In practically anthing shy of an extinction-level event, the biggest danger won't be the event - it'll be ourselves. No doubt enough heavy weapons will survive the event that the next round of major death will be the survivors duking it out. We won't be able to begin the business of survival, let along climbing back, until the heavy weapons are spent, or at least until the long-distance delivery mechanisms are.
The other thing to realize is that we've used up the easy resources building our civilization. If we destroy our technological base, it'll still be easy getting basics like iron and aluminum, but the only easy petrochemicals will be those in storage tanks. Even peak-oil deniers would agree that the oil that is left requires higher technology than Jed Clampett had, in order to reach it. Climbing back would be a tough process.
As for other rocks, they may not be as inherently survivable as Earth, even considering a disaster, but presumably the survivor-violence would be removed. The real problem is building a local technology base sufficient to sustain life in a hostile environment, absent help from Earth.
I wasn't talking about whether things would get paid for, or not. Nor was I really talking about who would pay for them.
My whole point was that by waiting until medical problems become emergencies, they're costing a lot more to treat than if they could have been handled at the primary care level. I know not all problems can be nipped in the bud that way, but I'm sure that a lot can. As one example, one of the most expensive rates running is preemie ICU. You can prevent a lot of preemie ICU with simple proper prenatal care, so they get carried closer to full term, in the first place.
This IS a problem. I'm not talking about money, who pays for what, or who runs what, private enterprise vs government. We have somehow moved into a model for providing health care that is fundamentally broken, and is guaranteed to produce higher costs. That is, if your goal is a healthy (or at least less sick) populace.
This too is a problem, that private enterprise hasn't been able to find a way out of this conundrum. If it's a "health care industry" it should be delivering "health", and the profits should follow. If profits are first priority and "health" is something they deliver stingily because it's a "cost", something is broken.
Now for the bad analogy side, take "health" in the above paragraph and replace it with "car". Personally, I'd rather buy a car from a company that is focused on cars, staffed by car-geeks that love cars, love to design and build them, and recognize that they have to run the company profitably so they can continue to pursue their love. That is, as opposed to a company staffed by finance-geeks, who love money and want more, and look at cars as something they have to do to get more money. I'd bet that I'll get a better car from the former company. (Personally, I think THAT is one of the major things that is WRONG with corporate America - they've flipped their priorities, and by and large we're getting hammered in the marketplace because of it.)
DARN! I wish I hadn't posted on this thread. Now I can't give you any mod points.
Personally, I think if the founding fathers had seen how today's society has developed, the would have enshrined personal privacy more heavily into the Constitution, and they would have more clearly delineated the rights of corportations vs people.
On a side-point, a few months back when PBS broadcast Ken Burns' "The National Parks - America's Greatest Idea" I recorded it on MythTV. Over the past few days, I've actually been watching it. Other than the really nifty stuff that anyone who has visited a National Park knows about, a few other oddities popped up.
* First off, that national parks exist at all is an ACCIDENT!. The first "great park" was Yosemite, which was declared a Stat Park by California. When they got around to wanting to make Yellowstone a great park like Yosemite, Wyoming was a Territory, not a State. There was no State to make it a State Park, so it got made into the first National Park, basically by default. It was also a ho-hum type of thing - nobody at the time realized how momentous it was, or would become - what an important precedent it was.
* Second, the idea of state and national parks wasn't universally liked. In particular, one man felt that the government had no business setting aside land, and in fact the only thing the government should be able to do with land was deed it over for use by people and companies. I forget whether it was Yellowstone or Yosemite, but he fought it all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn the very concept of the State/National Park. Fortunately (IMHO) he lost, cementing the precedent in place. I suspect many still (or would if they knew about it) wish the decision had gone the other way.
> That bare minimum level of care already exists. No ER can turn you away. Charity hospitals and clinics exist with > the express mandate of serving those that can't pay. Even most other institutions will treat those that can't pay > up front -- you'll just wind up indebted to them afterwards.
Which is perhaps the best argument for some form of universal health care - simple economics. The ER is about the MOST EXPENSIVE place to treat anything, generally because by the time you get there, things have gone from bad to worse, and become... an emergency. Nipping problems in the bud is generally best, but some people don't because they can't afford it, or believe they can't afford it, when it's cheapest. So instead of covering a $100 primary care visit, we get sacked with a few thousand $$$ of ER fees.
By the way, as for "indebted to them afterward", I would suspect that in many/most circumstances these are "bad debts" that will never get repaid. So it gets spread around to all of the people that can pay. You know, the free-market equivalent of a "tax".
But then again, you could blame that on government, too. Conversely, business cries "jobs" and holds it over government for "Give me money!" and "Don't fetter me!"
Robert Heinlein said the ultimate function of any government is to see that the next generation reaches adulthood, and all else are trimmings. Sometimes (Love Canal) business is counter ("Don't fetter me with useless environmental regulations!") to that end.
Pretty small... maybe 5 ought to handle the needs of the entire world.
More seriously, there's quite an interesting cross-section of people stopping by on/., in addition to the classic college-students-in-their-parents-basements gang. Wouldn't surprise me if some people with serious recommending/purchasing power lurk here. I've seen posts from others with grey hairs, wives, and kids.
Jeepers, it's been along time since I coded any JCL. Obviously no parameters on the JOB or EXEC cards, and I don't remember if the DD statement starts in the first column after the "//" or the second. Hmmmm, I don't think I've been on MVS/TSO since the early 1990s, probably 10-15 years, anyway.
You're kidding... I guess P.T. Barnum really was right, after all.
Interesting, in light of the wideheld meme that "The private sector does things right, and the government does things wrong." But then again, look at the nearly universal appeal of "Dilbert" in the business world.
You're obviously not doing your part to stimulate the economy. Run (don't walk) to your nearest Big Box retailer and buy a new computer. Help boost those Christmas season retail figures.
(I'm bad for the economy, too. My systems are all getting old, and I run a plan wm - no desktop stuff, so I can make do with older hardware. I also have Slashdot set to work the old way, in my profile.)
> However I am in support of a more official representation of JavaScript on the server.
I suspect that part of the thrust here is migration of server CPU cycles to client CPU cycles. Server CPU cycles are typically planned, purchased, tracked, and constrained. Client CPU cycles are typically wasted. The "cheap box" today at the local big box retailer has more CPU power than a scientific mainframe of not that long ago. Most of that compute power is spent waiting for the user to press a key or move the mouse.
It's a classic case of "Somebody Else's Problem." Make my CPU cycle constraints into SEP, except that in this case Somebody Else isn't likely to notice - they'll even like it, assuming it improves their web experience.
Bob and Alice want to exchange information without Carol and Ted pulling an MiTM attack on them. That's why it was referred to back in the 60's as "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064100/ Carol and Ted are in the middle, and would prefer not to have direct, confidential exchange between Bob and Alice.
While we're all busy questioning the motives of the scientists and what possible financial motivations they may have in all of this, the converse is clear...
The motives of the big money behind Global Warming denial are absolutely pure. They want to keep making money the same way they've been doing it. They don't want any impediments to the continuation of their business model. No deception about this one, at all.
Unfortunately, clarity of purpose and motivation have little to do with what's going on, just in the arguments about what's going on. Also unfortunately, there isn't any simple way to establish and measure what turns out to be a very long-term trend. It only comes out in computer models, projections, and testing of those projections.
This is now science at its most essential level. Too bad that we've gotten hooked on technology, and most of us have forgotten what science really is. Even if the truth is out there, it's not coming out. We're too busy arguing about side-shows, and ignoring science completely. By the way for those who are making money off of industries that may be causing global warming, this is perfectly fine. As long as we're all arguing, we're not doing anything to constrain their business.
I found it fun to see that "Lord of the Rings" has become practically required literature. When I was in high school and college it was counter-culture that you read when you were supposed to be studying for finals. "Come To Middle Earth" posters were decorating a significant fraction of the dorm rooms.
The problem here isn't considering Intelligent Design to be a "leading scientific accepted theory," it's mistaking it for a theory all. We're spending too much time talking about "theories" with little basic backing on what theories really are, and what the scientific method really is. These many years later, I now feel fortunate that in my school science classes they took time to educate us on the scientific method, as a basic underpinning.
Just on the side, as an obligatory science fiction reference, some time read Hal Clement's "Cycle of Fire" to see someone who truly came to understand science.
My son has had his share of difficulties through his school years, and my wife and I (mostly her, to give credit) worked plenty with the teachers to get him what he needed, and to make sure we were doing our part at home. The teachers were thrilled with us, especially our attitude, because it seemed that most parents felt that their kids could do no wrong. They were so used to fighting parents that they were happy for the rare chance to work with parents.
As a peer post says, there may be some bad teachers, but from what I've seen they're few and far between. One of the worst my kids has was in on-the-job retirement, and even at that he wasn't terrible, he just failed to make the subject what it could have been. My teacher in high school in the same subject was even worse. He pretty much taught the subject the same way my kids' teacher had, but in addition he had 2 of us in class who could have been considered gifted in the subject. A good teacher would have given us a different assignment that would have challenged us. He let us play with the equipment while he taught the rest of the class, as long as we weren't too noisy. Play can be good, but generally benefits from at least a little direction. We had none, and were too immature to direct ourselves well.
Having a wife who went through Catholic schools, and 2 kids who went to Catholic high school, I can say that it's at least partly because they don't confuse religion with education. There are religion classes, but they're NOT in the science classes. Plus before you get too upset about religion classes, in some other school they might be counted under ethics or some form of social studies. Neither of my kids nor my wife complained about the religion classes being some form of indoctrination. (My wife is a self-professed liberal, and proud of it.)
One other ingredient is a little discipline. Not the sort that stamps out all fun, but the sort that keeps an anti-education counter-culture from growing. (Not physical discipline, either.) My son was thrilled after his first day in high school, because when some kid started cutting up, the rest of the class shushed him.
By the way, the Catholic schools are privately funded. Even at that, the cost per pupil is cheaper than the public schools, I suspect at least partly because they're not the baby-sitter-of-last-resort. Unfortunately I paid both tuition and taxes for the schools - it hurt, but it was worth it.
Nor do they neglect sports or the arts, just for a little further completeness.
What's the environmental situation in Taiwan wrt semiconductor fabs and the electronics industry in general? I know we've had some legacy problems here in the US, and mainland China is probably a nightmare, and I'll guess that Taiwan's not far behind. I have a friend who goes to Taiwan fairly regularly, but never thought to ask him about this.
Never been, probably never will. I'm dealing with co-workers in China right now, but the company is pretty darned stingy with the travel. I've done this particular function 2 or 3 times before without traveling, so I'll manage it this time, too.
I have a friend who had an anecdote about this that he picked up from a friend years back, when an audio company was moving production to China. His friend "escaped" his handlers and went over to the other end of the building where his products were being produced. There was a knockoff factory producing his product, with a local label, for local consumption - in the very same building. Quality control was sorely missing, which has been in anecdotes galore over the past few years. But that can come, given the will.
As for "thousands of engineers", I had heard once that in India the employable population of educated engineers was fully employed, and the problem was the massive "backlog" of uneducated masses not ready for skilled employment. This was reinforced when I heard that my employer, while doing no expansion in the US and giving raises between 0% and COLA, was giving double-digit raises in India, for retention. I guess I thought China would be in the same boat. I did hear once that China could absorb every single job in the US, and still have an unemployment problem.
I saw both diff and poly stretching around in there, though I didn't notice if the poly was for underpass or just gate reach. Never did pMOS myself, just nmos and cmos. Never used buried contacts either - someone higher-placed got burned by buried contacts before I arrived, and they were politically taken off of our plate. I did see some other designs that used a combination of diff/poly/buried-contact for a lower resistance underpass.
> Well but you wouldn't clone an i7 - you'd take some of the clever features and reimplement them in your > core. Or just build one i7 core rather than four on a chip. I'd much rather one i7 class core than an > Atom in a netbook for example.
Sure you can. But all of those things involve engineering, and teams of engineers. That puts you out of the "cheap knock-off" league that was back at the start of this whole subthread. I'm merely contending that there is no such possible thing as a "cheap Core i7 knock-off" even given the HDL. Anything you could possibly do using that HDL is going to require significant engineering effort, falling out of the "cheap" bucket.
Slashdot Mirror
For $2000 I'll show you how to cut it into 12 pieces - even better than 11.
In practically anthing shy of an extinction-level event, the biggest danger won't be the event - it'll be ourselves. No doubt enough heavy weapons will survive the event that the next round of major death will be the survivors duking it out. We won't be able to begin the business of survival, let along climbing back, until the heavy weapons are spent, or at least until the long-distance delivery mechanisms are.
The other thing to realize is that we've used up the easy resources building our civilization. If we destroy our technological base, it'll still be easy getting basics like iron and aluminum, but the only easy petrochemicals will be those in storage tanks. Even peak-oil deniers would agree that the oil that is left requires higher technology than Jed Clampett had, in order to reach it. Climbing back would be a tough process.
As for other rocks, they may not be as inherently survivable as Earth, even considering a disaster, but presumably the survivor-violence would be removed. The real problem is building a local technology base sufficient to sustain life in a hostile environment, absent help from Earth.
I wasn't talking about whether things would get paid for, or not. Nor was I really talking about who would pay for them.
My whole point was that by waiting until medical problems become emergencies, they're costing a lot more to treat than if they could have been handled at the primary care level. I know not all problems can be nipped in the bud that way, but I'm sure that a lot can. As one example, one of the most expensive rates running is preemie ICU. You can prevent a lot of preemie ICU with simple proper prenatal care, so they get carried closer to full term, in the first place.
This IS a problem. I'm not talking about money, who pays for what, or who runs what, private enterprise vs government. We have somehow moved into a model for providing health care that is fundamentally broken, and is guaranteed to produce higher costs. That is, if your goal is a healthy (or at least less sick) populace.
This too is a problem, that private enterprise hasn't been able to find a way out of this conundrum. If it's a "health care industry" it should be delivering "health", and the profits should follow. If profits are first priority and "health" is something they deliver stingily because it's a "cost", something is broken.
Now for the bad analogy side, take "health" in the above paragraph and replace it with "car". Personally, I'd rather buy a car from a company that is focused on cars, staffed by car-geeks that love cars, love to design and build them, and recognize that they have to run the company profitably so they can continue to pursue their love. That is, as opposed to a company staffed by finance-geeks, who love money and want more, and look at cars as something they have to do to get more money. I'd bet that I'll get a better car from the former company. (Personally, I think THAT is one of the major things that is WRONG with corporate America - they've flipped their priorities, and by and large we're getting hammered in the marketplace because of it.)
DARN! I wish I hadn't posted on this thread. Now I can't give you any mod points.
Personally, I think if the founding fathers had seen how today's society has developed, the would have enshrined personal privacy more heavily into the Constitution, and they would have more clearly delineated the rights of corportations vs people.
On a side-point, a few months back when PBS broadcast Ken Burns' "The National Parks - America's Greatest Idea" I recorded it on MythTV. Over the past few days, I've actually been watching it. Other than the really nifty stuff that anyone who has visited a National Park knows about, a few other oddities popped up.
* First off, that national parks exist at all is an ACCIDENT!. The first "great park" was Yosemite, which was declared a Stat Park by California. When they got around to wanting to make Yellowstone a great park like Yosemite, Wyoming was a Territory, not a State. There was no State to make it a State Park, so it got made into the first National Park, basically by default. It was also a ho-hum type of thing - nobody at the time realized how momentous it was, or would become - what an important precedent it was.
* Second, the idea of state and national parks wasn't universally liked. In particular, one man felt that the government had no business setting aside land, and in fact the only thing the government should be able to do with land was deed it over for use by people and companies. I forget whether it was Yellowstone or Yosemite, but he fought it all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn the very concept of the State/National Park. Fortunately (IMHO) he lost, cementing the precedent in place. I suspect many still (or would if they knew about it) wish the decision had gone the other way.
> That bare minimum level of care already exists. No ER can turn you away. Charity hospitals and clinics exist with
> the express mandate of serving those that can't pay. Even most other institutions will treat those that can't pay
> up front -- you'll just wind up indebted to them afterwards.
Which is perhaps the best argument for some form of universal health care - simple economics. The ER is about the MOST EXPENSIVE place to treat anything, generally because by the time you get there, things have gone from bad to worse, and become... an emergency. Nipping problems in the bud is generally best, but some people don't because they can't afford it, or believe they can't afford it, when it's cheapest. So instead of covering a $100 primary care visit, we get sacked with a few thousand $$$ of ER fees.
By the way, as for "indebted to them afterward", I would suspect that in many/most circumstances these are "bad debts" that will never get repaid. So it gets spread around to all of the people that can pay. You know, the free-market equivalent of a "tax".
You forgot the universal right/need for "Wyld Stallions" music.
Be excellent to each other.
"bailout", "too big to fail"
But then again, you could blame that on government, too.
Conversely, business cries "jobs" and holds it over government for "Give me money!" and "Don't fetter me!"
Robert Heinlein said the ultimate function of any government is to see that the next generation reaches adulthood, and all else are trimmings. Sometimes (Love Canal) business is counter ("Don't fetter me with useless environmental regulations!") to that end.
Neither is fully right, neither is fully wrong.
Pretty small... maybe 5 ought to handle the needs of the entire world.
More seriously, there's quite an interesting cross-section of people stopping by on /., in addition to the classic college-students-in-their-parents-basements gang. Wouldn't surprise me if some people with serious recommending/purchasing power lurk here. I've seen posts from others with grey hairs, wives, and kids.
//DELCMNT JOB //STEP1 EXEC PGM=IEFBR14 // DD DSN=SLASHDOT.USER.DPILOT.COMMENT.30385804,DISP=(MOD,DELETE)
Jeepers, it's been along time since I coded any JCL. Obviously no parameters on the JOB or EXEC cards, and I don't remember if the DD statement starts in the first column after the "//" or the second. Hmmmm, I don't think I've been on MVS/TSO since the early 1990s, probably 10-15 years, anyway.
You're kidding... I guess P.T. Barnum really was right, after all.
Interesting, in light of the wideheld meme that "The private sector does things right, and the government does things wrong." But then again, look at the nearly universal appeal of "Dilbert" in the business world.
Anyone seriously thinking of plunking the money down for one.
Anyone thinking of spending that much money generally takes some time, or has some flunkies take some time, to learn what they're buying.
> DD rules :-)
Along with his friend, IEFBR14.
You're obviously not doing your part to stimulate the economy. Run (don't walk) to your nearest Big Box retailer and buy a new computer. Help boost those Christmas season retail figures.
(I'm bad for the economy, too. My systems are all getting old, and I run a plan wm - no desktop stuff, so I can make do with older hardware. I also have Slashdot set to work the old way, in my profile.)
> However I am in support of a more official representation of JavaScript on the server.
I suspect that part of the thrust here is migration of server CPU cycles to client CPU cycles. Server CPU cycles are typically planned, purchased, tracked, and constrained. Client CPU cycles are typically wasted. The "cheap box" today at the local big box retailer has more CPU power than a scientific mainframe of not that long ago. Most of that compute power is spent waiting for the user to press a key or move the mouse.
It's a classic case of "Somebody Else's Problem." Make my CPU cycle constraints into SEP, except that in this case Somebody Else isn't likely to notice - they'll even like it, assuming it improves their web experience.
No, it's not Mary and Susie you're worried about.
Bob and Alice want to exchange information without Carol and Ted pulling an MiTM attack on them. That's why it was referred to back in the 60's as "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064100/
Carol and Ted are in the middle, and would prefer not to have direct, confidential exchange between Bob and Alice.
Whooooooooosh!!
While we're all busy questioning the motives of the scientists and what possible financial motivations they may have in all of this, the converse is clear...
The motives of the big money behind Global Warming denial are absolutely pure.
They want to keep making money the same way they've been doing it.
They don't want any impediments to the continuation of their business model.
No deception about this one, at all.
Unfortunately, clarity of purpose and motivation have little to do with what's going on, just in the arguments about what's going on.
Also unfortunately, there isn't any simple way to establish and measure what turns out to be a very long-term trend. It only comes out in computer models, projections, and testing of those projections.
This is now science at its most essential level. Too bad that we've gotten hooked on technology, and most of us have forgotten what science really is. Even if the truth is out there, it's not coming out. We're too busy arguing about side-shows, and ignoring science completely. By the way for those who are making money off of industries that may be causing global warming, this is perfectly fine. As long as we're all arguing, we're not doing anything to constrain their business.
...and I hope you've also identified this as part of the problem.
I found it fun to see that "Lord of the Rings" has become practically required literature. When I was in high school and college it was counter-culture that you read when you were supposed to be studying for finals. "Come To Middle Earth" posters were decorating a significant fraction of the dorm rooms.
The problem here isn't considering Intelligent Design to be a "leading scientific accepted theory," it's mistaking it for a theory all. We're spending too much time talking about "theories" with little basic backing on what theories really are, and what the scientific method really is. These many years later, I now feel fortunate that in my school science classes they took time to educate us on the scientific method, as a basic underpinning.
Just on the side, as an obligatory science fiction reference, some time read Hal Clement's "Cycle of Fire" to see someone who truly came to understand science.
Hooray to you for bringing out this point.
My son has had his share of difficulties through his school years, and my wife and I (mostly her, to give credit) worked plenty with the teachers to get him what he needed, and to make sure we were doing our part at home. The teachers were thrilled with us, especially our attitude, because it seemed that most parents felt that their kids could do no wrong. They were so used to fighting parents that they were happy for the rare chance to work with parents.
As a peer post says, there may be some bad teachers, but from what I've seen they're few and far between. One of the worst my kids has was in on-the-job retirement, and even at that he wasn't terrible, he just failed to make the subject what it could have been. My teacher in high school in the same subject was even worse. He pretty much taught the subject the same way my kids' teacher had, but in addition he had 2 of us in class who could have been considered gifted in the subject. A good teacher would have given us a different assignment that would have challenged us. He let us play with the equipment while he taught the rest of the class, as long as we weren't too noisy. Play can be good, but generally benefits from at least a little direction. We had none, and were too immature to direct ourselves well.
Having a wife who went through Catholic schools, and 2 kids who went to Catholic high school, I can say that it's at least partly because they don't confuse religion with education. There are religion classes, but they're NOT in the science classes. Plus before you get too upset about religion classes, in some other school they might be counted under ethics or some form of social studies. Neither of my kids nor my wife complained about the religion classes being some form of indoctrination. (My wife is a self-professed liberal, and proud of it.)
One other ingredient is a little discipline. Not the sort that stamps out all fun, but the sort that keeps an anti-education counter-culture from growing. (Not physical discipline, either.) My son was thrilled after his first day in high school, because when some kid started cutting up, the rest of the class shushed him.
By the way, the Catholic schools are privately funded. Even at that, the cost per pupil is cheaper than the public schools, I suspect at least partly because they're not the baby-sitter-of-last-resort. Unfortunately I paid both tuition and taxes for the schools - it hurt, but it was worth it.
Nor do they neglect sports or the arts, just for a little further completeness.
What's the environmental situation in Taiwan wrt semiconductor fabs and the electronics industry in general? I know we've had some legacy problems here in the US, and mainland China is probably a nightmare, and I'll guess that Taiwan's not far behind. I have a friend who goes to Taiwan fairly regularly, but never thought to ask him about this.
Never been, probably never will. I'm dealing with co-workers in China right now, but the company is pretty darned stingy with the travel. I've done this particular function 2 or 3 times before without traveling, so I'll manage it this time, too.
I have a friend who had an anecdote about this that he picked up from a friend years back, when an audio company was moving production to China. His friend "escaped" his handlers and went over to the other end of the building where his products were being produced. There was a knockoff factory producing his product, with a local label, for local consumption - in the very same building. Quality control was sorely missing, which has been in anecdotes galore over the past few years. But that can come, given the will.
As for "thousands of engineers", I had heard once that in India the employable population of educated engineers was fully employed, and the problem was the massive "backlog" of uneducated masses not ready for skilled employment. This was reinforced when I heard that my employer, while doing no expansion in the US and giving raises between 0% and COLA, was giving double-digit raises in India, for retention. I guess I thought China would be in the same boat. I did hear once that China could absorb every single job in the US, and still have an unemployment problem.
I saw both diff and poly stretching around in there, though I didn't notice if the poly was for underpass or just gate reach. Never did pMOS myself, just nmos and cmos. Never used buried contacts either - someone higher-placed got burned by buried contacts before I arrived, and they were politically taken off of our plate. I did see some other designs that used a combination of diff/poly/buried-contact for a lower resistance underpass.
> Well but you wouldn't clone an i7 - you'd take some of the clever features and reimplement them in your
> core. Or just build one i7 core rather than four on a chip. I'd much rather one i7 class core than an
> Atom in a netbook for example.
Sure you can. But all of those things involve engineering, and teams of engineers. That puts you out of the "cheap knock-off" league that was back at the start of this whole subthread. I'm merely contending that there is no such possible thing as a "cheap Core i7 knock-off" even given the HDL. Anything you could possibly do using that HDL is going to require significant engineering effort, falling out of the "cheap" bucket.