I still think a good case can be made for Steve Jobs being the antichrist. Without ever making himself look evil he manages to tempt countless people into sin through techno-lust, and the vitriol exhibited by rabid Mac-lovers towards basically anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest can hardly be thought of as "natural" hatred.
To be fair, I have a plan in the UK for about the same price with a completely unusable number of calls and texts, plus a mobile phone included with the plan, and we're commonly cited as being overpriced. I know for a fact it's less in many places in Europe.
Nice stuff. Does it support 3D acceleration? (continuing the comparison with the Dell X51v). Sorry, I've no idea where to dig up specs on these things.
Have they released a newer version, though? The X51v is very new, and very powerful, and the last Zaurus I saw was released a few years ago (it's not something I've been really looking at, though) and wouldn't really compare in terms of specification. I heard from a disappointed friend that they stopped making the Zaurus series, please tell me that's not true!
I've used one at work (I develop on PDAs) and it seemed fantastic. That said, my development PDA is an Axim X5 with Windows Mobile 2002 (guess who picked the short straw?) so anything would probably seem fantastic to me.
Well yes, obviously it's possible to have all functionality triggered through one button (timing the time holding the button down is one possibility, repeatedly pressing a button like a crazed double-triple-click is another). I think 39 may be overkill though, and Apple's sleek simplicity is a major selling point of theirs. This is quite possibly an attempt by Gates to get his teams to attempt to make minimalism more of a priority, which would probably be a good thing.
The "core".NET framework is cross-platform. WinForms is the largest part of code in the framework which is not easily portable, but that's to be expected.
To be fair, the material on Channel9 tends to be informative and more than just "advertising" in most cases — the technicians and so forth they interview are enthusiastic but mainly wanting to get across the things they've been working on (as technicians do). I've seen plenty of sites with interviews of *nix professionals and so on, and I wouldn't say they were more or less "advertising", on the whole.
The interviewers on Channel9, however, tend to be massively overenthusiastic to the point of hilarity. Note how he replies to I've been working on where the hardware meets the software with Excellent!. It is irritating, but then that's why I don't watch a lot of video online.:D
(And no, I don't consider C# to be the answer. C# was just Microsoft's way of cloning Java. Now Sun and Microsoft are in a pissing match with Sun playing catch-up this round, trying to force features into Mustang to catch up to C# 3.0.)
As a systems language, right now, no. But there is some really interesting-looking work on the MS Research page (the Singularity project, if I remember) with using it as that with some crazed tools they have, and exploiting the features of "safe" languages to make a different sort of system.
As for "C+=2", have you looked at Objective C? I believe that its general purpose is to provide a "better" OO implementation, although I've never used it myself. That said I think it runs all C code (where C++ does not) so possibly not all that OO from the ground level...
Which would be fine if everyone was using SGI graphics cards, but they're not. These architectures are hugely complex, differ a lot, and are basically undocumented to the people writing the open drivers. Writing effective graphics drivers is hard enough when one knows the specifications of the hardware, but when reverse-engineering has to be used to discover how to even interface with the cards, it becomes an even more difficult task. That's what the big issue is here.
Arguably, though, a greater reliance on OpenGL for desktop applications could lead to more and better OpenGL driver implementations. It's a knock-on effect at best though, yes.
The hardware I had a problem with was the onboard stuff on the earlier model of A64 Shuttle — I'm led to believe there's support now though.
Don't you configure the kernel yourself in FreeBSD? I'd think that if you played with the kernel configuration in Red Hat it would eventually work. I like FreeBSD though.
Agreed, but Vista is a whole system and this is referring to the DVD player component, isn't it? This isn't a driver issue, but an issue with Vista. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty hungover at present.
Well, yes, but Vista includes a DVD player application and the capability of Vista to play DVDs with this application is what the article is about, no?
This is not the point, though — mitigating circumstances are a valid defence. I don't mean it's a full justification, but in general one without a choice could not be found responsible for an action, as it stands. The degree of protest to an action could be used in these cases, I suppose, but morals don't scale up cleanly like that.
Large relative to its usefulness, I mean. Adding a region coding subsystem, front-end, and the likes without just taking the XP one (which I assume isn't possible for some mystical reason) just so one can support hardware which the system was not going to support anyway seems unnecessary.
Well, then you have to set it based on the regional setting, ensure that it can be modified (if I remember correctly there's a limited number of changes allowed?), and protect it in some way (ho ho;)). This is a significant amount of work to support hardware that stopped being manufactured years before any system which is remotely likely to run the OS.
Interesting. I was under the impression that this would largely be for the Windows Media component, though, where the player itself is a component of the Windows package (either in WMP or an ActiveX control, I suppose). In this case, the RPC-1 region-tracking would have to be built into the system, surely?
DRM is certainly the issue, but the fact is that they'd have to put the DRM in anyway. It's what they do. It's just easier for them to write that component if they don't support RPC-1.
But it has been said that the two systems use different protocols to do region coding. In particular, in RPC-1, the software is responsible for checking the region number (according to the posts I've read here, and Wikipedia, but I'm willing to admit either of these could be wrong). If the software is responsible for something in one system and not in the other, that's theoretically more work.
Do correct me if I've misunderstood something though. I don't routinely write DVD player software;)
I still think keeping track of the region that one is in is a large problem. The actual interface with the drive, the part you describe, is probably very simple in comparison. There's no regard to storing information or anything there, and it'll be part of the interface with the drive which is needed anyway.
Doesn't make it any more palatable, though.
Agreed, but I'm not seeing as much different than stopping supporting any older hardware, there's just an arguable ulterior motive here.
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I still think a good case can be made for Steve Jobs being the antichrist. Without ever making himself look evil he manages to tempt countless people into sin through techno-lust, and the vitriol exhibited by rabid Mac-lovers towards basically anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest can hardly be thought of as "natural" hatred.
To be fair, I have a plan in the UK for about the same price with a completely unusable number of calls and texts, plus a mobile phone included with the plan, and we're commonly cited as being overpriced. I know for a fact it's less in many places in Europe.
Nice stuff. Does it support 3D acceleration? (continuing the comparison with the Dell X51v). Sorry, I've no idea where to dig up specs on these things.
Almost in reply to myself, I've just checked and the latest is June 2005, which sounds fairly recent.
Have they released a newer version, though? The X51v is very new, and very powerful, and the last Zaurus I saw was released a few years ago (it's not something I've been really looking at, though) and wouldn't really compare in terms of specification. I heard from a disappointed friend that they stopped making the Zaurus series, please tell me that's not true!
I've used one at work (I develop on PDAs) and it seemed fantastic. That said, my development PDA is an Axim X5 with Windows Mobile 2002 (guess who picked the short straw?) so anything would probably seem fantastic to me.
Well yes, obviously it's possible to have all functionality triggered through one button (timing the time holding the button down is one possibility, repeatedly pressing a button like a crazed double-triple-click is another). I think 39 may be overkill though, and Apple's sleek simplicity is a major selling point of theirs. This is quite possibly an attempt by Gates to get his teams to attempt to make minimalism more of a priority, which would probably be a good thing.
The "core" .NET framework is cross-platform. WinForms is the largest part of code in the framework which is not easily portable, but that's to be expected.
To be fair, the material on Channel9 tends to be informative and more than just "advertising" in most cases — the technicians and so forth they interview are enthusiastic but mainly wanting to get across the things they've been working on (as technicians do). I've seen plenty of sites with interviews of *nix professionals and so on, and I wouldn't say they were more or less "advertising", on the whole.
The interviewers on Channel9, however, tend to be massively overenthusiastic to the point of hilarity. Note how he replies to I've been working on where the hardware meets the software with Excellent!. It is irritating, but then that's why I don't watch a lot of video online. :D
As a systems language, right now, no. But there is some really interesting-looking work on the MS Research page (the Singularity project, if I remember) with using it as that with some crazed tools they have, and exploiting the features of "safe" languages to make a different sort of system.
As for "C+=2", have you looked at Objective C? I believe that its general purpose is to provide a "better" OO implementation, although I've never used it myself. That said I think it runs all C code (where C++ does not) so possibly not all that OO from the ground level...
Which would be fine if everyone was using SGI graphics cards, but they're not. These architectures are hugely complex, differ a lot, and are basically undocumented to the people writing the open drivers. Writing effective graphics drivers is hard enough when one knows the specifications of the hardware, but when reverse-engineering has to be used to discover how to even interface with the cards, it becomes an even more difficult task. That's what the big issue is here.
Arguably, though, a greater reliance on OpenGL for desktop applications could lead to more and better OpenGL driver implementations. It's a knock-on effect at best though, yes.
Wow, I've not played with FreeBSD in a while, might be time I tried again.
The hardware I had a problem with was the onboard stuff on the earlier model of A64 Shuttle — I'm led to believe there's support now though.
Don't you configure the kernel yourself in FreeBSD? I'd think that if you played with the kernel configuration in Red Hat it would eventually work. I like FreeBSD though.
Yep, went and read the article and you're right there. I probably shouldn't have drunk so much last night :).
Cheers for clarification. This is pretty stupid, aye.
Is that what's being proposed? I believe I may have fallen into an Ring TFM trap...
Agreed, but Vista is a whole system and this is referring to the DVD player component, isn't it? This isn't a driver issue, but an issue with Vista. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty hungover at present.
Well, yes, but Vista includes a DVD player application and the capability of Vista to play DVDs with this application is what the article is about, no?
This is not the point, though — mitigating circumstances are a valid defence. I don't mean it's a full justification, but in general one without a choice could not be found responsible for an action, as it stands. The degree of protest to an action could be used in these cases, I suppose, but morals don't scale up cleanly like that.
Large relative to its usefulness, I mean. Adding a region coding subsystem, front-end, and the likes without just taking the XP one (which I assume isn't possible for some mystical reason) just so one can support hardware which the system was not going to support anyway seems unnecessary.
Well, then you have to set it based on the regional setting, ensure that it can be modified (if I remember correctly there's a limited number of changes allowed?), and protect it in some way (ho ho ;)). This is a significant amount of work to support hardware that stopped being manufactured years before any system which is remotely likely to run the OS.
Interesting. I was under the impression that this would largely be for the Windows Media component, though, where the player itself is a component of the Windows package (either in WMP or an ActiveX control, I suppose). In this case, the RPC-1 region-tracking would have to be built into the system, surely?
DRM is certainly the issue, but the fact is that they'd have to put the DRM in anyway. It's what they do. It's just easier for them to write that component if they don't support RPC-1.
But it has been said that the two systems use different protocols to do region coding. In particular, in RPC-1, the software is responsible for checking the region number (according to the posts I've read here, and Wikipedia, but I'm willing to admit either of these could be wrong). If the software is responsible for something in one system and not in the other, that's theoretically more work.
Do correct me if I've misunderstood something though. I don't routinely write DVD player software ;)
I still think keeping track of the region that one is in is a large problem. The actual interface with the drive, the part you describe, is probably very simple in comparison. There's no regard to storing information or anything there, and it'll be part of the interface with the drive which is needed anyway.
Agreed, but I'm not seeing as much different than stopping supporting any older hardware, there's just an arguable ulterior motive here.
Surely it does? Good and bad as moral actions are a function of intent, I'd have thought.
I get the feeling we're drifting a little ;)