They use the same stuff as everyone else. To tell you the truth though, having WORKED in semiconductors, you are exposed to a lot more nasty stuff in an auto-body shop. That's not to say a lot of the chemicals aren't nasty, but it's generally in a controlled environment. You can't just slop chemicals around and expect to etch circuitry a few angstroms wide.
Dr. Richard Clapp, a respected epidemiologist from Boston University who was hired by a group of 40 plaintiffs in San Jose, said statistical analyses he has run from data provided by the company have shown troubling elevations of breast cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and brain cancer among I.B.M. employees. He also said the cancers appeared to be occurring in I.B.M. employees at ages younger than the U.S. average.
This is statistical hogwash. You can't take a sample like "all IBM employees" and compare it to "all the people in the United States." Analysis needs to be tuned to a population that has a similar demographic. Age, geography, economic background, pollution, family history, smoking, and even diet affect cancer rates tremendously.
IBM has employed millions of people over the past 100 years. Logic tells you that out of that population a few thousand WILL get sick. Not from negligence, they just get sick.
Now, if you can show me a few hundred people with the SAME ailment, you might have something. But this suit is fishing with a gill net.
When your are ordering 1100 of them, I'm pretty sure Apple with throw in the rack mount hardware. For all we know, they are getting a special production run with a custom case.
Itanium: er, um, we have a new architecture! I think RedHat has a port to it.
G5: We have a PowerPc system that has been extended to use 64 bits. Your old software will run. Your new software will run faster. We have MacOSx, BSD, and Linux available, natively compiled.
There is also something to be said for the G5's parallel memory busses. It divides the ram in half, each half feeding 32 bits of the processor. You could theoretically keep your instructions on one side and data on the other, and pipeline the snot out of it.
There is a difference between smart and intelligent. Most activity on the road is VERY intelligent. Lane swapping, and bumper riding require quick reflexes and keen senses.
Now a smart person realizes the limitations of human intelligence every time he sees a crumpled wreck on the side of the road. I'm a smart person. My passengers think I drive like an old man in a hat.
I for one am sick of non-standard standards. Can you picture how backwards civilization would be if every book every published required a secret-decoder ring to read?
What if you needed special glasses to see the great works of art from the Renasance?
Copyright law is about giving companies a way to profit from selling their works for a limited time before said works become part of our collective culture. Just because computers enter into the picture does not make it okay to take a jackhammer to tradition.
Ask greenpeace the next time they play footsies with a nuclear waste shipment. Let's face it, we have an entire generation of people that sheepishly believe whatever anti-nuke rhetoric someone can spew with a straight face. Is nuclear power dangerous: yes. Any more dangerous than other forms of industrial production? Not really.
The only people suffering long-term health problems from Hirosima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl are/were those who where younger than 4 years old at the time of radiation exposure. Most of the long term illnesses, even in those cases, where treatable forms of thyroid cancer. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands killed or blinded by the Union Carbide accident in Bhopal, India.
Most plastics can by synthesized from plant oils. No worries on that.
We have even found ways to synthesize oil. Apply mondo pressure to organic garbage and plastics, and they liquify into that black gold we know and love. You just need a massive power source. In a perfect world that would be nuclear power.
With the proliferation of the Internet, we should be seeing a lot of smaller news sources develop to cover fringe and/or local interests. Aside from tech, this really hasn't happened.
What we do have are huge conglomerations, or some moron ranting on his blog. There really isn't a whole lot in between.
Philadelphia has 2 newspapers. One reads like an AP and Reuters news feed. The other borders on tabloid. It doesn't help that both are owned by Knight Ridder, the same folks who run USA Today. The little free weekly that someone in our neighborhood puts together has a lot more useful information in it.
Our technology gives us an edge over our Cretaceous-dwelling friends, but the resources needed for a comet defense force seem outrageous when you consider all the problems on Earth that need money, political will, and man power.
For all that extra brainpower we still can't seem to overcome stupidity.
Slashdot Mirror
They use the same stuff as everyone else. To tell you the truth though, having WORKED in semiconductors, you are exposed to a lot more nasty stuff in an auto-body shop. That's not to say a lot of the chemicals aren't nasty, but it's generally in a controlled environment. You can't just slop chemicals around and expect to etch circuitry a few angstroms wide.
This is statistical hogwash. You can't take a sample like "all IBM employees" and compare it to "all the people in the United States." Analysis needs to be tuned to a population that has a similar demographic. Age, geography, economic background, pollution, family history, smoking, and even diet affect cancer rates tremendously.
Now, if you can show me a few hundred people with the SAME ailment, you might have something. But this suit is fishing with a gill net.
Both are a little stale on travel an accomidations. I have a pretty good deal with an agent named "Klatoo."
When your are ordering 1100 of them, I'm pretty sure Apple with throw in the rack mount hardware. For all we know, they are getting a special production run with a custom case.
7) Obligatory "In soviet Russia the G5 compute YOU!"
(Sigh) Quitters.
Opteron: Still under development.
Now tell me, on the Good/Fast/Cheap curve you design parameters lie?
What, is a queer guy going to redecorate my house?
G5: We have a PowerPc system that has been extended to use 64 bits. Your old software will run. Your new software will run faster. We have MacOSx, BSD, and Linux available, natively compiled.
There is also something to be said for the G5's parallel memory busses. It divides the ram in half, each half feeding 32 bits of the processor. You could theoretically keep your instructions on one side and data on the other, and pipeline the snot out of it.
The comparison is like Apples to Oranges. Most people end up asking "Orange you going to build a beowulf cluster of those Apples?"
Now a smart person realizes the limitations of human intelligence every time he sees a crumpled wreck on the side of the road. I'm a smart person. My passengers think I drive like an old man in a hat.
Speak for yourself. (Then again, non-profits seem to be where people start their careers...)
What if you needed special glasses to see the great works of art from the Renasance?
Copyright law is about giving companies a way to profit from selling their works for a limited time before said works become part of our collective culture. Just because computers enter into the picture does not make it okay to take a jackhammer to tradition.
The only people suffering long-term health problems from Hirosima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl are/were those who where younger than 4 years old at the time of radiation exposure. Most of the long term illnesses, even in those cases, where treatable forms of thyroid cancer. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands killed or blinded by the Union Carbide accident in Bhopal, India.
The real disaster that was averted was in business systems.
We have even found ways to synthesize oil. Apply mondo pressure to organic garbage and plastics, and they liquify into that black gold we know and love. You just need a massive power source. In a perfect world that would be nuclear power.
Who really wants boiling water poured over a bunch of dead dry leaves with excretions from the mammary gland of a cow squirted into it?
What we do have are huge conglomerations, or some moron ranting on his blog. There really isn't a whole lot in between.
Philadelphia has 2 newspapers. One reads like an AP and Reuters news feed. The other borders on tabloid. It doesn't help that both are owned by Knight Ridder, the same folks who run USA Today. The little free weekly that someone in our neighborhood puts together has a lot more useful information in it.
In other news: Aricebo is a radio telescope.
Indeed. The American flag on the site was actually planted by the Illuminati.
Hey I'm still waiting for the voice activated computer and cheap fusion power.
Now it's 5% imagination, 5% data, and 90% computation.
It's morse code for "So long and thanks for all the fish."
For all that extra brainpower we still can't seem to overcome stupidity.