Bullshit. Car engines regularly achieve 50% or more of Carnot efficiency. You are not going to be doubling that.
Really? This source I found in 30 seconds says pretty much less than 35%. In fact, another source said that internal combustion engines cannot achieve above 30% Carnot Efficiency.
So, where's your citation?
And where's your data showing that, regardless of the actual hard numbers, it wouldn't make a difference?
Do you realize what a difference even 1 mpg would make to the amount of oil required DAILY in the U.S.? I can't find the figure right now, but I remember that it was truly staggering.
Not necessarily. The advantage of consoles is that they get to be sold at a loss, since those costs are subsidized by the money the companies make off the video games. A Steam console seems like a pretty good way to give a good gaming experience to those who can't afford a computer with the same specs.
Every time I drive by one of those, I expect to see a hairy overweight hamster...
As opposed to a denuded, anorexic one?
You haven't seen many hamsters, have you? Aside from the hip-hop bling (and the human-sized stature!), they all look pretty much like the ones depicted in that overplayed Kia commercial...
So you can't see that this is a blatant stepping-stone toward a Closed Platform and Vendor Lock-In?
This coming from a guy named "macs4all" is pretty ironic.
Well, I was trying to be above all that ad hominem crap; but I forgot this is Slashdot...
To be perfectly honest, the sentence I typed and subsequently deleted went something like "I see that Vendor Lock-In is perfectly fine, as long as it isn't Apple..."
Guess I should've left it in, eh? Fucktard.
But, no, I don't see that.
See above.
More importantly, I don't see the point of doing so for Valve. They're doing very well by covering their present niche, which is PC and Mac gaming. They already have some lock-in, in a sense that a game you buy from Steam needs Steam to run. Aside from that, they have not shown any signs of restricting your hardware and OS choices - if anything, they're diversifying them, since the release of Steam on OS X (which lets you download and run games on Mac that you have previously purchased on PC!).
This move is, quite obviously, an attempt to diversify further by also taking over a slice of the console market. What's sinister about it?
Hey, I (obviously) agree with you that Valve made a wonderful choice by porting Steam to OS X! However, I also think that, when they (obviously) started internally discussing (perhaps something like) a Linux port, someone at Valve raised their hand and said "Um, why don't we just build a console ourselves? That way, we won't have to maintain all these Steam variants!?!"
Unless I am drastically wrong, maintaining these Steam variants isn't screwing with Developers of "Steam-Compatible" games (isn't Steam just a cross-platform API, much like Qt or (ewww!) Flash?). It's really only Valve that is feeling the pain of multiple Steam platforms, right? (I admit to knowing nothing about developing for Steam). Otherwise, how could have Valve's catalog been instantly available to OS X users just because "Steam" itself was ported?
And so, I think we are actually in the Renaissance of Steam, and this "console" represents their attempt to concentrate their future development and limited resources on maintaining one, or at most, two, platforms (Windows du Jour, and Steam Console). I think they bit off more than they care to chew in porting Steam to OS X, and now want to figure out a way to reign that back in, sort of like Boxee has done with OS X and the Boxee Box...
NOW do you see? Boxee is a perfect example of what, IMHO, Valve is headed for.
Gaming doesn't "live and die on the bleeding edge" like you say. If the huge popularity of consoles and flash games isn't obvious enough, you just have to take a look at the most played games on Steam and you'll see none of them requires high end machines.
Well, I knew I was going to get under arrest for that less-than-perfectly-qualified comment!
I agree that playing Angry Birds and Minesweeper is unlikely to tax any "computing platform" made since about 1995; but you and I also know that a so-called "spec" that includes the use of something like (IIRC) an i7 CPU and 4GB of RAM isn't aimed at playing minesweeper (unless it is coded in Flash, of course...);-)
So, with that clarification, my comments stand.
Now, do you care to address the actual content of my post, or were you just looking for some poorly-written sentence to poke at?
the crown vic as always been decent, just had to watch out for the ball joints and tie rod ends. a few pumps of grease every few thousand miles deals with that tho. my 1990 estate model is still going strong with a bit of regular maintenance. now what i wanna know, is why there isnt a car with a 3 cylinder diesel generator powering an electric motor? you could tune that diesel to run for days on a few gallons of fuel (some of the light plants i have worked with would run for 48 hours straight on 10 gallons of off road #2 fuel oil). just have the gen set power the drive motor, you wouldnt need a 150+ hp engine to power the vehicle, just a 46 hp diesel, and a couple motors on the drive wheels.
I, too, have worked with small Diesel-powered gen-sets when designing a controller for some highway signage (before it all started using all that Commie Solar stuff!;-) ). So, I know that those little Benoullii (sp?) Diesel engines are pretty impressive as far as fuel economy goes. HOWEVER...
You do realize, of course, that the second law of thermodynamics and Ohm's Law have not been revoked, right?
The real problem is that people still want "performance", and so, most of the time, 75% (guessing) of that 150bhp engine's power is literally going up in smoke (well, not so much "smoke", but...). Ever wonder why "hybrid" vehicles don't get better gas mileage? It's because the only time they are "saving" any energy is when they are doing regenerative braking. And unless you are talking about a purely urban application (taxicabs and city-buses being a perfect example of the potential for lots of regen. braking), the efficiency of a gen-set system (like the so-called "hybrids" use) is a bad joke on the consumer, and the environment (what happens to all those huge and inefficient batteries that don't get recycled?). Oh, and don't forget that batteries get hot when charging, and alternators get hot when charging. What happens to that energy? Not that ICE don't have more than their fair share of wasted heat-energy, too...
But, while we're on the subject of "efficiency" and "waste heat": If you really wanted to have an insane efficiency increase, you would take the 80% of wasted heat energy produced by any internal or external combustion engine, and use it to power a supplemental Sterling engine. A vehicle like that would likely (conservatively) double the overall fuel economy of something like a car (which typically has a very modest energy requirement, once it's moving). But the engineering involved in having two primary engines in a production vehicle would be fairly intense to make cheap/simple enough. Yes, I know that "vehicles" such as "monster trucks" and some dragsters have multiple power plants; but those don't cost $20k...
GM brakes are absolutely garbage. My dad and brother had the misfortune to buy year 2000+ GMs thinking they got a good deal. They have had to change or turn their brakes once every 2 years and they put Half the K's on that I do. I change my brakes on my Mazda once every 6-7 years and my Nissan only because I get gravel in the pads.
I guess this proves the point that selling cars does not necessarily mean you understand cars.
Disk brakes are designed to be easy to maintain at the expense of requiring routine maintenance (pads) at relatively frequent intervals.
GM uses the same brake calipers and rotors and pads as everyone else. They don't make their brake parts, any more than anyone else does. US makers tend to use TRW, in Europe it's Bosch and a few others, in Japan it's probably Nippondenso. All the engineers do is open up those product catalogs, call up the vendor's salesperson, and come up with which one of their (for the most part, standard) brake systems they will "design" in.
The only way the automotive engineer can screw up, really, is listening too much to the bean-counters (or being an idiot themselves) and choose a brake system inappropriate for the weight or intended use of the vehicle.
What you are not taking into account are factors such as vehicle weight, number of miles, type of driving (city driving being harder on brakes than highway driving, for (what should be) obvious reasons), type of roads (dust and dirt wear down brakes, too!) style of driving (hard braking, riding the pedal, etc.). Oh, and this doesn't even get into the differences in various pad/shoe materials (fibre, semi-metallic, metallic) and the quality of the replacement parts (did your Dad always buy the cheapest pads/shoes he could find?). All of these factors, and even others I've forgotten to mention all can dramatically affect the lifetime of brakes.
As a former Ford owner, they are assembled in the US of Canadian and Mexican parts, and all of the engineering is done by Volvo's engineers now (which is a good thing, Ford never was good at making things that didn't fall apart).
Well, it used to be true that Ford's engineering was done by Volvo's engineers (which, as a happy Volvo owner, I agree would be a good thing), sadly, Volvo is now a Chinese car company...
If Steam wants to do it right they need to build a "specification" that doesn't bleed by revising it every year.
A "Standard" that is revised every year is exactly equivalent to no "Standard" at all...
BTW, are you intelligent enough to realize now that there is no practical way to have (especially) a "hardware standard" for a market-segment (gaming) that lives-and-dies on the bleeding edge of "technology"?
We're not talking about minimum specs to run Libre Office; but rather, trying to "pin down" something that is the very epitome of a Moving Target!!!
Damn, Slashdotters are some of the stupidest "nerds" there are. Really, really sad...
Well no, if you already have a good gaming rig, then you don't need to buy a new one. I don't think Valve is asking you to, either. There are hints, at least, that this will be more a set of standardized specs than a particular hardware console. As I said, I think what Valve is really doing is setting a standard set of requirements for gaming PCs. So in this scheme, you can buy a gaming PC that's "Steambox certified" (or whatever), and then in the Steam store, you'll be able to see that games are designed to run on all "Steambox certified" hardware.
So you can't see that this is a blatant stepping-stone toward a Closed Platform and Vendor Lock-In?
It won't prevent you from running the same games on another computer,
The first hit is free...
but it will make it so developers have a consistent hardware platform to target, and so gamers basically won't need to think about system requirements for each game.
And so less and less of them, er, will... How is this going to help the gaming community, again?
If games are developed/optimized for a 2012 Steambox and you have a 2012 model Steambox, then you know that it'll play well.
Do you realize that toilet paper has not changed in my lifetime? It's just paper on a cardboard roll, that's it. And in ten thousand years, it will still be exactly the same because really, what else can they do?
That's the Android approach. Apple won't do that. It's a a technical approach and Apple aim their computers at consumers. Users of Mac shouldn't be expected to know what elevated kernel privileges or accessing a network stack are.
And you think that 1 in 100,000 Android users DO?!?
No, the OS is set to, by default, say "this application is not signed and hence not trusted", it's nothing to do with spreading FUD, it's a legitimate security device –warning users not to run random things that they don't know the origin of.
Not to mention the fact that, although I don't know about Linux (but I'll bet at least Ubuntu does it), but both Windows and OS X have be putting u pat LEAST a "first launch" warning dialog on ANY "downloaded" stuff for several years now, and for the most part, users don't find those things an impediment to downloading stuff in the slightest. In fact, those were instituted to "catch" stuff that might have been SURREPTITIOUSLY downloaded and installed by malware.
And yet nobody claimed that THAT had a "Chilling effect" on downloading and installing stuff from the intarwebs.
What's the big deal here? Heck, Apple even put the default at the "medium" setting, where it would bother regular users the least, and yet still not open them up to every prison-raping, just because they got "click happy" at the wrong time...
apple padlocks the door shut once you enter.
google leaves the door open and even tells you that you may leave at any time you wish.
Really? So you are somehow LESS able to install an alternative OS on an iPhone than on a Android one?
If you think so; it's only because you aren't smart enough to do it.
Do you REALLY think you couldn't port Android to an iOS device? Anything can be reverse-engineered...
Just because there doesn't exist a precompiled binary, doesn't mean it can't be done. Ask the zillion people who have ported Linux to everything from TV sets to Microwave ovens...
As usual, it will be the OSS stuff that gets the shaft on things like this. Projects that don't have enough central management or funding to get a cert.
Considering the fact that Open Source is, by its very nature, technically MUCH more easy to have a "poisoned" copy floating around the dark recesses of the internet (like the thousands of instances of exactly that on Windows), I would say that that isn't inserting any kind of "shaft" anywhere; but rather, acknowledging that having bona fides is actually a pretty nifty thing, especially for non-savvy users. But also for "savvy" users that get a little too anxious to d/l that nifty "pre-compiled Binary" of something from Deity-Knows-Where...
And ANY Slashdotter that doesn't sport a full neck-beard secretly KNOWS they search for a precompiled Binary FIRST, even if it comes from some obscure Blog site, amirite?
I'm confused by your response. Besides the fact that Android runs on phones and OS X runs on computers - which I do think is a salient difference - I also don't understand explaining away one company's bad behavior by pointing towards another company that's doing the same thing. I don't see what Android does as being at all relevant to people's frustration with Apple and their move towards rigid control of their platforms.
You don't seem to understand how regular (non-geek) people work. Apple does.
If you don't start with the most "safe" setting, then you mightaswell not even put it there, for the vast majority of people.
Having said that, if Apple even considers not letting an OS X expert, like me, take off the training-wheels; then I'll be the first one in line with my torch and pitchfork...
So let me get this right: You are against getting technologies out to developers and users as they become ready for prime-time; or would you rather Apple wait some longer period of time to add new features and technologies? And so, since you seem to think that they should sit on these new features for more than a year, exactly what schedule WOULD meet with Your Highness' Approval?
Not to mention the fact that no one has discussed the "point releases" and other Software Updates (those ARE "Service Packs") that Apple puts out on a regular basis.
All free, and on a MUCH more timely schedule that Windows "Service Pack" updates...
No. That's the iTunes store. The Mac App Store has no upper limit on the number of computers you own and use or control. You can install software from the Mac App Store on as many of them as you like.
Not only that, but did you see the "...or CONTROL" part of the paragraph?
So no, it doesn't even require that the Mac be owned by you.
When Microsoft does something it's evil and will never work and nobody wants it etc... Imagine the uproar if you heard that Microsoft could remotely prevent apps from running...
Say WHAT?!? Where did you see that Apple could do that?
So the answer to your question is, how much more money can Nokia pay it's workers on the $20 handsets it sells the most before declaring bankruptcy(ending up in workers completely losing their jobs), versus Apple with it's multi-hundred dollar margins while playing $8 or so for assembly for each iPad and iPhone?
Considering that we're talking about China here, $8 for iPad assembly is absolutely within reason. It's not like the workers are actually doing anything but some "final assembly". We don't have tables full of workers winding speaker coils, stuffing PC boards, or doing an hour's worth of assembly.
I don't know, but just looking at an iPad or iPhone's innards (and being an embedded software/hardware engineer with over 3 decades of experience), I'd venture to guess that the "manual labor" in iPad/iPhone assembly is measured in single-digit minutes. People get pretty efficient when they do the same process (literally) a thousand times a day...
Grab the bottom plate. Glue down the battery. Install the 3 or 4 pre-stuffed PC boards and plug in a few FPC strips. Drop the display assembly (pre-built) onto the bottom plate. Connect another FPC strip. OS has already been loaded when the PC Board was assembled. Boot to diagnostics. Do display and control functions test. Send to final inspection. Sounds like about 5 minutes for someone who does it every day.
All the rest is done by robots. And they don't have unions. Yet.
Having principles, believing in actual ownership and free computing instead of walled gardens, is not being on a high horse.
Apple is abhorrent because they make computers. You would think they would have all sorts of employees working there, all the way up to the late Jobs, that believed that computing should be a free experience. Not to limit the end user, not to create walled gardens, but to create a platform that can be free.
It's funny that I get accused for being "on a high horse" about it when all I champion is freedom, privacy, and anonymity. Yeah... that's terrible.
They did (and do!) have all sorts of employees, including the late CEO himself, that have always embraced Openness and Freedom.
This open talk from Steve Jobs at the WWDC in 1997 is very revealing. In it he discusses his thoughts on open source and why Apple should embrace it, not run away from it.
Also, at 14 min into this video, he spends 5 minutes describing networking and how he wishes Apple will be able to get it to ordinary people - he is of course describing iCloud - a product that will be released near the end of 2011.
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Bullshit. Car engines regularly achieve 50% or more of Carnot efficiency. You are not going to be doubling that.
Really? This source I found in 30 seconds says pretty much less than 35%. In fact, another source said that internal combustion engines cannot achieve above 30% Carnot Efficiency.
So, where's your citation?
And where's your data showing that, regardless of the actual hard numbers, it wouldn't make a difference?
Do you realize what a difference even 1 mpg would make to the amount of oil required DAILY in the U.S.? I can't find the figure right now, but I remember that it was truly staggering.
Not necessarily. The advantage of consoles is that they get to be sold at a loss, since those costs are subsidized by the money the companies make off the video games. A Steam console seems like a pretty good way to give a good gaming experience to those who can't afford a computer with the same specs.
I'm sorry, did I miss a mention of price?
Every time I drive by one of those, I expect to see a hairy overweight hamster...
As opposed to a denuded, anorexic one?
You haven't seen many hamsters, have you? Aside from the hip-hop bling (and the human-sized stature!), they all look pretty much like the ones depicted in that overplayed Kia commercial...
So you can't see that this is a blatant stepping-stone toward a Closed Platform and Vendor Lock-In?
This coming from a guy named "macs4all" is pretty ironic.
Well, I was trying to be above all that ad hominem crap; but I forgot this is Slashdot...
To be perfectly honest, the sentence I typed and subsequently deleted went something like "I see that Vendor Lock-In is perfectly fine, as long as it isn't Apple..."
Guess I should've left it in, eh? Fucktard.
But, no, I don't see that.
See above.
More importantly, I don't see the point of doing so for Valve. They're doing very well by covering their present niche, which is PC and Mac gaming. They already have some lock-in, in a sense that a game you buy from Steam needs Steam to run. Aside from that, they have not shown any signs of restricting your hardware and OS choices - if anything, they're diversifying them, since the release of Steam on OS X (which lets you download and run games on Mac that you have previously purchased on PC!).
This move is, quite obviously, an attempt to diversify further by also taking over a slice of the console market. What's sinister about it?
Hey, I (obviously) agree with you that Valve made a wonderful choice by porting Steam to OS X! However, I also think that, when they (obviously) started internally discussing (perhaps something like) a Linux port, someone at Valve raised their hand and said "Um, why don't we just build a console ourselves? That way, we won't have to maintain all these Steam variants!?!"
Unless I am drastically wrong, maintaining these Steam variants isn't screwing with Developers of "Steam-Compatible" games (isn't Steam just a cross-platform API, much like Qt or (ewww!) Flash?). It's really only Valve that is feeling the pain of multiple Steam platforms, right? (I admit to knowing nothing about developing for Steam). Otherwise, how could have Valve's catalog been instantly available to OS X users just because "Steam" itself was ported?
And so, I think we are actually in the Renaissance of Steam, and this "console" represents their attempt to concentrate their future development and limited resources on maintaining one, or at most, two, platforms (Windows du Jour, and Steam Console). I think they bit off more than they care to chew in porting Steam to OS X, and now want to figure out a way to reign that back in, sort of like Boxee has done with OS X and the Boxee Box...
NOW do you see? Boxee is a perfect example of what, IMHO, Valve is headed for.
Gaming doesn't "live and die on the bleeding edge" like you say. If the huge popularity of consoles and flash games isn't obvious enough, you just have to take a look at the most played games on Steam and you'll see none of them requires high end machines.
Well, I knew I was going to get under arrest for that less-than-perfectly-qualified comment!
;-)
I agree that playing Angry Birds and Minesweeper is unlikely to tax any "computing platform" made since about 1995; but you and I also know that a so-called "spec" that includes the use of something like (IIRC) an i7 CPU and 4GB of RAM isn't aimed at playing minesweeper (unless it is coded in Flash, of course...)
So, with that clarification, my comments stand.
Now, do you care to address the actual content of my post, or were you just looking for some poorly-written sentence to poke at?
the crown vic as always been decent, just had to watch out for the ball joints and tie rod ends. a few pumps of grease every few thousand miles deals with that tho. my 1990 estate model is still going strong with a bit of regular maintenance. now what i wanna know, is why there isnt a car with a 3 cylinder diesel generator powering an electric motor? you could tune that diesel to run for days on a few gallons of fuel (some of the light plants i have worked with would run for 48 hours straight on 10 gallons of off road #2 fuel oil). just have the gen set power the drive motor, you wouldnt need a 150+ hp engine to power the vehicle, just a 46 hp diesel, and a couple motors on the drive wheels.
I, too, have worked with small Diesel-powered gen-sets when designing a controller for some highway signage (before it all started using all that Commie Solar stuff! ;-) ). So, I know that those little Benoullii (sp?) Diesel engines are pretty impressive as far as fuel economy goes. HOWEVER...
You do realize, of course, that the second law of thermodynamics and Ohm's Law have not been revoked, right?
The real problem is that people still want "performance", and so, most of the time, 75% (guessing) of that 150bhp engine's power is literally going up in smoke (well, not so much "smoke", but...). Ever wonder why "hybrid" vehicles don't get better gas mileage? It's because the only time they are "saving" any energy is when they are doing regenerative braking. And unless you are talking about a purely urban application (taxicabs and city-buses being a perfect example of the potential for lots of regen. braking), the efficiency of a gen-set system (like the so-called "hybrids" use) is a bad joke on the consumer, and the environment (what happens to all those huge and inefficient batteries that don't get recycled?). Oh, and don't forget that batteries get hot when charging, and alternators get hot when charging. What happens to that energy? Not that ICE don't have more than their fair share of wasted heat-energy, too...
But, while we're on the subject of "efficiency" and "waste heat": If you really wanted to have an insane efficiency increase, you would take the 80% of wasted heat energy produced by any internal or external combustion engine, and use it to power a supplemental Sterling engine. A vehicle like that would likely (conservatively) double the overall fuel economy of something like a car (which typically has a very modest energy requirement, once it's moving). But the engineering involved in having two primary engines in a production vehicle would be fairly intense to make cheap/simple enough. Yes, I know that "vehicles" such as "monster trucks" and some dragsters have multiple power plants; but those don't cost $20k...
GM brakes are absolutely garbage. My dad and brother had the misfortune to buy year 2000+ GMs thinking they got a good deal. They have had to change or turn their brakes once every 2 years and they put Half the K's on that I do. I change my brakes on my Mazda once every 6-7 years and my Nissan only because I get gravel in the pads.
I guess this proves the point that selling cars does not necessarily mean you understand cars.
Disk brakes are designed to be easy to maintain at the expense of requiring routine maintenance (pads) at relatively frequent intervals.
GM uses the same brake calipers and rotors and pads as everyone else. They don't make their brake parts, any more than anyone else does. US makers tend to use TRW, in Europe it's Bosch and a few others, in Japan it's probably Nippondenso. All the engineers do is open up those product catalogs, call up the vendor's salesperson, and come up with which one of their (for the most part, standard) brake systems they will "design" in.
The only way the automotive engineer can screw up, really, is listening too much to the bean-counters (or being an idiot themselves) and choose a brake system inappropriate for the weight or intended use of the vehicle. What you are not taking into account are factors such as vehicle weight, number of miles, type of driving (city driving being harder on brakes than highway driving, for (what should be) obvious reasons), type of roads (dust and dirt wear down brakes, too!) style of driving (hard braking, riding the pedal, etc.). Oh, and this doesn't even get into the differences in various pad/shoe materials (fibre, semi-metallic, metallic) and the quality of the replacement parts (did your Dad always buy the cheapest pads/shoes he could find?). All of these factors, and even others I've forgotten to mention all can dramatically affect the lifetime of brakes.
As a former Ford owner, they are assembled in the US of Canadian and Mexican parts, and all of the engineering is done by Volvo's engineers now (which is a good thing, Ford never was good at making things that didn't fall apart).
Well, it used to be true that Ford's engineering was done by Volvo's engineers (which, as a happy Volvo owner, I agree would be a good thing), sadly, Volvo is now a Chinese car company...
If Steam wants to do it right they need to build a "specification" that doesn't bleed by revising it every year.
A "Standard" that is revised every year is exactly equivalent to no "Standard" at all...
BTW, are you intelligent enough to realize now that there is no practical way to have (especially) a "hardware standard" for a market-segment (gaming) that lives-and-dies on the bleeding edge of "technology"?
We're not talking about minimum specs to run Libre Office; but rather, trying to "pin down" something that is the very epitome of a Moving Target!!!
Damn, Slashdotters are some of the stupidest "nerds" there are. Really, really sad...
Well no, if you already have a good gaming rig, then you don't need to buy a new one. I don't think Valve is asking you to, either. There are hints, at least, that this will be more a set of standardized specs than a particular hardware console. As I said, I think what Valve is really doing is setting a standard set of requirements for gaming PCs. So in this scheme, you can buy a gaming PC that's "Steambox certified" (or whatever), and then in the Steam store, you'll be able to see that games are designed to run on all "Steambox certified" hardware.
So you can't see that this is a blatant stepping-stone toward a Closed Platform and Vendor Lock-In?
It won't prevent you from running the same games on another computer,
The first hit is free...
but it will make it so developers have a consistent hardware platform to target, and so gamers basically won't need to think about system requirements for each game.
And so less and less of them, er, will... How is this going to help the gaming community, again?
If games are developed/optimized for a 2012 Steambox and you have a 2012 model Steambox, then you know that it'll play well.
...and if you don't???
Do you realize that toilet paper has not changed in my lifetime? It's just paper on a cardboard roll, that's it. And in ten thousand years, it will still be exactly the same because really, what else can they do?
The Three Shells.
That's the Android approach. Apple won't do that. It's a a technical approach and Apple aim their computers at consumers. Users of Mac shouldn't be expected to know what elevated kernel privileges or accessing a network stack are.
And you think that 1 in 100,000 Android users DO?!?
No, the OS is set to, by default, say "this application is not signed and hence not trusted", it's nothing to do with spreading FUD, it's a legitimate security device –warning users not to run random things that they don't know the origin of.
Not to mention the fact that, although I don't know about Linux (but I'll bet at least Ubuntu does it), but both Windows and OS X have be putting u pat LEAST a "first launch" warning dialog on ANY "downloaded" stuff for several years now, and for the most part, users don't find those things an impediment to downloading stuff in the slightest. In fact, those were instituted to "catch" stuff that might have been SURREPTITIOUSLY downloaded and installed by malware.
And yet nobody claimed that THAT had a "Chilling effect" on downloading and installing stuff from the intarwebs.
What's the big deal here? Heck, Apple even put the default at the "medium" setting, where it would bother regular users the least, and yet still not open them up to every prison-raping, just because they got "click happy" at the wrong time...
apple padlocks the door shut once you enter. google leaves the door open and even tells you that you may leave at any time you wish.
Really? So you are somehow LESS able to install an alternative OS on an iPhone than on a Android one?
If you think so; it's only because you aren't smart enough to do it.
Do you REALLY think you couldn't port Android to an iOS device? Anything can be reverse-engineered...
Just because there doesn't exist a precompiled binary, doesn't mean it can't be done. Ask the zillion people who have ported Linux to everything from TV sets to Microwave ovens...
You're just a talentless whiner. Admit it.
Comparing an OS based on the Linux kernel with an OS with a BSD-flavored OS? Why, the two have nothing in common! :-)
Wow, I didn't know that SCO's legal team posted on Slashdot! How about a Q&A session?
OS X and Linux really DO have NOTHING in common other than supporting POSIX.
Linux is FAKE Unix. OS X, by virtue of it's BSD heritage, isn't a "fake" Unix; but arguably far closer to a "real" Unix (whatever THAT is...).
As usual, it will be the OSS stuff that gets the shaft on things like this. Projects that don't have enough central management or funding to get a cert.
Considering the fact that Open Source is, by its very nature, technically MUCH more easy to have a "poisoned" copy floating around the dark recesses of the internet (like the thousands of instances of exactly that on Windows), I would say that that isn't inserting any kind of "shaft" anywhere; but rather, acknowledging that having bona fides is actually a pretty nifty thing, especially for non-savvy users. But also for "savvy" users that get a little too anxious to d/l that nifty "pre-compiled Binary" of something from Deity-Knows-Where...
And ANY Slashdotter that doesn't sport a full neck-beard secretly KNOWS they search for a precompiled Binary FIRST, even if it comes from some obscure Blog site, amirite?
By being default-enabled, requiring admin privileges to change, and no doubt coming with scary warnings about how you'll get hacked if you disable it.
OMG! Not the Scary Warnings!!!
MAKE IT STOP!!!
Please.
I'm confused by your response. Besides the fact that Android runs on phones and OS X runs on computers - which I do think is a salient difference - I also don't understand explaining away one company's bad behavior by pointing towards another company that's doing the same thing. I don't see what Android does as being at all relevant to people's frustration with Apple and their move towards rigid control of their platforms.
You don't seem to understand how regular (non-geek) people work. Apple does.
If you don't start with the most "safe" setting, then you mightaswell not even put it there, for the vast majority of people.
Having said that, if Apple even considers not letting an OS X expert, like me, take off the training-wheels; then I'll be the first one in line with my torch and pitchfork...
Lion: July 2011 Mountain Lion: Summer 2012
Looks like "1 year" to me.
So let me get this right: You are against getting technologies out to developers and users as they become ready for prime-time; or would you rather Apple wait some longer period of time to add new features and technologies? And so, since you seem to think that they should sit on these new features for more than a year, exactly what schedule WOULD meet with Your Highness' Approval?
Not to mention the fact that no one has discussed the "point releases" and other Software Updates (those ARE "Service Packs") that Apple puts out on a regular basis.
All free, and on a MUCH more timely schedule that Windows "Service Pack" updates...
So, rant on, Apple-Hater; Rant on...
No. That's the iTunes store. The Mac App Store has no upper limit on the number of computers you own and use or control. You can install software from the Mac App Store on as many of them as you like.
Not only that, but did you see the "...or CONTROL" part of the paragraph?
So no, it doesn't even require that the Mac be owned by you.
And yet, people STILL bitch...
When Microsoft does something it's evil and will never work and nobody wants it etc... Imagine the uproar if you heard that Microsoft could remotely prevent apps from running...
Say WHAT?!? Where did you see that Apple could do that?
So the answer to your question is, how much more money can Nokia pay it's workers on the $20 handsets it sells the most before declaring bankruptcy(ending up in workers completely losing their jobs), versus Apple with it's multi-hundred dollar margins while playing $8 or so for assembly for each iPad and iPhone? Considering that we're talking about China here, $8 for iPad assembly is absolutely within reason. It's not like the workers are actually doing anything but some "final assembly". We don't have tables full of workers winding speaker coils, stuffing PC boards, or doing an hour's worth of assembly.
I don't know, but just looking at an iPad or iPhone's innards (and being an embedded software/hardware engineer with over 3 decades of experience), I'd venture to guess that the "manual labor" in iPad/iPhone assembly is measured in single-digit minutes. People get pretty efficient when they do the same process (literally) a thousand times a day...
Grab the bottom plate. Glue down the battery. Install the 3 or 4 pre-stuffed PC boards and plug in a few FPC strips. Drop the display assembly (pre-built) onto the bottom plate. Connect another FPC strip. OS has already been loaded when the PC Board was assembled. Boot to diagnostics. Do display and control functions test. Send to final inspection. Sounds like about 5 minutes for someone who does it every day.
All the rest is done by robots. And they don't have unions. Yet.
Isn't Fag out of the lexicon by now?
No, it's just been relegated to a synonym for Harley Rider and of course it retains its longstanding association with the term "Anonymous Coward".
I have never disagreed with your observation.
A license to run Android on any hardware I want is readily available.
Another reason why everything I run on every single server I operate (with a few exceptions for some clients) is open source.
You do realize, of course, with that statement, you reveal that you are every bit the blind zealot that you accuse Apple OWNERS of being, right?
Having principles, believing in actual ownership and free computing instead of walled gardens, is not being on a high horse.
Apple is abhorrent because they make computers. You would think they would have all sorts of employees working there, all the way up to the late Jobs, that believed that computing should be a free experience. Not to limit the end user, not to create walled gardens, but to create a platform that can be free.
It's funny that I get accused for being "on a high horse" about it when all I champion is freedom, privacy, and anonymity. Yeah... that's terrible.
They did (and do!) have all sorts of employees, including the late CEO himself, that have always embraced Openness and Freedom.
This open talk from Steve Jobs at the WWDC in 1997 is very revealing. In it he discusses his thoughts on open source and why Apple should embrace it, not run away from it.
Also, at 14 min into this video, he spends 5 minutes describing networking and how he wishes Apple will be able to get it to ordinary people - he is of course describing iCloud - a product that will be released near the end of 2011.