The iPhone is also quite obviously very expensive. Price is a key factor in deciding whether or not a product a worthwhile purchase. It may have superior features, but it's pretty close to a middle-of-the-road product in terms of value. It's not so unreasonable to say that it might be pretty good, but in order to be a good value for its price, it needs to be even better (or cheaper). At $499/$599 it should really be more of a PDA than a phone (though the line is blurred these days and will continue to blur). I'd consider $499 for a 2007 Apple Newton, but not a phone.
By the way do we know yet why they don't let developers run their own apps on the iPhone? It seems that this would make it into something PDA-like very easily. Is it a choice by Apple or was it forced on them?
Who's more trusting? The guy who takes scrupulous efforts to avoid installing malware or the guy who trusts his anti-malware products to stop them once they're already on your system? I can be confident I don't have malware because there's no real way for it to get on; no shareware or warez, only commercial products and reputable FOSS software.
This XP install has been going for over a year and hasn't got malware yet, and I don't use any anti-virus or anti-spyware apps. If you don't download spyware, use some common sense, and run under a user account and not an admin you don't get malware.
If Buddhism is the science of the mind then what does it have to do with physics?
If Buddhism is the science of the mind then why do psychiatrists and brain surgeons treat problems with your mind, and not Buddhists?
If your brain is an "antenna" to thoughts in space why haven't neurologists, who have a very good understanding of how the brain works on a low level, noticed any mechanism for this?
Why do animals with brains just as large as ours not seem to have thoughts like ours?
Where do these thoughts that permeate space come from? Why do people with brain injuries in certain parts exhibit similar symptoms?
Why do MRI scans associate neuron activity in different parts of the brain to different things that the brain does?
Why are different parts of the brain that are used more or less in certain animals (e.g. optical processing in bats and hawks) proportionally different sizes?
Why does electro-shock therapy work?
Why do drugs have an effect?
Can you demonstrate the existence of these thoughts that float around through space?
Point me to a Buddhist document that predicts the outcome of collisions in particle accelerators, or predicts the properties of a compound. If none exist then what does Buddhism have to do with quantum physics? How did Buddhists unravel the mysteries of quantum physics before they had any experimental data to work with? How did they know, in a scientifically compelling way, that quanta existed without studying the photoelectric effect? Where are the 4th century BC Tibetan semiconductors, atomic bombs, and LCDs?
Buddhism may work well as a moral code or lifestyle, but keep it the hell away from science and philosophy. (Which are two separate fields themselves; science doesn't "turn into" philosophy any more than astrology "turns into" botany.)
I have to say I am totally at a loss to understand what thoughts could lead anyone to believe that a 2500 year old moral code could have something to say about modern physics..
Trillions of kilometers? That's about 1/10th of a light year, you need at least 8 light years for interstellar travel (and we'd be pretty amazingly lucky to have intelligent life so close to us).
Try "gajillion bazillion manyillian kilometers". Interstellar space travel is pretty ridiculous, and not just because we can't think of a technology that could do it, but because a technology that could do it and not take millenniums would be impossible.
Most of all why would they bother coming all this way? If they did want to travel so far just to say "hello, what's up?" why not do it via radio? This would be much faster and easier. If they wanted to invade or take over, assuming our planet is hospitable to them, wouldn't they send more than an "egg"?
(And why do the accounts of these interstellar travelers involve anal probes, corn, barn dances and farm animals?)
... the Mactablet? I need a decent tablet, and Apple seems to be lining itself up for the ideal position to release one in. Decent touchpads, thin computers... logical, no? Yes! There are no good tablets around at the moment, and not enough software is made for touchscreens.
The thing about the iPhone is that Jobs has already talked about getting 3G into the iPhone (in the Macworld 2007 keynote). I don't know who would buy a $499 phone with a 2 year $59/mo contract for a device that will be admittedly be superseded by something much better.
For a device that is clearly going to be bandwidth hungry to be useful as more than a pretty phone it needs 3G. If Wifi is available and you want to stick around a hotspot you might as well take out your notebook, if you're not buying it for the internet capabilities why not just get a plain phone?
Look, I know Theo-bashing is a traditional bit of fun, so I hate to rain on your parade. But you should keep in mind that the OpenBSD team is uniquely (or nearly so) positioned to discover and publicize the security implications this sort of flaw. First off I'm not "Theo-bashing", I'm bashing what Theo is doing. He acts like a vain hypocrite so often that people think we're bashing Theo and not what Theo happens to be doing.
Second; how are they uniquely positioned? Theo read the errata that's public to everyone, and says that he "bets" there may be "potential" security implications. He's in a unique position to troll and spread FUD about a company that doesn't pay attention to OpenBSD, but apparently he's not in a unique position to offer anything new.
"But they're rarely very serious, they rarely actually affect anything in remotely realistic scenarios."
OpenBSD is heavily used in the perimeter security role, and in security-sensitive roles generally. As its OS security gets better, OpenBSD's sensitivity to hardware security flaws gets higher. If there's an architectural flaw that the OS can't cover, OpenBSD's user base needs to know that so they can evaluate their overall security and spec hardware accordingly. Isn't that precisely what Intel have done? They've let the public know about the flaws, now it's up to OpenBSD to "evaluate their overall security and spec hardware accordingly". (This mail suggests they're jumping straight to "spec hardware" before properly evaluating how this affects their security.)
Almost no one else needs to worry about hardware exploits in Core 2 as much as OpenBSD does, because almost every other OS for general-purpose hardware has easier exploit paths. For instance, I'm not worried about this flaw on my home iMac, because my iMac isn't in a security-sensitive role. If an attacker wants my home data, it'd be easier for the attacker to simply break in and steal the whole box. What hardware exploits? Who said anything about hardware exploits? Intel's errata doesn't say anything like that, Theo's mail gave nothing other than a "bet" that out of 50-60 bugs in the chip "2-3" will be exploitable. You're acting like the errata details a whole bunch of critical vulnerabilities, but that's just not true.
This is exactly how Theo wants people to react to this; "now the Core 2 isn't safe", even though his mail contained no substance whatsoever.
"How does he expect Intel to respond?"
Like the professionals they are, I'd think. A professional's response to a mail that cites publicly released errata alone and concludes that no-one should buy your chips? No response, of course.
Hopefully Intel are more professional than Theo, and will be working on future products and technologies, and finding bugs in existing ones, rather than indulging in empty self righteous flamefests.
Wake me up when Theo has kind words to say about basically anything at all, now *that* would be news!
Unfortunately he's likely also right on most accounts though:( I'd like to wait to see if this actually affects anything at all before pulling a Theo and forking a project out of spite.
Theo talks a lot about "potential" security problems. There are 50-60 bugs and he'd "bet" that there are 2-3 "potentially exploitable" bugs. Hmmm. Just in case we've forgot how Theo deals with "potentially exploitable" bugs when they're in his own code:
# 2007-02-28: OpenBSD team indicates that the bug results in corruption of mbuf chains and that only IPv6 code uses that mbuf code, there is no user data in the mbuf header fields that become corrupted and it would be surprising to be able to run arbitrary code using a bug so deep in the mbuf code. The bug simply leads to corruption of the mbuf chain.
# 2007-03-05: Core develops proof of concept code that demonstrates remote code execution in the kernel context by exploiting the mbuf overflow.
# 2007-03-05: OpenBSD team notified of PoC availability.
# 2007-03-07: OpenBSD team commits fix to OpenBSD 4.0 and 3.9 source tree branches and releases a "reliability fix" notice on the project's website. He downplays them, just like he accuses everyone else of doing. He hates it when people call things vulnerabilities when they don't have PoC code (and even when they do), but he's happy to spread FUD about other products without any evidence that anything is exploitable.
Getting back to the problem itself. This is a problem in the MMU, a "show stopper", "buggy as hell", they "scare the hell" out of him. But hasn't Core 2 been out for a while now? Hasn't anyone noticed these terrible bugs? Where are all the reports of misbehaving programs and crashes that should have appeared since Core 2's release 11 months ago?
More likely Theo is leaping at the opportunity to spread FUD about a company that isn't sharing information with him. All processors have bugs; they're incredibly complicated devices. AMD has them, IBM has them, Atmel has them, etc. But they're rarely very serious, they rarely actually affect anything in remotely realistic scenarios.
Until Theo, or anyone, can actually show that these bugs are dangerous and are going to do some damage in a realistic scenario why should we care?
What is Theo adding to this anyway? Intel released the errata to everyone, Theo isn't exposing anything. Theo chimes in with how he's quivering with fear, how they could "potentially be exploitable", and how he "bets" Intel has more errata that they're not telling him.
Raving lunatics like Theo are totally counter productive. How does he expect Intel to respond? "Thanks for telling your flock not to buy our processors, now here are those detailed driver specifications you've been bugging us for!"
Their business has been dying down not due to competition, but due to sheer lack of anything to sell. Take a look at MSFT stock price, business isn't dying down. They also have Office and Windows, the most profitable software products on the planet; how can you say they have nothing to sell?
Why can I practically hear the Apple "switch" background music chimes when I read Slashdot these days?
no mention on how much energy it takes to run the thing, or how much energy it puts out. it's not of much use if it costs a fraction to just bury the old plastic and make new stuff from scratch. It might be useful in a future world powered by fusion or breeder reactors where we have plenty of energy but no oil.
Read the Vatican's list of car commandments; the only thing you should do on the road other than driving is pray, wave to people from behind your elevated glass enclosure (in a knowing, loving way), and recite passages from the Bible.
If you haven't read them yet then may God help your immortal soul.
This isn't about HTML standards, it's about changes to the way people will interact with websites.
By the way it's a bit nieve to say that as long as you stick to the standards you're fine. The standards all leave room for ambiguity, such as different browsers interpreting elements as defaulting to inline or block, and there are many standards that aren't fully implemented. It's pretty hard to make a Web 2.0 site that looks good, it easy and intuitive to use, complies to appropriate standards, and works on all browsers (even all the big browsers).
As someone said "The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from."
Only $15 x 3 colors for 3 months? Bargain! Dell cartridges for my printer cost $60 for 3 colors, and $70 for a black cartridge of the same size.
I bought black ink to be able to refill my cartridge; $40 for enough ink to refill the $70 cartridge over 5 times (it has already paid for itself at least twice over, going by Dell's standards).
I like it, thanks for explaining, but what happens to matter that was within the event horizon before the black holes form? So if a bit of matter is the center around which a black hole is forming, surely that bit of matter will be within the event horizon and its information will be lost?
If you're feeling up to a challenge: how does matter get "evaporated" when EMR can't escape, why must information be preserved, and does this mean that after evaporating enough matter black holes would burst back out and let all the stuff they captured back out?
taking 4.7 billion from the Future Fund is a direct abuse of powers
They aren't just going to take the money out and blow it, they are investing in the infrastructure, meaning they expect to get some return on that money. Assuming their plan works I think it would be safe to say it could prove very profitable. They're also responding to lots of criticism they've received about the lack of broadband, and now people are going to start complaining that we have too much broadband.
It was bound to happen I guess. People just love complaining, and I love meta-complaining.
Slashdot Mirror
203.59.140.13 (Though I have no idea what this has to do with anti-virus software)
By the way do we know yet why they don't let developers run their own apps on the iPhone? It seems that this would make it into something PDA-like very easily. Is it a choice by Apple or was it forced on them?
Who's more trusting? The guy who takes scrupulous efforts to avoid installing malware or the guy who trusts his anti-malware products to stop them once they're already on your system? I can be confident I don't have malware because there's no real way for it to get on; no shareware or warez, only commercial products and reputable FOSS software.
This XP install has been going for over a year and hasn't got malware yet, and I don't use any anti-virus or anti-spyware apps. If you don't download spyware, use some common sense, and run under a user account and not an admin you don't get malware.
Point me to a Buddhist document that predicts the outcome of collisions in particle accelerators, or predicts the properties of a compound. If none exist then what does Buddhism have to do with quantum physics? How did Buddhists unravel the mysteries of quantum physics before they had any experimental data to work with? How did they know, in a scientifically compelling way, that quanta existed without studying the photoelectric effect? Where are the 4th century BC Tibetan semiconductors, atomic bombs, and LCDs?
Buddhism may work well as a moral code or lifestyle, but keep it the hell away from science and philosophy. (Which are two separate fields themselves; science doesn't "turn into" philosophy any more than astrology "turns into" botany.)
I have to say I am totally at a loss to understand what thoughts could lead anyone to believe that a 2500 year old moral code could have something to say about modern physics..
Trillions of kilometers? That's about 1/10th of a light year, you need at least 8 light years for interstellar travel (and we'd be pretty amazingly lucky to have intelligent life so close to us).
Try "gajillion bazillion manyillian kilometers". Interstellar space travel is pretty ridiculous, and not just because we can't think of a technology that could do it, but because a technology that could do it and not take millenniums would be impossible.
Most of all why would they bother coming all this way? If they did want to travel so far just to say "hello, what's up?" why not do it via radio? This would be much faster and easier. If they wanted to invade or take over, assuming our planet is hospitable to them, wouldn't they send more than an "egg"?
(And why do the accounts of these interstellar travelers involve anal probes, corn, barn dances and farm animals?)
... the Mactablet? I need a decent tablet, and Apple seems to be lining itself up for the ideal position to release one in. Decent touchpads, thin computers... logical, no? Yes! There are no good tablets around at the moment, and not enough software is made for touchscreens.Enter the iPhone
I love reading peoples opinions all the more when they're given in a sentence that starts with "Newsflash".
The thing about the iPhone is that Jobs has already talked about getting 3G into the iPhone (in the Macworld 2007 keynote). I don't know who would buy a $499 phone with a 2 year $59/mo contract for a device that will be admittedly be superseded by something much better.
For a device that is clearly going to be bandwidth hungry to be useful as more than a pretty phone it needs 3G. If Wifi is available and you want to stick around a hotspot you might as well take out your notebook, if you're not buying it for the internet capabilities why not just get a plain phone?
Second; how are they uniquely positioned? Theo read the errata that's public to everyone, and says that he "bets" there may be "potential" security implications. He's in a unique position to troll and spread FUD about a company that doesn't pay attention to OpenBSD, but apparently he's not in a unique position to offer anything new.
"But they're rarely very serious, they rarely actually affect anything in remotely realistic scenarios."
OpenBSD is heavily used in the perimeter security role, and in security-sensitive roles generally. As its OS security gets better, OpenBSD's sensitivity to hardware security flaws gets higher. If there's an architectural flaw that the OS can't cover, OpenBSD's user base needs to know that so they can evaluate their overall security and spec hardware accordingly. Isn't that precisely what Intel have done? They've let the public know about the flaws, now it's up to OpenBSD to "evaluate their overall security and spec hardware accordingly". (This mail suggests they're jumping straight to "spec hardware" before properly evaluating how this affects their security.)
Almost no one else needs to worry about hardware exploits in Core 2 as much as OpenBSD does, because almost every other OS for general-purpose hardware has easier exploit paths. For instance, I'm not worried about this flaw on my home iMac, because my iMac isn't in a security-sensitive role. If an attacker wants my home data, it'd be easier for the attacker to simply break in and steal the whole box. What hardware exploits? Who said anything about hardware exploits? Intel's errata doesn't say anything like that, Theo's mail gave nothing other than a "bet" that out of 50-60 bugs in the chip "2-3" will be exploitable. You're acting like the errata details a whole bunch of critical vulnerabilities, but that's just not true.
This is exactly how Theo wants people to react to this; "now the Core 2 isn't safe", even though his mail contained no substance whatsoever.
"How does he expect Intel to respond?"
Like the professionals they are, I'd think. A professional's response to a mail that cites publicly released errata alone and concludes that no-one should buy your chips? No response, of course.
Hopefully Intel are more professional than Theo, and will be working on future products and technologies, and finding bugs in existing ones, rather than indulging in empty self righteous flamefests.
Unfortunately he's likely also right on most accounts though
Theo talks a lot about "potential" security problems. There are 50-60 bugs and he'd "bet" that there are 2-3 "potentially exploitable" bugs. Hmmm. Just in case we've forgot how Theo deals with "potentially exploitable" bugs when they're in his own code: # 2007-02-28: OpenBSD team indicates that the bug results in corruption of mbuf chains and that only IPv6 code uses that mbuf code, there is no user data in the mbuf header fields that become corrupted and it would be surprising to be able to run arbitrary code using a bug so deep in the mbuf code. The bug simply leads to corruption of the mbuf chain.
# 2007-03-05: Core develops proof of concept code that demonstrates remote code execution in the kernel context by exploiting the mbuf overflow.
# 2007-03-05: OpenBSD team notified of PoC availability.
# 2007-03-07: OpenBSD team commits fix to OpenBSD 4.0 and 3.9 source tree branches and releases a "reliability fix" notice on the project's website. He downplays them, just like he accuses everyone else of doing. He hates it when people call things vulnerabilities when they don't have PoC code (and even when they do), but he's happy to spread FUD about other products without any evidence that anything is exploitable.
Getting back to the problem itself. This is a problem in the MMU, a "show stopper", "buggy as hell", they "scare the hell" out of him. But hasn't Core 2 been out for a while now? Hasn't anyone noticed these terrible bugs? Where are all the reports of misbehaving programs and crashes that should have appeared since Core 2's release 11 months ago?
More likely Theo is leaping at the opportunity to spread FUD about a company that isn't sharing information with him. All processors have bugs; they're incredibly complicated devices. AMD has them, IBM has them, Atmel has them, etc. But they're rarely very serious, they rarely actually affect anything in remotely realistic scenarios.
Until Theo, or anyone, can actually show that these bugs are dangerous and are going to do some damage in a realistic scenario why should we care?
What is Theo adding to this anyway? Intel released the errata to everyone, Theo isn't exposing anything. Theo chimes in with how he's quivering with fear, how they could "potentially be exploitable", and how he "bets" Intel has more errata that they're not telling him.
Raving lunatics like Theo are totally counter productive. How does he expect Intel to respond? "Thanks for telling your flock not to buy our processors, now here are those detailed driver specifications you've been bugging us for!"
Why can I practically hear the Apple "switch" background music chimes when I read Slashdot these days?
You've got it all wrong; he's a Christian now. He gets his BDSM fix from the crucifixion.
Read the Vatican's list of car commandments; the only thing you should do on the road other than driving is pray, wave to people from behind your elevated glass enclosure (in a knowing, loving way), and recite passages from the Bible.
If you haven't read them yet then may God help your immortal soul.
It speaks badly about GCC's reluctance to use MMX/SSE instructions.
This isn't about HTML standards, it's about changes to the way people will interact with websites.
By the way it's a bit nieve to say that as long as you stick to the standards you're fine. The standards all leave room for ambiguity, such as different browsers interpreting elements as defaulting to inline or block, and there are many standards that aren't fully implemented. It's pretty hard to make a Web 2.0 site that looks good, it easy and intuitive to use, complies to appropriate standards, and works on all browsers (even all the big browsers).
As someone said "The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from."
It's so simple: How do you stop disgruntled morons from hating your country? Invade their country of course! The logic is flawless.
Only $15 x 3 colors for 3 months? Bargain! Dell cartridges for my printer cost $60 for 3 colors, and $70 for a black cartridge of the same size.
I bought black ink to be able to refill my cartridge; $40 for enough ink to refill the $70 cartridge over 5 times (it has already paid for itself at least twice over, going by Dell's standards).
Thanks, I can't wait to learn about this stuff when I get past Physics 101
I like it, thanks for explaining, but what happens to matter that was within the event horizon before the black holes form? So if a bit of matter is the center around which a black hole is forming, surely that bit of matter will be within the event horizon and its information will be lost?
If you're feeling up to a challenge: how does matter get "evaporated" when EMR can't escape, why must information be preserved, and does this mean that after evaporating enough matter black holes would burst back out and let all the stuff they captured back out?
So the latest solution to the Hawking paradox is "black holes don't exist"?!
It was bound to happen I guess. People just love complaining, and I love meta-complaining.