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Slashback: Vaidhyanathan, Oregon, Opteron
'It would become impossible to have Open Source implementations of key pieces of the infrastructure. This would be harmful, perhaps fatal, to the grand plans of those who want to deploy Web services everywhere,' Bray is reported as saying, in XML Industry Newsletter ."
Waiting for the low-power version. Jethro writes "Ace's hardware Opteron review was a very interesting read which shows some real Java webserver benchmarks on SUSE and Debian Linux, and real world database performance in MySQL and MS SQL server 2000. A lot better than those synthetic mysql benchmarks that Tom's hardware served up."
And Distinguished Hero writes "[H]ardocp.com ([H]ardNews 1oth Edition) is reporting that the Opteron processor does not actually have an integrated dual channel controller. This explains why all the Opteron reviews only used a single channel configuration. While the integrated memory controlled is not dual channel, it can be bypassed by an external (Northbridge) memory controller connected to the processor via the HyperTransport bus."
One more: EconolineCrush writes "Yesterday's Opteron launch gave us all glimpse at AMD's new 64-bit platform, but the Opteron is a server and workstation chip that will be out of reach for the majority of consumers. AMD's upcoming Athlon 64, however, will bring 64-bit computing to the desktop. Drawing heavily from what we've seen of the Opteron's performance thus far, Tech-Report has posted its thoughts on what it will take for the Athlon 64 to succeed. It's an interesting read for anyone salivating at the thought of an affordable 64-bit desktop platform."
Ma'am, can you please ask those anarchists in the carrels to pipe down a bit? BrianWCarver writes "Readers may recall a Slashdot interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor at NYU, and author of Copyrights and Copywrongs. Vaidhyanathan is working on a new book, The Anarchist in the Library, and was interviewed on the blog, Eyeteeth. This is a brilliant and amazing interview where Vaidhyanathan discusses how creative communities share, the DMCA, the American industrial production of culture, the USA Patriot Act, the importance of libraries and librarians, and the policies of the FCC. It is a must-read for those who care about the future of creative and democratic culture."
Technically, Oregon is not Washington. Daniel Phillips is among the many folks who have been following the progress of a bill in Oregon (HB 2892) to encourage open source software, and he points out this Register story (picked up from NewsForge, actually), writing "Apparently, moving Oregon's open source bill forward comes down to convincing the house speaker."
Reader PotatoHead fleshes that out just a bit: " Despite reports detailing the demise of HB 2982, this bill continues to be a topic at the Oregon Legislature. We have broad support for HB 2892, but need everyone to continue showing support in the form of your phone calls, e-mails, faxes and snail-mail to your Oregon Representatives. We have the attention of the Oregon Legislature in a pretty big way and need to keep up the good work if HB 2892 is to move forward against the constant efforts of the usual industry lobbyists. If you don't already know, here is how you contact your representative. Please take a moment --right now-- and show your support for HB 2982. Every contact matters as we continue to move forward with HB 2892!"
Sir, can you direct me to the nearest buggy whip store so I can beat this dead horse? If $98 billion seems to you a bit much for the music cartel to charge students for even the most indiscriminant file swapping, you may be interested in following the chilling effects that it generates, too: PL_2003 writes "A follow up on a previous slashdot article. It really seems like the recording industry is determined to continue its fight.Check this NYTimes article (free reg. required). My Take: Couldn't they use their brains for a better business model?"
OK, here are the rules ... Grub (mentioned previously) is apparently causing consternation among many webmasters. Though they claim the client honors robots.txt , it seems that only the central servers check it (and don't honor it properly) and that grub clients don't don't check it at all. Ooops.
Time to round up and segregate the arrogant. jtheory writes "There's an AP story today here on Yahoo news) that the Justice department has dropped its probe into the recommendation policy of a Texas Tech bio professor. It's encouraging that all he had to do to stop the investigation was make some very minor changes in his policy, but it's still horrifying to me that he got into trouble in the first place. Is it even safe to encourage strict Creationists (or others with strong anti-scientific beliefs) to become doctors? Would they ignore animal research results, etc?"
Hey, anybody know of a source for Opteron systems? What about pricing? Specifically, I'd like to get my hands on a top of the line dual-CPU box. I think a lot of people would be willing to splurge $2k on a decent Opteron-based workstation.
That's a slippery slope you're suggesting.
Should we exclude people from becoming doctors because they believe that Jesus came back from the dead - a belief which is both unscientific and contrary to our understanding of medical science?
The integrated memory controller has some obvious advantages, but I think its going to cause a lot of problems for AMD. Judging by AMD's recent performace with deadlines, the constant product refreshes that will be needed to keep up with new memory technologies will be difficult for them. And think of the confusion after a few product refreshes- are they going to assign a new model number to each new chip with different memory capabilities?
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Many people I know who don't believe in biological macro-evolution still believe in an old earth, and they don't deny that the fossil record shows an increase in complexity in life over time. However, they simply don't believe random genetic mutation combined with natural selection is enough to drive the evolution of life to what we have today. How is that being unscientific? How is that person going to be a "dangerous" doctor?
Forget the whales - save the babies.
My Oregon House Representative, Mitch Greenlick (Democrat-033), wrote back to me:
Now, I don't mean to be a naysayer, and I'd hate to quit too early, but when the man says it's dead...
Doomed feelings aside, I'm off to write the speaker of the house, Ms. Minnis... As I said to Rep. Greenlick, I'd rather not have my taxes raised when the alternative could be to use open-source software providing Oregonians with jobs (installation, design, maintenance) and saving money by eliminating the need to pay economic rent to Washingtonians (Microsoft Licensing Fees).
SLM
If you think you can hurt me again, you're wrong. I left my heart in my other pants.
And then this, from that forum thread:
Give me a break, a web spider has only one requirement: OBEY ROBOTS.TXT . It's clear they didn't even consider this when coding it, let alone other niceties like "Don't DoS the site by spidering it too fast".You might be interested in the book In Six Days, edited by John Ashton - it's a collection of 50 essays by scientists in many different fields, each with (at least) a PhD, explaining why they believe in Creation from a scientific perspective.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This would also solve the memory controller bandwidth problem. People who need the additional bandwidth can use two clawhammers; they'll want SMP anyway. This was my plan all along, my understanding was that sledgehammner had a superior (dual channel) memory controller and an additional HT link (three total) and that clawhammer had only a single channel memory controller but still had two HT links, so you could get dual processor SMP out of it for "free" (only the cost of supporting the pins and bus connections on the motherboard.) I don't see why you wouldn't be able to build linear-connected SMP machines with it either, up to 32 nodes or whatever HT supports, though I'm not sure how useful a machine set up with those kind of interconnects would be, or what kind of OS it would take to do anything meaningful with it.
Anyway, AMD really did promise those things in their marketing literature -- 1-2 way clawhammer and 2-8 way sledgehammer (that always looked funny to me, like they were implying you had to run at least two chips) and the processors in the sledgehammer would be cross-connected, with two of them each employing a dual channel memory controller at once. Then they changed their minds. Doubtless they felt that they had to remove it to bring the chips down to some magical price point, and maybe they're right, but I was expecting a really classy CPU and what we're getting is cool and all, but they missed the geek factor pretty much entirely.
Now it's not like itanic is there mind you, the new PowerPC is pretty geeky but that can't make it a leading processor just because of the weight behind x86 (which if you think about it, AMD is helping to preserve. we laud them for their backwards compatibility, and we hope their new extensions are better-implemented than, say, the i386's. :) They certainly look better, it looks like a great chip in every way, but it really does appear to need another hypertransport link. Come on, AMD.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Of course, such a configuration using the Athlon 64 will not be supported by AMD, since the Athlon 64 will not be rated for SMP use, but in practice it is likely to work, unless AMD actually disables the ccHT capability of the processor.
The point is this: students are asking Prof Dini to make a recommendation. A recommendation is a personal statement that Dr. Dini believes the student in question is qualified for... something. If he doesn't believe the student is qualified, he shouldn't write the recommendation -- regardless of his reason.
To put it another way, the Department of Justice is essentially compelling Dr. Dini to write recommendations for students that Dr. Dini does not feel are qualified. Our Benevolent Government is making someone misstate his own personal opinions. The fact that it's a recommendation for medical school and the fact that Dr. Dini teaches at a public university are red herrings; We The People are still asking him to lie about his evaluation of a student's qualifications.
Compelled speech isn't free speech.
I don't have the specifics in front of me to quote from, and if I did, I'd probably be NDA'd but - a certain recent PA-RISC cpu underwent a respin that enhanced its pre-fetch logic to automagically prefetch the first cache-line of the following page on access of the last cache-line of the current page. I was told that this simple algorithm was mostly responsible for a ~10% increase in SpecFP (don't remember which revision) from one version to the next.
Not a direct answer, but perhaps a lantern on the path.
So, does an Operton have 64-bit or 128-bit cacheline size?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Modern inquisition? Give me a break.
There are several facts that have convinced me that evolution has occurred:
Okay. So?
Everything you said could be adequately explained by saying that "God did it."
There is no evidence either supporting or refuting the hypothesis of divine creation.
Look at it this way. On the table you have a fig newton, a jelly donut, and an apple pie. You look at all the evidence and conclude that it looks like the three objects represent different stages of evolution. The fig newton is simplest, the jelly donut is more complex, and the apple pie is the most complex of all. Ergo, the pie evolved from the fig newton.
That's a perfectly valid hypothesis. In the absence of any other facts, there's nothing wrong with that hypothesis.
Along comes the creationist, who said that the newton, the donut, and the pie were all made by the Divine Baker. You scoff. "Clearly the pie represents a more evolved form of the newton!" you say. The creationist calmly responds, "Yes. Because the Divine Baker made them that way."
Bottom line: we don't know which of you is right and which is wrong. Because we've never seen evolution in action-- in fact, it cannot be observed, due to its inordinately long baseline-- we can't draw any definitive conclusions about whether or not it happens. Obviously offspring differ from their parents; this is implicit in sexual reproduction. But we have never observed one order of life evolving into an entirely different order of life, so the question is still very much open.
Those who say that evolution is absolutely wrong are fools. Those who say that creationism is absolutely wrong are ALSO fools.
Here endeth the lesson.
Ib, Orissa, which has the shortest name for any train station in India. .. and the shortest place name in the world is Å - that's an upper case A with a ring above. It's in Norway, one of the three countries (well, four) that uses that letter in their alphabets.
More at their tourist info site.