That's kind of the point of why this is an interesting / important story. Everyone has those kinds of statements in the EULA, and this judge has ruled that if you're selling a product to do X, it better actually be capable of doing X because no amount of weasel-words gets you out of the fact that you sold someone a product that would do X.
You'd have to read the complete case, not just the headline. If I promise you the software does X, but have a license that says "no warranty whatsoever", and I give you a free 14-day trial where you have a chance to find any faults, then you lose. But if I promise you the software does X, but have a license that says "no warranty whatsoever", and I give you no chance to find any faults before signing the contract, then I lose.
A contract will stand unless it is too unfair. This one was too unfair not because of the words in the contract, but because the buyer had no chance to check the seller's promises.
Again this is incorrect. The act of modifying the code in the first place, places all modified work under the GPL. Under US law you CAN NOT modify GPL covered code without legally placing those modifications under the GPL. See GPLv2 section 5 below. However facts 1 through 5 are accurate. In addition Alice would also own the copyright to all code written prior to her employment by Bob unless an agreement specifically transferred those copyrights.
I can take GPL's code, modify it, and distribute it without providing my own code under the GPL license. By doing so I commit copyright infringement. That doesn't change the fact that my code isn't licensed under the GPL, and if you distribute it (under the GPL or not), then you commit copyright infringement as well.
Why can't that employee use the GPL to demand the source code to that supposedly "internal only" executable? Then, why can't that employee say "The GPL prohibits adding more-restrictive terms to the executable than the terms of the GPLed libraries." and then say "Prohibiting me from distributing this now-GPLed executabile and its source code worldwide is itself an additional restriction that neither the author nor the university can impose on me." And then convey/propagate/distribute the executable and its source code worldwide. The bits & information want to be free.
If your company provides you with a copy of Microsoft Word for you to use, you have no rights to that copy. Just try quitting your job and demanding that you can take that copy of Microsoft Word with you. If your company provides you with a copy of some GPL'd software for you to use, you have no rights to that copy either.
Should you take it on yourself to distribute the software then you are in deep shit. The GPL puts requirements on people making copies. The company didn't make copies, so there are no requirements on them. You made the copies, so you have to provide people with the source code, but you can't - the source code isn't yours, and your company will likely not be sympathetic with your cause.
That could come back to bite them quite badly. What if one department gets spun off as an independent business at some point in the future? Not solving this problem up front could create some hidden costs for your employer.
One thing to remember if you don't worry about the source code itself, but about obligations that you might enter into by using GPL'd software: By distributing executable + source code _together_ you have done everything that the GPL demands from you. Nobody has any rights towards you at all. So if you spin off another company, give them the executable and the source code.
If you don't do it that way, then suddenly _anybody_ in the world has the right to request source code from you.
"Hung parliament" makes it sound so negative. Germany hasn't had a single party having the majority of parliament seats since 1957, and things seem to be working out quite nicely. I'd say the system is very successful, 1957 was the last time that one party had uncontrolled rule, since then there was always a coalition in power.
At the very least it prevents one of the worst stupidities that can be found in British governments: The tendency to leave "poison pills" to their successor. Like the Tories did when they pressed through privatisation of the railway system at the last second with disastrous consequences for the quality of the railway system, or what Labour has recently done signing billion dollar IT contracts for useless projects that they knew the next government would want to cancel, intentionally negotiating contracts with huge penalties for cancellation.
The Devil's Advocate would say that H.264 would likely not have become ubiquitous if the creators knew that they wouldn't be able to patent it. It almost certainly wouldn't be as open as it is now. Do you think that Linux would have native H.264 playback if the MPEG-LA had to resort to close-sourcing it rather than relying on patents to protect their codec?
The devil's advocate would be wrong. Sure, h.264 makes a bit of money by licensing, but the real money maker is all these devices that are built and sold. And all the related services, and the ability to create high quality video. The industry wanted a good and standardised video codec and somehow they managed to get one.
We could solve the H.264 debate if a country's legislature were to mandate that any patents that contribute to an industry-recognized standard were unenforceable in the application of that standard.
Now look at the GPL: If you publish source code using the GPL license, then you grant the receiver certain rights, like the right to modify and re-use the source code for any purpose, as long as it is published again under the GPL. If source code published under the GPL is covered by a patent, then you have to grant the receiver the right to use that patent as far as it covers any derived code.
So if you created that proposed law, and I had therefore the right to create and use an h.264 encoder and decoder despite it being covered by patents, I still couldn't publish it under the GPL. The GPL requires permission use of the patents for purposes outside the application of that standard.
This is what makes it impossible to create GPL software covered by RAND licenses (where each of many patent holders says: Anyone can use my patents as needed for this standard, as long as they don't sue me for using _their_ patents as needed by the standard. ) This is a whole that the GPL dug for itself, and which the likes of Microsoft just love to exploit; it makes it possible to offer license terms that are nice and fair and not acceptable for GPL software, which perfectly fits their goals.
The problem is, most people pretty much think of the iPad as exactly what it *is*: a much bigger and bit more powerful iPhone.
My wife, who is unlike me straight right bang in the middle of the target group for the iPad, looks at an iPod Touch, and then she looks at an iPad, and she doesn't see the slightest similarity. To her, these are two completely unrelated devices. One is a music and video player that can also run games and show a web site on a useless tiny screen, the other is a web browsing and email computer that has lots of other applications, games on a big screen, video, and that also can play music. No similarity. None at all.
And you can argue with me all you like, if you tried to argue with her, she would just think you are being silly.
What hasn't been said loudly enough is that the stupid chart which all these discussions are based on is completely worthless. Under "April 2009" it shows the growth in percent from April 2008 to April 2009. Then under "May 2009" it shows the growth from May 2008 to May 2009, and so on. If the growth changes, then this can have two causes: A change of growth now, or a change of growth earlier.
Example: Sales April 2008 = 100, April 2009 = 500, May 2009 = 600. The chart will show 400% Year Over Year growth in April 2009. What will it show for May 2009? We don't know. It depends on the sales in May 2008. If these sales stayed constant from April 2008, then Year Over Year growth in May 2009 is from 100 to 600 = 500%. If sales doubled from April to May 2008, then May 2009 sales growth was from 200 to 600 = 200% only. In other words, we can look at this chart as much as we want, we don't know _anything_ about actual growth.
What would be needed to discuss this in any sensible way would be a chart with monthly unit sales. Then we could see how sales developed until March 2010, we could make an educated guess what sales should have been in April 2010 and compare with what they actually were, then we could look at estimated iPad sales of one million in April 2010 and compare that number with any deficit in April 2010 netbook sales compared to what we estimated. If netbook sales were down say 300,000 to 700,000 from what we estimated (and that might actually still be growth, if from looking at the chart we concluded that April 2010 sales should be 800,000 higher than March and they were only 100,000 higher then we would be 700,000 short from our estimate), then we might very very tentatively concluded that maybe the iPad is the cause. But we don't have this chart, so it is all completely bogus speculation.
But did this guy really say "[N]etbooks and sub-12-inch machines will sell 45.6 million units in 2011 and 60.3 million in 2013."? If he said that then he is a complete idiot. If you told me 2009 sales numbers with that precision then I wouldn't trust you. Nobody knows 2009 sales within 100,000 units. But Thurrott knows 2013 sales with that precision? What an idiot.
With all that said, Apple could very well be selling 10 million iPads world wide this year. If they do, then most of the money spent on iPads will be saved elsewhere. And you just wonder where. Netbooks? That is the most logical conclusion.
How does the accident happen? Does the speeder get rear-ended? Who tailgates a speeder?
On one long stretch that I drive daily there is a speed limit of 50 mph. Everyone drives around 50 to 55 mph, traffic permitting, with the exception of a few idiots who go much faster or slower. The problem is that lots of people have a TomTom with location of traffic cameras, and the idiots suddenly slow down to 40 mph. You actually need one of those devices yourself if you don't know the street, not to find out where you might get a speeding ticket, but where to expect drivers to slow down without any visible reason.
And who is talking about tailgating? Typical event: Speeder overtakes you, switches lanes so he is in front of you, spots camera, hits the brakes slowing down well beyond the speed limit and therefore well beyond your speed.
In reality, it's not unusual for parcels to carry a false statement of value if, for example, you order something from Hong Kong on eBay. I doubt anyone would really be pulled up on something like that, either, but if a major company made a habit of it I'm sure there would be issues.
No, this is still not 150%, but it's more than three times the £20 that you said it was. Unless there is some other "sales tax" in the UK other than VAT, in which case you can call me an uninformed American and move on.:-)
Not uninformed, but non-thinking.
In the USA, the quoted price (the price you see in an advert or in a shop) is exclusive of sales tax / use tax. The US customer doesn't actually pay $499 for an iPad, they pay $499 plus whatever the sales tax is, say 8% = $39.92. The merchant receives $499 + $39.92 and sends $39.92 straight off to the tax office.
In the UK, the quote price (the price you see in an advert or in a shop) is inclusive of 17.5% VAT (value added tax). The UK customer hands over exactly the £429 on the sticker, not a penny more, and doesn't ow anybody any money afterwards. The merchant receives £429. £429 equals 117.5%, so the merchant pays 17.5% = £63.89 to the tax office and keeps 100% = £365.11.
The difference in tax rates has nothing to do with Apple, so if we are talking about Apple's price strategy and not about living costs, we have to leave the tax out. So what we have to compare is the $499 exclusive tax in the US and the £365.11 exclusive tax in the UK. And that is with the current exchange rate about $40 difference. Your number makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
It's not 150%, it's 126%. And the UK price includes 17.5% VAT which Apple would have to send straight to Gordon Brown's tax collectors if he hadn't just been thrown out (I think he is refusing to leave, but thank heavens he will), whereas the US price doesn't include US sales tax.
Y'know what gets people to slow down? A real cop, lighting you up, pulling you over, and having to sit by the side of the road (as you watch every car that was doing the speed limit glide on by for 20 minutes:) as you await your fate.
Here's what I think would also slow people down in an educational way: A device reading the speed of vehicles (no camera needed), made very obvious, followed by a traffic light 50-80 meters further down the road which will turn red when someone passes the reading device at too high a speed. So that going at or below the speed limit is the fastest way to get through.
Alternatively, since license plate readers should be getting cheaper, a reading device plus a display a bit further which displays your license plate, name of the car's owner and speed when you go too fast. A flashing light "reduce speed" on its own helps a lot where these things are installed in England; with the additional information I think it would work very well indeed to reduce speed.
This may come as a shock to you but there are millions of people who don't need to do "real work" with an electronic device. Not everyone compiles Linux kernels,
Does compiling Linux kernels count as "real work"?
So if being gay is genetic then how has that trait stayed in a gene pool where darwin says survival of the fittest? Is it a case like sickle cell where one pair of genes helps you fight off malaria where as 2 sets of the gene gives you sickle cell? That benefit is why it stays in the gene pool.
There are mathematical models showing that for a group of people, especially in hard times when food is hard to come buy, a small percentage of males who wouldn't procreate themselves but support the families of their brothers or sisters would be beneficial for the survival of the group as a whole.
As a programmer, the one most important thing you need to know about floating point is never test for equality (even with zero), almost define how near the answer need be, and test against that. double a,b; double epsilon = 1.0d-10;
That is nonsense. The important thing is that you know what you are doing. As an example, if you have four integers a, b, c, and d, and you want to know whether the mathematical fractions a/b and c/d have the same values, what would you think about checking (double) a / (double) b == (double) c / (double) d ? Would involving any epsilon help you?
Okay, maybe I oversimplify, but this seems fine to me: function NearlyEqual(a,b) {... }
You'll have to add a few other functions. You'll want a function "PossiblyGreaterEqual" which returns true if a >= b or NearlyEqual (a, b) and "DefinitelyGreater" which returns true if a > b and not NearlyEqual (a, b); same for LessEqual. Then you need a new subtract operator that returns 0 for a-b if NearlyEqual (a, b) is true. And replacements for floor () and ceil (). It would be wrong if NearlyEqual (a,10) is true but floor (a) = 9.
Repeatability. If your code and language are standard-compliant, then you'll get the same floating-point math results as someone using another compliant language on any other platform. Not crucial for some tasks, but it certainly is for others, such as scientific work.
Wouldn't it be great if you could change a switch in your computer to change all double precision fp from 53 bit mantissa to 52 bit, and if your results are suddenly radically different then you know your first set of results couldn't be trusted?
Repeatability is highly overrated. It's no good if you get the wrong results, and a different computer system gets you identical wrong results.
Given the great complexity of dealing with floating point numbers properly, my first instinct, and my advice to anybody not already an expert on the subject, is to avoid them at all cost. Many algorithms can be redone in integers, similarly to Bresenham, and work without rounding errors at all. It's true that with SSE, floating point can sometimes be faster, but anyone who doesn't know what he's doing is vastly better off without it. At the very least, find a more experienced coworker and have him explain it to you before you shoot your foot off.
Anyone who is capable of changing an algorithm _correctly_ to use integer instead of floating point arithmetic would know how to make the floating point algorithm work correctly.
If you're using the x87, just give up. It is very hard to efficiently conform to IEEE on that evil beast. (even setting the control register to mung precision only affects the fraction, not the exponent, so you still have to store to memory and reload to properly set precision.)
Modern compilers use the SSE registers for double precision, so you don't have to worry about that anymore. And for 80 bit long double the original floating point registers behave correctly.
You're a troll. Jobs is clearly saying that Theora will be coming under attack from patent lawsuits. He's not saying that he's the one who will launch it, or support it. He's simply addressing the reasons why he won't support Theora.
We can be one hundred percent sure that if Theora was widely used (like built into Windows 8, MacOS X 10.7 and iPhone OS 5.0) then some patent trolls would come out of the woodwork and sue for patent infringement. It is less likely that they would have patents that should be valid, but you can lose a patent case even when the other side should lose not only by slashdot standards but by the standards of the law.
Breaking a EULA isn't illegal. There was a supreme court ruling in 1985 [findlaw.com] that dealt with installing software on unsupported hardware, the ruling was that you can't tie software to hardware.
1. Breach of a EULA isn't illegal, but it means that you lose _all_ rights to the software involved, including making _any_ copies that run _anywhere_. It's not the breach of the EULA that is your problem, it is the consequent copyright infringement. If Apple's EULA said "you have to pay us $10,000 for any copy that you install on a Dell computer", and you installed MacOS X on a Dell, you would most likely be able to argue that you don't have to pay $10,000 because you didn't agree to the EULA, but you would have to face the full consequences of your copyright infringement.
2. Data General vs. Digidyne is quoted again and again and again but it doesn't apply as long as you don't have hardware that can run MacOS X _and nothing else_. It might have applied when MacOS X ran on PowerPC if you built a PowerPC computer that can't run Windows, can't run Linux (but they can), and can only run MacOS X. But today, any computer capable of running MacOS X could run or could be easily changed to run Windows, so there is no reason why Apple should have to allow you to run MacOS X.
Apple could try to claim a DMCA violation; I do not know whether this would stand up in court, but the threat might be sufficient to scare vendors away.
It worked very well against Psystar, who is supposed to pay $2500 _per computer_ that they sold because of DMCA violation (not that Apple will ever see any of that money), while their illegal copying of MacOS X was only $30,000 for all copies. But there is also the point that those vendors rely on IP protection themselves to do business, so they won't do that kind of thing not because they are scared, but because they believe that not respecting copyrights is a bad thing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's kind of the point of why this is an interesting / important story. Everyone has those kinds of statements in the EULA, and this judge has ruled that if you're selling a product to do X, it better actually be capable of doing X because no amount of weasel-words gets you out of the fact that you sold someone a product that would do X.
You'd have to read the complete case, not just the headline. If I promise you the software does X, but have a license that says "no warranty whatsoever", and I give you a free 14-day trial where you have a chance to find any faults, then you lose. But if I promise you the software does X, but have a license that says "no warranty whatsoever", and I give you no chance to find any faults before signing the contract, then I lose.
A contract will stand unless it is too unfair. This one was too unfair not because of the words in the contract, but because the buyer had no chance to check the seller's promises.
Again this is incorrect. The act of modifying the code in the first place, places all modified work under the GPL. Under US law you CAN NOT modify GPL covered code without legally placing those modifications under the GPL. See GPLv2 section 5 below. However facts 1 through 5 are accurate. In addition Alice would also own the copyright to all code written prior to her employment by Bob unless an agreement specifically transferred those copyrights.
I can take GPL's code, modify it, and distribute it without providing my own code under the GPL license. By doing so I commit copyright infringement. That doesn't change the fact that my code isn't licensed under the GPL, and if you distribute it (under the GPL or not), then you commit copyright infringement as well.
Why can't that employee use the GPL to demand the source code to that supposedly "internal only" executable? Then, why can't that employee say "The GPL prohibits adding more-restrictive terms to the executable than the terms of the GPLed libraries." and then say "Prohibiting me from distributing this now-GPLed executabile and its source code worldwide is itself an additional restriction that neither the author nor the university can impose on me." And then convey/propagate/distribute the executable and its source code worldwide. The bits & information want to be free.
If your company provides you with a copy of Microsoft Word for you to use, you have no rights to that copy. Just try quitting your job and demanding that you can take that copy of Microsoft Word with you. If your company provides you with a copy of some GPL'd software for you to use, you have no rights to that copy either.
Should you take it on yourself to distribute the software then you are in deep shit. The GPL puts requirements on people making copies. The company didn't make copies, so there are no requirements on them. You made the copies, so you have to provide people with the source code, but you can't - the source code isn't yours, and your company will likely not be sympathetic with your cause.
That could come back to bite them quite badly. What if one department gets spun off as an independent business at some point in the future? Not solving this problem up front could create some hidden costs for your employer.
One thing to remember if you don't worry about the source code itself, but about obligations that you might enter into by using GPL'd software: By distributing executable + source code _together_ you have done everything that the GPL demands from you. Nobody has any rights towards you at all. So if you spin off another company, give them the executable and the source code.
If you don't do it that way, then suddenly _anybody_ in the world has the right to request source code from you.
That's why the rest of the world wants to throw up when American's make claims about living in the "freest country in the world".
"Hung parliament" makes it sound so negative. Germany hasn't had a single party having the majority of parliament seats since 1957, and things seem to be working out quite nicely. I'd say the system is very successful, 1957 was the last time that one party had uncontrolled rule, since then there was always a coalition in power.
At the very least it prevents one of the worst stupidities that can be found in British governments: The tendency to leave "poison pills" to their successor. Like the Tories did when they pressed through privatisation of the railway system at the last second with disastrous consequences for the quality of the railway system, or what Labour has recently done signing billion dollar IT contracts for useless projects that they knew the next government would want to cancel, intentionally negotiating contracts with huge penalties for cancellation.
The Devil's Advocate would say that H.264 would likely not have become ubiquitous if the creators knew that they wouldn't be able to patent it. It almost certainly wouldn't be as open as it is now. Do you think that Linux would have native H.264 playback if the MPEG-LA had to resort to close-sourcing it rather than relying on patents to protect their codec?
The devil's advocate would be wrong. Sure, h.264 makes a bit of money by licensing, but the real money maker is all these devices that are built and sold. And all the related services, and the ability to create high quality video. The industry wanted a good and standardised video codec and somehow they managed to get one.
We could solve the H.264 debate if a country's legislature were to mandate that any patents that contribute to an industry-recognized standard were unenforceable in the application of that standard.
Now look at the GPL: If you publish source code using the GPL license, then you grant the receiver certain rights, like the right to modify and re-use the source code for any purpose, as long as it is published again under the GPL. If source code published under the GPL is covered by a patent, then you have to grant the receiver the right to use that patent as far as it covers any derived code.
So if you created that proposed law, and I had therefore the right to create and use an h.264 encoder and decoder despite it being covered by patents, I still couldn't publish it under the GPL. The GPL requires permission use of the patents for purposes outside the application of that standard.
This is what makes it impossible to create GPL software covered by RAND licenses (where each of many patent holders says: Anyone can use my patents as needed for this standard, as long as they don't sue me for using _their_ patents as needed by the standard. ) This is a whole that the GPL dug for itself, and which the likes of Microsoft just love to exploit; it makes it possible to offer license terms that are nice and fair and not acceptable for GPL software, which perfectly fits their goals.
The problem is, most people pretty much think of the iPad as exactly what it *is*: a much bigger and bit more powerful iPhone.
My wife, who is unlike me straight right bang in the middle of the target group for the iPad, looks at an iPod Touch, and then she looks at an iPad, and she doesn't see the slightest similarity. To her, these are two completely unrelated devices. One is a music and video player that can also run games and show a web site on a useless tiny screen, the other is a web browsing and email computer that has lots of other applications, games on a big screen, video, and that also can play music. No similarity. None at all.
And you can argue with me all you like, if you tried to argue with her, she would just think you are being silly.
What hasn't been said loudly enough is that the stupid chart which all these discussions are based on is completely worthless. Under "April 2009" it shows the growth in percent from April 2008 to April 2009. Then under "May 2009" it shows the growth from May 2008 to May 2009, and so on. If the growth changes, then this can have two causes: A change of growth now, or a change of growth earlier.
Example: Sales April 2008 = 100, April 2009 = 500, May 2009 = 600. The chart will show 400% Year Over Year growth in April 2009. What will it show for May 2009? We don't know. It depends on the sales in May 2008. If these sales stayed constant from April 2008, then Year Over Year growth in May 2009 is from 100 to 600 = 500%. If sales doubled from April to May 2008, then May 2009 sales growth was from 200 to 600 = 200% only. In other words, we can look at this chart as much as we want, we don't know _anything_ about actual growth.
What would be needed to discuss this in any sensible way would be a chart with monthly unit sales. Then we could see how sales developed until March 2010, we could make an educated guess what sales should have been in April 2010 and compare with what they actually were, then we could look at estimated iPad sales of one million in April 2010 and compare that number with any deficit in April 2010 netbook sales compared to what we estimated. If netbook sales were down say 300,000 to 700,000 from what we estimated (and that might actually still be growth, if from looking at the chart we concluded that April 2010 sales should be 800,000 higher than March and they were only 100,000 higher then we would be 700,000 short from our estimate), then we might very very tentatively concluded that maybe the iPad is the cause. But we don't have this chart, so it is all completely bogus speculation.
But did this guy really say "[N]etbooks and sub-12-inch machines will sell 45.6 million units in 2011 and 60.3 million in 2013."? If he said that then he is a complete idiot. If you told me 2009 sales numbers with that precision then I wouldn't trust you. Nobody knows 2009 sales within 100,000 units. But Thurrott knows 2013 sales with that precision? What an idiot.
With all that said, Apple could very well be selling 10 million iPads world wide this year. If they do, then most of the money spent on iPads will be saved elsewhere. And you just wonder where. Netbooks? That is the most logical conclusion.
How does the accident happen? Does the speeder get rear-ended? Who tailgates a speeder?
On one long stretch that I drive daily there is a speed limit of 50 mph. Everyone drives around 50 to 55 mph, traffic permitting, with the exception of a few idiots who go much faster or slower. The problem is that lots of people have a TomTom with location of traffic cameras, and the idiots suddenly slow down to 40 mph. You actually need one of those devices yourself if you don't know the street, not to find out where you might get a speeding ticket, but where to expect drivers to slow down without any visible reason.
And who is talking about tailgating? Typical event: Speeder overtakes you, switches lanes so he is in front of you, spots camera, hits the brakes slowing down well beyond the speed limit and therefore well beyond your speed.
In reality, it's not unusual for parcels to carry a false statement of value if, for example, you order something from Hong Kong on eBay. I doubt anyone would really be pulled up on something like that, either, but if a major company made a habit of it I'm sure there would be issues.
For an ingenious use of "false statement of value" see: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
No, this is still not 150%, but it's more than three times the £20 that you said it was. Unless there is some other "sales tax" in the UK other than VAT, in which case you can call me an uninformed American and move on. :-)
Not uninformed, but non-thinking.
In the USA, the quoted price (the price you see in an advert or in a shop) is exclusive of sales tax / use tax. The US customer doesn't actually pay $499 for an iPad, they pay $499 plus whatever the sales tax is, say 8% = $39.92. The merchant receives $499 + $39.92 and sends $39.92 straight off to the tax office.
In the UK, the quote price (the price you see in an advert or in a shop) is inclusive of 17.5% VAT (value added tax). The UK customer hands over exactly the £429 on the sticker, not a penny more, and doesn't ow anybody any money afterwards. The merchant receives £429. £429 equals 117.5%, so the merchant pays 17.5% = £63.89 to the tax office and keeps 100% = £365.11.
The difference in tax rates has nothing to do with Apple, so if we are talking about Apple's price strategy and not about living costs, we have to leave the tax out. So what we have to compare is the $499 exclusive tax in the US and the £365.11 exclusive tax in the UK. And that is with the current exchange rate about $40 difference. Your number makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
It's not 150%, it's 126%. And the UK price includes 17.5% VAT which Apple would have to send straight to Gordon Brown's tax collectors if he hadn't just been thrown out (I think he is refusing to leave, but thank heavens he will), whereas the US price doesn't include US sales tax.
Y'know what gets people to slow down? A real cop, lighting you up, pulling you over, and having to sit by the side of the road (as you watch every car that was doing the speed limit glide on by for 20 minutes :) as you await your fate.
Here's what I think would also slow people down in an educational way: A device reading the speed of vehicles (no camera needed), made very obvious, followed by a traffic light 50-80 meters further down the road which will turn red when someone passes the reading device at too high a speed. So that going at or below the speed limit is the fastest way to get through.
Alternatively, since license plate readers should be getting cheaper, a reading device plus a display a bit further which displays your license plate, name of the car's owner and speed when you go too fast. A flashing light "reduce speed" on its own helps a lot where these things are installed in England; with the additional information I think it would work very well indeed to reduce speed.
This may come as a shock to you but there are millions of people who don't need to do "real work" with an electronic device. Not everyone compiles Linux kernels,
Does compiling Linux kernels count as "real work"?
So if being gay is genetic then how has that trait stayed in a gene pool where darwin says survival of the fittest? Is it a case like sickle cell where one pair of genes helps you fight off malaria where as 2 sets of the gene gives you sickle cell? That benefit is why it stays in the gene pool.
There are mathematical models showing that for a group of people, especially in hard times when food is hard to come buy, a small percentage of males who wouldn't procreate themselves but support the families of their brothers or sisters would be beneficial for the survival of the group as a whole.
As a programmer, the one most important thing you need to know about floating point is never test for equality (even with zero), almost define how near the answer need be, and test against that. double a,b; double epsilon = 1.0d-10;
That is nonsense. The important thing is that you know what you are doing. As an example, if you have four integers a, b, c, and d, and you want to know whether the mathematical fractions a/b and c/d have the same values, what would you think about checking (double) a / (double) b == (double) c / (double) d ? Would involving any epsilon help you?
Okay, maybe I oversimplify, but this seems fine to me: function NearlyEqual(a,b) { ... }
You'll have to add a few other functions. You'll want a function "PossiblyGreaterEqual" which returns true if a >= b or NearlyEqual (a, b) and "DefinitelyGreater" which returns true if a > b and not NearlyEqual (a, b); same for LessEqual. Then you need a new subtract operator that returns 0 for a-b if NearlyEqual (a, b) is true. And replacements for floor () and ceil (). It would be wrong if NearlyEqual (a,10) is true but floor (a) = 9.
And suddenly the thing gets very complicated.
Repeatability. If your code and language are standard-compliant, then you'll get the same floating-point math results as someone using another compliant language on any other platform. Not crucial for some tasks, but it certainly is for others, such as scientific work.
Wouldn't it be great if you could change a switch in your computer to change all double precision fp from 53 bit mantissa to 52 bit, and if your results are suddenly radically different then you know your first set of results couldn't be trusted?
Repeatability is highly overrated. It's no good if you get the wrong results, and a different computer system gets you identical wrong results.
Given the great complexity of dealing with floating point numbers properly, my first instinct, and my advice to anybody not already an expert on the subject, is to avoid them at all cost. Many algorithms can be redone in integers, similarly to Bresenham, and work without rounding errors at all. It's true that with SSE, floating point can sometimes be faster, but anyone who doesn't know what he's doing is vastly better off without it. At the very least, find a more experienced coworker and have him explain it to you before you shoot your foot off.
Anyone who is capable of changing an algorithm _correctly_ to use integer instead of floating point arithmetic would know how to make the floating point algorithm work correctly.
If you're using the x87, just give up. It is very hard to efficiently conform to IEEE on that evil beast. (even setting the control register to mung precision only affects the fraction, not the exponent, so you still have to store to memory and reload to properly set precision.)
Modern compilers use the SSE registers for double precision, so you don't have to worry about that anymore. And for 80 bit long double the original floating point registers behave correctly.
You're a troll. Jobs is clearly saying that Theora will be coming under attack from patent lawsuits. He's not saying that he's the one who will launch it, or support it. He's simply addressing the reasons why he won't support Theora.
We can be one hundred percent sure that if Theora was widely used (like built into Windows 8, MacOS X 10.7 and iPhone OS 5.0) then some patent trolls would come out of the woodwork and sue for patent infringement. It is less likely that they would have patents that should be valid, but you can lose a patent case even when the other side should lose not only by slashdot standards but by the standards of the law.
Breaking a EULA isn't illegal. There was a supreme court ruling in 1985 [findlaw.com] that dealt with installing software on unsupported hardware, the ruling was that you can't tie software to hardware.
1. Breach of a EULA isn't illegal, but it means that you lose _all_ rights to the software involved, including making _any_ copies that run _anywhere_. It's not the breach of the EULA that is your problem, it is the consequent copyright infringement. If Apple's EULA said "you have to pay us $10,000 for any copy that you install on a Dell computer", and you installed MacOS X on a Dell, you would most likely be able to argue that you don't have to pay $10,000 because you didn't agree to the EULA, but you would have to face the full consequences of your copyright infringement.
2. Data General vs. Digidyne is quoted again and again and again but it doesn't apply as long as you don't have hardware that can run MacOS X _and nothing else_. It might have applied when MacOS X ran on PowerPC if you built a PowerPC computer that can't run Windows, can't run Linux (but they can), and can only run MacOS X. But today, any computer capable of running MacOS X could run or could be easily changed to run Windows, so there is no reason why Apple should have to allow you to run MacOS X.
Apple could try to claim a DMCA violation; I do not know whether this would stand up in court, but the threat might be sufficient to scare vendors away.
It worked very well against Psystar, who is supposed to pay $2500 _per computer_ that they sold because of DMCA violation (not that Apple will ever see any of that money), while their illegal copying of MacOS X was only $30,000 for all copies. But there is also the point that those vendors rely on IP protection themselves to do business, so they won't do that kind of thing not because they are scared, but because they believe that not respecting copyrights is a bad thing.