it's great to see Mozilla shaping up. i've been trying out Mozilla on a regular basis since M4 (yeah, i'm a glutton for punishment), but it's only recently that i've been able to use it on my Windows machine at work as my primary browser.
at home however, i run the MacOS, and while IE 5.0 on MacOS 9 is still the best browser i've ever tried, i now run a later build of MacOS X for development purposes. IE 5.1 on MacOS X is severely lacking (a very poor carbon port), and i'd really like to make the switch to Mozilla on this platform. does anybody know what's going on with Fizzilla, the MacOS X port of Mozilla? specifically, i'd love to be able to run FizzillaMach that uses the UNIX code as a back end and a carbon port of the Mac code as the interface.
right now the latest build of Fizzilla is based on an early January nightly build, and while that's good, it still has some pretty nasty bugs that keep me from using it on OS X. it's a shame because the recent builds of Mozilla have been so good. does anybody know if there is there active development of Fizzilla? are they planning on releasing a new build, perhaps based off of 0.8? on March 24th a lot of people are going to be looking for a Mac OS X-native web browser, and IE is already going to be included in the dock by default. it's going to be important to have the Mozilla alternative available at that time.:I..
Still, it's cool and nice to see this sort of thing (see also Open Cores project, etc.) but at the moment it's a bit of academic fun and nothing more - you won't be throwing away your Athlons for now:)
and that's really the issue here: putting cores into an FPGA is nothing new, but i think the software-leaning slashdot crew need to get a handle on the sacrifices you make by using an FPGA (especially an SRAM-based FPGA like Xilinx or Altera). FPGAs are painfully slow when compared to an ASIC; they're really not even comparable. and when this chip doesn't even implement pipelining, it's going to have very few applications outside of casual, academic use.
while it may sound like a godsend to use VHDL to create hardware and put it in an FPGA, there's a really big difference between hardware and software. there are so many other steps that occur in creating an ASIC after the VHDL synthesis process, such as layout and floorplanning, that optimize an ASIC for speed and power consumption. an FPGA is only used to get a "rough" idea of the functionality of the chip, or to put simple "glue" logic on a board that doesn't justify spinning an ASIC. again, you really can't compare an FPGA-based processor to a real fabbed processor.
additionally, if you're looking to create a chip that you can actually use in any sort of device with reasonable speed and power consumption, you'd be much better off using a non-volatile technology FPGA from Actel or QuickLogic. while you sacrifice reprogrammability, you'll gain considerably faster speeds, considerably lower power consumption, and a lower cost chip. once you program these FPGAs they're programmed for life (so if you make a mistake you'll have to throw it out), but if you synthesize your design sufficiently using software, the benefits of such a device are far outwieghted by their lack of reprogrammability.
at any rate, the dream of "open source" hardware is a nice one, but it's not nearly as golden an opportunity as you'd think by reading the slashdot comments. hardware and software are two totally different beasts, and the tools and techniques that work on one are not guaranteed to work on the other. after working in the hardware and semiconductor fields long enough i realize that hardware companies have the really solid business models, and aren't going to see opensource as competition anywhere in the forseeable future. in fact, opensource is being embraced by the semiconductor industry to increase the "value add" of the hardware itself. i personally push Linux at my company as much as possible, as i firmly believe that selling software isn't a solid business model unless that software is highly specific, or your company enjoys a monopoly in your industry. as much as this community may want it, opensource hardware is a long way off. you'd be much better off working with hardware companies to show them why funding opensource projects is in their best interest (and as a nice co-incidence, also in the best interest of the open-source community).
right. i could see Apple supporting x86 in the future, but it would only be on x86 boxes that they make. they would gain the advantage of cheap parts and fast clockspeeds, but would still be able to make their money off of hardware. of course geeks could hack Darwin to support other x86 hardware, but none of this would be supported by Apple.
of course i also don't think Apple should sell OS X for x86. the G4 is a great chip, and everything that Apple is focusing on (graphics, multimedia, DVD burning) takes full advantage of the Altivec engine, and makes the G4 a cost-effective solution. what i'd really like to see is limited OS X on Intel licenses to companies like Compaq so that OS X-native (Cocoa) apps could run on some real server hardware (as an alternative to NT). ie: absolutely no support for consumer-level machines on x86, but allow others to take advantage of OS X's power in the server market--a market that Apple doesn't have the resources to invenst in themselves (the G4 "servers" are a joke).
but at any rate, opening up OS X to bargain-basement x86 computers would be a stupid move for Apple.
i was going to respond to this message myself, but you covered just about everything i wanted to say. after running OS X for a while i'm amazed at how familiar i am with things just from my BSD experience. the two are very similar.
the only real problem i can see is that OS X doesn't have an X-Server. this obviously makes buiding X-applications an impossibility (realistically). however from what i understand, work is going well on an X-Server running side-by-side with Aqua. when this happens, OS X will definitely be my UNIX workstation OS of choice.
I did build AfterStep on MOSXS without too much trouble, but that was after trying to get it to build on Solaris, which was pure hell.
this made me laugh, because i remember thinking this the other day. i've had way more problems compiling applications for Solaris (especially opensource applications) than i have for OS X/Darwin. i'd say that makes it pretty compatible:).
on a somewhat related topic, has anybody had any luck compiling BIND 9.1 on OS X? there seem to be issues with OS X and the ssl library that i'm definitely not qualified to fix. has anybody had any luck with this?
hahahaah.. oh Lord this is funny. have you even tried OS X? that is a classic amount of FUD. i can assure you that you're 100% wrong on every point, but thanks for the laugh.
i tried the Public Beta when it came out, and it was alright. i have a G3/350 at home, and it was pretty sluggish, especially with classic. i think i used the Public Beta for all of about four days before i gave up on it.
i got really curious recently however, and "procured" a copy of a more recent beta, build 4k33. the difference is like night and day: it now runs very efficiently on my G3, classic actually works like a charm, and despite a few little bugs here and there i've had absolutely no problems with it. about 90% of my issues with the interface have been fixed, and i've been using it as my primary OS for a few weeks now.
i've tried a lot of operating systems at the beta level over the years, but OS X is by far the most solid of any supposedly "beta" release i've ever seen; i think Apple finally got it right. OS X is well on its way to being the best operating system i've ever used.
On the other hand, if you published a magazine telling people where they could buy drugs, and encouraged dealers to advertise in your magazine, and set up your business office so the dealers could pay for their ads with cash and not leave records of their identities, I don't think the courts would let you off the hook.
good point, but this example of yours is a little different, because you're inferring that one would be collecting advertising and possibly subscription charges for your hypothetical Druggie's Quarterly. Napster, as it stands right now, is free. i'm not sure: does that make a difference in American law?
but here's an analogy that i think fits pretty well: i had a friend who used to grow lots of marijuana. i'd go with him on occassion to "hemp" stores that sold pipes, bongs, and a whole lot of growing equipment. they would also sell magazines that are about growing marijuana. it's quite obvious that a store such as this is around only to provide people with a means to break the law. if this is the case, then why were these stores allowed to operate? how is Napster different?
also, my original post was pretty much a re-hash of what the cluefull "pro-Napster" responses i've seen. it's certainly not worth +5 Insightful. moderators, go spend your karma someplace else: i already hit the cap long ago.
it still boggles my mind that anybody could actually argue that Napster should be shut down: they don't even distribute any copyrighted material! all Napster does is to tell people where to get information; information that may be copyrighted.
last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs. nor is it illegal to write a book telling people how to make pipe bombs. can anybody tell me why Napster is considered differently? as far as i can tell it's just people failing to see the parallels to existing situations only because they're ingnorant of the technology.
now you and i know that 99% of Napster users use the service to pirate RIAA music. personally i use it to distribute my own music (yes really, there are those of use who do this!), and to obtain obscure/out of print music. but regardless of how it's used, Napster still just provides information, and no actual files. if Napster were distributing MP3s themselves then it would be valid of course, but they're not. telling people how to do illegal things has always been protected under free speech: the Home Audio Recording Act doesn't even enter into it!
of course i'm still bitter about paying the RIAA every time i want to burn a CD of my own music. i guess i'd better get used to being stepped on by the RIAA.
the same as any uncompressed video or audio data: just drop the frames (ie, data loss). the damage would have to be pretty severe to be noticeable (ie in the video dropping out for a second), but it would still affect the quality. big deal: your telephone does it all the time. it's still an acceptable solution.
i remember reading up on these error messages a LONG time ago (at least six years) and thinking about how rarely i see 410 Gone. nowadays i sysadmin a couple of domains: do you know how to properly set this up in apache? i'd like to stick to the standard error codes as much as possible.
While I agree that one of the primary goals of OSS is to be Free (as in Freedom), that was not what the author was getting at. Corel was a company with a mandate to make money, as most corporations try to do.
so why didn't they base their distro on BSD? Apple's doing it correctly, and while they're being slammed by the Linux zealots, they'll probably make money off of their "open source" software.
at any rate, it's very obviously that Corel didn't understand the market they were getting into, and they're spiraling downwards because of it. it serves them right: to change the direction of your company without fully understanding the market you're getting into is very dangerous.
so the original poster is correct in his main point: they had no idea what they were doing.
i just hope that when they go out of business they don't take down the great software they bought from Metacreations with them.
i don't know what the issue here is. i have a lot of friend who are graphic artists. the artwork they create is copyrighted, and they get mighty pissed if anybody "rips" their artwork.
i don't see why it's any different in user interfaces. the interface is artwork, it's drawn by artists. some people come along and completely rip off that artwork and the artist's company sues. would you think any differently if some guy was going around painting exact replicas of artist's artwork and selling them?
the fact of the matter is that Apple's graphics are copyrighted, and only Apple should be allowed to use them, end of story. i side with Apple on this one.
ok, i'm getting really sick of the same old jokes here in every single patent thread. the joke oh yeah, well i'm going to patent {insert silly answer} is very old. we already had a "silly patents" contest, we don't need any more of these stupid messages clogging up the discussion. it wouldn't even be so bad except that these stupid jokes are being moderated to +5 Funny all the time.
so moderators please, use your moderator points on relevant patent-related discussion, not on the same stupid jokes please.
MacOS on Intel is a bad idea
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OS X on x86?
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i've seen it discussed here before, and i've given it a lot of thought (seeing as i jumped to the Mac platform last year for the sole purpose of being able to run MacOS X). and honestly, i don't think that MacOS on Intel is a good idea.
first of all Apple is primarily a hardware company. they make software to provide value-add for that hardware. i honestly think it's a good strategy: i think it's very difficult to make any serious money off of software unless your software is very specialized, or you have a monopoly on a certain segment. and with the rising popularity of open-source software, it only becomes more difficult to justify and existance based purely off of software sales. puttling MacOS X on common x86-based machines would completely destroy that business model.
secondly, the MacOS is more consistant (and i've found it quite stable when you get things organized right) because of the limited options available for hardware. all major plug-in cards and options are available, but when you start opening up your hardware to "cloning," you'll get a lot of the generic-taiwanese clone hardware coming out. this hardware is very cost sensitive, and the cheapest parts, development techniques and technologies are used. this makes less-than optimal hardware and it also makes people hand on to legacy technologies. why move to something that's better, but slightly more expensive (at a component level) when the old stuff is "good enough?" this is why we still have 25-year old serial and parallel ports on PCs. essentially cloning makes everything hightly price-oriented instead of highly feature-oriented. it's very difficult to fund research and development when your margins are a fraction of a percent.
Apple has taken the route of charging a premium for their hardware in order to subsidize good hardware, and new "legacy-free" technologies. and they've got to be good technologies they're funding, or you people wouldn't want it! i think in the end, this builds a better system.
as far as Apple hardware goes, it's very well designed. in fact, i would go so far as to propose this: there is nothing wrong with Apple hardware, except that they're forced to use slower PPC ships than they should.
and that's the catch in this plan: the fact that Motorola has fallen behind on process (note, not processor) technologies. they're more concerned with the embedded market, where PowerPC has a large marketshare (especially in networking equipment). i argue that if IBM or Motorola could produce high-speed G4s, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with Apple hardware, period.
i don't think x86 has any place in this plan, and that's fine. the only option i might agree with is that Apple may sometime move to x86-based processors, but support only Apple-made x86 boxes, and make no guarantees that non-Apple boxes will run MacOS X. it just doesn't make sense any other way. but switching processors is easier said than done, especially considering the large quantity of legacy apps, some of which really do benefit from the Altivec processors on the G4, and perform better than they would on x86. and if Apple is going to switch processors, why x86? just because of volume? why not switch to Sparc? or Alpha? why do the necessarily have to use the same chips as other PC manufacturers? the fact of the matter is that x86 is an antiquated technology, but a large amount of power is being sqeezed out of it purely by the market force, and a better processor, with even a fraction of the resources behind it, could overcome the gains made by Intel and AMD on the x86. which processor will that be?
so at any rate, MacOS X has no place on x86, and quite frankly i like it that way. if IBM were able to produce G4s (as they have phenomenal resources for chip production), Apple's machines would be considerably better than any PC i've ever seen. of course you have to pay a small premium for these machines, but in return you get better "non-legacy" technologies and better software. that sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.
Sun has Solaris available for x86. No doubt there was a lot of debate similar to what's happening.
that's totally different. the main reason Sun wanted Solaris on x86 was to attract developers. they found that a lot of companies had difficulty developing software for their Sparc boxes because they couldn't justify putting a Sparcstation on every developer's desks. they created Sparc x86 just so that developers (or more likely part-time developers) could create Solaris-based applications on cheaper hardware, and it would still compile and run on Solaris for Sparc.
Apple could follow a similar strategy to attract developers of course, but they'd get themselves into trouble from people who expect Apple to maintain consumer-level support for an operating system port that's targeted at developers.
Also, as Transmeta reduce feature sizes, they should be able to break into the embedded market at some stage over the next few years. I fear for Intels future, in this regard.
why do people keep gunning for Transmeta to go into the embedded market? why do you want antiquated x86-based chips in the embedded market anyhow?
x86 is still kicking because of backwards compatibility for PC applications. the embedded market doesn't need this kind of handicap! there are plenty of good embedded processors, such as PowerPC and MIPS, that are considerably better designed to meet the needs of true embedded applications.
now if you're talking about a Transmeta chip that's not simply x86 compatible, perhaps with more direct access to their "true" instruction set, that's different. but embedded devices shoudn't be cripped by a processor that's better designed for other tasks. use the right processor for the job!
i always put the name "Jim Green" with the email address jim@aol.com. i'm not exactly sure why i started using that name, but it's been at least five years now.
i imagine Jim isn't terribly impressed with the amount of spam he's received over the past few years though. oh well, better him than me, and it serves him right for using AOL;).
They now have a way to link that trail to you personally, not as just a unique user ID but to your name, address and phone number.
bullshit! where are they getting your name, address and phone number? Doubleclick tracks you by a number, and that's it. this is hardly an invasion of privacy, it's market research!
i agree with the original poster: i would much prefer targeted avertising than random advertising. advertisers are more likely to get the impressions they want and consumers are more likely to get the advertising that will interest them. advertising is not inherently evil, despite what some people here are inferring, and neither is market research.
i've read Doubleclick's terms of service and they seem quite reasonable: they're in the business of market research, and sell their database to advertisers. now that the FTC has assured us that they're doing nothing outside of their terms of service, i'm completely satisfied.
i camped out in the middle of the desert in Utah once. i headed back to the car from the campground to bring back a few jugs of water and while walking through a small valley i experienced complete silence for the very first time. it was an interesting sensation, but i'd have to agree with you that it was somewhat disturbing.
i also noticed a slight ringing in my ears that was later confirmed to be the beginnings of Tinnitis. i now wear earplugs when i DJ.;)
anyhow i now live in downtown Toronto a few blocks from a hospital, and about half a block from an... intersting... area of the core. i listen to the sounds of traffic, ambulances and police sirens as i dose off, and i like it.;)
Does anyone know of a small, sensible desktop platform based around the SA1110?
well if you're going to go non-x86, i'd consider a MIPS processor over an SA1110. there are lots of embedded computers (including Internet Applicances) that are being designed with MIPS processors. they're available from lots of different vendors too. Linux is generally the operating system of choice on these things, partially due to the strong commitment to the MIPS Linux port by SGI.
they don't use the "same set of Photoshop filters in every benchmark," for your information. they actually have real aritsts record layer actions of the complete creation of a piece of artwork (usually a movie poster, as they're done at very high resolution, and are quite large). it's not like they say "Guassian Blur x second on G3, y seconds on Pentium." what this means is that they actually get a sample of a whole suite of Photoshop filters.
i'm sure they pick the set of layer actions that shows the biggest difference between the two processors, but you can hardly blame them for that. the fact is, they don't select just certain filters each time, they actually show the creation from start to finish via Photoshop actions.
this reminds me of something i've realized as of late: i've only been a Mac user for about a year and half, and i used to think that Mac evangelists were so crazy, going on about the system all the time. now that i actually use Macs on a regular basis, i've learned why: there are a large group of people out there who have it dead set so deep in their mind that Apple can do nothing right that they find every opportunity to shoot them down. Mac users need to go on all the time just to stop the completely unsubtantiated rumours. Apple is not perfect, but they're not even remotely close to as evil, inefficient or overvalued as most people make them out to be (including just about everybody that posts here).
Slashdot Mirror
it's great to see Mozilla shaping up. i've been trying out Mozilla on a regular basis since M4 (yeah, i'm a glutton for punishment), but it's only recently that i've been able to use it on my Windows machine at work as my primary browser.
at home however, i run the MacOS, and while IE 5.0 on MacOS 9 is still the best browser i've ever tried, i now run a later build of MacOS X for development purposes. IE 5.1 on MacOS X is severely lacking (a very poor carbon port), and i'd really like to make the switch to Mozilla on this platform. does anybody know what's going on with Fizzilla, the MacOS X port of Mozilla? specifically, i'd love to be able to run FizzillaMach that uses the UNIX code as a back end and a carbon port of the Mac code as the interface.
right now the latest build of Fizzilla is based on an early January nightly build, and while that's good, it still has some pretty nasty bugs that keep me from using it on OS X. it's a shame because the recent builds of Mozilla have been so good. does anybody know if there is there active development of Fizzilla? are they planning on releasing a new build, perhaps based off of 0.8? on March 24th a lot of people are going to be looking for a Mac OS X-native web browser, and IE is already going to be included in the dock by default. it's going to be important to have the Mozilla alternative available at that time. :I ..
- j
Still, it's cool and nice to see this sort of thing (see also Open Cores project, etc.) but at the moment it's a bit of academic fun and nothing more - you won't be throwing away your Athlons for now :)
and that's really the issue here: putting cores into an FPGA is nothing new, but i think the software-leaning slashdot crew need to get a handle on the sacrifices you make by using an FPGA (especially an SRAM-based FPGA like Xilinx or Altera). FPGAs are painfully slow when compared to an ASIC; they're really not even comparable. and when this chip doesn't even implement pipelining, it's going to have very few applications outside of casual, academic use.
while it may sound like a godsend to use VHDL to create hardware and put it in an FPGA, there's a really big difference between hardware and software. there are so many other steps that occur in creating an ASIC after the VHDL synthesis process, such as layout and floorplanning, that optimize an ASIC for speed and power consumption. an FPGA is only used to get a "rough" idea of the functionality of the chip, or to put simple "glue" logic on a board that doesn't justify spinning an ASIC. again, you really can't compare an FPGA-based processor to a real fabbed processor.
additionally, if you're looking to create a chip that you can actually use in any sort of device with reasonable speed and power consumption, you'd be much better off using a non-volatile technology FPGA from Actel or QuickLogic. while you sacrifice reprogrammability, you'll gain considerably faster speeds, considerably lower power consumption, and a lower cost chip. once you program these FPGAs they're programmed for life (so if you make a mistake you'll have to throw it out), but if you synthesize your design sufficiently using software, the benefits of such a device are far outwieghted by their lack of reprogrammability.
at any rate, the dream of "open source" hardware is a nice one, but it's not nearly as golden an opportunity as you'd think by reading the slashdot comments. hardware and software are two totally different beasts, and the tools and techniques that work on one are not guaranteed to work on the other. after working in the hardware and semiconductor fields long enough i realize that hardware companies have the really solid business models, and aren't going to see opensource as competition anywhere in the forseeable future. in fact, opensource is being embraced by the semiconductor industry to increase the "value add" of the hardware itself. i personally push Linux at my company as much as possible, as i firmly believe that selling software isn't a solid business model unless that software is highly specific, or your company enjoys a monopoly in your industry. as much as this community may want it, opensource hardware is a long way off. you'd be much better off working with hardware companies to show them why funding opensource projects is in their best interest (and as a nice co-incidence, also in the best interest of the open-source community).
- j
right. i could see Apple supporting x86 in the future, but it would only be on x86 boxes that they make. they would gain the advantage of cheap parts and fast clockspeeds, but would still be able to make their money off of hardware. of course geeks could hack Darwin to support other x86 hardware, but none of this would be supported by Apple.
of course i also don't think Apple should sell OS X for x86. the G4 is a great chip, and everything that Apple is focusing on (graphics, multimedia, DVD burning) takes full advantage of the Altivec engine, and makes the G4 a cost-effective solution. what i'd really like to see is limited OS X on Intel licenses to companies like Compaq so that OS X-native (Cocoa) apps could run on some real server hardware (as an alternative to NT). ie: absolutely no support for consumer-level machines on x86, but allow others to take advantage of OS X's power in the server market--a market that Apple doesn't have the resources to invenst in themselves (the G4 "servers" are a joke).
but at any rate, opening up OS X to bargain-basement x86 computers would be a stupid move for Apple.
- j
i was going to respond to this message myself, but you covered just about everything i wanted to say. after running OS X for a while i'm amazed at how familiar i am with things just from my BSD experience. the two are very similar.
the only real problem i can see is that OS X doesn't have an X-Server. this obviously makes buiding X-applications an impossibility (realistically). however from what i understand, work is going well on an X-Server running side-by-side with Aqua. when this happens, OS X will definitely be my UNIX workstation OS of choice.
I did build AfterStep on MOSXS without too much trouble, but that was after trying to get it to build on Solaris, which was pure hell.
this made me laugh, because i remember thinking this the other day. i've had way more problems compiling applications for Solaris (especially opensource applications) than i have for OS X/Darwin. i'd say that makes it pretty compatibleon a somewhat related topic, has anybody had any luck compiling BIND 9.1 on OS X? there seem to be issues with OS X and the ssl library that i'm definitely not qualified to fix. has anybody had any luck with this?
- j
hahahaah .. oh Lord this is funny. have you even tried OS X? that is a classic amount of FUD. i can assure you that you're 100% wrong on every point, but thanks for the laugh.
- j
i tried the Public Beta when it came out, and it was alright. i have a G3/350 at home, and it was pretty sluggish, especially with classic. i think i used the Public Beta for all of about four days before i gave up on it.
i got really curious recently however, and "procured" a copy of a more recent beta, build 4k33. the difference is like night and day: it now runs very efficiently on my G3, classic actually works like a charm, and despite a few little bugs here and there i've had absolutely no problems with it. about 90% of my issues with the interface have been fixed, and i've been using it as my primary OS for a few weeks now.
i've tried a lot of operating systems at the beta level over the years, but OS X is by far the most solid of any supposedly "beta" release i've ever seen; i think Apple finally got it right. OS X is well on its way to being the best operating system i've ever used.
- j
On the other hand, if you published a magazine telling people where they could buy drugs, and encouraged dealers to advertise in your magazine, and set up your business office so the dealers could pay for their ads with cash and not leave records of their identities, I don't think the courts would let you off the hook.
good point, but this example of yours is a little different, because you're inferring that one would be collecting advertising and possibly subscription charges for your hypothetical Druggie's Quarterly. Napster, as it stands right now, is free. i'm not sure: does that make a difference in American law?
but here's an analogy that i think fits pretty well: i had a friend who used to grow lots of marijuana. i'd go with him on occassion to "hemp" stores that sold pipes, bongs, and a whole lot of growing equipment. they would also sell magazines that are about growing marijuana. it's quite obvious that a store such as this is around only to provide people with a means to break the law. if this is the case, then why were these stores allowed to operate? how is Napster different?
also, my original post was pretty much a re-hash of what the cluefull "pro-Napster" responses i've seen. it's certainly not worth +5 Insightful. moderators, go spend your karma someplace else: i already hit the cap long ago.
- j
it still boggles my mind that anybody could actually argue that Napster should be shut down: they don't even distribute any copyrighted material! all Napster does is to tell people where to get information; information that may be copyrighted.
last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs. nor is it illegal to write a book telling people how to make pipe bombs. can anybody tell me why Napster is considered differently? as far as i can tell it's just people failing to see the parallels to existing situations only because they're ingnorant of the technology.
now you and i know that 99% of Napster users use the service to pirate RIAA music. personally i use it to distribute my own music (yes really, there are those of use who do this!), and to obtain obscure/out of print music. but regardless of how it's used, Napster still just provides information, and no actual files. if Napster were distributing MP3s themselves then it would be valid of course, but they're not. telling people how to do illegal things has always been protected under free speech: the Home Audio Recording Act doesn't even enter into it!
of course i'm still bitter about paying the RIAA every time i want to burn a CD of my own music. i guess i'd better get used to being stepped on by the RIAA.
- j
the same as any uncompressed video or audio data: just drop the frames (ie, data loss). the damage would have to be pretty severe to be noticeable (ie in the video dropping out for a second), but it would still affect the quality. big deal: your telephone does it all the time. it's still an acceptable solution.
- j
i remember reading up on these error messages a LONG time ago (at least six years) and thinking about how rarely i see 410 Gone. nowadays i sysadmin a couple of domains: do you know how to properly set this up in apache? i'd like to stick to the standard error codes as much as possible.
- j
While I agree that one of the primary goals of OSS is to be Free (as in Freedom), that was not what the author was getting at. Corel was a company with a mandate to make money, as most corporations try to do.
so why didn't they base their distro on BSD? Apple's doing it correctly, and while they're being slammed by the Linux zealots, they'll probably make money off of their "open source" software.
at any rate, it's very obviously that Corel didn't understand the market they were getting into, and they're spiraling downwards because of it. it serves them right: to change the direction of your company without fully understanding the market you're getting into is very dangerous.
so the original poster is correct in his main point: they had no idea what they were doing.
i just hope that when they go out of business they don't take down the great software they bought from Metacreations with them.
- j
ahem, that subject should read copyRIGHTed .. woops .. gotta learn to preview. ;)
- j
i don't know what the issue here is. i have a lot of friend who are graphic artists. the artwork they create is copyrighted, and they get mighty pissed if anybody "rips" their artwork.
i don't see why it's any different in user interfaces. the interface is artwork, it's drawn by artists. some people come along and completely rip off that artwork and the artist's company sues. would you think any differently if some guy was going around painting exact replicas of artist's artwork and selling them?
the fact of the matter is that Apple's graphics are copyrighted, and only Apple should be allowed to use them, end of story. i side with Apple on this one.
- j
ha ha ha ho ho ho. woo boy you're a funny one!
ok, i'm getting really sick of the same old jokes here in every single patent thread. the joke oh yeah, well i'm going to patent {insert silly answer} is very old. we already had a "silly patents" contest, we don't need any more of these stupid messages clogging up the discussion. it wouldn't even be so bad except that these stupid jokes are being moderated to +5 Funny all the time.
so moderators please, use your moderator points on relevant patent-related discussion, not on the same stupid jokes please.
- j
if GUIs were designed better then the mouse wouldn't be quite as useless.
(i bet you all thought that was a goatse.cx link, didn't you?)
- j
Honestly, journalists should be forced to pass some kind of critical thinking test before being given a pen.
a pen? who needs a pen when you have Microsoft Word? ;)
- j
a tough cookie to crack
cookie? er .. nut? ;)
- j
i've seen it discussed here before, and i've given it a lot of thought (seeing as i jumped to the Mac platform last year for the sole purpose of being able to run MacOS X). and honestly, i don't think that MacOS on Intel is a good idea.
first of all Apple is primarily a hardware company. they make software to provide value-add for that hardware. i honestly think it's a good strategy: i think it's very difficult to make any serious money off of software unless your software is very specialized, or you have a monopoly on a certain segment. and with the rising popularity of open-source software, it only becomes more difficult to justify and existance based purely off of software sales. puttling MacOS X on common x86-based machines would completely destroy that business model.
secondly, the MacOS is more consistant (and i've found it quite stable when you get things organized right) because of the limited options available for hardware. all major plug-in cards and options are available, but when you start opening up your hardware to "cloning," you'll get a lot of the generic-taiwanese clone hardware coming out. this hardware is very cost sensitive, and the cheapest parts, development techniques and technologies are used. this makes less-than optimal hardware and it also makes people hand on to legacy technologies. why move to something that's better, but slightly more expensive (at a component level) when the old stuff is "good enough?" this is why we still have 25-year old serial and parallel ports on PCs. essentially cloning makes everything hightly price-oriented instead of highly feature-oriented. it's very difficult to fund research and development when your margins are a fraction of a percent.
Apple has taken the route of charging a premium for their hardware in order to subsidize good hardware, and new "legacy-free" technologies. and they've got to be good technologies they're funding, or you people wouldn't want it! i think in the end, this builds a better system.
as far as Apple hardware goes, it's very well designed. in fact, i would go so far as to propose this: there is nothing wrong with Apple hardware, except that they're forced to use slower PPC ships than they should.
and that's the catch in this plan: the fact that Motorola has fallen behind on process (note, not processor) technologies. they're more concerned with the embedded market, where PowerPC has a large marketshare (especially in networking equipment). i argue that if IBM or Motorola could produce high-speed G4s, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with Apple hardware, period.
i don't think x86 has any place in this plan, and that's fine. the only option i might agree with is that Apple may sometime move to x86-based processors, but support only Apple-made x86 boxes, and make no guarantees that non-Apple boxes will run MacOS X. it just doesn't make sense any other way. but switching processors is easier said than done, especially considering the large quantity of legacy apps, some of which really do benefit from the Altivec processors on the G4, and perform better than they would on x86. and if Apple is going to switch processors, why x86? just because of volume? why not switch to Sparc? or Alpha? why do the necessarily have to use the same chips as other PC manufacturers? the fact of the matter is that x86 is an antiquated technology, but a large amount of power is being sqeezed out of it purely by the market force, and a better processor, with even a fraction of the resources behind it, could overcome the gains made by Intel and AMD on the x86. which processor will that be?
so at any rate, MacOS X has no place on x86, and quite frankly i like it that way. if IBM were able to produce G4s (as they have phenomenal resources for chip production), Apple's machines would be considerably better than any PC i've ever seen. of course you have to pay a small premium for these machines, but in return you get better "non-legacy" technologies and better software. that sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.
- j
Sun has Solaris available for x86. No doubt there was a lot of debate similar to what's happening.
that's totally different. the main reason Sun wanted Solaris on x86 was to attract developers. they found that a lot of companies had difficulty developing software for their Sparc boxes because they couldn't justify putting a Sparcstation on every developer's desks. they created Sparc x86 just so that developers (or more likely part-time developers) could create Solaris-based applications on cheaper hardware, and it would still compile and run on Solaris for Sparc.
Apple could follow a similar strategy to attract developers of course, but they'd get themselves into trouble from people who expect Apple to maintain consumer-level support for an operating system port that's targeted at developers.
so at any rate, it's not really the same thing.
- j
Also, as Transmeta reduce feature sizes, they should be able to break into the embedded market at some stage over the next few years. I fear for Intels future, in this regard.
why do people keep gunning for Transmeta to go into the embedded market? why do you want antiquated x86-based chips in the embedded market anyhow?
x86 is still kicking because of backwards compatibility for PC applications. the embedded market doesn't need this kind of handicap! there are plenty of good embedded processors, such as PowerPC and MIPS, that are considerably better designed to meet the needs of true embedded applications.
now if you're talking about a Transmeta chip that's not simply x86 compatible, perhaps with more direct access to their "true" instruction set, that's different. but embedded devices shoudn't be cripped by a processor that's better designed for other tasks. use the right processor for the job!
- j
i always put the name "Jim Green" with the email address jim@aol.com. i'm not exactly sure why i started using that name, but it's been at least five years now.
i imagine Jim isn't terribly impressed with the amount of spam he's received over the past few years though. oh well, better him than me, and it serves him right for using AOL ;).
- j
They now have a way to link that trail to you personally, not as just a unique user ID but to your name, address and phone number.
bullshit! where are they getting your name, address and phone number? Doubleclick tracks you by a number, and that's it. this is hardly an invasion of privacy, it's market research!
i agree with the original poster: i would much prefer targeted avertising than random advertising. advertisers are more likely to get the impressions they want and consumers are more likely to get the advertising that will interest them. advertising is not inherently evil, despite what some people here are inferring, and neither is market research.
i've read Doubleclick's terms of service and they seem quite reasonable: they're in the business of market research, and sell their database to advertisers. now that the FTC has assured us that they're doing nothing outside of their terms of service, i'm completely satisfied.
- j
i camped out in the middle of the desert in Utah once. i headed back to the car from the campground to bring back a few jugs of water and while walking through a small valley i experienced complete silence for the very first time. it was an interesting sensation, but i'd have to agree with you that it was somewhat disturbing.
;)
... intersting ... area of the core. i listen to the sounds of traffic, ambulances and police sirens as i dose off, and i like it. ;)
i also noticed a slight ringing in my ears that was later confirmed to be the beginnings of Tinnitis. i now wear earplugs when i DJ.
anyhow i now live in downtown Toronto a few blocks from a hospital, and about half a block from an
- j
Does anyone know of a small, sensible desktop platform based around the SA1110?
well if you're going to go non-x86, i'd consider a MIPS processor over an SA1110. there are lots of embedded computers (including Internet Applicances) that are being designed with MIPS processors. they're available from lots of different vendors too. Linux is generally the operating system of choice on these things, partially due to the strong commitment to the MIPS Linux port by SGI.
- j
they don't use the "same set of Photoshop filters in every benchmark," for your information. they actually have real aritsts record layer actions of the complete creation of a piece of artwork (usually a movie poster, as they're done at very high resolution, and are quite large). it's not like they say "Guassian Blur x second on G3, y seconds on Pentium." what this means is that they actually get a sample of a whole suite of Photoshop filters.
i'm sure they pick the set of layer actions that shows the biggest difference between the two processors, but you can hardly blame them for that. the fact is, they don't select just certain filters each time, they actually show the creation from start to finish via Photoshop actions.
this reminds me of something i've realized as of late: i've only been a Mac user for about a year and half, and i used to think that Mac evangelists were so crazy, going on about the system all the time. now that i actually use Macs on a regular basis, i've learned why: there are a large group of people out there who have it dead set so deep in their mind that Apple can do nothing right that they find every opportunity to shoot them down. Mac users need to go on all the time just to stop the completely unsubtantiated rumours. Apple is not perfect, but they're not even remotely close to as evil, inefficient or overvalued as most people make them out to be (including just about everybody that posts here).
- j