IdeaHamster

So, when you build something as big and complex as an operating system, your single biggest enemy is: change. The more things change, the more you need to test and retest to be absolutely sure that those changes didn't have any unintended side-effects. This is why, in the process of reaching a GM build, the ability for groups to change components is gradually locked down. The final lock-down is GM, and this usually happens around 1 month before the first customers see the next OS. This time is needed to "prime the channel". That is: you need to press the disks, prepare the marketing material and the packaging, do all of the final validation testing, and start shipping the software to stores.

In the case of SnowLeopard, that meant that development was done, and GM was declared, in the 3rd week of July. SnowLeopard shipped on Aug. 28th. Know what happened between those two dates?

Flash Player v10.0.32.18 ships on July 30 with critical security fixes: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-10.ht...

Remember all the fuss? No? Here's a reminder: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/snow-leopard-ships-with-v...

In particular, people were incensed that installing SnowLeopard on top of their Leopard systems that already had an updated Flash player actually reverted to the vulnerable version. Why? Because Flash was part of the OS. It was part of the install package that gets laid down fresh, instead of being part of the user installed software that gets migrated from old to new OS. And because Adobe didn't get the Flash update to Apple before GM was declared.

http://github.com/johang88/haskellinjavascript

;)

Happy Birthday!

Let's say you release "Brand New Purple Foobars!" and hire my ad firm to advertise them. Sales are up, so what's your conclusion? Well, maybe my ads really helped push your product. OR maybe your product was just so awesome on its own that it didn't need any advertising. The question is, if you don't know for certain which it was, do you take the risk of not hiring my ad firm next time? What if you don't, but your competitor that just came out with "Brand New Yellow Doohickeys!" does?

The problem with Google's ads is that it removes the mystery. If I know how many people saw the ad, and how many people followed through and clicked the link, then I can evaluate how effective my ad campaign is directly. It's like giving the prisoners cell phones so they can text each other… "Hey, they said you confessed…that true?" "Nah man, you?" "Nope!" "Cool…so drinks later?"

Check out the blurb on their main page (http://www.dragonflybsd.org/):

The DragonFly project's ultimate goal is to provide native clustering support in the kernel. This involves the creation of a sophisticated cache management framework for filesystem namespaces, file spaces, and VM spaces, which allows heavily interactive programs to run across multiple machines with cache coherency fully guaranteed in all respects. This also involves being able to chop up resources, including the cpu by way of a controlled VM context, for safe assignment to unsecured third-party clusters over the internet (though the security of such clusters itself might be in doubt, the first and most important thing is for systems donating resources to not be made vulnerable through their donation).

If anyone truly "gets" cloud computing, it's these guys. And they have the advantage of not being quite as big of a jump from existing systems as Plan 9 is.

...yeah, like that.

How would that have been worse then trying to wedge Flash where it doesn't belong?

Global companies like Caterpillar, General Electric, General Motors and Siemens — as well as scores of others — are making a more aggressive push into China, in some cases moving research and development centers here.

I am, personally, familiar with the movement of R&D to China. This, alone, makes me believe that this is not a flash-in-the-pan, but a genuine long term trend.

Also, as I recall the original estimate for when China would become #1 auto consumer was 2012. They beat that by 3 years. So, I would hazard a guess that it won't take them all the way to 2030 to become economy #1. What will be really interesting about that, though, is that due to population size alone, they will still have a far, far smaller per-capita income than the U.S.

1. Secrecy is part of the culture.

2. Engineers work hard at Apple, and many teams are surprisingly small. There are no 20% projects at Apple because nobody has the time.

Then you haven't been paying attention to how Apple got those recent financial numbers. Apple has held operating expenses extremely low, and hasn't grown its engineering ranks significantly in almost a decade. It's not at all unreasonable to expect that engineering resources are constrained. That's how Apple likes to work.

As for the issue of the tax itself, there is something to be said for using estate taxes to prevent the establishment of an aristocracy. I wonder how strong the correlation is between the estate tax rate and the wealth divide...

However, as spoken "eyePhone" isn't really any different than "iPhone", and "iPhone" is a registered trademark of Apple. Trademarks are interesting beasts. There is no "fair use" of trademarks for parody (hence, why the Looney Toons always got "Acme" brand products), and you cannot choose to not enforce trademark.

So, more than likely, what happened here is that someone said "(eye|i)Phone", Apple's lawyers heard about it, trademark law says it's the job of Apple (and its lawyers) to prevent trademark dilution, so the lawyers call up Comedy central and say: "Hey, you know that part where you say 'eyePhone', and you can't really tell if that's 'eyePhone' or 'iPhone'...could you just clip that out?"

...wait, I'm sorry...I forgot this was the internet. BOO! Bad Apple! Such an evil company that will censor our funnies and ruin the purity of our bodily fluids!

...but honestly, how many devs would've turned around and walked away if they had?

...nice attitude you've got there

Bzzzt! But thanks for playing... Unfortunately there's this concept known as citizenship. You're sorta born into it (usually). Ask any immigrant you meet, and I'm pretty sure they'll tell you that getting over all the legal requirements associated with moving countries is non-trivial (and that's even considering that the US, for all the criticism it receives, has one of the more open immigration policies in the world).

You know what it takes to be free from the tyranny of the iPad? Don't buy one! So why is that a non-argument? Because you're entitled to an iPad under terms and conditions you feel are reasonable? Freedom comes with citizenship because you don't have a choice there...

> It's certainly not because open platforms are unsuccessful

Did I say that? Here, let me try this again: Apple makes a product and sells it for a price. You have a job (presumably) and make money to spend on products. You can buy Apple's product, or not. They're not trying to trick you by claiming this product is something its not. You, having not entered into a contract commissioning the product they are selling have precisely zero right to demand the product be anything other than what it is.

If you don't like the product, buy something else. If there's nothing else comparable to buy your choices are: 1. make something better yourself 2. ask somebody else to make something better for you to buy

Selling people a product that will give them cancer and telling them it makes them look cool is an ethically questionable move. Restricting the programming languages that can be used to develop for your platform is not.