The significant AMD technology leads over Intel for multi-core products right now are their dual-stress liner technology, their silicon-on-insulator (SOI) manufacturing process, their implementation of hypertransport, and their use of an on-die memory controller. These technologies have allowed AMD to develop multi-core cpus that outperform Intel products while operating at a cooler temperature with lower power consumption. Intel OTOH has been relying on clock speed, and more lately, process shrinks, to achieve performance that is somewhat competitive with AMD. AMD will also use those but those aren't the biggest tools in the AMD performance toolbox, as they are for Intel.
I'd be a little suspicious of any article that is titled "Top Secret Intel Processor Plans Uncovered" even if it wasn't from a long-time Intel fan-boy site. It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago and just opened their newest fab to facilitate quad-core and octa-core future cpus on much larger dies. Right now, AMD has at least a one-year lead over Intel in this technology and there's no sign that Intel is doing anything that will leapfrog AMD. The entire article could be entitled 'Intel says 'me too.' It would be much more impressive if there was some meaty info about the performance of actual products rather than a lot of stuff about 'xx will do this' and 'yy will do that.' As it is, it just reads like an expanded description of a roadmap which can quickly change with future developments or non-developments.
If the 'restart manager' can selectively idle and replace Windows components and then return them to service without rebooting, it seems as though spyware or virii could potentially hijack the restart manager to do the same thing, making them more difficult to detect and remove without reformatting and reinstalling. Even worse would be stealth malware that would hijack a windows service on a running system with a substitute module, do their whatever-it-is dirty work, and then uninstall themselves and disappear without a trace. The user would be totally unaware that they were ever running, would not know what they did, and there would be nothing left to detect by anti-whatever software.
Why does Microsoft persist with these Linux vs Windows comparisons? People don't compare one against the other and then make a to use one. No, people use whichever for their own reasons, which rarely have anything to do with comparing any sort of objective metric. The main 'feature' that Linux has is that it is DIFFERENT than Windows so there is a CHOICE of something else to use. Who cares if Linux falls down or does great relative to Windows? All that matters is that Linux is an option that works well, does a whole lot of stuff, and works with a lot of hardware. As far as most non-Windows users are concerned, Windows might as well not even exist.
I bought a Prius last August, not to save money on gas, but because I thought the electric/gas computer-controlled drive was cool. The 'hybrid' setup is very sophisticated and was only made possible by advances in onboard computer controls such as reliability, more memory, more powerful processors, and easier programming. Now that they're here, though, hybrid engines are just a better idea and will eventually replace non-hybrid engines, just like disc brakes have mostly replaced drum brakes, radial-ply tires have replaced bias-ply tires, and fuel injection obsoleted carburetors.
Yes, the hybrids are much more fuel-efficient but they also have many other advantages such as they are likely to need a lot less maintenance and have a longer life. For example, the Prius does not even have "spark plugs" with a "coil" but instead has a new gizmo in the top of each cylinder that selectively turns the spark off and on under computer control based on power demand while the cylinder continues to move.
Why bother with a non-lethal weapon? These folks doing the pirate stuff are not nice people. Why not mount a couple of.50 caliber machine guns on the cruise ship fore and aft and let the cruise ship crew have some target practice on the guys in the pirate zodiacs so that they will be less of a threat to the next boat or ship that comes by?
Intel's marketing must be awesome if they can get knowledgable IT pros to buy the dual-core Xeons instead of the dual-core Opterons. I'm thinking the Intel marketing guys could sell sunshine to Hawaiians.
Intel used to have the class products and AMD was the inexpensive copy. Now, AMD is selling the classy stuff and Intel sells the cheap, junky stuff. I am amazed at how poorly the Intel dual-core performs compared with the AMD. Even if Intel couldn't replicate the lower power consumption of the AMD product, it seems like they should have been able to at least come a little closer to the performance. It is just embarrassing to see how far Intel has fallen.
Let's make developers liable for *all* of the flaws in the code they write. For the first flaw, just a warning and a fine. For the second flaw, increase the fine to...say...$2000. For each subsequent flaw, we're talking jail time...maybe 6 months per flaw. The end product of this new zero-tolerance policy will, of course, be fewer flaws as the developers all concentrate harder on their work and stop going to those late-night developer parties with all of the naked women running around.
Of course, there will be hardly any developers actually coding any more since so many will be in jail and/or bankrupt, but that's a fixable problem if we just increase the number of new developers that are in training.
And then there's bound to be a few bleeding hearts who will sympathize with the developers and want to take a softer approach. With shrill cries they'll say stuff like 'all complex code has bugs' 'testing' and 'better bug tracking'. Don't listen to them, of course.
You could try something difficult like actually reading a transcript
of the Presidents remarks - which answers your questions.
No, it doesn't. The question was: "Why isn't the president
ordering vaccinations for everyone?" The President's
transcript states:
[begin Bush excerpt 1]
"Thirdly, the development of a vaccine -- I've spent time with Tony
Fauci on the subject. Obviously, it would be helpful if we had a
breakthrough in the capacity to develop a vaccine that would enable us
to feel comfortable here at home that not only would first responders
be able to be vaccinated, but as many Americans as possible, and people
around the world. But, unfortunately, there is a -- we're just not that
far down the manufacturing process. And there's a spray, as you know,
that can maybe help arrest the spread of the disease, which is in
relatively limited supply. So one of the issues is how do we
encourage the manufacturing capacity
of the country, and maybe the world, to be prepared to deal with the
outbreak of a pandemic. In other words, can we surge enough production
to be able to help deal with the issue?"
[end Bush excerpt 1]
This is a typically vague comment which does not say if the limiting
factor for vaccination is vaccine production capacity or the knowledge
of how to make a vaccine that would be effective against the current
threat. In the face of a similar threat in 1976, a vaccine
*was* able to be quickly developed and placed into mass production so
it is certainly possible, especially given the advances in technology
since then. What Bush does NOT say is that his administration has
requested funds to begin bird flu vaccine production, requested
drug companies to begin vaccination development/production, or even
made vaccine development/production a high national priority.
Those were all things the Ford administration DID do in 1976 in the
face of the same threat. So, my question remains unanswered, 'Why
isn't the president ordering vaccinations for everyone?' Bush
needs to establish that as a goal and then begin working towards that
goal. If that goal is no longer feasible, then the goal
should be to develop as much vaccine as possible to attempt to contain
a potential outbreak. The Bush administration's only stated
goal thus far has been to develop plans for the use of the
military. This is a situation that requires national leadership
and Bush is not providing it.
Quarantining was just as difficult in 1976 as it would be in
2005. Even way back then, international jet travel was
commonplace which is what I assume you are referring to with your
"speed of modern travel" crack. Quarantining is what you do if
the disease is spreading and you have no other way of preventing or
preventing it. It is a last resort and definitely not the
preferred way of preventing flu outbreaks. There was no jet
travel in 1918 and yet the 1918 flu still managed to spread quickly and
lethally. A program of vaccination would be likely to be much
more effective. Bush needs to get out front with some leadership on the
problem.
The news is full of stuff about how deadly the bird flu will be when it
strikes. Now, the news says that the 1918 flu was linked
to bird flu. But those of us who are over 40 remember the
same sort of talk back in 1976...about 'swine
flu.' Swine flu killed healthy soldiers at Fort Dix, NJ in
1976 and was alleged to be the same as the 1918 flu that killed
millions. As a result, the president at the time (Ford)
ordered a program of national vaccination for every man, woman and
child in the United States. Most people received the 'swine flu'
shot which made most who received it a little sick for 1 or 2
days. Then the swine flu didn't appear and everyone forgot about
it. Now, supposedly the '1918 flu' is coming back again in the
form of 'bird flu' so I have some questions:
1) Why isn't the current president ordering vaccinations for
everyone? The technology of making flu vaccines is pretty
routine, even if the flue is alleged to be unusually lethal.
Instead, President Bush is talking about imposing martial law and using
the military to quarantine those portions of the country where the bird
flu strikes.
2) Why is the 1976 vaccine that was allegedly protective against the
'1918 flu' not being resuscitated and updated to be used in 2005?
The new nominee seems completely unqualified for the job, whatever her past lawyering cases were, Microsoft or no. She's never even decided a traffic ticket case. How can she possibly be qualified to decide cases which will set legal precedents for the next umpty-ump years? There is an enormous difference between being a lawyer and being a judge. Her only qualifications for the job seem to be 1) friend of Bush, 2) lawyer, and 3) a woman. I think a supreme court justice should have more qualifications than those.
I thought he was going to write about how the career opportunities for engineers are limited, how job outsourcing overseas leaves fewer jobs at home, or how engineering pay and benefits fall behind some other career fields. But no, he writes about how HARD his engineering classes were. Reading between the lines of his article, he just didn't seem to LIKE studying technical subjects which is, after all, what an engineering education is all about. If you don't LIKE technical subjects, it doesn't matter if you are a bright person with a good high school record, you will probably fail at the college level, just as he did, unless you have an unusually high amount of self-discipline and tolerance for pain. Why did he even start in engineering in the first place? His article did not say.
You have to WANT to do those problem sets. The TA, the professor, the lectures, the text book, and the problem sets are there as tools to help you learn but no one will hold your hand and walk you through the stuff at the college level, unless maybe you are in astronaut training or something.
The Sun guy says the future will be no more desktop computers, only powerful servers. Microsoft says everyone will have a powerful desktop running windows. Obviously, the truth is somewhere in between. Server apps are very useful and becoming more and more powerful. And no one is really writing desktop apps anymore...(well okay, there's still Photoshop, Office, Mozilla, Quicken, and Turbotax.) But desktop computers offer local control of your data and that's just too important to cast off for many of us. So,..I preduct the 10-year-out future will have more powerful servers and server-run apps (and many more of them) but those servers will still be accessed by desktop computers that will have themselves become much more powerful. Perhaps in the future, your power and freedom will even be defined by the power and capability of the local machine running under your control.
M$ is officially reorganizing but really they are ossifying. With Allchin being superseded by a marketing/sales guy, it's suddenly become a lot less likely that Windows will ever evolve into the kind of system software that is needed in the future. Most of the world, to this day, uses the Windows NTFS and its fragmentable master file table to store their data on ever-larger disk drives. Probably now we'll just see 'better and better' defragmenters as the innovation of the future. The Windows user interface will further solidify as a 2D 'click on the icon on the desktop' and the Windows computer will further 'evolve' into an appliance that plays multimedia, reads web pages, email and AIM, and plays games. Windows ossification. The only slightly interesting thing will be how Microsoft will get users to pay bigger license fees than they are paying now for the new Windows.
Get a clue!! Your "target audience" could be ANY of us. Everyone in the destruction zone was affected by Katrina, not just the people you worked with at the Dallas convention center, and everyone needs access to the FEMA site, not just the poor and not just the folks at the Dallas convention center. If you were on the receiving end of a Katrina-scale disaster, you would lose some of the arrogance that seems to be leading you to the conclusion that it can't happen to YOU.
The 'cro-magnons' were taller, relatively weak, and good walkers but...not real bright. the Neandertals were much brighter but short, stocky, and not as good in the walking and throwing department. Then mix a Neandertal with a cute cro-magnon babe and...voila...'modern man' with his big brain and superb two-legged walking and baseball throwing ability. We are all descendants of those few hybridized offspring 38,000 years ago who then quickly multiplied and killed off the ancestral forms, of course.
Most of the big computer makers are Intel-only. Most stores selling PCs are selling mostly 'Intel-Inside' machines. Most corporate PCs and servers are Intel. AMD's server share just went up to 11 percent and AMD was ecstatic about it. Seems like Intel has the business pretty well locked up so what reason do they have to respond to AMD's challenge? I predict they will just ignore it.
1) good programmers write better code than less-good programmers...
2) Always get the best...
Point 1 is obvious but Point 2 is a very bad way to approach a project. Should you need or expect the best garbage man to pick up your garbage? What about the best auto tech to fix your car? Okay, you say, these are non-creative tasks so they are not good examples. Well, then, do you need the best writer to write the docs for your software? In most cases, no. It's just a manual, and doesn't have to win a prize for literature.
Spolsky might like the 'best,' just as he might prefer fine wines or concours automobiles but for most things 'good enough' is the 'best' use of your resources. Besides, just try getting an Ernest Hemingway to write your manual...
1) Dump the solid fuel booster. That gets rid of the o-ring joints, the foam insulation, and the ugly appearance. Replace with a 2 or 3 stage design with conventional liquid fuel but make the stages simple enough to mass produce to keep costs down and make them recoverable.
2) Dump the complicated exterior tile pattern for the shuttle heat shield where each tile has to be carefully glued into place and where a gap between tiles can lead to the loss of the shuttle. Replace it with some sort of crude but effective overlapping 'fish scale' design with the keystone tiles mechanically attached to the shuttle skin with ceramic pins of some sort.
3) post the acronym 'KISS' on the design team's cubicles and make them live it. What has killed the shuttle more than any other thing is the general complexity of its operation. If operating cars or airplanes had the same degree of complexity of the shuttle, we would still be riding horses and riding in hot-air balloons.
The Columbia was damaged by a chunk of foam striking the shuttle at liftoff. Now, the Discovery lifts off and a big chunk of foam falls off. The fact that it missed the shuttle this time is irrlevant. NASA has proved in tests that the foam can cause fatal damage when it hits the tiles so if they cannot prevent chunks of foam from falling off at liftoff, then the shuttle must be grounded until they can solve the foam problem. This isn't rocket science...well, okay, maybe it is.
The binaries compiled with Intel compilers run slower when they detect an AMD cpu which means that every AMD user is getting lower performance than they should be getting when they are running Intel binaries. That extra little bit of time that your AMD system took might mean that *you* spent a little bit longer than necessary in front of the computer as well. Is Intel compensating you for your time that they have deliberately wasted? Is Intel paying you for the extra little bit of electricity that was unnecessarily used to run the code at a deliberately slower rate?
Slashdot Mirror
The significant AMD technology leads over Intel for multi-core products right now are their dual-stress liner technology, their silicon-on-insulator (SOI) manufacturing process, their implementation of hypertransport, and their use of an on-die memory controller. These technologies have allowed AMD to develop multi-core cpus that outperform Intel products while operating at a cooler temperature with lower power consumption. Intel OTOH has been relying on clock speed, and more lately, process shrinks, to achieve performance that is somewhat competitive with AMD. AMD will also use those but those aren't the biggest tools in the AMD performance toolbox, as they are for Intel.
I'd be a little suspicious of any article that is titled "Top Secret Intel Processor Plans Uncovered" even if it wasn't from a long-time Intel fan-boy site. It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago and just opened their newest fab to facilitate quad-core and octa-core future cpus on much larger dies. Right now, AMD has at least a one-year lead over Intel in this technology and there's no sign that Intel is doing anything that will leapfrog AMD. The entire article could be entitled 'Intel says 'me too.' It would be much more impressive if there was some meaty info about the performance of actual products rather than a lot of stuff about 'xx will do this' and 'yy will do that.' As it is, it just reads like an expanded description of a roadmap which can quickly change with future developments or non-developments.
If the 'restart manager' can selectively idle and replace Windows components and then return them to service without rebooting, it seems as though spyware or virii could potentially hijack the restart manager to do the same thing, making them more difficult to detect and remove without reformatting and reinstalling. Even worse would be stealth malware that would hijack a windows service on a running system with a substitute module, do their whatever-it-is dirty work, and then uninstall themselves and disappear without a trace. The user would be totally unaware that they were ever running, would not know what they did, and there would be nothing left to detect by anti-whatever software.
Why does Microsoft persist with these Linux vs Windows comparisons? People don't compare one against the other and then make a to use one. No, people use whichever for their own reasons, which rarely have anything to do with comparing any sort of objective metric. The main 'feature' that Linux has is that it is DIFFERENT than Windows so there is a CHOICE of something else to use. Who cares if Linux falls down or does great relative to Windows? All that matters is that Linux is an option that works well, does a whole lot of stuff, and works with a lot of hardware. As far as most non-Windows users are concerned, Windows might as well not even exist.
The weak non-response by AV companies isn't the REAL story, either...
The REAL story is why aren't elected officials falling all over themselves to make what SONY did a criminal offense?
I bought a Prius last August, not to save money on gas, but because I thought the electric/gas computer-controlled drive was cool. The 'hybrid' setup is very sophisticated and was only made possible by advances in onboard computer controls such as reliability, more memory, more powerful processors, and easier programming. Now that they're here, though, hybrid engines are just a better idea and will eventually replace non-hybrid engines, just like disc brakes have mostly replaced drum brakes, radial-ply tires have replaced bias-ply tires, and fuel injection obsoleted carburetors.
Yes, the hybrids are much more fuel-efficient but they also have many other advantages such as they are likely to need a lot less maintenance and have a longer life. For example, the Prius does not even have "spark plugs" with a "coil" but instead has a new gizmo in the top of each cylinder that selectively turns the spark off and on under computer control based on power demand while the cylinder continues to move.
Why bother with a non-lethal weapon? These folks doing the pirate stuff are not nice people. Why not mount a couple of .50 caliber machine guns on the cruise ship fore and aft and let the cruise ship crew have some target practice on the guys in the pirate zodiacs so that they will be less of a threat to the next boat or ship that comes by?
"Several components will have to be developed before photons can replace electrons inside computers."
Intel's marketing must be awesome if they can get knowledgable IT pros to buy the dual-core Xeons instead of the dual-core Opterons. I'm thinking the Intel marketing guys could sell sunshine to Hawaiians.
Intel used to have the class products and AMD was the inexpensive copy. Now, AMD is selling the classy stuff and Intel sells the cheap, junky stuff. I am amazed at how poorly the Intel dual-core performs compared with the AMD. Even if Intel couldn't replicate the lower power consumption of the AMD product, it seems like they should have been able to at least come a little closer to the performance. It is just embarrassing to see how far Intel has fallen.
Let's make developers liable for *all* of the flaws in the code they write. For the first flaw, just a warning and a fine. For the second flaw, increase the fine to...say...$2000. For each subsequent flaw, we're talking jail time...maybe 6 months per flaw. The end product of this new zero-tolerance policy will, of course, be fewer flaws as the developers all concentrate harder on their work and stop going to those late-night developer parties with all of the naked women running around.
Of course, there will be hardly any developers actually coding any more since so many will be in jail and/or bankrupt, but that's a fixable problem if we just increase the number of new developers that are in training.
And then there's bound to be a few bleeding hearts who will sympathize with the developers and want to take a softer approach. With shrill cries they'll say stuff like 'all complex code has bugs' 'testing' and 'better bug tracking'. Don't listen to them, of course.
You could try something difficult like actually reading a transcript of the Presidents remarks - which answers your questions.
No, it doesn't. The question was: "Why isn't the president ordering vaccinations for everyone?" The President's transcript states:
[begin Bush excerpt 1]
"Thirdly, the development of a vaccine -- I've spent time with Tony Fauci on the subject. Obviously, it would be helpful if we had a breakthrough in the capacity to develop a vaccine that would enable us to feel comfortable here at home that not only would first responders be able to be vaccinated, but as many Americans as possible, and people around the world. But, unfortunately, there is a -- we're just not that far down the manufacturing process. And there's a spray, as you know, that can maybe help arrest the spread of the disease, which is in relatively limited supply. So one of the issues is how do we encourage the manufacturing capacity of the country, and maybe the world, to be prepared to deal with the outbreak of a pandemic. In other words, can we surge enough production to be able to help deal with the issue?"
[end Bush excerpt 1]
This is a typically vague comment which does not say if the limiting factor for vaccination is vaccine production capacity or the knowledge of how to make a vaccine that would be effective against the current threat. In the face of a similar threat in 1976, a vaccine *was* able to be quickly developed and placed into mass production so it is certainly possible, especially given the advances in technology since then. What Bush does NOT say is that his administration has requested funds to begin bird flu vaccine production, requested drug companies to begin vaccination development/production, or even made vaccine development/production a high national priority. Those were all things the Ford administration DID do in 1976 in the face of the same threat. So, my question remains unanswered, 'Why isn't the president ordering vaccinations for everyone?' Bush needs to establish that as a goal and then begin working towards that goal. If that goal is no longer feasible, then the goal should be to develop as much vaccine as possible to attempt to contain a potential outbreak. The Bush administration's only stated goal thus far has been to develop plans for the use of the military. This is a situation that requires national leadership and Bush is not providing it.
Quarantining was just as difficult in 1976 as it would be in 2005. Even way back then, international jet travel was commonplace which is what I assume you are referring to with your "speed of modern travel" crack. Quarantining is what you do if the disease is spreading and you have no other way of preventing or preventing it. It is a last resort and definitely not the preferred way of preventing flu outbreaks. There was no jet travel in 1918 and yet the 1918 flu still managed to spread quickly and lethally. A program of vaccination would be likely to be much more effective. Bush needs to get out front with some leadership on the problem.
The news is full of stuff about how deadly the bird flu will be when it strikes. Now, the news says that the 1918 flu was linked to bird flu. But those of us who are over 40 remember the same sort of talk back in 1976...about 'swine flu.' Swine flu killed healthy soldiers at Fort Dix, NJ in 1976 and was alleged to be the same as the 1918 flu that killed millions. As a result, the president at the time (Ford) ordered a program of national vaccination for every man, woman and child in the United States. Most people received the 'swine flu' shot which made most who received it a little sick for 1 or 2 days. Then the swine flu didn't appear and everyone forgot about it. Now, supposedly the '1918 flu' is coming back again in the form of 'bird flu' so I have some questions:
1) Why isn't the current president ordering vaccinations for everyone? The technology of making flu vaccines is pretty routine, even if the flue is alleged to be unusually lethal. Instead, President Bush is talking about imposing martial law and using the military to quarantine those portions of the country where the bird flu strikes.
2) Why is the 1976 vaccine that was allegedly protective against the '1918 flu' not being resuscitated and updated to be used in 2005?
The new nominee seems completely unqualified for the job, whatever her past lawyering cases were, Microsoft or no. She's never even decided a traffic ticket case. How can she possibly be qualified to decide cases which will set legal precedents for the next umpty-ump years? There is an enormous difference between being a lawyer and being a judge. Her only qualifications for the job seem to be 1) friend of Bush, 2) lawyer, and 3) a woman. I think a supreme court justice should have more qualifications than those.
I thought he was going to write about how the career opportunities for engineers are limited, how job outsourcing overseas leaves fewer jobs at home, or how engineering pay and benefits fall behind some other career fields. But no, he writes about how HARD his engineering classes were. Reading between the lines of his article, he just didn't seem to LIKE studying technical subjects which is, after all, what an engineering education is all about. If you don't LIKE technical subjects, it doesn't matter if you are a bright person with a good high school record, you will probably fail at the college level, just as he did, unless you have an unusually high amount of self-discipline and tolerance for pain. Why did he even start in engineering in the first place? His article did not say.
You have to WANT to do those problem sets. The TA, the professor, the lectures, the text book, and the problem sets are there as tools to help you learn but no one will hold your hand and walk you through the stuff at the college level, unless maybe you are in astronaut training or something.
The Sun guy says the future will be no more desktop computers, only powerful servers. Microsoft says everyone will have a powerful desktop running windows. Obviously, the truth is somewhere in between. Server apps are very useful and becoming more and more powerful. And no one is really writing desktop apps anymore...(well okay, there's still Photoshop, Office, Mozilla, Quicken, and Turbotax.) But desktop computers offer local control of your data and that's just too important to cast off for many of us. So,..I preduct the 10-year-out future will have more powerful servers and server-run apps (and many more of them) but those servers will still be accessed by desktop computers that will have themselves become much more powerful. Perhaps in the future, your power and freedom will even be defined by the power and capability of the local machine running under your control.
M$ is officially reorganizing but really they are ossifying. With Allchin being superseded by a marketing/sales guy, it's suddenly become a lot less likely that Windows will ever evolve into the kind of system software that is needed in the future. Most of the world, to this day, uses the Windows NTFS and its fragmentable master file table to store their data on ever-larger disk drives. Probably now we'll just see 'better and better' defragmenters as the innovation of the future. The Windows user interface will further solidify as a 2D 'click on the icon on the desktop' and the Windows computer will further 'evolve' into an appliance that plays multimedia, reads web pages, email and AIM, and plays games. Windows ossification. The only slightly interesting thing will be how Microsoft will get users to pay bigger license fees than they are paying now for the new Windows.
...and his headline will be:
"World's dumbest virus author"
Get a clue!! Your "target audience" could be ANY of us. Everyone in the destruction zone was affected by Katrina, not just the people you worked with at the Dallas convention center, and everyone needs access to the FEMA site, not just the poor and not just the folks at the Dallas convention center. If you were on the receiving end of a Katrina-scale disaster, you would lose some of the arrogance that seems to be leading you to the conclusion that it can't happen to YOU.
The 'cro-magnons' were taller, relatively weak, and good walkers but...not real bright. the Neandertals were much brighter but short, stocky, and not as good in the walking and throwing department. Then mix a Neandertal with a cute cro-magnon babe and...voila...'modern man' with his big brain and superb two-legged walking and baseball throwing ability. We are all descendants of those few hybridized offspring 38,000 years ago who then quickly multiplied and killed off the ancestral forms, of course.
Most of the big computer makers are Intel-only. Most stores selling PCs are selling mostly 'Intel-Inside' machines. Most corporate PCs and servers are Intel. AMD's server share just went up to 11 percent and AMD was ecstatic about it. Seems like Intel has the business pretty well locked up so what reason do they have to respond to AMD's challenge? I predict they will just ignore it.
His points seem to be:
1) good programmers write better code than less-good programmers...
2) Always get the best...
Point 1 is obvious but Point 2 is a very bad way to approach a project. Should you need or expect the best garbage man to pick up your garbage? What about the best auto tech to fix your car? Okay, you say, these are non-creative tasks so they are not good examples. Well, then, do you need the best writer to write the docs for your software? In most cases, no. It's just a manual, and doesn't have to win a prize for literature.
Spolsky might like the 'best,' just as he might prefer fine wines or concours automobiles but for most things 'good enough' is the 'best' use of your resources. Besides, just try getting an Ernest Hemingway to write your manual...
1) Dump the solid fuel booster. That gets rid of the o-ring joints, the foam insulation, and the ugly appearance. Replace with a 2 or 3 stage design with conventional liquid fuel but make the stages simple enough to mass produce to keep costs down and make them recoverable.
2) Dump the complicated exterior tile pattern for the shuttle heat shield where each tile has to be carefully glued into place and where a gap between tiles can lead to the loss of the shuttle. Replace it with some sort of crude but effective overlapping 'fish scale' design with the keystone tiles mechanically attached to the shuttle skin with ceramic pins of some sort.
3) post the acronym 'KISS' on the design team's cubicles and make them live it. What has killed the shuttle more than any other thing is the general complexity of its operation. If operating cars or airplanes had the same degree of complexity of the shuttle, we would still be riding horses and riding in hot-air balloons.
The Columbia was damaged by a chunk of foam striking the shuttle at liftoff. Now, the Discovery lifts off and a big chunk of foam falls off. The fact that it missed the shuttle this time is irrlevant. NASA has proved in tests that the foam can cause fatal damage when it hits the tiles so if they cannot prevent chunks of foam from falling off at liftoff, then the shuttle must be grounded until they can solve the foam problem. This isn't rocket science...well, okay, maybe it is.
The binaries compiled with Intel compilers run slower when they detect an AMD cpu which means that every AMD user is getting lower performance than they should be getting when they are running Intel binaries. That extra little bit of time that your AMD system took might mean that *you* spent a little bit longer than necessary in front of the computer as well. Is Intel compensating you for your time that they have deliberately wasted? Is Intel paying you for the extra little bit of electricity that was unnecessarily used to run the code at a deliberately slower rate?