Since its "general purpose", what else can you use this mega-brained computer for?
DVD games are commercially available, and a sufficiently bored person could probably write a DVD text editor (although getting the data out in a useful fashion would be, uh, interesting). As far as "mega-brained" goes, performance is relative. Your average DVD player is probably more powerful in all areas than the MITS Altair.
Therefore, there is no difference between a VHS tape and DVD disk. The fact that its one generation newer in technology doesn't make it a fundamentally different thing.
What makes them fundamentally different is that a DVD contains a program that is executed on a general-purpose computer. Every DVD *IS* software, end of discussion. Whether the software constitutes a movie is not relevent to deciding whether it is software.
Naturally what this means depends on the laws. The Australian case apparently decided that movies were specially exempt from rental restrictions. If the law had only specifically stated that software could be restricted, the rental places would have lost.
Athlon XP data cache is 320 kB (ignoring storage of instructions in L2 cache). Dual machine has 640 kB total.
Celeron 800 data cache is 160 kB. Octal machine has 1280 kB total, twice that of the Athlon.
Even if Celeron cache transfer rate is half that of Athlon (don't have exact numbers), total throughput will still be double.
also, it seems more likely that one big cache wouldhave what you need than a collection of little ones *all* having it.
It depends on the workload. If you can parallelize the cache load, it can be a huge win. If all the caches are flushed by the same constant data that won't quite fit, it doesn't help much. As usual the problem and how you parallelize it are just as important as the hardware.
The Celeron cluster also has 8X CPU cache. A workload that doesn't fit in dual Athlons' cache might fit in octal Celerons. Since main memory is ~10X slower than cache, the speedup in the inner loop can often pay for the slowdown from interprocessor communication.
Must...have...government...intervention...
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Broadband Obstacles
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What the hell is up with the big-business-killed-my-dog whining?
This is the free market in action... , and therefore unquestionable in the US today, and it's also the reason why people aren't getting high-speed access.
I can't speak to your apparently-unfortunate *local* experience, but here in a smallish city in Oklahoma, I have the following choices for telephone service:
ILEC landline
CLEC landline
Several wireless providers
Cable phone (I think)
I have the following broadband data choices:
ILEC ISDN/DSL/T1
CLEC ISDN/DSL/T1
Cable modem
Satellite
City fiber network
And I have the following video choices:
Cable
Broadcast TV
Satellite
True competition, range of services, and price of service are excellent, and seem to only be getting better. Your claims that the oppressive US government is colluding with megacorporations to exploit me is patently ludicrous. If you do actually have local problems, then fine, you have identified a golden business opportunity in your own back yard, and I suggest you get off your ass and start a CLEC instead of whining about how there's no competition. Remember that free markets are created by selling.
Python - a lot of scientists and engineers use it. The value of python comes from the clarity and simplicity of the language, meaning it is much easier to concentrate on the problem than the language.
I'd add that Python is very easy to learn, and forgiving of mistakes. It's also easy to write optimized extensions in C or C++, so running into a performance wall isn't a big worry.
In the end, what extra capabilities is Oracle going to give you that the right sort of filesystem wouldn't?
Consistent backups are trivial. Are there any common filesystems that provide this?
Applications can do execute atomic transactions that involve multiple files and directories.
It is easy to keep older versions files around and do undeletes.
If you store keep the data and metadata in separate tables, it is easy to create totally different views of the same files. Dunno if this is useful...
You can do access controls as appropriate to your problem.
I'm not necessarily advocating RDMBS-as-filesystem, but the idea does have some merit.
They're two very different ideas for data storage (heirachical vs relational is just for starters).
Hierarchical is a special case of relational: 1) Each item has a foreign key for its parent directory, or NULL if it's in the root. 2) There is a UNIQUE constraint on foreign key + item name.
Had it been designed by knowledgeable cryptographers, WEP would have been as strong as IPSEC, which would have been great.
I see this as a blessing in disguise: the popularity of wireles + WEP's insecurity == people are learning how to do end-to-end security. The techniques learned and the software perfected will help everywhere.
That way, not only am I getting my markets shrunk by 'free' alternatives, but I'm also giving away what I *can* make to the people who are making my life more difficult.
This is so wrong, for several reasons:
1. Software is not a zero-sum game. New software tends to increase the demand for new software. E.g., a cheap, good image editor would increase the demand for archiving and indexing software. The free software community in particular is most skilled at creating infrastructure and libraries that enable new applications. E.g., Linux + Apache + Perl + PostgresQL == the huge market for corporate web apps that did not exist 10 years ago.
2. If it was a zero-sum game, some people will be less able to adapt to the new market. Assuming you are clever and adaptable, free software would hurt your competitors more than it hurts you. Conversely, stupidity and inflexibility are not grounds for complaint.
After all, if they supposedly don't need to make any money from their work, they surely don't need any money to live on, right?
Free software == not tying people's hands using copyright law.
...the Java Platform was designed just to run one language.
Not true. The Java machine designers *knew* that Java itself would change over time. They *knew* that future versions of Java would need to do things that had not yet been imagined, and therefore they designed a fully general-purpose machine. And they succeeded admirably: not only are they forward compatible with later Java languages, other languages may target the machine with ease.
The fact that people managed to get Python running on it was an incredicly cool hack,...
True, if you mean "hack" in the sense of an optimal and elegant engineering solution. In particular, the Java machine can garbage collect circular references, while the original Python machine cannot. Far from being a kluge that "seems to work", Jython is in fact a technical advance.
Microsoft is only wrong here to the extent that people have surripitously [sp? i.e. without official vendor support or sanction...] pushed the JVM beyond where it was originally meant to go,...
I disagree. The sole evidence of the intent of the Java machine is its formal specification, and that specification is a general Turing-complete machine that can be used for a wide variety of languages. It obviously supports Java, but that does not mean it has some sort of divine destiny to not support oher languages.
Microsoft also specifically claimed that no other languages were available for the Java machine, which is patently false. The claim that developers "cannot use knowledge or code from other languages" is equally absurd. The Java language is sufficiently similar to other modern high-level languages that tricky algorithms in any language are worthwhile to port, and C/C++ code can be ported in many cases with trivial formatting fixes.
Why are they lying about Java? Because the courts slapped them down when they tried to "embrace and extend" it. The.NET campaign is a blatant attempt to displace existing systems that are viable but not controlled by Microsoft.
Microsoft lies through their teeth:
Java was designed for use with a single programming language -- Java. Developers have no option to choose the best tool for the task and cannot use knowledge or code from other languages.
Jython, for instance, lets you run Python programs natively on any Java machine. I've also seen Java-targeted compilers for other languages, but I can't find a link at the moment.
Re:Probably a reason for that...
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The AC said:
Stupid people like you who believe the media is right make all of us sick...
Note: my comment was **DEEPLY** sarcastic. The link that said "our fine gov't would never shut down a company for making a hacking game" led to a page about the Secret Service nearly destroying Steve Jackson Games for making a hacking game. (A famous clusterfuck that was a major influence on the Internet liberty movement.)
[Insert joke about dead people being stupid because the retarded wave catches up...]
Re:Probably a reason for that...
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Seriously, any commercial game that promoted itself as helping you develop "real-world" cracking or industrial espionage skills would first be sued from here to the 5th Ring of Hell, then promptly banned from here to the 7th Ring.
I second Go To. I haven't finished reading it yet, but it's got good material on the early development of modern computing. Definitely not the usual Sili Valley and/or Microsoft story.
BUT, I also highly doubt each pc had over a TB of warez on it. That's just a preposterous number. People would archive to CD before it got that big.
Exactly. I'll bet they were referring to the total amount of data amassed. A couple of shelves of CDs is easily a terabyte, and I've heard stories of war3z/m0v13 d00dz with huge shelves stuffed full of CDs. Data builds up quickly when you've got the cable modem and both the DSLs maxed out 24x7...
I'm saying that you hold your categorical "directory structure" in your database.
Sorry -- I misunderstood. I read "no subdirectories" and had this awful vision of a completely flat repositority containing a gigantic pile of files. Hence the violent reaction.
The more I think about it, the more I like your approach. The files can be indexed and organized into arbitrary structures, and the RDBMS does all the heavy lifting.
Slashdot Mirror
Naturally what this means depends on the laws. The Australian case apparently decided that movies were specially exempt from rental restrictions. If the law had only specifically stated that software could be restricted, the rental places would have lost.
Celeron 800 data cache is 160 kB. Octal machine has 1280 kB total, twice that of the Athlon.
Even if Celeron cache transfer rate is half that of Athlon (don't have exact numbers), total throughput will still be double.
It depends on the workload. If you can parallelize the cache load, it can be a huge win. If all the caches are flushed by the same constant data that won't quite fit, it doesn't help much. As usual the problem and how you parallelize it are just as important as the hardware.The Celeron cluster also has 8X CPU cache. A workload that doesn't fit in dual Athlons' cache might fit in octal Celerons. Since main memory is ~10X slower than cache, the speedup in the inner loop can often pay for the slowdown from interprocessor communication.
- ILEC landline
- CLEC landline
- Several wireless providers
- Cable phone (I think)
I have the following broadband data choices:- ILEC ISDN/DSL/T1
- CLEC ISDN/DSL/T1
- Cable modem
- Satellite
- City fiber network
And I have the following video choices:True competition, range of services, and price of service are excellent, and seem to only be getting better. Your claims that the oppressive US government is colluding with megacorporations to exploit me is patently ludicrous. If you do actually have local problems, then fine, you have identified a golden business opportunity in your own back yard, and I suggest you get off your ass and start a CLEC instead of whining about how there's no competition. Remember that free markets are created by selling.
Now keeping commerce going might indeed be the best thing for the economy, but it sure looks corrupt at first glance.
While Lucas is at it, Natalie Portman could use some petrification.
I'm not necessarily advocating RDMBS-as-filesystem, but the idea does have some merit.
Hierarchical is a special case of relational: 1) Each item has a foreign key for its parent directory, or NULL if it's in the root. 2) There is a UNIQUE constraint on foreign key + item name.
1. Software is not a zero-sum game. New software tends to increase the demand for new software. E.g., a cheap, good image editor would increase the demand for archiving and indexing software. The free software community in particular is most skilled at creating infrastructure and libraries that enable new applications. E.g., Linux + Apache + Perl + PostgresQL == the huge market for corporate web apps that did not exist 10 years ago.
2. If it was a zero-sum game, some people will be less able to adapt to the new market. Assuming you are clever and adaptable, free software would hurt your competitors more than it hurts you. Conversely, stupidity and inflexibility are not grounds for complaint.
Free software == not tying people's hands using copyright law.Free software != not needing any money.
Microsoft also specifically claimed that no other languages were available for the Java machine, which is patently false. The claim that developers "cannot use knowledge or code from other languages" is equally absurd. The Java language is sufficiently similar to other modern high-level languages that tricky algorithms in any language are worthwhile to port, and C/C++ code can be ported in many cases with trivial formatting fixes.
Why are they lying about Java? Because the courts slapped them down when they tried to "embrace and extend" it. The .NET campaign is a blatant attempt to displace existing systems that are viable but not controlled by Microsoft.
[Insert joke about dead people being stupid because the retarded wave catches up...]
I second Go To. I haven't finished reading it yet, but it's got good material on the early development of modern computing. Definitely not the usual Sili Valley and/or Microsoft story.
The more I think about it, the more I like your approach. The files can be indexed and organized into arbitrary structures, and the RDBMS does all the heavy lifting.