However - if it was releasead for x86, there is no way Apple could keep it bootable "only" on Apple-supplied x86 machines.
It's a lot more feasable than you might think -- your standard chipset is a rather powerful processor in its own right, and is more than capable of some sort of rotating-key encryption, which OS X would then require to boot. Ever notice that Apple's chipsets are all made by... Apple? It's quite possible to scatter verification bits, or other unique architectural oddities in so many places of the chipset that it is quite impractical to reverse-engineer;
This is not the same thing as BIOS/Firmware, which is just software, and reading the raw assembly (easy to do) from the EEPROM--
Reverse-engineering this has a complexity along the lines slicing the chipset into layers, and using an SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) to look at the die, then figuring out what is underneath it; this is not something that is undertaken for less than several million-- the tooling alone is astronomically expensive-- SEM's are getting cheaper, but they aren't on your average joe's budget! Anyone able to fund such a venture is too large to slip under the radar, and would lose (everything) to Apple in court.
All the kernel code can be download here [apple.com]. It would take a motivated (and reasonably knowledgeable) individual not very long to either release a kernel with any special-Apple-only-hardware checks removed or to add in support for other BIOSes, etc.
There's a BIG difference between Darwin and OS X. Darwin has the underpinnings of OS X; but since it's a microkernel, it doesn't have to have the code to handle BIOS checking in it-- put that in a user-space module specific to OS X (which is never released in source form). It is not a monolithic kernel like Linux where such reverse-engineering is possible. You don't need anything in the kernel to lock out non-Apple machines. The non-opensource parts of OS X contain the hardware checks. Darwin doesn't have it at all-- it is supposed to boot on non-apple hardware. It's not a matter of #ifdefs in the Mach Kernel.
There is a global recession, or something that very much looks like one. The music industry is being hit by a downturn in spending in general, just like everyone else.
I always wondered about this myself; It's nearly like the industry believes that it is entitled to growth, and that if the industry doesn't grow -- or even shrinks, then it must be piracy. Never mind the fact that CD prices have risen by about 20% in my neck of the woods since I entered college. When I graduated from high school, the local record store sold CD's for $13.99 per CD. Now it's $16.99-- often for the same CD.
Then there's the whole marketing gone haywire -- I can name quite a few bands I would have probably purchased CD's for, had it not been for their songs being overplayed on local radio.
As a consumer, I'm faced with an industry who brought us pathetic manufactured groups like the 'A-Teens', 'Dream', and 'Eden's Crush', heavy marketing for these groups, still more exposure trying to get more sales for the rather formulaic 'Backstreet Boys', 'N*Sync', Britney and Christina, and less exposure to music I actually like. As a result, I've stopped listening to the radio altogether, which certainly has had an effect on my purchasing habits-- I'm not going to listen to 6 hours of music I don't like to hear one or two songs that I do. So my motivation to buy a CD has dropped significantly; I just don't know what's out there, and I don't care-- I'm unwilling to plug into the marketing machine in a mad search for music that I like; if they are unwilling to promote the music I like, then I'm unwilling to buy anything at all.
I am seriously beginning to wonder just how different I am from the majority of the consumers, simply because I can't stand to hear the same song over and over, while others around me seem to love it.
The only CD's I buy now are ones that have been in circulation for 2-3 years; that way I can find out if the CD is any good before I plunk down my hard-earned cash for one. I've bought about two CD's when there was only one song on it I liked; most of the people I know have a 'three song rule', meaning that they will only buy a CD if it has three songs that they like. Such albums are becoming more and more rare.
Well, take that overall dissatisfaction with the music that has been released, and combine that with the recession and fewer dollars to spend, and a 20% increase in the cost of a new CD. No wonder nobody's buying music. I honestly believe that the trend is that people are not acquiring any 'new' music at all -- and just playing the recordings they already have.
This is of course telling my personal bias; but the act of using Emacs, to me, is an act of martyrdom-- or at least to practice self-abuse. In most phycological circles, self-abuse is grounds for years of therapy; but oddly in the case of Emacs, even the (psycological) experts are stumped.
On the other hand, I have many friends who swear that Emacs is the only true religion, and that 'vi vi vi' is the number of the beast... Well, I like beast; preferably roasted and thinly sliced...
Ah, life. As long as we're not alone, we'll never find a way to stop fighting amongst ourselves...
And if you want games that run on older PCs, buy shareware [spiderwebsoftware.com]!
Boy, that's a really brave thing to say on/.: buy software.
I know it's awfully cynical to say this, because I'm sure that most/.ers actually have bought software (even from Microsoft); but there's always that vocal group for whom this is a sin more grave than murder...
I just thought that such a suggestion on Slashdot was somehow ironic...
Rather cynical; I wouldn't trust a Wintel or Macintosh box to air traffic control. If there isn't 100% availability, then people die by the hundreds. Which means that the system it runs on is a mainframe of some variety, where the only 'standard' mainframe windowing system is X11. If you write to X and POSIX, then you've gained yourself the ability to market to a greater number of airports and/or governments. Choosing any proprietary/non multi-platform windowing system locks the buyers down into specific systems, which they tend to avoid. Cheap wintel/pc clustering still isn't up to the task.
Just because XFree causes people headaches, don't assume that X on Solaris or AIX, or VMS is a problem -- it isn't
Look at it this way: As someone who came from a company that at least historically had a serious privacy problem, then she quite likely knows the dirty little secrets of the trade, and hence, can root out and prosecute violators. It's a two-edged sword; the important thing is in which direction it is swinging (which is, of course, the great unknown in this case).
In fact, they're *obligated* to their share holders to do just that
Not obligated, just (currently) expected to. There's a world of difference. It's better to see the company grow (and profit growth remaining very modest); the difference is that simply squeezing for profits is a near-term only solution... one which kills the company in a few decades. To have a stock that actually lasts for 50 years, and at a minimum maintains its value-- that is what the company is obligated to do for their stockholders.
Anything else is harmful to the company's future.
One way that this problem manifests itself is that in the current stock market, any company that is doing serious amounts R&D (at least in the tech industry, although I'm sure it's not localized) is getting hammered for 'wasting money' by the stockholders (unless they are Intel, Microsoft, or IBM-- somehow R&D and innovation outside those companies doesn't seem to count on Wall Street).
There's a reason Google hasn't filed for an IPO yet.
If they did, they would be expected to funnel R&D money -- which is what makes Google the great company it is, and which is also the better long-term policy -- and pour it into a short-term payoff, and the stockholders try to sell off all of their shares of Google before the market realizes that it's the lack of R&D money has left the company with no future. (And the stock prices plummet, and Google closes shop...)
Just because something is good for the average stockholder's (quite) short-term views, it does not mean that it is good for the company. There are many companies that aren't listed in major US stock markets, because they don't want to bow to the petty whims of a an 'investment group' that is less concerned with the company's growth and the welfare of its employees, and more concerned with making a large, immediate profit -- even if the company goes under afterward.
Porche is a good example: They spend huge amounts of money in R&D-- money that they couldn't spend if they had to satisfy the rather petty rules set by NASDAQ or the NY Stock exchange. It's not that the stock is dangerous, or volatile-- just that Porche won't let 'outsiders' tell them how to run their business.
Or, if they had known about the situation earlier (inspection via telescope) they could have come up with something.
How much do you not know about optics? That argument is a fairly bad joke, in my view. There aren't many spy-sattelites sitting on the ground, pointing upward -- espescially ones on a motor-driven mount that is smooth enough to provide a clear picture, is there? And don't give me anything about astronomical telescopes, which are the only other thing that can see clearly enough -- there is a *big* difference in the slew speed between keeping a star targeted, and keeping an orbital spacecraft targeted. They couldn't move around fast enough to do any good. And more importantly, their pictures are time-exposures, taking several minutes to take. The shuttle passes from one end of the horizon to the other in less time than the observatory's targeting systems can precicely move. Plus, the ground-based telescopes that are powerful enough to see any damage are too 'far-sighted' to see the shuttle anyway.
And spy sattelites in orbit? Well, there are a couple of problems: Wrong orbit; the cameras in them are designed to look at the ground. Its control algorithms are carefully tailored to lock on a target on the ground, which gives a fairly steady and easy-to follow heading. The shuttle is moving in a skewed direction, at a *much* higher speed than the camera is designed for. So much for a nice clear picture... There's also the issue of looking at the black bottom of the shuttle; unless, somehow, you got the perfectly ideal shot-- the one in ten billion odds that you hit the CCD when you get a reflection from the sun off of the tiles, you dont' see anything but black on black. Re-positioning the shuttle can try to even the odds up a bit; but it's a long shot at best.
And even if they could see damage severe enough to be a problem (which is unlikely, a crack in the tile could quite easily be invisible anyway)
You can only come up with a solution if you have the tools and materials to make it work. The shuttle does have some tools on it; but as they didn't have as part of their mission anything that would require the necessary tools, they didn't go up with the shuttle every pound launched costs a great deal of $$$. (why pay 13,000+ extra for a screwdriver the mission does not call for?) But even assuming that they did have a full toolbox (which is the safer assumption), it takes ground crews weeks to get the tiles into place on earth. (Although this is for the 'entire' set of tiles).
In space, it is much, much, much harder. First, you have to remove the damaged tile, which fits so closely to the others that it would require some kind of drill/screw to pull it out without damaging the other tiles, or you're just as dead. There's the issue of whether a human is strong enough to actually do this (they are structurally very strong, and even with a crowbar it's doubtful that human muscles could pry a tile up at all -- espescially in zero G where you can't 'put your weight into it' You have to push the prybar 'down' to force the tile 'up'. Only there is nothing to push 'down' with -- just empty space. So, then you wrap some kind of rope loop around the entire fuselage (several hundred feet worth, or it would slip off -- it has to go around the back of the shuttle as well). Then there may be something with which the spacewalker could apply the proper force required to pry up the tile. But then the rope stretches; stretching the rope taught enough to provide enough force to pry up the tile would require a ratcheted pulley (not unrealistic), and the force it would apply on the areas of the shuttle it chafes with would be enough to crack even more tiles -- and in places that it is even worse to pry up (like the leading edges of the wings).
Keep in mind, these tiles are tough; they have to be able to withstand paint flecks colliding with the shuttle with an impact speed of well over 50,000 mph. The tiles are regularly tested for
Well, while the article speaks about a nuclear attack, this is not the only source of radiation.
There are still several Chernobyl-design reactors in operation, as well as other 'safer' nuclear reactors.
It helps to boost the immune system of patients undergoing radiation therapy; which I think will be the primary use of such a drug.
And, of course, it may be of great benefit for a future Mars mission, where it can combat the radiation exposure that the astronauts would be exposed to.
Just like the way they gave up on Apollo 13 after it exploded in space. Oh wait, they got it back safely.
That's a pretty cynical attitude. It also greatly underscores the fact that we nearly lost Apollo 13's crew, for several reasons. In fact, Houston had every reason to expect that Odyssey would break up during re-entry as well; it is a miracle that it didn't. In fact, NASA did as much giving up then as they did with the shuttle. In both cases, it was unrealistic to 'mount a rescue'; spaceflight isn't that commonplace, which is a fact many seem to forget. Launching payloads into orbit isn't a daily or weekly thing; manned spaceflight is even less common; maybe a monthly thing, if that. NASA basically had the choice: Re-enter now, and take our chances, or re-enter later, and take the same chance. With Apollo 13, NASA gave up the moment they told the crew of the Odyssey to do the final retro-burn to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. They had no choice -- if they didn't bring Odyssey down, the crew would die of asphyxiation, or the extreme temperatures of space.
The same choice presented itself with Colombia; a 'rescue' is only slightly more plausable now than it was during Apollo; which is to say, one step above utterly implausable.
The fact of the matter is that in both cases, the craft had to come down if the crew were to have any chance of survival.
For Columbia, docking with Station Alpha was impossible-- wrong orbit, not enough fuel. There was an oxygen reserve for a few days to a week, depending on who you talk to. It's a moot point, since those few days are insufficient to launch any kind of rescue; it takes weeks to get a scheduled shuttle launch going; hell, it takes weeks to get any rocket ready for launch. And it's not like Boeing, Lockheed, Arianne, or Russia have a spare launch vehicle laying around prepped and ready to go for a rainy day; they certainly don't have two, which is the number of Soyuz craft it would take to return the crew back to Earth. It costs serious $$$ to keep a rocket in a 'prepped and ready to go' state; enough so to make it impractical.
There have been many, many cases where the heat shields of a spacecraft were damaged, or uncertain: Friendship 7, Apollo 13, a couple of the Gemini missions, and at least 20% of the shuttle flights. (There were entirely missing tiles when Columbia made its maiden voyage, and this has repeated itself several times on every one of the shuttles that have flown.). All of them turned out well.
So, there was a choice: Die slowly of asphyxiation and/or dehydration, hoping that the (extremely long) odds of survival until a 'rescue' could be mounted would favor you, or take the much more comfortable odds that you will die during re-entry, when death would take a few microseconds?
No matter what option was taken, the crew would still have to go through re-entry; the only difference would be the craft it happens with.
middle men whose only real job is to make themselves seem necessary
Douglas Adams had a wonderful solution to this problem... Pack up all the middle-men, put them on a ship, and send them off to a far-away corner of the universe. The only problem is that, according to The HitchHiker's Guide, they ended up here, on Earth. This does, however, explain a great deal; the irony is also quite nice.
For an explanation of how this may be possible: Never underestimate the zeal of a devoted 'follower' of a faith (this is not to say that I think there is anything wrong with such zeal; unless it involves the death, torture, humiliation, etc. of other human beings.) It may seem completely irrational to go to the troubles described by the article; but rationality is almost always based on the understanding of the observer.
There may be some odd religious group that has some kind of ritual or rite which requires (or at least, results in) these cattle-mutilations. Or, it could be a group that has a quasi-religous zeal in suckering people into believing a lie.
The fact that you can't explain it, or know what tools are necessary to do such a thing, is by no means proof that there is no simple explanation.
Ever think that the cattle may be exanguinated in such a way that no blood is lost? Many, many religions require the reclamation of a sacrifice's blood; there are such religions native to south and central america, as well as the rest of the world. Cauterizing helps control the bleeding, so that every possible drop can be reclaimed. The Egyptians once removed the heart, liver, intestines, and other vital organs as part of their death rites (even when mummifying non-humans, such as cats and cattle. Blood was also drained from the corpses. The bible speaks of King Solomon sacrificing thousands of bullocks for the dedication of the temple he built, and the draining of blood is part of the sacrificial ritual. In fact, it's rare to find a culture that did not at one time or another have animal sacrifices, and even more rare for one of those cultures to not include bloodletting (and collection) in such sacrifices.
Of course, what I'm not looking forward to is the next twenty-four hours, when Slashdot will be filled with nonstop April Fool's jokes, completely defeating the purpose of April Fool's day.
I'll admit, it would be nice to see some real news intermingled with it; so that I at least have a chance to bite, rather than being fairly certain that it is a hoax...
I don't think we're getting full disclosure on what happens to all this processed food.
You've obviously never worked in a food processing plant, then. I put myself through college working for various food processing plants. It wouldn't even gross me out to lick the floor of those plants; they are kept that clean; because it's a food plant, all cleaners and sanitizers have to be non-toxic. Your keyboard probably has a more dangerous culture of bacteria and other harmful substances living on it.
I personally quite like rumors about some products (like potato chips) being loaded with preservatives (other than salt, that is...); but the label doesn't disclose what it is because . It's also true; the label does not disclose the primary preservative, for three reasons:
The primary preservative is not eaten, nor is it embedded into the packaging.
The primary preservative is (very) widely used in chemistry because of its inertness (not quite like a noble gas, but close).
You are already swimming in this preservative, no matter what place on Earth, or what time (at least ever since complex multicellular life walked on land).
The primary preservative of potato chips (and countless other 'sealed' packaging, like crackers, cereal, etc.) is nitrogen. This also helps explain why potato chips, etc. go stale, even if you do use a 'chip clip': Once you open them, that nice 99% nitrogen mix in the bag is replaced with about 20% oxygen, which immediately... oxidizes the food.
And that is a non-meat packing plant, which have much more relaxed standards. It is very difficult to convince somebody who works in the food industry that their equipment is somehow less clean, less safe, than your kitchen. In fact, they'll often point to volumes of evidence, studies, medical jornals, hospital logs, etc. -- All of which helps prove that the average food processing plant (in the USA, that is) is a cleaner place than the average middle-class kitchen. More people go to the hospital with food poisoning because they handled food improperly in their kitchen, than do because of improperly handled processed food.
Restraunts are a different matter, of course; the local health dept has more say than the FDA does. This makes sense, becaues most restraunts don't deliver out-of-state; the food doesn't originate in a kitchen in California, and is then eaten in Florida-- thus the FDA doesn't have any regulatory juristiction; however this is par for the course for food processing, and FDA inspections are a regular (and often unannounced) thing.
He is a Microsoft Certified Engineer, not a Chemical Engineer or a Civil Engineer. Nobody would hire a Chemical Engineer to build a bridge and nobody would hire an MSCE to do it either. So the harm is just to your sense of propriety. Flame them if you like but leave the cops and courts out of it.
The point is that the term "Engineer" should be used properly. MCSE or a Netware "engineer" qualify as misuse of the term 'engineer'. A "Microsoft Certified Systems 'engineer'" is really a technician, not an engineer, and should be labeled as such. The same applies for Novel Netware 'engineers'. In fact, MCSE's and Netware's naming convention has all but destroyed the credibility of the name "Computer Engineer," which is usually lumped together with MCSE's and Netware 'Engineers'. The difference is comparable to a mechanical engineer, who designs a car, and a mechanic, who changes the car's oil.
It is often completely misunderstood that the differences between an electrical engineer and a computer engineer are relatively few, summarized by: * An Electrical Engineer has more depth in analog systems and antennas, and less depth in digital systems and software. * A Computer Engineer has more depth in digital systems and software, and less depth in analog systems and antennas.
Which is not to say that either is lacking an education in either area; just that there is a focus on analog systems for an EE, and a focus on digital systems and computing for a CompE. However, a great many managers lump a Computer Engineer with a MCSE or netware 'engineer'.
In a similar vein, there are several kinds of attorneys, who specialize in several branches of law. However, to call oneself an attorney without having passed the requisite bar exams, and be in good standing with the bar assosciations is illegal in most states.
Basically, we enginners desire to have our profession's name undiluted, and maintain the respect that it deserves. Doctors, attorneys, accountants, and just about every other white-collar professional don't put up with the misuse of their profession's title, however engineers are forced to grit their teeth as janitors manufacture an important-sounding name which invariably contains the term 'engineer'. It's as absurd as a parent calling themselves an 'attorney' simply because they argue with their teenagers, a mother calling herself a 'nurse' even though she only put a band-aid on her daughter's scrape, or a handyman calling himself a 'mathematician' because he uses math to compute the number of square feet of carpet needed to cover a floor.
And, just to stay on topic, there's a world of difference between a software 'engineer', a computer scientist, and a computer engineer. The current science and methodologies of developing software (arguably) will qualify as a true engineering profession in a decade or two; at this point it is still rather immature. It is getting closer, but it isn't there yet. The key issue being that real 'engineering' has a considerably more solid background in science and experience that is even possible in software.
Most branches of engineering are centuries old, not decades. The behavior of the related systems is understood very, very well. There is very little argument about methodologies, as enough time has passed for most veins of thought and methodologies in use to have been tested thoroughly. There may be argument about an implementation, but the methods used are sound and very well-understood. There is a very real responsibility to being an engineer, both from an ethical and a leagal standpoint. When software 'engineers' are leagally, personally, and individually held responsible for their work, when commercial software cannot disclaim damages arising from its use, when software 'engineers' can be sent to jail for creating code that causes personal injury or death, when they must obtain a licence to practice their profession (as doctors, lawyers, nurses, and accountants must do), when they then they will be
If you keep your money in a paper bag under the mattress you run the risk of the boogeyman coming to steal it.
Of course the real risk in putting your money in a paper bag under the matress is that paper, like food, will rot over time.
There have been entire documentaries about a government facility (Secret Service, I believe has this task) in which the employees take cash that somebody stuffed in a paper bag and threw under a matress, and left it for 30 years. These people had the uninviting task of taking a lump of rotting pulp, and trying to positively ID as many of the bills as possible, so the person(s) affected could exchange it for new, crisp bills (basically a dollar-for-dollar exchange), which were then stuffed into a paper bag and thrown under a slightly newer matress.
But the truly pathetic thing is that I was so bored I actually watched such a documentary.
Unless, of course, you are Microsoft. Aside from the fact that the Macintosh clone business quite nearly bled Apple to death, moving Macintosh to x86 would put Apple squarely in the crosshairs of Microsoft. And the companies that have taken on Microsoft head-to-head (Novell, Corel, Lotus, Netscape...) are mere ghosts of their former selves.
Office for OS X is a heavily promoted selling point for Macs; whether it is actually necessary is another matter. However, reguardless of that fact, if Apple were to start selling OS X for x86, or move to an x86 architecture-- Microsoft would instantly kill Office for OS X (Not hard to believe, since the Linux market is not insignificant in volume when compared to OS X, yet Microsoft refuses to build Office for Linux.). Then Microsoft would go about destroying Apple and OS X. It would give the antitrust people something to talk about, but would quite likely (and unfortunately) only end in Apple's demise.
There's also the issue of other companies (ATI) which, like nVIDIA, provide all the information you need for a 2D driver. But, ATI has gone the same route as nVIDIA, and has decided to withold most of the specs for using their newest cards in a 3D app. It's not a matter of the DRI team not having written a driver for the newer Radeon cards; it's a matter of the DRI team is never going to get the necessary information to write a 3D driver because ATI won't release the information. (Trade secrets and all). And, quite like nVIDIA, ATI is reported to be planning on their own closed-source 3D driver for Linux.
This will become more and more true if Microsoft's graphics technology patents start to tie the hands of graphics card makers; Microsoft certainly won't allow a driver that makes use of THEIR patent to be released open-source.
As to the application of it, I have always thought that Microsoft should release the source for DOS 6.x and 16 bit versions of Windows. Of course, the time to do it would have been when 98 came out.
Well, first you have to consider that DOS, for the most part, is 100% assembly; some of the tools aren't but the OS itself? Assembly. It just isn't complex enough to warrant being written in a compiled language like C; and back when DOS was used rather than Windows, the speed hit (and 'bloat') from compiled languages was considered a 'big deal' back then. Remember compilers were also quite a bit less advanced back then...
To get the majority of the code that is DOS, just use 'debug' and dump the memory pointed to by the DOS interrupts (21h, etc). Many universities still teach this, as most of the world's computers are embedded devices-- with no OS, and a great many of them are x86. At the very least, if you can get your mind wrapped around real-mode x86, segmentation and all, then understanding a more 'modern' architecture is a piece of cake.
Reading the DOS code in this way isn't 'open', and certainly is not free, but it's there in a form that is quite nearly source code. Many will say -- the disassembled code doesn't have comments, which are rather important if you want to get a quick overview of what is happening. And, of course, there are problems with the legality of dissassembling DOS. Both are valid points, but it should be remembered that Microsoft is still selling old versions of Visual C (for DOS), rather than opening it up either. It'll be a cold day in hell when Microsoft releases anything for 'free' (at least in the free software sense of the word. They'll release quite a bit 'gratis' at a moment's notice if it will sink the competition...)
I seem to recall it taking far more than half a decade for Microsoft to make the switch from 16 to 32; it seemed more like a decade. (espescially true considering some fairly major parts of Windows 95, 98, & ME were still 16-bit. (Not just real-mode things either... remember that protected-mode != 32 bit; OS/2 1.x was 16-bit protected mode.)
I recall that back in the day of the Pentium Pro, it was a much-ballyhooed 'flaw' about the PPro: It couldn't run 16-bit code very well at all. 32-bit code, great! 16-bit, slow. And, because significant portions (of the running code) of Windows 9x was in 16-bit mode, then to really get any kind of performance out of a PPro, you had to use Windows NT, which was... much more 32-bit than Windows 9x.
And we're only now getting rid of Windows 9x, and its 16-bit leagacy...
My grandkids are probably going to have to suffer something with 'old' 32-bit code from Microsoft in 30-40 years, rather than a 'modern' who-knows how many bits... The 64-bit address space is so obscenely big, it should be plenty even then... but, then again, so was 4 GB when the '386 came out...
Re:32 compatibility mode vs. true 64 bit apps...
on
AMD Opteron Due In April
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· Score: 3, Insightful
There are previous posts repeating this, but there's one problem with the theory: That taking advantage of the 64-bit architecture from the get-go will actually give a speed benefit. It also assumes that all of the source code is '64-bit clean', although that is likely not going to be much of a problem.
The problem is that, sure, everything is compiled into 64-bit mode. Fine. But can the compiler optimize the 64-bit code as well as it can optimize the older 32-bit code? Will the compiler make good use of the extra registers? I'm willing to bet that, for the first while, 64-bit AMD compilers will generate slower code than their 32-bit counterpart. (For 99% of all applications -- those which do NOT need more than 2 GB of memory).
And, of course, there is my major question: What kind of context switch and/or process latency can we expect from the Athlon64 & Opteron? I realize nearly all hard real-time apps don't need anything this powerful-- most good engineers will just put a microcontroller in to handle the hard real-time, and buffer things enough so that it doesn't matter that the workstation isn't hard real-time; but it does have a serious impact on other aspects of system responsiveness, as well as overall system performance for a microkernel architecture (such as HURD, Darwin, or QNX).
For that matter-- how will the Opteron's context switch time compare to other 'server' processors, like the UltraSparc, POWER4, Itanium, and, for good measure, PowerPC? Most of the arguments I've seen about modern x86 having a horrible context switch time don't seem to hold up to benchmarks I've seen-- where identically-clocked PowerPC and Pentiums take nearly the same time (and hence nearly the same number of clock cycles) to context switch...
64-bit specific code is just a matter of recompiling existing code with a compiler that is aware of the newer architecture features,
Of course, this is the great equalizer: Sure, you can generate 64-bit code; but the new 64-bit architecture is new enough that for the time being, it's pretty unlikely that any of the current compilers will be able to optimize 64-bit AMD code as well as they can optimize 32-bit x86. So, sure, you can be assured you're running in full 64-bit mode... but unless you need to address that much memory space, the app would run faster compiled in 32-bit mode. This is espescially true in light of other comments about the unlikelihood that everything in a generic Linux distro is '64-bit clean'.
Overall, I agree with this. In my experience, Unions exist to support themselves, and not their members. Meaning that the Union bosses (CEO's) are really only interested into bringing more money into the Union's coffers (and hence their own pockets); not the wallets of the unionmembers. And, if the situation seems tenuous, they 'go for broke' because the Union can always write off a few hundred workers. Once they've been fired, they're not part of the union anymore, and therefore don't recieve any of the Union's care.
This is the case with United: The assosciated unions (Pilot's, Steward(es)'s, Mechanics); not just the mechanics, decided that although the company was bankrupt, and if things did not change (ie. pay cut) everyone would be out of a job, each Union held this attitude of 'cut the other guy's pay, not ours, or we'll go on strike.'
I mean -- all three unions behaved like this. Without the Pilots, the aircraft wouldn't fly, without the mechanics, they wouldn't land in one piece, and without the steward(es), there would be small-scale riots on the plane. But instead of thinking 'We all have to take a small pay cut, or we'll all lose our jobs', they all insisted that United really wasn't bankrupt. It wasn't a case of management wanting to hoard money; if you think the IT business is cutthroat, try the airlines. There simply wasn't any money left to stay in business.
If any one of those unions had gone on strike, United would have been sunk, and EVERYONE involved would have lost their jobs.
Meanwhile, the union boss couldn't possibly care less if United folds; his union has members from far more than just United, so he stays employed and paid. The Union boss remains immune to the company's closure (he works for the Union, in his little Union office, taking his wage from all the people who are doing the REAL work.) cuts union benefits to all the newly terminated employees, and laughs all the way to the bank.
Infinitely increase frequency? I don't think so. Sure, there's theoretically no limit, but there is always a practical one. Several practical limits, in fact. The first is atmospheric opacity. The atmosphere is transparent to the visible spectrum. There are other bands at which it is transparent as well. However, these are the exceptions to the rule. For the most part, the atmosphere is actually quite opaque to EM signals. It's a good thing too; otherwise life would never have had a chance to evolve as it has.
And, there's also the problems involved with increasing the frequency -- We're only now getting blue LED's perfected. There's no such thing as a UV LED, but for the benefit of the doubt, let's say we can actually modulate a signal in the UV range. With the exception of fiber-optics, which are essentially 'dark' to the outside world, there's no way to really 'broadcast' over the visible spectrum -- not, at least, with the kinds of benefits seen with radio frequencies. (Like being able to transmit through walls, for instance.) Remember the first 'cordless' keyboards which used IR transmitters and recievers? What's the point of having it cordless if the reciever has to be directly in front of the keyboard, and so close to it that you may as well have the cord to begin with? IR is great for a TV remote, where you aim the thing at the TV and click... but it is really awful for anything that is not stricly line-of-sight. A radio station that tries to transmit over the visible spectrum? That's a laugh... there would be so much interference from sunlight alone to make it nearly impossible to use...
What about the X-Ray range? Aside from its inherent dangers... For over a century, the best we could do with it is the equivalent of a 'spark gap' type transmission with it. We certainly can't create a (usefully) modulated signal with which to carry information. And we certainly can't filter or otherwise obtain a nice 'clean' signal in this band. Pretty much all we can muster is to send information as pulses of unmodulated, very wideband 'static', which is exactly how a spark-gap radio worked a century ago. In addition, creating X-Rays is horribly inefficient.
And Gamma rays? The only way I know of we can even make them is with a particle accelerator or a nuclear reaction... And gamma rays have greater still potential for damage to... well, living things in general, as well as most semiconductors...
Slashdot Mirror
However - if it was releasead for x86, there is no way Apple could keep it bootable "only" on Apple-supplied x86 machines.
It's a lot more feasable than you might think -- your standard chipset is a rather powerful processor in its own right, and is more than capable of some sort of rotating-key encryption, which OS X would then require to boot. Ever notice that Apple's chipsets are all made by... Apple? It's quite possible to scatter verification bits, or other unique architectural oddities in so many places of the chipset that it is quite impractical to reverse-engineer;
This is not the same thing as BIOS/Firmware, which is just software, and reading the raw assembly (easy to do) from the EEPROM--
Reverse-engineering this has a complexity along the lines slicing the chipset into layers, and using an SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) to look at the die, then figuring out what is underneath it; this is not something that is undertaken for less than several million-- the tooling alone is astronomically expensive-- SEM's are getting cheaper, but they aren't on your average joe's budget! Anyone able to fund such a venture is too large to slip under the radar, and would lose (everything) to Apple in court.
All the kernel code can be download here [apple.com]. It would take a motivated (and reasonably knowledgeable) individual not very long to either release a kernel with any special-Apple-only-hardware checks removed or to add in support for other BIOSes, etc.
There's a BIG difference between Darwin and OS X. Darwin has the underpinnings of OS X; but since it's a microkernel, it doesn't have to have the code to handle BIOS checking in it-- put that in a user-space module specific to OS X (which is never released in source form). It is not a monolithic kernel like Linux where such reverse-engineering is possible. You don't need anything in the kernel to lock out non-Apple machines. The non-opensource parts of OS X contain the hardware checks. Darwin doesn't have it at all-- it is supposed to boot on non-apple hardware. It's not a matter of #ifdefs in the Mach Kernel.
There is a global recession, or something that very much looks like one. The music industry is being hit by a downturn in spending in general, just like everyone else.
I always wondered about this myself; It's nearly like the industry believes that it is entitled to growth, and that if the industry doesn't grow -- or even shrinks, then it must be piracy. Never mind the fact that CD prices have risen by about 20% in my neck of the woods since I entered college. When I graduated from high school, the local record store sold CD's for $13.99 per CD. Now it's $16.99-- often for the same CD.
Then there's the whole marketing gone haywire -- I can name quite a few bands I would have probably purchased CD's for, had it not been for their songs being overplayed on local radio.
As a consumer, I'm faced with an industry who brought us pathetic manufactured groups like the 'A-Teens', 'Dream', and 'Eden's Crush', heavy marketing for these groups, still more exposure trying to get more sales for the rather formulaic 'Backstreet Boys', 'N*Sync', Britney and Christina, and less exposure to music I actually like. As a result, I've stopped listening to the radio altogether, which certainly has had an effect on my purchasing habits-- I'm not going to listen to 6 hours of music I don't like to hear one or two songs that I do. So my motivation to buy a CD has dropped significantly; I just don't know what's out there, and I don't care-- I'm unwilling to plug into the marketing machine in a mad search for music that I like; if they are unwilling to promote the music I like, then I'm unwilling to buy anything at all.
I am seriously beginning to wonder just how different I am from the majority of the consumers, simply because I can't stand to hear the same song over and over, while others around me seem to love it.
The only CD's I buy now are ones that have been in circulation for 2-3 years; that way I can find out if the CD is any good before I plunk down my hard-earned cash for one. I've bought about two CD's when there was only one song on it I liked; most of the people I know have a 'three song rule', meaning that they will only buy a CD if it has three songs that they like. Such albums are becoming more and more rare.
Well, take that overall dissatisfaction with the music that has been released, and combine that with the recession and fewer dollars to spend, and a 20% increase in the cost of a new CD. No wonder nobody's buying music. I honestly believe that the trend is that people are not acquiring any 'new' music at all -- and just playing the recordings they already have.
This is of course telling my personal bias; but the act of using Emacs, to me, is an act of martyrdom-- or at least to practice self-abuse. In most phycological circles, self-abuse is grounds for years of therapy; but oddly in the case of Emacs, even the (psycological) experts are stumped.
On the other hand, I have many friends who swear that Emacs is the only true religion, and that 'vi vi vi' is the number of the beast... Well, I like beast; preferably roasted and thinly sliced...
Ah, life. As long as we're not alone, we'll never find a way to stop fighting amongst ourselves...
Not that any such images would have changed the fact that there simply was no other way to bring Columbia down. At least, not with a living crew.
And if you want games that run on older PCs, buy shareware [spiderwebsoftware.com]!
/.: buy software.
/.ers actually have bought software (even from Microsoft); but there's always that vocal group for whom this is a sin more grave than murder...
Boy, that's a really brave thing to say on
I know it's awfully cynical to say this, because I'm sure that most
I just thought that such a suggestion on Slashdot was somehow ironic...
Rather cynical; I wouldn't trust a Wintel or Macintosh box to air traffic control. If there isn't 100% availability, then people die by the hundreds. Which means that the system it runs on is a mainframe of some variety, where the only 'standard' mainframe windowing system is X11. If you write to X and POSIX, then you've gained yourself the ability to market to a greater number of airports and/or governments. Choosing any proprietary/non multi-platform windowing system locks the buyers down into specific systems, which they tend to avoid. Cheap wintel/pc clustering still isn't up to the task.
Just because XFree causes people headaches, don't assume that X on Solaris or AIX, or VMS is a problem -- it isn't
Look at it this way: As someone who came from a company that at least historically had a serious privacy problem, then she quite likely knows the dirty little secrets of the trade, and hence, can root out and prosecute violators. It's a two-edged sword; the important thing is in which direction it is swinging (which is, of course, the great unknown in this case).
In fact, they're *obligated* to their share holders to do just that
Not obligated, just (currently) expected to. There's a world of difference. It's better to see the company grow (and profit growth remaining very modest); the difference is that simply squeezing for profits is a near-term only solution... one which kills the company in a few decades. To have a stock that actually lasts for 50 years, and at a minimum maintains its value-- that is what the company is obligated to do for their stockholders.
Anything else is harmful to the company's future.
One way that this problem manifests itself is that in the current stock market, any company that is doing serious amounts R&D (at least in the tech industry, although I'm sure it's not localized) is getting hammered for 'wasting money' by the stockholders (unless they are Intel, Microsoft, or IBM-- somehow R&D and innovation outside those companies doesn't seem to count on Wall Street).
There's a reason Google hasn't filed for an IPO yet.
If they did, they would be expected to funnel R&D money -- which is what makes Google the great company it is, and which is also the better long-term policy -- and pour it into a short-term payoff, and the stockholders try to sell off all of their shares of Google before the market realizes that it's the lack of R&D money has left the company with no future. (And the stock prices plummet, and Google closes shop...)
Just because something is good for the average stockholder's (quite) short-term views, it does not mean that it is good for the company. There are many companies that aren't listed in major US stock markets, because they don't want to bow to the petty whims of a an 'investment group' that is less concerned with the company's growth and the welfare of its employees, and more concerned with making a large, immediate profit -- even if the company goes under afterward.
Porche is a good example: They spend huge amounts of money in R&D-- money that they couldn't spend if they had to satisfy the rather petty rules set by NASDAQ or the NY Stock exchange. It's not that the stock is dangerous, or volatile-- just that Porche won't let 'outsiders' tell them how to run their business.
Or, if they had known about the situation earlier (inspection via telescope) they could have come up with something.
How much do you not know about optics? That argument is a fairly bad joke, in my view. There aren't many spy-sattelites sitting on the ground, pointing upward -- espescially ones on a motor-driven mount that is smooth enough to provide a clear picture, is there? And don't give me anything about astronomical telescopes, which are the only other thing that can see clearly enough -- there is a *big* difference in the slew speed between keeping a star targeted, and keeping an orbital spacecraft targeted. They couldn't move around fast enough to do any good. And more importantly, their pictures are time-exposures, taking several minutes to take. The shuttle passes from one end of the horizon to the other in less time than the observatory's targeting systems can precicely move. Plus, the ground-based telescopes that are powerful enough to see any damage are too 'far-sighted' to see the shuttle anyway.
And spy sattelites in orbit? Well, there are a couple of problems: Wrong orbit; the cameras in them are designed to look at the ground. Its control algorithms are carefully tailored to lock on a target on the ground, which gives a fairly steady and easy-to follow heading. The shuttle is moving in a skewed direction, at a *much* higher speed than the camera is designed for. So much for a nice clear picture... There's also the issue of looking at the black bottom of the shuttle; unless, somehow, you got the perfectly ideal shot-- the one in ten billion odds that you hit the CCD when you get a reflection from the sun off of the tiles, you dont' see anything but black on black. Re-positioning the shuttle can try to even the odds up a bit; but it's a long shot at best.
And even if they could see damage severe enough to be a problem (which is unlikely, a crack in the tile could quite easily be invisible anyway)
You can only come up with a solution if you have the tools and materials to make it work. The shuttle does have some tools on it; but as they didn't have as part of their mission anything that would require the necessary tools, they didn't go up with the shuttle every pound launched costs a great deal of $$$. (why pay 13,000+ extra for a screwdriver the mission does not call for?) But even assuming that they did have a full toolbox (which is the safer assumption), it takes ground crews weeks to get the tiles into place on earth. (Although this is for the 'entire' set of tiles).
In space, it is much, much, much harder. First, you have to remove the damaged tile, which fits so closely to the others that it would require some kind of drill/screw to pull it out without damaging the other tiles, or you're just as dead. There's the issue of whether a human is strong enough to actually do this (they are structurally very strong, and even with a crowbar it's doubtful that human muscles could pry a tile up at all -- espescially in zero G where you can't 'put your weight into it' You have to push the prybar 'down' to force the tile 'up'. Only there is nothing to push 'down' with -- just empty space. So, then you wrap some kind of rope loop around the entire fuselage (several hundred feet worth, or it would slip off -- it has to go around the back of the shuttle as well). Then there may be something with which the spacewalker could apply the proper force required to pry up the tile. But then the rope stretches; stretching the rope taught enough to provide enough force to pry up the tile would require a ratcheted pulley (not unrealistic), and the force it would apply on the areas of the shuttle it chafes with would be enough to crack even more tiles -- and in places that it is even worse to pry up (like the leading edges of the wings).
Keep in mind, these tiles are tough; they have to be able to withstand paint flecks colliding with the shuttle with an impact speed of well over 50,000 mph. The tiles are regularly tested for
Well, while the article speaks about a nuclear attack, this is not the only source of radiation.
There are still several Chernobyl-design reactors in operation, as well as other 'safer' nuclear reactors.
It helps to boost the immune system of patients undergoing radiation therapy; which I think will be the primary use of such a drug.
And, of course, it may be of great benefit for a future Mars mission, where it can combat the radiation exposure that the astronauts would be exposed to.
Just like the way they gave up on Apollo 13 after it exploded in space. Oh wait, they got it back safely.
That's a pretty cynical attitude. It also greatly underscores the fact that we nearly lost Apollo 13's crew, for several reasons. In fact, Houston had every reason to expect that Odyssey would break up during re-entry as well; it is a miracle that it didn't. In fact, NASA did as much giving up then as they did with the shuttle. In both cases, it was unrealistic to 'mount a rescue'; spaceflight isn't that commonplace, which is a fact many seem to forget. Launching payloads into orbit isn't a daily or weekly thing; manned spaceflight is even less common; maybe a monthly thing, if that. NASA basically had the choice: Re-enter now, and take our chances, or re-enter later, and take the same chance. With Apollo 13, NASA gave up the moment they told the crew of the Odyssey to do the final retro-burn to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. They had no choice -- if they didn't bring Odyssey down, the crew would die of asphyxiation, or the extreme temperatures of space.
The same choice presented itself with Colombia; a 'rescue' is only slightly more plausable now than it was during Apollo; which is to say, one step above utterly implausable.
The fact of the matter is that in both cases, the craft had to come down if the crew were to have any chance of survival.
For Columbia, docking with Station Alpha was impossible-- wrong orbit, not enough fuel. There was an oxygen reserve for a few days to a week, depending on who you talk to. It's a moot point, since those few days are insufficient to launch any kind of rescue; it takes weeks to get a scheduled shuttle launch going; hell, it takes weeks to get any rocket ready for launch. And it's not like Boeing, Lockheed, Arianne, or Russia have a spare launch vehicle laying around prepped and ready to go for a rainy day; they certainly don't have two, which is the number of Soyuz craft it would take to return the crew back to Earth. It costs serious $$$ to keep a rocket in a 'prepped and ready to go' state; enough so to make it impractical.
There have been many, many cases where the heat shields of a spacecraft were damaged, or uncertain: Friendship 7, Apollo 13, a couple of the Gemini missions, and at least 20% of the shuttle flights. (There were entirely missing tiles when Columbia made its maiden voyage, and this has repeated itself several times on every one of the shuttles that have flown.). All of them turned out well.
So, there was a choice: Die slowly of asphyxiation and/or dehydration, hoping that the (extremely long) odds of survival until a 'rescue' could be mounted would favor you, or take the much more comfortable odds that you will die during re-entry, when death would take a few microseconds?
No matter what option was taken, the crew would still have to go through re-entry; the only difference would be the craft it happens with.
middle men whose only real job is to make themselves seem necessary
Douglas Adams had a wonderful solution to this problem... Pack up all the middle-men, put them on a ship, and send them off to a far-away corner of the universe. The only problem is that, according to The HitchHiker's Guide, they ended up here, on Earth. This does, however, explain a great deal; the irony is also quite nice.
For an explanation of how this may be possible: Never underestimate the zeal of a devoted 'follower' of a faith (this is not to say that I think there is anything wrong with such zeal; unless it involves the death, torture, humiliation, etc. of other human beings.) It may seem completely irrational to go to the troubles described by the article; but rationality is almost always based on the understanding of the observer.
There may be some odd religious group that has some kind of ritual or rite which requires (or at least, results in) these cattle-mutilations. Or, it could be a group that has a quasi-religous zeal in suckering people into believing a lie.
The fact that you can't explain it, or know what tools are necessary to do such a thing, is by no means proof that there is no simple explanation.
Ever think that the cattle may be exanguinated in such a way that no blood is lost? Many, many religions require the reclamation of a sacrifice's blood; there are such religions native to south and central america, as well as the rest of the world. Cauterizing helps control the bleeding, so that every possible drop can be reclaimed. The Egyptians once removed the heart, liver, intestines, and other vital organs as part of their death rites (even when mummifying non-humans, such as cats and cattle. Blood was also drained from the corpses. The bible speaks of King Solomon sacrificing thousands of bullocks for the dedication of the temple he built, and the draining of blood is part of the sacrificial ritual. In fact, it's rare to find a culture that did not at one time or another have animal sacrifices, and even more rare for one of those cultures to not include bloodletting (and collection) in such sacrifices.
Of course, what I'm not looking forward to is the next twenty-four hours, when Slashdot will be filled with nonstop April Fool's jokes, completely defeating the purpose of April Fool's day.
I'll admit, it would be nice to see some real news intermingled with it; so that I at least have a chance to bite, rather than being fairly certain that it is a hoax...
You've obviously never worked in a food processing plant, then. I put myself through college working for various food processing plants. It wouldn't even gross me out to lick the floor of those plants; they are kept that clean; because it's a food plant, all cleaners and sanitizers have to be non-toxic. Your keyboard probably has a more dangerous culture of bacteria and other harmful substances living on it.
I personally quite like rumors about some products (like potato chips) being loaded with preservatives (other than salt, that is...); but the label doesn't disclose what it is because . It's also true; the label does not disclose the primary preservative, for three reasons:
The primary preservative is not eaten, nor is it embedded into the packaging.
The primary preservative is (very) widely used in chemistry because of its inertness (not quite like a noble gas, but close).
You are already swimming in this preservative, no matter what place on Earth, or what time (at least ever since complex multicellular life walked on land).
The primary preservative of potato chips (and countless other 'sealed' packaging, like crackers, cereal, etc.) is nitrogen. This also helps explain why potato chips, etc. go stale, even if you do use a 'chip clip': Once you open them, that nice 99% nitrogen mix in the bag is replaced with about 20% oxygen, which immediately... oxidizes the food.
And that is a non-meat packing plant, which have much more relaxed standards. It is very difficult to convince somebody who works in the food industry that their equipment is somehow less clean, less safe, than your kitchen. In fact, they'll often point to volumes of evidence, studies, medical jornals, hospital logs, etc. -- All of which helps prove that the average food processing plant (in the USA, that is) is a cleaner place than the average middle-class kitchen. More people go to the hospital with food poisoning because they handled food improperly in their kitchen, than do because of improperly handled processed food.
Restraunts are a different matter, of course; the local health dept has more say than the FDA does. This makes sense, becaues most restraunts don't deliver out-of-state; the food doesn't originate in a kitchen in California, and is then eaten in Florida-- thus the FDA doesn't have any regulatory juristiction; however this is par for the course for food processing, and FDA inspections are a regular (and often unannounced) thing.
He is a Microsoft Certified Engineer, not a Chemical Engineer or a Civil Engineer. Nobody would hire a Chemical Engineer to build a bridge and nobody would hire an MSCE to do it either. So the harm is just to your sense of propriety. Flame them if you like but leave the cops and courts out of it.
The point is that the term "Engineer" should be used properly. MCSE or a Netware "engineer" qualify as misuse of the term 'engineer'. A "Microsoft Certified Systems 'engineer'" is really a technician, not an engineer, and should be labeled as such. The same applies for Novel Netware 'engineers'. In fact, MCSE's and Netware's naming convention has all but destroyed the credibility of the name "Computer Engineer," which is usually lumped together with MCSE's and Netware 'Engineers'. The difference is comparable to a mechanical engineer, who designs a car, and a mechanic, who changes the car's oil.
It is often completely misunderstood that the differences between an electrical engineer and a computer engineer are relatively few, summarized by:
* An Electrical Engineer has more depth in analog systems and antennas, and less depth in digital systems and software.
* A Computer Engineer has more depth in digital systems and software, and less depth in analog systems and antennas.
Which is not to say that either is lacking an education in either area; just that there is a focus on analog systems for an EE, and a focus on digital systems and computing for a CompE. However, a great many managers lump a Computer Engineer with a MCSE or netware 'engineer'.
In a similar vein, there are several kinds of attorneys, who specialize in several branches of law. However, to call oneself an attorney without having passed the requisite bar exams, and be in good standing with the bar assosciations is illegal in most states.
Basically, we enginners desire to have our profession's name undiluted, and maintain the respect that it deserves. Doctors, attorneys, accountants, and just about every other white-collar professional don't put up with the misuse of their profession's title, however engineers are forced to grit their teeth as janitors manufacture an important-sounding name which invariably contains the term 'engineer'. It's as absurd as a parent calling themselves an 'attorney' simply because they argue with their teenagers, a mother calling herself a 'nurse' even though she only put a band-aid on her daughter's scrape, or a handyman calling himself a 'mathematician' because he uses math to compute the number of square feet of carpet needed to cover a floor.
And, just to stay on topic, there's a world of difference between a software 'engineer', a computer scientist, and a computer engineer. The current science and methodologies of developing software (arguably) will qualify as a true engineering profession in a decade or two; at this point it is still rather immature. It is getting closer, but it isn't there yet. The key issue being that real 'engineering' has a considerably more solid background in science and experience that is even possible in software.
Most branches of engineering are centuries old, not decades. The behavior of the related systems is understood very, very well. There is very little argument about methodologies, as enough time has passed for most veins of thought and methodologies in use to have been tested thoroughly. There may be argument about an implementation, but the methods used are sound and very well-understood. There is a very real responsibility to being an engineer, both from an ethical and a leagal standpoint. When software 'engineers' are leagally, personally, and individually held responsible for their work, when commercial software cannot disclaim damages arising from its use, when software 'engineers' can be sent to jail for creating code that causes personal injury or death, when they must obtain a licence to practice their profession (as doctors, lawyers, nurses, and accountants must do), when they then they will be
If you keep your money in a paper bag under the mattress you run the risk of the boogeyman coming to steal it.
Of course the real risk in putting your money in a paper bag under the matress is that paper, like food, will rot over time.
There have been entire documentaries about a government facility (Secret Service, I believe has this task) in which the employees take cash that somebody stuffed in a paper bag and threw under a matress, and left it for 30 years. These people had the uninviting task of taking a lump of rotting pulp, and trying to positively ID as many of the bills as possible, so the person(s) affected could exchange it for new, crisp bills (basically a dollar-for-dollar exchange), which were then stuffed into a paper bag and thrown under a slightly newer matress.
But the truly pathetic thing is that I was so bored I actually watched such a documentary.
You don't take on Apple and win.
Unless, of course, you are Microsoft. Aside from the fact that the Macintosh clone business quite nearly bled Apple to death, moving Macintosh to x86 would put Apple squarely in the crosshairs of Microsoft. And the companies that have taken on Microsoft head-to-head (Novell, Corel, Lotus, Netscape...) are mere ghosts of their former selves.
Office for OS X is a heavily promoted selling point for Macs; whether it is actually necessary is another matter. However, reguardless of that fact, if Apple were to start selling OS X for x86, or move to an x86 architecture-- Microsoft would instantly kill Office for OS X (Not hard to believe, since the Linux market is not insignificant in volume when compared to OS X, yet Microsoft refuses to build Office for Linux.). Then Microsoft would go about destroying Apple and OS X. It would give the antitrust people something to talk about, but would quite likely (and unfortunately) only end in Apple's demise.
There's also the issue of other companies (ATI) which, like nVIDIA, provide all the information you need for a 2D driver. But, ATI has gone the same route as nVIDIA, and has decided to withold most of the specs for using their newest cards in a 3D app. It's not a matter of the DRI team not having written a driver for the newer Radeon cards; it's a matter of the DRI team is never going to get the necessary information to write a 3D driver because ATI won't release the information. (Trade secrets and all). And, quite like nVIDIA, ATI is reported to be planning on their own closed-source 3D driver for Linux.
This will become more and more true if Microsoft's graphics technology patents start to tie the hands of graphics card makers; Microsoft certainly won't allow a driver that makes use of THEIR patent to be released open-source.
As to the application of it, I have always thought that Microsoft should release the source for DOS 6.x and 16 bit versions of Windows. Of course, the time to do it would have been when 98 came out.
Well, first you have to consider that DOS, for the most part, is 100% assembly; some of the tools aren't but the OS itself? Assembly. It just isn't complex enough to warrant being written in a compiled language like C; and back when DOS was used rather than Windows, the speed hit (and 'bloat') from compiled languages was considered a 'big deal' back then. Remember compilers were also quite a bit less advanced back then...
To get the majority of the code that is DOS, just use 'debug' and dump the memory pointed to by the DOS interrupts (21h, etc). Many universities still teach this, as most of the world's computers are embedded devices-- with no OS, and a great many of them are x86. At the very least, if you can get your mind wrapped around real-mode x86, segmentation and all, then understanding a more 'modern' architecture is a piece of cake.
Reading the DOS code in this way isn't 'open', and certainly is not free, but it's there in a form that is quite nearly source code. Many will say -- the disassembled code doesn't have comments, which are rather important if you want to get a quick overview of what is happening. And, of course, there are problems with the legality of dissassembling DOS. Both are valid points, but it should be remembered that Microsoft is still selling old versions of Visual C (for DOS), rather than opening it up either. It'll be a cold day in hell when Microsoft releases anything for 'free' (at least in the free software sense of the word. They'll release quite a bit 'gratis' at a moment's notice if it will sink the competition...)
I seem to recall it taking far more than half a decade for Microsoft to make the switch from 16 to 32; it seemed more like a decade. (espescially true considering some fairly major parts of Windows 95, 98, & ME were still 16-bit. (Not just real-mode things either... remember that protected-mode != 32 bit; OS/2 1.x was 16-bit protected mode.)
I recall that back in the day of the Pentium Pro, it was a much-ballyhooed 'flaw' about the PPro: It couldn't run 16-bit code very well at all. 32-bit code, great! 16-bit, slow. And, because significant portions (of the running code) of Windows 9x was in 16-bit mode, then to really get any kind of performance out of a PPro, you had to use Windows NT, which was... much more 32-bit than Windows 9x.
And we're only now getting rid of Windows 9x, and its 16-bit leagacy...
My grandkids are probably going to have to suffer something with 'old' 32-bit code from Microsoft in 30-40 years, rather than a 'modern' who-knows how many bits... The 64-bit address space is so obscenely big, it should be plenty even then... but, then again, so was 4 GB when the '386 came out...
There are previous posts repeating this, but there's one problem with the theory: That taking advantage of the 64-bit architecture from the get-go will actually give a speed benefit. It also assumes that all of the source code is '64-bit clean', although that is likely not going to be much of a problem.
The problem is that, sure, everything is compiled into 64-bit mode. Fine. But can the compiler optimize the 64-bit code as well as it can optimize the older 32-bit code? Will the compiler make good use of the extra registers? I'm willing to bet that, for the first while, 64-bit AMD compilers will generate slower code than their 32-bit counterpart. (For 99% of all applications -- those which do NOT need more than 2 GB of memory).
And, of course, there is my major question: What kind of context switch and/or process latency can we expect from the Athlon64 & Opteron? I realize nearly all hard real-time apps don't need anything this powerful-- most good engineers will just put a microcontroller in to handle the hard real-time, and buffer things enough so that it doesn't matter that the workstation isn't hard real-time; but it does have a serious impact on other aspects of system responsiveness, as well as overall system performance for a microkernel architecture (such as HURD, Darwin, or QNX).
For that matter-- how will the Opteron's context switch time compare to other 'server' processors, like the UltraSparc, POWER4, Itanium, and, for good measure, PowerPC? Most of the arguments I've seen about modern x86 having a horrible context switch time don't seem to hold up to benchmarks I've seen-- where identically-clocked PowerPC and Pentiums take nearly the same time (and hence nearly the same number of clock cycles) to context switch...
64-bit specific code is just a matter of recompiling existing code with a compiler that is aware of the newer architecture features,
Of course, this is the great equalizer: Sure, you can generate 64-bit code; but the new 64-bit architecture is new enough that for the time being, it's pretty unlikely that any of the current compilers will be able to optimize 64-bit AMD code as well as they can optimize 32-bit x86. So, sure, you can be assured you're running in full 64-bit mode... but unless you need to address that much memory space, the app would run faster compiled in 32-bit mode. This is espescially true in light of other comments about the unlikelihood that everything in a generic Linux distro is '64-bit clean'.
Overall, I agree with this. In my experience, Unions exist to support themselves, and not their members. Meaning that the Union bosses (CEO's) are really only interested into bringing more money into the Union's coffers (and hence their own pockets); not the wallets of the unionmembers. And, if the situation seems tenuous, they 'go for broke' because the Union can always write off a few hundred workers. Once they've been fired, they're not part of the union anymore, and therefore don't recieve any of the Union's care.
This is the case with United: The assosciated unions (Pilot's, Steward(es)'s, Mechanics); not just the mechanics, decided that although the company was bankrupt, and if things did not change (ie. pay cut) everyone would be out of a job, each Union held this attitude of 'cut the other guy's pay, not ours, or we'll go on strike.'
I mean -- all three unions behaved like this. Without the Pilots, the aircraft wouldn't fly, without the mechanics, they wouldn't land in one piece, and without the steward(es), there would be small-scale riots on the plane. But instead of thinking 'We all have to take a small pay cut, or we'll all lose our jobs', they all insisted that United really wasn't bankrupt. It wasn't a case of management wanting to hoard money; if you think the IT business is cutthroat, try the airlines. There simply wasn't any money left to stay in business.
If any one of those unions had gone on strike, United would have been sunk, and EVERYONE involved would have lost their jobs.
Meanwhile, the union boss couldn't possibly care less if United folds; his union has members from far more than just United, so he stays employed and paid. The Union boss remains immune to the company's closure (he works for the Union, in his little Union office, taking his wage from all the people who are doing the REAL work.) cuts union benefits to all the newly terminated employees, and laughs all the way to the bank.
Infinitely increase frequency? I don't think so. Sure, there's theoretically no limit, but there is always a practical one. Several practical limits, in fact. The first is atmospheric opacity. The atmosphere is transparent to the visible spectrum. There are other bands at which it is transparent as well. However, these are the exceptions to the rule. For the most part, the atmosphere is actually quite opaque to EM signals. It's a good thing too; otherwise life would never have had a chance to evolve as it has.
And, there's also the problems involved with increasing the frequency -- We're only now getting blue LED's perfected. There's no such thing as a UV LED, but for the benefit of the doubt, let's say we can actually modulate a signal in the UV range. With the exception of fiber-optics, which are essentially 'dark' to the outside world, there's no way to really 'broadcast' over the visible spectrum -- not, at least, with the kinds of benefits seen with radio frequencies. (Like being able to transmit through walls, for instance.) Remember the first 'cordless' keyboards which used IR transmitters and recievers? What's the point of having it cordless if the reciever has to be directly in front of the keyboard, and so close to it that you may as well have the cord to begin with? IR is great for a TV remote, where you aim the thing at the TV and click... but it is really awful for anything that is not stricly line-of-sight. A radio station that tries to transmit over the visible spectrum? That's a laugh... there would be so much interference from sunlight alone to make it nearly impossible to use...
What about the X-Ray range? Aside from its inherent dangers... For over a century, the best we could do with it is the equivalent of a 'spark gap' type transmission with it. We certainly can't create a (usefully) modulated signal with which to carry information. And we certainly can't filter or otherwise obtain a nice 'clean' signal in this band. Pretty much all we can muster is to send information as pulses of unmodulated, very wideband 'static', which is exactly how a spark-gap radio worked a century ago. In addition, creating X-Rays is horribly inefficient.
And Gamma rays? The only way I know of we can even make them is with a particle accelerator or a nuclear reaction... And gamma rays have greater still potential for damage to... well, living things in general, as well as most semiconductors...