What Bill Thompson fails to point out is any kind of real solution. Virus scanners are mostly reactionary. They scan computers for known virus signatures. Without any known viruses, there's nothing to scan for. What the hell do we do? Even if every Mac user ran a virus scanner, there wouldn't be any "herd immunity", because any virus that comes on the scene will be entirely new.
I always ask my customers about their cars. I ask them if they wouldn't like to drive the same car as their mechanic, or at a minimum, that they would trust their mechanic's advice on what is reliable and offers good performance for the dollar. I'm their mechanic, only I work on their PC. If you look under the hood of my computer, you'll find AMD; because they offer a stable, affordable, and stronger alternative to Intel. It also helps to let them know that AMD has outsold Intel in the retail channel.
When you look at the hardware that's on a graphics card, the cost makes more sense. You've got a GPU with 304M transistors (G70 [7800] core), then you've got up to 512 MB of very, very fast memory (bus speeds in excess of 1000 MHz). That's heavy duty. By contrast, a San Diego core Athlon64 has 114 million transistors, but costs $245 or so. Throw in 512 MB of RAM that will run at a 1200 MHz clock speed, and you will approach the cost of a graphics card, but the GPU's aren't manufactured on the same 90nm process as the A64, so the production costs must be much higher.
Of course, this doesn't factor in R&D costs, but there's a lot more growth going on in graphics processing than there is in x86.
I'm not in any kind of position to make judgments (because I'm not an expert on either industry), but it seems to a laymen that the $400 price tag might just be justifiable for a 7800GTX.
Google isn't stupid. They've turned beta into a marketing ploy. Every body wants to be "in". Google Betas have traditionally been "in", so Google releases everything as beta to ride the wave.
How many people beat their door down to participate in the Gmail beta? Why not roll the same effect into their other services.
It all comes down to pain. How much pain is inflicted by $1? How much pain is inflicted by finding a decent P2P app, avoiding viruses, then getting a quality download. Most of the users I encounter will pay the dollar.
The Microsoft and Linux APIs are so jarringly hideous and clunky it is painful to have to use for anyone who has grown up on OS X.
If you are a Windows or Linux application developer, please, if you don't have a Mac or haven't really spent time with OS X. Pick something like a button or text field AND STUDY IT. And I mean really look closely at it and nothing else. Note the timing, shading, feedback, action, EVERYTHING.
First, GUI != API.
API is the application programming interface; usually a collection of objects, which have propteries and methods you can use or extend or override. The API is the roadmap to these items.
As for the OS X button/text fields vs Linux & Windows button/text fields... are you serious? Study them? Timing, action? Let's get real here, it's a bitmap swap. The OS X versions have a pretty glass look to them, the Windows versions look like smooth beveled plastic, and Linux ones look however you want them to look.
I love my Mac, and I think it has the best looking operating system of the three mentioned, but I don't really see where the interface elements are better in any other regard than their outward appearance.
"FADE to side view of Father at computer, head in hands."
Come on now, it's not like his daughter is pregnant. Yes, spyware sucks, but most people don't see it in the light we do. They've become accustomed to ignoring the pop-ups and going on with their lives. Firefox would be much better served to stay away form melodramatic, pseudo-crisis scenarios and stick to the positive.
You've misunderstood the problem and the proposed solution. No one is asking you to pay out of state sales tax. Your state is asking you to pay sales tax on items that you purchase from out of state. Technically, this is already required, as has been pointed out numerous times already.
I'm incorporated and resell parts to my customers. I am required by the state to collect sales tax from customers and hold that money in escrow. I do not pay the state sales tax; I am merely holding the funds for the state for the amount of time specified by them. I currently pay quarterly, but if my sales exceed a certain level, I will have to pay it monthly or weekly.
I am in Florida. If I sell a computer part to a person in Georgia, I do not have to collect sales tax. Under this new legislation, I would be required to hold sales tax in escrow for each state in which I wish to sell. It is my option not to sell to individuals in that state if I decide that the state's tax practices are too much of a hassle to implement.
Some of my clients are extremely pleased with the transition to OOo. Others use software such as law firm management and accounting software that interfaces with office through the MS Office API. These people are, unfortunately, stuck with MS Office for the moment.
The really frightening part is that the vast majority of the public will not grasp this concept in the slightest. They'll think of it as free energy and applaud it as it is implemented.
I wonder, why go to such extreme measures when the same money could be invested in A) a solar panel, and B) LED stoplights; a solution that would actually harness new energy from the sun rather than another system that would waste energy infused into fossil fuels by the sun over the course of many, many years.
Spending less time online is not the answer. That's like seeking to decrease the number of car accident related deaths by requesting that people drive less. This latest worm, like many before it, exploits a service that is tied to... wait for it... IIS and MS SQL server. These two services:
A) Have virtually no use to most users (I guess some software uses MSDE *puke*) B) Should not be exposed on a public IP (a.k.a. you should be running a firewall)
A $55 firewall would significantly impede the spread of worms like this.
IMO, responsible ISPs should distribute network devices that at least perform NAT when issuing IP addresses to computers behind their connection. In FL Bellsouth DSL issues a Westell router/modem. It's a pretty decent little device. It handles DHCP, NAT, offers bridged ethernet mode, and has decent support for port forwarding. You can connect it to a $15 5-port switch and connect up to four computers with zero additional configuration. Cable providers seem to be the worst about issuing modems that pass the public IP on directly to the device connected to it.
To make a long story short, we don't need to spend less time online, we (and ISPs) just need to be responsible about how we connect.
"undo". It does have it. And it would suck without it. Unstructured Undo in Gimp is mentioned as one of its most serious weaknesses (as opposed to the one in Photoshop, where you can undo any previous step without affecting the ones that happened later) Undo is an entirely different functionality than browsing backward in a series of navigation steps. Using the back button as an undo event sink is a terrible idea IMO. Structured undo (as in Photoshop) is a great idea, but it should be implemented within the application.
Take you back in the history of your "map travels", say, one map drag, zoom click or search back. Obvious from user point of view. Helluva hard from programmer's point of view. Thanks to AJAX. Again, I'd disagree. If a web page contains an application, I believe they should exist on separate layers. The application should be built within the browser space, but to a certain degree, maintain a layer of separation.
Previous seen email in GMail, previous seen location in Google Maps, previous config screen or any other perceivable previous navigation unit. AJAX blurs/removes them. Is the next tab of DeviantArt prefs a new page or not? Tabs in the context of web pages already have an expected behavior. Tabs in the context of applicatios already have an expected behavior. Unfortunately, they are in conflict. When you click the back button, does Firefox take you to the previous tab (as in browser tab, not web page tab?
The spoof speaks of AJAX in the paradigm of web pages as content, not as applications. If you're using AJAX to deliver your content, and it breaks as the article describes, well then you've got a problem, but the real strengths of AJAX are not in the ability to deliver content, but to push the web browser beyond content delivery into the application space.
OO Writer has no back button. Why? What is "back" in the context of authoring a document? You could come up with analogous elements, but they have their own name and their own behavior. Usability has universal elements, but it is also context sensitive. Take Google maps for example. How does the back button affect the page when I have moved the map? How should it affect the page? In my opinion, the back button is tied to navigation, and should remain within that scope. If I press the back button, I don't want it tied to actions I've taken within an application I'm using on the page, I want it to take me back to the previous navigable location.
In this way, I think that the author has mistakenly correlated frames and AJAX. Application state and browser state can be separate and usable.
Wait, so open formats are good, but large corporate entities marketing products that support them are bad?
Personally, I think this is one of the most honest and noble marketing pathways a company can take. I've always believed in maintaining my customer base on merit, not on locking someone in by hiding information that they would need to take their business elsewhere. By promoting an open format, IBM is saying to the customer, "We're comfortable that we can provide the best service at the best price. So much so that we're building our business with an open door to go elsewhere." That's confident and reassuring.
I'd much rather receive that type of marketing than a, "Hey, look at all the pretty features, just give up your freedom and we'll take care of you... really," approach.
They're not trying for perpetual motion, they're just looking for another way to convert heat into electricity.
There aren't many energy production mechanisms (in popular use) that produce electricity directly. Most produce heat, which must be converted into electricity.
The majority of energy production systems use heat convection to operate some type of electro-magnetic generator. There is always a loss in efficiency in this process. What's potentially novel about this idea is that it may turn out to be a good way to convert heat generated by solar energy into usable electricity. As it has already been pointed out, there is a significant amount of energy stored in water vapor that is heated just a few degrees. Most conventional solar based systems that heat water, heat that water from a liquid state to a gaseous state. That takes a lot of energy, and a certain portion of the heat is lost in the inefficiency of the heating mechanism.
If a vortex only requires a heat differential of a few degrees, then you've eliminated a certain portion of the inefficiency. The question will be whether or not the conversion from convection to electricity is efficient. This may be a simple case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but it's interesting enough to follow through on.
Slashdot Mirror
What Bill Thompson fails to point out is any kind of real solution. Virus scanners are mostly reactionary. They scan computers for known virus signatures. Without any known viruses, there's nothing to scan for. What the hell do we do? Even if every Mac user ran a virus scanner, there wouldn't be any "herd immunity", because any virus that comes on the scene will be entirely new.
I always ask my customers about their cars. I ask them if they wouldn't like to drive the same car as their mechanic, or at a minimum, that they would trust their mechanic's advice on what is reliable and offers good performance for the dollar. I'm their mechanic, only I work on their PC. If you look under the hood of my computer, you'll find AMD; because they offer a stable, affordable, and stronger alternative to Intel. It also helps to let them know that AMD has outsold Intel in the retail channel.
When you look at the hardware that's on a graphics card, the cost makes more sense. You've got a GPU with 304M transistors (G70 [7800] core), then you've got up to 512 MB of very, very fast memory (bus speeds in excess of 1000 MHz). That's heavy duty. By contrast, a San Diego core Athlon64 has 114 million transistors, but costs $245 or so. Throw in 512 MB of RAM that will run at a 1200 MHz clock speed, and you will approach the cost of a graphics card, but the GPU's aren't manufactured on the same 90nm process as the A64, so the production costs must be much higher.
Of course, this doesn't factor in R&D costs, but there's a lot more growth going on in graphics processing than there is in x86.
I'm not in any kind of position to make judgments (because I'm not an expert on either industry), but it seems to a laymen that the $400 price tag might just be justifiable for a 7800GTX.
Google isn't stupid. They've turned beta into a marketing ploy. Every body wants to be "in". Google Betas have traditionally been "in", so Google releases everything as beta to ride the wave.
How many people beat their door down to participate in the Gmail beta? Why not roll the same effect into their other services.
Soylent green is people!!!
I agree 100% with the parent.
It all comes down to pain. How much pain is inflicted by $1? How much pain is inflicted by finding a decent P2P app, avoiding viruses, then getting a quality download. Most of the users I encounter will pay the dollar.
then you can't make babies anymore.
There is a niche for anything you can think of. From a mass-market perspective, they're dead.
Clearly this was posted just so we could all stand around and collectively laugh at the "gut feeling" comment.
It appears that Bleex is a Berkley project:
http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/bleex.htm
Is this the same project? It sure looks similar, only sans green outerwear.
The Microsoft and Linux APIs are so jarringly hideous and clunky it is painful to have to use for anyone who has grown up on OS X.
If you are a Windows or Linux application developer, please, if you don't have a Mac or haven't really spent time with OS X. Pick something like a button or text field AND STUDY IT. And I mean really look closely at it and nothing else. Note the timing, shading, feedback, action, EVERYTHING.
First, GUI != API.
API is the application programming interface; usually a collection of objects, which have propteries and methods you can use or extend or override. The API is the roadmap to these items.
As for the OS X button/text fields vs Linux & Windows button/text fields... are you serious? Study them? Timing, action? Let's get real here, it's a bitmap swap. The OS X versions have a pretty glass look to them, the Windows versions look like smooth beveled plastic, and Linux ones look however you want them to look.
I love my Mac, and I think it has the best looking operating system of the three mentioned, but I don't really see where the interface elements are better in any other regard than their outward appearance.
"FADE to side view of Father at computer, head in hands."
Come on now, it's not like his daughter is pregnant. Yes, spyware sucks, but most people don't see it in the light we do. They've become accustomed to ignoring the pop-ups and going on with their lives. Firefox would be much better served to stay away form melodramatic, pseudo-crisis scenarios and stick to the positive.
You've misunderstood the problem and the proposed solution. No one is asking you to pay out of state sales tax. Your state is asking you to pay sales tax on items that you purchase from out of state. Technically, this is already required, as has been pointed out numerous times already.
I'm incorporated and resell parts to my customers. I am required by the state to collect sales tax from customers and hold that money in escrow. I do not pay the state sales tax; I am merely holding the funds for the state for the amount of time specified by them. I currently pay quarterly, but if my sales exceed a certain level, I will have to pay it monthly or weekly.
I am in Florida. If I sell a computer part to a person in Georgia, I do not have to collect sales tax. Under this new legislation, I would be required to hold sales tax in escrow for each state in which I wish to sell. It is my option not to sell to individuals in that state if I decide that the state's tax practices are too much of a hassle to implement.
Some of my clients are extremely pleased with the transition to OOo. Others use software such as law firm management and accounting software that interfaces with office through the MS Office API. These people are, unfortunately, stuck with MS Office for the moment.
I have Virtual PC running on my Mac for this express purpose!
The really frightening part is that the vast majority of the public will not grasp this concept in the slightest. They'll think of it as free energy and applaud it as it is implemented.
I wonder, why go to such extreme measures when the same money could be invested in A) a solar panel, and B) LED stoplights; a solution that would actually harness new energy from the sun rather than another system that would waste energy infused into fossil fuels by the sun over the course of many, many years.
Some potatoes are quite different from other potatoes.
Spending less time online is not the answer. That's like seeking to decrease the number of car accident related deaths by requesting that people drive less. This latest worm, like many before it, exploits a service that is tied to... wait for it... IIS and MS SQL server. These two services:
A) Have virtually no use to most users (I guess some software uses MSDE *puke*)
B) Should not be exposed on a public IP (a.k.a. you should be running a firewall)
A $55 firewall would significantly impede the spread of worms like this.
IMO, responsible ISPs should distribute network devices that at least perform NAT when issuing IP addresses to computers behind their connection. In FL Bellsouth DSL issues a Westell router/modem. It's a pretty decent little device. It handles DHCP, NAT, offers bridged ethernet mode, and has decent support for port forwarding. You can connect it to a $15 5-port switch and connect up to four computers with zero additional configuration. Cable providers seem to be the worst about issuing modems that pass the public IP on directly to the device connected to it.
To make a long story short, we don't need to spend less time online, we (and ISPs) just need to be responsible about how we connect.
Well, that was annoying. All they needed was this:
Well shit, the first group looks like those annoying emoticon things. I give up.
Of course, they're still chemical rockets, which inherently suck. But they're not nearly as shoddy as you make out.
So we're talking more of a game of blackjack as opposed to a crap shoot? Sticking with the gambling theme that is.
"undo". It does have it. And it would suck without it.
Unstructured Undo in Gimp is mentioned as one of its most serious weaknesses (as opposed to the one in Photoshop, where you can undo any previous step without affecting the ones that happened later)
Undo is an entirely different functionality than browsing backward in a series of navigation steps. Using the back button as an undo event sink is a terrible idea IMO. Structured undo (as in Photoshop) is a great idea, but it should be implemented within the application.
Take you back in the history of your "map travels", say, one map drag, zoom click or search back. Obvious from user point of view. Helluva hard from programmer's point of view. Thanks to AJAX.
Again, I'd disagree. If a web page contains an application, I believe they should exist on separate layers. The application should be built within the browser space, but to a certain degree, maintain a layer of separation.
Previous seen email in GMail, previous seen location in Google Maps, previous config screen or any other perceivable previous navigation unit. AJAX blurs/removes them. Is the next tab of DeviantArt prefs a new page or not?
Tabs in the context of web pages already have an expected behavior. Tabs in the context of applicatios already have an expected behavior. Unfortunately, they are in conflict. When you click the back button, does Firefox take you to the previous tab (as in browser tab, not web page tab?
The spoof speaks of AJAX in the paradigm of web pages as content, not as applications. If you're using AJAX to deliver your content, and it breaks as the article describes, well then you've got a problem, but the real strengths of AJAX are not in the ability to deliver content, but to push the web browser beyond content delivery into the application space.
OO Writer has no back button. Why? What is "back" in the context of authoring a document? You could come up with analogous elements, but they have their own name and their own behavior. Usability has universal elements, but it is also context sensitive. Take Google maps for example. How does the back button affect the page when I have moved the map? How should it affect the page? In my opinion, the back button is tied to navigation, and should remain within that scope. If I press the back button, I don't want it tied to actions I've taken within an application I'm using on the page, I want it to take me back to the previous navigable location.
In this way, I think that the author has mistakenly correlated frames and AJAX. Application state and browser state can be separate and usable.
This family is full of misfits. Ever seen a civet, or a fossa?
Ten steps ahead would mean tetradecagon wheels, not hexagons ;)
Wait, so open formats are good, but large corporate entities marketing products that support them are bad?
Personally, I think this is one of the most honest and noble marketing pathways a company can take. I've always believed in maintaining my customer base on merit, not on locking someone in by hiding information that they would need to take their business elsewhere. By promoting an open format, IBM is saying to the customer, "We're comfortable that we can provide the best service at the best price. So much so that we're building our business with an open door to go elsewhere." That's confident and reassuring.
I'd much rather receive that type of marketing than a, "Hey, look at all the pretty features, just give up your freedom and we'll take care of you... really," approach.
They're not trying for perpetual motion, they're just looking for another way to convert heat into electricity.
There aren't many energy production mechanisms (in popular use) that produce electricity directly. Most produce heat, which must be converted into electricity.
The majority of energy production systems use heat convection to operate some type of electro-magnetic generator. There is always a loss in efficiency in this process. What's potentially novel about this idea is that it may turn out to be a good way to convert heat generated by solar energy into usable electricity. As it has already been pointed out, there is a significant amount of energy stored in water vapor that is heated just a few degrees. Most conventional solar based systems that heat water, heat that water from a liquid state to a gaseous state. That takes a lot of energy, and a certain portion of the heat is lost in the inefficiency of the heating mechanism.
If a vortex only requires a heat differential of a few degrees, then you've eliminated a certain portion of the inefficiency. The question will be whether or not the conversion from convection to electricity is efficient. This may be a simple case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but it's interesting enough to follow through on.