test the Reddit user did
It does not. It requires that they at least did an equivalent test that would expose the same difference. I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that assumption.
But what are the parameters of this "bare minimum"?
Presumably Apple has an internal test suite that they are convinced would give them performance numbers for various use-cases of the phone, and they required that suppliers' test results met or exceeded certain standards.
That is supposition. First, I haven't performed the test as I don't have iPhone 6s with two different processors to confirm it. Second, I don't know (and you don't know) how Apple tested their A9s.
I'm just following your lead ;-) You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately. You suppose that Apple released hardware without knowing about performance problems. You suppose (alternately) that they knew about the difference and released the hardware anyhow. I suppose that Geekbench is the 2nd item listed on the App Store when I search for "benchmark", and that it would make sense for Apple to test its hardware with the same software that large numbers of customers will be testing it with.
And you know for sure that Apple tests their phones in exactly the same way that someone on Reddit did and just ignored the results?
I know for sure that you don't take a vendor's performance claims as truth until you verify for yourself. Measurements of power consumption and processing speed for the parts from each vendor are the bare minimum of what I'd expect, since Apple has to know what kinds of marketing claims it can make. To do anything else would be negligent. What it seems that Apple has done is to base is marketing claims on the lesser of the two CPU models. Anyone that receives the TSMC CPU by chance just got lucky, since they'll get a phone that performs significantly above Apple's advertised specs.
And you fail to understand the whole point of using multiple suppliers. The parts ARE NOT supposed to be different in terms of function. They are made by different people/processes.
Well, they are. They vary in a metric that's very important in a mobile device. I'll just wait here while Apple fixes the problems with the inferior version of the CPU that they accidentally released in their hardware, shall I? If Apple sent a design to multiple manufacturers, I'd expect those manufacturers to produce identical parts. As you note, that's the whole point of using multiple suppliers. As everyone else has been trying to point out: these parts aren't identical. Either Apple sent out 2 designs, for the different lithography scales, or one of the suppliers modified Apple's design. Either way, Apple has to know about the difference from internal testing, and implicitly agreed that knowingly releasing two differently-performing pieces of hardware under the same model number was acceptable.
My work MITMs https. The browsers that the company installs include their CA certs, so detecting it takes manual effort ("hmmm, why is Google's cert issued by " SSL Decryption Authority"??"). If you install another browser without the certs, you'll get a nice warning screen saying that someone is doing something nasty, and it takes some effort to tell the browser to ignore the problem. So I'd assume that even an unsophisticated user would recognize that there's a problem...although they wouldn't know why it was a problem, what it meant, or what to do about it.
I'd forgotten about that. Thank you for reminding me. It's one more reason to actually get around to rooting a couple of my devices that aren't going to get Marshmallow.
I see three statements:
1. "Eventually, Apple will be gathering all that data too." It would be reasonable for them to do so, but I agree that it seems like it's not in their plans, so far (or, at least it couldn't be proven, if claimed)
2. "Because people will demand it." I don't believe that most people will. If I really want access to that data, I have a bluetooth OBD-2 dongle and an app to read/log/whatever it. I don't really need or want some screen echoing that data right now, although I wouldn't actually be opposed.
3. "Google on the otherhand is just asking for the data now, so they can provide a more complete diagnostic and failure predictive warnings." They're obviously asking for the data now, but the rest of the statement is speculation (and may be incomplete, since Google likely wants the data for other purposes as well).
What I don't understand is your reaction. It's not like they're accusing Apple of wrongdoing; they're saying that Apple may want to provide access to a larger feature set in the future. I don't have a problem with that.