Even though the discussion will be archived before long, I'll still toss my hat in.
My first experience with hacking was on a brand-new state-of-the-art Apple II in kindergarten. The school had a game for it called Math Maze, where the kid controlled a fly that moved around the maze, eating numbers. The idea was that the game gave the kid a number n, and the kid had to make the fly eat two numbers, the sum of which would be n. I thoroughly impressed my teacher with a hack that changed the maze from black on green to green on black. *grin* Hey, I was five.
My parents noticed all I talked about was the computers at school, so for my eighth birthday they scraped together some USD and I got a secondhand Mattel Aquarius (anyone else remember that thing?), powered by a Z80, with 'Microsoft Basic (C)1981' burned into ROM. If I wanted it to do something, I had to code it myself, and I had to do so in one sitting thanks to the lack of any form of mass storage. *grin* I still know that crappy BASIC better than any other languages.
Don't be so quick to sneer at BASIC. Yeah, it uses GOTOs. However, it gives a foundation just as well as anything else, without overwhelming a kid.
Oh, and I built with Lego since age 2. Read Coupland's Microserfs, if for no other insight than how Lego shapes the mind of a future hacker.
Since we're splitting erymological hairs, the poster was probably using the term in the popular sense. During the Cold War, the 'democratic' West and the 'communist' East were referred to as the First and Second Worlds, and underdeveloped/emerging countries were referred to as the Third World.
ps, I don't know shit about the music industry. I don't care to. I don't see why we need a music "industry", I sort of wish there was music artistry instead...
Don't you see the irony there? Aren't you annoyed when you hear non-techies say something like "I don't know shit about computers, and I don't care to. I don't see why we even need them. I wish they'd make the damn things just do what I want instead of making me screw around with 'click this, type that'."
If you build your little cities too close to each other, they compete for resources and never get very large. Same thing with plants. Your logic assumes that there is infinite market share for each Millisoft.
Your post set me to thinking about another basic defect of democracy... it's government by the people. Go stand in line at the DMV or hang out at K-Mart. That's the people.
Reality check: Is/. karma a function of technical talent?
Re:The Rich Get Richer and Screw the Poor
on
Universal Access
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· Score: 1
Any American can walk into [Best Buy | Circuit City | whatever] and walk out with a computer and a year of net access with zero cash outlay. $20/month is pretty tough NOT to afford for 98% of Americans. Yes, the computer is trash. Yes, the net access is trash. Is this Universal Access? Perhaps not, but it's effectively identical.
So? The information remains the same. Here, have some worthless anecdotal evidence: My first computer was a fscking Mattel. My first net connection was a 2400 baud dialup to a crippled, menued shell.
Both of these were desperately obsolete by the time I got my poor-trailer-trash hands on them. Know what? That didn't stop me.
I don't know any PepsiCo insiders, nor am I one, so I may be wrong. However, I think American Pepsi cans are still made from steel. I do have several samples of cans from Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper littering my desk, but independent informal testing was inconclusive, even with a few Michelob bottles acting as a control group. Can anyone shed more light on this?
Life always finds a way here on Earth, but we're post-eukaryotic. We have all these multicellular organisms acting as vectors for unicellular ones and creating all kinds of chaos in general, which ensures that unicellular organisms will have chance upon chance to spread to any corner of the plant where they can then evolve in happiness.
It seems that the real trick is to get the unicellulars to arise in the first place, which would be no mean feat in a hell like Io. Once you've got that, then the next trick is to get multicellulars to act as vectors for your unicellulars. Then you've got yourself a big percolating evolving planet. *grin*
The institutions which recently did mass upgrades to Slot-A boards will have serious trust problems with AMD in the future.
AMD: "Hey, we've got this great Athlon chip. It's better than a P3! You need this Slot-A motherboard to run it." Corp: "Okay, if it's so great, we'll take 1,000. You'll continue to support this Slot-A platform, won't you?" AMD: "Of course!"
This happens more often than you think; there are tons of companies that upgraded to next-gen K6en instead of next-gen Pentia, for the simple reason that they could. The Pentia required motherboard upgrades, the K6en didn't. Any corp faced with this choice will go with the upgrade that gives comparable results and is roughly half the cost, and rightly so. Based on the positive experience they had with Socket 7, a lot of corps then went to Slot-A when upgrade time rolled around, assuming it'd continue to be AMD's platform of choice. Not so.
If VIA/Cyrix are smart, they'll slap together a Slot-A processor to fill this gap.
Dell's argument is BS; the VIA KX133 Athlon chipsets are more than stable enough. The real reason for Dell's reluctance to use AMD products is left as an exercise for the reader. *grin*
There are three basic kinds of computer users. Lusers, users, and power users. Then there are hackers. Lusers need to be shown the location of the 'any' key. Users can do what they need to do, but have no interest in how the SW does what it does. Power users take a mild interest in how the SW operates, and apply this knowledge as best they can as far as SW optimization goes (i.e. disabling MS Office's Fast Find in order to speed up their Win box).
Compare this with hackers, who make a daily practice of getting their hands dirty in the SW. Most hackers prefer to run an OS which facilitates this.
Now compare this with automobilia. Some people can't be bothered to pump their own gas. Until the energy crisis of the 70s, many of these automotive lusers didn't even know HOW. Some automotive users know to check the oil now and again and are responsible about maintenance, but don't really care what happens under the hood. Some people are performance drivers who like to know what's happening inside the machine and who really enjoy a fine sports car.
Then there are the automotive hackers who rebuild their engines to relieve stress, and who perform such "risky" modifications as increasing the compression ratios and advancing the timing. They know what they're doing. They're confident they won't screw it up.
Oh, tangentially related: A specific, fairly recent example of processors being marked and sold at less than their full potential: AHX-core AMD K6-IIIs. This core was marked as a 2.2v 400MHz unit and as a 2.4v 450MHz unit. They were otherwise identical. So, if you bought a 400 AHX, cranked the core voltage +0.2v and the multiplier up by 0.5x, you had a 450 AHX without paying extra. Your overclocked 400 AHX had 100% of the stability of a factory 450.
That's why people overclock. Free (as in beer) performance.
Despite the inaccuracies in the measuring methods used by our submitter, and despite the arrogant knee-jerk comments posted by people who don't know what they're talking about, lapping does make a difference when done properly. I would know; I've done it on several different processors and heatsinks.
Yes, the flattening effect is nullified unless you also lap the bottom of the heatsink. Yes, a little thermal paste accomplishes almost (but not quite) the same thing. BTW, most people put about 10x the grease on there that's actually necessary. The layer should be about as thick as a sheet of notebook paper. Much more and you're not helping, you're hurting.
The main benefits of lapping come from two points unrelated to the flatness of the contacting surfaces. When heat's conducted through different media, each change in medium reduces the overall conductivity. Some processors (i.e. Celeron) have jacket over the casing. The jacket and the casing are two different materials. If you sand the jacket away, that's one less medium to conduct through.
The other main benefit is from reducing the thickness of the casing between the processor core and the heatsink. If you're dumb enough to sand right through the core, you were too dumb to be taking sandpaper to your processor anyway.
Yes, I overclock. No, I'm not ashamed of it. I overclock a Win9x box used for gaming and for visitors who get freaked out when they can't find a Start menu. Since the stability of Win9x approaches zero, knocking it down a few percent farther produces generally no observable effect.
Now, you're all more than welcome to flame me (and what kind of place would Slashdot be if you weren't?). Before you do: Yes, I'm aware that overclocking and lapping generally shouldn't be done in an environment where stability is important. Realize that some of us prefer a side order of hardware hacking with our RDA of software hacking.
Note to moderators of this discussion: Posting something like 'Doing this would be fscking stupid. I don't really know anything about this, and I've never tried it.' is called trolling.
Socket 7 is dead, yes, and Socket A is the way to go... that's Socket A, not Slot A. AMD will be abandoning the Slot A architecture. The line is that the CPU-on-a-PCB required for slotted designs is too expensive to manufacture. If you want to scale an AMD-based system, wait for Socket A.
kinda funny...slashdotters have argued in the past that linux shouldn't be compare to win95 because it isn't a client, and that it is better than win95 as a client
The two arguments aren't mutually exclusive... it may not really a client, but it's still better than win9x. (G)
This text inserted to bypass Slash's new lameness filter. This text inserted to bypass Slash's new lameness filter. This text inserted to bypass Slash's new lameness filter.
A simple solution. Buy CDs from used-music dealers. They're almost always locally owned, the staff is a hundred times more knowledgeable than the gimp at Best Buy, and the CDs cost less and sound the same. The lion's share of your purchase goes to the broke guy who sold all his CDs to the dealer, rather than to the record label. Now, who needs the money more?
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My first experience with hacking was on a brand-new state-of-the-art Apple II in kindergarten. The school had a game for it called Math Maze, where the kid controlled a fly that moved around the maze, eating numbers. The idea was that the game gave the kid a number n, and the kid had to make the fly eat two numbers, the sum of which would be n. I thoroughly impressed my teacher with a hack that changed the maze from black on green to green on black. *grin* Hey, I was five.
My parents noticed all I talked about was the computers at school, so for my eighth birthday they scraped together some USD and I got a secondhand Mattel Aquarius (anyone else remember that thing?), powered by a Z80, with 'Microsoft Basic (C)1981' burned into ROM. If I wanted it to do something, I had to code it myself, and I had to do so in one sitting thanks to the lack of any form of mass storage. *grin* I still know that crappy BASIC better than any other languages.
Don't be so quick to sneer at BASIC. Yeah, it uses GOTOs. However, it gives a foundation just as well as anything else, without overwhelming a kid.
Oh, and I built with Lego since age 2. Read Coupland's Microserfs, if for no other insight than how Lego shapes the mind of a future hacker.
Since we're splitting erymological hairs, the poster was probably using the term in the popular sense. During the Cold War, the 'democratic' West and the 'communist' East were referred to as the First and Second Worlds, and underdeveloped/emerging countries were referred to as the Third World.
Or condoms and computer skills.
I fervently pray I get to metamod that.
Don't you see the irony there? Aren't you annoyed when you hear non-techies say something like "I don't know shit about computers, and I don't care to. I don't see why we even need them. I wish they'd make the damn things just do what I want instead of making me screw around with 'click this, type that'."
Damn, brother, where'd you go to school? All my school did in CSC131 was dick around with some basic Java methods.
If you build your little cities too close to each other, they compete for resources and never get very large. Same thing with plants. Your logic assumes that there is infinite market share for each Millisoft.
Your post set me to thinking about another basic defect of democracy... it's government by the people. Go stand in line at the DMV or hang out at K-Mart. That's the people.
Reality check: Is /. karma a function of technical talent?
So? The information remains the same. Here, have some worthless anecdotal evidence: My first computer was a fscking Mattel. My first net connection was a 2400 baud dialup to a crippled, menued shell.
Both of these were desperately obsolete by the time I got my poor-trailer-trash hands on them. Know what? That didn't stop me.
I thought they fired the guy who couldn't keep metric and imperial units straight...
I don't know any PepsiCo insiders, nor am I one, so I may be wrong. However, I think American Pepsi cans are still made from steel. I do have several samples of cans from Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper littering my desk, but independent informal testing was inconclusive, even with a few Michelob bottles acting as a control group. Can anyone shed more light on this?
It seems that the real trick is to get the unicellulars to arise in the first place, which would be no mean feat in a hell like Io. Once you've got that, then the next trick is to get multicellulars to act as vectors for your unicellulars. Then you've got yourself a big percolating evolving planet. *grin*
Once the wheel is in place, it is monitored and controlled remotely via a local server plugged in to the Net...
Can you say security risk? Send a killer poke to a flywheel spinning at >60,000 rev/min, and watch the carnage fly...
Of course, that's assuming they sell out and use WinCE for their flywheels... if they use an embedded Linux, then it's no problem. *grin*
AMD: "Hey, we've got this great Athlon chip. It's better than a P3! You need this Slot-A motherboard to run it."
Corp: "Okay, if it's so great, we'll take 1,000. You'll continue to support this Slot-A platform, won't you?"
AMD: "Of course!"
This happens more often than you think; there are tons of companies that upgraded to next-gen K6en instead of next-gen Pentia, for the simple reason that they could. The Pentia required motherboard upgrades, the K6en didn't. Any corp faced with this choice will go with the upgrade that gives comparable results and is roughly half the cost, and rightly so. Based on the positive experience they had with Socket 7, a lot of corps then went to Slot-A when upgrade time rolled around, assuming it'd continue to be AMD's platform of choice.
Not so.
If VIA/Cyrix are smart, they'll slap together a Slot-A processor to fill this gap.
Dell's argument is BS; the VIA KX133 Athlon chipsets are more than stable enough. The real reason for Dell's reluctance to use AMD products is left as an exercise for the reader. *grin*
Compare this with hackers, who make a daily practice of getting their hands dirty in the SW. Most hackers prefer to run an OS which facilitates this.
Now compare this with automobilia. Some people can't be bothered to pump their own gas. Until the energy crisis of the 70s, many of these automotive lusers didn't even know HOW. Some automotive users know to check the oil now and again and are responsible about maintenance, but don't really care what happens under the hood. Some people are performance drivers who like to know what's happening inside the machine and who really enjoy a fine sports car.
Then there are the automotive hackers who rebuild their engines to relieve stress, and who perform such "risky" modifications as increasing the compression ratios and advancing the timing. They know what they're doing. They're confident they won't screw it up.
Oh, tangentially related: A specific, fairly recent example of processors being marked and sold at less than their full potential: AHX-core AMD K6-IIIs. This core was marked as a 2.2v 400MHz unit and as a 2.4v 450MHz unit. They were otherwise identical. So, if you bought a 400 AHX, cranked the core voltage +0.2v and the multiplier up by 0.5x, you had a 450 AHX without paying extra. Your overclocked 400 AHX had 100% of the stability of a factory 450.
That's why people overclock. Free (as in beer) performance.
Yes, the flattening effect is nullified unless you also lap the bottom of the heatsink. Yes, a little thermal paste accomplishes almost (but not quite) the same thing. BTW, most people put about 10x the grease on there that's actually necessary. The layer should be about as thick as a sheet of notebook paper. Much more and you're not helping, you're hurting.
The main benefits of lapping come from two points unrelated to the flatness of the contacting surfaces. When heat's conducted through different media, each change in medium reduces the overall conductivity. Some processors (i.e. Celeron) have jacket over the casing. The jacket and the casing are two different materials. If you sand the jacket away, that's one less medium to conduct through.
The other main benefit is from reducing the thickness of the casing between the processor core and the heatsink. If you're dumb enough to sand right through the core, you were too dumb to be taking sandpaper to your processor anyway.
Yes, I overclock. No, I'm not ashamed of it. I overclock a Win9x box used for gaming and for visitors who get freaked out when they can't find a Start menu. Since the stability of Win9x approaches zero, knocking it down a few percent farther produces generally no observable effect.
Now, you're all more than welcome to flame me (and what kind of place would Slashdot be if you weren't?). Before you do: Yes, I'm aware that overclocking and lapping generally shouldn't be done in an environment where stability is important. Realize that some of us prefer a side order of hardware hacking with our RDA of software hacking.
Note to moderators of this discussion: Posting something like
'Doing this would be fscking stupid. I don't really know anything about this, and I've never tried it.'
is called trolling.
Remember, the Socket 7 architecture had off-chip L2 cache as well. It was placed on the motherboard.
Back to my point though, the typical american today isn't the undereducated buffon...
This should read: ...the typical college-educated American today isn't the undereducated buffon...
Socket 7 is dead, yes, and Socket A is the way to go... that's Socket A, not Slot A. AMD will be abandoning the Slot A architecture. The line is that the CPU-on-a-PCB required for slotted designs is too expensive to manufacture. If you want to scale an AMD-based system, wait for Socket A.
Oh, I got your point. I was being ironical. Hence the (G) as in (Grin). Peace.
The two arguments aren't mutually exclusive... it may not really a client, but it's still better than win9x. (G)
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This text inserted to bypass Slash's new lameness filter. This text inserted to bypass Slash's new lameness filter. This text inserted to bypass Slash's new lameness filter.
A simple solution. Buy CDs from used-music dealers. They're almost always locally owned, the staff is a hundred times more knowledgeable than the gimp at Best Buy, and the CDs cost less and sound the same. The lion's share of your purchase goes to the broke guy who sold all his CDs to the dealer, rather than to the record label. Now, who needs the money more?