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June 25, 2003

Blog roundup

First up there is the Sco story again. eWeek has an interview with Linus. It seems to becoming obvious that the IP was not directly developed by SCO. Instead the claim is something along the lines of "X" was developed for UNIX and we own UNIX and so we own "X". Sort of like how Microslosh depicts the "viral" GPL but in reverse.

Next we have some rude people. Surfin' Safari will not longer provide the option to add comments to items because it was turning into a bug reporting facility. Come on people, thats what View->Bug is for. I grabbed 1.0 yesterday, tried it out, noted that an existing bug that annoys me is still there so I submitted a bug report. I didn't go hunting for blogs that talk about Safari to post my bug. As Dave points out, it is a bit like interrupting a conversation but talking about something unrelated.

Third up we have a story about how a Cuban father struggles with how to handle things for his children. This topic may get revisited because it is one of the things that bothers me too. My kids are of "mixed parentage", on one side they are 8th generation Australian (and First-Fleeters), and on the other they are 1st generation (i.e. one parent is an immigrant). There is so much in both cultures that we want to pass on but not at the cost of destroying either parents history of the kids future.

Next we have more complaints about the Apple performance tests. Now I am a Mac/Newton user and an Apple shareholder BUT they shouldn't need to cheat on benchmarks. The products are the best in the market and raw speed is only one criteria for comparing systems. Also keep in mind that comparing the speed in MHz (or GHz) of processors is like comparing locations by postcode. Different countries use different systems for postcodes and what fits in one place may not work elsewhere (I hate forms that have only two letters for states - we use three). Just as I cannot compare a US postcode with a British one to determine differences in location, I cannot compare the GHz of a Pentium with the GHz of a PowerPC 970. Within one country (or one processor type), maybe but not across countries (or processor families).

Last item for this entry is this story about SPAM. My theory is that Microslosh blocked the legislation because they figure they can make money out of direct prosecution of the spammers...

Now, back to work again!

Posted by Ozguru at June 25, 2003 01:06 PM

Comments

Cnet are running this story about Voldemorte Gates and his attitude to SPAM but it doesn't explain why Microslosh fought the anti-spam legislation in California.

Posted by: Ozguru at June 25, 2003 01:06 PM

Apple have responded to criticisms of the tests (catch Microslosh doing that - NBL) on Slashdot. It is also mentioned on MacRumors if you want to check out the discussion. In fact by the time you read this, it will probably be all over the web...

Posted by: Ozguru at June 25, 2003 01:06 PM

Boy someone was fast off the hammer asking what NBL stood for (other than National Basketball League). It means "Not Very Likely" except that Very gets replaced with a popular Australian word...

Posted by: Ozguru at June 25, 2003 01:06 PM

Actually, Apple do need to cheat on benchmarks. Consider SPEC benchmarks (as optimized by vendors): Dual 2 GHz G5s is worse than a single 3 GHz Pentium 4. Cross-platform products are typically in C/C++, and will be optimized for each platform, so these benchmarks are a good guide. What's worse, Intel processors are predicted to increase speed faster than IBM processors, looking at the chip maker roadmaps. Speed improvements are good, but unfortunately it appears that Apple is NOT in the same ballpark.

Posted by: Ex Mac User at June 25, 2003 01:06 PM

Just as well the Apple platform stands on its own for other reasons then :-). It has the integration, plug and play hardware, ease of use, good gui, consistent interface that Microslosh has still not managed to imitate. Even with the latest versions (plus patches and updates), Microslosh still gives you plug and pray, crappy graphics, lousy inconsistent features and a horrible non-intuitive interface. Let's face it, if you had to choose between a sexy ferrari and something 10% faster that looked like the rear end of a cow - what would you pick? :-)

Posted by: Ozguru at June 25, 2003 01:06 PM