Well that's what makes the whole thing really funny. The measures are aimed entirely at file sharing. Since the bill was passed file sharing has declined and become harder to trace, whilst file lockers and usenet have grown in popularity.
So now this wont go live for another 2 years, I suspect the components of the bill will be so woefully irrelevant to the way piracy is working by this point that it will be meaningless anyway.
This is the great thing about this sort of thing I suppose - UK politicians are such slow, lumbering wastes of space, that the chance of them putting law into place that has any hope of keeping pace with technology is pretty much negligible.
Yes, I live in the UK and have a casual interest in Ice Hockey, because the closest thing I have to a team is the Ottawa Senators because that is where my girlfriend is from and I've seen them play when I've been over their once or twice I thought I'd just Google NHL scores to see how they're doing as I heard they reached playoffs. I was quite impressed to see a nice formatted list of scores including logos.
This is probably not new to many North Americans where the sport is pretty prominent, but to me it illustrated how many things Google is good at giving a context sensitive customised result over as I find I stumble over more and more of them as time goes on.
"I think the part the analysts are looking at it the Asia Pacific market share. There are billions of potential customers in Chindia and surrounding villages."
But how are they going to tap into this market? These low margin markets (plus the one you forgot - the continent of Africa) are precisely where Nokia screwed up - they ended up spending too much time chasing volume in these markets, and neglected their high margin markets. This is before you factor in the point that at least some of Apple's success is based on it's image as a fashionable brand - can it really retain that whilst producing budget cut down versions for China and India?
People see China and India as magical markets, and they are for some things - the cheap and bare essential products that everyone can buy, where volume matters, but Apple's not about volume - this is why they only have 17% of the smartphone market vs. 52% for Android yet still make most of the Smartphone profits. Consider this - China's economy is less than half the size of America's, yet has more than 4 times the population, now consider how many Americans as a proportion of the population can't afford or can't justify the expense of an iPhone - it's no small amount, and imagine how much worse that must be in China. The story in India is even worse - it's economy is even smaller again yet has a similar multiple of America's population.
If you're a company like Apple, focussing on the high end, your best opportunities are to work down this list top to bottom, or alternatively to try and steal back marketshare from the high end Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy SII though I suspect that wont be easy - in some high end markets like the UK, the Galaxy SII alone actually has a healthy lead over the iPhone.
Apple just doesn't have the type of business model that can realistically benefit from the large populations of China and India -that isn't to say there aren't segments of these markets that are worth going for, but still less so than most Western markets, some Middle Eastern markets, and so on, and still arguably much less so than just trying to claw ground back from the competition in existing markets.
I think they did and all the BBC did was to add a note about how he's done some consulting for Microsoft, rather than just stop using him as a source full stop.
You can't infer anything from this list, the metrics it uses are less than useless and time and time again it appears on Slashdot, and time and time again people make invalid assumptions from it.
If a language doesn't have an entry on Wikipedia, then it's not considered.
The whole methodology is a complete train wreck. They just search the top 9 Alexa sites that have a search box, and weight based on the size of the site. Not only does this mean important programming sites like Stack Overflow are completely ignored, are largely ignored but the whole methodology has more flaws than you can count. One prominent example is it means that if a language is well documented and/or easy to use and people don't need peer-support so much, then it'll likely get less hits than a language that has fuck all documentation and so the net is full of sites explaining how to do this, that, and the other. It also means older languages, for which more sites on the net exist will always retain greater popularity. Note that they also manually tweak the results anyway with an arbitrary confidence factor per language.
I've long said that personally I believe the best metric if you're interested in this sort of thing is to simply search tech job sites, for various areas and just have a look at what sort of languages companies are recruiting for. If you do that - gather a picture of what companies are really interested in by looking at what they're recruiting for you'll find a completely different picture to that that this pointless TIOBE index gives. Suddenly for example, PHP, C#, and Javascript fly up the charts, whilst C drops quite markedly.
The only thing this chart is good for is trying to argue some point from a biased standpoint if the chart just happens to coincide with the language argument your having. Beyond that it's of little value for anything, as it certainly doesn't really bear much resemblance to what's going on in the industry for the most part.
I have no doubt C++ is rising against with it's latest release being pretty cool, but I think it's got an awful lot of ground before it's back on top, and as for plain old C? I don't think anyone in the industry in their right mind would genuinely believe C has been anywhere near the top for probably over a decade now. If it was C++ sure you might be able to argue it, but, C? seriously? It's been almost entirely relegated to the realm of embedded programming and really little else and even there isn't the only player in town. Don't get me wrong - I love C, it was my first language so I'll always have a special appreciation for it, but these stats are just retarded.
Your abysmal English, complete inability to argue based on facts, and blatant populist nationalistic rhetoric only further reaffirms my view that if the rest of the UK no longer has to subsidise the likes of the education system for people like you who despite said subsidy still demonstrate a horrendously poor level of education then Scottish independence is indeed a good thing.
The only question is what excuse you're going to use when all those islands around Scotland, whom are actually closest to the oil decide they'd rather stay with the UK meaning that all such oil and gas reserves actually remain in UK territorial waters.
Still, at least when they do you will have an excuse for yourself as to why the Scotland experiment failed and you become the next Greece. At that point you could probably protest about something in the streets, but with Salmond insisting he has powers he does not, throwing away the rights of Scotsmen who want to keep their land in favour of billionaire Americans like Trump, and generally trying to fiddle the referendum by eliminating as many Scots who are unlikely to vote for him as possible then I'm not sure you'll even have the freedom to do that.
Either way I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun for you.
Microsoft invested in Facebook very early on. Politically it's hard to see Facebook and Microsoft as a separate entity, they seem almost identically aligned in this respect, they've been scratching each others back for a long long time now to the point it's really impossible to consider whether an action by Facebook against a competitor of Facebook was really an independent action at all. Microsoft's opinion seems to hold a lot of sway at Facebook, and vice versa to a lesser extent. I'd argue the companies are perhaps the two most closely aligned of the major tech companies in Silicon Valley nowadays.
As the other guy pointed out, how things are defined for tax purposes in a specific nation do not in any way whatsoever alter the actual definition of the term in English language.
I suspect the real reason people might trust him is because media outlets like The Register, and the BBC have been repeatedly posting in their news stories shit like "Trusted open source patent expert Florian Mueller".
If it was just from The Register it'd be fair enough, because you'd have to be quite a fool to not know that 99% of stuff The Register posts is agenda based FUD coming from grossly biased sources, but the BBC is supposed to be impartial. Clearly on this issue it's outright failed to fulfil it's charter.
I've always pondered about yes/no answers in court. I've seen judges demand either a yes or no answer on many occasions, yet to me it seems to conflict with a fundamental principle, at least in the UK justice system.
When you give your oath to the court in the UK it's "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".
I remember being taught in history class of all things that it used to simply be "I promise to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth". The whole truth section was added later to prevent people giving answers that whilst true, only paint half the picture due to missing vital information or context.
So I've often wondered in this context how a judge can push for yes/no, as in many circumstances it betrays this fundamental principle in that either answer only tells a partial truth and not a whole truth. Has this principle ever been tested? To me being forced to give a yes/no answer would mean that I was betraying my vow to tell the whole truth as either answer would only be a partial truth in a more complex situation.
This is one of those circumstances where such an answer would in my opinion, violate such a vow, and as much as I want Oracle to lose I do also sympathise with the difficulty of just answering yes/no to that particular question.
"And they were the first to dabble "after" Apple's "Thoughts on Music" in January 2007. The article was published in "February 2007". So how is it evidence that EMI led the initiative by showing an article that came after Apple made the offer?"
Really? you still don't get the irrelevance of what amounts to nothing more than a press release backed by no actual action?
"Why would *Apple* choose to offer one labels music DRM free but not the others if they had the (legal) ability to?"...and you're still asserting this was an Apple led initiative without any evidence demonstrating such?
Honestly, if you can't even read and interpret basic English I don't think there's any helping you whatsoever. It's pretty clear you're looking at one thing, and interpreting in your brain something completely different. Ignoring the points that demonstrate why you are wrong don't make those points go away, they just make you look persistently more stupid the more you ignore them and pretend they are not there.
"It's no secret that there are six major publishers -- the ones being sued by the DOJ."
Along with Apple. Well, suprise suprise, why might that be I wonder?? It's like the evidence is right there in front of you but your brain selects out the bits about Apple that you just don't want to hear. This is one of the defining traits of a zealous fanboy - you just cannot comprehend anything that goes against the angellic image you've created in your mind of your chosen pet company.
"So why did Adobe abandon Flash on non-Apple mobile platforms when it was fully embraced by Google?"
Yes these things happened at the same time.
Oh wait, no they didn't, there was a massive gap of time in between, a gap which just happens to have been long enough for Apple to have killed Flash on mobile. Funny that.
"Right because there is just so much ogg content out there. I'm sure that's on the top of most people's wish list...."
I see, so your answer is to pretend that if something isn't the most popular format on earth right now then it isn't possibly worth supporting, ever! Well done, you just failed standards 101.
"So ogg is part of the HTML5 spec?"
It was part of the draft for some time as the preferred audio and video standard going forward. It was supported by Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, but was eventually dropped from the spec primarily due to opposition from Apple because they wanted to push a codec they held patents for instead. Again, funny that for a company supposedly wanting an open web. See that there, that's again the difference between what a company says, and what it does.
The video tag is now format neutral, but there is a disparity between support such that thanks to Apple's torpedoing of preferred formats cross-browser video is still more awkward than it should be.
"Yes plenty."
Oh my, that's worrying.
Still, that's enough from me, arguing with people who ignore inconvenient points that destroy their argument and instead repeat their argument as if it will somehow have more validity the second time round when it wont is rather a waste of time.
Have fun failing to grasp basic facts whilst retaining an impressive inability to follow even the most basic logical arguments. I'm sure it'll get you far.
"If EMI was dabbling in selling DRM free music before Apple's "Thoughts on Music" , you should be able to find a link somewhere."
You totally didn't even understand the comment you made about the difference between feel good PR statements, and actual cold hard action did you? That's quite strange as it's not that difficult a concept to grasp. Still here's a link demonstrating EMI being the first to dabble in DRM free music:
"But that's neither here nor there. You were wrong. Apple didn't start selling DRM free music in response to Amazon et. al. How could they? They were doing it first - with mainstream music."
Another fallacy. You're making the implication that selling a relatively small fraction of their library DRM free at a higher cost point is in some way comparable to offering all major label's music DRM free at a standard low price point. This is clearly false and exposes a fundamental flaw in your argument - you previously talked down eMusic's earlier offering stating it didn't offer enough mainstream tracks to count, but suddenly a handful of tracks from EMI at a higher price point is enough to count? Really? You're creating a painfully arbitrary definition there to try and make your case, that's pretty weak ground to build a case on.
"So there are a lot of places that sell books DRM Free books from the major publishers where?"
Well what sort of books are you gunning for exactly? Perhaps this list can get you started?
Or is this another of your arbitrary definition tricks with your use of the term "mainstream" where you'll claim the likes of Pearson aren't "mainstream" enough?
"As far as Flash, you really think its Apple's fault that Adobe abandoned Flash on mobile and not because it was slow and buggy."
Bwahahaha, lol yeah, that was a good one. It's like you actually believe your own bullshit. Yep, Apple was really welcoming to Flash, it didn't change it's terms to prevent use of interpreters and so forth in apps at all. Nope, none of that ever actually happened. So how are the fairies today? Going for dinner with Santa Claus tonight?
"And you are free to download and number of Webkit browsers for IOS. But do you have any evidence showing that Chrome and Opera have better compliance than Safari?"
Yes, try using all of the new HTML5 form elements and let me know how you get on. I'm sure use of ogg/theora and ogg/vorbis will work great for you on Safari, and the autocomplete attribute work wonders. How about the file API, and meter and progress elements? I'm sure you could create a great looking site for Safari with them too!
I'm guessing you've not actually ever had any involvement with an HTML5 project have you?
"Ultimately, Apple (Jobs, really) realized one fundamental sociological thing: Most people don't want freedom. It's too much for them to handle."
I keep hearing this sort of sentiment "Apple was obviously right about x, because most people use them" etc.
But where is the proof? Apple has a mere 15% smartphone marketshare vs. Android's 50%+ and even RIM still has about 11%.
As far as people are concerned, numerically, most people actually use Apple's far more open competitors.
There's no doubt Apple is way ahead of the competition in terms of profitability, but it's not because any kind of majority of people prefer Apple, it's just that they've found an impressive way to squeeze money out of people who do buy into their ecosystem.
Again, as far as "most people" go, most people don't in fact choose Apple's way. Some might argue this is a cost issue in that most people can't afford apple or some such naive class warfare type argument, but there are more equally or more expensive Android handsets out there than Apple devices too- Samsung's Galaxy S2 figures alone aren't far off Apple's and in some markets i.e. the UK are actually higher, so it's not a cost thing - the fact is, "most people" are actually conciously choosing not to buy into Apple's way even when they're perfectly able to.
If I've learnt anything from Slashdot it's that most "most people" arguments here are actually wrong.
"Apple's "Thoughts on Music" essay was published before *anyone* was selling mainstream music DRM free. Emusic was selling music from a lot of independent artists no one had heard of. The essay came in response to the music industry's desire for Apple to license FairPlay."
You're confusing PR with actual actions. There is a distinct difference between the two. In the UK a number of government officials have stood up over the years and said "The UK is not complicit in torture", this doesn't make it true and there is an ever growing mountain of evidence to the contrary.
"Apple was selling DRM music from EMI before Amazon."
Yes, we've been through this... repeating it doesn't somehow change the facts. It's still a half-truth which ignores the entire rest of the industry on both sides - other music publishers, and other digital music retailers. It also still ignores the fact you have absolutely no evidence this was an Apple led initiative - EMI was about the only label that was dabbling in DRM free music and talking about it well outside the context of just Apple and iTunes so it's quite likely it was them who wanted their music to go DRM free.
"Even after everyone else was selling music DRM free, Apple was moving up as the worlds largest retailer."
Yes, albeit not as fast relative to their device sales growth until they went DRM free. Amazon et al. was never going to stop them because their growth of iTunes music sales was built off the back of device sales, but there were still always going to be some customers that left for the cheaper DRM free options the likes of Amazon et al. provided and it was that Apple had to stem the tide of by going DRM free itself.
"And you still didn't answer the question, where can you get mainstream video or books without DRM?"
The Pirate Bay? No seriously, not many places for video, though lots of places for books. Regardless this is a fallacy, you're suggesting just because others are using the same tactic, it's okay that Apple does so. It's not, lock-in is bad whoever does it. The difference though in this particular case is that Apple's DRM pretty much locks you into the Apple hardware ecosystem, whilst other DRM is aimed at stemming copying rather than platform lock-in - that's a key and important difference. One is anti-competitive, the other not so much.
"And for you to believe that Java's purported write once run anywhere is more than a pipe dream after over a decade and a half of evidence to the contrary shows a stunning amount of niavete. Even worse since any halfway performant app on Android uses the native API's."
It's not even about Java, the fact is a number of people who tried to improve portability by having their own bytecode run on a custom interpreter got fucked by Apple's rules against this sort of thing - Adobe and Flash being the most high profile case. Whilst they've relaxed this for some technologies which would hurt them more than benefit them (i.e. Unity) they still do it for others. It's a pretty clear restriction that cripples portability.
"As far as Apple pushing "Safari only", it's not like almost every single browser on almost every single mobile and embedded platform is not using Webkit...."
Right, and you know that not all browsers using WebKit are equal right?
"Which browser has a higher degree of HTML compliance than Safari? Even Fitefox has abandoned trying to ignore H264 for WebM."
"5. Apple started selling DRM free music from EMI *before* Amazon music store came online."
Right and your compelling evidence that this was an Apple led initiative and not an EMI led initiative no doubt comes from an objective unbiased source like Steve Jobs? The fact is other stores like eMusic had DRM free content before these point, and Amazon got all the music labels on board and launched mere few months after this. It took Apple around a further two years beyond this point to offer DRM free content.
The fact is the momentum was already behind DRM free music and Apple only relented when it became clear the toll of not offering DRM free music was beginning to outweigh the benefits of lock in as people started to go for DRM free options like Amazon et al.
"Do you realize how many Android phones and tablets are now coming with non-removable batteries?"
Yes, the answer is not many at all. Less than 1% of the total available handsets I would wager. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are a couple of older Motorola models.
"Which "content"? Apple been selling DRM free music for four years."
Movies/TV content? Books?
"How do you propose running even a non-DRM'd app compiled for iOS on another device?"
I know right? Imagine that, imagine if someone invented some kind of technology whereby you could write software once and run it anywhere, or at very least maximise portability potential. If only this sort of technology existed.
Even with HTML5, something Apple has backed since it's early days and which was sold on portability Apple has pushed Safari only shit and Apple patented shit. Even there they're trying to be the new Microsoft and control the web to increase lock-in.
It's not difficult. Between hearing excuses from interns and the fact this world is mostly full of bullshitters I find cause to use it at least 10 times a day.
In fact, if you just walk over to and randomly barge into people's conversations and say it I'd wager there's a 90% chance you used it correctly.
"Oh please, these apologies for Apple are getting tiresome. Apple did not lock down iOS to keep out malware, they did it so that they could remain in control of the products they sell people long after the sale is made."
It's the same mindset that believed Steve's FUD when he blamed publishers for DRM in iTunes, saying he wanted rid of it but they just wouldn't let him, despite the fact his competitors like Amazon and eMusic at the time despite having much smaller stores and much less clout managed to get DRM free contracts from the publishers no problem.
With Apple it's always about control, DRM in iTunes was entirely about control, it was about making sure that when the non user replaceable battery in your iPad ran out after 18 months to 2 years you couldn't fuck off to a competitor with your content very easily, no you had to buy Apple again.
The only people that haven't figured out yet that Apple's entire business model is built around controlling what you do in an effort to influence what you buy each upgrade cycle, control what you pay, and manage who you pay from and who the money goes to are fanboys. The worst sort too - the ones who can't see the evidence glaring them right in the face.
You seem to think you know what you're on about, you stated your degree was at least partially related to mathematics, and yet you seem to have completely missed the fact that the majority of any undergraduate mathematics course is going to be discussion of approximations to functions. The fact is that they're everywhere, and this case is no different. Sometimes exact solutions aren't an option, this is one of them.
"In your arrogance you assume that I'm unfamiliar with the basis of your argument, but in fact I happen to live in the real world, where your argument is bullshit of the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" variety."
Yes, well, it's a shame you don't seem to have an understanding of the realities of software development though, and the fact that sometimes compromise has to be made. If something doesn't work as you want the simple fact is that it's not always a bug, it quite simply is sometimes just a feature you do not like. Regardless, call this a bug if you will, I agree it's a usability failing either way, and I tend to class these as bugs myself, but the fundamental point I was making remains that the calculation is no more wrong than most other calculators, including those that mask this sort of thing, only to reintroduce them when you're least expecting them further down the line.
"Even worse; Windows Calculator isn't wrong all the time, even in this case. If you enter sqrt(4) you get 2, and it even displays 2 as the intermediate result if you enter the expression as sqrt(4)-2."
Again, I completely agree that it's horrible that you don't always get the result you want, and there's a major usability failing in not explaining what method of calculation is used, but the reason isn't irrational or illogical. The issue arises because Windows calculator supports infinite precision for the four basic mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but only 32 bits (possibly 64 bits on 64 bit versions of Windows?) for all other operations.
"And yes, any consumer calculator should round a result that's less than machine precision to zero rather than pretend that it's an actual answer."
I see, so you think it's better to hide limitations in software and hope the user simply doesn't notice them, rather than make them obvious? Because that's exactly what you're asking for - you're asking that the software hides small errors in the hope the user doesn't notice even though they'll inevitably cumulate in some circumstances causing far bigger errors. Congratulations, you're one of those people who would be likely to cause many problems we've seen surrounding these sorts of issues from spacecraft crashing, to banks "losing" millions of dollars. Please, stick to the WPF WebBrowser control and don't try to do anything mission critical, it's for the good of computer users everywhere.
It doesn't really matter what you majored in if you didn't take what you need to away from it. If you did kind of study surrounding the search for truth and correctness in math then you'll understand why you are wrong. As you do not, I can only assume you did not cover this topic.
The issue in this case lies in the square root function used, as computers are limited as to how they provide an approximation (note that word - it's pretty key), which is what they must do using floating point math rather than using for example, symbolic math. What Microsoft haven't done is rounded the in memory result of the square root function, and whilst this gives a rather unsavoury result when exposed through functions like this, it doesn't mask the fact there isn't perfect precision in their square root function. You may feel they should mask it, and that's great, but then you just get less obvious errors as you suffer in other computer based calculators, where the lack of precision creates more subtle errors further down the line as they are masked.
You can question the algorithm for choosing the calculation of the root all you want, but it doesn't mean other calculators are magically getting it right, they're likely just rounding it and losing precision and creating the foundation for cumulative effect errors further down the line. Effectively Windows Calculator is saying "Here's the result exactly as I calculate it", whilst other calculators are saying "Here's the result, I've fudged it a bit to make it look better for you and give you what you're probably expecting at this point, but don't expect that to remain the case if you throw a few more operations into the mix".
Realistically though if you want better precision than this I'm not sure why you'd be using Windows Calculator, or any cheap/built in software calculator in the first place. You should probably be looking at something like Maple, or Mathematica, or a decent calculator.
Regardless none of this changes the fact that Windows Calculator is producing a correct result for it's use of floating point math, and the specific square root function used. What you're really asking for is that the correct solution be fudged to look right specific circumstances. If you want to see actual calculator bugs, then try here:
"AC had a good point as well that there's no evidence of weapons production, though the charge of trying to confuse the situation falls flat given what you were responding to."
No he doesn't. Just about every single one of his points were wrong, and I don't know why every time this topic comes up these myths are repeated despite the fact that they also get debunked every single time. The AC's points were:
"1. Iran's formal notification to the IAEA of the planned construction of the backup fuel-rod facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed."
False. Iran has been deemed non-compliant by the IAEA since 2003. This is verifiable on the IAEA website.
"2. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities."
False. The most recent report (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-9.pdf) clearly states:
The Agency requested access to the Parchin site, but Iran did not grant access to the site at that time.
"3. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons."
False. The most recent report (same link as above) also clearly states:
41. The Annex to the Director Generalâ(TM)s November 2011 report (GOV/2011/65) provided a detailed analysis of the information available to the Agency indicating that Iran has carried out activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. This information, which comes from a wide variety of independent sources, including from a number of Member States, from the Agencyâ(TM)s own efforts and from information provided by Iran itself, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that: prior to the end of 2003 the activities took place under a structured programme; that some continued after 2003; and that some may still be ongoing.
There is absolutely no agreement whatsoever that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. On the contrary, there is clearly great suspicion that they are.
"4. Israel refuses to sign the same treaty Iran has signed."
True. This is the only point the AC made that is true. I'm not sure what it matters though, I'm not convinced that openly accepting you're not supportive of the NPT because you want the freedom to make nuclear weapons is somehow worse than covertly pursuing them whilst pretending you're against them. At least we know Israel's position, and that they've not used them despite having had them for 40 years. Iran is still a complete unknown that has at very least claimed to want to whipe out a nation. I'd much rather favour the honest and defensive than the subversive and aggressive.
Also, this argument of trying to say "Well the US isn't perfect either" is so utterly pathetic, it doesn't matter what the fuck the US is or isn't, this is about a nation that has a long history of committing war by proxy. I don't really care about the US, I care about a nation that would quite arguably the most untrustworthy custodian of nuclear weapons to date, having nuclear weapons. For all Israel, America, Britain, France, China, and Russia's faults they've at least not shown any will to use nuclear weapons in anger since the devastation they caused was witnessed in World War II. We've not even had from any of these nations outright calls for the destruction of other nations, and yes yes I know that was a "mistranslation", was it, really? even when it was painted on the side of missiles? Even now the current Ayatollah running the show has just put forward what he believes is his legal justification for the whiping out of Israel and destruction of the Jews?
Whilst I've defended Israel in the past, I have not supported it for some years, it's current government is too aggressive, too right wing, too uncompromising and I believe it's continued settlement building is completely indefensible. Anyone whose read a decent amount of my pos
Look sometimes you make good posts, other times you seem to feel the need to post because you have nothing better to do and get completely out of your depth. Despite being out of your depth you continue to argue your point even though it's completely wrong and you just look like a tit as a result. This is one of those times.
The fact is there are many different numbering and calculation systems, and demanding that the one you are used to is the only "correct" way is like a kind of ethnocentrism.
Stating that you can get the correct answer with floating point is irrelevant, because you can also get wrong answers with base 10 relative to the application of base 2. In fact, similar confusion is quite common in the computing world, look for example at how confused people get over broadband speeds where you commonly get questions like "I have a 10mbps connection, why aren't I getting 10mb/s downloads?" which is ultimately down to the megabyte/megabit difference. Similarly hard drive sizes has always been a point of confusion due to different numbering techniques.
When you study maths to a higher level (i.e. post A-Level), particularly if you do pure maths, or even if you study something like the history of maths related to computing particularly with regards to people like Bertrand Russel, Kurt Godel, etc. then you'll get a decent grasp of the importance of nailing down the fundamentals of how calculations and numbering should occur - because it's fundamental in determining the correctness of any math you do. There isn't some magical single numbering and calculation system, there's only that which is most common, but a key fundamental point in math is that you can't say something is wrong unless it's wrong within the specified numbering and calculation system, obviously with Windows Calculator it's right within it's system, the system just isn't the system you want, expect, or are used to, and again, I agree that's a major problem in itself, but it isn't an issue of an incorrect answer for the numbering and calculation system used.
Again I completely agree Windows Calculator isn't giving the answers most people would expect, but once more, the fault is one of usability in not explaining better to the user why they may expect some seemingly invalid answers but there's a stark difference between this and being inherently wrong in it's calculation.
I'm sure you can now go and make the argument that well it should use the system people are most useful and I don't really disagree, but in math "wrong" is a powerful term and it requires an understanding of not just the equation in question, but the numbering system, and the rules governing the way mathematical operations are carried out. It requires that the answer is wrong under the defined system, which it isn't - again, it's just not the system you want or expect it to use.
Note that whilst many other calculators, such as the Mac's don't exhibit this particular behaviour, they do have other behaviour that would be deemed incorrect to people like you expecting the standard base 10 numbering and mathematical calculations that you were taught at school which ironically the Windows Calculator doesn't have. A quick Google will give you any number of examples for any number of calculators, or languages/compilers.
Agreed, I was under the impression Microsoft has improved in recent years, but I agree, I'm beginning to realise they've just gotten smarter.
They've been outed as backers of a number of FUD campaigns, they've been outed as being responsible for a lot of anti-Google lobbying in the European parliament and so forth.
It's becoming more and more clear that Microsoft has just gotten far far better at lobbying, and as you say, far far better at using proxies. Look at the way they basically managed to hijack Nokia - I don't believe for a second Elop got in there and switched it to a Windows Phone house fairly and squarely.
Which brings me to TFA, it ironically sounds like another paid Microsoft shill article. Frankly I see companies like Google get a lot of bad rap. Google is constantly getting hammered on privacy yet it's nowhere near as guilty of privacy infringement as Facebook whom I know for a fact have broken European privacy laws with not an eyelid batted by the authorities over it. Facebook is very close to Microsoft, with Microsoft having a masive stake in it, so it doesn't suprise me.
Apple knows how to play the marketing game too, and Microsoft seems to have been very lenient with them - certainly with regards to for example cell phone patents, Apple and Microsoft seem to have largely been working together.
Make no mistake, this last few years Microsoft has been on a massive PR offensive using shills, puppet companies, lobbying and so forth, and I actually find it quite scary - I actually kind of preferred it when they were openly evil, rather than doing their evil things behind backdoors. The whole XML documentation standards debacle seem to be the point at which Microsoft's subversive lobbying and shilling actions seem to really come out into the open.
Which is a real shame, because I'm actually a fan of a lot of Microsoft's products - I still think Visual Studio is the best IDE going by a longshot, I think C# is a brilliant language, and I like Office - yes, I'm one of those strange ones who even appreciates the ribbon bars! SQL server aint bad, and I'm quite content with Windows 7 and Windows Server nowadays. I enjoy my XBox 360 too, so it pains me to see that they feel the need to just become increasingly fucking evil in the background.
That may be so but the point is still this, if a patent case fails in one country, but not in another, then in that country where it hasn't failed, the company making the patent infringement claim has demonstrated that the company being targetted has broken patent law in that particular country.
The judge is now saying "I don't give a fuck about whether an American company breaks the law in another country, I only care if they play by our standards". That's not right, Microsoft has to play by German standards in Germany, not US standards so sorting it out at home basically says "Make a deal in the US to agree to ignore the fact either of you may be breaking the law in Germany". By saying this the judge is again trying to get US companies to not work according to German law. This might sound like no big deal, but what happens when Motorola and Microsoft are forced into a license deal that adheres to US standards then a German only company comes along and similarly infringes on the same patent? That German only company then has to deal with Motorola under only German law and not the potentially more favourable US law on the topic at hand - effectively the German company would be at a distinct disadvantage in brokering a licensing deal compared to Microsoft because the Microsoft deal was forced by a US judge to be carried out under conditions more favourable to Microsoft than the German law would've offered them.
It may seem annoying that companies can go on fishing expeditions but it doesn't matter because each country has it's own laws and so that's precisely what should happen. It's not quite as bad as you make it seem though, as these things only work if the companies in question have a major business prescence in the country in question. It's not all 195 countries then for example, but only those where such law is worth pursuing which is a figure probably no more than 10 to 20 at most. Germany makes sense because it's a country in which Microsoft has one of it's two European headquarters and I believe a decent manufacturing prescence too, certainly my XBox was made in Germany.
You're looking at it from the view of the author, you're dead right that for the authors and publishers that what Apple and co. did was brilliant as it artificially inflated the price of their product above the value determined by a competitive market.
The DoJ's action isn't for the authors/publishers though, it's for consumers, because they're the ones that got fucked by it. It's only wrong on all accounts if you believe a market where prices are artificially inflated above market value is a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Well that's what makes the whole thing really funny. The measures are aimed entirely at file sharing. Since the bill was passed file sharing has declined and become harder to trace, whilst file lockers and usenet have grown in popularity.
So now this wont go live for another 2 years, I suspect the components of the bill will be so woefully irrelevant to the way piracy is working by this point that it will be meaningless anyway.
This is the great thing about this sort of thing I suppose - UK politicians are such slow, lumbering wastes of space, that the chance of them putting law into place that has any hope of keeping pace with technology is pretty much negligible.
Yes, I live in the UK and have a casual interest in Ice Hockey, because the closest thing I have to a team is the Ottawa Senators because that is where my girlfriend is from and I've seen them play when I've been over their once or twice I thought I'd just Google NHL scores to see how they're doing as I heard they reached playoffs. I was quite impressed to see a nice formatted list of scores including logos.
This is probably not new to many North Americans where the sport is pretty prominent, but to me it illustrated how many things Google is good at giving a context sensitive customised result over as I find I stumble over more and more of them as time goes on.
"I think the part the analysts are looking at it the Asia Pacific market share. There are billions of potential customers in Chindia and surrounding villages."
But how are they going to tap into this market? These low margin markets (plus the one you forgot - the continent of Africa) are precisely where Nokia screwed up - they ended up spending too much time chasing volume in these markets, and neglected their high margin markets. This is before you factor in the point that at least some of Apple's success is based on it's image as a fashionable brand - can it really retain that whilst producing budget cut down versions for China and India?
People see China and India as magical markets, and they are for some things - the cheap and bare essential products that everyone can buy, where volume matters, but Apple's not about volume - this is why they only have 17% of the smartphone market vs. 52% for Android yet still make most of the Smartphone profits. Consider this - China's economy is less than half the size of America's, yet has more than 4 times the population, now consider how many Americans as a proportion of the population can't afford or can't justify the expense of an iPhone - it's no small amount, and imagine how much worse that must be in China. The story in India is even worse - it's economy is even smaller again yet has a similar multiple of America's population.
The problem is best illustrated by these lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
If you're a company like Apple, focussing on the high end, your best opportunities are to work down this list top to bottom, or alternatively to try and steal back marketshare from the high end Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy SII though I suspect that wont be easy - in some high end markets like the UK, the Galaxy SII alone actually has a healthy lead over the iPhone.
Apple just doesn't have the type of business model that can realistically benefit from the large populations of China and India -that isn't to say there aren't segments of these markets that are worth going for, but still less so than most Western markets, some Middle Eastern markets, and so on, and still arguably much less so than just trying to claw ground back from the competition in existing markets.
I think they did and all the BBC did was to add a note about how he's done some consulting for Microsoft, rather than just stop using him as a source full stop.
You can't infer anything from this list, the metrics it uses are less than useless and time and time again it appears on Slashdot, and time and time again people make invalid assumptions from it.
This page explains how they've compiled the list:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/tpci_definition.htm
If a language doesn't have an entry on Wikipedia, then it's not considered.
The whole methodology is a complete train wreck. They just search the top 9 Alexa sites that have a search box, and weight based on the size of the site. Not only does this mean important programming sites like Stack Overflow are completely ignored, are largely ignored but the whole methodology has more flaws than you can count. One prominent example is it means that if a language is well documented and/or easy to use and people don't need peer-support so much, then it'll likely get less hits than a language that has fuck all documentation and so the net is full of sites explaining how to do this, that, and the other. It also means older languages, for which more sites on the net exist will always retain greater popularity. Note that they also manually tweak the results anyway with an arbitrary confidence factor per language.
I've long said that personally I believe the best metric if you're interested in this sort of thing is to simply search tech job sites, for various areas and just have a look at what sort of languages companies are recruiting for. If you do that - gather a picture of what companies are really interested in by looking at what they're recruiting for you'll find a completely different picture to that that this pointless TIOBE index gives. Suddenly for example, PHP, C#, and Javascript fly up the charts, whilst C drops quite markedly.
The only thing this chart is good for is trying to argue some point from a biased standpoint if the chart just happens to coincide with the language argument your having. Beyond that it's of little value for anything, as it certainly doesn't really bear much resemblance to what's going on in the industry for the most part.
I have no doubt C++ is rising against with it's latest release being pretty cool, but I think it's got an awful lot of ground before it's back on top, and as for plain old C? I don't think anyone in the industry in their right mind would genuinely believe C has been anywhere near the top for probably over a decade now. If it was C++ sure you might be able to argue it, but, C? seriously? It's been almost entirely relegated to the realm of embedded programming and really little else and even there isn't the only player in town. Don't get me wrong - I love C, it was my first language so I'll always have a special appreciation for it, but these stats are just retarded.
Your abysmal English, complete inability to argue based on facts, and blatant populist nationalistic rhetoric only further reaffirms my view that if the rest of the UK no longer has to subsidise the likes of the education system for people like you who despite said subsidy still demonstrate a horrendously poor level of education then Scottish independence is indeed a good thing.
The only question is what excuse you're going to use when all those islands around Scotland, whom are actually closest to the oil decide they'd rather stay with the UK meaning that all such oil and gas reserves actually remain in UK territorial waters.
Still, at least when they do you will have an excuse for yourself as to why the Scotland experiment failed and you become the next Greece. At that point you could probably protest about something in the streets, but with Salmond insisting he has powers he does not, throwing away the rights of Scotsmen who want to keep their land in favour of billionaire Americans like Trump, and generally trying to fiddle the referendum by eliminating as many Scots who are unlikely to vote for him as possible then I'm not sure you'll even have the freedom to do that.
Either way I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun for you.
Microsoft invested in Facebook very early on. Politically it's hard to see Facebook and Microsoft as a separate entity, they seem almost identically aligned in this respect, they've been scratching each others back for a long long time now to the point it's really impossible to consider whether an action by Facebook against a competitor of Facebook was really an independent action at all. Microsoft's opinion seems to hold a lot of sway at Facebook, and vice versa to a lesser extent. I'd argue the companies are perhaps the two most closely aligned of the major tech companies in Silicon Valley nowadays.
As the other guy pointed out, how things are defined for tax purposes in a specific nation do not in any way whatsoever alter the actual definition of the term in English language.
emÂployÂment/emËploimÉ(TM)nt/
Noun:
The condition of having paid work.
What exactly is the problem? Clearly he is employed by Oracle. Temporary or permanent it doesn't matter, he's still employed by them.
Is that you Florian? Trying to alter the definition of employment to suit your circumstance?
I suspect the real reason people might trust him is because media outlets like The Register, and the BBC have been repeatedly posting in their news stories shit like "Trusted open source patent expert Florian Mueller".
If it was just from The Register it'd be fair enough, because you'd have to be quite a fool to not know that 99% of stuff The Register posts is agenda based FUD coming from grossly biased sources, but the BBC is supposed to be impartial. Clearly on this issue it's outright failed to fulfil it's charter.
I've always pondered about yes/no answers in court. I've seen judges demand either a yes or no answer on many occasions, yet to me it seems to conflict with a fundamental principle, at least in the UK justice system.
When you give your oath to the court in the UK it's "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".
I remember being taught in history class of all things that it used to simply be "I promise to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth". The whole truth section was added later to prevent people giving answers that whilst true, only paint half the picture due to missing vital information or context.
So I've often wondered in this context how a judge can push for yes/no, as in many circumstances it betrays this fundamental principle in that either answer only tells a partial truth and not a whole truth. Has this principle ever been tested? To me being forced to give a yes/no answer would mean that I was betraying my vow to tell the whole truth as either answer would only be a partial truth in a more complex situation.
This is one of those circumstances where such an answer would in my opinion, violate such a vow, and as much as I want Oracle to lose I do also sympathise with the difficulty of just answering yes/no to that particular question.
"And they were the first to dabble "after" Apple's "Thoughts on Music" in January 2007. The article was published in "February 2007". So how is it evidence that EMI led the initiative by showing an article that came after Apple made the offer?"
Really? you still don't get the irrelevance of what amounts to nothing more than a press release backed by no actual action?
"Why would *Apple* choose to offer one labels music DRM free but not the others if they had the (legal) ability to?" ...and you're still asserting this was an Apple led initiative without any evidence demonstrating such?
Honestly, if you can't even read and interpret basic English I don't think there's any helping you whatsoever. It's pretty clear you're looking at one thing, and interpreting in your brain something completely different. Ignoring the points that demonstrate why you are wrong don't make those points go away, they just make you look persistently more stupid the more you ignore them and pretend they are not there.
"It's no secret that there are six major publishers -- the ones being sued by the DOJ."
Along with Apple. Well, suprise suprise, why might that be I wonder?? It's like the evidence is right there in front of you but your brain selects out the bits about Apple that you just don't want to hear. This is one of the defining traits of a zealous fanboy - you just cannot comprehend anything that goes against the angellic image you've created in your mind of your chosen pet company.
"So why did Adobe abandon Flash on non-Apple mobile platforms when it was fully embraced by Google?"
Yes these things happened at the same time.
Oh wait, no they didn't, there was a massive gap of time in between, a gap which just happens to have been long enough for Apple to have killed Flash on mobile. Funny that.
"Right because there is just so much ogg content out there. I'm sure that's on the top of most people's wish list...."
I see, so your answer is to pretend that if something isn't the most popular format on earth right now then it isn't possibly worth supporting, ever! Well done, you just failed standards 101.
"So ogg is part of the HTML5 spec?"
It was part of the draft for some time as the preferred audio and video standard going forward. It was supported by Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, but was eventually dropped from the spec primarily due to opposition from Apple because they wanted to push a codec they held patents for instead. Again, funny that for a company supposedly wanting an open web. See that there, that's again the difference between what a company says, and what it does.
The video tag is now format neutral, but there is a disparity between support such that thanks to Apple's torpedoing of preferred formats cross-browser video is still more awkward than it should be.
"Yes plenty."
Oh my, that's worrying.
Still, that's enough from me, arguing with people who ignore inconvenient points that destroy their argument and instead repeat their argument as if it will somehow have more validity the second time round when it wont is rather a waste of time.
Have fun failing to grasp basic facts whilst retaining an impressive inability to follow even the most basic logical arguments. I'm sure it'll get you far.
"If EMI was dabbling in selling DRM free music before Apple's "Thoughts on Music" , you should be able to find a link somewhere."
You totally didn't even understand the comment you made about the difference between feel good PR statements, and actual cold hard action did you? That's quite strange as it's not that difficult a concept to grasp. Still here's a link demonstrating EMI being the first to dabble in DRM free music:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/26/emi_drm_talks_breakup/
"But that's neither here nor there. You were wrong. Apple didn't start selling DRM free music in response to Amazon et. al. How could they? They were doing it first - with mainstream music."
Another fallacy. You're making the implication that selling a relatively small fraction of their library DRM free at a higher cost point is in some way comparable to offering all major label's music DRM free at a standard low price point. This is clearly false and exposes a fundamental flaw in your argument - you previously talked down eMusic's earlier offering stating it didn't offer enough mainstream tracks to count, but suddenly a handful of tracks from EMI at a higher price point is enough to count? Really? You're creating a painfully arbitrary definition there to try and make your case, that's pretty weak ground to build a case on.
"So there are a lot of places that sell books DRM Free books from the major publishers where?"
Well what sort of books are you gunning for exactly? Perhaps this list can get you started?
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Publishers_without_DRM
Or this one?
http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2011/02/07/where-to-get-drm-free-ebooks-for-kindle-sony-nook-and-other-ereaders/
Or is this another of your arbitrary definition tricks with your use of the term "mainstream" where you'll claim the likes of Pearson aren't "mainstream" enough?
"As far as Flash, you really think its Apple's fault that Adobe abandoned Flash on mobile and not because it was slow and buggy."
Bwahahaha, lol yeah, that was a good one. It's like you actually believe your own bullshit. Yep, Apple was really welcoming to Flash, it didn't change it's terms to prevent use of interpreters and so forth in apps at all. Nope, none of that ever actually happened. So how are the fairies today? Going for dinner with Santa Claus tonight?
"And you are free to download and number of Webkit browsers for IOS. But do you have any evidence showing that Chrome and Opera have better compliance than Safari?"
Yes, try using all of the new HTML5 form elements and let me know how you get on. I'm sure use of ogg/theora and ogg/vorbis will work great for you on Safari, and the autocomplete attribute work wonders. How about the file API, and meter and progress elements? I'm sure you could create a great looking site for Safari with them too!
I'm guessing you've not actually ever had any involvement with an HTML5 project have you?
"Ultimately, Apple (Jobs, really) realized one fundamental sociological thing: Most people don't want freedom. It's too much for them to handle."
I keep hearing this sort of sentiment "Apple was obviously right about x, because most people use them" etc.
But where is the proof? Apple has a mere 15% smartphone marketshare vs. Android's 50%+ and even RIM still has about 11%.
As far as people are concerned, numerically, most people actually use Apple's far more open competitors.
There's no doubt Apple is way ahead of the competition in terms of profitability, but it's not because any kind of majority of people prefer Apple, it's just that they've found an impressive way to squeeze money out of people who do buy into their ecosystem.
Again, as far as "most people" go, most people don't in fact choose Apple's way. Some might argue this is a cost issue in that most people can't afford apple or some such naive class warfare type argument, but there are more equally or more expensive Android handsets out there than Apple devices too- Samsung's Galaxy S2 figures alone aren't far off Apple's and in some markets i.e. the UK are actually higher, so it's not a cost thing - the fact is, "most people" are actually conciously choosing not to buy into Apple's way even when they're perfectly able to.
If I've learnt anything from Slashdot it's that most "most people" arguments here are actually wrong.
"Apple's "Thoughts on Music" essay was published before *anyone* was selling mainstream music DRM free. Emusic was selling music from a lot of independent artists no one had heard of. The essay came in response to the music industry's desire for Apple to license FairPlay."
You're confusing PR with actual actions. There is a distinct difference between the two. In the UK a number of government officials have stood up over the years and said "The UK is not complicit in torture", this doesn't make it true and there is an ever growing mountain of evidence to the contrary.
"Apple was selling DRM music from EMI before Amazon."
Yes, we've been through this... repeating it doesn't somehow change the facts. It's still a half-truth which ignores the entire rest of the industry on both sides - other music publishers, and other digital music retailers.
It also still ignores the fact you have absolutely no evidence this was an Apple led initiative - EMI was about the only label that was dabbling in DRM free music and talking about it well outside the context of just Apple and iTunes so it's quite likely it was them who wanted their music to go DRM free.
"Even after everyone else was selling music DRM free, Apple was moving up as the worlds largest retailer."
Yes, albeit not as fast relative to their device sales growth until they went DRM free. Amazon et al. was never going to stop them because their growth of iTunes music sales was built off the back of device sales, but there were still always going to be some customers that left for the cheaper DRM free options the likes of Amazon et al. provided and it was that Apple had to stem the tide of by going DRM free itself.
"And you still didn't answer the question, where can you get mainstream video or books without DRM?"
The Pirate Bay? No seriously, not many places for video, though lots of places for books. Regardless this is a fallacy, you're suggesting just because others are using the same tactic, it's okay that Apple does so. It's not, lock-in is bad whoever does it. The difference though in this particular case is that Apple's DRM pretty much locks you into the Apple hardware ecosystem, whilst other DRM is aimed at stemming copying rather than platform lock-in - that's a key and important difference. One is anti-competitive, the other not so much.
"And for you to believe that Java's purported write once run anywhere is more than a pipe dream after over a decade and a half of evidence to the contrary shows a stunning amount of niavete. Even worse since any halfway performant app on Android uses the native API's."
It's not even about Java, the fact is a number of people who tried to improve portability by having their own bytecode run on a custom interpreter got fucked by Apple's rules against this sort of thing - Adobe and Flash being the most high profile case. Whilst they've relaxed this for some technologies which would hurt them more than benefit them (i.e. Unity) they still do it for others. It's a pretty clear restriction that cripples portability.
"As far as Apple pushing "Safari only", it's not like almost every single browser on almost every single mobile and embedded platform is not using Webkit...."
Right, and you know that not all browsers using WebKit are equal right?
"Which browser has a higher degree of HTML compliance than Safari? Even Fitefox has abandoned trying to ignore H264 for WebM."
Chrome and Opera.
"5. Apple started selling DRM free music from EMI *before* Amazon music store came online."
Right and your compelling evidence that this was an Apple led initiative and not an EMI led initiative no doubt comes from an objective unbiased source like Steve Jobs? The fact is other stores like eMusic had DRM free content before these point, and Amazon got all the music labels on board and launched mere few months after this. It took Apple around a further two years beyond this point to offer DRM free content.
The fact is the momentum was already behind DRM free music and Apple only relented when it became clear the toll of not offering DRM free music was beginning to outweigh the benefits of lock in as people started to go for DRM free options like Amazon et al.
"Do you realize how many Android phones and tablets are now coming with non-removable batteries?"
Yes, the answer is not many at all. Less than 1% of the total available handsets I would wager. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are a couple of older Motorola models.
"Which "content"? Apple been selling DRM free music for four years."
Movies/TV content? Books?
"How do you propose running even a non-DRM'd app compiled for iOS on another device?"
I know right? Imagine that, imagine if someone invented some kind of technology whereby you could write software once and run it anywhere, or at very least maximise portability potential. If only this sort of technology existed.
Even with HTML5, something Apple has backed since it's early days and which was sold on portability Apple has pushed Safari only shit and Apple patented shit. Even there they're trying to be the new Microsoft and control the web to increase lock-in.
It's not difficult. Between hearing excuses from interns and the fact this world is mostly full of bullshitters I find cause to use it at least 10 times a day.
In fact, if you just walk over to and randomly barge into people's conversations and say it I'd wager there's a 90% chance you used it correctly.
"Oh please, these apologies for Apple are getting tiresome. Apple did not lock down iOS to keep out malware, they did it so that they could remain in control of the products they sell people long after the sale is made."
It's the same mindset that believed Steve's FUD when he blamed publishers for DRM in iTunes, saying he wanted rid of it but they just wouldn't let him, despite the fact his competitors like Amazon and eMusic at the time despite having much smaller stores and much less clout managed to get DRM free contracts from the publishers no problem.
With Apple it's always about control, DRM in iTunes was entirely about control, it was about making sure that when the non user replaceable battery in your iPad ran out after 18 months to 2 years you couldn't fuck off to a competitor with your content very easily, no you had to buy Apple again.
The only people that haven't figured out yet that Apple's entire business model is built around controlling what you do in an effort to influence what you buy each upgrade cycle, control what you pay, and manage who you pay from and who the money goes to are fanboys. The worst sort too - the ones who can't see the evidence glaring them right in the face.
You seem to think you know what you're on about, you stated your degree was at least partially related to mathematics, and yet you seem to have completely missed the fact that the majority of any undergraduate mathematics course is going to be discussion of approximations to functions. The fact is that they're everywhere, and this case is no different. Sometimes exact solutions aren't an option, this is one of them.
"In your arrogance you assume that I'm unfamiliar with the basis of your argument, but in fact I happen to live in the real world, where your argument is bullshit of the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" variety."
Yes, well, it's a shame you don't seem to have an understanding of the realities of software development though, and the fact that sometimes compromise has to be made. If something doesn't work as you want the simple fact is that it's not always a bug, it quite simply is sometimes just a feature you do not like. Regardless, call this a bug if you will, I agree it's a usability failing either way, and I tend to class these as bugs myself, but the fundamental point I was making remains that the calculation is no more wrong than most other calculators, including those that mask this sort of thing, only to reintroduce them when you're least expecting them further down the line.
"Even worse; Windows Calculator isn't wrong all the time, even in this case. If you enter sqrt(4) you get 2, and it even displays 2 as the intermediate result if you enter the expression as sqrt(4)-2."
Again, I completely agree that it's horrible that you don't always get the result you want, and there's a major usability failing in not explaining what method of calculation is used, but the reason isn't irrational or illogical. The issue arises because Windows calculator supports infinite precision for the four basic mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but only 32 bits (possibly 64 bits on 64 bit versions of Windows?) for all other operations.
"And yes, any consumer calculator should round a result that's less than machine precision to zero rather than pretend that it's an actual answer."
I see, so you think it's better to hide limitations in software and hope the user simply doesn't notice them, rather than make them obvious? Because that's exactly what you're asking for - you're asking that the software hides small errors in the hope the user doesn't notice even though they'll inevitably cumulate in some circumstances causing far bigger errors. Congratulations, you're one of those people who would be likely to cause many problems we've seen surrounding these sorts of issues from spacecraft crashing, to banks "losing" millions of dollars. Please, stick to the WPF WebBrowser control and don't try to do anything mission critical, it's for the good of computer users everywhere.
It doesn't really matter what you majored in if you didn't take what you need to away from it. If you did kind of study surrounding the search for truth and correctness in math then you'll understand why you are wrong. As you do not, I can only assume you did not cover this topic.
The issue in this case lies in the square root function used, as computers are limited as to how they provide an approximation (note that word - it's pretty key), which is what they must do using floating point math rather than using for example, symbolic math. What Microsoft haven't done is rounded the in memory result of the square root function, and whilst this gives a rather unsavoury result when exposed through functions like this, it doesn't mask the fact there isn't perfect precision in their square root function. You may feel they should mask it, and that's great, but then you just get less obvious errors as you suffer in other computer based calculators, where the lack of precision creates more subtle errors further down the line as they are masked.
You can question the algorithm for choosing the calculation of the root all you want, but it doesn't mean other calculators are magically getting it right, they're likely just rounding it and losing precision and creating the foundation for cumulative effect errors further down the line. Effectively Windows Calculator is saying "Here's the result exactly as I calculate it", whilst other calculators are saying "Here's the result, I've fudged it a bit to make it look better for you and give you what you're probably expecting at this point, but don't expect that to remain the case if you throw a few more operations into the mix".
Realistically though if you want better precision than this I'm not sure why you'd be using Windows Calculator, or any cheap/built in software calculator in the first place. You should probably be looking at something like Maple, or Mathematica, or a decent calculator.
Regardless none of this changes the fact that Windows Calculator is producing a correct result for it's use of floating point math, and the specific square root function used. What you're really asking for is that the correct solution be fudged to look right specific circumstances. If you want to see actual calculator bugs, then try here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaWJqGxzfuw
"AC had a good point as well that there's no evidence of weapons production, though the charge of trying to confuse the situation falls flat given what you were responding to."
No he doesn't. Just about every single one of his points were wrong, and I don't know why every time this topic comes up these myths are repeated despite the fact that they also get debunked every single time. The AC's points were:
"1. Iran's formal notification to the IAEA of the planned construction of the backup fuel-rod facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed."
False. Iran has been deemed non-compliant by the IAEA since 2003. This is verifiable on the IAEA website.
"2. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities."
False. The most recent report (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-9.pdf) clearly states:
The Agency requested access to the Parchin site, but Iran did not grant access to the site at that time.
"3. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons."
False. The most recent report (same link as above) also clearly states:
41. The Annex to the Director Generalâ(TM)s November 2011 report (GOV/2011/65) provided a detailed
analysis of the information available to the Agency indicating that Iran has carried out activities that are
relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. This information, which comes from a wide
variety of independent sources, including from a number of Member States, from the Agencyâ(TM)s own efforts
and from information provided by Iran itself, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible. The
information indicates that: prior to the end of 2003 the activities took place under a structured programme;
that some continued after 2003; and that some may still be ongoing.
There is absolutely no agreement whatsoever that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. On the contrary, there is clearly great suspicion that they are.
"4. Israel refuses to sign the same treaty Iran has signed."
True. This is the only point the AC made that is true. I'm not sure what it matters though, I'm not convinced that openly accepting you're not supportive of the NPT because you want the freedom to make nuclear weapons is somehow worse than covertly pursuing them whilst pretending you're against them. At least we know Israel's position, and that they've not used them despite having had them for 40 years. Iran is still a complete unknown that has at very least claimed to want to whipe out a nation. I'd much rather favour the honest and defensive than the subversive and aggressive.
Also, this argument of trying to say "Well the US isn't perfect either" is so utterly pathetic, it doesn't matter what the fuck the US is or isn't, this is about a nation that has a long history of committing war by proxy. I don't really care about the US, I care about a nation that would quite arguably the most untrustworthy custodian of nuclear weapons to date, having nuclear weapons. For all Israel, America, Britain, France, China, and Russia's faults they've at least not shown any will to use nuclear weapons in anger since the devastation they caused was witnessed in World War II. We've not even had from any of these nations outright calls for the destruction of other nations, and yes yes I know that was a "mistranslation", was it, really? even when it was painted on the side of missiles? Even now the current Ayatollah running the show has just put forward what he believes is his legal justification for the whiping out of Israel and destruction of the Jews?
Whilst I've defended Israel in the past, I have not supported it for some years, it's current government is too aggressive, too right wing, too uncompromising and I believe it's continued settlement building is completely indefensible. Anyone whose read a decent amount of my pos
Look sometimes you make good posts, other times you seem to feel the need to post because you have nothing better to do and get completely out of your depth. Despite being out of your depth you continue to argue your point even though it's completely wrong and you just look like a tit as a result. This is one of those times.
The fact is there are many different numbering and calculation systems, and demanding that the one you are used to is the only "correct" way is like a kind of ethnocentrism.
Stating that you can get the correct answer with floating point is irrelevant, because you can also get wrong answers with base 10 relative to the application of base 2. In fact, similar confusion is quite common in the computing world, look for example at how confused people get over broadband speeds where you commonly get questions like "I have a 10mbps connection, why aren't I getting 10mb/s downloads?" which is ultimately down to the megabyte/megabit difference. Similarly hard drive sizes has always been a point of confusion due to different numbering techniques.
When you study maths to a higher level (i.e. post A-Level), particularly if you do pure maths, or even if you study something like the history of maths related to computing particularly with regards to people like Bertrand Russel, Kurt Godel, etc. then you'll get a decent grasp of the importance of nailing down the fundamentals of how calculations and numbering should occur - because it's fundamental in determining the correctness of any math you do. There isn't some magical single numbering and calculation system, there's only that which is most common, but a key fundamental point in math is that you can't say something is wrong unless it's wrong within the specified numbering and calculation system, obviously with Windows Calculator it's right within it's system, the system just isn't the system you want, expect, or are used to, and again, I agree that's a major problem in itself, but it isn't an issue of an incorrect answer for the numbering and calculation system used.
Again I completely agree Windows Calculator isn't giving the answers most people would expect, but once more, the fault is one of usability in not explaining better to the user why they may expect some seemingly invalid answers but there's a stark difference between this and being inherently wrong in it's calculation.
I'm sure you can now go and make the argument that well it should use the system people are most useful and I don't really disagree, but in math "wrong" is a powerful term and it requires an understanding of not just the equation in question, but the numbering system, and the rules governing the way mathematical operations are carried out. It requires that the answer is wrong under the defined system, which it isn't - again, it's just not the system you want or expect it to use.
Note that whilst many other calculators, such as the Mac's don't exhibit this particular behaviour, they do have other behaviour that would be deemed incorrect to people like you expecting the standard base 10 numbering and mathematical calculations that you were taught at school which ironically the Windows Calculator doesn't have. A quick Google will give you any number of examples for any number of calculators, or languages/compilers.
Agreed, I was under the impression Microsoft has improved in recent years, but I agree, I'm beginning to realise they've just gotten smarter.
They've been outed as backers of a number of FUD campaigns, they've been outed as being responsible for a lot of anti-Google lobbying in the European parliament and so forth.
It's becoming more and more clear that Microsoft has just gotten far far better at lobbying, and as you say, far far better at using proxies. Look at the way they basically managed to hijack Nokia - I don't believe for a second Elop got in there and switched it to a Windows Phone house fairly and squarely.
Which brings me to TFA, it ironically sounds like another paid Microsoft shill article. Frankly I see companies like Google get a lot of bad rap. Google is constantly getting hammered on privacy yet it's nowhere near as guilty of privacy infringement as Facebook whom I know for a fact have broken European privacy laws with not an eyelid batted by the authorities over it. Facebook is very close to Microsoft, with Microsoft having a masive stake in it, so it doesn't suprise me.
Apple knows how to play the marketing game too, and Microsoft seems to have been very lenient with them - certainly with regards to for example cell phone patents, Apple and Microsoft seem to have largely been working together.
Make no mistake, this last few years Microsoft has been on a massive PR offensive using shills, puppet companies, lobbying and so forth, and I actually find it quite scary - I actually kind of preferred it when they were openly evil, rather than doing their evil things behind backdoors. The whole XML documentation standards debacle seem to be the point at which Microsoft's subversive lobbying and shilling actions seem to really come out into the open.
Which is a real shame, because I'm actually a fan of a lot of Microsoft's products - I still think Visual Studio is the best IDE going by a longshot, I think C# is a brilliant language, and I like Office - yes, I'm one of those strange ones who even appreciates the ribbon bars! SQL server aint bad, and I'm quite content with Windows 7 and Windows Server nowadays. I enjoy my XBox 360 too, so it pains me to see that they feel the need to just become increasingly fucking evil in the background.
That may be so but the point is still this, if a patent case fails in one country, but not in another, then in that country where it hasn't failed, the company making the patent infringement claim has demonstrated that the company being targetted has broken patent law in that particular country.
The judge is now saying "I don't give a fuck about whether an American company breaks the law in another country, I only care if they play by our standards". That's not right, Microsoft has to play by German standards in Germany, not US standards so sorting it out at home basically says "Make a deal in the US to agree to ignore the fact either of you may be breaking the law in Germany". By saying this the judge is again trying to get US companies to not work according to German law. This might sound like no big deal, but what happens when Motorola and Microsoft are forced into a license deal that adheres to US standards then a German only company comes along and similarly infringes on the same patent? That German only company then has to deal with Motorola under only German law and not the potentially more favourable US law on the topic at hand - effectively the German company would be at a distinct disadvantage in brokering a licensing deal compared to Microsoft because the Microsoft deal was forced by a US judge to be carried out under conditions more favourable to Microsoft than the German law would've offered them.
It may seem annoying that companies can go on fishing expeditions but it doesn't matter because each country has it's own laws and so that's precisely what should happen. It's not quite as bad as you make it seem though, as these things only work if the companies in question have a major business prescence in the country in question. It's not all 195 countries then for example, but only those where such law is worth pursuing which is a figure probably no more than 10 to 20 at most. Germany makes sense because it's a country in which Microsoft has one of it's two European headquarters and I believe a decent manufacturing prescence too, certainly my XBox was made in Germany.
You're looking at it from the view of the author, you're dead right that for the authors and publishers that what Apple and co. did was brilliant as it artificially inflated the price of their product above the value determined by a competitive market.
The DoJ's action isn't for the authors/publishers though, it's for consumers, because they're the ones that got fucked by it. It's only wrong on all accounts if you believe a market where prices are artificially inflated above market value is a good thing.