The problem is, you've already seen 2/3rd of the triology. Would you really put down a book after 2/3rds, or stop watching a show after 2/3rds of the season?
Bad analogy. Once I've bought a book, I've already paid for that final 1/3rd (along with the rest of it). I haven't paid to see the final 1/3rd of the Matrix trilogy, yet.
I'm debating whether or not to see the third movie, and one of the things I'm thinking is: "Do I want to financially reward the people who made this movie for what they have done?" And right now the answer is looking like no. They've taken an excellent movie and tacked on a couple of crap sequels that are so bad that they are going to poison my enjoyment of the first movie.
How soon we forget. Anyone remember how useless the Internet was on 11 September 2001?
No, actually. What I remember is getting a blow-by-blow via IM from a friend in NYC, and watching him gradually become unhinged as events progressed.
Maybe the major news sites had trouble with the load, but that's hardly an indictment of the net at large. For many on that day, it was far more useful than the telephone networks (wired or wireless).
Also, what kind of dollar figure would put on supporting a domestic, renewable, clean-burning, CO2-neutral fuel that does NOT encourage wars or cause bloodshed ?
I find what you've written interesting, but I have to ask: Is the plant matter from which your biodiesel is made grown without the use of petrochemical fertilizers? If not, then it's not CO2-neutral, and does cause bloodshed.
If raising gas taxes is the solution, why don't I see Europeans driving around in fuel cell cars even though they already pay too much in gas taxes?
Uh, ever spent any time in Europe? You'll see people there driving cars that look like something an American would give to their 8-year-old for a birthday present.
I'm pretty sure you could get all (or most of) the extra patches and drivers (like USB support) in SE from windows update without having to purchase an upgrade. At least in Windows you aren't forced to pay for patches to get bug fixes.
You aren't forced to do so on the Mac, either. Unless the Software Update program on my Mac that recently bumped me from OS X.2.7 to OS X.2.8 is just a hallucination on my part.
this is the core basic shortcoming of Linux and it's relatives - kernel developers get screwed into working for free.
How so? Do men in black ski masks come in the night to take them at gunpoint to the secret open source compound, where they're shackled to a workstation and made to code 'round the clock?
Yeah, some work for free (though, not all -- plenty of the people making contributions to the kernel are drawing a paycheck for doing so), but certainly nobody is 'screwed into it'.
Further, due to the strong separation between normal users and the privileged root user, our Linux user would have to be running as root to really do any damage to the system. He could damage his/home directory, but that's about it.
Oh, so the virus can't damage the system, only my/home directory? Is that supposed to be some sort of consolation? If the OS gets damaged, I can reinstall. But if my/home directory gets destroyed, it's a complete catastrophe. (Or rather, it would be if I didn't back up compulsively.) That's where all my email and chat archives, digital photos, and the code and other documents I've written all live. That data is literally priceless, in my eyes.
Foul up my system, and all I've lost is the few hours it takes me to reinstall. Destroy my/home, and you've taken away my primary record of my travels and other activities and my creative output for the last several years. Only a total gearhead with no sense for how and why normal people use their computers could value the 'system' over the personal data that resides in/home.
It's true that management failures played a role in both accidents. But if the shuttle were a well-designed, well-thought-out vehicle, rather than the non-cost-effective maintenance nightmare that it apparently is, it wouldn't be such a juicy target for budget cuts.
Aside from all that, the way the astronauts work on missions is very, very robot-like. Everything is scheduled, months in advance. Down to the minute, I understand. They're able to exercise their capacity for rational decision making only to a very slight degree. Their presence in space has far more to do with publicity needs and human ego than with with any practical utility.
No, but only introverts love to assume that they are smarter. Everybody else tends to just discount it as a stupid source of entertainment.
Look, there are lots of Slashbots who could use a reality check about how intelligent they actually are relative to 'average' people, and who need to be disabused of the notion that their introversion is evidence of superiority.
But at this point, you're really just engaging in the sort of groundless broad generalizations about 'introverts' that you accuse the 'introverts' of harboring about others.
This is the same when you do any sort of scientific test. Eliminate all variables except the ones that you're testing for. We're trying to test processors and processors only.
Er, no. We're trying to compare systems And one aspect of a system is the compiler(s) available for it.
That said, I don't see anything terribly bad about Apple's benchmarks. Faster compilers than GCC are likely available for the 970, and given some of the past ICC benchmarks shenanigans, I'm not convinced that the 'official' numbers for the Dell (which I presume are ICC-derived) bear any great relationship to real-world performance.
...they should have also left all of Intel's default options (including hyperthreading) enabled for all tests...
<sigh> If anything, leaving HT disabled most likely helped the Dell. (For those who don't feel like clicking: The link points to a report published by Dell showing that disabling HT noticably boosts SPEC scores.
Incorporated into Intel Xeon processors, Hyper-Threading technology can provide great benefits to server applications. Unfortunately, it can also degrade system performance in certain scenarios such as those simulated by the compute-intensive SPEC CPU2000 and Linpack benchmarks.
At the very least, it's not clear that disabling HT was a deliberate attempt to hurt the P4 or Xeon's performance.
I really can't understand why the author of this piece takes the SPEC numbers provided by Intel and Dell at face value, rather than investigating them in detail the way he has with Apple's; Those guys have certainly done as much twiddling to perform well on those tests as Apple has.
And I can't understand why there's a problem with using GCC on the intel over ICC. Sure, GCC doesn't produce the fastest code for the x86. But it doesn't produce the fastest code for the PPC, either; For that you'd want to use the IBM compiler.
And the repeated claim that for "most people" integer performance is what matters is somewhat stupid: For the "most people" who are mostly exercising integer performance (i.e for web browsing, emails, word processing), a top-end box like the ones being compared here is overkill. For the people who do need this sort of speed, it's much more likely that there will be a large amount of FP in the mix.
...even classic Pink Floyd albums, while rich with hit singles, are better appreciated as a musical whole...
Pink Floyd? Hit singles? Are you kidding? Floyd is one of the classic examples of an album-oriented group. Maybe a lot of their songs get played as singles on 'classic rock' stations, but if you look at the track list for, say, "Animals", it's pretty obvious that the album is intended to be taken as a thematic whole.
"Steve Jobs simply loves the "wow" he gets from the audience by completely surprising them."
Like you are any more likey to know this than the original poster knowing it was a leak on purpose.
That Steve Jobs is a showman and enjoys surprising audiences with new hardware is undeniable. If you aren't aware of this, then you haven't been paying attention to Apple for very long.
You're misunderstanding the analogy. The point isn't that engine RPM doesn't matter, because the law limits how fast you can go anyways. The point is that engine RPM is only one factor out of many that determine a car's overall performance. Similarly, clock speed of the CPU is only one factor out of many that determine a computer's overall performance.
Gosh, thanks for pointing this out. The military probably doesn't have anyone bright enough to think of this issue, themselves. They'll probably cancel this whole project, now.
I agree. I realized that the world where Zion lives isn't real as soon as Agent Smith downloaded himself to it at the beginning.
I'm not sure that Smith exactly downloaded himself; Remember the part where his 'victim' starts carving on his own hand. Seems slightly insane, to me; Certainly not very Smith-like. My impression is that his victim was not overwritten, but rather that he was implanted with a compulsion to aid the machines, and is now slightly insane as a result of the violence of that act.
No criticism that contains language like "fucktard" is valuable.
This is simplistic crap.
And JWZ, the Emacs nut, has the gall to criticize MPlayer for requiring users to remember a few keystrokes. I mean, c'mon, how many Emacs users chuckled when they read that?:-D
Emacs, more than anything, is a programmer's editor. When programming as a task becomes as conceptually simple as watching a movie, you might have a point. You might be waiting a while, though.
Uh, with multiple browser windows all the windows can be seen at once (in the dock), the user can see exactly what they want (an image of the page, even, in the dock), and they can reach for it with a single click on the dock.
Everything you say is only true if you've minimized the browser window you're looking for. If, instead, you've left it full-size and it's gotten lost under other windows, it won't be in the dock.
Slashdot Mirror
Bad analogy. Once I've bought a book, I've already paid for that final 1/3rd (along with the rest of it). I haven't paid to see the final 1/3rd of the Matrix trilogy, yet.
I'm debating whether or not to see the third movie, and one of the things I'm thinking is: "Do I want to financially reward the people who made this movie for what they have done?" And right now the answer is looking like no. They've taken an excellent movie and tacked on a couple of crap sequels that are so bad that they are going to poison my enjoyment of the first movie.
No, actually. What I remember is getting a blow-by-blow via IM from a friend in NYC, and watching him gradually become unhinged as events progressed.
Maybe the major news sites had trouble with the load, but that's hardly an indictment of the net at large. For many on that day, it was far more useful than the telephone networks (wired or wireless).
I find what you've written interesting, but I have to ask: Is the plant matter from which your biodiesel is made grown without the use of petrochemical fertilizers? If not, then it's not CO2-neutral, and does cause bloodshed.
Uh, ever spent any time in Europe? You'll see people there driving cars that look like something an American would give to their 8-year-old for a birthday present.
The cost might be roughly the same in dollars, but it's certainly not the same in time and trouble.
You aren't forced to do so on the Mac, either. Unless the Software Update program on my Mac that recently bumped me from OS X.2.7 to OS X.2.8 is just a hallucination on my part.
How so? Do men in black ski masks come in the night to take them at gunpoint to the secret open source compound, where they're shackled to a workstation and made to code 'round the clock?
Yeah, some work for free (though, not all -- plenty of the people making contributions to the kernel are drawing a paycheck for doing so), but certainly nobody is 'screwed into it'.
From the article:
Further, due to the strong separation between normal users and the privileged root user, our Linux user would have to be running as root to really do any damage to the system. He could damage his /home directory, but that's about it.
Oh, so the virus can't damage the system, only my /home directory? Is that supposed to be some sort of consolation? If the OS gets damaged, I can reinstall. But if my /home directory gets destroyed, it's a complete catastrophe. (Or rather, it would be if I didn't back up compulsively.) That's where all my email and chat archives, digital photos, and the code and other documents I've written all live. That data is literally priceless, in my eyes.
Foul up my system, and all I've lost is the few hours it takes me to reinstall. Destroy my /home, and you've taken away my primary record of my travels and other activities and my creative output for the last several years. Only a total gearhead with no sense for how and why normal people use their computers could value the 'system' over the personal data that resides in /home.
It's true that management failures played a role in both accidents. But if the shuttle were a well-designed, well-thought-out vehicle, rather than the non-cost-effective maintenance nightmare that it apparently is, it wouldn't be such a juicy target for budget cuts.
Aside from all that, the way the astronauts work on missions is very, very robot-like. Everything is scheduled, months in advance. Down to the minute, I understand. They're able to exercise their capacity for rational decision making only to a very slight degree. Their presence in space has far more to do with publicity needs and human ego than with with any practical utility.
Look, there are lots of Slashbots who could use a reality check about how intelligent they actually are relative to 'average' people, and who need to be disabused of the notion that their introversion is evidence of superiority.
But at this point, you're really just engaging in the sort of groundless broad generalizations about 'introverts' that you accuse the 'introverts' of harboring about others.
Idiot.
Er, no. We're trying to compare systems And one aspect of a system is the compiler(s) available for it.
That said, I don't see anything terribly bad about Apple's benchmarks. Faster compilers than GCC are likely available for the 970, and given some of the past ICC benchmarks shenanigans, I'm not convinced that the 'official' numbers for the Dell (which I presume are ICC-derived) bear any great relationship to real-world performance.
<sigh> If anything, leaving HT disabled most likely helped the Dell. (For those who don't feel like clicking: The link points to a report published by Dell showing that disabling HT noticably boosts SPEC scores.
If anything, this probably worked to the Dell's advantage.
- The Mac was using a memory cheat.
This may be a fair point, but it's not yet clear; Given the guy's track record on other issues, I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt, here.
- On the Dell they disabled some Pentium optimizations.
The disabled optimizations were the SSE2 instructions. Considering that Altivec was disabled on the G5, this doesn't seem particularly unfair.
If this report published by Dell is any indication, HT actually hurts performance on the SPEC benchmarks.
From the conclusion of the report:
At the very least, it's not clear that disabling HT was a deliberate attempt to hurt the P4 or Xeon's performance.
I really can't understand why the author of this piece takes the SPEC numbers provided by Intel and Dell at face value, rather than investigating them in detail the way he has with Apple's; Those guys have certainly done as much twiddling to perform well on those tests as Apple has.
And I can't understand why there's a problem with using GCC on the intel over ICC. Sure, GCC doesn't produce the fastest code for the x86. But it doesn't produce the fastest code for the PPC, either; For that you'd want to use the IBM compiler.
And the repeated claim that for "most people" integer performance is what matters is somewhat stupid: For the "most people" who are mostly exercising integer performance (i.e for web browsing, emails, word processing), a top-end box like the ones being compared here is overkill. For the people who do need this sort of speed, it's much more likely that there will be a large amount of FP in the mix.
Pink Floyd? Hit singles? Are you kidding? Floyd is one of the classic examples of an album-oriented group. Maybe a lot of their songs get played as singles on 'classic rock' stations, but if you look at the track list for, say, "Animals", it's pretty obvious that the album is intended to be taken as a thematic whole.
Like you are any more likey to know this than the original poster knowing it was a leak on purpose.
That Steve Jobs is a showman and enjoys surprising audiences with new hardware is undeniable. If you aren't aware of this, then you haven't been paying attention to Apple for very long.
You're misunderstanding the analogy. The point isn't that engine RPM doesn't matter, because the law limits how fast you can go anyways. The point is that engine RPM is only one factor out of many that determine a car's overall performance. Similarly, clock speed of the CPU is only one factor out of many that determine a computer's overall performance.
Gosh, thanks for pointing this out. The military probably doesn't have anyone bright enough to think of this issue, themselves. They'll probably cancel this whole project, now.
I'm not sure that Smith exactly downloaded himself; Remember the part where his 'victim' starts carving on his own hand. Seems slightly insane, to me; Certainly not very Smith-like. My impression is that his victim was not overwritten, but rather that he was implanted with a compulsion to aid the machines, and is now slightly insane as a result of the violence of that act.
This is simplistic crap.
And JWZ, the Emacs nut, has the gall to criticize MPlayer for requiring users to remember a few keystrokes. I mean, c'mon, how many Emacs users chuckled when they read that? :-D
Emacs, more than anything, is a programmer's editor. When programming as a task becomes as conceptually simple as watching a movie, you might have a point. You might be waiting a while, though.
In a small apartment, yes, it does.
In addition, I prefer to have the desk flush against the wall so that things can't easily fall behind it.
Everything you say is only true if you've minimized the browser window you're looking for. If, instead, you've left it full-size and it's gotten lost under other windows, it won't be in the dock.