Concepts are what is important. Concepts are what separate skilled engineers from the common coder. Languages are tools which change often, but the fundamentals are generally constant.
I finished college with a healthy working knowledge of C and Java from academic and side projects. I had become extremely proficient in Perl and I also had a year of internship experience in C++. I interviewed for jobs focusing on all of those languages. My favorite was Perl, and I eventually accepted a position which dealt primarily a project that was Perl-based. Six months later I had to do a fairly complex Java project (lasted 3 months). Immediately after that I started a year long project in Objective-C, a language which I had absolutely no knowledge of. Now I hardly code Perl (I miss it, but I do not mind Obj-C much... I'm quite proficient in it by now).
The point is you never know where life will take you. I can attest from experience that switching to a completely foreign language stinks. It can be very rough initially, but if your fundamentals are strong, you'll have something to lean on instead of falling down. Not to mention that a generalist is an extremely valuable position to be seen in by your boss.
It's important to know languages, but they are secondary to mastering the fundamental concepts that you'll take with you for your entire career.
Actually, the Carlyle Group is mostly Bush and bin Laden money, or at least it used to be. Sort of makes you wonder who might actually be doing what, and what's at stake...
Especially considering Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, is on the board of the Carlyle Group. That's a bit of a WTF moment right there... Ok.. The money came from an investment group headed by the co-founder of the Carlyle Group... that is NOT the same as the Carlyle Group investing in SCO. How did this get so off-topic? There is at least one level of indirection here.
I don't see how an ex-CEO of IBM being on the board of Carlyle Group has to do with the actions of another group that has a common investor.
Seriously, why should "these companies" do any of that. Closed systems ensure lock-in, and lock-in is basically their business. The lock-in ensures that you keep coming back, keep viewing ads, keep paying for premium upgrades, etc.
This is a great step in the right direction. Maybe one day in the future I will end my 5+ year boycott of Internet Explorer! Probably not... but it will still be healthy for the web.
It's worth pointing out that this announcement is in direct contrast to IE7 announcements. Microsoft employees claimed IE7 not complying with ACID2 was a "design choice" rather than a bug. Wow... what a pathetic way to say "we don't care about web standards."
This is the way IE7 *should* have been. They're continuing support of "past evolving web standards" -- also known as Microsoft's proprietary standards -- while adding current (and hopefully future) standard support. This will enable web developers to be able to create less hacky pages using simpler CSS+HTML code rather than supporting only a subset of browsers.
+5 points for MS supporting healthy open web standards -10 points for being about a decade late
I'm going to stay away from the 360 (crap hardware quality and game patches... it really does bring the PC gaming experience to consoles) and PS3 (game patches and high price tag). I dislike Microsoft as much as the next slash-dotter, but I have to disagree with you now. The Xbox 360 is probably Microsoft's biggest success, and they did a damn good job on it. The 360 games are now very mature, and it shows (Halo3, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed all run and look fantastic on it). Additionally the 360 can stream music from most music streams, and can now play DivX movies (finally). I used it for a few months to play movies and tv shows on my living room tv via Tversity transcoding software. Patching really isn't a problem. There is a console patch twice a year that takes 5 minutes and SOMETIMES a game patch that usually takes 30 seconds to automatically download and apply. PATCHING = GOOD!
For what it's worth, none of my dozen friends with a 360 has had it brick or gotten the red ring of death. I know it exists, but I think it occurs on only a small number of consoles. I wasn't able to find numbers. Lets say it affects 100,000 consoles. There are 13,500,000 xbox's in the world today. That would be a 0.75% failure rate. Much less terrible than it seems. Also, Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the problem and is prepared to spend over a billion dollars to repair broken machines!
The bottom line is that the 360 isn't a disaster like Windows Vista. It might just be the best consumer product out of Microsoft. Definitely a worthy competitor and middle ground to the Wii and PS3. Your blind hate doesn't accomplish anything.
Is this article for real? It should be titled, "Should Wikipedia be dumbed down?"
Of course proofs should be included! Not including proofs is the mathematical equivalent of not citing factual sources in articles (I guess you could cite a proof too).
I believe that in cases where multiple proofs exist, they should each have their own Wiki page. When you have multiple proofs, they'll all probably have names, so that is the title of the article they should be in. The main page for should have a section titled "Proofs" that discusses/compares the proofs superficially and links to their individual wiki pages.
Your argument is fair, most of the arguments on this post are (seems their are no SST fanboy's, heh). I would only add that I think the real reason that SST has not been actively deployed in the private sector is just because its not ready yet. Ticket costs are one factor, but they're very minor. There are so many filthy rich people in the world right now, more than ever, and they'd love to pay 5k to cut their 6.5 hour JFK->SFO flight to 1 hour...
The real issue is that there are just many factors that aren't at the point where deploying SST makes sense. The private airlines aren't really flush with disposable R&D cash right now, but the military is. So the execs can sit back and let the US Gov't figure this out for them and foot the bill. I'd much rather see money used for SST research than for endless "wars"...
Another point is that air travel in the past hasn't ever seen the levels that it is seeing now. With flights from JFK new york to Florida costing $70 and NY to San Francisco dropping well under $200, the masses can afford to fly more... alot more. Specialty shuttle lines like JetBlue are popping up and can't seem to keep up with the demand (i fly them a lot and flights are rarely empty). When the shuttle airlines start moving to offer international travel (its started already), we'll see a shift from the huge airliners that do int'l flights now to smaller airships (hence the target market for the new Beoing 777 Dreamliner). Finally, my point is that SST becomes much more important in a shuttle environment. Lets say a plane today takes 6 hours to go from NYC JFK to London Heathrow. Assuming it takes 30 minutes between flights to restock/reload/clean, that plane can take one round trip in 13 hours... say 400 passengers moved. Now with an SST shuttle-type deal, if that plane can make the flight in 1 hour with the same 30 minute downtime in between trips, it can do 5 flights in the same 13 hours. If the plane only held 100 people, it would move 500 passengers in the same time period. Additionally the plane is available for 3 flights from one port and 2 flights from the other port during the 13 hours in which the current model plane would only be able to make 1 flight from each port. Therefore an airline can schedule more flights per day with less planes.
I know this type of thing is probably 30-60 years out, but it'll happen! People definitely DO want speed.
I'm sorry but every time I hear someone that works for geek squad call themselves an "agent" I can't help but break out in hysterical laughter. As if you work for some elite computer police force, precinct.. roflmao... Like how I broke out in hysterical laughter when I read your comment?? The word "Agent" is used correctly. Grow up man... The word "agent" does not imply some kind of law enforcement, CIA or FBI affiliation. Do you laugh at real estate agents? How about insurance agents or sports agents?
I'll never, ever, ever get an iPod. I'll be damned if I support the Apple monopoly.
iTunes doesn't work with anything other than an iPod... but Windows Media Player will work with ANY device (except an iPod, of course, because Apple decided to cripple it in order to maintain their monopoly). Or I can use WinAmp. Or some other player, so long as it's not from the Apple monopoly.
Microsoft: because it's all about choice. Freedom, and choice. Ahhhh, you're blind. Microsoft is just as much after lock-in as Apple. Forget the past and present anti-trust problems that plague Microsoft... They support a multitude of devices not "because [Microsoft]s all about choice" (to quote you), but rather, they do it because their business model is just different than Apple's. Microsoft decided early on that it'd be better to let dozens of manufacturers fight over the music hardware market, and dozens of online retailers/labels fight over the music sales pie while controlling both markets from behind the scene. It was a good plan, but Apple destroyed it by sucking up nearly all of the market with a non-Microsoft system.
Instead of competing with retailers and manufacturers, Microsoft morphed Windows Media into a framework for them to license and use. You see, all the retailers would need a DRM scheme to effectively sell their music. This would then force all the device makers to choose some DRMs to support and effectively segment the market (market = money). DRM systems are complex to implement and require trust by both consumers and labels. With Windows being ubiquitous on Desktops worldwide, MS was positioned from the start to CONTROL the music/video market through Windows [Media Framework]. WMP supports WMA/V DRM, and since its present on 95% of computers in the world, device makers and retailers almost have to use it to hope to compete with the iTunes lock in.
Microsoft charges device manufacturers and retailers a licensing fee for each and every unit of WMA/V enabled product they ship. The rates are negotiated for each company of course, but are likely higher than the "suggested" sample rates on the Microsoft website. Using the sample rate, a company that offered 2 WMA enabled portable music players could pay $1,600,000 to Microsoft in fee's each year. On top of that, your device has to be "approved" by MS. This means it can't use open source software (even open source decoders or operating systems) and basically makes you pay to be Microsoft's bitch.
Now, after reading the preceding, do you still believe Microsoft is all about choice?? Perhaps you've drank too much corporate cool-aid? Microsoft designed their model around lock in too... it's just more subtle than Apple's model... and it's not even close to as profitable, hence the Zune! MS has now gone into the hardware space itself (a strange move for them considering how they've handled cell phones/Windows Mobile) in an attempt to get closer to an Apple-style lock-in model.
to block all Northeastern University and Jarg IP addresses from using Google. Their students and faculty will revolt. In other words, you suggest that Google reduces itself to the same moral level as the patent trolls, and in the process sacrifice its reputation of fair and objective domestic search results?? Great idea!
Not only would that make *amazing* headlines here at/., but Google would lose revenue and users. What would happen between the time when Google filters the ~15,000 students from using their product, and the time NEU changes its ways? Lost revenue from all those would-be searches that can't happen. Plus, all those students with reports to finish need to search: enter Yahoo! to happily suck up those hordes of abandoned youths looking to grep the web.
Northeastern is a completely private institution. It gives back to the community in other ways... so likely some small part of the settlement would end up back in the Boston/Roxbury community. However, it really doesn't matter since NEU is essentially a private, for-profit corporation.
I would say that the primary way NEU and all the other private universities contribute back to the community is by offering scholarships to underprivileged American students. Thereby those students (and their children) are elevated to a higher tier of society than would be possible without a higher education. (That's assuming they go on to get a job that enables them provide their offspring with a better education)
Well, it's the same as with signatures. Even if you see somebody sign their signature, it still remains extremely difficult to replicate what they wrote. Handwriting analysis software and forensic handwriting analysts can almost always tell a forgery from the real thing!
Anyway, the drawing pad would most certainly *not* show the password picture while you're drawing it!! Sheesh! Do you think security researchers are that stupid?
It's also not that difficult to form proper sentences...
Last week Apple disclosed that 250,000 iPhones had been purchased but not registered with ATT that Apple thinks are being unlocked so Apple has now taken action to curb unauthorized resellers by limiting sales of the iPhone to two per customer and requiring that purchases must now be made with a credit or debit card -- cash will not be accepted. "Apple" appears three times in that monstrosity of a sentence.
"We can't take Internet Exploder out because its integrated into the OS." I kinda love this line. Almost all windows help files are compressed html (chm files). The help system in windows uses the internet explorer window control to view this. Take out IE, the help system doesn't work. Does this qualify as breaking the system if you remove it? I would think so. Also, a few programs incorporate this IE control to provide text services for their program. Microstation, for example, uses this for text style and font control for cad drawings. Without IE installed, you can't use this program for text. Now whether this was intentional or not, it is what it is. Alright, you're whole argument is narrow-minded and silly. You're saying "Microsoft can't remove IE becuase its been monopolizing the browser for so long that applications now depend on it." *sigh*
Microsoft can go ahead and write a PROPER HELP FILE VIEWER!!! I can be a mini-browser that handles cfm's and basically anything else, but customized for help files. The code can be the same IE code that exists, but reworked a bit to fit in a little help file app (i.e. tear out lots of extra functionality)./sarcasm on Hey, wow! The above description is starting to sound like Apple help file system. It consists of a specialized browser that display html help files. Wow... to think that they made an extensive html-based help system without using their bundled browser (Safari) is just amazing! I can't believe its possible!/sarcasm off
Thats okay; just continue drinking the Microsoft juice and please stop commenting while you're Reality Distortion Field is active.
Another "defective by design" product. Same as "We can't take Internet Exploder out because its integrated into the OS."
Don't be ignorant. IE is made up of many components such as HTML parsers, HTML renderers, XML parsers, network protocol handlers, GUI management. Only an absolute idiot would suggest reinventing the wheel every time that functionality was needed. It is absolutely true that "Internet Explorer" (all the code that actually implements the web browser functionality) is integrated into the OS (OS in the sense that the majority of people understand it) and there are very sound and smart reasons for it to be the way it is. From a design perspective it's pretty much in line with best practices for abstraction and code reuse. What? You are the ignorant one if you think that what you said makes any sense. There is absolutely NO reason for IE to be fully integrated into the OS. It is perfectly reasonable to have the libraries you mentioned separately bundled with the OS without the IE GUI even existing. Thats how most operating systems work: they may have a browser, but it can be removed without destroying the OS web libraries and other essential functionality.
You spoke about code reuse, but what you say doesn't make sense. The whole point of code reuse is that you can take pieces of one app's code and use it in another potentially unrelated app. With the IE model you can only reuse everything by way of integration with IE, not just the parts you want.
No... Contrary to what you believe, the Windows web model sure isn't an example of a good design that facilitates code reuse.
Don't you think Steve Jobs would love to have dropped Leopard on the world right at the height of the Vista disappointment? Of course he and Apple would have loved to do that!! But clearly Apple made the right (and only good) choice in the matter because a half assed Leopard would only have hurt Apple and helped Microsoft (i.e. "see, they suck too!").
If Steve Jobs hadn't made the choice to announce the iPhone so early, I think everything would have been different. Leopard would not have suffered the delays that it did while Apple geared up for the massive iPhone push. However, he was sort of had to show his cards in the summer of 2006, and promise iPhone within a year. I truly *think* that iPhone was not intended to come out until right after Leopard. I have NOTHING to back up that claim, except that it seems counter-intuitive to announce-finalize-release a major new device when the company was only a few months from its next OS scheduled release. Also the announcement of iPhone was at a strange time (wasn't it?) and probably due to the massive amount of speculation and threatening competition on the horizon. Further consider that Apple really never announces their products so far in advance...
Thank you for clearing things up. I've never owned an iphone or a cellphone, so I don't really know how things work. I was pretty skeptical with your original comparison as it seemed you were showing an iphone bias. Again, thanks for replying and I'm sorry if I had to question your comparison, that's just my nature to question anyone who doesn't show sources. No problem.:-)
you don't even cite one source. All of the numbers are from the AT&T website. Why must I cite AT&T's website when all I talk about is AT&T rates?? I thought it was common sense.
Give me a full picture with voice calls and I will be more inclined to believe you. Then believe me... because I did account for voice.
I left out explicit voice prices because it doesn't really matter. Everybody needs a voice plan to suit their own needs. The cheapest non-iPhone voice plan is $40/month and does not include any data or text messages. The iPhone plan is $60/month and includes the same terms as the $40/month plan WITH ADDITIONAL unlimited data and 200 texts added. Therefore, I just wrote the iphone data plan as $20/month (since $60-$40 = $20). So as you can see, I did account for voice. Does that clarify it for you?
The data plans chosen are the cheapest ones you can get that provide unlimited data and qualify for all rebates. Phone prices (and plans) all meet the rules for getting all of the available AT&T rebates, and the phone prices listed reflect cost after rebates.
Also, most of the plans you're comparing aren't even fair comparisons. A lot of them have 1500 text/SMS messages, but you're only using the 200 message plan for the iphone? That is irrelevant. I've included the cheapest possible way to meet the minimum of service defined at the start of my original post. That means that if the Treo plan includes 1500 text messages, but I only need 200... well then 1300 will be wasted. There isn't any option to remove the 1500 messages, so it's fair game to include in the comparison. It DEFINITELY doesn't mean that I have to upgrade all other plans to have 1500 message when I only want 200!
Note that I said that based on a year of past bills, I needed 400 texts. Further note that if you remove the text plans, the conclusion doesn't change much at all.
You mentioned 200 additional messages for $4.99/mo with the iphone, but from what I've read, that only covers direct AT&T to AT&T messages, but I could be wrong. Yes you are wrong. But it is understandable because I had to ask an AT&T person about this option. The $4.99/mo plan includes 200 general text messages. The $9.99/month plan includes 200 general text messages and unlimited AT&T network text messages. Remember, the goal was to get to 400 test messages as fast as possible. In my case, upon profiling past bills, it became apparent that less than 200 texts per month went off at&t's network (our of 350-400 total). Now if you only messaged to non-AT&T customers, you'd have to pay much more, so it would make the iPhone even cheaper! This is because the iPhone has 200 general text messages free and you can pay $4.99 for 200 more general messages. Without the 200 free, to make 400 off-network texts you need the $19.99/month plan!!! WOW!
How does $71.88 + $240 equal $299.88 and not $311.88? I hope all these mistakes were just honest mistakes and not a result of you purposefully modifying the results. The $71+$240 thing was indeed an accident. However it doesn't change the conclusion at all because the iPhone is much more than $24 (over 2 years) less than the others.
This thread has a level of trolling rarely seen. Way beyond the normal fanboy vs anti-fanboy crap. The iPhone is at least "good." Admit that and then criticize and nitpick if you want. Starting arguments by calling it a worthless piece of crap just shows people that you're a very angry troll and that your post is safe to skip. I have an iPhone... my sister doesn't want an iPhone but wants (for some reason) a smart phone. She said it was too hard to use. I gave it to her last weekend to play with and she figured out *almost* everything on her own. She still doesn't want one, but since we need to get her a phone regardless, I did the math for her:
We're AT&T customers. She needs more text messages than 200 (around 400 would work). She also needs data.
Including AT&T new customer / upgrade discounts, mail-in rebates, etc, the prices for the phones are: BlackBerry Pearl: $99.99 BlackBerry 8700: $200 Treo 750: $249 BlackBerry 8800: $300 iPhone 8GB: $399
iPhone is the most expensive choice, right? Not so fast. Add in the annual data and text message charges, you get:
All blackberry models: Monthly: BB Internet Service Plan: $29.99 200 text/unlim M2M: $9.99
Now multiply out the first year of costs, including phone purchase price, data and text: BB Pearl: $579.75 BB 8700c: $679.76 iPhone: $698.88 Treo 750: $728.88 BB 8800: $779.76
Wow! Surprise, after the 1 year basic costs necessary to use the internet with your smart phone, iPhone is just average cost! But wait, contract length for some of these is 2 years. Even if it weren't, who spends $250 or $300 on a phone that they'll only use for a year? So lets add another year to the cost analysis:
Oh wow! Looks like in the long run, the iPhone is cheaper than other popular comparable options! If you don't text at all, you can remove the text message options, but it doesn't make a difference in the ordering.
STOP THE BITCHING ABOUT HOW EXPENSIVE IT IS!! iPhone has high UP-FRONT cost, but reasonable and sometimes even CHEAP long-term costs because of it's inclusive plan!
I've seen numerous high rated posts on to this article with comments about how universities are failing to protect their students from the RIAA. As a general statement, I disagree with that assessment. Read before replying... As a recent grad from a major university in Boston, I can attest that universities are not charged with protecting or providing legal assistance for their students. In fact, pretty much any news story that I see about a student or group of students breaking the law includes expulsion of the students involved. The exception is that minor drug and alcohol offenses are treated as addictions and resolved with some form of mandatory counseling. Sometimes students are expelled for being arrested off campus (nearby)! Universities largely take a cut-and-run approach to problem students. So, the way they are acting with the RIAA is NOT a surprise at all.
When a college passes a RIAA extortion letter to a student that they believe is the intended recipient, the college has done nothing wrong. In fact, I think it would be a liability to not pass the information along. I know that I would never want my university to act as a legal threat filter on my behalf because in the end, it isn't the university being held responsible, its me! The bottom line is that everybody who receives a threatening letter - be it legal or other - should consult with a lawyer and respond appropriately.
Many of the posts did recognize the *real* problem with some of these institutions: unethical cooperation with RIAA. Providing *any* information about a student, whether that information be an IP address, mailing address or name should be illegal. I know that recent laws have made it impossible for even my parents to access my student records and GPA without my express permission (which I have given:-) ). It should be the same for every other bit of personal information I have on record with my university. Every school that receives a bunch of these letters should have their legal counsel reply with another letter stating something like:
"This school acts as a neutral internet service provider. The intended recipients/users have been notified. It is up to them to respond individually. If you require any additional information, please obtain a court-ordered subpoena."
So for now, the real problem seems to be that many schools lack a fair and effective internet/data privacy policy.
I am happy that I know that my account info is embedded into the tracks! Could have prevented a legal problem. I may or may not have aquired 90+% of my music from pirate torrents. However, I never plan to -- nor have I ever -- posted my legally purchased CD or AAC files to a pirate site. I seed any torrents to at least a 2.0 ratio and that is where my (and most peoples) contribution to piracy ends. This just makes posting the files even less appealing. Anyway, I'm sure someone will figure out how to mangle the data shortly...
I will buy MORE music (but only my favorite singles) from iTunes Music Store than I did before. DRM really did not sit well with me... dependance sucks.
The superconductor cable is expected to cost nearly $40 million, funded in part by the US Dept of Homeland Security.
That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive.
That's silly to say. Power is definitely considered critical infrastructure. Virtually nothing works without it, including the entire emergency response system. In a dense city like New York, its important that everything from the police-band to the traffic lights stay powered. (Imagine responding to a cross-town fire in rush-hour without traffic lights). True, we need to be protected against foreign and domestic terrorists... but Homeland Security goes beyond that. That department is supposed to keep us safe from more than just terrorism.
There is so much discussion about Windows 2000/XP/Vista searching here... but they all three really suck! Windows Vista sometimes wont even find "easy to locate" files when I search for them by name AND its painfully slow. Its really quite pathetic! I run Vista, Ubuntu Linux and Mac OSX. Anybody who uses all three would definitely rank them from best to worst as OSX, Linux, Windows. OSX takes the cake because it has Spotlight, Locate, Find and Grep.
My grandmother could work Spotlight. Its fast, accurate and searches for files based on content and name at once. Its availible at the flick of your wrist and does pretty well. Though, personally I prefer Quicksilver to spotlight because I usually just search by filename and its *instant*. There are also smart folders that you can set up for searches that are done really often.
Linux comes in second to OSX only because OSX *includes* all the nifty decades-old command line tools that Linux has. The command line utilities are not for everyone... but if you know what you're doing, you can find anything quickly. Locate will instantly find anything that has been on your computer for about a day (usually). For newer stuff, its useless. Find (find / -name blah.txt) is about as fast as Windows search and much more flexible. Then you have recursive grep for locating instances of some term inside arbitrary files.
Now Windows: After using the above platforms, searching on Windows is just painful. Sometimes it finds what I was looking for... but it can be quicker to just mount my windows drive on my Mac and do it from there:)
So, why should there be no royalties for Internet radio when both play the same music? Good job knowing what you're talking about. Internet radio stations already had to pay royalties. This new ruling means they will pay far more expensive royalties. So expensive that it would cost more than terrestrial radio without nearly the same audience or revenue.
This is very interesting, though not surprising at all. It's more of a issue for todays LCDs than it for todays Plasmas. A 50" Plasma at around the $2000 range has a resolution of 1366x768. That is just a bit more than 720p broadcasts at 1280x720. If you feed 1080p programming to such a TV it will be scaled down by a massive 50%. That would still provide 12% more detail than a native 720p signal... though at a normal viewing distance, I can't believe that it would really make a big difference. LCDs can display the whole 1080p natively for about the same price as its Plasma counter part. However, most 42-50" LCDs I've seen don't produce a picture anywhere near as deep as my Plasma. My friends who own those LCDs actually noticed that as well. Therefore, its really a no-win situation for anything less than the high-end (very wealthy) customer. You can have a higher pixel count LCD but lose significant detail due to decreased contrast (black level, etc), or a lower pixel count with more detail. Conclusion: Middle class consumers shouldnt really care about 1080p just yet.
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Concepts are what is important. Concepts are what separate skilled engineers from the common coder. Languages are tools which change often, but the fundamentals are generally constant.
I finished college with a healthy working knowledge of C and Java from academic and side projects. I had become extremely proficient in Perl and I also had a year of internship experience in C++. I interviewed for jobs focusing on all of those languages. My favorite was Perl, and I eventually accepted a position which dealt primarily a project that was Perl-based. Six months later I had to do a fairly complex Java project (lasted 3 months). Immediately after that I started a year long project in Objective-C, a language which I had absolutely no knowledge of. Now I hardly code Perl (I miss it, but I do not mind Obj-C much... I'm quite proficient in it by now).
The point is you never know where life will take you. I can attest from experience that switching to a completely foreign language stinks. It can be very rough initially, but if your fundamentals are strong, you'll have something to lean on instead of falling down. Not to mention that a generalist is an extremely valuable position to be seen in by your boss.
It's important to know languages, but they are secondary to mastering the fundamental concepts that you'll take with you for your entire career.
Especially considering Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, is on the board of the Carlyle Group. That's a bit of a WTF moment right there... Ok.. The money came from an investment group headed by the co-founder of the Carlyle Group... that is NOT the same as the Carlyle Group investing in SCO. How did this get so off-topic? There is at least one level of indirection here.
I don't see how an ex-CEO of IBM being on the board of Carlyle Group has to do with the actions of another group that has a common investor.
Seriously, why should "these companies" do any of that. Closed systems ensure lock-in, and lock-in is basically their business. The lock-in ensures that you keep coming back, keep viewing ads, keep paying for premium upgrades, etc.
This is a great step in the right direction. Maybe one day in the future I will end my 5+ year boycott of Internet Explorer! Probably not... but it will still be healthy for the web.
It's worth pointing out that this announcement is in direct contrast to IE7 announcements. Microsoft employees claimed IE7 not complying with ACID2 was a "design choice" rather than a bug. Wow... what a pathetic way to say "we don't care about web standards."
This is the way IE7 *should* have been. They're continuing support of "past evolving web standards" -- also known as Microsoft's proprietary standards -- while adding current (and hopefully future) standard support. This will enable web developers to be able to create less hacky pages using simpler CSS+HTML code rather than supporting only a subset of browsers.
+5 points for MS supporting healthy open web standards
-10 points for being about a decade late
It's a feature, Not a bug! http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/03/24/560095.aspx
For what it's worth, none of my dozen friends with a 360 has had it brick or gotten the red ring of death. I know it exists, but I think it occurs on only a small number of consoles. I wasn't able to find numbers. Lets say it affects 100,000 consoles. There are 13,500,000 xbox's in the world today. That would be a 0.75% failure rate. Much less terrible than it seems. Also, Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the problem and is prepared to spend over a billion dollars to repair broken machines!
The bottom line is that the 360 isn't a disaster like Windows Vista. It might just be the best consumer product out of Microsoft. Definitely a worthy competitor and middle ground to the Wii and PS3. Your blind hate doesn't accomplish anything.
Is this article for real? It should be titled, "Should Wikipedia be dumbed down?"
Of course proofs should be included! Not including proofs is the mathematical equivalent of not citing factual sources in articles (I guess you could cite a proof too).
I believe that in cases where multiple proofs exist, they should each have their own Wiki page. When you have multiple proofs, they'll all probably have names, so that is the title of the article they should be in. The main page for should have a section titled "Proofs" that discusses/compares the proofs superficially and links to their individual wiki pages.
Your argument is fair, most of the arguments on this post are (seems their are no SST fanboy's, heh). I would only add that I think the real reason that SST has not been actively deployed in the private sector is just because its not ready yet. Ticket costs are one factor, but they're very minor. There are so many filthy rich people in the world right now, more than ever, and they'd love to pay 5k to cut their 6.5 hour JFK->SFO flight to 1 hour...
The real issue is that there are just many factors that aren't at the point where deploying SST makes sense. The private airlines aren't really flush with disposable R&D cash right now, but the military is. So the execs can sit back and let the US Gov't figure this out for them and foot the bill. I'd much rather see money used for SST research than for endless "wars"...
Another point is that air travel in the past hasn't ever seen the levels that it is seeing now. With flights from JFK new york to Florida costing $70 and NY to San Francisco dropping well under $200, the masses can afford to fly more... alot more. Specialty shuttle lines like JetBlue are popping up and can't seem to keep up with the demand (i fly them a lot and flights are rarely empty). When the shuttle airlines start moving to offer international travel (its started already), we'll see a shift from the huge airliners that do int'l flights now to smaller airships (hence the target market for the new Beoing 777 Dreamliner). Finally, my point is that SST becomes much more important in a shuttle environment. Lets say a plane today takes 6 hours to go from NYC JFK to London Heathrow. Assuming it takes 30 minutes between flights to restock/reload/clean, that plane can take one round trip in 13 hours... say 400 passengers moved. Now with an SST shuttle-type deal, if that plane can make the flight in 1 hour with the same 30 minute downtime in between trips, it can do 5 flights in the same 13 hours. If the plane only held 100 people, it would move 500 passengers in the same time period. Additionally the plane is available for 3 flights from one port and 2 flights from the other port during the 13 hours in which the current model plane would only be able to make 1 flight from each port. Therefore an airline can schedule more flights per day with less planes.
I know this type of thing is probably 30-60 years out, but it'll happen! People definitely DO want speed.
Agent (noun): a representative who acts on behalf of other persons or organizations. In other words, almost any employee who interacts with outside customers or representatives.
iTunes doesn't work with anything other than an iPod... but Windows Media Player will work with ANY device (except an iPod, of course, because Apple decided to cripple it in order to maintain their monopoly). Or I can use WinAmp. Or some other player, so long as it's not from the Apple monopoly.
Microsoft: because it's all about choice. Freedom, and choice. Ahhhh, you're blind. Microsoft is just as much after lock-in as Apple. Forget the past and present anti-trust problems that plague Microsoft... They support a multitude of devices not "because [Microsoft]s all about choice" (to quote you), but rather, they do it because their business model is just different than Apple's. Microsoft decided early on that it'd be better to let dozens of manufacturers fight over the music hardware market, and dozens of online retailers/labels fight over the music sales pie while controlling both markets from behind the scene. It was a good plan, but Apple destroyed it by sucking up nearly all of the market with a non-Microsoft system.
Instead of competing with retailers and manufacturers, Microsoft morphed Windows Media into a framework for them to license and use. You see, all the retailers would need a DRM scheme to effectively sell their music. This would then force all the device makers to choose some DRMs to support and effectively segment the market (market = money). DRM systems are complex to implement and require trust by both consumers and labels. With Windows being ubiquitous on Desktops worldwide, MS was positioned from the start to CONTROL the music/video market through Windows [Media Framework]. WMP supports WMA/V DRM, and since its present on 95% of computers in the world, device makers and retailers almost have to use it to hope to compete with the iTunes lock in.
Microsoft charges device manufacturers and retailers a licensing fee for each and every unit of WMA/V enabled product they ship. The rates are negotiated for each company of course, but are likely higher than the "suggested" sample rates on the Microsoft website. Using the sample rate, a company that offered 2 WMA enabled portable music players could pay $1,600,000 to Microsoft in fee's each year. On top of that, your device has to be "approved" by MS. This means it can't use open source software (even open source decoders or operating systems) and basically makes you pay to be Microsoft's bitch.
Now, after reading the preceding, do you still believe Microsoft is all about choice?? Perhaps you've drank too much corporate cool-aid? Microsoft designed their model around lock in too... it's just more subtle than Apple's model... and it's not even close to as profitable, hence the Zune! MS has now gone into the hardware space itself (a strange move for them considering how they've handled cell phones/Windows Mobile) in an attempt to get closer to an Apple-style lock-in model.
References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/licensing/agreements.aspx
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/0/1/d01ec2b5-a42f-4cef-ae27-123c02515fc7/WMDRM10_FinalProduct_v3-20-2006_Sample.pdf
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/zune-on-linux-done-kinda-219657.php
Not only would that make *amazing* headlines here at
Northeastern is a completely private institution. It gives back to the community in other ways... so likely some small part of the settlement would end up back in the Boston/Roxbury community. However, it really doesn't matter since NEU is essentially a private, for-profit corporation.
I would say that the primary way NEU and all the other private universities contribute back to the community is by offering scholarships to underprivileged American students. Thereby those students (and their children) are elevated to a higher tier of society than would be possible without a higher education. (That's assuming they go on to get a job that enables them provide their offspring with a better education)
Well, it's the same as with signatures. Even if you see somebody sign their signature, it still remains extremely difficult to replicate what they wrote. Handwriting analysis software and forensic handwriting analysts can almost always tell a forgery from the real thing!
Anyway, the drawing pad would most certainly *not* show the password picture while you're drawing it!! Sheesh! Do you think security researchers are that stupid?
I kinda love this line. Almost all windows help files are compressed html (chm files). The help system in windows uses the internet explorer window control to view this. Take out IE, the help system doesn't work. Does this qualify as breaking the system if you remove it? I would think so. Also, a few programs incorporate this IE control to provide text services for their program. Microstation, for example, uses this for text style and font control for cad drawings. Without IE installed, you can't use this program for text. Now whether this was intentional or not, it is what it is. Alright, you're whole argument is narrow-minded and silly. You're saying "Microsoft can't remove IE becuase its been monopolizing the browser for so long that applications now depend on it." *sigh*
Microsoft can go ahead and write a PROPER HELP FILE VIEWER!!! I can be a mini-browser that handles cfm's and basically anything else, but customized for help files. The code can be the same IE code that exists, but reworked a bit to fit in a little help file app (i.e. tear out lots of extra functionality).
Hey, wow! The above description is starting to sound like Apple help file system. It consists of a specialized browser that display html help files. Wow... to think that they made an extensive html-based help system without using their bundled browser (Safari) is just amazing! I can't believe its possible!
Thats okay; just continue drinking the Microsoft juice and please stop commenting while you're Reality Distortion Field is active.
Don't be ignorant. IE is made up of many components such as HTML parsers, HTML renderers, XML parsers, network protocol handlers, GUI management. Only an absolute idiot would suggest reinventing the wheel every time that functionality was needed. It is absolutely true that "Internet Explorer" (all the code that actually implements the web browser functionality) is integrated into the OS (OS in the sense that the majority of people understand it) and there are very sound and smart reasons for it to be the way it is. From a design perspective it's pretty much in line with best practices for abstraction and code reuse. What? You are the ignorant one if you think that what you said makes any sense. There is absolutely NO reason for IE to be fully integrated into the OS. It is perfectly reasonable to have the libraries you mentioned separately bundled with the OS without the IE GUI even existing. Thats how most operating systems work: they may have a browser, but it can be removed without destroying the OS web libraries and other essential functionality.
You spoke about code reuse, but what you say doesn't make sense. The whole point of code reuse is that you can take pieces of one app's code and use it in another potentially unrelated app. With the IE model you can only reuse everything by way of integration with IE, not just the parts you want.
No... Contrary to what you believe, the Windows web model sure isn't an example of a good design that facilitates code reuse.
Don't you think Steve Jobs would love to have dropped Leopard on the world right at the height of the Vista disappointment? Of course he and Apple would have loved to do that!! But clearly Apple made the right (and only good) choice in the matter because a half assed Leopard would only have hurt Apple and helped Microsoft (i.e. "see, they suck too!").
If Steve Jobs hadn't made the choice to announce the iPhone so early, I think everything would have been different. Leopard would not have suffered the delays that it did while Apple geared up for the massive iPhone push. However, he was sort of had to show his cards in the summer of 2006, and promise iPhone within a year. I truly *think* that iPhone was not intended to come out until right after Leopard. I have NOTHING to back up that claim, except that it seems counter-intuitive to announce-finalize-release a major new device when the company was only a few months from its next OS scheduled release. Also the announcement of iPhone was at a strange time (wasn't it?) and probably due to the massive amount of speculation and threatening competition on the horizon. Further consider that Apple really never announces their products so far in advance...
I left out explicit voice prices because it doesn't really matter. Everybody needs a voice plan to suit their own needs. The cheapest non-iPhone voice plan is $40/month and does not include any data or text messages. The iPhone plan is $60/month and includes the same terms as the $40/month plan WITH ADDITIONAL unlimited data and 200 texts added. Therefore, I just wrote the iphone data plan as $20/month (since $60-$40 = $20). So as you can see, I did account for voice. Does that clarify it for you?
The data plans chosen are the cheapest ones you can get that provide unlimited data and qualify for all rebates. Phone prices (and plans) all meet the rules for getting all of the available AT&T rebates, and the phone prices listed reflect cost after rebates. Also, most of the plans you're comparing aren't even fair comparisons. A lot of them have 1500 text/SMS messages, but you're only using the 200 message plan for the iphone? That is irrelevant. I've included the cheapest possible way to meet the minimum of service defined at the start of my original post. That means that if the Treo plan includes 1500 text messages, but I only need 200... well then 1300 will be wasted. There isn't any option to remove the 1500 messages, so it's fair game to include in the comparison. It DEFINITELY doesn't mean that I have to upgrade all other plans to have 1500 message when I only want 200!
Note that I said that based on a year of past bills, I needed 400 texts. Further note that if you remove the text plans, the conclusion doesn't change much at all. You mentioned 200 additional messages for $4.99/mo with the iphone, but from what I've read, that only covers direct AT&T to AT&T messages, but I could be wrong. Yes you are wrong. But it is understandable because I had to ask an AT&T person about this option. The $4.99/mo plan includes 200 general text messages. The $9.99/month plan includes 200 general text messages and unlimited AT&T network text messages. Remember, the goal was to get to 400 test messages as fast as possible. In my case, upon profiling past bills, it became apparent that less than 200 texts per month went off at&t's network (our of 350-400 total). Now if you only messaged to non-AT&T customers, you'd have to pay much more, so it would make the iPhone even cheaper! This is because the iPhone has 200 general text messages free and you can pay $4.99 for 200 more general messages. Without the 200 free, to make 400 off-network texts you need the $19.99/month plan!!! WOW! How does $71.88 + $240 equal $299.88 and not $311.88? I hope all these mistakes were just honest mistakes and not a result of you purposefully modifying the results. The $71+$240 thing was indeed an accident. However it doesn't change the conclusion at all because the iPhone is much more than $24 (over 2 years) less than the others.
Rebate information is here: http://www.wireless.att.com/global/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/MIR_NAT_Device_110307.pdf
Next time you feel like making unbiased claims, do the research. Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it isn't true!
This thread has a level of trolling rarely seen. Way beyond the normal fanboy vs anti-fanboy crap. The iPhone is at least "good." Admit that and then criticize and nitpick if you want. Starting arguments by calling it a worthless piece of crap just shows people that you're a very angry troll and that your post is safe to skip. I have an iPhone... my sister doesn't want an iPhone but wants (for some reason) a smart phone. She said it was too hard to use. I gave it to her last weekend to play with and she figured out *almost* everything on her own. She still doesn't want one, but since we need to get her a phone regardless, I did the math for her:
/yr
/yr
We're AT&T customers. She needs more text messages than 200 (around 400 would work). She also needs data.
Including AT&T new customer / upgrade discounts, mail-in rebates, etc, the prices for the phones are:
BlackBerry Pearl: $99.99
BlackBerry 8700: $200
Treo 750: $249
BlackBerry 8800: $300
iPhone 8GB: $399
iPhone is the most expensive choice, right? Not so fast. Add in the annual data and text message charges, you get:
All blackberry models:
Monthly:
BB Internet Service Plan: $29.99
200 text/unlim M2M: $9.99
Annually:
Text: $119.88 (200+unlim/mo)
Data: $359.88
TOTAL: $479.76/yr
Treo 750:
Monthly:
PDA Personal Plan MAX: $39.99 (inc 1500 text & web)
Annually:
Data/Text: $479.88
TOTAL: $479.88
iPhone 8GB
Monthly:
200 text: free
200 more texts: $4.99
Data: $20
Annually:
Text: $71.88
Data: $240
TOTAL: $299.88
Now multiply out the first year of costs, including phone purchase price, data and text:
BB Pearl: $579.75
BB 8700c: $679.76
iPhone: $698.88
Treo 750: $728.88
BB 8800: $779.76
Wow! Surprise, after the 1 year basic costs necessary to use the internet with your smart phone, iPhone is just average cost! But wait, contract length for some of these is 2 years. Even if it weren't, who spends $250 or $300 on a phone that they'll only use for a year? So lets add another year to the cost analysis:
Two-year cost of phones, including purchase price, monthly data, monthly text:
iPhone: $998.76
BB Pearl: $1059.51
BB 8700c: $1159.52
Treo 750: $1208.76
BB 8800: $1259.52
Oh wow! Looks like in the long run, the iPhone is cheaper than other popular comparable options! If you don't text at all, you can remove the text message options, but it doesn't make a difference in the ordering.
STOP THE BITCHING ABOUT HOW EXPENSIVE IT IS!!
iPhone has high UP-FRONT cost, but reasonable and sometimes even CHEAP long-term costs because of it's inclusive plan!
I've seen numerous high rated posts on to this article with comments about how universities are failing to protect their students from the RIAA. As a general statement, I disagree with that assessment. Read before replying... As a recent grad from a major university in Boston, I can attest that universities are not charged with protecting or providing legal assistance for their students. In fact, pretty much any news story that I see about a student or group of students breaking the law includes expulsion of the students involved. The exception is that minor drug and alcohol offenses are treated as addictions and resolved with some form of mandatory counseling. Sometimes students are expelled for being arrested off campus (nearby)! Universities largely take a cut-and-run approach to problem students. So, the way they are acting with the RIAA is NOT a surprise at all.
:-) ). It should be the same for every other bit of personal information I have on record with my university. Every school that receives a bunch of these letters should have their legal counsel reply with another letter stating something like:
When a college passes a RIAA extortion letter to a student that they believe is the intended recipient, the college has done nothing wrong. In fact, I think it would be a liability to not pass the information along. I know that I would never want my university to act as a legal threat filter on my behalf because in the end, it isn't the university being held responsible, its me! The bottom line is that everybody who receives a threatening letter - be it legal or other - should consult with a lawyer and respond appropriately.
Many of the posts did recognize the *real* problem with some of these institutions: unethical cooperation with RIAA. Providing *any* information about a student, whether that information be an IP address, mailing address or name should be illegal. I know that recent laws have made it impossible for even my parents to access my student records and GPA without my express permission (which I have given
"This school acts as a neutral internet service provider. The intended recipients/users have been notified. It is up to them to respond individually. If you require any additional information, please obtain a court-ordered subpoena."
So for now, the real problem seems to be that many schools lack a fair and effective internet/data privacy policy.
I am happy that I know that my account info is embedded into the tracks! Could have prevented a legal problem. I may or may not have aquired 90+% of my music from pirate torrents. However, I never plan to -- nor have I ever -- posted my legally purchased CD or AAC files to a pirate site. I seed any torrents to at least a 2.0 ratio and that is where my (and most peoples) contribution to piracy ends. This just makes posting the files even less appealing. Anyway, I'm sure someone will figure out how to mangle the data shortly...
I will buy MORE music (but only my favorite singles) from iTunes Music Store than I did before. DRM really did not sit well with me... dependance sucks.
That's silly to say. Power is definitely considered critical infrastructure. Virtually nothing works without it, including the entire emergency response system. In a dense city like New York, its important that everything from the police-band to the traffic lights stay powered. (Imagine responding to a cross-town fire in rush-hour without traffic lights). True, we need to be protected against foreign and domestic terrorists... but Homeland Security goes beyond that. That department is supposed to keep us safe from more than just terrorism.That's rich -- toss in a reference to terrorism into the bid, and you get federal dollars for your project. Lame... and expensive.
There is so much discussion about Windows 2000/XP/Vista searching here... but they all three really suck! Windows Vista sometimes wont even find "easy to locate" files when I search for them by name AND its painfully slow. Its really quite pathetic! I run Vista, Ubuntu Linux and Mac OSX. Anybody who uses all three would definitely rank them from best to worst as OSX, Linux, Windows. OSX takes the cake because it has Spotlight, Locate, Find and Grep.
:)
My grandmother could work Spotlight. Its fast, accurate and searches for files based on content and name at once. Its availible at the flick of your wrist and does pretty well. Though, personally I prefer Quicksilver to spotlight because I usually just search by filename and its *instant*. There are also smart folders that you can set up for searches that are done really often.
Linux comes in second to OSX only because OSX *includes* all the nifty decades-old command line tools that Linux has. The command line utilities are not for everyone... but if you know what you're doing, you can find anything quickly. Locate will instantly find anything that has been on your computer for about a day (usually). For newer stuff, its useless. Find (find / -name blah.txt) is about as fast as Windows search and much more flexible. Then you have recursive grep for locating instances of some term inside arbitrary files.
Now Windows: After using the above platforms, searching on Windows is just painful. Sometimes it finds what I was looking for... but it can be quicker to just mount my windows drive on my Mac and do it from there
This is very interesting, though not surprising at all. It's more of a issue for todays LCDs than it for todays Plasmas. A 50" Plasma at around the $2000 range has a resolution of 1366x768. That is just a bit more than 720p broadcasts at 1280x720. If you feed 1080p programming to such a TV it will be scaled down by a massive 50%. That would still provide 12% more detail than a native 720p signal... though at a normal viewing distance, I can't believe that it would really make a big difference.
LCDs can display the whole 1080p natively for about the same price as its Plasma counter part. However, most 42-50" LCDs I've seen don't produce a picture anywhere near as deep as my Plasma. My friends who own those LCDs actually noticed that as well. Therefore, its really a no-win situation for anything less than the high-end (very wealthy) customer. You can have a higher pixel count LCD but lose significant detail due to decreased contrast (black level, etc), or a lower pixel count with more detail. Conclusion: Middle class consumers shouldnt really care about 1080p just yet.