Fuel cells are fine when you are concerned about energy/weight ratios. It isn't ideal when you want high energy storage for low cost. They just don't scale that well. 100x the power is still 20-40x the cost. For large industrial applications 1000+MW for instance, you want something which can store alot of energy cheaply and regurgitate it with little loss.
This thing uses waves not tides. The device seems to consist of segmented, articulating, horizontal cylinders tethered to the ocean floor. There have also been suggestions for floating pistons and the like as well as large installations to use waves to move large amounts of trapped air. Tidal generation has the advantage of predictability but has the disadvantage of requiring larger/less modular installations. There's a an overview of the different "large installation" techniques here. And a overview of smaller device wave generation techniques here. </Karma Whoring>
In my view, the main problem with solar/wind/tide/wave power generation is that we can't guarantee a steady flow of energy. Excess energy can't be stored for use when we need it. Solar energy is good as a supplementary source of energy for areas with high AC usage because when usually it's hot, the sun is out. But the problem still remains that we can't rely on any of these environmental energies for a constant flow of energy, which is what we need (Having lived in CA during the energy "shortage" recently, I know of what I speak).
I think we should be spending more time/energy (hah) researching methods to store large amounts of energy. Flywheels seem to me to hold good promise of extremely high energy density, efficiency and simplicity compared to schemes involving batterie or water <-> H2+0 schemes. Just don't put any on geologically unstable areas... Any other good energy storage devices in our future?
Oh yeah, I consider fusion research (hot/cold, laser pellet/toroidal plasma etc.) a huge waste of money and resources. We've already got a fusion reactor, damnit!
With UCM, you do get atomicized checkin's but it's still a hack on top of ClearCase. Basically, you may get atomicized checkin's but you also get a dumbed down/crippled window into the powers/features of ClearCase. Perforce has atomicized changelists as a fundamental concept to its change control model. Having worked with both, with ClearCase as the change management gate keeper and with Perforce as the perforce administrator and *NIX build meister, I prefer the Perforce change model. (I also prefer Perforce's licensing terms/customer service/technical support.)
Perforce's change review daemon is perfect for this. Modify it to autobuild/test each changelist, and email result to the responsible party after completion. The review daemon is written in Python so its pretty easy to read and modify. Perforce has the keys to those pearly gates it seems.
Perforce has atomic transactions. Perforce has a slightly biased (but not much) comparison of p4 to cvs. Atomic transactions plus easy administration makes it worth the price for my company.
Perforce has them, ClearCase and CVS doesn't. You can check in a list of changed files as one atomic operation and it either succeeds or doesn't. So you can't get a partial check in which breaks the build. This is a totally kickass feature which has saved my bacon a couple of times.
Disclaimer: I not an employee of Perforce. I used to be a ClearCase weanie, but now that I've been using Perforce for about a year and a half, I think it's better for several reasons:
Smaller. You only need one executable on your client. And one more for your server. No kernel patches, no drivers, no installation, just the binaries. Ubercool.
Multi-platform. Perforce has binaries for practically every platform in use out there. Find me another Version Control System with BeOS, QNX, AIX, SCO, MacOS9 and MacOSX support.
Fast, fast fast. Because of the low communication overhead, it works extremely well across slow/high latency links.
Ease of use. It's really easy to configure and setup.
Great support. We've had to go to perforce support twice and both times they've been awesome, with quick responses and knowledgeable people.
Price. The single server, two client setup is FREE! And per seat licensing + support is very very reasonable. I use the free one on my laptop to version files.
Plug-ins. Perforce publishes their API, and they have perl, python, ruby and tcl utilities galore.
Now my process recommendation. If you have paid for ClearCase then pay for some more education. ClearCase/Perforce can do lots of what you need automatically. You should practically NEVER have to repeat the same change on a file. You may want to look at some branching/merging techniques which can eliminate the need for colliding checkin's also. Rational has a bunch of whitepapers up on their site, as does Perforce.
Most of all, I would advise you to educate yourself on the options/methods of version control. 12 isn't that big. Wait 'til you get to 1200.
Then Be really doesn't have a lawsuit since the contracts were signed before Microsoft was declared a Monopoly by the courts.
Ummm, IANAL but I don't think that the declaration specified that Microsoft became a monopoly at the time of the declaration. If that were the case, then there would be no way for the DOJ to pursue remedies agains MS for actions which took place before the declaration.
As far as the argument that consumers weren't offered a choice, that's horseshit. I have copies of both BeOS 3 and 4 at home which I purchased. I would not have these copies if I, as a consumer, had not had a choice. That's ultimately where your whole argument falls apart.
Ah, but how many were offered the choice by OEM's? None. How many OEM's were able to take advantage of those choices? None. How many OEM's offered Be as an add-on option? None (Hitachi's crippled effort doesn't count). How many normal unsophisticated buyers were offerred the choice? None. Be was denied entrance into the installed PC OS market by illegal actions by Microsoft.
BTW, Sony licensed Be for there eVilla and killed the product after only 6 months because of a lack of sales. Again you cannot blame Microsoft because your product doesn't sell in a free market.
It's called whining, and there seems to be a lot of it occuring in the world.
Sony released the eVilla during the tail end of the internet appliance wave and it was pretty much doomed from the beginning. Also, the only reason Be was in the IA arena at all was because Microsoft had them totally locked out of the PC business.
Yes, there is too much whining in the world. But this isn't a case of whining. Microsoft exercised it's monopoly power an prevented
OEM's from selling PC's which would boot into Be.
OEM's from selling PC's with Be installed.
OEM's from selling PC's which could dual boot into Be + Windows.
OEM's from selling PC's with Windows and Be installation media.
All are crimes which should have been prosecuted by the DOJ but weren't. In fact, Microsoft is *still* doing this with Linux. How many dual boot Linux/Windows PC's can you buy from a major manufacturer? None. How many dual boot Solaris/Windows PC's were there when Sun was pushing Solaris x86? None. Microsoft has smothered the market for OS innovation and deserves to be punished hard.
Besides Apple is more guilty of destroying Be than Microsoft.
Because Apple only wanted to pay half as much as JLG wanted? Yeah, whatever...
But that's sort of the point. You're imaginging, and you've left reality behind. What would have happened in reality is Windows would be the dominant OS, and Be would still be bankrupt.
I agree that Microsoft shouldn't have had exclusive contracts with OEMs. It certainly gives an unfair impression, but it was their right and the OEMs certainly didn't complain at the better pricing they garnered.
That's the point of the suit. Exclusionary contracts by a monopoly are illegal. Microsoft caused the destruction of Be through illegal means hence the lawsuit. Consumers weren't demanding BeOS but (back in the days of Win95) they *were* demanding a more stable operating system. Be could have sold them the BeOS if they had had a way of getting it to them. Not a single OEM offered BeOS either as an option or in a dual boot configuration. "Order with BeOS and save $20" or "Dual boot with BeOS for an additional $40" should have been options. Yes, support costs would have gone up, but probably not much more particularly since Win95 was such a piece of crap.
What you're missing is the fact that consumers weren't even offered the choice because Microsoft held a gun to the manufacturer's heads. Don't you think at least one manufacturer would have tried a trial run of installing Be to test out the market or differentiate themselves? This is a market where +-1% can make or break you. Nobody even tried because microsoft would have (from a business standpoint) blown their brains out.
Compaq was interested in BeIA for their internet appliances (which would have saved Be from destruction BTW). Guess what, after a visit from Microsoft (think bloody horse head under the sheets), Compaq wasn't interested anymore...
That's the crime, preventing the entry of a potential rival into a market through exercise of monopoly power. And Microsoft is guilty as hell. Think about it.
As far as the consumers are concerned, all they care about is that the OS runs their applications, so they don't want this either.
Are you really so unfamiliar with the computer market that you think people haven't thought of these ideas before?
Hey, I'm a consumer too:-). Maybe the market for alternative mainstream x86 OS's isn't there now. But it did exist 4-6 years ago (Windows 95 era). Mainly since Win9(5|8) sucked so bad. As you say yourself, all consumerwas want is an OS to run the apps on. OS/2 was still hanging on by its fingernails and BeOS was way ahead of Win95. Be's (naive) plan was to "peacefully coexist" with Windows and try and get a couple percent of market share. Be offered BeOS free to any manufacturer who would install it. Many were interested in an OS which was stable, lightweight yet powerful and fast. Be was in secret negotiations with Compaq, Dell and others. Microsoft made them all "an offer they couldn't refuse". Namely, enable boot into Be, lose your Windows license. Guess what, BeOS never got installed and BeOS never got off the ground (in terms of marketshare). Imagine what might have happened if Dell or Compaq had sold consumer systems dual booting with BeOS and Windows95.
Not according to Microsoft. this is a quote from
yahoo news. Is Microsoft getting more arrogant by the day or is it just me?
"This sort of litigation is not in the interests of consumers, nor is it good for the industry," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said, adding that Microsoft would "respond accordingly" in court once it had reviewed the suit.
Desler also took issue with Be's core contention, saying: "Computer manufacturers have always been able to ship multiple operating systems with their computers. In fact, they could and did install Be's operating system on their computers."
I practically fell out of my chair when I read that. All of Microsoft sympathisers should try and defend that remark. Makes me want to go kick Bill Gates and Steve "Monkeyboy" Ballmer in the balls, repeatedly.
Redmond, WA of course. Windows XP is the only reason that Dell, Gateway and all the other computer makers aren't hurting big time right now. The bloated nature of Windows software is actually as selling point to companies bundling software with new PC's.
That may be partially true but I believe the core reason the DOJ changed their mind about breaking up Microsoft was not because of Dell or Gateway but because Bush became POTUS and ordered a review of the case by Ashcroft. If Gore had become president, the DOJ would still be asking for a breakup of Microsoft. Well, maybe not after 9/11...
Don't you think Dell and Gateway would prefer to be able to say to consumers, "Hey, you can boot into Windows, Darwin, FreeBSD *and* Linux if you buy one of our laptops/desktops!" Or "Configure your own multi-boot system, we'll set it up for you!" ? I think it would make the PC market much more interesting and add more value for the customers.
And yes, Microsoft has more than just the short and curlies in its hands. They've got them all by the family jewels.
What part of "Monopoly of PC Operating Systems" do you not understand? Given that the findings of fact found that MS has a monopoly of the PC Operating systems market, certain actions are automatically illegal including:
Exclusive licensing (You can't sell/buy B if you want to sell/buy my A)
Forced bundling (You need to buy C with A)
Exclusionary selling/contracts (I don't want to sell to you cause you smell funny etc.)
Once Judge Jackson (and the appelate court has agreed BTW) ruled that Microsoft has a monopoly in the PC OS arena, the door was wide open for anyone to sue based on anti-trust violations by Microsoft. The hard part (proving that Microsoft is a monopoly) is done, now Be (and anyone else) just needs to prove that they were harmed by anti-competitive actions by Microsoft. That's why Microsoft fought so hard and long to prove that it didn't have a monopoly.
Maybe, just maybe, if you're Dell or HP you have enough muscle to get MS to strike the offending clauses from its standard OEM contract. But for Joe's OEM and Bait Shop around the corner here, it would be impossible. To sell any other OS than Windows would be financial suicide.
Actually, if you're Dell or HP, you have such narrow margins and tight schedules that any hiccup (such as late delivery of a preview of the next windows operating system, delayed certification of hardware etc.) will totally fuck up your supply chain, your developement and testing cycle and any hopes of profits you may have had. As long as Microsoft keeps their "trade secret" exclusionary license, Microsoft has the top PC manufacturer's by the short and curlies and they all know it. Microsoft doesn't care if they Dell or Gateway drops off the face of the earth tomorrow: HP, Sony and Compaq will just sell more Microsoft licenses. Why do you think not a single major PC manufacturer testified during the trial? They're all scared out of their minds that Microsoft will fuck them out of business in less time then it takes to say, "Sorry! Your licenses are held up. Please press 1 to speak with a Microsoft sales representative or 2 to leave a message".
When peolpe start buying Itanium systems in volume, then the prices will drop on the Itanium systems. The reasons, they're expensive is not because the chips are hard to come by but because no one wants to buy them right now.
Uhmmm. Have you seen the die size specs for the Itanium? It's a freaking monster size chip (McKinley's >400mm2 I believe). Unless Intel is able to pull off an order of magnitude decrease in defects, the prices in Itaniums ain't ever going to drop compared to other CPU's (Sparc, MIPS, PowerPC etc.)
He obviously hasn't worked in any real production environment. You people should realize that you simply can't build the kind of systems that Dell, HP, etc sell -today- out of commodity components... All components have been carefully designed to work together to produce a reliable, and scalable server system. You will never ever build the same kind of system on your own and if you do it's not going to be cheaper than buying one. Plus you don't get the vendor support.
Really? Have you worked in a real production environment? The motherboard may be proprietary, but the chipset (90% of the development cost if not more) certainly isn't. AFAIK you can build your own with almost all of the features you need from off the shelf components. With vendor support also if you want. Checkout Penguin Computing if you want to see some solid server boxes made out of quality commodity parts and with vendor support.
The comment about SPARC being death is completely astonishing at the time when Sun is -THE- unix market leader. SPARC CPUs were never faster than the competition but that didn't worry Sun users as long as they were up to par with the competitors.
I don't know what you mean by "-THE- unix market leader"; but without objective criteria it's hard to say where you're coming from (unless it's Sun marketing literature). BTW, SPARC CPU's are not up to par with the competitors, especially with regards to floating point processing. In FP, PowerPC, Athlon, Pentium, all wipe the floor with the SPARC. And the Alpha still wipes the floor with all of *them*.
First, I'm very pleased to see a comment from someone who's done an actual comparison. But ...
Is is really giving film a fair shot if the source material is originally (relatively low resolution) digital? There's no chance for film to show its higher resolution. Right?
Thanks. Film resolution, IMO, isn't all that its cracked up to be because of limitations imposed by processing and economy. I'd like to point out that film isn't really analogue. It's still "digital" in the sense that density (of color and brightness) is determined by granules of primary colored "bits", not continuous mixtures that you get with mixtures of paint (although at a molecular level, these types of mixtures are also imperfect).
The problem with film occurs because the interpositives and internegatives used during duplication all have similar grain resolution. Think of scanning and printing the same picture over and over using a scanner of the same resolution as your printer. Even if you have perfect color matching/balancing (which you don't BTW), tiny imperfections are amplified. Film duplication is a similar problem, except that the film grain is scattered randomly instead of on a geometric grid.
Personally, I'd like to see a real non-subjective comparison using a resolution/color chart between multi-generation film copying and digitization. My gut says that after the 2nd generation copy, digital projection will kick film's ass.
BTW, Technicolor makes a lot of money because of their expertise is maintaining good quality color starting with shooting and continuing across multiple generations of copying film. AFAIK, every major film set has a Technicolor technician/advisor on set to make sure that colors get captured correctly.
Taking picutres on positive (slide/movie) film under different lighting conditions is an incredible pain in the ass when you want consistent color.
Let me first say that I've seen four movies on the
"digital screen" (AMC Van Ness in SF): SW:TPM, Final Fantasy: TSW, Akira (2001), and Monsters Inc. All four were projected with Texas Instruments' DLP technology. Of those four movies, I've seen two with digital projection and with normal film, Monster's and Akira. In both cases, the digital experience was much much better.
I saw Akira twice while it was in theatres (great movie BTW), the first time with digital projection, the second a week later (when I thought it would still be digital) on film. The DLP screen was much sharper with more consistent and saturated color. The opening motorcycle chase (with the incredibly detailed backgrounds) was simply amazing on the DLP but looked muddy and washed out in comparison on film. The colors were way more saturated and the DLP (I swear to God) had more dynamic range than any film I've seen in a theatre. Nothing I've seen on film has come close. I could say the same thing about Monster's Inc on DLP vs. film.
I'm sure that film can theoretically match the clarity and sharpness that I've seen but it never has. The print you watch in the movie theatre is at least a 3rd gen print and too often a 4th or 5th (or god forbid higher) generation print. And it's been run through the projector 4 times a day gathering dust and scratches. The film batches are different, the chemistry is slightly different and the printing process can't be repeated exactly everytime. And even if it could control all of that, you're making 3rd, 4th and 5th+ generation prints! Yes, a 70mm print can do better than 1080p24, but can a 5th generation print do the same? Can it match the original's color? Can it match the original's 1080 lines of resolution? From what I've seen, the answer is a big, huge NO!
I'd pay an extra 2-3 bucks per showing if I could get all digital, that's how much better I think it is.
Gilgamesh is just too darn long to type. Enkidu rolls off of the keyboard nice and easy. Also, its non-racial for the most part since the Babylonians/Sumerians didn't make it as a permanent grouping of people.
Hey, I care! TA is the only reason I still boot into OS9 (OSX rocks BTW).
To continue your excellent rant, I've played RTS games since Warcraft, but I always go back to TA. Why? Because of all othe RTS games, it has the most Strategy. SC, WCII, CC all involve way (way way) too much micromanagement. (I haven't played AoE or AoEII yet). Everytime I play SC, I long for TA's movement and attach profile. Also, the small unit grouping limit is a huge pain in the ass. With TA, setting the profiles for Movement (Hold Position/Manuever/Roam) and Attack (Hold Fire/Return Fire/Fire At Will) can make a huge difference in how unit behave. This is exactly what you want when you send units out to patrol vs. guard vs. attack vs. sneak attack vs. targetted attack etc. Another big plus is the ability to have construction units patrol areas to repair structures and units.
Over all strategy is incredibly important in TA (when played well) mind you. With a good defensive structure/web up (laser cannons and plasma cannons and missile turrets, Oh My! Oh and dragon's teeth, lots of dragon's teeth) I can guarantee that any rush without huge air support will get annihilated (haha).
TA is still one of the few games where a mostly defensive posture is possible. SC, WC, CC and WCII all favor very aggressive postures. In TA, against someone who knows how to scout and scan their radar screen often, extreme agressiveness will get you wiped out quickly. Especially on metal deprived maps, attacking early can give your apponent a huge advantage in metal.
On small maps, the race is usually who will get a (protected) Fusion Generator + Bertha/Intimidator up first. Note that if it isn't well protected, a full flight of bombers supported by distracting fighters/scout planes will reduce it to a pile of twisted metal in a blink of an eye.
On large maps, air power/mobility is (IMHO) the way to go (with sufficient ground protection for your bases of course). The one thing I wish CD would have released before they went under is a heavy air transport (4-6 units). Radar cloaking can also make a huge difference against opponents who aren't thorough. I think of navies as primarily air support platforms and spy sub intelligence gathering.
Check out planet Annihilation's Strategy Page if you want to see some of the depth of TA. I think it's still the RTS game with the most "S" out there.
Hey, I never said it would be super efficient. Just way more efficient than sticking a laser on a tail pipe. For hybrid cars, where every Wh counts, stirling engines may be worth looking into though.
And yes, the best place for a Stirling engine is on a stick (above a parabolic reflector).
Stirling engines are really cool carnot cycle engines that run on temperature gradients. This company makes various stirling engines including large industrial installations to recover waste heat. They can be made pretty simply and (within the tuned operating range) have darned good efficiency. Almost definitely better than a heat->laser->photoelctric-cell.
The whole idea seems like a good way to write a paper, get published and generate hot air, but not a good way to increase energy efficiency. Kinda like our current projects to build a fusion reactor ("We've already got one, fer Christ's sake! It's called the sun.").
Sorry, that is not correct. The state of most programs are not represented by the "memory/stack space" of the process + the register status alone. You have to remember that the kernel is also part of the space in which most processes run. Add in network sockets and device handles and inter-process semaphores and hibernation gets really complicated really quickly. The way around that is to restrict yourself to a small(er) set of system calls which is what Condor does I believe.
In fact most "checkpoint anytime" systems allow you to delineate atomic sections of code where checkpointing/hibernation should not happen. The only way to allow true checkpoint/hibernation anywhere is to build is explicitly into the kernel.
Yeah, I can't remember the document/book/site where I read the 1 year thing so my memory could be fooling me, but I'm pretty sure that they started insisting on a working prototype.
A long while back the U.S Patent office got so many of these "perpetual energy" machines that the office head put down the policy that the inventor had to submit a working prototype. The office would then set it going and if it was still running a year later, they would consider the patent application. This cut down on the number of applications considerably.
A two hour test run is bullshit. Let's see it run for 2 years in an empty room, then we'll talk.
Slashdot Mirror
Fuel cells are fine when you are concerned about energy/weight ratios. It isn't ideal when you want high energy storage for low cost. They just don't scale that well. 100x the power is still 20-40x the cost. For large industrial applications 1000+MW for instance, you want something which can store alot of energy cheaply and regurgitate it with little loss.
In my view, the main problem with solar/wind/tide/wave power generation is that we can't guarantee a steady flow of energy. Excess energy can't be stored for use when we need it. Solar energy is good as a supplementary source of energy for areas with high AC usage because when usually it's hot, the sun is out. But the problem still remains that we can't rely on any of these environmental energies for a constant flow of energy, which is what we need (Having lived in CA during the energy "shortage" recently, I know of what I speak).
I think we should be spending more time/energy (hah) researching methods to store large amounts of energy. Flywheels seem to me to hold good promise of extremely high energy density, efficiency and simplicity compared to schemes involving batterie or water <-> H2+0 schemes. Just don't put any on geologically unstable areas... Any other good energy storage devices in our future?
Oh yeah, I consider fusion research (hot/cold, laser pellet/toroidal plasma etc.) a huge waste of money and resources. We've already got a fusion reactor, damnit!
With UCM, you do get atomicized checkin's but it's still a hack on top of ClearCase. Basically, you may get atomicized checkin's but you also get a dumbed down/crippled window into the powers/features of ClearCase. Perforce has atomicized changelists as a fundamental concept to its change control model. Having worked with both, with ClearCase as the change management gate keeper and with Perforce as the perforce administrator and *NIX build meister, I prefer the Perforce change model. (I also prefer Perforce's licensing terms/customer service/technical support.)
Perforce's change review daemon is perfect for this. Modify it to autobuild/test each changelist, and email result to the responsible party after completion. The review daemon is written in Python so its pretty easy to read and modify. Perforce has the keys to those pearly gates it seems.
Perforce has atomic transactions. Perforce has a slightly biased (but not much) comparison of p4 to cvs. Atomic transactions plus easy administration makes it worth the price for my company.
Perforce has them, ClearCase and CVS doesn't. You can check in a list of changed files as one atomic operation and it either succeeds or doesn't. So you can't get a partial check in which breaks the build. This is a totally kickass feature which has saved my bacon a couple of times.
- Smaller. You only need one executable on your client. And one more for your server. No kernel patches, no drivers, no installation, just the binaries. Ubercool.
- Multi-platform. Perforce has binaries for practically every platform in use out there. Find me another Version Control System with BeOS, QNX, AIX, SCO, MacOS9 and MacOSX support.
- Fast, fast fast. Because of the low communication overhead, it works extremely well across slow/high latency links.
- Ease of use. It's really easy to configure and setup.
- Great support. We've had to go to perforce support twice and both times they've been awesome, with quick responses and knowledgeable people.
- Price. The single server, two client setup is FREE! And per seat licensing + support is very very reasonable. I use the free one on my laptop to version files.
- Plug-ins. Perforce publishes their API, and they have perl, python, ruby and tcl utilities galore.
Now my process recommendation. If you have paid for ClearCase then pay for some more education. ClearCase/Perforce can do lots of what you need automatically. You should practically NEVER have to repeat the same change on a file. You may want to look at some branching/merging techniques which can eliminate the need for colliding checkin's also. Rational has a bunch of whitepapers up on their site, as does Perforce.Most of all, I would advise you to educate yourself on the options/methods of version control. 12 isn't that big. Wait 'til you get to 1200.
A better place than the crappy house.gov site is this one, with easier to navigate menus, better alerts and indexing: www.congress.org.
Persistent cusses aren't we (me and you)?
Ummm, IANAL but I don't think that the declaration specified that Microsoft became a monopoly at the time of the declaration. If that were the case, then there would be no way for the DOJ to pursue remedies agains MS for actions which took place before the declaration.
Ah, but how many were offered the choice by OEM's? None. How many OEM's were able to take advantage of those choices? None. How many OEM's offered Be as an add-on option? None (Hitachi's crippled effort doesn't count). How many normal unsophisticated buyers were offerred the choice? None. Be was denied entrance into the installed PC OS market by illegal actions by Microsoft.
Sony released the eVilla during the tail end of the internet appliance wave and it was pretty much doomed from the beginning. Also, the only reason Be was in the IA arena at all was because Microsoft had them totally locked out of the PC business.
Yes, there is too much whining in the world. But this isn't a case of whining. Microsoft exercised it's monopoly power an prevented
- OEM's from selling PC's which would boot into Be.
- OEM's from selling PC's with Be installed.
- OEM's from selling PC's which could dual boot into Be + Windows.
- OEM's from selling PC's with Windows and Be installation media.
All are crimes which should have been prosecuted by the DOJ but weren't. In fact, Microsoft is *still* doing this with Linux. How many dual boot Linux/Windows PC's can you buy from a major manufacturer? None. How many dual boot Solaris/Windows PC's were there when Sun was pushing Solaris x86? None. Microsoft has smothered the market for OS innovation and deserves to be punished hard.Because Apple only wanted to pay half as much as JLG wanted? Yeah, whatever...
What you're missing is the fact that consumers weren't even offered the choice because Microsoft held a gun to the manufacturer's heads. Don't you think at least one manufacturer would have tried a trial run of installing Be to test out the market or differentiate themselves? This is a market where +-1% can make or break you. Nobody even tried because microsoft would have (from a business standpoint) blown their brains out.
Compaq was interested in BeIA for their internet appliances (which would have saved Be from destruction BTW). Guess what, after a visit from Microsoft (think bloody horse head under the sheets), Compaq wasn't interested anymore...
That's the crime, preventing the entry of a potential rival into a market through exercise of monopoly power. And Microsoft is guilty as hell. Think about it.
Hey, I'm a consumer too :-). Maybe the market for alternative mainstream x86 OS's isn't there now. But it did exist 4-6 years ago (Windows 95 era). Mainly since Win9(5|8) sucked so bad. As you say yourself, all consumerwas want is an OS to run the apps on. OS/2 was still hanging on by its fingernails and BeOS was way ahead of Win95. Be's (naive) plan was to "peacefully coexist" with Windows and try and get a couple percent of market share. Be offered BeOS free to any manufacturer who would install it. Many were interested in an OS which was stable, lightweight yet powerful and fast. Be was in secret negotiations with Compaq, Dell and others. Microsoft made them all "an offer they couldn't refuse". Namely, enable boot into Be, lose your Windows license. Guess what, BeOS never got installed and BeOS never got off the ground (in terms of marketshare). Imagine what might have happened if Dell or Compaq had sold consumer systems dual booting with BeOS and Windows95.
That may be partially true but I believe the core reason the DOJ changed their mind about breaking up Microsoft was not because of Dell or Gateway but because Bush became POTUS and ordered a review of the case by Ashcroft. If Gore had become president, the DOJ would still be asking for a breakup of Microsoft. Well, maybe not after 9/11...
Don't you think Dell and Gateway would prefer to be able to say to consumers, "Hey, you can boot into Windows, Darwin, FreeBSD *and* Linux if you buy one of our laptops/desktops!" Or "Configure your own multi-boot system, we'll set it up for you!" ? I think it would make the PC market much more interesting and add more value for the customers.
And yes, Microsoft has more than just the short and curlies in its hands. They've got them all by the family jewels.
Once Judge Jackson (and the appelate court has agreed BTW) ruled that Microsoft has a monopoly in the PC OS arena, the door was wide open for anyone to sue based on anti-trust violations by Microsoft. The hard part (proving that Microsoft is a monopoly) is done, now Be (and anyone else) just needs to prove that they were harmed by anti-competitive actions by Microsoft. That's why Microsoft fought so hard and long to prove that it didn't have a monopoly.
Actually, if you're Dell or HP, you have such narrow margins and tight schedules that any hiccup (such as late delivery of a preview of the next windows operating system, delayed certification of hardware etc.) will totally fuck up your supply chain, your developement and testing cycle and any hopes of profits you may have had. As long as Microsoft keeps their "trade secret" exclusionary license, Microsoft has the top PC manufacturer's by the short and curlies and they all know it. Microsoft doesn't care if they Dell or Gateway drops off the face of the earth tomorrow: HP, Sony and Compaq will just sell more Microsoft licenses. Why do you think not a single major PC manufacturer testified during the trial? They're all scared out of their minds that Microsoft will fuck them out of business in less time then it takes to say, "Sorry! Your licenses are held up. Please press 1 to speak with a Microsoft sales representative or 2 to leave a message".
Uhmmm. Have you seen the die size specs for the Itanium? It's a freaking monster size chip (McKinley's >400mm2 I believe). Unless Intel is able to pull off an order of magnitude decrease in defects, the prices in Itaniums ain't ever going to drop compared to other CPU's (Sparc, MIPS, PowerPC etc.)
Really? Have you worked in a real production environment? The motherboard may be proprietary, but the chipset (90% of the development cost if not more) certainly isn't. AFAIK you can build your own with almost all of the features you need from off the shelf components. With vendor support also if you want. Checkout Penguin Computing if you want to see some solid server boxes made out of quality commodity parts and with vendor support.
I don't know what you mean by "-THE- unix market leader"; but without objective criteria it's hard to say where you're coming from (unless it's Sun marketing literature). BTW, SPARC CPU's are not up to par with the competitors, especially with regards to floating point processing. In FP, PowerPC, Athlon, Pentium, all wipe the floor with the SPARC. And the Alpha still wipes the floor with all of *them*.
Thanks. Film resolution, IMO, isn't all that its cracked up to be because of limitations imposed by processing and economy. I'd like to point out that film isn't really analogue. It's still "digital" in the sense that density (of color and brightness) is determined by granules of primary colored "bits", not continuous mixtures that you get with mixtures of paint (although at a molecular level, these types of mixtures are also imperfect).
The problem with film occurs because the interpositives and internegatives used during duplication all have similar grain resolution. Think of scanning and printing the same picture over and over using a scanner of the same resolution as your printer. Even if you have perfect color matching/balancing (which you don't BTW), tiny imperfections are amplified. Film duplication is a similar problem, except that the film grain is scattered randomly instead of on a geometric grid.
Personally, I'd like to see a real non-subjective comparison using a resolution/color chart between multi-generation film copying and digitization. My gut says that after the 2nd generation copy, digital projection will kick film's ass.
BTW, Technicolor makes a lot of money because of their expertise is maintaining good quality color starting with shooting and continuing across multiple generations of copying film. AFAIK, every major film set has a Technicolor technician/advisor on set to make sure that colors get captured correctly. Taking picutres on positive (slide/movie) film under different lighting conditions is an incredible pain in the ass when you want consistent color.
I saw Akira twice while it was in theatres (great movie BTW), the first time with digital projection, the second a week later (when I thought it would still be digital) on film. The DLP screen was much sharper with more consistent and saturated color. The opening motorcycle chase (with the incredibly detailed backgrounds) was simply amazing on the DLP but looked muddy and washed out in comparison on film. The colors were way more saturated and the DLP (I swear to God) had more dynamic range than any film I've seen in a theatre. Nothing I've seen on film has come close. I could say the same thing about Monster's Inc on DLP vs. film.
I'm sure that film can theoretically match the clarity and sharpness that I've seen but it never has. The print you watch in the movie theatre is at least a 3rd gen print and too often a 4th or 5th (or god forbid higher) generation print. And it's been run through the projector 4 times a day gathering dust and scratches. The film batches are different, the chemistry is slightly different and the printing process can't be repeated exactly everytime. And even if it could control all of that, you're making 3rd, 4th and 5th+ generation prints! Yes, a 70mm print can do better than 1080p24, but can a 5th generation print do the same? Can it match the original's color? Can it match the original's 1080 lines of resolution? From what I've seen, the answer is a big, huge NO!
I'd pay an extra 2-3 bucks per showing if I could get all digital, that's how much better I think it is.
Gilgamesh is just too darn long to type. Enkidu rolls off of the keyboard nice and easy. Also, its non-racial for the most part since the Babylonians/Sumerians didn't make it as a permanent grouping of people.
To continue your excellent rant, I've played RTS games since Warcraft, but I always go back to TA. Why? Because of all othe RTS games, it has the most Strategy. SC, WCII, CC all involve way (way way) too much micromanagement. (I haven't played AoE or AoEII yet). Everytime I play SC, I long for TA's movement and attach profile. Also, the small unit grouping limit is a huge pain in the ass. With TA, setting the profiles for Movement (Hold Position/Manuever/Roam) and Attack (Hold Fire/Return Fire/Fire At Will) can make a huge difference in how unit behave. This is exactly what you want when you send units out to patrol vs. guard vs. attack vs. sneak attack vs. targetted attack etc. Another big plus is the ability to have construction units patrol areas to repair structures and units.
Over all strategy is incredibly important in TA (when played well) mind you. With a good defensive structure/web up (laser cannons and plasma cannons and missile turrets, Oh My! Oh and dragon's teeth, lots of dragon's teeth) I can guarantee that any rush without huge air support will get annihilated (haha).
TA is still one of the few games where a mostly defensive posture is possible. SC, WC, CC and WCII all favor very aggressive postures. In TA, against someone who knows how to scout and scan their radar screen often, extreme agressiveness will get you wiped out quickly. Especially on metal deprived maps, attacking early can give your apponent a huge advantage in metal.
On small maps, the race is usually who will get a (protected) Fusion Generator + Bertha/Intimidator up first. Note that if it isn't well protected, a full flight of bombers supported by distracting fighters/scout planes will reduce it to a pile of twisted metal in a blink of an eye.
On large maps, air power/mobility is (IMHO) the way to go (with sufficient ground protection for your bases of course). The one thing I wish CD would have released before they went under is a heavy air transport (4-6 units). Radar cloaking can also make a huge difference against opponents who aren't thorough. I think of navies as primarily air support platforms and spy sub intelligence gathering.
Check out planet Annihilation's Strategy Page if you want to see some of the depth of TA. I think it's still the RTS game with the most "S" out there.
Hey, I never said it would be super efficient. Just way more efficient than sticking a laser on a tail pipe. For hybrid cars, where every Wh counts, stirling engines may be worth looking into though.
And yes, the best place for a Stirling engine is on a stick (above a parabolic reflector).
The whole idea seems like a good way to write a paper, get published and generate hot air, but not a good way to increase energy efficiency. Kinda like our current projects to build a fusion reactor ("We've already got one, fer Christ's sake! It's called the sun.").
Sorry, that is not correct. The state of most programs are not represented by the "memory/stack space" of the process + the register status alone. You have to remember that the kernel is also part of the space in which most processes run. Add in network sockets and device handles and inter-process semaphores and hibernation gets really complicated really quickly. The way around that is to restrict yourself to a small(er) set of system calls which is what Condor does I believe.
In fact most "checkpoint anytime" systems allow you to delineate atomic sections of code where checkpointing/hibernation should not happen. The only way to allow true checkpoint/hibernation anywhere is to build is explicitly into the kernel.
Yeah, I can't remember the document/book/site where I read the 1 year thing so my memory could be fooling me, but I'm pretty sure that they started insisting on a working prototype.
A long while back the U.S Patent office got so many of these "perpetual energy" machines that the office head put down the policy that the inventor had to submit a working prototype. The office would then set it going and if it was still running a year later, they would consider the patent application. This cut down on the number of applications considerably.
A two hour test run is bullshit. Let's see it run for 2 years in an empty room, then we'll talk.