The faster IE is replaced by FireFox/Netscape/Safari/Mozilla, the better. As long as webmasters can get away with saying, "Opps, your browser is too standards complient!" they will be slow to fix/rewrite their sites.
Once companies start to lose significant money due to lack of cross-browser compliance, you will be amazed at how fast they fix their sites.
Yes many, but they are not cheap...yet. The prices will fall very quickly once movies are legally downloadable.
* Can we burn our movies to DVD like we can burn our music to CD?
Yes. Why not? Apple's DRM, for example, allows as many copies of the media as you would like for free. Have you ever used ITMS? You can play music on any machine as long as you authenticate each machine before playing it. The same can happen with movies.
* I have a Mac & PC, but for everyone here who lives on *nix, will there be cross-platform software?
Probably not, definitely not for a little while after the format;s are created.
* Are we going to be downloading 4.6GB DVD's or compressed divx-like files? Also, how are you going to pay for all that bandwidth without killing your customers with additional charges?
Something in between the two. H.246 most likely. It is compressed, yet still high definition with great audio. The bandwith is in hidden in the pricing of course and is comparatively cheaper when purchased in bulk.
* Finally, what will be the selling point to downloading movies to your computer. Why not just go out and rent, or even yet, rent online through NetFlix or Blockbuster?
Because DVD burners are not too expensive. Because DVD prices and burner prices will drop if this succeeds. And most importantly, because Apple has (we all think) some killer plan to totally dominate this market. It is widely suspected that Apple will tie its mini mac product into an online movie service.
Imagine you get home from work. Your tired and feeling lazy from a long day of work. Drive to the video store? You probably wont. Just sit down at your Mini Mac, open the movie app click download and go eat dinner. You come back to a fully downloaded, high quality AC3 surround sound movie. And the best part... next week when you want to watch it again, its still on the hard drive (or on DVD).
I agree with the other posts in response to the parent of this one with the following additions:
Linus is a figurehead of Linux the same way Gates is a figurehead of Windows. It is also similiar to how George Bush is a figurehead of America. Bush is NOT America, and Gates is NOT (anymore) Windows.
Basically it is easier for the common person to relate to and understand something that one person is responcible for, and not a large mass.
In fact, Linus probably deserves to be "Mr. Linux" more than Gates or Bush deserve to be "Mr. Microsoft" and "Mr. America" respectively. With all due respect, the Windows that Gates wrote is long gone. I would bet that Windows XP has less than 1% (if that) of Gates code. Not to mention that the man probably hasnt written anything for Windows in a decade. Why should he?
And as for Bush...he does far less than the hundreds of congressmen in washington.
While Linus is still a huge part of the Linux Kernel and still has working code in it. Im not sure, but he probably still contributes as well.
A wiki can be set up for this, but then one would have to at least password it so only authorized persons can edit
I'm going to guess that you have not used SubEtha. It lets multiple people collaborate on a document at the same time. For example, when I am typing on line 10, I can see one of my collaborators typing 5 lines up, and another one highlighting and deleting the paragraph below. Its all realtime. Each person has their own color.
And yes, you can password protect your document so that the public cannot collaborate. This is far more efficiant than a Wiki for many collaborative purposes.
I work with professional audio at home and work.
ALSA is a pain in the ass.
Analog sound through ALSA works out-of-the-box any decent linux distro. I will admit that I spent a full week configuring my ALSA to output digital audio via s/pdif by default for all applications. Now that I got that working, sound in linux is far better than in windows.
ALSA is not a pain in the ass -- it is just highly configurable! There are so many possible configuration options that almost anything is possible. With the help of the ALSA documentation, you can do crazy things to your sound. You can split up audio streams, change the physical properties of the sound (period manipulation, etc) and even mirror your sound over several different cards/output ports.
Want to swap the front-left channel with the surround-right? It would be two lines in your ALSA config file. Now, try doing that with Windows.
there are plenty of blacklists out there. Why doesn't googleyahoomsn just remove these sites from its database?
Easy: There are two reasons.
Accountability:...Google, Y! and MSN dont want it. This is the biggest obstacle for any major corporation to get any significant change effected. Executives hate commiting to anything because it basically makes them more vulberable. In this case, they must give an employee the job of monitoring the blacklisting, and they become reliant on a third-party list. That creates two weak links. If either breaks, Mr. Executive looks bad, and that cant happen. Under the proposed system, some snippets of code are added, and the responcibility falls on the blogging community.
Effectiveness: Blacklists cannot beat spammers. If you blacklist a domain on monday, they will register another one on tuesday. Its an endless cycle. Blacklists *do* make it much harder to spam, but they do not remove the *reason* for spamming (increasing page rank). Most large companies learned a long time ago that you need to attack at the roots.
And the guilt is not of the companies who patent easy things, but of the patent system which allows this kind of behaviour.
Right. Part of my point was that the USPTO needs to revise their methods. Actually I think I did say that.
Also my last about patenting the letter "A," was in regards to simple patents. I dont think IBM makes many simple patents. Also, there is nothing wrong with IBM making money off of linux. Sure, they probably only support Open Source software because they see it as a profitable market, but who cares? The point is they support it and OS needs all the support it can get.
OSX will run fine with 256K. Just dont try playing Unreal 2004 or advanced DV editing.
If you have the cash, get 512MB and you'll be just fine.
Power users should have no less than 768MB. This is what I have in my PowerBook G4 and I rarely run out.
Software developers should have no less than 1GB, for compiling, testing and debugging programs.
Audio/Video specialists should get a few gig's of memory.
Of course, power users and up, probably wont want to use this machine anyway.
Half Life 2.
True. This pisses me off. Alot of great games are ported to Mac, like the Unreal series and many many more.
Verdict: true
Right-click.
100% INCORRECT. OSX supports right-click right out of the box. Its just that Apple mice dont have two-buttons. Actually, you can hit the option key and click with an apple mouse to get the right-click functionality. But note that the mini mac DOES NOT SHIP with an apple mouse. So go out and get a MS optical wheel mouse or use your current usb/ps2 mouse and you will have right-click.
Verdict: false
Start-R For Run.
Your joking, right?
You shouldnt even need to do that. In OSX I can start any OSX App using only the keyboard in 3-5 keystrokes. Do this COMMAND+Shift+A (open apps folder) then type the first letter of the App, OSX highlights it, now COMMAND+Down (or +O) to run it. You may need the second letter of the name too is many apps are similiarly named. Naturally, you can also use the Terminal to open unix apps as fast or faster than Start-R.
Verdict: True, but Mac's can accomplish the same goal quicker
Upgrade.
The above were attacks on Mac's. This is about the Mini Mac and iMac's. The MiniMac's have memory upgrade ability only. This machine is geared at people as a "My first Mac." If you like, it Apple hopes you will by an iMac (that would be your upgrade).
Things you cant do on a Wintel PC:
- See all you app windows with a single-keypress (expose)
- Flurry screensaver:-)
- Open.doc files right out of the box (aka no Word needed)
- Run X app's natively.
- Terminal. enough said.
- Turn on fully configured FTP, HTTP, SSH and file sharing servers by simply checking a check-box.
- Setup virtually any bluetooth device in 4 or fewer click's
- Once click internet connection sharing between wireless and wired lan that doesnt involve complex bridging and an hour of clicking.
- Tons of well-made and stable productivity applications bundles
and finally,
- type ls
It seems/.ers associate the word "patent" with evil. Any company enforcing their patent rights is automatically evil. Well that is just a load of crap. It is true that the patent office needs to completely rethink its patent granting procedure, but without patents the global bussiness model breaks down and we all lose our jobs! That being said...
In many way's IBM is a thinktank. They spend alot of money in researd and development of new technologies. For crying out loud, the PC owes much of its success to IBM R&D.
Why should other companies be allowed to use technologies and ideas that IBM spent time and money developing? Im sure you wouldnt like if I told your boss about an idea you had discussed with me, and passed it off as my own.
IBM makes 650 Million USD on patent royalties annually. Nearly 200M of which comes from hardware manufacturers. Most companies happily pay IBM their royalties. Why? Because they make alot of money from selling technology using IBM-developed ideas. IBM usually charges 1%-5% of the products price as a royalty. Not bad, considering without the IBM patented technology, your product might not be marketable!
Many other companies ($CO, for example), demand high royalties from small companies. IBM, on the other hand, supports open source and has yet to go after a non-profit or small company.
One company IBM *IS* going after is Intuit. Who the hell cares? Does Intuit donate a percentage of its income to charity? Do they feed the hungry? NO! Intuit exists to make its CEO, stockholders and employee's money.
Finally, another thing that/. readers dont seem to understand is that patents are not cheap. You need to pay an expensive patent attorney, and the application costs. In the end, a patent frequently costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Add to that the price of R&D and man-hours, and each patent can reprsent over 1M in corporate investment (or much much more).
In conclusion, leave IBM alone until they try to patent the letter "A" or UNIX.
...so why even bother with the Mac Mini then. I can get a better PC for half the price if I go for used parts.
You obviously missing the point. Joe Schmo does not know how to build a computer. In fact, even saying "build" and "computer" in the same sentence, will send him running.
The Mac Mini, along with the eMac and iMac are not for the super-nerd types. That is what the PowerMac/Book line is for. It is an all-in-one solution that does not have much upgrade capacity.
The Mac Mini is for you everyday person who has an old windows PC, running 98, 2000 or even XP, that is sick of the constant tech support calls, dozens of virus infections and endless popup windows.
My guess would be that Iceland is a much better (and larger at that) start than some third world country with millions of inhabitants.
Your not going to see any third-world country delaring that they are giving up fossil fuels. The third world is considered third world becasuse their economies can barely (if at all) support their populations, or if they are "uncivilized." This leads to joblessness and numerous societal problems.
It is much more likely that small parts of first-world and second-world countries will make be making the first few steps in this matter. The U.S. for example, will take small steps every year to alternative energy sources, but there is just too much beurocracy, accountability, and basically, political nonesense for congress to declare "the country much stop using fossil fuels by 2050!"
In the larger nations, small municipalities will turn to alternative fuel first. Then, as the larger cities and the federal government see that alternative fuels can work, they will switch.
Lets recap:
This hax0r gains access to a restricted private industry computer system. But instead of just stealing private citizen's info, he steals secret service info. The US Secret Service (USSS) catches him and prosecutes.
Because of the SS deal, his legal costs are minimal...just sign the paper and plead. He lost his job, but got a better one, which legitamizes his favorite hobby. And finally, he gains national (international?) fame. If and when he leaves the USSS job, he shouldnt have a problem finding Fortune 100 clients for his network security consulting bussiness. And dont forget about the book deals!
My point is, in the long run this guy came out on top. Sure he's a felon and cant vote, but who really cares. If your gonna hack, hack the cyber crimes unit. This was at least you get a job... those are the guys they are looking to hire anyway.
It is true that the closing of Suprnova.org was a mighty blow to the availibility of torrents, but it changes nothing in the long run. In a few weeks there will be a new uber-big torrent directory. Actually, there already are a few.
In my opinion, BitTorrent is still a new and wandering technology. It is being employed in many different way and still has plenty of undiscovered potential. It is already an excellent way to cheaply distribute free software (i.e. linux distros). It is also a great way to distribute 0-day files with minimal liability and cost.
BitTorrent is still the best way to get less-than-legal new (...brand new) tv show episodes, movies and multi-platform games. There are many reasons for this. Namely, it spreads liability across hundreds or thousands of individuals, not a single server. Secondly,.torrent files are very small and easy to spread. Finally, even if every peer has a slow dialup connection, a broadband downloader can still reach some very respectable speeds. Not to mention that most of the clients preform superb error checking on each peice of data.
As a protocal, BT is perhaps the most promising for large file distribution. There are some faster, and some even less centralized protocals, but in the end BT beats them all.
If you are concerned about BT's future as a method of underground file distribution: worry not. The torrent underground has its roots firmly planted in IRC. In fact, some of the best sites for well seeded torrents are just web-front ends to IRC channels (i.e. tvtorrents). BT will exist until something better comes along. That is the way of things.
note: this is not directly in response to the articles, rather it is in response to some of the other/. posts.
We've had 60 years of their murderous bullshit and there is no reason to tolerate any more.
What the hell are you talking about?
Im curious as to what America did to Iran in 1945?
Perhaps you are referring to the world-war 2 era around 1941, when your country was invaded. That was Britian and Russia, not the United States. And those two super powers had more than enough justification to invade Iran. They asked Reza Pahlavi (dictator at the time) to break off ties with Germany, after the Germans invaded Russia. Of course he refused because the Germans were buying oil that he owned and making him rich. Pahlavi was a bad dictator anyway, he stole alot from the Iranians.
Now lets follow Iranian history a bit more. Pahlavi's son then came to power. That government was extremely corrupted. Eventually, in 1979, he was 'removed from power' by you current government. That government quickly lost popular support and became an agressive islamic-totalitarian dictatorship. Now Iran is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world
So basically, it looks like you are right. Iran has done well for itself and needs no help from the 'evil and murderous' western super-power.
Just for clarification, I never supported the war my nation has declared on Iraq. I might have if Iraq had actually done something to one of its neighbors instead of just threatening. Furthermore America will not invade or attack another nation unless it had pissed us off. Invading another free nation is a great way to piss us off. If you recall, Iraq invaded Kwait and terrorized its population. That resulted in the Gulf War between the US and Iraq.
A good rule of thumb is that your country should remain under the international political radar for at least 20 years after a U.S.-led invasion. (which Iraq did not do)
Although we are talking about Office V.x for Mac! That is nothing like Office for Windows, which is vastly inferior to start with. Leave it to M$ to develop better for Apple then for their own OS! (or maybe OSX is just a better environment:-) )
(Big companies gobbling up entire classes of IP ranges which they never really use should be obliged to gives those ranges back so others can use them)
Its not that easy. If I have 65 computers that need static IP's, I will need to buy at least 128 addresses. I cannot simply "give back" the unused IP's. Doing so would split a a subnet mask, and create a global routing nightmare.
With the advent of the internet in other countries then the western world it could well be that things need to be sped up so that we will not see different internets.
IPv6 was designed to coexist harmoniously with IPv4, otherwise it would have been laughed at. v4 packets that enter China's new network will be wrapped in a v6 packet. When they leave, they will be convereted back. There is no doubt that IPv6 adoption will be slow since it required massive infrastructure changes (lots of router upgrades/replacements). Therefore, we an expect many years of hybrid networks. When the transition phase is over, we can start moveing to IPv8:-)
I know i keep hearing that with NAT and similar technologies IPv6 might not be necessary but is that really so given the rise of internet usage in Asia and other countries?
You should definitely read up on IPv6. True, 128 bits of IP is a major bonus, but there are many other reasons v6 is better than v4 (and some that it is not). Here are some:
IPv6 does away with router packet fragmentation, Thus speeding up packets that travel over many networks (with different MTU's)
IPv6 supports quality of service (QoS). QoS allows routers to *easily* give priority to packets of a certain class. i.e. your ISP will be able to sell different plans. The higher the plan, the more priority your packets get.
The idea of a "flow." The allows routers to identify packets in the same connection and route them accordingly. i.e. your IP phone conversation could less jittery.
The checksum header is completely removed. We are at a point where the proliferation of broadband is high enough that each router should not have to checksum every packet. It takes too much time. v6 shifts the burden of identifying erroneous packets the end computer. They happen too rarely to check at each router
As you can see, IPv6 is will make the internet faster overall. It also provides special support for streaming (flow) services, allowing for a better multimedia experience.
And dont forget that Trolltech allows developers to effortlessly port Qt app's from *nix mac for free (but NOT to windows). And of course it also allows those who have purchased a windows license to port to Mac/aqua & nix for free.
It should be noted that you cannot port from unix & mac to windows without purchasing a pricey license for the windows library. This is bad for free software, but good for linux and mac. It forces free software written for mac/linux to *stay* mac/linux (making those platforms more appealing).
As an example, for the hell of it, I ported 100k+ lines of my companies software from UNIX to MacOSX. It took about 30 minutes. The UI looked amazing in Aqua, compared to the UNIX and windows versions. Naturally the platform-specific C backend exploded when executed in OSX and rendered the software unsuable, but it still looked good. Not bad for a half hour!
I am in the midst of finals week and one of my classes is on computational theory and time complexity.
This post goes againt all that I just learned. Obviously these 5 students did not read over all 5.7 million lines of c code. Doing so would take a copious amount of time. Even if they did go over every single line, what makes you think that *they* found all the bugs that dozens of other developers missed??
Obviously some sort of code analyser was used here. And it is not possible to write a program that analyses other arbitrary programs to determine some non trivial property. So, if you cant tell how a program reacts on every possible input, you cannot find all the bugs.
This is a textbook NP-Complete problem. There are innumerable proofs on it. If these 5 Stanford researchers have found a way to take an arbitrary large code sample and give you a number representing the amount of bugs in it, they would be instant billionaires.
(Not to mention having implicitly solved every other non-polynomial decidable problem!)
Vicsun, you make all good points, but why are you ranting here?
Im not huge fan of GDS, but your complaining about a free Beta product. Go drop Google and email and maybe some of that stuff will get fixed.
Also try to remember Google's target audience for GDS is not the/. ers. Sure, it *could* be with a few major changes, but that's for Google to decide. If they wanted nerds, they would have released a linux version, or at least OSX.
I tried GDS out on my Winxp pc a few weeks ago and thought it was cool, but overall I was unimpressed. In my case, I know the exact -- or close to it -- location of all my important files, my thousands of MP3's and hundreds of movies (all ordered heirarchally). GDS was useful, but only on rare occasion. I didnt think it deserves the CPU cycles or precious tray space.
With that being said, I have installed it on my parents computers and recommend it to less technologically inclined people. Its perfect for them. After all, thats all they need.
As for Me? Ill stick with my familiar old friends, find/locate and grep.
Okay... I think I started by talking about k-12 schools. Private universities dont need gov't funding; that was part of my point.
As for 45 year old textbooks, I agree that the content is the same or better. Its the book condition that degrades. Hand a student textbook with half of the pages torn out, no binding and the answers/curses scribbled all over, and tell them to learn. See what happens.
Its not the content that needs replacing, its the condition.
China and America are mutually dependant on each other, trade wise. Sactions between them would be devestating, especially to China, which is a major exporter.
As far as helping the schools out. Why doesn't the state build more schools there? Why doesn't the city?
Okay. The majority of public school funding comes from the county/district. State and Federal funds are usually supplemental. The cities pay for their schools with property taxe revenue. This system provides ample funding for school districts in towns like mine. I pay ~$8K/year in property tax. As a result, my towns school system is excellent. However, lower income neighborhoods collect lower taxe percentages of property, and the property is values less as well. As a result, lower income neighborhoods have more students than higher income neightborhoods, and far less funding.
State funding is used heavily, but as you can imagine, it is spread thin in large states (ca and ny for example).
And my highschool had this problem due to poor planning by the city. But then they got on the ball and built more classrooms and schools.
Not everybody is so lucky.
Why do they need to attend "Tier 1"? Are you talking about the Harvard/Yale type colleges, or the State University level ones?
Do you know what tier 1 is? Tier one schools are comprised of the nations top 120 universities by overall ranking (im using Fiske). Harvard/Yale? Sure. These are two of the top 5. There are *many* state school that are top tier. SUNY Binghamton is a NY state run university and is ranked as one of the best universities in the Northeast. Sure these state schools are "cheap," but only relative to private institutions like mine. I attend Northeastern University, tier 1, and I pay $35K/year. BInghamtom costs $15.5K/year for an NY STATE RESIDENT.
Did you actually mean public colleges? These are mostly run by the town/cities, and are free or very close to it. Note the word college, not University. Univerisities are a collection of colleges, and usually have FAR better educational resources. Most of these colleges offer only 2-year trade degrees (associates) for free. Trade degrees are fine, but they cannot compare to a bachelors in science, and definitely not a masters. Finally,
there are so many grants, scholarships, and loan programs out there that anybody can attend college alread
You have to be kidding. There are far, far more students that *need* grants than there are grants to get. Besides, poorly funded public k-12 districts frequently have a low (relative) high school graduation rate anyway. Forget how many graduates continue their enducation
Education in the country is underfunded. Our University system is second to none, but our public school system is aweful. Some cities pour endless funds into education and produce stellar students, while other poor areas produce delinquents.
I think thats great, and congradulation to you for taking advantage of all that the military had to offer you.
Please do not think that I want to take that away. I believe the military to be excellent option for continuing education, especially for people who may not be able to afford to attend private universities.
I merely suggest that the military take a little less than what it would normally get in terms of desscretionary spending increases. Maybe they could trim some new weapons development projects or not build a few new fighters this year.
They point being that 5 billion dollars (1/5 of this years defense increase) allocated to defense is worth 5 times that in terms of bang for your buck, if invested in education.
Consider how many new text books could be purchased for k-12 schools with half a billion dollars. Consider how many additional lower-income students could recieve full tuition to tier-one universities with another billion dollars. And finally, with yet another billion from the lot, how many new schools could be built in neighborhoods where bathrooms are being converted into classrooms (this happened recently in the elementry school i attended over a decade ago -- and several others -- in brooklyn, NY). Now consider that after all that, you would still have 2.5 Billion left over out of the 5B.
Slashdot Mirror
The faster IE is replaced by FireFox/Netscape/Safari/Mozilla, the better. As long as webmasters can get away with saying, "Opps, your browser is too standards complient!" they will be slow to fix/rewrite their sites.
Once companies start to lose significant money due to lack of cross-browser compliance, you will be amazed at how fast they fix their sites.
* Are there any decent portable movie players?
Yes many, but they are not cheap...yet. The prices will fall very quickly once movies are legally downloadable.
* Can we burn our movies to DVD like we can burn our music to CD?
Yes. Why not? Apple's DRM, for example, allows as many copies of the media as you would like for free. Have you ever used ITMS? You can play music on any machine as long as you authenticate each machine before playing it. The same can happen with movies.
* I have a Mac & PC, but for everyone here who lives on *nix, will there be cross-platform software?
Probably not, definitely not for a little while after the format;s are created.
* Are we going to be downloading 4.6GB DVD's or compressed divx-like files? Also, how are you going to pay for all that bandwidth without killing your customers with additional charges?
Something in between the two. H.246 most likely. It is compressed, yet still high definition with great audio. The bandwith is in hidden in the pricing of course and is comparatively cheaper when purchased in bulk.
* Finally, what will be the selling point to downloading movies to your computer. Why not just go out and rent, or even yet, rent online through NetFlix or Blockbuster?
Because DVD burners are not too expensive. Because DVD prices and burner prices will drop if this succeeds. And most importantly, because Apple has (we all think) some killer plan to totally dominate this market. It is widely suspected that Apple will tie its mini mac product into an online movie service.
Imagine you get home from work. Your tired and feeling lazy from a long day of work. Drive to the video store? You probably wont. Just sit down at your Mini Mac, open the movie app click download and go eat dinner. You come back to a fully downloaded, high quality AC3 surround sound movie. And the best part... next week when you want to watch it again, its still on the hard drive (or on DVD).
I agree with the other posts in response to the parent of this one with the following additions:
Linus is a figurehead of Linux the same way Gates is a figurehead of Windows. It is also similiar to how George Bush is a figurehead of America. Bush is NOT America, and Gates is NOT (anymore) Windows.
Basically it is easier for the common person to relate to and understand something that one person is responcible for, and not a large mass.
In fact, Linus probably deserves to be "Mr. Linux" more than Gates or Bush deserve to be "Mr. Microsoft" and "Mr. America" respectively. With all due respect, the Windows that Gates wrote is long gone. I would bet that Windows XP has less than 1% (if that) of Gates code. Not to mention that the man probably hasnt written anything for Windows in a decade. Why should he?
And as for Bush...he does far less than the hundreds of congressmen in washington.
While Linus is still a huge part of the Linux Kernel and still has working code in it. Im not sure, but he probably still contributes as well.
A wiki can be set up for this, but then one would have to at least password it so only authorized persons can edit
I'm going to guess that you have not used SubEtha. It lets multiple people collaborate on a document at the same time. For example, when I am typing on line 10, I can see one of my collaborators typing 5 lines up, and another one highlighting and deleting the paragraph below. Its all realtime. Each person has their own color.
And yes, you can password protect your document so that the public cannot collaborate. This is far more efficiant than a Wiki for many collaborative purposes.
I work with professional audio at home and work. ALSA is a pain in the ass.
Analog sound through ALSA works out-of-the-box any decent linux distro. I will admit that I spent a full week configuring my ALSA to output digital audio via s/pdif by default for all applications. Now that I got that working, sound in linux is far better than in windows.
ALSA is not a pain in the ass -- it is just highly configurable! There are so many possible configuration options that almost anything is possible. With the help of the ALSA documentation, you can do crazy things to your sound. You can split up audio streams, change the physical properties of the sound (period manipulation, etc) and even mirror your sound over several different cards/output ports.
Want to swap the front-left channel with the surround-right? It would be two lines in your ALSA config file. Now, try doing that with Windows.
there are plenty of blacklists out there. Why doesn't googleyahoomsn just remove these sites from its database?
...Google, Y! and MSN dont want it. This is the biggest obstacle for any major corporation to get any significant change effected. Executives hate commiting to anything because it basically makes them more vulberable. In this case, they must give an employee the job of monitoring the blacklisting, and they become reliant on a third-party list. That creates two weak links. If either breaks, Mr. Executive looks bad, and that cant happen. Under the proposed system, some snippets of code are added, and the responcibility falls on the blogging community.
Easy: There are two reasons.
Accountability:
Effectiveness: Blacklists cannot beat spammers. If you blacklist a domain on monday, they will register another one on tuesday. Its an endless cycle. Blacklists *do* make it much harder to spam, but they do not remove the *reason* for spamming (increasing page rank). Most large companies learned a long time ago that you need to attack at the roots.
And the guilt is not of the companies who patent easy things, but of the patent system which allows this kind of behaviour.
Right. Part of my point was that the USPTO needs to revise their methods. Actually I think I did say that.
Also my last about patenting the letter "A," was in regards to simple patents. I dont think IBM makes many simple patents. Also, there is nothing wrong with IBM making money off of linux. Sure, they probably only support Open Source software because they see it as a profitable market, but who cares? The point is they support it and OS needs all the support it can get.
OSX will run fine with 256K. Just dont try playing Unreal 2004 or advanced DV editing.
If you have the cash, get 512MB and you'll be just fine.
Power users should have no less than 768MB. This is what I have in my PowerBook G4 and I rarely run out.
Software developers should have no less than 1GB, for compiling, testing and debugging programs.
Audio/Video specialists should get a few gig's of memory.
Of course, power users and up, probably wont want to use this machine anyway.
Half Life 2. True. This pisses me off. Alot of great games are ported to Mac, like the Unreal series and many many more.
:-) .doc files right out of the box (aka no Word needed)
Verdict: true
Right-click.
100% INCORRECT. OSX supports right-click right out of the box. Its just that Apple mice dont have two-buttons. Actually, you can hit the option key and click with an apple mouse to get the right-click functionality. But note that the mini mac DOES NOT SHIP with an apple mouse. So go out and get a MS optical wheel mouse or use your current usb/ps2 mouse and you will have right-click. Verdict: false
Start-R For Run.
Your joking, right?
You shouldnt even need to do that. In OSX I can start any OSX App using only the keyboard in 3-5 keystrokes. Do this COMMAND+Shift+A (open apps folder) then type the first letter of the App, OSX highlights it, now COMMAND+Down (or +O) to run it. You may need the second letter of the name too is many apps are similiarly named. Naturally, you can also use the Terminal to open unix apps as fast or faster than Start-R.
Verdict: True, but Mac's can accomplish the same goal quicker
Upgrade. The above were attacks on Mac's. This is about the Mini Mac and iMac's. The MiniMac's have memory upgrade ability only. This machine is geared at people as a "My first Mac." If you like, it Apple hopes you will by an iMac (that would be your upgrade).
Things you cant do on a Wintel PC:
- See all you app windows with a single-keypress (expose)
- Flurry screensaver
- Open
- Run X app's natively.
- Terminal. enough said.
- Turn on fully configured FTP, HTTP, SSH and file sharing servers by simply checking a check-box.
- Setup virtually any bluetooth device in 4 or fewer click's
- Once click internet connection sharing between wireless and wired lan that doesnt involve complex bridging and an hour of clicking.
- Tons of well-made and stable productivity applications bundles
and finally, - type ls
It seems /.ers associate the word "patent" with evil. Any company enforcing their patent rights is automatically evil. Well that is just a load of crap. It is true that the patent office needs to completely rethink its patent granting procedure, but without patents the global bussiness model breaks down and we all lose our jobs! That being said...
/. readers dont seem to understand is that patents are not cheap. You need to pay an expensive patent attorney, and the application costs. In the end, a patent frequently costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Add to that the price of R&D and man-hours, and each patent can reprsent over 1M in corporate investment (or much much more).
In many way's IBM is a thinktank. They spend alot of money in researd and development of new technologies. For crying out loud, the PC owes much of its success to IBM R&D.
Why should other companies be allowed to use technologies and ideas that IBM spent time and money developing? Im sure you wouldnt like if I told your boss about an idea you had discussed with me, and passed it off as my own.
IBM makes 650 Million USD on patent royalties annually. Nearly 200M of which comes from hardware manufacturers. Most companies happily pay IBM their royalties. Why? Because they make alot of money from selling technology using IBM-developed ideas. IBM usually charges 1%-5% of the products price as a royalty. Not bad, considering without the IBM patented technology, your product might not be marketable!
Many other companies ($CO, for example), demand high royalties from small companies. IBM, on the other hand, supports open source and has yet to go after a non-profit or small company.
One company IBM *IS* going after is Intuit. Who the hell cares? Does Intuit donate a percentage of its income to charity? Do they feed the hungry? NO! Intuit exists to make its CEO, stockholders and employee's money.
Finally, another thing that
In conclusion, leave IBM alone until they try to patent the letter "A" or UNIX.
...so why even bother with the Mac Mini then. I can get a better PC for half the price if I go for used parts.
You obviously missing the point. Joe Schmo does not know how to build a computer. In fact, even saying "build" and "computer" in the same sentence, will send him running.
The Mac Mini, along with the eMac and iMac are not for the super-nerd types. That is what the PowerMac/Book line is for. It is an all-in-one solution that does not have much upgrade capacity.
The Mac Mini is for you everyday person who has an old windows PC, running 98, 2000 or even XP, that is sick of the constant tech support calls, dozens of virus infections and endless popup windows.
My guess would be that Iceland is a much better (and larger at that) start than some third world country with millions of inhabitants.
Your not going to see any third-world country delaring that they are giving up fossil fuels. The third world is considered third world becasuse their economies can barely (if at all) support their populations, or if they are "uncivilized." This leads to joblessness and numerous societal problems.
It is much more likely that small parts of first-world and second-world countries will make be making the first few steps in this matter. The U.S. for example, will take small steps every year to alternative energy sources, but there is just too much beurocracy, accountability, and basically, political nonesense for congress to declare "the country much stop using fossil fuels by 2050!"
In the larger nations, small municipalities will turn to alternative fuel first. Then, as the larger cities and the federal government see that alternative fuels can work, they will switch.
Lets recap:
This hax0r gains access to a restricted private industry computer system. But instead of just stealing private citizen's info, he steals secret service info. The US Secret Service (USSS) catches him and prosecutes.
Because of the SS deal, his legal costs are minimal...just sign the paper and plead. He lost his job, but got a better one, which legitamizes his favorite hobby. And finally, he gains national (international?) fame. If and when he leaves the USSS job, he shouldnt have a problem finding Fortune 100 clients for his network security consulting bussiness. And dont forget about the book deals!
My point is, in the long run this guy came out on top. Sure he's a felon and cant vote, but who really cares. If your gonna hack, hack the cyber crimes unit. This was at least you get a job... those are the guys they are looking to hire anyway.
It is true that the closing of Suprnova.org was a mighty blow to the availibility of torrents, but it changes nothing in the long run. In a few weeks there will be a new uber-big torrent directory. Actually, there already are a few.
.torrent files are very small and easy to spread. Finally, even if every peer has a slow dialup connection, a broadband downloader can still reach some very respectable speeds. Not to mention that most of the clients preform superb error checking on each peice of data.
/. posts.
In my opinion, BitTorrent is still a new and wandering technology. It is being employed in many different way and still has plenty of undiscovered potential. It is already an excellent way to cheaply distribute free software (i.e. linux distros). It is also a great way to distribute 0-day files with minimal liability and cost.
BitTorrent is still the best way to get less-than-legal new (...brand new) tv show episodes, movies and multi-platform games. There are many reasons for this. Namely, it spreads liability across hundreds or thousands of individuals, not a single server. Secondly,
As a protocal, BT is perhaps the most promising for large file distribution. There are some faster, and some even less centralized protocals, but in the end BT beats them all.
If you are concerned about BT's future as a method of underground file distribution: worry not. The torrent underground has its roots firmly planted in IRC. In fact, some of the best sites for well seeded torrents are just web-front ends to IRC channels (i.e. tvtorrents). BT will exist until something better comes along. That is the way of things.
note: this is not directly in response to the articles, rather it is in response to some of the other
We've had 60 years of their murderous bullshit and there is no reason to tolerate any more. What the hell are you talking about?
Im curious as to what America did to Iran in 1945?
Perhaps you are referring to the world-war 2 era around 1941, when your country was invaded. That was Britian and Russia, not the United States. And those two super powers had more than enough justification to invade Iran. They asked Reza Pahlavi (dictator at the time) to break off ties with Germany, after the Germans invaded Russia. Of course he refused because the Germans were buying oil that he owned and making him rich. Pahlavi was a bad dictator anyway, he stole alot from the Iranians.
Now lets follow Iranian history a bit more. Pahlavi's son then came to power. That government was extremely corrupted. Eventually, in 1979, he was 'removed from power' by you current government. That government quickly lost popular support and became an agressive islamic-totalitarian dictatorship. Now Iran is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world
So basically, it looks like you are right. Iran has done well for itself and needs no help from the 'evil and murderous' western super-power.
Just for clarification, I never supported the war my nation has declared on Iraq. I might have if Iraq had actually done something to one of its neighbors instead of just threatening. Furthermore America will not invade or attack another nation unless it had pissed us off. Invading another free nation is a great way to piss us off. If you recall, Iraq invaded Kwait and terrorized its population. That resulted in the Gulf War between the US and Iraq.
A good rule of thumb is that your country should remain under the international political radar for at least 20 years after a U.S.-led invasion. (which Iraq did not do)
haha
:-) )
Although we are talking about Office V.x for Mac! That is nothing like Office for Windows, which is vastly inferior to start with. Leave it to M$ to develop better for Apple then for their own OS! (or maybe OSX is just a better environment
So we can power robots with dead flies and apples?
:-)
This reminds me of "The Matrix." Eventually the robots will realize that digesting a human can provide far more power than hundreds of flies!!!
Its not that easy. If I have 65 computers that need static IP's, I will need to buy at least 128 addresses. I cannot simply "give back" the unused IP's. Doing so would split a a subnet mask, and create a global routing nightmare.
With the advent of the internet in other countries then the western world it could well be that things need to be sped up so that we will not see different internets.
IPv6 was designed to coexist harmoniously with IPv4, otherwise it would have been laughed at. v4 packets that enter China's new network will be wrapped in a v6 packet. When they leave, they will be convereted back. There is no doubt that IPv6 adoption will be slow since it required massive infrastructure changes (lots of router upgrades/replacements). Therefore, we an expect many years of hybrid networks. When the transition phase is over, we can start moveing to IPv8
I know i keep hearing that with NAT and similar technologies IPv6 might not be necessary but is that really so given the rise of internet usage in Asia and other countries?
You should definitely read up on IPv6. True, 128 bits of IP is a major bonus, but there are many other reasons v6 is better than v4 (and some that it is not). Here are some:
As you can see, IPv6 is will make the internet faster overall. It also provides special support for streaming (flow) services, allowing for a better multimedia experience.
And dont forget that Trolltech allows developers to effortlessly port Qt app's from *nix mac for free (but NOT to windows). And of course it also allows those who have purchased a windows license to port to Mac/aqua & nix for free.
It should be noted that you cannot port from unix & mac to windows without purchasing a pricey license for the windows library. This is bad for free software, but good for linux and mac. It forces free software written for mac/linux to *stay* mac/linux (making those platforms more appealing).
As an example, for the hell of it, I ported 100k+ lines of my companies software from UNIX to MacOSX. It took about 30 minutes. The UI looked amazing in Aqua, compared to the UNIX and windows versions. Naturally the platform-specific C backend exploded when executed in OSX and rendered the software unsuable, but it still looked good. Not bad for a half hour!
I am in the midst of finals week and one of my classes is on computational theory and time complexity.
This post goes againt all that I just learned. Obviously these 5 students did not read over all 5.7 million lines of c code. Doing so would take a copious amount of time. Even if they did go over every single line, what makes you think that *they* found all the bugs that dozens of other developers missed??
Obviously some sort of code analyser was used here. And it is not possible to write a program that analyses other arbitrary programs to determine some non trivial property. So, if you cant tell how a program reacts on every possible input, you cannot find all the bugs.
This is a textbook NP-Complete problem. There are innumerable proofs on it. If these 5 Stanford researchers have found a way to take an arbitrary large code sample and give you a number representing the amount of bugs in it, they would be instant billionaires.
(Not to mention having implicitly solved every other non-polynomial decidable problem!)
Vicsun, you make all good points, but why are you ranting here?
/. ers. Sure, it *could* be with a few major changes, but that's for Google to decide. If they wanted nerds, they would have released a linux version, or at least OSX.
Im not huge fan of GDS, but your complaining about a free Beta product. Go drop Google and email and maybe some of that stuff will get fixed.
Also try to remember Google's target audience for GDS is not the
I tried GDS out on my Winxp pc a few weeks ago and thought it was cool, but overall I was unimpressed. In my case, I know the exact -- or close to it -- location of all my important files, my thousands of MP3's and hundreds of movies (all ordered heirarchally). GDS was useful, but only on rare occasion. I didnt think it deserves the CPU cycles or precious tray space.
With that being said, I have installed it on my parents computers and recommend it to less technologically inclined people. Its perfect for them. After all, thats all they need.
As for Me? Ill stick with my familiar old friends, find/locate and grep.
Okay... I think I started by talking about k-12 schools. Private universities dont need gov't funding; that was part of my point.
As for 45 year old textbooks, I agree that the content is the same or better. Its the book condition that degrades. Hand a student textbook with half of the pages torn out, no binding and the answers/curses scribbled all over, and tell them to learn. See what happens.
Its not the content that needs replacing, its the condition.
And that is where things get interesting.
...Anyway, I agree
China and America are mutually dependant on each other, trade wise. Sactions between them would be devestating, especially to China, which is a major exporter.
As far as helping the schools out. Why doesn't the state build more schools there? Why doesn't the city?
Okay. The majority of public school funding comes from the county/district. State and Federal funds are usually supplemental. The cities pay for their schools with property taxe revenue. This system provides ample funding for school districts in towns like mine. I pay ~$8K/year in property tax. As a result, my towns school system is excellent. However, lower income neighborhoods collect lower taxe percentages of property, and the property is values less as well. As a result, lower income neighborhoods have more students than higher income neightborhoods, and far less funding.
State funding is used heavily, but as you can imagine, it is spread thin in large states (ca and ny for example).
And my highschool had this problem due to poor planning by the city. But then they got on the ball and built more classrooms and schools.
Not everybody is so lucky.
Why do they need to attend "Tier 1"? Are you talking about the Harvard/Yale type colleges, or the State University level ones?
Do you know what tier 1 is? Tier one schools are comprised of the nations top 120 universities by overall ranking (im using Fiske). Harvard/Yale? Sure. These are two of the top 5. There are *many* state school that are top tier. SUNY Binghamton is a NY state run university and is ranked as one of the best universities in the Northeast. Sure these state schools are "cheap," but only relative to private institutions like mine. I attend Northeastern University, tier 1, and I pay $35K/year. BInghamtom costs $15.5K/year for an NY STATE RESIDENT.
Did you actually mean public colleges? These are mostly run by the town/cities, and are free or very close to it. Note the word college, not University. Univerisities are a collection of colleges, and usually have FAR better educational resources. Most of these colleges offer only 2-year trade degrees (associates) for free. Trade degrees are fine, but they cannot compare to a bachelors in science, and definitely not a masters. Finally,
there are so many grants, scholarships, and loan programs out there that anybody can attend college alread
You have to be kidding. There are far, far more students that *need* grants than there are grants to get. Besides, poorly funded public k-12 districts frequently have a low (relative) high school graduation rate anyway. Forget how many graduates continue their enducation
Education in the country is underfunded. Our University system is second to none, but our public school system is aweful. Some cities pour endless funds into education and produce stellar students, while other poor areas produce delinquents.
I think thats great, and congradulation to you for taking advantage of all that the military had to offer you.
Please do not think that I want to take that away. I believe the military to be excellent option for continuing education, especially for people who may not be able to afford to attend private universities.
I merely suggest that the military take a little less than what it would normally get in terms of desscretionary spending increases. Maybe they could trim some new weapons development projects or not build a few new fighters this year.
They point being that 5 billion dollars (1/5 of this years defense increase) allocated to defense is worth 5 times that in terms of bang for your buck, if invested in education.
Consider how many new text books could be purchased for k-12 schools with half a billion dollars. Consider how many additional lower-income students could recieve full tuition to tier-one universities with another billion dollars. And finally, with yet another billion from the lot, how many new schools could be built in neighborhoods where bathrooms are being converted into classrooms (this happened recently in the elementry school i attended over a decade ago -- and several others -- in brooklyn, NY). Now consider that after all that, you would still have 2.5 Billion left over out of the 5B.