Your former quote is simply because DX10 is Vista/Windows 7 only, the reason he's not using it is not because he has a problem with it, but because DirectX 9 is adequate for his requirements and still allows him to support XP. It's completely wrong to assume that avoiding DX10 means using OpenGL- I'm not sure if that's your insinuation by quoting this, but what it means is that his preferred DirectX version is 9 as it is with most developers, because XP still has a big enough userbase to simply not ignore it by making the leap to DX10 and 11.
Your latter quote doesn't suggest a necessary preference of OpenGL, but all id's legacy code is GL based. Have a look through the code from Quake to Quake 3 and you'll see that much of the underlying codebase remains the same because it's pointless rewriting it when it's already there. In fact, even more modern games based on id tech have a lot of code that dates all the way back to Quake 1. You're reading something that simply isn't there, nothing about what he said in either quote suggests a preference of OpenGL nowadays.
This is really it, the summary almost sounds like a complete troll.
OpenGL didn't lose out because of Microsoft's marketing, it lost out because whilst OpenGL stagnated, DirectX grew and grew to become a completely unified games development framework. Carmack may have had a point 12 years ago, but whilst OpenGL development completely ignored criticisms, Microsoft took criticism from the likes of Carmack on board and improved performance of their API whilst adding new features, providing great documentation and tidying up the interface.
Citing an argument from over a decade ago is desperate to say the least.
OpenGL needed to become something more, it needed to become part of a unified game development library in itself- we had part of that with OpenAL but it needed everything, we simply need an Open Multimedia/Gaming framework that can do everything that DirectX can do.
The fact is, game development requires more code and more content than ever before, developers can simply no longer justify spending time on filling in the gaps when other libraries like DirectX already have those gaps filled.
I would love nothing more than a resurgence of a set of open libraries covering the various facets of game development like DirectX does because it'd mean near zero effort porting to Mac and Linux, but right now the extra effort required to use OpenGL and OpenAL and then fill in the other gaps yourself coupled with the additional support requirements just doesn't justify the relatively minimal extra userbase for many developers.
Why not just use the official costs charged when buying direct from Microsoft on XBox live rather than using unofficial manipulated prices? At the current exchange rate today:
In the UK 5000 MS points = £42.50 ($67.79) In the US 5000 MS points = $62.50 (£39.18)
Factor in the UK's 17.5% VAT and the £39.18 in US costs rises to £46.04 or the UK cost would be £35.06 minus the VAT.
On those eBay prices you're saving about £1.50 off the official price normalised for 5000 points in the UK.
Suddenly you realise that rip off Britain, in the case of MS points, isn't actually being ripped off too badly at all really. When you factor in the fact we get stuff back for the VAT paid (like say, the NHS- I know I know, sore point;)) we're actually getting a cheaper deal.
In the UK, we pay only 11% more than the US for games, which is actually a bargain because we have 15% sales tax more to pay. Not every currency is fortunate as us in this respect, but if you contrast to other real money systems, like Steam, where despite using real currency you can sometimes pay 100% more (i.e. $29.99 USD = £29.99 GBP even when it was $2 to £1).
So despite your conspiracy theory, the reality is that MS points still offer a much better deal than most real money charges in terms of currency worth.
It may be that from a marketing point of view people more freely spend points than real money certainly, I wont dispute arguments like that, but in terms of side stepping the real worth of currency your theory is irrelevant because companies do this even with real currency by artificially charging more where it is not warranted, again as Valve does with Steam for example and Apple does it with iTunes. It's the same story for many physical goods too- the real world cost of the Playstation 3 in the UK on release for example was almost twice as much in the UK as in the US, the same goes for the likes of even Windows and many other things. It's something all companies do regardless, but ironically in this case, MS points are one of the least abusive ways of charging customers right now.
Microsoft never made any such insinuation whatsoever. I don't blame you for having this mistaken understanding of the situation as there's so much FUD going around about the Milo demo created by fanboys of other consoles but it's still completely and utterly wrong so rather silly to keep repeating.
The Milo demo does one thing and does it well, it demonstrates how Natal can be used as a CONTROLLER to get PRE-SCRIPTED RESPONSES (whilst I hate caps, these points are fundamental to what Natal is and how it can be used). This is no different that when you walk upto a character in an RPG with a classic console controller and the NPC speaks, the NPC isn't recognising you as a person has turned up and speaking specifically to you, it's detected you are in range through basic math and played back a specific response. The Milo demo is no different other than the fact the controller is different- they have demonstrated that Natal as a controller allows for different inputs just as a classic controller usually has two directional sticks and a multitude of buttons. It can scan images, it can respond to gestures and it can respond to voice recognition (something that has worked for years now- see Endwar for a previous successful example of it's use in games).
It's far from a fabrication and all the conspiracy theories that fail to actually show anything worthwhile are utterly stupid. One example was some dumb Youtube video pointing out Milo is not looking at the woman- well duh, it's pre-scripted, it's designed to look good for the camera. The real issue with the Milo demo is this, fanboys saw it as a serious threat to their favoured console because they made the false assumption in their fanboy rage that it was demonstrating strong or near strong AI which is clearly absurd to anyone thinking rationally.
Natal is what it is, it's a controller, it will allow more immersive interactions, but no one's really pretending that alongside Natal Microsoft have managed something that might not even be possible, and certainly isn't possible with today's technology- strong AI. Microsoft made it quite clear the Milo demo was to show off the potential of Natal, they never once tried to pretend that alongside Natal they'd made a massive leap in AI. If you made that assumption either mistakenly or maliciously because of fanboyism then that's your insinuation not Microsoft's. Interestingly what this also means is that because Milo was pre-scripted, the whole thing is also perfectly possible to have in your living room but the caveat is that it wont be as exciting as your insinuation suggests, because like the actor, you'll also have to perform the pre-set actions that get pre-scripted reactions. Watch the presentation and tech demo again- do they even once suggest that Milo is dynamically figuring out how to respond to the users actions? Not in the slightest.
What Natal will be able to do however is allow players to use more than just their thumbs in games- there's no reason you can't play Call of Duty like you always have with the controller but also now be able to physically lean left or right to peak round corners of buildings and so on. In games like Fable there's no reason you wont be able to make gestures like pretending to throw a ball to make your character throw a ball for your dog. There's no reason you wont be able to make gestures to draw things which can be turned into objects ala Scribblenauts and Crayon Physics. It does one thing and does it well- opens up the console for much more immersive controls just as the Wii did and just as Sony's new motion control system also will, the only difference being that Microsoft have done it in a different way to Sony and Nintendo.
All that said, I've no idea why you would think they haven't perfected motion and facial recognition for use in games, these have been solved problems for a fair while now to a level where they're useful in many games and applications and as pointed above, the same goes for voice recognition. Natural language processing and natural speech
I mean Games for Windows Live- just checked again to confirm it too. Playing CoD Modern Warfare 2 online via XBox live whilst signed into the same Live profile on Windows playing Where's Wally (or Where's Waldo as it's called in North America).
Definitely works fine, let's me stay signed in on both, can send messages to people on my list of Xbox live friends and receive responses on both the PC and Xbox at the same time.
"If you want to kick ass, you need all the introductory math you put your hands on (advanced university level math is too theoretical though and only useful for quantum physics and math majors)."
I disagree completely, it's the advanced level stuff I found most applicable. High end computability theory and combinatorics is why I've been able to create configurator software for the products the firm I work for sells that no other competitor in the industry has, it's let us take 60% global marketshare in our field.
So in my experience it's quite the contrary, the high end stuff is what really lets you change the game. Most companies will have people who can do the low level stuff- the bare minimum to do a good job, much fewer have people capable of writing software and doing the high end math so that's truly what will let you stand out.
Even if you're not solving problems yourself you may come across papers explaining theoretical concepts that could solve the problem you need to solve, but good luck taking them from theory to practice if you don't even understand the papers if they do use high end math which can often be the case for many problems which no example implementation already exists.
The implementation (compiled or uncompiled) is in itself an algorithm which can equally be checked because the language follows pre-defined logical rules which may act as axioms or depending on the details of the algorithm it may be trivial to just use induction.
It's not like we're checking a full operating system or office suite here, so size isn't a restrictive problem in such a proof.
It may be that the processor itself hasn't been checked so that the results of executing that algorithm isn't correct either, but again, when it's the algorithm that matters, who cares? We know the specifications of the language which may effectively act as axioms in a proof. The compiler may not be valid certainly, but as long as the algorithm (yes, mathematical and implementation) is correct then that is what matters.
It is down to anyone then using the algorithm to ensure the other layers are correct enough for their purposes.
No, because most software is large and complex, doing things like mathematical induction on all code is infeasible for this reason.
In contrast, code to calculate something like this is relatively extremely small.
Effectively, the reason your argument doesn't hold is that although we can fairly trivially prove some algorithms correct, the method isn't scalable and hence doesn't scale to the scale of pretty much any piece of modern software.
I assume you mean communist? Even most Western nations are quite socialist such as Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway etc. and some middle eastern ones are fairly socialist also like Israel and Syria.
Yeah, I've always wondered what sort of people are happy to work at the top of buildings like this.
I'm not scared of heights in the slightest, but I have to say I'd feel a bit nervous purely because of a lack in the faith of the stability of a building like this with the strong winds and earthquakes the area is prone to coupled with the fact it was built using nigh-on slave labour which isn't exactly going to give you the type of worker that particularly cares about being thorough or doing a good job. Not to mention this is quite a symbol of modern capitalism in a region known to have many people with a severe distaste of capitalism.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine it'd be easy convincing people to rent or buy the upper floors of this thing.
Can this data really be extrapolated beyond the genomes of the plants for which they have gathered data though?
The summary suggests 1 in 60 million for a plant that produces thousands of seeds isn't such a big number, but in contrast, take a plant like Carnegia gigantea which produces around 60 million seeds a year, but which is lucky to have even one of those survive beyond a few weeks if it even germinates at all, for species like this, it's still a big number. For these sorts of species then, we have a 1 in 60 million chance of carrying a mutation, coupled with a 1 in 60 million chance of that species being the one to germinate. Of course, even that is assuming that again, the chance of mutation is a roughly static value across all species.
So can we actually really say from this study that lifeforms are more dynamic than we thought in general? Or simply that some species are more dynamic than we thought as in the case of those species tested? Even with the given numbers if they hold the speed of change clearly isn't so fast in the likes of Carnegia gigantea. The species itself is quite numerous in population, but again, not so much as many other plants.
User driven markets are still part of the whole, so it's certainly not incorrect to suggest the attitude is holding FOSS back.
The fact is, overall FOSS adoption could be increasing far more rapidly if there was actually a better focus towards the end user rather than a culture of treating the end user as the enemy.
Doing fine in one market segment doesn't really help the movement in it's overall goal to displace closed source proprietary software as the standard method of software delivery.
This is exactly the attitude that is holding FOSS back.
The idea that it's always the user's fault, and that if something didn't work for them, the software couldn't possibly be wrong, ever.
I've had the same with Eclipse, it's not a bad piece of software for free, but compared to Visual Studio it's just stupid. The windows installer is actually just a zip file you unzip to where you want and create your own shortcut. The different plugins and addons just don't play well so you have to make multiple copies of Eclipse if you develop with some different technologies or face functionality not working right. The intellisense is really have arsed, and doesn't flow well always when typing code such that pressing enter to line break at the wrong time will actually insert a piece of intellisense code you didn't actually want because you didn't do away with it in the first place, simple but useful features like bulk increase/decrease indent are hidden, tab does the indent increase but what does the decrease? You have to search for these things and you simply should not have to when it's competitor, Visual Studio, just does all these things fine out the box.
Large parts of the FOSS movement really need to look more strongly at usability, take users complaints seriously and evaluate what can be done to solve them rather than simply blaming the user. Even if the competition doesn't do what the user wants (i.e. Office), that's still no excuse. If it wants to push out Microsoft it needs to do better than Microsoft, Microsoft is for the most part the default so it has to give people reasons to want to move away from Microsoft, not give reasons to stay with it.
It's not like usability is even that hard for the most part, I write software for non-technical people for a living and it doesn't take much more than a sit down with a few users to find out what things they dislike and how they would prefer it to work for such changes to make a world of difference to people using the system. The changes aren't even necessarily that big, it just takes a little communication with the users that's all and quite suprisingly it's rarely the case that users have conflicting views on how something should be done, or where they do that both methods can't be made available or in the worst case, reasonably provided as an obvious, easily changed user setting.
To answer the headline, no, whilst Microsoft invests in improving usability and FOSS often just calls usability the user's problem, the likes of OO.o unfortunately won't be a threat.
Infineon almost certainly does have a license, but that license won't cover Apple, only infineon's ability to produce the chips and sell them. The license has to be owned by whoever is making use of the patented technology, not just the company that initially makes use of it. It's not like transferable software licenses in this respect.
I'm not really sure what you were asking for a citation for specifically, but I assume it's the numbers. My numbers are a fair rough overestimate estimate based on Apple's own sales figures, this press release is a fairly good starting point:
From Apple's own press release, as of March 2009 they sold at least 17 million iPhones combined, however conveniently fail to mention sales in the quarter September 2008 to January 2009 which suggests the sales were less than the following quarter which they did announce figures for, however to give them the benefit of the doubt again, even if they did sell more let's give them 4 mill it's still own 21 mill. 40 mill is admittedly a bit of an overestimation as it's unlikely they've roughly doubled their 2 year unit sales in 10 months, however in things like this I prefer to slightly overestimate to give the benefit of the doubt.
You'll note in their release the first gen iPhone only shifted around 7 million units and about 10.8 million units of the 3G by March 28th 2009. It's unlikely the 3G broke 15 mill at that rate by the time the 3GS arrived. 10 - 15 mill is a fairly sizeable overestimate for the iPhone, a fair estimate for the 3G and certainly a fair estimate for the 3GS also. The increase sales for the 3G over the classic iPhone are mostly down to the fact that the 3G was when the iPhone truly became available globally so effectively the increase is just the additional global sales rather than an increased speed of adoption on some per-territory basis. Adoption has been pretty flat in this respect.
Whether the argument is valid is down to the courts, and the GSM association to decide. Even then you may note that in those very quotes Apple themselves note that they were offered a different, much lower figure originally but still refused it citing it was excessive.
So the question for the courts/GSM association is, were the rates every really excessive, or is that just a convenient excuse that Apple has been using to try and actually pay an unreasonably low fee?
That's certainly Apple's argument yes, but whether it has any validity is really down to the GSM Association and the courts to decide, the best anyone on Slashdot can do is merely speculate in this respect.
My point was more aimed in response to the idea that Apple will be able to defend itself with mere counter-suits. As stated in my original post above, I don't think they are well positioned to do so. The fact their current counter-suit is so weak in terms of the patents it uses is a pretty good example of why Apple doesn't seem in a good position to fight patent with patent in this particular case.
You cannot claim Apple's patents are far more valuable than the fee other handset manufacturers have paid because you do not know the terms of the deal Nokia has made with other manufacturers, nor do I believe the patents Nokia has requested to license from Apple have been published. It is rather dishonest to suggest this unless you are working at Nokia and know what their licensing terms with the 3rd parties are and know what they have requests from Apple? Is there really anything Apple could license to Nokia that is worth any more than the patents which Nokia is suing over which underly major essential components of Apple's flagship devices?
"Possible infringement by other parties has no relevance."
It certainly does, because if Apple does get them enforced in the court it means companies using them are a lot less safe. They're put into a situation where they can either spend the rest of their existence shitting themselves that Apple could pull the rug from under them at any moment or also themselves put forth pre-emptive court cases to try and force Apple to license the patents to them. Apple will find itself under a deluge of patent suits as everyone scrambles to force a cross-licensing agreement to protect themselves from patents which now have a legal precedent behind them.
As Apple isn't willing to cross-license with Nokia, do you really think they'll be willing to cross-license with anyone else?
The issue Apple faces is that the patents Nokia were originally pursuing were patents that every single other mobile manufacturer was happy to license.
This suggests that Nokia actually has a strong case and there's clearly a good reason for Nokia doing this whilst not needing to go after other phone manufacturers. Despite all the iHype each iteration of the iPhone has still only sold around 10mill to 15mill handsets which is pretty much par for the course for high end phones like this, although Apple likes to group the separate handsets together into "the iPhone" and suggest sales of 40mill whilst separating it's opponents iterations (for example the N95, N96 iterations) to show itself as more of a success story than the figures really put it at.
The question is, is Apple's patent portfolio that usable against Nokia really enforceable? Nokia's clearly is hence why every other manufacturer has been licensing them without hassle. Nokia no doubt looked into this point long before they started the patent action against Apple and clearly seem to believe they have a case. What's more, as Apple isn't playing nicely with the entire rest of the cell phone market Apple may find it's not just Nokia it's up against but the likes of Sony Ericsson, Motorola and so forth also. If Apple starts digging into it's patent portfolio to use against Nokia it will be a cause for concern for other companies that could potentially infringe these patents and Apple may find itself up against all these companies also. Again, this is not a problem in Nokia's case, because everyone who could be threatened by Nokia's patents is already licensing them. The only chance Apple has in fighting this with counter-cases is if it can find patents that everyone but Nokia licenses from them, but as Apple's counter-patents so far have been extremely minor it seems highly unlikely Apple has any real threatening usable patents to counter-sue with without bringing to bear on it the cross hairs of perhaps not just the rest of the mobile phone industry who would also be at threat, but from large segments of the IT industry including other giants such as IBM and Microsoft.
I applaud what Apple has done to the cell phone market in giving it a much needed wake up call and taking mobile phones forward, but that doesn't give it some right to break all the rules of the phone market. Really, the sensible solution for Apple would be to just license the patents like every other cell phone manufacturer does rather than continuing to pretend it's special. It can't on one hand complain that Nokia wishes to be able to use some of their technology as part of the license agreement and suggest that as such Nokia is showing a lack of innovation all the while whilst doing exactly that themselves by using Nokia's technology without license.
Slashdot Mirror
Your former quote is simply because DX10 is Vista/Windows 7 only, the reason he's not using it is not because he has a problem with it, but because DirectX 9 is adequate for his requirements and still allows him to support XP. It's completely wrong to assume that avoiding DX10 means using OpenGL- I'm not sure if that's your insinuation by quoting this, but what it means is that his preferred DirectX version is 9 as it is with most developers, because XP still has a big enough userbase to simply not ignore it by making the leap to DX10 and 11.
Your latter quote doesn't suggest a necessary preference of OpenGL, but all id's legacy code is GL based. Have a look through the code from Quake to Quake 3 and you'll see that much of the underlying codebase remains the same because it's pointless rewriting it when it's already there. In fact, even more modern games based on id tech have a lot of code that dates all the way back to Quake 1. You're reading something that simply isn't there, nothing about what he said in either quote suggests a preference of OpenGL nowadays.
This is really it, the summary almost sounds like a complete troll.
OpenGL didn't lose out because of Microsoft's marketing, it lost out because whilst OpenGL stagnated, DirectX grew and grew to become a completely unified games development framework. Carmack may have had a point 12 years ago, but whilst OpenGL development completely ignored criticisms, Microsoft took criticism from the likes of Carmack on board and improved performance of their API whilst adding new features, providing great documentation and tidying up the interface.
Citing an argument from over a decade ago is desperate to say the least.
OpenGL needed to become something more, it needed to become part of a unified game development library in itself- we had part of that with OpenAL but it needed everything, we simply need an Open Multimedia/Gaming framework that can do everything that DirectX can do.
The fact is, game development requires more code and more content than ever before, developers can simply no longer justify spending time on filling in the gaps when other libraries like DirectX already have those gaps filled.
I would love nothing more than a resurgence of a set of open libraries covering the various facets of game development like DirectX does because it'd mean near zero effort porting to Mac and Linux, but right now the extra effort required to use OpenGL and OpenAL and then fill in the other gaps yourself coupled with the additional support requirements just doesn't justify the relatively minimal extra userbase for many developers.
Why not just use the official costs charged when buying direct from Microsoft on XBox live rather than using unofficial manipulated prices? At the current exchange rate today:
In the UK 5000 MS points = £42.50 ($67.79)
In the US 5000 MS points = $62.50 (£39.18)
Factor in the UK's 17.5% VAT and the £39.18 in US costs rises to £46.04 or the UK cost would be £35.06 minus the VAT.
On those eBay prices you're saving about £1.50 off the official price normalised for 5000 points in the UK.
Suddenly you realise that rip off Britain, in the case of MS points, isn't actually being ripped off too badly at all really. When you factor in the fact we get stuff back for the VAT paid (like say, the NHS- I know I know, sore point ;)) we're actually getting a cheaper deal.
...and yet, Microsoft points work out better for me in the UK at least.
See here for an overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms_points
In the UK, we pay only 11% more than the US for games, which is actually a bargain because we have 15% sales tax more to pay. Not every currency is fortunate as us in this respect, but if you contrast to other real money systems, like Steam, where despite using real currency you can sometimes pay 100% more (i.e. $29.99 USD = £29.99 GBP even when it was $2 to £1).
So despite your conspiracy theory, the reality is that MS points still offer a much better deal than most real money charges in terms of currency worth.
It may be that from a marketing point of view people more freely spend points than real money certainly, I wont dispute arguments like that, but in terms of side stepping the real worth of currency your theory is irrelevant because companies do this even with real currency by artificially charging more where it is not warranted, again as Valve does with Steam for example and Apple does it with iTunes. It's the same story for many physical goods too- the real world cost of the Playstation 3 in the UK on release for example was almost twice as much in the UK as in the US, the same goes for the likes of even Windows and many other things. It's something all companies do regardless, but ironically in this case, MS points are one of the least abusive ways of charging customers right now.
Microsoft never made any such insinuation whatsoever. I don't blame you for having this mistaken understanding of the situation as there's so much FUD going around about the Milo demo created by fanboys of other consoles but it's still completely and utterly wrong so rather silly to keep repeating.
The Milo demo does one thing and does it well, it demonstrates how Natal can be used as a CONTROLLER to get PRE-SCRIPTED RESPONSES (whilst I hate caps, these points are fundamental to what Natal is and how it can be used). This is no different that when you walk upto a character in an RPG with a classic console controller and the NPC speaks, the NPC isn't recognising you as a person has turned up and speaking specifically to you, it's detected you are in range through basic math and played back a specific response. The Milo demo is no different other than the fact the controller is different- they have demonstrated that Natal as a controller allows for different inputs just as a classic controller usually has two directional sticks and a multitude of buttons. It can scan images, it can respond to gestures and it can respond to voice recognition (something that has worked for years now- see Endwar for a previous successful example of it's use in games).
It's far from a fabrication and all the conspiracy theories that fail to actually show anything worthwhile are utterly stupid. One example was some dumb Youtube video pointing out Milo is not looking at the woman- well duh, it's pre-scripted, it's designed to look good for the camera. The real issue with the Milo demo is this, fanboys saw it as a serious threat to their favoured console because they made the false assumption in their fanboy rage that it was demonstrating strong or near strong AI which is clearly absurd to anyone thinking rationally.
Natal is what it is, it's a controller, it will allow more immersive interactions, but no one's really pretending that alongside Natal Microsoft have managed something that might not even be possible, and certainly isn't possible with today's technology- strong AI. Microsoft made it quite clear the Milo demo was to show off the potential of Natal, they never once tried to pretend that alongside Natal they'd made a massive leap in AI. If you made that assumption either mistakenly or maliciously because of fanboyism then that's your insinuation not Microsoft's. Interestingly what this also means is that because Milo was pre-scripted, the whole thing is also perfectly possible to have in your living room but the caveat is that it wont be as exciting as your insinuation suggests, because like the actor, you'll also have to perform the pre-set actions that get pre-scripted reactions. Watch the presentation and tech demo again- do they even once suggest that Milo is dynamically figuring out how to respond to the users actions? Not in the slightest.
What Natal will be able to do however is allow players to use more than just their thumbs in games- there's no reason you can't play Call of Duty like you always have with the controller but also now be able to physically lean left or right to peak round corners of buildings and so on. In games like Fable there's no reason you wont be able to make gestures like pretending to throw a ball to make your character throw a ball for your dog. There's no reason you wont be able to make gestures to draw things which can be turned into objects ala Scribblenauts and Crayon Physics. It does one thing and does it well- opens up the console for much more immersive controls just as the Wii did and just as Sony's new motion control system also will, the only difference being that Microsoft have done it in a different way to Sony and Nintendo.
All that said, I've no idea why you would think they haven't perfected motion and facial recognition for use in games, these have been solved problems for a fair while now to a level where they're useful in many games and applications and as pointed above, the same goes for voice recognition. Natural language processing and natural speech
I mean Games for Windows Live- just checked again to confirm it too. Playing CoD Modern Warfare 2 online via XBox live whilst signed into the same Live profile on Windows playing Where's Wally (or Where's Waldo as it's called in North America).
Definitely works fine, let's me stay signed in on both, can send messages to people on my list of Xbox live friends and receive responses on both the PC and Xbox at the same time.
So that they can install a rootkit on your television and leave that open to the whole world to access too probably :p
What? I can login to Live for Windows and XBox live at the same time no problems. It doesn't log the other account out or anything, works just fine.
"If you want to kick ass, you need all the introductory math you put your hands on (advanced university level math is too theoretical though and only useful for quantum physics and math majors)."
I disagree completely, it's the advanced level stuff I found most applicable. High end computability theory and combinatorics is why I've been able to create configurator software for the products the firm I work for sells that no other competitor in the industry has, it's let us take 60% global marketshare in our field.
So in my experience it's quite the contrary, the high end stuff is what really lets you change the game. Most companies will have people who can do the low level stuff- the bare minimum to do a good job, much fewer have people capable of writing software and doing the high end math so that's truly what will let you stand out.
Even if you're not solving problems yourself you may come across papers explaining theoretical concepts that could solve the problem you need to solve, but good luck taking them from theory to practice if you don't even understand the papers if they do use high end math which can often be the case for many problems which no example implementation already exists.
The implementation (compiled or uncompiled) is in itself an algorithm which can equally be checked because the language follows pre-defined logical rules which may act as axioms or depending on the details of the algorithm it may be trivial to just use induction.
It's not like we're checking a full operating system or office suite here, so size isn't a restrictive problem in such a proof.
It may be that the processor itself hasn't been checked so that the results of executing that algorithm isn't correct either, but again, when it's the algorithm that matters, who cares? We know the specifications of the language which may effectively act as axioms in a proof. The compiler may not be valid certainly, but as long as the algorithm (yes, mathematical and implementation) is correct then that is what matters.
It is down to anyone then using the algorithm to ensure the other layers are correct enough for their purposes.
No, because most software is large and complex, doing things like mathematical induction on all code is infeasible for this reason.
In contrast, code to calculate something like this is relatively extremely small.
Effectively, the reason your argument doesn't hold is that although we can fairly trivially prove some algorithms correct, the method isn't scalable and hence doesn't scale to the scale of pretty much any piece of modern software.
Why 2012? You'll miss the olympics in London.
You don't need to verify that the number is correctly pi to the given digits, merely verify that the algorithm calculates the digits of pi correctly.
The algorithm can be proven correct in a number of relatively quick and easy ways.
The algorithm is really also arguably the most important part anyway rather than the digits themselves because it's the part of most use.
I assume you mean communist? Even most Western nations are quite socialist such as Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway etc. and some middle eastern ones are fairly socialist also like Israel and Syria.
Yeah, I've always wondered what sort of people are happy to work at the top of buildings like this.
I'm not scared of heights in the slightest, but I have to say I'd feel a bit nervous purely because of a lack in the faith of the stability of a building like this with the strong winds and earthquakes the area is prone to coupled with the fact it was built using nigh-on slave labour which isn't exactly going to give you the type of worker that particularly cares about being thorough or doing a good job. Not to mention this is quite a symbol of modern capitalism in a region known to have many people with a severe distaste of capitalism.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine it'd be easy convincing people to rent or buy the upper floors of this thing.
Can this data really be extrapolated beyond the genomes of the plants for which they have gathered data though?
The summary suggests 1 in 60 million for a plant that produces thousands of seeds isn't such a big number, but in contrast, take a plant like Carnegia gigantea which produces around 60 million seeds a year, but which is lucky to have even one of those survive beyond a few weeks if it even germinates at all, for species like this, it's still a big number. For these sorts of species then, we have a 1 in 60 million chance of carrying a mutation, coupled with a 1 in 60 million chance of that species being the one to germinate. Of course, even that is assuming that again, the chance of mutation is a roughly static value across all species.
So can we actually really say from this study that lifeforms are more dynamic than we thought in general? Or simply that some species are more dynamic than we thought as in the case of those species tested? Even with the given numbers if they hold the speed of change clearly isn't so fast in the likes of Carnegia gigantea. The species itself is quite numerous in population, but again, not so much as many other plants.
To further your point it's probably worth looking at the article on DAoC, Mythic's older MMO from back in 2002 in relation.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3009/postmortem_mythic_entertainments_.php
User driven markets are still part of the whole, so it's certainly not incorrect to suggest the attitude is holding FOSS back.
The fact is, overall FOSS adoption could be increasing far more rapidly if there was actually a better focus towards the end user rather than a culture of treating the end user as the enemy.
Doing fine in one market segment doesn't really help the movement in it's overall goal to displace closed source proprietary software as the standard method of software delivery.
This is exactly the attitude that is holding FOSS back.
The idea that it's always the user's fault, and that if something didn't work for them, the software couldn't possibly be wrong, ever.
I've had the same with Eclipse, it's not a bad piece of software for free, but compared to Visual Studio it's just stupid. The windows installer is actually just a zip file you unzip to where you want and create your own shortcut. The different plugins and addons just don't play well so you have to make multiple copies of Eclipse if you develop with some different technologies or face functionality not working right. The intellisense is really have arsed, and doesn't flow well always when typing code such that pressing enter to line break at the wrong time will actually insert a piece of intellisense code you didn't actually want because you didn't do away with it in the first place, simple but useful features like bulk increase/decrease indent are hidden, tab does the indent increase but what does the decrease? You have to search for these things and you simply should not have to when it's competitor, Visual Studio, just does all these things fine out the box.
Large parts of the FOSS movement really need to look more strongly at usability, take users complaints seriously and evaluate what can be done to solve them rather than simply blaming the user. Even if the competition doesn't do what the user wants (i.e. Office), that's still no excuse. If it wants to push out Microsoft it needs to do better than Microsoft, Microsoft is for the most part the default so it has to give people reasons to want to move away from Microsoft, not give reasons to stay with it.
It's not like usability is even that hard for the most part, I write software for non-technical people for a living and it doesn't take much more than a sit down with a few users to find out what things they dislike and how they would prefer it to work for such changes to make a world of difference to people using the system. The changes aren't even necessarily that big, it just takes a little communication with the users that's all and quite suprisingly it's rarely the case that users have conflicting views on how something should be done, or where they do that both methods can't be made available or in the worst case, reasonably provided as an obvious, easily changed user setting.
To answer the headline, no, whilst Microsoft invests in improving usability and FOSS often just calls usability the user's problem, the likes of OO.o unfortunately won't be a threat.
Infineon almost certainly does have a license, but that license won't cover Apple, only infineon's ability to produce the chips and sell them. The license has to be owned by whoever is making use of the patented technology, not just the company that initially makes use of it. It's not like transferable software licenses in this respect.
I'm not really sure what you were asking for a citation for specifically, but I assume it's the numbers. My numbers are a fair rough overestimate estimate based on Apple's own sales figures, this press release is a fairly good starting point:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/04/22results.html
From Apple's own press release, as of March 2009 they sold at least 17 million iPhones combined, however conveniently fail to mention sales in the quarter September 2008 to January 2009 which suggests the sales were less than the following quarter which they did announce figures for, however to give them the benefit of the doubt again, even if they did sell more let's give them 4 mill it's still own 21 mill. 40 mill is admittedly a bit of an overestimation as it's unlikely they've roughly doubled their 2 year unit sales in 10 months, however in things like this I prefer to slightly overestimate to give the benefit of the doubt.
You'll note in their release the first gen iPhone only shifted around 7 million units and about 10.8 million units of the 3G by March 28th 2009. It's unlikely the 3G broke 15 mill at that rate by the time the 3GS arrived. 10 - 15 mill is a fairly sizeable overestimate for the iPhone, a fair estimate for the 3G and certainly a fair estimate for the 3GS also. The increase sales for the 3G over the classic iPhone are mostly down to the fact that the 3G was when the iPhone truly became available globally so effectively the increase is just the additional global sales rather than an increased speed of adoption on some per-territory basis. Adoption has been pretty flat in this respect.
This is merely Apple's argument, not fact.
Whether the argument is valid is down to the courts, and the GSM association to decide. Even then you may note that in those very quotes Apple themselves note that they were offered a different, much lower figure originally but still refused it citing it was excessive.
So the question for the courts/GSM association is, were the rates every really excessive, or is that just a convenient excuse that Apple has been using to try and actually pay an unreasonably low fee?
That's certainly Apple's argument yes, but whether it has any validity is really down to the GSM Association and the courts to decide, the best anyone on Slashdot can do is merely speculate in this respect.
My point was more aimed in response to the idea that Apple will be able to defend itself with mere counter-suits. As stated in my original post above, I don't think they are well positioned to do so. The fact their current counter-suit is so weak in terms of the patents it uses is a pretty good example of why Apple doesn't seem in a good position to fight patent with patent in this particular case.
You cannot claim Apple's patents are far more valuable than the fee other handset manufacturers have paid because you do not know the terms of the deal Nokia has made with other manufacturers, nor do I believe the patents Nokia has requested to license from Apple have been published. It is rather dishonest to suggest this unless you are working at Nokia and know what their licensing terms with the 3rd parties are and know what they have requests from Apple? Is there really anything Apple could license to Nokia that is worth any more than the patents which Nokia is suing over which underly major essential components of Apple's flagship devices?
"Possible infringement by other parties has no relevance."
It certainly does, because if Apple does get them enforced in the court it means companies using them are a lot less safe. They're put into a situation where they can either spend the rest of their existence shitting themselves that Apple could pull the rug from under them at any moment or also themselves put forth pre-emptive court cases to try and force Apple to license the patents to them. Apple will find itself under a deluge of patent suits as everyone scrambles to force a cross-licensing agreement to protect themselves from patents which now have a legal precedent behind them.
As Apple isn't willing to cross-license with Nokia, do you really think they'll be willing to cross-license with anyone else?
The issue Apple faces is that the patents Nokia were originally pursuing were patents that every single other mobile manufacturer was happy to license.
This suggests that Nokia actually has a strong case and there's clearly a good reason for Nokia doing this whilst not needing to go after other phone manufacturers. Despite all the iHype each iteration of the iPhone has still only sold around 10mill to 15mill handsets which is pretty much par for the course for high end phones like this, although Apple likes to group the separate handsets together into "the iPhone" and suggest sales of 40mill whilst separating it's opponents iterations (for example the N95, N96 iterations) to show itself as more of a success story than the figures really put it at.
The question is, is Apple's patent portfolio that usable against Nokia really enforceable? Nokia's clearly is hence why every other manufacturer has been licensing them without hassle. Nokia no doubt looked into this point long before they started the patent action against Apple and clearly seem to believe they have a case. What's more, as Apple isn't playing nicely with the entire rest of the cell phone market Apple may find it's not just Nokia it's up against but the likes of Sony Ericsson, Motorola and so forth also. If Apple starts digging into it's patent portfolio to use against Nokia it will be a cause for concern for other companies that could potentially infringe these patents and Apple may find itself up against all these companies also. Again, this is not a problem in Nokia's case, because everyone who could be threatened by Nokia's patents is already licensing them. The only chance Apple has in fighting this with counter-cases is if it can find patents that everyone but Nokia licenses from them, but as Apple's counter-patents so far have been extremely minor it seems highly unlikely Apple has any real threatening usable patents to counter-sue with without bringing to bear on it the cross hairs of perhaps not just the rest of the mobile phone industry who would also be at threat, but from large segments of the IT industry including other giants such as IBM and Microsoft.
I applaud what Apple has done to the cell phone market in giving it a much needed wake up call and taking mobile phones forward, but that doesn't give it some right to break all the rules of the phone market. Really, the sensible solution for Apple would be to just license the patents like every other cell phone manufacturer does rather than continuing to pretend it's special. It can't on one hand complain that Nokia wishes to be able to use some of their technology as part of the license agreement and suggest that as such Nokia is showing a lack of innovation all the while whilst doing exactly that themselves by using Nokia's technology without license.