Pay no attention to the processor in the box

posted by jack at 06:01 CET in / compute

Last week, Apple made waves when it announced that future Macintosh models, beginning next year, will contain Intel processors just like other PCs. Some people have asked me what I think about this, so here goes:

The transition to Intel is going to be a great thing.

Now, before I continue: I really don't much care for the Intel architecture. I am a True Believer in the RISC approach embodied in the PowerPC architecture. However, for reasons that should become clear as I continue, for most intents and purposes, the processor doesn't matter.

I started off working life as a NeXTStep developer. For those who don't know, NeXTStep was a product of Steve Jobs' other computer company, NeXT, the one he created during the "dark years" (ca 1985-1997) that he wasn't with Apple. NeXT was a financial failure, but they created some great technology, both hardware and software. The software, in the form of the NeXTStep operating system and development environment, makes up the underpinnings of Mac OS X. I have always held the opinion that Mac OS X could more accurately be called "NeXTStep 5.0".

Anyway, back in the early 90's, NeXTStep ran only on NeXT's own hardware, great beastly black boxes with Motorola 680x0 processors. The hardware was technologically similar to top-of-the-line Macs of that era, but typically with much larger screens, larger hard disks, more RAM, and a much higher price tag. In 1993, NeXT announced that they were getting out of the hardware business entirely, and were going to focus on the NeXTStep operating system, which they had secretly ported to... Intel! Does this sound familiar to anyone?

So what was a developer to do? Well, in most cases, they could simply compile their software for Intel by clicking a single checkbox in the NeXTStep IDE. The compiler would then compile the code for both platforms, and bundle them together into what could have been called a "universal binary"^* (again, does this sound familiar?). This would then run on both Motorola-based NeXT machines and Intel-based PCs.

Not content to stop there, NeXT also ported their operation system to run on Sun SPARC workstations and HP HP-RISC workstations. And as a developer, all you had to do was click on the checkboxes to enable those platforms, and off you went!

But could it really be that easy? Well, in a word: YES. If you didn't do much low-level bit-flipping, it really was pretty much that easy. So much so that freeware developers routinely released "quad-fat applications" that ran on all four platforms, even if they never had access to one or more of the target platforms for testing. They'd just put it out there, say "email me if it doesn't work right on your machine", and call it a day.

Of course, there are applications that require low-level bit-flipping, but that can usually be done with per-platform compiler macros and what have you, so you can abstract that away and off you go.

So, we jump forward twelve years in time and arrive at last week. Apple announces technology that old NeXT nerds like me have always known they've had, and that we know works. Hell, even people who've been Apple nerds since 1997 or 1998 or so should remember that the early, pre-release "Rhapsody" versions of Mac OS X ran both on old Apple G3s and Intel PCs. So really, the technology is not new and has been obviously under the covers ever since Apple acquired NeXT, who nailed this a decade ago.

[*] But of course, it wasn't called that. It was called a "fat binary". No one ever accused NeXT of being especially good at marketing.

One concern I've heard thrown about is that PPC hardware will be "orphaned". Although this will surely happen at some point, it's still years away; everyone using current hardware will be able to use it several years into the future. Look at it this way:

• Currently, Mac OS X can run on every Mac released since 1998, from the very first bondi blue iMac all the way up the chain. This is millions of machines.
• The Intel version won't be readily available until mid-2006 (Apple's estimate) at the earliest. Many developers won't bother shipping universal binaries until then.
• Intel won't take over the whole line until at least late 2007 (Apple's estimate) or, more likely, 2008.
• Therefore, Apple won't be shipping all-Intel Macs until perhaps nearly three years from now. No developer in their right mind would ditch PPC support any time before that.
• Even when Macs are all-Intel, there will remain a huge PPC user community. Unless Mac sales go up dramatically after the Intel release (we can hope), it will take several years before the numbers of Intel Macs equal the number of PPC Macs. My guess, we're talking at least 2010.
• Until the numbers of Intel Macs seriously overtake the number of PPC Macs, smart developers will support both platforms. So maybe 5 years from now we'll start to see significant amounts of Intel-only software, but many developers will probably continue to ship universal binaries much longer than that, since they will keep access to the PPC users "for free".

I believe that 5 years is a pretty good amount of time for people to think about buying some new hardware, so I really don't think this is going to be too painful.

The only real scenarios I can see being problematic are where people are running specific PCI hardware such as for high-end audio/video applications; If your manufacturer can't or won't create new drivers for MacIntel (if they've stopped caring about their Mac products, or have gone out of business, or whatever), you'll probably have to buy new extra hardware for your special needs when you switch to MacIntel. But in five years time, you'd probably want to replace it anyway, since considering the march of progress, today's "top-of-the-line" audio gear is tomorrow's "free-with-your-subscription-to-PC-user-magazine" throwaway kit, so hey.

acko acko

posted by jack at 14:37 CET in / thinking

(I never thought it would come to this, but here I am: blogging about Michael Jackson. Hopefully this is the only time.)

So, the big "not guilty" judgement came down the pike yesterday. I'm not plugged-in to the 24/7 American disinfo feed (FAUX News, CNN, etc) so I didn't hear this important news until this morning when I awoke to hear the TV saying "Michael Jackson blah blah king of pop blah blah" followed by my wife calling out "Michael Jackson's DEAD!!!" That kidder. As if.

Anyway. I caught a clip of some jurors talking about the reasons for their decision, and one of the explanations was that no sound parent would let their child attend sleepovers at Michael Jackson's house. Let's lay this out:

1. Michael Jackson is a known freak.
2. That mom let her son stay at Michael Jackson's house.
3. No good mom would allow that.
4. Therefore, that's a bad mom.
5. Therefore, Michael Jackson is innocent.

Now, I know a little bit about logic, and I think that the jump from step 4 to step 5 there is a little wide. But then I'm no legal expert, and the law surely can't be held back by something like logic.

This reminds me of the Chewbacca defense, a Johnny Cochran parody defense in South Park, which (in extremely shortened form) goes something like this:

1. Look at this picture of Chewbacca.
2. Chewbacca is a Wookie.
3. That makes no sense.
4. Therefore, my client is innocent! You must acquit!

In *my* day, phishing was done properly

posted by jack at 21:29 CET in / compute

I tell you what, phishing attacks ain't what they used to be. It used to be that internet hucksters really tried their best to make their pitches seems realistic, but I feel like the scam artists are just getting plain old sloppy. Take a look at the latest in my inbox. I've taken the liberty of marking obvious spelling errors in red:

From: paypal@mail.paypal.com
Subject: Security Center Advisory
Date: June 6, 2005 8:02:55 AM CEST
To: Jack

We Recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your PayPal account from foreign IP adress and we have reasons to believe that your account was hijacked by a third party without your authorization

If you recently noticed one or more attempts your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if your are rightful holder of the account, click on the link below to log into your account and fallow the intrusctions.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=login-run

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but not tempor aly suspend account.

We ask that you fallow at least 72 hours for the case to be investigated and we strongly recomanded to verify your account in that time.

If you recived this notice and you are not the authorized account holder, please be aware that it is in violation of PayPal policy to represent oneself as another PayPal user.Such action may also be in violation of local, national, and/or international law. Paypal is misappropriate at the request of law enforment agencies to ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Thanks for your patiance as we work togheter to protect your account.

Sincerly, PayPal Account Review Department PayPal, an ebay Company

* Please do not respond to this e-mail adress as your reply will not be recived

Don't even get me started on the grammar; the bad spelling just screams out "bullshit!" Not that I'm super-uptight about spelling or anything, but the super-scary warning supposedly from paypal lost its effect when they "recomanded" me to "fallow the intrusctions".

For some reason I feel a little sorry for these jackasses, so I offer up some tips in the interests of helping my fellow men (even when they are maggots):

• Use a spell-checker before sending out your text.
• Have a native English speaker proofread your text.
• Don't include ludicrous warnings like "don't reply to this email, we won't get it". What kind of company sends warnings by email but can't receive email in return? Think, dumbass!
• If you must include a paragraph warning people not to break they law (working under the assumption that people will automatically believe anyone who quotes laws at them), at least try to make some sense. "Paypal is misappropriate at the request of law enforment..." ??? That dog won't hunt, slim.
• Above all, try to think up a plausible story as to why the mark should click your link and give up their password. I mean, what's with this warning about a "foreign IP address"? Foreign compared to what? You mean it's not an address in the US? Or what? And how the hell would you know? And do you know what country the mark is in? This kind of bullshit just shows that the person who wrote it not only can't write clearly, they can't even think clearly.

Hopefully these tips will help improve the quality of the phishing attempts I get in my email. If not, I'm going to have to give you all a big fat F pretty soon.

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

posted by jack at 22:39 CET in / politics

This link was passed to me by James:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

This is a "top ten" (plus lots of "honorable mentions") compiled by a bunch of conservervate, errr, "thinkers".

The list includes some obvious punching bags for the right (The Communist Manifesto), at least one obvious punching bag for most everyone (Mein Kampf), but a bunch of titles that I'm frankly surprised that any group of intelligent people, including plenty of college professors, can consider to be "harmful". For example:

• The Kinsey Report
• John Dewey's Democracy and Education
• John Stuart Mills' On Liberty
• Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed

Sure, if I were a conservative I would probably consider most of these works uncomfortable, or unpleasant, but harmful? How detached from reality does one need to be, to consider "Unsafe at Any Speed" harmful?