That's because if you are Company X when you need to buy 20 servers you don't want to build them by hand and deal with the faulty parts.
After all Company X is NOT in the server assembling and delivery business. Neither is your IT department.
Dell is.
And Dell stuff isn't _that_ crap. In fact I dislike HP and Compaqs more for their proprietary BIOS/drivers/crap. That Dells are closer to clones to me isn't such a minus.
You can go build your server part by part if you only need a few every couple of years. But you're not much of a market. And so I doubt Dell cares as much about you.
Uh Microsoft has done this lots and they aren't that unsuccessful.
The secret is they actually do listen to their customers eventually. And give them what they can put up with.
Dell DOES listen. I believe Dell shifted back some of their support centres to North America after they got lots of complaints.
HP didn't.
I don't think Dell are stupid. So far Intel is probably giving them VERY VERY good reasons to stay Intel-only. I'm sure they can work out the dollars and cents.
I suspect they probably even show the "Opteron requests" in one form or another to Intel. So just keep asking Dell for Opterons if you want to turn up the heat on Intel;).
I suspect pollitra is probably a euphemism for The Standard Volume of Vodka and thus one litre converts to two vodkas;).
Seriously though if it's slices of meat like ham. I just ask them for X slices of meat. And ask them to show me the first slice to make sure it's the thickness I want.
In fact, I put it that geeks are more materialistic on average.
Even if you don't believe in the afterlife it's a good concept to help figure out what is materialistic and what isn't.
And I strongly suspect the geeky stuff is pretty much irrelevant in the afterlife/heaven.
In jobs like nursing/teaching you are taking care of _people_. AFAIK, there are people in most versions of the afterlife/heaven.
Whereas the only way writing cool programs (no matter how cool) or making other geeky stuff is going to get you any mileage in the afterlife is indirect - someone else there found it cool...
Same goes for a financial type job where you are just shifting money around (or even just counting it)...
Yah, they're worried that the geeky members of the species will go extinct!
In the old days, the geeks had a chance because people didn't have as much mobility... Now the women can just go find mates elsewhere and they do.
It's just like what happens in those zoos where they transport rare rhinos/primates/etc from one country to another, and put the two in enclosed areas together for weeks at a time, and hope that they'd mate.;)
Thing is: it's the extreme ones who make the difference in most cases.
Ms/Mr "Quite Smart" doesn't usually come up with the Theory of Relativity and stuff like that.
While cannon fodder has its place, in a field like IT, a smart person can often get a computer to do the job of 10 or even 100 mediocre people. Google has just a few hundred people. They probably have more than 100,000 servers.
I think the US there's a bigger stigma against guys doing girls stuff - with remarks like "girlie men" and so on....
Over here it's probably more the money factor. As you said there's not much money in the "girl jobs". It's probably because as a study indicated - most women just don't ask for more - they settle for what they are offered (they may grumble later but it's in the contract by that time).
Also I dunno if I could do nursing - cleaning patients of their shit every day isn't something I'm interested in. It's an honourable profession and probably more useful to society than all these IT stuff, but... Nah not for me.
I wouldn't mind taking care of little kids. BUT seems like half the girls in my church would probably do it for _free_. They just love carrying the cuter little kids, etc.
Seems IT jobs don't pay that well relatively in the US.. So must be some US nerds do it just coz they get nice toys to play with...
Over here IT definitely pays better than nursing. BUT a Montessori certified kindergarten teacher can draw in significant bucks...
Even if it was my car I'd settle for a _new_ car + damages + pay for my transport costs (till I get the car), in lieu of jail for him. If I really was pissed off - car had sentimental value etc. I'd just be happy with a max 1 year jail time (coz jail time often means a bigger mark in your record).
I don't see how it benefits anyone to send him to jail for 22 years 8 months. Even the min 7 years is rather long.
If you set fire to 3 people, to me that'll be really different. But 3 SUVs?
While random damage to property should be discouraged, I think the judge is doing a lot more damage than Jeff did to the SUVs and the owners.
If the judge can't tell the difference between the seriousness of damaging cars and directly damaging people, I think the judge should be put in prison to keep the public safe from him.
Yep you're right. It's not about real technology or advancing Solar Energy. It's not about real world stuff and it's not about solving real world problems.
It's just another of those silly sports. Especially those involving college/uni students;).
For a dose of reality: you only get 1kW to 1.5kW max per square metre from sunlight on the earth's surface (and I think I'm being very generous).
Car air conditioning probably takes about 2-3kW. Car heating = 1kW.
Where I stay, driving a car without airconditioning in mid afternoon is torture. The more sunlight you have the more airconditioning you need...
Assuming 15% solar cell efficiency, you'd need 12-18 square metres to generate the 2-3kW just for airconditioning. Worse with 15% solar cell efficiency, I sure hope you can reflect/deflect the 85% of the energy you don't use, otherwise you will _really_ need MORE cooling...
Cars are about roughly 1.7 metres wide by 4.5 metres long? (6 feet wide by 15 feet long?). That's only 7.65 square metres.
After you deduct power for heating or airconditioning it sure doesn't look like there's much spare power for accelerating a car to merge safely into a freeway eh? If you have four near-obese passengers plus some luggage, even a carbon fibre chassis isn't going to take the total weight much below 500kg...
So forgive me if I think this solar car stuff is really silly. A waste of time even.
It may be a pleasant waste of time or even fun. I've nothing against that actually.
But the ASC's website claims that it is about: "A greater understanding of solar energy technology, its environmental benefits and its promise for the future;"
I doubt that solar energy's promise for the future will involve mounting solar cells on a car.
If it's 99% true, then perhaps more than 80% of programmers shouldn't be writing in C. (Judging from the posts on this discussion I think I'm right;) ).
Because IMO nowadays writing in C is usually a premature optimization.
With all the GHz CPUs, higher level languages are often more than fast enough. It's usually the design and algorithms that you have to get right.
The advantage of writing in a higher level language first is you write far fewer lines of code - esp if the Customers keep changing their minds every month.
Optimizing at low levels only gives you linear improvements in speed. Doesn't help you if the system slows exponentially.
What I mean by linear is:
Say you use the same algorithm. #1: fast low level language, optimized. #2: in a fast low level language. #3: high level language.
If #3 is 4 times slower than #1 in most cases it'll always be 4 times slower. Same if #2 is 10% times slower than #1.
Whereas a high level optimization can gain you lots more.
On a fair size complex system it's probably best to write stuff/modules in a high level language first and then replace them with C or hand assembly later if necessary.
Maybe it is wasteful. But at least you can say to the people doing it - the informal spec is: "it's got to work exactly like what you are replacing - only faster". After all that module is already working:).
Call the stuff in the high level language your pseudocode. The equivalent of the plastic/clay model or prototype.
I'd say short names are fine when it's not really important - the stuff is rather transient and has only relevance in local context of the code. Like the i and n stuff mentioned that everyone will just reset again and reuse somewhere else down the line.
AC= "Here it is simply. If someone else bids 100 then you bid $100.10 You are now the high bidder at $100.10. If you did nothing else and no one else bid you would win at $100.10. But if you decide you really want the item and bid like $150.00. Ebay will raise the price to $102.50. Which means you just bid against your self. This guy actually has a point in my opinion."
Some people can tell what makes a hit single and what doesn't (not necessarily that they can make one).
HOWEVER, there is no guarantee that their "hit single" sense will be as good as it is, or be consistent. Who knows how reliable your math intuition is?
As such corporates are always looking for ways to quantify such stuff.
The danger is that they will miss entirely new and cool stuff - since if they are mapping human tastes, it is unlikely to be that accurate - accurate enough to make a profit, but subpar enough to possibly set back discovery of new stuff for a long time.
BUT calculator and computer stuff like what these savants are doing are often quite easily defined and narrow in scope, so rather than depend on the vagaries of perishable neurons, for these tasks I'd prefer to depend on the likes of Casio, AMD et all.
Thus if you want savant skills, rather than risking brain damage, you'd be better off waiting for wearable/implantable computers AND extra auxiliary senses/inputs and outputs. You'd have video+audio memory, telepathy and possibly a form of telekinesis (if a room/area is suitably enabled). ( Gun muzzle recognition might be very useful for soldiers, so would be instant triangulation of shots).
But the more human stuff is likely to still remain a core competency.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because if you are Company X when you need to buy 20 servers you don't want to build them by hand and deal with the faulty parts.
After all Company X is NOT in the server assembling and delivery business. Neither is your IT department.
Dell is.
And Dell stuff isn't _that_ crap. In fact I dislike HP and Compaqs more for their proprietary BIOS/drivers/crap. That Dells are closer to clones to me isn't such a minus.
You can go build your server part by part if you only need a few every couple of years. But you're not much of a market. And so I doubt Dell cares as much about you.
Hmm. I wonder what happened to the ServerWorks chipset for Opteron:
. as p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1604929,00
I believe Dell uses ServerWorks for many of their servers.
Apple sold what its customers now know they want.
:). (Just like Microsoft).
Dell sells what its customers would put up with
But HP sold (or at least tried to sell) what it's ex-CEO and gang thought it should sell.
IBM? I don't know IBM. But it seems IBM sells complexity (or gives it away for free) so that it can sell services.
When customers get too close to not putting up with stuff, Dell changes. Just like cancelling that outsource to India thing.
I suspect that Intel-Dell deal is really really sweet. I wonder if there are get-out/compensation clauses and what they are...
Uh Microsoft has done this lots and they aren't that unsuccessful.
;).
The secret is they actually do listen to their customers eventually. And give them what they can put up with.
Dell DOES listen. I believe Dell shifted back some of their support centres to North America after they got lots of complaints.
HP didn't.
I don't think Dell are stupid. So far Intel is probably giving them VERY VERY good reasons to stay Intel-only. I'm sure they can work out the dollars and cents.
I suspect they probably even show the "Opteron requests" in one form or another to Intel. So just keep asking Dell for Opterons if you want to turn up the heat on Intel
I thought in Soviet Russia the System uses you!
;).
And everything is measured in terms of vodka.
I suspect pollitra is probably a euphemism for The Standard Volume of Vodka and thus one litre converts to two vodkas
Seriously though if it's slices of meat like ham. I just ask them for X slices of meat. And ask them to show me the first slice to make sure it's the thickness I want.
In fact, I put it that geeks are more materialistic on average.
Even if you don't believe in the afterlife it's a good concept to help figure out what is materialistic and what isn't.
And I strongly suspect the geeky stuff is pretty much irrelevant in the afterlife/heaven.
In jobs like nursing/teaching you are taking care of _people_. AFAIK, there are people in most versions of the afterlife/heaven.
Whereas the only way writing cool programs (no matter how cool) or making other geeky stuff is going to get you any mileage in the afterlife is indirect - someone else there found it cool...
Same goes for a financial type job where you are just shifting money around (or even just counting it)...
Yah, they're worried that the geeky members of the species will go extinct!
;)
In the old days, the geeks had a chance because people didn't have as much mobility... Now the women can just go find mates elsewhere and they do.
It's just like what happens in those zoos where they transport rare rhinos/primates/etc from one country to another, and put the two in enclosed areas together for weeks at a time, and hope that they'd mate.
Uh, with 99% females why would you be bothered about the gay dudes?
Child education can pay quite well in some places.
Thing is: it's the extreme ones who make the difference in most cases.
Ms/Mr "Quite Smart" doesn't usually come up with the Theory of Relativity and stuff like that.
While cannon fodder has its place, in a field like IT, a smart person can often get a computer to do the job of 10 or even 100 mediocre people. Google has just a few hundred people. They probably have more than 100,000 servers.
"Why do they always need special treatment, special privileges, and special protection?"
:)
:)
Because they're girls?
If us guys want special privileges/treatment/protection, we'd go get it ourselves.
BTW have you noticed how few women are Dictators of screwed-up nations?
Many women may be Supreme Dictator of their household, but thank goodness for the lack of ambition and lower confidence of women.
Too lazy to look up the link.
I think the US there's a bigger stigma against guys doing girls stuff - with remarks like "girlie men" and so on....
Over here it's probably more the money factor. As you said there's not much money in the "girl jobs". It's probably because as a study indicated - most women just don't ask for more - they settle for what they are offered (they may grumble later but it's in the contract by that time).
Also I dunno if I could do nursing - cleaning patients of their shit every day isn't something I'm interested in. It's an honourable profession and probably more useful to society than all these IT stuff, but... Nah not for me.
I wouldn't mind taking care of little kids. BUT seems like half the girls in my church would probably do it for _free_. They just love carrying the cuter little kids, etc.
Seems IT jobs don't pay that well relatively in the US.. So must be some US nerds do it just coz they get nice toys to play with...
Over here IT definitely pays better than nursing. BUT a Montessori certified kindergarten teacher can draw in significant bucks...
Well there was a guy who used the "bed" method, and the termites ate his money.
That's so screwed up.
Even if it was my car I'd settle for a _new_ car + damages + pay for my transport costs (till I get the car), in lieu of jail for him. If I really was pissed off - car had sentimental value etc. I'd just be happy with a max 1 year jail time (coz jail time often means a bigger mark in your record).
I don't see how it benefits anyone to send him to jail for 22 years 8 months. Even the min 7 years is rather long.
If you set fire to 3 people, to me that'll be really different. But 3 SUVs?
While random damage to property should be discouraged, I think the judge is doing a lot more damage than Jeff did to the SUVs and the owners.
If the judge can't tell the difference between the seriousness of damaging cars and directly damaging people, I think the judge should be put in prison to keep the public safe from him.
Yep you're right. It's not about real technology or advancing Solar Energy. It's not about real world stuff and it's not about solving real world problems.
;).
It's just another of those silly sports. Especially those involving college/uni students
For a dose of reality: you only get 1kW to 1.5kW max per square metre from sunlight on the earth's surface (and I think I'm being very generous).
Car air conditioning probably takes about 2-3kW. Car heating = 1kW.
Where I stay, driving a car without airconditioning in mid afternoon is torture. The more sunlight you have the more airconditioning you need...
Assuming 15% solar cell efficiency, you'd need 12-18 square metres to generate the 2-3kW just for airconditioning. Worse with 15% solar cell efficiency, I sure hope you can reflect/deflect the 85% of the energy you don't use, otherwise you will _really_ need MORE cooling...
Cars are about roughly 1.7 metres wide by 4.5 metres long? (6 feet wide by 15 feet long?). That's only 7.65 square metres.
After you deduct power for heating or airconditioning it sure doesn't look like there's much spare power for accelerating a car to merge safely into a freeway eh? If you have four near-obese passengers plus some luggage, even a carbon fibre chassis isn't going to take the total weight much below 500kg...
So forgive me if I think this solar car stuff is really silly. A waste of time even.
It may be a pleasant waste of time or even fun. I've nothing against that actually.
But the ASC's website claims that it is about:
"A greater understanding of solar energy technology, its environmental benefits and its promise for the future;"
I doubt that solar energy's promise for the future will involve mounting solar cells on a car.
It's just another one of those sports. That's all.
It doesn't really advance solar energy technology at all.
AFAIK you only get 1kW to 1.5kW per square meter from sunlight.
So solar powered land vehicles will never be practical.
Almost.
But Slashdot is closer to an outhouse than a greenhouse.
An outhouse with graffiti and the occasional goatse.cx poster.
Shoot the programmer who uses bogosort.
The programmer will be alive in the universes which bogosort worked well.
For most cases anyway.
There are so many disadvantages, and you only get linear improvements in speed.
Write in a higher level language if you can.
If some guru optimizes the interpreter or compiler you get a linear improvement in speed.
Same if hardware gets faster or improves (e.g. 2nd level cache now big enough to fit your entire program).
If one part is not fast enough, then rewrite that part in C or machine code.
Call the high level language your pseudocode for C if you want.
If it's 99% true, then perhaps more than 80% of programmers shouldn't be writing in C. (Judging from the posts on this discussion I think I'm right ;) ).
:).
Because IMO nowadays writing in C is usually a premature optimization.
With all the GHz CPUs, higher level languages are often more than fast enough. It's usually the design and algorithms that you have to get right.
The advantage of writing in a higher level language first is you write far fewer lines of code - esp if the Customers keep changing their minds every month.
Optimizing at low levels only gives you linear improvements in speed. Doesn't help you if the system slows exponentially.
What I mean by linear is:
Say you use the same algorithm.
#1: fast low level language, optimized.
#2: in a fast low level language.
#3: high level language.
If #3 is 4 times slower than #1 in most cases it'll always be 4 times slower. Same if #2 is 10% times slower than #1.
Whereas a high level optimization can gain you lots more.
On a fair size complex system it's probably best to write stuff/modules in a high level language first and then replace them with C or hand assembly later if necessary.
Maybe it is wasteful. But at least you can say to the people doing it - the informal spec is: "it's got to work exactly like what you are replacing - only faster". After all that module is already working
Call the stuff in the high level language your pseudocode. The equivalent of the plastic/clay model or prototype.
Alternative explanation: it is conceivable that a programmer would want a quick and dirty delay.
On most modern PC CPUs it's not much point looping 1000 times for a delay.
Whereas looping 1e12 times would produce a significant delay.
I'd say short names are fine when it's not really important - the stuff is rather transient and has only relevance in local context of the code. Like the i and n stuff mentioned that everyone will just reset again and reuse somewhere else down the line.
AC= "Here it is simply. If someone else bids 100 then you bid $100.10 You are now the high bidder at $100.10. If you did nothing else and no one else bid you would win at $100.10. But if you decide you really want the item and bid like $150.00. Ebay will raise the price to $102.50. Which means you just bid against your self. This guy actually has a point in my opinion."
Do you mean SGI's version of Linux performs better? Which one is that?
What are the differences?
Hmm, good point.
Question: is there an automatic launch all popups in another desktop feature on Mozilla, Opera or whatever browser?
Some people can tell what makes a hit single and what doesn't (not necessarily that they can make one).
HOWEVER, there is no guarantee that their "hit single" sense will be as good as it is, or be consistent. Who knows how reliable your math intuition is?
As such corporates are always looking for ways to quantify such stuff.
The danger is that they will miss entirely new and cool stuff - since if they are mapping human tastes, it is unlikely to be that accurate - accurate enough to make a profit, but subpar enough to possibly set back discovery of new stuff for a long time.
BUT calculator and computer stuff like what these savants are doing are often quite easily defined and narrow in scope, so rather than depend on the vagaries of perishable neurons, for these tasks I'd prefer to depend on the likes of Casio, AMD et all.
Thus if you want savant skills, rather than risking brain damage, you'd be better off waiting for wearable/implantable computers AND extra auxiliary senses/inputs and outputs. You'd have video+audio memory, telepathy and possibly a form of telekinesis (if a room/area is suitably enabled). ( Gun muzzle recognition might be very useful for soldiers, so would be instant triangulation of shots).
But the more human stuff is likely to still remain a core competency.