Cringley touches on some good points. However his analysis of Google accelerator is seriously lacking in imgaination.
There is a really, really, really, really good reason for Google to go through this "Heroic" effort. In fact, it is almost sickeningly self serving. Googles accelerator will allow them to capture the click stream of every participating user. That is, google will know where you are going, what you are reading, and how long you are reading it for. That is, they will have an entire stream of data to more accurately return search results and target ads. This will also help their page rank system be more "accurate".
This isn't a technology play as Cringely supposes - IBM's not doing this becuase umm, wait they don't do that sort of thing - MS isn't doing it becuase they don't really have a need for the data. Google is "catching" up to companies like double click and poindexter at the moment. Their plan will ultimately give them way more data than any other ad server out there. Online advertising is about data, the more data you have about a user, the larger a profile they can build about you. In google's case they can make their targeted ad offerings far more relevent which will equal $$$.
10.3.10 does not accurately reflect the state of the system. There needs to be another version number added to accurately keep track of the state of the system. M$ ipmlemtents 6 levels now in IE. Probably a good idea.
Let's touch on "update turned out to break things for a lot of people". Indeed. Out of all of the OS vendors out there - Apple has it the easiest. They know - for EVERY computer EVER manufactured what (from a hardware perspective) is in that machine. And YET - this bothers me a lot - their "patches" still break things. What the hell? Apple is great in many ways - but reliability has not been on of them. Their "testing" process needs to be *fixed*. Simple testing techniques are not enough. I have no idea what kind/type of testing process they implement, but it needs to be more thorough than it is currently. Also - they need to understand that you can't just "break" something and say "screw the users that are using this API call", it's not a resonable and fair way to develop your OS. Unfortunately Apple has a history of breaking changes, so I'm thinking that this maybe more of a philisophical issue than a technical issue.
Finally, a "patch" is not 20 mb. Apple would have you believe otherwise, as many patches exceed that threshold. I'm not sure why, or how they get this big but something about that needs to be done as well. Why? It hurts patch acceptance rates and download rates. It also increases patch time. Also, patches need to be more intelligent. An example, why should I download a 10mb patch for a freaking airport card that I don't have? Less is more.
This all goes back to the fact that there are not four places on the OS version, only three. Apple is still learning what it is to develop a *real* operating system. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually.
#1 - Not immediately no. The technology that is developed to do this is of significant value to future attempts at living in other environments - or space.
#2 - This propulsion system has everything to do with getting us to planets within our solar system. Up until the announcement of this project we have had chemical rockets to push us around the solar system. They are not suited to prolonged flights. This development is exceedingly important for getting us to destinations outside of lunar orbit.
#3 Consider your words more carefully. But our economy already stands on the verge of collapse. This is not, in anyway a true statement. It's an alarmist over exaggeration of what's going on. Things have a way of sorting themselves out when it comes to the economy. Given the level of data available and the fact that people are managing the markets on a day to day basis - a "collapse" is not likely.
As far as threats to the world: Global Warming - perhaps by the end of this century this will become a problem. The reality is that it's not just a U.S. problem - thus it's not truly "fixable". Fixing global warming has very little to do with money and everything to do with policy. As far as events that pose a threat to humanity this is certainly one - however a migration to say mars, could be realistic within the time frame of this event actually causing a great deal of trouble for us.
Overpopulation is another interesting one. Did you know that densely populated areas are showing a decline in the birth to death ratio? That is more people are dying than being born. The evidence is starting to indicate that at least in urban areas populations are self limiting. Good news. Obviously this doesn't help in Africa where there just isn't enough food, and no contraception available. Again with global warming - the U.S. throwing money at this problem isn't going to fix anything.
Terrorism? How is that an immediate threat? Yes, it's a concern but as far as having the ability to destroy our civilization. Terrorism is at its worst a "new" form of combat, that isn't liked by those (G8) who play by "rules". Either way - it's not going to bring down the house. Money might help this problem - but I'm not sure that it's any more important than ensuring we (humans) survive.
The one thing that you touched on that has some validity is fossil fuel depletion. Depending on how badly the Saudis have depleted their oil fields (no one really knows) - the next 30 years could be very rough. The overarching problem with "Fossil Fuels" is not the fossil fuels but the lack of innovation in energy technology. Ideally the replacement for oil is a combination of Fusion and Hydrogen. We might have to suffice with Nuclear and Hydrogen, but the world needs to start now - and from what I can tell that is not happening. Wind, Solar, Tidal is great but it's not going to supply heavy industry with the regular and massive amount of power that is needed to run our economy. Money might actually help here - but we're not spending it.
I want my tax dollars going to more practical use, and so should we all Who are you to tell us what we should endeavor to do with our tax dollars? In reality - "tax dollars" and actual budgets have very little in common.
Are we supposed to suddenly believe that the organization that lacks the funding to complete the Voyager project now suddenly has the money to undertake this much more expensive mission? No my friend, they lack the desire. If they wanted to save it - they would. Apparently, like you they want to stay focused on projects that have immediate value. Those are missions within our solar system. The Great Unknown and what we could learn from it seems to be less attractive. As far as I can tell the probe is expected to continue transmitting until the 2030's but there seems to be no reference to the actual "mission" lifetime. The probes have both completed their primary mission and it would seem are fair game for discontinuation.
I think you are wrong. We (humans) are always going to have issues; almost every human on earth has problems. Our issues are not getting any less complex or solvable as time progresses.
Thus, if you think long term - our races only choice will be to travel to other stars and planets to ensure our survival.
Programs like this will better prepare us for the road ahead.
Several times a second? What can you garner from that kind of resolution in speed? Perhaps you are looking to analyze the impact of the rudder on the boats performance?
Having been a varstiy cox for a top D1 rowing team I've never needed such information to make my boat faster.
The speed coach is a very good device. Short of rebuilding it, you will not find anything that will come close to it's level of accuracy (or durability). If you're looking for a device that can dump to a PC (presumably Mac as well) have a look here. It's not that expensive and comes with all of the hardware that you would have to build yourself.
Your only other option is to find an impeller, and get a data logger and make it waterproof. You'll also need a display and a C compiler to drive the impeller -> display conversions.
I guess the question is how much is your time worth?
Imagine when your coffee maker is running out of coffee, it tries to sell you more coffee - except that the coffee is half a pound less and twice as expensive as a bag down at your local grocery store.
It might be a *feature* if we were getting a great deal on printer supplies because it's being supplied by Apple, but we're not we're getting marketed to. I don't approve of that.
Furthermore - I don't approve of Apple using my fsking operating system as a platform to sell me crap like.Mac.
Perhaps too strong a statement. My intention was to say for the time being amd is not addressing the Desktop market. They don't need to, they own it. AMD64 = Performance in cosumers eyes. Of course, their dual core technology will be transitioned into the dektop market. Production of desktop dual cores doesn't need to be their priority until such time that Intel produces something that endangers their superiority in the dektop market.
Before everyone gets excited about Intel's dual core - you should review some of the benchmarks at tomshardware or anandtech. The speed improvements are not that great. In fact performance in a gaming environment is not as good as their high end single core chips.
Intel is currently pandering to the gamer/workstation market. Given the Dell XPS announcement - clearly a target is the gamer. Is it really though? Would any self respecting gamer buy a Dell as their "l33t boXor"? Would they not already know that the nVidia + ATI + AMD64 platform represents the pinnacle of performance in the gamer world? Probably. I'm not sure that dell is going to see the boost to their XPS line that they'd like from the addition of this chip. Intel does get points for getting their earlier but it's not nearly the lead that AMD took a year ago with the deployment of the AMD64 3X00+ desktop processors. The bottom line however is that if you are planning to buy a new machine and actually do a little research you'll find that the Intel chips are not as fast dual core or not - as the AMD chips.
As far as workstation performance goes - the chip seems to hold it's own with some decent performance gains. The real issue with this chip and the architecture as a whole is memory bandwidth. For truly intensive processing tasks, video, audio, data processing, computationally intensive tasks, a fast memory bus makes a world of difference. Intel doesn't seem to have the architecture to support these types of task as well as it should. However, this may be the only area that AMD doesn't have covered well primarily due to the cost of their dual core offering. If you are looking for a workstation that can be programmed to handle multiple threads the Intel offering might be for you.
And then there is AMD - totally ignoring the desktop market. Instead they are going after the high end server market. Why? Itanic is dead - and there is a need, and a void for high density, but "cheap" machines. The dual core AMD provides high performance, low heat and competitive performance especially in situations where high memory bandwidth is needed. It also scales 2x further than the competing Xeon servers (The 8XX series could be called the 16XX series). Since the launch of the Opteron two years ago AMD has established the proper channels to deliver these chips to customers. Sun and HP both offer servers with these chips and will also be offering the dual core chips as well.
Pricing - which I think is most telling. AMD's products are priced at the high-end. They are the leader in 64 bit computing (Intels 64-bit approach is architecturally inferior). They will provide organizations who need this technology an upgrade path to the 64-bit world if they are not already in it. AMD chips scale better than the competing Intel technologies. Thus AMD will continue to consolidate their lead in the high end server market. Also, AMD appears confident that their customers will pay for their high end CPUs. In the workstation/gamer market Intel is trying to stoke adoption through lower prices. In some ways this is a contradiction - low priced chip in a high end segment. I'd argue it's the wrong strategy for stemming their loss of market share to AMD. Why go with an Intel dual core when you can get a dual Opteron? They are faster after all.
Though it comes down to the fact that Intel and AMD are after different things. The Opteron platform is a high-end platform. It's clear that AMD is making it a priority. A sound strategy, as Intel's blunder with the Itanium is still continuing to cause a slip in market share. Second is the AMD64 platform which offers great performance at a reasonable price. No doubt, when dual core hits the AMD64 their will be a bit of a premium to pay - it is a sound architecture which is just starting to hit it's stride. Conversely, Intel is trying to stem the bleeding on their desktop lines - clearly they see the high end gaming and workstation segment suffering. How desperate does a company need to be to tack on "Extreme Edition"
This performance was achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) at only the half-system point of the IBM BlueGene/L installation. Last November, just one-quarter of BlueGene/L topped the TOP500 List of the world's top supercomputers.
Is there anything that will be able to touch this when it's complete?
NAT protects at the interface level. Port forwarding is also accomplished at the interface level. The "firewalling" can be done by setting up general port forwards for the interface, and specifying IP filters for address in the NAT pool. This is a "hack" as far as I'm concerned. Primarily because the NAT/Basic Firewall is mislabeled. It's NAT with port forwarding and an option to filter packets. This setup can end up acting like a firewall but it's difficult to setup, use and administer.
ICF protects at the IP Address level, however you cannot specify more than A) IP Address B) Service. So in a multiple IP environment (how many servers, especially web servers do you know that have just one IP address?) ICF is effectively useless.
Hmm what do you know, a marginal level of "firewalling".
I should have had been a little more specific. I'm looking for a firewall from MS, at least on their server OS that has at least as much functionality as IP Chains or PF. The NAT RRAS solution doesn't work very well - nor does the built in ICF.
I have a couple dedicated servers and my biggest beef with 2003 is that it didn't come with a built in software firewall. Not only that, decent 3rd party wares were/are hard to find and had "more than I needed". There are a couple strategies for protecting your interfaces such as using RRAS to nat all outgoing requests, and forward incoming ones, but for whatever reason is difficult to get working correctly.
All in all a welcome update, but I'd like to know why it wasn't part of the original realease.
In one release they will get the features out there - and the next 4 or 5 releases will be spent optimizing performance. It's a step in the right direction - but it will take more time for MySQL to be ready for prime time.
there are serious variations in mobile phone power consumption
That is in essence why the product should be tested with a real phone. The discharge scenario is not at all like a cell phone. A cell phone does have a much more erratic discharge cycle which is nothing AT ALL like the constant discharge that our tester used.
Perhaps the product is "desisgned" to work with this process?
Again, I'm highly skeptical of this product, but you can't just ignore the working conditions. The test environment is nothing like the real usage environment.
This product claims to extend a Li-Ion battery's life by ~40%. His data don't show that.
It's possible that he did prove that. The first three runs show a decrease in battery life each charge/discharge cycle. Then there is a black hole where he charges and discharges the battery 10 more times. Let's say that the battery continuted to lose capacity over the subsequent runs, say to 90 minutes of run time. During the activator test run we saw a run time of 124 minutes. That would have been ~ 37% increase in battery life.
don't defend sloppy marketing practices simply because you have a preconceived notion of what the experimenter's beliefs are
It's not pre-concieved. On numerous occasions within the article he expresses his doubts that the product will work.
I'm not defending the product. I think it's wrong to "test" something like the product and then publish "results" like these. It is irresponsible, what if the product does actually work? We can't know becuase the test methods have no relevance to the procucts actual usage scenario.
What if you turned a computer on and let it run until it would run no more. From this data you state the MTBF. Then, you take the same type of computer and give it to someone. Except in the real world that person turns their computer off and on ten times a day. Is the MTBF number that you found going to apply for them? Probably not since most of the wear on components is during startup. The test that was run is irrelevent - becuase it did not accuratly represent the real world use of the computer.
With a smart charger that cuts all input once the battery is charged, that should have a negligible effect. Of the order of 1% total difference in run time, if any
Hmm how is one to qualify "should"? Do you know for a fact that this is the case? Can you prove it? Although, what I was speaking to was the time between test and run.
Yes, there were replicable conditions and measuring equipment. Pity that Pons and Fleishman didn't have those either.
Replicable conditions testing a dead camera batteries with leads soldered to the terminals and an "estimated" load of 12 ohms. Oh yes, and the camera battery charger. What was this product designed to help? Oh I almost forgot, a cell-phone. It's great that it's repeatable - but this experiment doesn't replicate the environment the product is used in.
Different form, similar internals. Ok, technically it has two cells where most mobiles will only have one. And that'll change the results how?
Well since you seem to have all the answers, tell us! Oh wait, you can't. It's another uncontrolled variable.
And his reasons for not using a phone were clearly explained. 20c worth of testing equipment is immensely easier to obtain than a dedicated laboratory with a GSM cell costing several hundred thousand dollars at a minimum. Charge/discharge of Li-I is reasonably well understood. The device and battery don't really matter, within reason.
Riight, nice over exaggeration. All this guy had to do was test the product with a cell phone. Is that so difficult? The product is clearly designed to work with a cell phone - he didn't even make an attempt to test it under it's normal working conditions. I understand that standby can take a while to discharge but there is really no extra effort involved in waiting for it to discharge.
Possibly, but not worth the extra effort.
It's extra effort now that he has borked test results - but it wouldn't have been if the test was run correctly the first time.
Don't defend sloppy testing practices simply because you have a preconceived notion of what the experiments outcome is.
A great piece of writing, but there are a massive number of variables that he failed to control:
1. Charging/Discharge period between inital tests and activator test were completely random. 2. Only one battery was used. 3. The setup was not similar to the conditions under which the activator would be used. 4. The battery type was not similar to a cellphone. 5. The device handling the charge and discharge of the battery was not a cellphone.
I certainly don't think this product is any good but a more controlled test would have been better.
Also, according to his test the activator gave a 3% boost to the battery. What is interesting is that it is 13 discharge cycles away from Run 1. The first three charge/discharge cycles clearly showed a dependency between # of cycles and battery life. To help clarify, it would have been nice if he kept the data from the intermediate 10 runs.
Maybe it did do something? I find it hard to believe though.
My argument holds quite well - theory and reality are sometimes at odds. Your vague theoretical statements about bit torrent don't change the fact that when downloading a blizzard patch, the download was 30% slower than delivery by direct methods.
You know, in theory I like Bit Torrent. It's a good idea. In practice, in a commercial product that users pay money for, it's not a good choice.
Slashdot Mirror
If the tables were turned, I'm sure apple would do the same thing to tiger direct. Apple has quite a colorful litigeous history.
Cringley touches on some good points. However his analysis of Google accelerator is seriously lacking in imgaination.
There is a really, really, really, really good reason for Google to go through this "Heroic" effort. In fact, it is almost sickeningly self serving. Googles accelerator will allow them to capture the click stream of every participating user. That is, google will know where you are going, what you are reading, and how long you are reading it for. That is, they will have an entire stream of data to more accurately return search results and target ads. This will also help their page rank system be more "accurate".
This isn't a technology play as Cringely supposes - IBM's not doing this becuase umm, wait they don't do that sort of thing - MS isn't doing it becuase they don't really have a need for the data. Google is "catching" up to companies like double click and poindexter at the moment. Their plan will ultimately give them way more data than any other ad server out there. Online advertising is about data, the more data you have about a user, the larger a profile they can build about you. In google's case they can make their targeted ad offerings far more relevent which will equal $$$.
10.3.10 does not accurately reflect the state of the system. There needs to be another version number added to accurately keep track of the state of the system. M$ ipmlemtents 6 levels now in IE. Probably a good idea.
Let's touch on "update turned out to break things for a lot of people". Indeed. Out of all of the OS vendors out there - Apple has it the easiest. They know - for EVERY computer EVER manufactured what (from a hardware perspective) is in that machine. And YET - this bothers me a lot - their "patches" still break things. What the hell? Apple is great in many ways - but reliability has not been on of them. Their "testing" process needs to be *fixed*. Simple testing techniques are not enough. I have no idea what kind/type of testing process they implement, but it needs to be more thorough than it is currently. Also - they need to understand that you can't just "break" something and say "screw the users that are using this API call", it's not a resonable and fair way to develop your OS. Unfortunately Apple has a history of breaking changes, so I'm thinking that this maybe more of a philisophical issue than a technical issue.
Finally, a "patch" is not 20 mb. Apple would have you believe otherwise, as many patches exceed that threshold. I'm not sure why, or how they get this big but something about that needs to be done as well. Why? It hurts patch acceptance rates and download rates. It also increases patch time. Also, patches need to be more intelligent. An example, why should I download a 10mb patch for a freaking airport card that I don't have? Less is more.
This all goes back to the fact that there are not four places on the OS version, only three. Apple is still learning what it is to develop a *real* operating system. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually.
$.02
#1 - Not immediately no. The technology that is developed to do this is of significant value to future attempts at living in other environments - or space.
#2 - This propulsion system has everything to do with getting us to planets within our solar system. Up until the announcement of this project we have had chemical rockets to push us around the solar system. They are not suited to prolonged flights. This development is exceedingly important for getting us to destinations outside of lunar orbit.
#3 Consider your words more carefully. But our economy already stands on the verge of collapse. This is not, in anyway a true statement. It's an alarmist over exaggeration of what's going on. Things have a way of sorting themselves out when it comes to the economy. Given the level of data available and the fact that people are managing the markets on a day to day basis - a "collapse" is not likely.
As far as threats to the world:
Global Warming - perhaps by the end of this century this will become a problem. The reality is that it's not just a U.S. problem - thus it's not truly "fixable". Fixing global warming has very little to do with money and everything to do with policy. As far as events that pose a threat to humanity this is certainly one - however a migration to say mars, could be realistic within the time frame of this event actually causing a great deal of trouble for us.
Overpopulation is another interesting one. Did you know that densely populated areas are showing a decline in the birth to death ratio? That is more people are dying than being born. The evidence is starting to indicate that at least in urban areas populations are self limiting. Good news. Obviously this doesn't help in Africa where there just isn't enough food, and no contraception available. Again with global warming - the U.S. throwing money at this problem isn't going to fix anything.
Terrorism? How is that an immediate threat? Yes, it's a concern but as far as having the ability to destroy our civilization. Terrorism is at its worst a "new" form of combat, that isn't liked by those (G8) who play by "rules". Either way - it's not going to bring down the house. Money might help this problem - but I'm not sure that it's any more important than ensuring we (humans) survive.
The one thing that you touched on that has some validity is fossil fuel depletion. Depending on how badly the Saudis have depleted their oil fields (no one really knows) - the next 30 years could be very rough. The overarching problem with "Fossil Fuels" is not the fossil fuels but the lack of innovation in energy technology. Ideally the replacement for oil is a combination of Fusion and Hydrogen. We might have to suffice with Nuclear and Hydrogen, but the world needs to start now - and from what I can tell that is not happening. Wind, Solar, Tidal is great but it's not going to supply heavy industry with the regular and massive amount of power that is needed to run our economy. Money might actually help here - but we're not spending it.
I want my tax dollars going to more practical use, and so should we all
Who are you to tell us what we should endeavor to do with our tax dollars? In reality - "tax dollars" and actual budgets have very little in common.
Are we supposed to suddenly believe that the organization that lacks the funding to complete the Voyager project now suddenly has the money to undertake this much more expensive mission?
No my friend, they lack the desire. If they wanted to save it - they would. Apparently, like you they want to stay focused on projects that have immediate value. Those are missions within our solar system. The Great Unknown and what we could learn from it seems to be less attractive. As far as I can tell the probe is expected to continue transmitting until the 2030's but there seems to be no reference to the actual "mission" lifetime. The probes have both completed their primary mission and it would seem are fair game for discontinuation.
I think you are wrong. We (humans) are always going to have issues; almost every human on earth has problems. Our issues are not getting any less complex or solvable as time progresses.
Thus, if you think long term - our races only choice will be to travel to other stars and planets to ensure our survival.
Programs like this will better prepare us for the road ahead.
Several times a second? What can you garner from that kind of resolution in speed? Perhaps you are looking to analyze the impact of the rudder on the boats performance?
Having been a varstiy cox for a top D1 rowing team I've never needed such information to make my boat faster.
The speed coach is a very good device. Short of rebuilding it, you will not find anything that will come close to it's level of accuracy (or durability). If you're looking for a device that can dump to a PC (presumably Mac as well) have a look here. It's not that expensive and comes with all of the hardware that you would have to build yourself.
Your only other option is to find an impeller, and get a data logger and make it waterproof. You'll also need a display and a C compiler to drive the impeller -> display conversions.
I guess the question is how much is your time worth?
but they have been responsible in the past so it's not to unreasonable to predict the same going forward.
.Mac is most definately "pushed" on you as a new mac user.
That statement is false. After setting up a Mac, and also in Mail -
Imagine when your coffee maker is running out of coffee, it tries to sell you more coffee - except that the coffee is half a pound less and twice as expensive as a bag down at your local grocery store.
.Mac.
It might be a *feature* if we were getting a great deal on printer supplies because it's being supplied by Apple, but we're not we're getting marketed to. I don't approve of that.
Furthermore - I don't approve of Apple using my fsking operating system as a platform to sell me crap like
FTFA - How is this a feature?
Buy Printing Supplies
Easily purchase supplies for your printer right from Mac OS X Tiger.
I (and I think many others) don't want their operating system selling them crap.
"AMD - totally ignoring the desktop market."
Perhaps too strong a statement. My intention was to say for the time being amd is not addressing the Desktop market. They don't need to, they own it. AMD64 = Performance in cosumers eyes. Of course, their dual core technology will be transitioned into the dektop market. Production of desktop dual cores doesn't need to be their priority until such time that Intel produces something that endangers their superiority in the dektop market.
Oops, make that nVidia + GeForce + AMD. ATI is not the leader in the GFX gaming mkt at the moment.
Before everyone gets excited about Intel's dual core - you should review some of the benchmarks at tomshardware or anandtech. The speed improvements are not that great. In fact performance in a gaming environment is not as good as their high end single core chips.
Intel is currently pandering to the gamer/workstation market. Given the Dell XPS announcement - clearly a target is the gamer. Is it really though? Would any self respecting gamer buy a Dell as their "l33t boXor"? Would they not already know that the nVidia + ATI + AMD64 platform represents the pinnacle of performance in the gamer world? Probably. I'm not sure that dell is going to see the boost to their XPS line that they'd like from the addition of this chip. Intel does get points for getting their earlier but it's not nearly the lead that AMD took a year ago with the deployment of the AMD64 3X00+ desktop processors. The bottom line however is that if you are planning to buy a new machine and actually do a little research you'll find that the Intel chips are not as fast dual core or not - as the AMD chips.
As far as workstation performance goes - the chip seems to hold it's own with some decent performance gains. The real issue with this chip and the architecture as a whole is memory bandwidth. For truly intensive processing tasks, video, audio, data processing, computationally intensive tasks, a fast memory bus makes a world of difference. Intel doesn't seem to have the architecture to support these types of task as well as it should. However, this may be the only area that AMD doesn't have covered well primarily due to the cost of their dual core offering. If you are looking for a workstation that can be programmed to handle multiple threads the Intel offering might be for you.
And then there is AMD - totally ignoring the desktop market. Instead they are going after the high end server market. Why? Itanic is dead - and there is a need, and a void for high density, but "cheap" machines. The dual core AMD provides high performance, low heat and competitive performance especially in situations where high memory bandwidth is needed. It also scales 2x further than the competing Xeon servers (The 8XX series could be called the 16XX series). Since the launch of the Opteron two years ago AMD has established the proper channels to deliver these chips to customers. Sun and HP both offer servers with these chips and will also be offering the dual core chips as well.
Pricing - which I think is most telling. AMD's products are priced at the high-end. They are the leader in 64 bit computing (Intels 64-bit approach is architecturally inferior). They will provide organizations who need this technology an upgrade path to the 64-bit world if they are not already in it. AMD chips scale better than the competing Intel technologies. Thus AMD will continue to consolidate their lead in the high end server market. Also, AMD appears confident that their customers will pay for their high end CPUs. In the workstation/gamer market Intel is trying to stoke adoption through lower prices. In some ways this is a contradiction - low priced chip in a high end segment. I'd argue it's the wrong strategy for stemming their loss of market share to AMD. Why go with an Intel dual core when you can get a dual Opteron? They are faster after all.
Though it comes down to the fact that Intel and AMD are after different things. The Opteron platform is a high-end platform. It's clear that AMD is making it a priority. A sound strategy, as Intel's blunder with the Itanium is still continuing to cause a slip in market share. Second is the AMD64 platform which offers great performance at a reasonable price. No doubt, when dual core hits the AMD64 their will be a bit of a premium to pay - it is a sound architecture which is just starting to hit it's stride. Conversely, Intel is trying to stem the bleeding on their desktop lines - clearly they see the high end gaming and workstation segment suffering. How desperate does a company need to be to tack on "Extreme Edition"
I we're going to make changes to it.. WHY DON'T WE GET RID OF IT.
IMHO - day light savings time is just a "legacy" application left kicking around. If we're goign to make a change we should eliminate it intstead.
This performance was achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) at only the half-system point of the IBM BlueGene/L installation. Last November, just one-quarter of BlueGene/L topped the TOP500 List of the world's top supercomputers.
Is there anything that will be able to touch this when it's complete?
LOL - have you tried this?
NAT protects at the interface level. Port forwarding is also accomplished at the interface level. The "firewalling" can be done by setting up general port forwards for the interface, and specifying IP filters for address in the NAT pool. This is a "hack" as far as I'm concerned. Primarily because the NAT/Basic Firewall is mislabeled. It's NAT with port forwarding and an option to filter packets. This setup can end up acting like a firewall but it's difficult to setup, use and administer.
ICF protects at the IP Address level, however you cannot specify more than A) IP Address B) Service. So in a multiple IP environment (how many servers, especially web servers do you know that have just one IP address?) ICF is effectively useless.
Hmm what do you know, a marginal level of "firewalling".
I should have had been a little more specific. I'm looking for a firewall from MS, at least on their server OS that has at least as much functionality as IP Chains or PF. The NAT RRAS solution doesn't work very well - nor does the built in ICF.
Thank you for playing, please try again.
Yes, but it doesn't work very well in an envronment with more than one IP address.
You're right.
I have a couple dedicated servers and my biggest beef with 2003 is that it didn't come with a built in software firewall. Not only that, decent 3rd party wares were/are hard to find and had "more than I needed". There are a couple strategies for protecting your interfaces such as using RRAS to nat all outgoing requests, and forward incoming ones, but for whatever reason is difficult to get working correctly.
All in all a welcome update, but I'd like to know why it wasn't part of the original realease.
In one release they will get the features out there - and the next 4 or 5 releases will be spent optimizing performance. It's a step in the right direction - but it will take more time for MySQL to be ready for prime time.
Yes I RTFA.
there are serious variations in mobile phone power consumption
That is in essence why the product should be tested with a real phone. The discharge scenario is not at all like a cell phone. A cell phone does have a much more erratic discharge cycle which is nothing AT ALL like the constant discharge that our tester used.
Perhaps the product is "desisgned" to work with this process?
Again, I'm highly skeptical of this product, but you can't just ignore the working conditions. The test environment is nothing like the real usage environment.
This product claims to extend a Li-Ion battery's life by ~40%. His data don't show that.
It's possible that he did prove that. The first three runs show a decrease in battery life each charge/discharge cycle. Then there is a black hole where he charges and discharges the battery 10 more times. Let's say that the battery continuted to lose capacity over the subsequent runs, say to 90 minutes of run time. During the activator test run we saw a run time of 124 minutes. That would have been ~ 37% increase in battery life.
don't defend sloppy marketing practices simply because you have a preconceived notion of what the experimenter's beliefs are
It's not pre-concieved. On numerous occasions within the article he expresses his doubts that the product will work.
I'm not defending the product. I think it's wrong to "test" something like the product and then publish "results" like these. It is irresponsible, what if the product does actually work? We can't know becuase the test methods have no relevance to the procucts actual usage scenario.
What if you turned a computer on and let it run until it would run no more. From this data you state the MTBF. Then, you take the same type of computer and give it to someone. Except in the real world that person turns their computer off and on ten times a day. Is the MTBF number that you found going to apply for them? Probably not since most of the wear on components is during startup. The test that was run is irrelevent - becuase it did not accuratly represent the real world use of the computer.
Hey, have you learned them? How long did it take you?
With a smart charger that cuts all input once the battery is charged, that should have a negligible effect. Of the order of 1% total difference in run time, if any
Hmm how is one to qualify "should"? Do you know for a fact that this is the case? Can you prove it? Although, what I was speaking to was the time between test and run.
Yes, there were replicable conditions and measuring equipment. Pity that Pons and Fleishman didn't have those either.
Replicable conditions testing a dead camera batteries with leads soldered to the terminals and an "estimated" load of 12 ohms. Oh yes, and the camera battery charger. What was this product designed to help? Oh I almost forgot, a cell-phone. It's great that it's repeatable - but this experiment doesn't replicate the environment the product is used in.
Different form, similar internals. Ok, technically it has two cells where most mobiles will only have one. And that'll change the results how?
Well since you seem to have all the answers, tell us! Oh wait, you can't. It's another uncontrolled variable.
And his reasons for not using a phone were clearly explained. 20c worth of testing equipment is immensely easier to obtain than a dedicated laboratory with a GSM cell costing several hundred thousand dollars at a minimum. Charge/discharge of Li-I is reasonably well understood. The device and battery don't really matter, within reason.
Riight, nice over exaggeration. All this guy had to do was test the product with a cell phone. Is that so difficult? The product is clearly designed to work with a cell phone - he didn't even make an attempt to test it under it's normal working conditions. I understand that standby can take a while to discharge but there is really no extra effort involved in waiting for it to discharge.
Possibly, but not worth the extra effort.
It's extra effort now that he has borked test results - but it wouldn't have been if the test was run correctly the first time.
Don't defend sloppy testing practices simply because you have a preconceived notion of what the experiments outcome is.
A great piece of writing, but there are a massive number of variables that he failed to control:
1. Charging/Discharge period between inital tests and activator test were completely random.
2. Only one battery was used.
3. The setup was not similar to the conditions under which the activator would be used.
4. The battery type was not similar to a cellphone.
5. The device handling the charge and discharge of the battery was not a cellphone.
I certainly don't think this product is any good but a more controlled test would have been better.
Also, according to his test the activator gave a 3% boost to the battery. What is interesting is that it is 13 discharge cycles away from Run 1. The first three charge/discharge cycles clearly showed a dependency between # of cycles and battery life. To help clarify, it would have been nice if he kept the data from the intermediate 10 runs.
Maybe it did do something? I find it hard to believe though.
Irish cinema operator busted for distribution of l33t 0-day filmz!
My argument holds quite well - theory and reality are sometimes at odds. Your vague theoretical statements about bit torrent don't change the fact that when downloading a blizzard patch, the download was 30% slower than delivery by direct methods.
You know, in theory I like Bit Torrent. It's a good idea. In practice, in a commercial product that users pay money for, it's not a good choice.