It does seem like the Amazon terms are actually less restrictive than those coming with a CD, which is surprising, but a very good thing and certainly evidence that things can get better. Ten years ago I'd never have imagined that something like the Amazon MP3 store could be legal. (I am a big fan.)
To be fair, the terms of use for Amazon's MP3 Store permit every one of those things when you buy your licence to listen to a particular album. You are explicitly allowed to make copies for personal, non-commercial use, including backups and copies for portable devices. See for yourself. You are simply not allowed to share, broadcast, rent or resell them, which is hardly unreasonable.
I know you're just joking, and yes, "whoosh", but things are not as bad as you make out.
And I'm telling you that the reason is irrelevant. What matters is the principle. Is it right to create more of something, when you could get something else that already exists and is just as good?
Are you able to come up with any reason why it's ok to create your own children, but it's not ok to breed dogs, which does not rely on any assumptions about the motivations for either action?
The core of your argument against not rescuing dogs is that there are already too many dogs needing rehoming, so no more dogs should be born.
That is to say: "There are too many already, therefore nobody should be allowed to create more".
Do you see that this has nothing to do with buying or selling? The motive for breeding dogs may be different to the motive for having children, but motive is irrelevant because the argument is about numbers: "too many already".
I don't see why I should defend myself and my views further, particularly as whatever I say will be misrepresented, assumed to be stupid and ignorant, and mixed with false claims such as "they care about profit more". In fact most breeders make only a tiny profit. You also believe I have never been to any rescue centres and that I have not taken advice from rescue centre staff, even though I said that I had in my first post.
Can't we both be right? No, because while I agree that rescuing dogs is a good thing and appropriate for some, you insist that no alternative to rescuing can ever be permitted.
Many thousands of children across the UK are in need of adoption. Is it wrong to decide to have your own children rather than adopting one of them? By becoming a parent, are you not part of the problem rather than the solution? I am sure that many parents would be very keen to hear your views on that subject.
No I did not, I merely cited it as a common phrase, which is misleading and incorrect.
Not so. I said this:
"As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train"
and then you replied:
This simply isn't true, the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a complete myth.
Thus implying that I thought you couldn't train an older dog, when in fact I just said it was more difficult. Which is true. And you even agree, because your claim that "there's no reason it'd be harder to teach an adult dog than a young dog" is qualified with the statement "Providing your dog doesn't have more serious underlying issues", a qualification that weakens your statement to the point of irrelevance, since you are effectively saying that it's easy to train a dog unless it isn't.
Let us return to the starting point. You maintain that (1) most breeders are bad, and (2) they contribute to a larger problem, namely that not enough people rescue dogs. I disagree with the first part on the grounds that most breeders care about dogs as much as anyone and are thoroughly decent types. I think you're not in full command of the facts and your view of the KC in particular is as one-sided as "Pedigree Dogs Exposed".
But the second part is unassailably true. More people should rescue dogs. However, nobody should be forced to rescue a dog or not have a dog at all. There must be a choice, and you are wrong to assume that someone decides to get a puppy rather than a rescue dog out of ignorance, selfishness or idiocy.
I used that example firstly to illustrate that some rehoming centres share the problems you attribute to breeders, and secondly to illustrate the difficulty of training certain things with an older dog, which I had thought was common knowledge amongst dog owners.
Working dog breeders are the rare exception of course.
Thankyou for finally acknowledging that some breeders are interested in health before looks. Even though you still think this applies exclusively to working dog breeders, that's some progress at least. And I will point out that working dog breeders are not rare at all. The most popular breeds are gundogs and sheep dogs; all working types and bred to be "healthy and effective in some role". Could it be that the bad breeders are actually in a minority?
Is there "little point debating this"? Undoubtedly, not least because you have twice attributed views to me that I do not hold and have not stated. First you claimed I said "you can't teach an old dog new tricks", and now you claim that I "can't see the difference between breeding for looks... and breeding dogs to be healthy". So perhaps we should leave it here.
This simply isn't true, the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a complete myth. Providing your dog doesn't have more serious underlying issues (which in themselves can often still be fixed) there's no reason it'd be harder to teach an adult dog than a young dog- I was teaching my old dog new tricks up until it was 15.
I didn't say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, I said it is "more difficult" to teach an old dog new tricks:
when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train, and bad behaviour is not easy to correct
This is pretty well known, analogous to the difference between teaching a young child a second language, and learning that second language in middle age.
And I must be clear that I am not talking about tricks. I am talking about key elements of socialisation. Aggressive and/or timid dogs were not properly socialised as pups and it is incredibly hard to reverse this later; similarly for dogs who are frightened of loud noises or unhappy to be left alone for short periods. I mentioned one example known to me of a dog who was irresponsibly rehomed by a greyhound centre - its owners (and myself) have tried in vain to teach this dog to tolerate sleeping by himself overnight without success. I think they've got him to sleep outside their bedroom now, but that took years. They'd have done it in a couple of days if they'd got him as a pup.
For my breed of dog, labradors, I think the KC is very effective in what it does. The minimum standard for breeders ensures that pups and their parents are healthy, and parents have always been "hip and eye scored" by a vet. These are tests to detect various hereditary problems which are being eliminated from the gene pool by that horrible old "selective breeding" that everyone hates so much, though no dog would exist without it.
I never said that your choice was wrong, just that you are being unfair to dog breeders.
Some breeders are bad people, but many are not. They are just as concerned with the health and wellbeing of their dogs as you are. But you seem to think that absolutely all of them are bad people, just like the ones featured on that infamous BBC documentary. My view is that the KC is an important de-facto regulator for dog breeding, with extensive power to prevent inbreeding and genetic problems while also setting a high minimum standard for breeders. Don't you agree that dog breeding should be regulated in some way? Well, it already is.
Some rehoming centres are also quite bad. I know of a greyhound centre that rehomed one particular dog who was utterly unsuited to domestic life and has caused much trouble and distress to his new owners, as well as being a chronically miserable dog. I doubt he would have been rehomed by a more reputable service, such as the RSPCA, but alas the centre is overwhelmed, short of money, and only concerned with getting him out of the door.
I believe that rescue dogs require owners who are either experienced or lucky. As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train, and bad behaviour is not easy to correct. A beginner may be lucky and get a dog who has already been properly socialised and trained. Then again, he may get a dog that requires expert assistance, which would be unfortunate for the dog as well as the owner.
I made my decision to get my dogs from puppyhood based not only on extensive research into breeds, but also on advice from rehoming centres, and to be quite honest it is somewhat upsetting that you should tell me that I'm doing it wrong. In the future I may return to a rehoming centre, armed with years of knowledge about dogs, but in the meantime I am very happy to have been personally responsible for every aspect of training and socialisation for my dogs.
II'm disgusted by your assumption that my interest in dogs is an "investment" about "getting the most for [my] money". These are horrible things to suggest, and it reflects very badly upon you that you would attribute them to someone else.
In fact my concern is entirely based on the welfare of the dogs I own. Money is irrelevant, but planning is important, and making sure that you get a dog who is right for you is essential. A rescue dog is not the right choice for everyone and the worst way to treat a rescue dog is to rehome him inappropriately.
I don't know if you intended to, but you tar all breeders with the same brush. In the UK you cannot buy a dog in any shop. You must go directly to a breeder. This requires research and investigation.
Because dogs cannot be bought on impulse, this research is bound to turn up information about "puppy mills" and poor quality breeders. Dog magazines are perpetually filled with warnings about this, and danger signs to look out for. Similar information appears online, on the very sites you might search to find a nearby breeder.
One obvious piece of advice is to only consider KC accredited breeders. Dogs bought from these breeders cannot possibly have been "farmed", since their ancestry is registered with the KC, providing an easy mechanism to detect and prevent mass production.
I first saw my new puppy when she was 4 weeks old and ran through all the usual checks with the breeder before agreeing to buy. I was very keen to make sure that I was not buying a puppy that had been "farmed" elsewhere, and that the parents were healthy, and that they were the "real" parents and not substitutes. I collected the puppy 4 weeks later, in line with the breed recommendations.
I don't doubt that there are bad breeders, but I think anyone with the slightest sense will easily be able to avoid them. This would not be so easy if the dogs were on sale in a shop with breeder, sire and dam nowhere in sight. However, that is not the British way.
A total ban on all dog sales would stop legitimate, responsible breeders. This would not be a good thing.
After all, getting a rescue dog is great, but it's only for experienced dog owners, because the rescue dog may come with all sorts of behavioural problems. And then what? You cannot take the dog back, that would only make him even more unhappy. You have to deal with the problems as best you can.
So, where does the necessary experience come from? The answer must be that it comes from training dogs who do not come with behavioural problems, such as dogs bought as puppies from a reputable breeder. If you ban dog sales, you also prevent people gaining the sort of experience they would need to be effective rescuers.
No, I want a situation like the one on the PC, where the basic architecture is completely standard, and "technical development" builds on top of that. This is best for users and OEMs and OS developers. You are, I am sure, not about to tell me that there have been no innovations on the PC architecture as a result of its continued compatibility with the original 1980s design.
The problem, as I see it, is that SoC designers are behaving as if their products were for embedded systems only. For products of this sort it is usual to have custom BSPs and custom Linux kernels. But these days the products are used in devices which are computers rather than embedded systems. Here, custom BSPs and custom kernels are an inconvenience that prevents end users and OEMs using off-the-shelf OSs. The mainline Linux kernel struggles to accommodate all of the SoC variants. There are too many and they are too different. If only the basic stuff was standard.
Quite right. Good explanation of the issues. Fans of Linux and ARM often have difficulty grasping why support for the CPU architecture is not enough. Linux must support the system architecture as well, and if every SoC has a different architecture (and they do), then that's going to be really messy.
I don't know if such a standard SoC description format could ever exist in a useful form. Anything even moderately complex would require driver code, not just descriptive data. Descriptions produced by vendors would inevitably be buggy, like ACPI data. This solution would probably just make the problem worse.
It would be much better to simply standardise the SoC, so that every ARM system has the same basic elements. Just like a PC, where the interrupt controller and memory are always in the same place, and the timer always has the same register map.
I assume that SoC vendors do not do this because (1) they don't need to, (2) they want to have "value-added" features like their own custom power management subsystem, and (3) the diversity makes it harder to use a different SoC as a drop-in replacement.
But they should standardise. There's no advantage to the user, the OEM, or the OS developers in having so many different SoCs.
I closed my Citi account based on the very poor quality of their internet banking system and concerns about its security... concerns which I explained in writing.
Their internet banking system was filled with obviously half-assed security measures. For instance, you could send a "secure email" to customer support - but the email couldn't contain any character that might be used in a SQL injection attack (e.g. quote marks). If it did, then clicking Send led you to an error page, and of course you weren't told what parts of the email were causing the problem, or given an opportunity to re-edit it.
It was as if they understood that attacks were possible, but had no clue about the right way to deal with them. If anything, it seems I underestimated how incompetent they were.
I did wonder what was with the sprite glitches. Sometimes sprites vanish, other times you can see them through walls. I've never seen anything like that in a Doom port. It shouldn't be possible unless the rendering code is changed. However, they say that no significant source changes were made, so I can't help wondering if I'm actually seeing the results of a compiler bug...
If you are Christian and you expect to be raptured, you have already committed a major sin, namely pride. If you find any Christians who actually think they're good enough to deserve priority entry to Heaven, you could always point out that just entertaining that particular belief probably excludes them.
You misunderstand. You appear to think I am talking about drivers, but I am really not. The BSP (board support package) is a much lower-level entity than that. While it does contain drivers, they are drivers for things that the OS needs immediately and cannot load at a later stage, such as the interrupt controller and the timer. The location and size of usable RAM come from the BSP, which will also specify the interrupt mapping and the locations of peripheral controllers such as the PCI configuration register. Clearly, without these critical details, the OS cannot do anything at all.
The x86 BSP for Linux is here. There is one basic BSP, and a few special cases for improved support of unusual sorts of PC.
The ARM BSPs for Linux are here. There are more than 40, and this does not account for every ARM platform.
You are surely right that one kernel could include multiple BSPs and pick one after identifying the host architecture somehow. Tricky, but possible. However, even once achieved, this has practical problems. It is much better to standardise on one platform, because standardising means less compiling, less testing, fewer things to go wrong, and lower support costs. This is good for software vendors, OEMs, and users. It would be much easier to produce Ubuntu for ARM if ARM meant "one platform" rather than "every platform is different and very low-level parts of the kernel must support all of them".
Compatibility and interoperability also mean choice. If your manufacturer stops producing updates for your netbook, then it doesn't matter. You can use the same updates as everyone else.
Finally, the problems that prevent Windows booting on motherboard X when installed on motherboard Y are nothing to do with the BSP and everything to do with drivers that are loaded at a later stage.
No, it really isn't. Because the (16-bit) BIOS is not used after the (32/64-bit) kernel boots, the kernel has to include the BSP. And there is only one generic BSP for all x86 PCs.
For instance, when the x86 Linux (or Windows) kernel boots, it finds devices on the PCI/PCIe buses using IO ports 0xcf8 and 0xcfc. This is common to all PCs with PCI buses. The location is always the same, the access protocol is always the same. Combined with similar standards for graphics, the keyboard, the interrupt controller, the timer, the RTC and the RAM itself, this enables one kernel to boot on every x86 motherboard. It is a major, major advantage of the PC.
It sounds like the market will be initially split between the four different SoCs. Maybe you are right and one of them will dominate, forcing the other SoC makers to replicate that design in order to stay in business. On the other hand, maybe the four-way choice will just confuse and annoy customers who will regard all four ARM platforms as risky investments and buy x86 PCs instead... these being a safe, established choice. That's certainly what I would do; you don't want to be an early adopter of Betamax (HD-DVD) if there's still a risk that the industry will standardise on VHS (Bluray) and stop supporting anything else.
I'd agree absolutely, it is not so difficult to have compatibility in "user mode", unless something really crazy is going on (like, some SoCs have VFP, NEON and Thumb while others don't.. which seems unlikely).
But I don't like the idea of being reliant on the hardware vendor for OS updates, or (for that matter) being locked in to a particular OS because nothing else works on this highly specific platform. Android users have already suffered whenever telcos, vendors and manufacturers have failed to provide timely system updates. It's very important that the primary software source - Microsoft, in this case - has a way to bypass the OEMs and bring updates direct to every user.
And that is the really shocking thing that will actually kill the platform - fragmentation. All of these different versions will be incompatible with each other, forwards and backwards. Intel must be laughing their asses off.
The lack of a standard "ARM platform" has already been a big problem for Linux netbooks. They're all x86 because each ARM platform is different and requires a different BSP, making ongoing support a complete nightmare. I have to say, I really expected Microsoft to force the ARM SoC makers to standardise.
The lack of any sort of x86 emulator is really the icing on the cake. The big advantage of Windows is gone. But I suppose there is still a possibility of a third-party emulator like the original Virtual PC for Mac.
Doubtful, because even if opinions of others are hidden, the crowd is still only good at solving problems that most of the individuals within it (1) understand, and (2) can actually solve.
Crowdsourcing works well if the point is to find the most popular answer. However, it is almost useless as a way to find the correct answer. It will only do so if the correct answer is really, really obvious.
Ever see the game show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" If the contestant gets a difficult question, he/she can "Ask the audience", who then vote for the answer they think is right. This works well for questions about pop music and sport. It doesn't work so well for questions about history or particle physics, where people appear to vote randomly. If there are a few actual experts in the audience, their votes are still drowned out by the (random) votes of the masses. It is bad strategy to use "Ask the audience" on such questions, because the game is not "Family Feud". The point is not to find the most popular answer, but the correct one.
At some point in the future, humanity will look back on the present and ask how we ever expected democracy to work.
Desktop Windows can have different frontends to suit particular applications. "Media Center" would be one example - intended to be displayed on a large TV and operated by remote control from some distance away.
No reason why there couldn't also be cellphone frontends for desktop Windows. The frontend would do all the smartphone stuff you are used to. But there would be support for regular Windows desktop applications as well. App store optional, no jailbreak necessary, any Windows app will just work.
Sounds pretty useful to me. And not just me. On this very site I often see posts from people hoping for a combined cellphone/PC that is dockable, so they can take the same applications everywhere. Maybe they would prefer it ran Linux on ARM, but Windows on x86 would be much more useful for the mass market required to commoditise the technology.
Slashdot Mirror
It does seem like the Amazon terms are actually less restrictive than those coming with a CD, which is surprising, but a very good thing and certainly evidence that things can get better. Ten years ago I'd never have imagined that something like the Amazon MP3 store could be legal. (I am a big fan.)
To be fair, the terms of use for Amazon's MP3 Store permit every one of those things when you buy your licence to listen to a particular album. You are explicitly allowed to make copies for personal, non-commercial use, including backups and copies for portable devices. See for yourself. You are simply not allowed to share, broadcast, rent or resell them, which is hardly unreasonable.
I know you're just joking, and yes, "whoosh", but things are not as bad as you make out.
And I'm telling you that the reason is irrelevant. What matters is the principle. Is it right to create more of something, when you could get something else that already exists and is just as good?
Are you able to come up with any reason why it's ok to create your own children, but it's not ok to breed dogs, which does not rely on any assumptions about the motivations for either action?
No. Try to follow this:
For some reason, people decide to breed dogs. But there are already too many dogs. Therefore, they should not be allowed to do so.
For some reason, people decide to have children. But there are already too many children. Therefore, they should not be allowed to do so.
The reason is irrelevant, isn't it? Or are you going to tell me that not-for-profit dog breeding is fine?
The core of your argument against not rescuing dogs is that there are already too many dogs needing rehoming, so no more dogs should be born.
That is to say: "There are too many already, therefore nobody should be allowed to create more".
Do you see that this has nothing to do with buying or selling? The motive for breeding dogs may be different to the motive for having children, but motive is irrelevant because the argument is about numbers: "too many already".
Now you are simply hurling abuse.
I don't see why I should defend myself and my views further, particularly as whatever I say will be misrepresented, assumed to be stupid and ignorant, and mixed with false claims such as "they care about profit more". In fact most breeders make only a tiny profit. You also believe I have never been to any rescue centres and that I have not taken advice from rescue centre staff, even though I said that I had in my first post.
Can't we both be right? No, because while I agree that rescuing dogs is a good thing and appropriate for some, you insist that no alternative to rescuing can ever be permitted.
Many thousands of children across the UK are in need of adoption. Is it wrong to decide to have your own children rather than adopting one of them? By becoming a parent, are you not part of the problem rather than the solution? I am sure that many parents would be very keen to hear your views on that subject.
No I did not, I merely cited it as a common phrase, which is misleading and incorrect.
Not so. I said this:
"As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train"
and then you replied:
This simply isn't true, the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a complete myth.
Thus implying that I thought you couldn't train an older dog, when in fact I just said it was more difficult. Which is true. And you even agree, because your claim that "there's no reason it'd be harder to teach an adult dog than a young dog" is qualified with the statement "Providing your dog doesn't have more serious underlying issues", a qualification that weakens your statement to the point of irrelevance, since you are effectively saying that it's easy to train a dog unless it isn't.
Let us return to the starting point. You maintain that (1) most breeders are bad, and (2) they contribute to a larger problem, namely that not enough people rescue dogs. I disagree with the first part on the grounds that most breeders care about dogs as much as anyone and are thoroughly decent types. I think you're not in full command of the facts and your view of the KC in particular is as one-sided as "Pedigree Dogs Exposed".
But the second part is unassailably true. More people should rescue dogs. However, nobody should be forced to rescue a dog or not have a dog at all. There must be a choice, and you are wrong to assume that someone decides to get a puppy rather than a rescue dog out of ignorance, selfishness or idiocy.
I used that example firstly to illustrate that some rehoming centres share the problems you attribute to breeders, and secondly to illustrate the difficulty of training certain things with an older dog, which I had thought was common knowledge amongst dog owners.
Working dog breeders are the rare exception of course.
Thankyou for finally acknowledging that some breeders are interested in health before looks. Even though you still think this applies exclusively to working dog breeders, that's some progress at least. And I will point out that working dog breeders are not rare at all. The most popular breeds are gundogs and sheep dogs; all working types and bred to be "healthy and effective in some role". Could it be that the bad breeders are actually in a minority?
Is there "little point debating this"? Undoubtedly, not least because you have twice attributed views to me that I do not hold and have not stated. First you claimed I said "you can't teach an old dog new tricks", and now you claim that I "can't see the difference between breeding for looks... and breeding dogs to be healthy". So perhaps we should leave it here.
This simply isn't true, the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a complete myth. Providing your dog doesn't have more serious underlying issues (which in themselves can often still be fixed) there's no reason it'd be harder to teach an adult dog than a young dog- I was teaching my old dog new tricks up until it was 15.
I didn't say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, I said it is "more difficult" to teach an old dog new tricks:
when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train, and bad behaviour is not easy to correct
This is pretty well known, analogous to the difference between teaching a young child a second language, and learning that second language in middle age.
And I must be clear that I am not talking about tricks. I am talking about key elements of socialisation. Aggressive and/or timid dogs were not properly socialised as pups and it is incredibly hard to reverse this later; similarly for dogs who are frightened of loud noises or unhappy to be left alone for short periods. I mentioned one example known to me of a dog who was irresponsibly rehomed by a greyhound centre - its owners (and myself) have tried in vain to teach this dog to tolerate sleeping by himself overnight without success. I think they've got him to sleep outside their bedroom now, but that took years. They'd have done it in a couple of days if they'd got him as a pup.
For my breed of dog, labradors, I think the KC is very effective in what it does. The minimum standard for breeders ensures that pups and their parents are healthy, and parents have always been "hip and eye scored" by a vet. These are tests to detect various hereditary problems which are being eliminated from the gene pool by that horrible old "selective breeding" that everyone hates so much, though no dog would exist without it.
I never said that your choice was wrong, just that you are being unfair to dog breeders.
Some breeders are bad people, but many are not. They are just as concerned with the health and wellbeing of their dogs as you are. But you seem to think that absolutely all of them are bad people, just like the ones featured on that infamous BBC documentary. My view is that the KC is an important de-facto regulator for dog breeding, with extensive power to prevent inbreeding and genetic problems while also setting a high minimum standard for breeders. Don't you agree that dog breeding should be regulated in some way? Well, it already is.
Some rehoming centres are also quite bad. I know of a greyhound centre that rehomed one particular dog who was utterly unsuited to domestic life and has caused much trouble and distress to his new owners, as well as being a chronically miserable dog. I doubt he would have been rehomed by a more reputable service, such as the RSPCA, but alas the centre is overwhelmed, short of money, and only concerned with getting him out of the door.
I believe that rescue dogs require owners who are either experienced or lucky. As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train, and bad behaviour is not easy to correct. A beginner may be lucky and get a dog who has already been properly socialised and trained. Then again, he may get a dog that requires expert assistance, which would be unfortunate for the dog as well as the owner.
I made my decision to get my dogs from puppyhood based not only on extensive research into breeds, but also on advice from rehoming centres, and to be quite honest it is somewhat upsetting that you should tell me that I'm doing it wrong. In the future I may return to a rehoming centre, armed with years of knowledge about dogs, but in the meantime I am very happy to have been personally responsible for every aspect of training and socialisation for my dogs.
II'm disgusted by your assumption that my interest in dogs is an "investment" about "getting the most for [my] money". These are horrible things to suggest, and it reflects very badly upon you that you would attribute them to someone else.
In fact my concern is entirely based on the welfare of the dogs I own. Money is irrelevant, but planning is important, and making sure that you get a dog who is right for you is essential. A rescue dog is not the right choice for everyone and the worst way to treat a rescue dog is to rehome him inappropriately.
I don't know if you intended to, but you tar all breeders with the same brush. In the UK you cannot buy a dog in any shop. You must go directly to a breeder. This requires research and investigation.
Because dogs cannot be bought on impulse, this research is bound to turn up information about "puppy mills" and poor quality breeders. Dog magazines are perpetually filled with warnings about this, and danger signs to look out for. Similar information appears online, on the very sites you might search to find a nearby breeder.
One obvious piece of advice is to only consider KC accredited breeders. Dogs bought from these breeders cannot possibly have been "farmed", since their ancestry is registered with the KC, providing an easy mechanism to detect and prevent mass production.
I first saw my new puppy when she was 4 weeks old and ran through all the usual checks with the breeder before agreeing to buy. I was very keen to make sure that I was not buying a puppy that had been "farmed" elsewhere, and that the parents were healthy, and that they were the "real" parents and not substitutes. I collected the puppy 4 weeks later, in line with the breed recommendations.
I don't doubt that there are bad breeders, but I think anyone with the slightest sense will easily be able to avoid them. This would not be so easy if the dogs were on sale in a shop with breeder, sire and dam nowhere in sight. However, that is not the British way.
A total ban on all dog sales would stop legitimate, responsible breeders. This would not be a good thing.
After all, getting a rescue dog is great, but it's only for experienced dog owners, because the rescue dog may come with all sorts of behavioural problems. And then what? You cannot take the dog back, that would only make him even more unhappy. You have to deal with the problems as best you can.
So, where does the necessary experience come from? The answer must be that it comes from training dogs who do not come with behavioural problems, such as dogs bought as puppies from a reputable breeder. If you ban dog sales, you also prevent people gaining the sort of experience they would need to be effective rescuers.
No, I want a situation like the one on the PC, where the basic architecture is completely standard, and "technical development" builds on top of that. This is best for users and OEMs and OS developers. You are, I am sure, not about to tell me that there have been no innovations on the PC architecture as a result of its continued compatibility with the original 1980s design.
The problem, as I see it, is that SoC designers are behaving as if their products were for embedded systems only. For products of this sort it is usual to have custom BSPs and custom Linux kernels. But these days the products are used in devices which are computers rather than embedded systems. Here, custom BSPs and custom kernels are an inconvenience that prevents end users and OEMs using off-the-shelf OSs. The mainline Linux kernel struggles to accommodate all of the SoC variants. There are too many and they are too different. If only the basic stuff was standard.
Quite right. Good explanation of the issues. Fans of Linux and ARM often have difficulty grasping why support for the CPU architecture is not enough. Linux must support the system architecture as well, and if every SoC has a different architecture (and they do), then that's going to be really messy.
I don't know if such a standard SoC description format could ever exist in a useful form. Anything even moderately complex would require driver code, not just descriptive data. Descriptions produced by vendors would inevitably be buggy, like ACPI data. This solution would probably just make the problem worse.
It would be much better to simply standardise the SoC, so that every ARM system has the same basic elements. Just like a PC, where the interrupt controller and memory are always in the same place, and the timer always has the same register map.
I assume that SoC vendors do not do this because (1) they don't need to, (2) they want to have "value-added" features like their own custom power management subsystem, and (3) the diversity makes it harder to use a different SoC as a drop-in replacement.
But they should standardise. There's no advantage to the user, the OEM, or the OS developers in having so many different SoCs.
I closed my Citi account based on the very poor quality of their internet banking system and concerns about its security... concerns which I explained in writing.
Their internet banking system was filled with obviously half-assed security measures. For instance, you could send a "secure email" to customer support - but the email couldn't contain any character that might be used in a SQL injection attack (e.g. quote marks). If it did, then clicking Send led you to an error page, and of course you weren't told what parts of the email were causing the problem, or given an opportunity to re-edit it.
It was as if they understood that attacks were possible, but had no clue about the right way to deal with them. If anything, it seems I underestimated how incompetent they were.
I did wonder what was with the sprite glitches. Sometimes sprites vanish, other times you can see them through walls. I've never seen anything like that in a Doom port. It shouldn't be possible unless the rendering code is changed. However, they say that no significant source changes were made, so I can't help wondering if I'm actually seeing the results of a compiler bug...
If you are Christian and you expect to be raptured, you have already committed a major sin, namely pride. If you find any Christians who actually think they're good enough to deserve priority entry to Heaven, you could always point out that just entertaining that particular belief probably excludes them.
You misunderstand. You appear to think I am talking about drivers, but I am really not. The BSP (board support package) is a much lower-level entity than that. While it does contain drivers, they are drivers for things that the OS needs immediately and cannot load at a later stage, such as the interrupt controller and the timer. The location and size of usable RAM come from the BSP, which will also specify the interrupt mapping and the locations of peripheral controllers such as the PCI configuration register. Clearly, without these critical details, the OS cannot do anything at all.
The x86 BSP for Linux is here. There is one basic BSP, and a few special cases for improved support of unusual sorts of PC.
The ARM BSPs for Linux are here. There are more than 40, and this does not account for every ARM platform.
You are surely right that one kernel could include multiple BSPs and pick one after identifying the host architecture somehow. Tricky, but possible. However, even once achieved, this has practical problems. It is much better to standardise on one platform, because standardising means less compiling, less testing, fewer things to go wrong, and lower support costs. This is good for software vendors, OEMs, and users. It would be much easier to produce Ubuntu for ARM if ARM meant "one platform" rather than "every platform is different and very low-level parts of the kernel must support all of them".
Compatibility and interoperability also mean choice. If your manufacturer stops producing updates for your netbook, then it doesn't matter. You can use the same updates as everyone else.
Finally, the problems that prevent Windows booting on motherboard X when installed on motherboard Y are nothing to do with the BSP and everything to do with drivers that are loaded at a later stage.
No, it really isn't. Because the (16-bit) BIOS is not used after the (32/64-bit) kernel boots, the kernel has to include the BSP. And there is only one generic BSP for all x86 PCs.
For instance, when the x86 Linux (or Windows) kernel boots, it finds devices on the PCI/PCIe buses using IO ports 0xcf8 and 0xcfc. This is common to all PCs with PCI buses. The location is always the same, the access protocol is always the same. Combined with similar standards for graphics, the keyboard, the interrupt controller, the timer, the RTC and the RAM itself, this enables one kernel to boot on every x86 motherboard. It is a major, major advantage of the PC.
It sounds like the market will be initially split between the four different SoCs. Maybe you are right and one of them will dominate, forcing the other SoC makers to replicate that design in order to stay in business. On the other hand, maybe the four-way choice will just confuse and annoy customers who will regard all four ARM platforms as risky investments and buy x86 PCs instead... these being a safe, established choice. That's certainly what I would do; you don't want to be an early adopter of Betamax (HD-DVD) if there's still a risk that the industry will standardise on VHS (Bluray) and stop supporting anything else.
I'd agree absolutely, it is not so difficult to have compatibility in "user mode", unless something really crazy is going on (like, some SoCs have VFP, NEON and Thumb while others don't.. which seems unlikely).
But I don't like the idea of being reliant on the hardware vendor for OS updates, or (for that matter) being locked in to a particular OS because nothing else works on this highly specific platform. Android users have already suffered whenever telcos, vendors and manufacturers have failed to provide timely system updates. It's very important that the primary software source - Microsoft, in this case - has a way to bypass the OEMs and bring updates direct to every user.
And that is the really shocking thing that will actually kill the platform - fragmentation. All of these different versions will be incompatible with each other, forwards and backwards. Intel must be laughing their asses off.
The lack of a standard "ARM platform" has already been a big problem for Linux netbooks. They're all x86 because each ARM platform is different and requires a different BSP, making ongoing support a complete nightmare. I have to say, I really expected Microsoft to force the ARM SoC makers to standardise.
The lack of any sort of x86 emulator is really the icing on the cake. The big advantage of Windows is gone. But I suppose there is still a possibility of a third-party emulator like the original Virtual PC for Mac.
Doubtful, because even if opinions of others are hidden, the crowd is still only good at solving problems that most of the individuals within it (1) understand, and (2) can actually solve.
Crowdsourcing works well if the point is to find the most popular answer. However, it is almost useless as a way to find the correct answer. It will only do so if the correct answer is really, really obvious.
Ever see the game show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" If the contestant gets a difficult question, he/she can "Ask the audience", who then vote for the answer they think is right. This works well for questions about pop music and sport. It doesn't work so well for questions about history or particle physics, where people appear to vote randomly. If there are a few actual experts in the audience, their votes are still drowned out by the (random) votes of the masses. It is bad strategy to use "Ask the audience" on such questions, because the game is not "Family Feud". The point is not to find the most popular answer, but the correct one.
At some point in the future, humanity will look back on the present and ask how we ever expected democracy to work.
Desktop Windows can have different frontends to suit particular applications. "Media Center" would be one example - intended to be displayed on a large TV and operated by remote control from some distance away.
No reason why there couldn't also be cellphone frontends for desktop Windows. The frontend would do all the smartphone stuff you are used to. But there would be support for regular Windows desktop applications as well. App store optional, no jailbreak necessary, any Windows app will just work.
Sounds pretty useful to me. And not just me. On this very site I often see posts from people hoping for a combined cellphone/PC that is dockable, so they can take the same applications everywhere. Maybe they would prefer it ran Linux on ARM, but Windows on x86 would be much more useful for the mass market required to commoditise the technology.