To me, there is a significant difference between a framework and libraries. Libraries are collections of code to do one or more tasks. Frameworks are libraries that enforce architectural constraints in exchange for reducing boilerplate code and making things easier (and faster in theory) to develop. The tradeoff comes back when those architectural constraints are not inline with the application. This either leads to tons of pain when building the application (I've heard the phrase "just do it the rails way" a few times), or when maintaining due to changes in the app requirements or bugs that are deep rooted in the architecture of the application.
That's why I'm a fan of the Architecture First method to development. Do a formal architecture for the application, then pick the framework that fits that architecture (if any). If none do, fit the closest one and remove anything from it that doesn't fit.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to using the ORM in the model, or for some applications having the ORM dominate the model. I'm just against the concept that it is the model (since there's a lot more by most people's ideas)...
The first on the list is one that isn't public yet. I know the lead dev on it and got an early preview. So out of the popular frameworks, it is number one to avoid....
I couldn't disagree more. Cake is loaded with deeply awkward black magic and bad practices. Not to mention the fallacy that the model layer is the orm (hint: in the rest of the world it is not).
Cake is second on my list of frameworks to avoid (and most senior developers that I know agree). I would suggest you do the same. .
All data on Facebook is property of Facebook, not of the people who put it there... so you should be able to ask Facebook to remove it... (according to the text, "companies (i.e. Facebook) will be forced to delete it when asked").
And that doesn't sound like it will ripe for abuse...
This. Very much this.
Everything in this world is pretty much built upon axiomatic systems. The language we speak, the laws that govern us, economics, etc. It's going to be quite hard to spend one day without interacting with at least a dozen or more axiomatic systems. Without even a cursory understanding of how rules and these systems behave, how can we hope to interact effectively with them?
So that brings up the question, what's the easiest and clearest axiomatic system that we encounter on a day to day basis? Mathematics. The study of math isn't so much so that students learn the principals so they can apply them in during the rest of their lives (although there are some that they do need to know), it's so they can better understand how rule based systems operate. Therefore there's no real need for a literary student to be able to prove the Quadratic Formula. What IS important is that they know a proof exists, and they understand why it can be proven. That's the main key.
So yes, trim calculus for most students. Trim formal proofs from tests (but do demonstrate them in class). Focus more on the why, not the how. Then once that's nailed down, go on to the topics that are of real value (but are often under-taught IMHO): basic statistics and probability, formal and prepositional logic, and mental estimation... Each one is used nearly every day by people whether they realize it or not. It doesn't matter that they know that If P then Q; P; therefore Q is called modus ponens, but they must know that it does work. They don't need to be able to determine a probability of an even happening, but they do need to understand and know the basic concepts.
I will disagree slightly with your statement: With calculators and computers, nobody needs to know math itself.. The correct (IMHO) statement would be that most people don't need to be able to prove what the calculator is giving them is correct, but they do need at least a cursory understanding of what's going on, otherwise how will they know if it's correct? If you punch 5 + 10 * 100 into a calculator, you'll get back 5000 on a stack based calculator (computer) but 1500 on a normal calculator... If you don't understand what's going on, how do you know which is right (or that there are two possible answers)...?
And why do I think this? It's quite simple really. There was no implementation in the API for devices of varying features or screen size until iOS 4. If the design was originally intended for a tablet, I would think they would be smart and implement the API from the beginning, so that they wouldn't need to re-create all the apps so that they would run on the tablets natively. But they didn't. No support for the basic features of a tablet appeared until iOS 4. Which shows that either it wasn't intended in the beginning to run on tablets, or they never thought ahead to include the necessary API features. And both show that it was never really intended for tablets. Sure, the initial concept may have been derived from a tablet idea, but when iPhone OS 1 was released, it was never intended to be used on a tablet.
As with most FUD, there is likely an element of truth involved. I'm not doubting that the idea for the iPhone came from an internal tablet they tried to make. But what I am doubting is that the OS was designed from the beginning to be used on a tablet...
the iPad is the first to be successful on any meaningful scale
In the public sector. In other areas (such as Emergency Responders, Health Care, Manufacturing and many others) there have been wildly successful tablets for many years.
Apple just made it successful for the average consumer...
you rarely see them in the enterprise lines, and their BIOSes don't get the same Dell branding, and so forth
Did you ever stop to think that the reason for that is exactly what the FTC just tried to stop? That they had an agreement with Intel to "lock up" the higher end market?
Specifically, the app does collect data from your phone, but only the device's phone number, subscriber identifier, and voicemail number fields are retrieved.
I understand that this is newsworthy, but the Summary is blatantly wrong when it was posted, yet alone with future information...
Besides, the app requested this info from when it was installed. If you just clicked "ok" when it asked for permission to access your personal data and the internet, then it is not malware. Malware is doing something besides what it is telling you. Sure, it's not telling you its sending that info elsewhere, but it is telling you that it is accessing it.
Besides, there have been a LOT of Apple fanbois that have been using this to bash the "open system"... One thing that I must ask is if it asked you for access to that information, and you said ok, how is this the fault of the open system? In fact, I would rather have the system tell me what an App has access to than to trust a draconian dictator...
Yes this is bad. Yes it should be pulled from the market. But how many apps like this exist for both platforms that just haven't been found first? At least with Android, you get to see what the app has access to, so if you don't think it needs that access don't install the app. It seems (oddly enough, given Google's privacy nightmare) the better platform if you care about your privacy IMHO...
Of course it doesn't, since that term is defined by the legal code regarding copyright in your jurisdiction. Because the GPL is not anything else but a copyright license, it cannot apply to anything which is not a derivative work by the definition of the relevant legal code, because anything not a derivative work is not restricted by copyright law. So if the GPL did give a definition it would be irrelevant, and if it happened to differ from the legal definition at your current location in space-time, it would be wrong. How's an irrelevant and wrong definition going to reduce confusion, exactly?
Well, that's a bit of a mis-statement of the facts. The local laws determine if the license even applies (If it is a derivative in the eyes of the law). However, the license can narrow the definition of derivative that it uses. For example, if a law says that it's only a derivative work if it uses more than 90% of the original's content, then you couldn't say this license applies even if you only use 40%. But, you can say "All works that use less than 50% of the source code of this work are licensed under a liberal BSD style license". So if you are in the country with the 90% law, you'd only fall in the more restrictive category (or no license required category if you use less than 90%...
What's the point? The point is that the GPL can define derivative work however it wants for the purpose of granting rights within the license. That doesn't tell you if the license applies, but only what rights apply to you IF the license applies to you. So, if they defined "derivative work" as statically-linked, uses non-public APIs, re-implements provided APIs or directly modifies existing functionality in a non-modular fashion, then they could say "Copy left applies to derivative works as defined by this license" and "A permissive non-copy-left license applies to all other works not covered by the derivative work definition". The local jurisdiction's definition of derivative work only would apply if the license is applied to the work, not what rights are granted to for applied works (as it is now, and which is my objection)...
Quite simply, I like the philosophy behind open source. But like any good philosophy, it needs to be understood if it is to truly flourish. Otherwise you just get religion...
I don't hear complaining from you there
You haven't been listening then. But besides the point, people using windows is a hell of a lot different than people licensing their IP (their software creations)...
The GPL is as clear as mud. Do you want an example? It says "derivative works" must be GPL as well. Well, what is a derivative work? Guess what? The GPL itself doesn't define that term. So there's huge debate as to if a block of code that uses nothing from the parent but fully documented and exposed APIs is derivative or not.
Obviously Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian; that much is clear... But is Internet Explorer a drivative of Windows (Taking aside the license for a minute)? It hooks into deep APIs (So deep in fact, that it cannot run on any other OS than Windows)... Parts of the core of Windows (Windows Update) depend upon it... It's a very difficult question to answer.
And this is why I hate the GPL. It promotes the "If you want to comply, you can do no wrong by licensing GPL" attitude. It's trivially easy to comply with, but it's VERY hard to make a clear determination if the restrictions extend to you or not. So most people "just take the easy way out" and license GPL. Not out of belief, not out of fear, not out of requirement, but out of confusion and misunderstanding...
Nor me. I use a 5 button trackball at work (back, left, wheel, right, forward), and my Lenovo laptop has dedicated forward and back buttons. And before that, I installed gesture support (Right click and drag left to go back, drag right to go forward). Seriously, I don't understand how people use the actual button on the top of the screen...
Once you are asked by management that oversees that area of the company you are instantly empowered.
Perhaps in your company, but not in mine. In mine, there is a chain of command above me. My boss (CTO) and then the Owner of the company/CEO. Someone from outside that chain doesn't have a right (and this has been proven several times) to empower/remove power from my position. Otherwise you wind up with a situation where one person reports to 5 people, and how can you have effective management when there are too many chiefs and one Indian? Sure, it's not how all companies are run (and maybe not most), but that's how it is here. And that's part of why I like it. If I screw up, I hear it from one person (and not the Office Space's 9). If I need something, I go to one person. There's no ambiguity. That's what makes me effective at my job. The very fact that I know clearly who to go to, and that I receive orders from only one person (Others can ask me for help, but it's ultimately my boss's decision if I feel uncomfortable/under-empowered doing it). Other then that, I'm left to just do my job and make my own decisions. So in my company, it would not be a reasonable request (since it didn't go through proper channels). And that's what it boils down to, isn't it. You need to tailor your work ethic and method of operation to the company you are working for. And I like the company that I'm at now (partly because everything is so clear)...
Re:As an IT Manager for a small company
on
Employee Monitoring
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Refusing to do reasonable duties as requested by management will make it a short career for you.
Where do you get that? I never said I was refusing to do a reasonable duty. What I said was that I am unable to do a duty that requires me to make decisions that I am not empowered to make. I've been asked more than once to do things that I was not empowered to do (either by company policy, or by my direct boss's direction), and each time that situation came up, I negotiated it into a raise and an increase in responsibility.
You're right, saying no when they ask you to do something will make a short career. But I don't say no, I say that I am sorry but I am unable to to do that because of x y and z. If they say to do it anyway, then I would normally either go to my direct boss, or as high as I need to (depending on who's asking) to get permission...
No, it's not. I will (and do) provide any information HR or Security (which we don't have) wants whenever they ask for it. I do have logging processes to watch what everyone's doing. But I don't look at it and point out to others that Joe Blow is constantly on xyz.com. If HR asks me for the logs on Joe Blow, I will gladly generate them a nice report. But if they asked me to "Tell them those people who are using the computers for non-work activities", I would tell them no. Not because I don't want to, but because I'm not in a position to decide what constitutes a "non-work activity". Plus, it's my job to maintain our IT infrastructure, not to monitor users. If they want me to do that, then they will need to alter my job title (and hence my salary, as that would be a significant increase in responsibility)...
Re:As an IT Manager for a small company
on
Employee Monitoring
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Why do you care "personally" about your network?
I consider it my network (and care about it), because of two reasons. First, I'm responsible for maintaining it. So when someone else fucks it up, I have to fix it (at whatever cost, whenever it's needed). Second, because I'm responsible for it, so if it goes down it looks bad upon me (Even if it was someone else's problem). I may be a rare bread in recent times, but I actually care about what I do and the way I am perceived to others (with regards to my work at least). If people can't do work because my network is having problems, that's my fault. So to save myself the potential hassle, I take proactive measures.
I don't consider Facebook dangers. I do consider pages that are linked to by Facebook dangerous. But if I black listed any site that linked to dangerous content, I'd have to take away the entire internet. And I don't consider it my place to tell users what sites are valid for business reasons and those that are not. Some people do use Facebook for actual work (some of us do research on people, so sometimes they do need to visit Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc)...
As an IT Manager for a small company
on
Employee Monitoring
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I personally don't care what other people do in general. I am not their boss, and it's not my job to police what they do during work hours. I do keep logs, so if a person's manager wants to see what they've been doing I can give them a report. The only thing that I personally care about is employee behavior that may compromise my network. I do watch TCP traffic for abnormalities, and do have a black list of sites that will alert me if someone tries to visit something dangerous. Other then that, I really could care less if someone spends half their day on Facebook. It's not my job to make sure that other people are working...
A swarm of flaming hornets would ran slightly under a wall of flaming alligators on the list of ridiculous-dangerous-yet-awesome-meter (So long as you are not in the path of either, then it would be the suck-o-meter instead)...
Whoops. Sorry, I must have missed that when I was looking for the store for my reply (I don't have a BB, so I don't know). But let me ask you this question, for most users, is the BB's focus on the App World? Or is that like apps with WinMo 6.x where you can, but that's not the "point" of the device. With Android, iPhone and WebOS the focus is on extending (and customizing to an extent) the OS with applications. Is the BB that App centric (I've never heard a friend with a BB say "Yo, check out this App I just got!"; But I've heard every single one of my friends with an Android or an iPhone say that at least once)...?
This is 10 U at 8kw. But, it has 512 processor cores at that power usage. That's 15.6 Watts / Core. Whereas a Xeon (quad core) would be 37.5 Watts / Core (for 300 Watt, for 500 Watt it would be 62 Watts / Core). Now, you also have to look at performance / core. The Xeon will be FAR better at number crunching, but the Atom should fare pretty well at IO operations (as long as they are not memory intensive). So if you're using it as a Reverse Proxy or a large load balancer (Or another highly parallelizable IO bound task), it might actually come out ahead of the Xeon in operations / watt (Possibly significantly depending on the interconnect fabric's bandwidth)...
Slashdot Mirror
To me, there is a significant difference between a framework and libraries. Libraries are collections of code to do one or more tasks. Frameworks are libraries that enforce architectural constraints in exchange for reducing boilerplate code and making things easier (and faster in theory) to develop. The tradeoff comes back when those architectural constraints are not inline with the application. This either leads to tons of pain when building the application (I've heard the phrase "just do it the rails way" a few times), or when maintaining due to changes in the app requirements or bugs that are deep rooted in the architecture of the application.
That's why I'm a fan of the Architecture First method to development. Do a formal architecture for the application, then pick the framework that fits that architecture (if any). If none do, fit the closest one and remove anything from it that doesn't fit.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to using the ORM in the model, or for some applications having the ORM dominate the model. I'm just against the concept that it is the model (since there's a lot more by most people's ideas)...
Yes, we have talked about it at length...
The first on the list is one that isn't public yet. I know the lead dev on it and got an early preview. So out of the popular frameworks, it is number one to avoid....
I couldn't disagree more. Cake is loaded with deeply awkward black magic and bad practices. Not to mention the fallacy that the model layer is the orm (hint: in the rest of the world it is not). Cake is second on my list of frameworks to avoid (and most senior developers that I know agree). I would suggest you do the same. .
Exactly. Especially since almost any XSS vulnerability automatically becomes a CSRF vulnerability.
If I can inject JS into your browser, I can do anything that you can do on that site...
And that doesn't sound like it will ripe for abuse...
Oh wait...
This. Very much this. Everything in this world is pretty much built upon axiomatic systems. The language we speak, the laws that govern us, economics, etc. It's going to be quite hard to spend one day without interacting with at least a dozen or more axiomatic systems. Without even a cursory understanding of how rules and these systems behave, how can we hope to interact effectively with them?
So that brings up the question, what's the easiest and clearest axiomatic system that we encounter on a day to day basis? Mathematics. The study of math isn't so much so that students learn the principals so they can apply them in during the rest of their lives (although there are some that they do need to know), it's so they can better understand how rule based systems operate. Therefore there's no real need for a literary student to be able to prove the Quadratic Formula. What IS important is that they know a proof exists, and they understand why it can be proven. That's the main key.
So yes, trim calculus for most students. Trim formal proofs from tests (but do demonstrate them in class). Focus more on the why, not the how. Then once that's nailed down, go on to the topics that are of real value (but are often under-taught IMHO): basic statistics and probability, formal and prepositional logic, and mental estimation... Each one is used nearly every day by people whether they realize it or not. It doesn't matter that they know that If P then Q; P; therefore Q is called modus ponens, but they must know that it does work. They don't need to be able to determine a probability of an even happening, but they do need to understand and know the basic concepts.
I will disagree slightly with your statement: With calculators and computers, nobody needs to know math itself.. The correct (IMHO) statement would be that most people don't need to be able to prove what the calculator is giving them is correct, but they do need at least a cursory understanding of what's going on, otherwise how will they know if it's correct? If you punch 5 + 10 * 100 into a calculator, you'll get back 5000 on a stack based calculator (computer) but 1500 on a normal calculator... If you don't understand what's going on, how do you know which is right (or that there are two possible answers)...?
Again, just my $0.02
This.
And why do I think this? It's quite simple really. There was no implementation in the API for devices of varying features or screen size until iOS 4. If the design was originally intended for a tablet, I would think they would be smart and implement the API from the beginning, so that they wouldn't need to re-create all the apps so that they would run on the tablets natively. But they didn't. No support for the basic features of a tablet appeared until iOS 4. Which shows that either it wasn't intended in the beginning to run on tablets, or they never thought ahead to include the necessary API features. And both show that it was never really intended for tablets. Sure, the initial concept may have been derived from a tablet idea, but when iPhone OS 1 was released, it was never intended to be used on a tablet.
As with most FUD, there is likely an element of truth involved. I'm not doubting that the idea for the iPhone came from an internal tablet they tried to make. But what I am doubting is that the OS was designed from the beginning to be used on a tablet...
In the public sector. In other areas (such as Emergency Responders, Health Care, Manufacturing and many others) there have been wildly successful tablets for many years.
Apple just made it successful for the average consumer...
Did you ever stop to think that the reason for that is exactly what the FTC just tried to stop? That they had an agreement with Intel to "lock up" the higher end market?
I understand that this is newsworthy, but the Summary is blatantly wrong when it was posted, yet alone with future information...
Besides, the app requested this info from when it was installed. If you just clicked "ok" when it asked for permission to access your personal data and the internet, then it is not malware. Malware is doing something besides what it is telling you. Sure, it's not telling you its sending that info elsewhere, but it is telling you that it is accessing it.
Besides, there have been a LOT of Apple fanbois that have been using this to bash the "open system"... One thing that I must ask is if it asked you for access to that information, and you said ok, how is this the fault of the open system? In fact, I would rather have the system tell me what an App has access to than to trust a draconian dictator...
Yes this is bad. Yes it should be pulled from the market. But how many apps like this exist for both platforms that just haven't been found first? At least with Android, you get to see what the app has access to, so if you don't think it needs that access don't install the app. It seems (oddly enough, given Google's privacy nightmare) the better platform if you care about your privacy IMHO...
Well, that's a bit of a mis-statement of the facts. The local laws determine if the license even applies (If it is a derivative in the eyes of the law). However, the license can narrow the definition of derivative that it uses. For example, if a law says that it's only a derivative work if it uses more than 90% of the original's content, then you couldn't say this license applies even if you only use 40%. But, you can say "All works that use less than 50% of the source code of this work are licensed under a liberal BSD style license". So if you are in the country with the 90% law, you'd only fall in the more restrictive category (or no license required category if you use less than 90%...
What's the point? The point is that the GPL can define derivative work however it wants for the purpose of granting rights within the license. That doesn't tell you if the license applies, but only what rights apply to you IF the license applies to you. So, if they defined "derivative work" as statically-linked, uses non-public APIs, re-implements provided APIs or directly modifies existing functionality in a non-modular fashion, then they could say "Copy left applies to derivative works as defined by this license" and "A permissive non-copy-left license applies to all other works not covered by the derivative work definition". The local jurisdiction's definition of derivative work only would apply if the license is applied to the work, not what rights are granted to for applied works (as it is now, and which is my objection)...
Quite simply, I like the philosophy behind open source. But like any good philosophy, it needs to be understood if it is to truly flourish. Otherwise you just get religion...
You haven't been listening then. But besides the point, people using windows is a hell of a lot different than people licensing their IP (their software creations)...
The GPL is as clear as mud. Do you want an example? It says "derivative works" must be GPL as well. Well, what is a derivative work? Guess what? The GPL itself doesn't define that term. So there's huge debate as to if a block of code that uses nothing from the parent but fully documented and exposed APIs is derivative or not.
Obviously Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian; that much is clear... But is Internet Explorer a drivative of Windows (Taking aside the license for a minute)? It hooks into deep APIs (So deep in fact, that it cannot run on any other OS than Windows)... Parts of the core of Windows (Windows Update) depend upon it... It's a very difficult question to answer.
And this is why I hate the GPL. It promotes the "If you want to comply, you can do no wrong by licensing GPL" attitude. It's trivially easy to comply with, but it's VERY hard to make a clear determination if the restrictions extend to you or not. So most people "just take the easy way out" and license GPL. Not out of belief, not out of fear, not out of requirement, but out of confusion and misunderstanding...
Nor me. I use a 5 button trackball at work (back, left, wheel, right, forward), and my Lenovo laptop has dedicated forward and back buttons. And before that, I installed gesture support (Right click and drag left to go back, drag right to go forward). Seriously, I don't understand how people use the actual button on the top of the screen...
Perhaps in your company, but not in mine. In mine, there is a chain of command above me. My boss (CTO) and then the Owner of the company/CEO. Someone from outside that chain doesn't have a right (and this has been proven several times) to empower/remove power from my position. Otherwise you wind up with a situation where one person reports to 5 people, and how can you have effective management when there are too many chiefs and one Indian? Sure, it's not how all companies are run (and maybe not most), but that's how it is here. And that's part of why I like it. If I screw up, I hear it from one person (and not the Office Space's 9). If I need something, I go to one person. There's no ambiguity. That's what makes me effective at my job. The very fact that I know clearly who to go to, and that I receive orders from only one person (Others can ask me for help, but it's ultimately my boss's decision if I feel uncomfortable/under-empowered doing it). Other then that, I'm left to just do my job and make my own decisions. So in my company, it would not be a reasonable request (since it didn't go through proper channels). And that's what it boils down to, isn't it. You need to tailor your work ethic and method of operation to the company you are working for. And I like the company that I'm at now (partly because everything is so clear)...
Where do you get that? I never said I was refusing to do a reasonable duty. What I said was that I am unable to do a duty that requires me to make decisions that I am not empowered to make. I've been asked more than once to do things that I was not empowered to do (either by company policy, or by my direct boss's direction), and each time that situation came up, I negotiated it into a raise and an increase in responsibility.
You're right, saying no when they ask you to do something will make a short career. But I don't say no, I say that I am sorry but I am unable to to do that because of x y and z. If they say to do it anyway, then I would normally either go to my direct boss, or as high as I need to (depending on who's asking) to get permission...
No, it's not. I will (and do) provide any information HR or Security (which we don't have) wants whenever they ask for it. I do have logging processes to watch what everyone's doing. But I don't look at it and point out to others that Joe Blow is constantly on xyz.com. If HR asks me for the logs on Joe Blow, I will gladly generate them a nice report. But if they asked me to "Tell them those people who are using the computers for non-work activities", I would tell them no. Not because I don't want to, but because I'm not in a position to decide what constitutes a "non-work activity". Plus, it's my job to maintain our IT infrastructure, not to monitor users. If they want me to do that, then they will need to alter my job title (and hence my salary, as that would be a significant increase in responsibility)...
I consider it my network (and care about it), because of two reasons. First, I'm responsible for maintaining it. So when someone else fucks it up, I have to fix it (at whatever cost, whenever it's needed). Second, because I'm responsible for it, so if it goes down it looks bad upon me (Even if it was someone else's problem). I may be a rare bread in recent times, but I actually care about what I do and the way I am perceived to others (with regards to my work at least). If people can't do work because my network is having problems, that's my fault. So to save myself the potential hassle, I take proactive measures.
I don't consider Facebook dangers. I do consider pages that are linked to by Facebook dangerous. But if I black listed any site that linked to dangerous content, I'd have to take away the entire internet. And I don't consider it my place to tell users what sites are valid for business reasons and those that are not. Some people do use Facebook for actual work (some of us do research on people, so sometimes they do need to visit Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc)...
I personally don't care what other people do in general. I am not their boss, and it's not my job to police what they do during work hours. I do keep logs, so if a person's manager wants to see what they've been doing I can give them a report. The only thing that I personally care about is employee behavior that may compromise my network. I do watch TCP traffic for abnormalities, and do have a black list of sites that will alert me if someone tries to visit something dangerous. Other then that, I really could care less if someone spends half their day on Facebook. It's not my job to make sure that other people are working...
A swarm of flaming hornets would ran slightly under a wall of flaming alligators on the list of ridiculous-dangerous-yet-awesome-meter (So long as you are not in the path of either, then it would be the suck-o-meter instead)...
Whoops. Sorry, I must have missed that when I was looking for the store for my reply (I don't have a BB, so I don't know). But let me ask you this question, for most users, is the BB's focus on the App World? Or is that like apps with WinMo 6.x where you can, but that's not the "point" of the device. With Android, iPhone and WebOS the focus is on extending (and customizing to an extent) the OS with applications. Is the BB that App centric (I've never heard a friend with a BB say "Yo, check out this App I just got!"; But I've heard every single one of my friends with an Android or an iPhone say that at least once)...?
Whoops! Good point. So that brings our total down to about 4 Watts per core for the Atom... Even further strengthens the point. Thanks!
This is 10 U at 8kw. But, it has 512 processor cores at that power usage. That's 15.6 Watts / Core. Whereas a Xeon (quad core) would be 37.5 Watts / Core (for 300 Watt, for 500 Watt it would be 62 Watts / Core). Now, you also have to look at performance / core. The Xeon will be FAR better at number crunching, but the Atom should fare pretty well at IO operations (as long as they are not memory intensive). So if you're using it as a Reverse Proxy or a large load balancer (Or another highly parallelizable IO bound task), it might actually come out ahead of the Xeon in operations / watt (Possibly significantly depending on the interconnect fabric's bandwidth)...