Fully agree with the parent poster. These guys just wanted to pump-up their stock price with BS statements. It looks they've been successful at that.
Not only they blurr the line intentionally between power and capacity, but also they liberally use the nano-* buzzword.
A three-fold increase in the battery capacity would be an enormous advancement. LiIon is already the highest energy-density type of battery, so it would matter a lot.
Maybe they merely found a way in decreasing the internal resistance; advanced LiPoly batteries already do this and there are 2000mAh types rated at 15-20 C discharge rate.
Charging them, however, still requires no more than 2 C. Chemistry has its own reaction rate and no amount of snake-oil will speed it up.
If this thingie has any value, it may be for miniature batteries, but don't hold your breath.
the point is, microsoft have the capital to do this. they can push their brand into a hardware product, get it manufactured inexpensively (with their assets) and away they go..
You keep repeating this. The fact is I don't see how MS can make the manufacturing more inexpensive than it currently is. The margins in everything consumer are razor-thin, especially on the ODM side. Even for cash-cows like iPods or PowerBooks, where the brand company is the one reaping the benefits.
MS has no way to push them even farther, except make the ODMs eat some portion of the loss. I can tell you that there are some people in Taiwan who are really sour over the shaft Microsoft applied in the XBox case.
Therefore, if your idea is that MS can do miracles on the manufacturing side, I think you're wrong.
Your 60$ cell phone was probably sold at a loss, in the hope they'll recoup it from the monthly service fee.
If you sell the hardware only, without hooking up the customer on some monthly/yearly licensing, you must make a profit, period.
You probably meant MS to sell custom appliances with their wares embedded. Again, without a subscription scheme, they would not make any money. And anyway, MS would have to have someone build the hardware. If you were buying just the hardware, who's price would be lower, the maker or the reseller?
What consumer hardware you know that commands gross margins higher than 50%?
The software, on the other hand, has a GM in excess of 80%, figure unattainable in the hardware world (except in special cases, e.g. you make one-of-a-kind equipment).
Depends who you are and where you live. That bastard was (still is?) the icon the new generation of managers wanted to emulate. Throw that bitch off the pedestal and maybe it will shift all her followers' perspective (I know I'm dreaming, but...) and improve the way bussiness is conducted in U.S. of A.
This asshole of Michael Fay got what he deserved. Doing what he did should result in punishment regardless of the place on Earth. It's just that SG is (still) more strict in overseeing inappropiate public behavior than many other civilized countries.
As a side note, it's also easier, because they have to cover only that diminutive territory (probably smaller than NYC) SG is.
Of course, your comments make sense. You would like a system in which the SS contribution is guaranteed to get back to you only and partially to support the poor and disabled. I can't see how this system would work for every contributor, though.
IMO, the main purpose SS serves is to relax the social unrest, much like the FDIC system helped eliminate the withdrawal panic that did so much harm in the '29 crisis.
It's more a psychological safety net and it includes everyone. Even the more irresponsible individuals who, while young and with a good wage, don't think a minute what would they do to survive if the're (un)lucky to reach old age.
As for the issue of depreciation, simply make the contribution (and cap, if it still must be kept) track the inflation rate.
Why does everyone want to use a retirement system run by the worst management firm on earth (the US Government)?
One more a**hole among that many. Why don't you use your brain to analyze the alternatives?
One one hand you have a system that has a very solid track record of financial responsibility and that runs with a very, very small overhead.
On the other, you have the hocus-pocus of stock and bond investment, that goes bust every 15 years or so and most everyone who played along looses money (except the very few who knew).
Why would anyone with an IQ above 50 would want to entrust his financial security to a rigged system in which there are so many free-riding lice?
WS is already wetting themselves fantasizing about this freakingly amazing windfall...
Re:Genetically prevented from reseeding
on
Plant a Seed, Get Sued?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You mean the Monsanto Terminator technology. I remember they first try was to stealthly introduce to Europe a RoundUp-friendly potato with the Terminator gene.
The backlash was so terrible (they've lost their market in Europe because of that) that at least for the following years they did not attempt to commercialize anymore this technology.
Googling a bit, it seems that they started again pushing this towards the market.
When I got my Inspiron 600m one year ago, I installed RH9 on it, just to find out that the 2.4 kernel was not supporting Banias' SpeedStep technology. At that time, Intel was promising to release a binary driver for Linux, but nothing came out in the following few months.
I would like to revisit the issue, as in WinXP I really appreciate the 8.5 hours of battery life (using also the second battery pack), but in Linux the juice dries off after less than 4 hours.
Could you share some info about what worked for you?
Do you think they will let these $2B just evaporate? They will try to get it back in processor prices. And that's their way to failure
That's plain stupid. Chances are that their margins will increase if the Fab12 transition to 12" wafers succeeds (i.o.w. the CPU can be made with less money per unit so, amortization included and keeping the selling price the same, they gain more).
B.t.w., everyone else (including AMD) will eventually move to a 65nm feature set. Anyway, 2B$ are actually pocket money to pull off a 12", 65nm production line.
Somewhere in the article, the guy says that the human population then was about 250 million. It sounds too large by at least a factor of 10.
Remember that we reached the 1 billion mark somewhere at the end of the nineteenth century. The population growth rate in the absence of resources limitation is poissonian; it's true that war and epidemics would reduce the growth rate, but come on...
Regardless of the article conclusion (or the lack of it), I would have been impressed by the many coincidences around the today-5200y time, but inaccuracies like this question the validity of most of the article (b.t.w. the Otzi argument hints again a lack of substance).
Could you share some more info on how someone could solder the BGA? Was he using a heat gun?
On the other hand, SSOP is for sissy fads. Yes, when you first transition from DIP to SSOP you have a hard time understanding how can someone solder those by hand, but give it a year or two to adjust. After that the DIP seems h u g e.
My favorite PITA package is the 4X4 QFN. Being almost leadless and with such a narrow pitch, you have to have good coordination and an excellent flux to do it, but it's doable. This is about the limit to manual soldering without special equipment.
I think he means real equipment, not hobby kits. I still have operator's manuals for HP tools (the then awesome 5 1/2 digit multimeter or the signal generator or...) where the complete set of schematics is shown. You actually learn a lot when looking at what the designers had to do to make test equipment that stays consistent no matter the climatic changes, age or batch.
First of all, even it's true that the Ottomans stopped (twice) at the gates of Vienna, both times they used ways that did not encompass the Romanian Principalities (esp. Vallachia) - check a map to see where Istanbul and where Vienna are.
Second, not all Balkan countries fared the same way in those times. Greece was not permanenetly occupied as Bulgaria or Albania were. What was real was the influence sphere Istambul radiated towards Europe in an almost circular shape.
The most gross mistatement is related to the Byzantine Empire. Even before the split with Rome (three hundred and what? a.C.), Constantinopolis was a very greek city in a very diverse region - that region has seen lots of nations passing through and leaving people and traditions planted behind. Even at the rather flat heights of the Byzantine empire (staring with Justinian and ending with the city's fall under the barbari^H^H^H^H crusaders), the Balkans were a mix of people of which the greeks were just a rather small part.
So no, the reason Greece is as big (or as small) as it is right now is because this is their national kernel, Cyprus and parts of Macedonia nonwithstanding.
The thing is, if you know how to solve the cube (I bet millions know how to), you can get to the point where the cube is solved with the exception of the misplaced stickers.
At that moment, you can point out that the cube was altered.
A side question to Rubik's cube lovers: where can one buy a quality one? I have an original cube (made in Hungary) and recently wanted to buy a new one (the sticker corners of the original have worn out). Every single cube I could find was made in China and is absolute crap. The original was made from a plastic that had the right amount of friction and feels very good when rotating the rows (some sort of tactile feedback through the plastic squeaking). The new ones use ordinary plastic and feel bad (I don't think they can be improved by changing the spring pressure or oiling them). So, does anyone make quality cubes these days?
The problem is not neccessarily related to open vs. closed. What is amazing is that this company (Alenia Spazio) ESA chose to use can produce such laughable, shitty equipment.
Come on, 8192 bits/second should not be that hard to manage, even by 1985 standards. I simply can't understand how come they didn't use a clock recovery scheme for synchronizing with the incoming serial stream of bits. The rate shift due to doppler effect would have been a non-issue.
The "engineers" at Alenia Spazio who designed this disgraceful POS should be given 10 whips on the bare back in a public place for shaming the Engineer name.
Re:I think IBM will cause more trouble than AMD
on
Crossroads for Intel
·
· Score: 1
As for infrastructure - what chip do you reckon powers a Mac? Hint: it starts with a P.
Who in the real world builds the Apple hardware? The smallest division of Quanta/TW (out of 5-6 groups). Compare that with the large number of OEM/ODMs building for x86.
In terms of computer-related equipment, I think that Apple-specific production is well below 1% of total. So much has been invested in the x86 infrastructure that it'll be damn hard to push it aside and start with something different. There is only that much you can reuse from the PC infrastructure to make a Mac. In the end, a Mac system will always be pricier than an x86 one and the technical benefits are simply not there.
Nah - I just know large systems and what it takes to consolidate servers. Your CIO and CEO don't give a rat's ass about what weird bit of wire sticks out of the back, they want return of investment - and fast.
Fully agree with that. I'm not sure that the upcoming Opterons (25x/26x) will not sweep the floor with the contemporary Power CPUs in terms of raw computing power. Even if they're just about the same, the AMD system will cost far less than a Mac one so the guy who spends the money will have a hard time understanding why would you choose a Mac.
Slashdot Mirror
Fully agree with the parent poster. These guys just wanted to pump-up their stock price with BS statements. It looks they've been successful at that.
Not only they blurr the line intentionally between power and capacity, but also they liberally use the nano-* buzzword.
A three-fold increase in the battery capacity would be an enormous advancement. LiIon is already the highest energy-density type of battery, so it would matter a lot.
Maybe they merely found a way in decreasing the internal resistance; advanced LiPoly batteries already do this and there are 2000mAh types rated at 15-20 C discharge rate.
Charging them, however, still requires no more than 2 C. Chemistry has its own reaction rate and no amount of snake-oil will speed it up.
If this thingie has any value, it may be for miniature batteries, but don't hold your breath.
Considering the huge amount of very high quality code this guy donated to the community, I would be more considerate when opening the mouth.
Come on, a little decency, for God's sake!
You keep repeating this. The fact is I don't see how MS can make the manufacturing more inexpensive than it currently is. The margins in everything consumer are razor-thin, especially on the ODM side. Even for cash-cows like iPods or PowerBooks, where the brand company is the one reaping the benefits.
MS has no way to push them even farther, except make the ODMs eat some portion of the loss. I can tell you that there are some people in Taiwan who are really sour over the shaft Microsoft applied in the XBox case.
Therefore, if your idea is that MS can do miracles on the manufacturing side, I think you're wrong.
Your 60$ cell phone was probably sold at a loss, in the hope they'll recoup it from the monthly service fee.
If you sell the hardware only, without hooking up the customer on some monthly/yearly licensing, you must make a profit, period.
You probably meant MS to sell custom appliances with their wares embedded. Again, without a subscription scheme, they would not make any money. And anyway, MS would have to have someone build the hardware. If you were buying just the hardware, who's price would be lower, the maker or the reseller?
So, what benefit would bring all this to MS?
What consumer hardware you know that commands gross margins higher than 50%?
The software, on the other hand, has a GM in excess of 80%, figure unattainable in the hardware world (except in special cases, e.g. you make one-of-a-kind equipment).
Depends who you are and where you live. That bastard was (still is?) the icon the new generation of managers wanted to emulate. Throw that bitch off the pedestal and maybe it will shift all her followers' perspective (I know I'm dreaming, but...) and improve the way bussiness is conducted in U.S. of A.
Q: how a woman can make a millionaire out of her husband ?
A: marry a billionaire
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sarcasm
This asshole of Michael Fay got what he deserved. Doing what he did should result in punishment regardless of the place on Earth. It's just that SG is (still) more strict in overseeing inappropiate public behavior than many other civilized countries.
As a side note, it's also easier, because they have to cover only that diminutive territory (probably smaller than NYC) SG is.
Of course, your comments make sense. You would like a system in which the SS contribution is guaranteed to get back to you only and partially to support the poor and disabled. I can't see how this system would work for every contributor, though.
IMO, the main purpose SS serves is to relax the social unrest, much like the FDIC system helped eliminate the withdrawal panic that did so much harm in the '29 crisis.
It's more a psychological safety net and it includes everyone. Even the more irresponsible individuals who, while young and with a good wage, don't think a minute what would they do to survive if the're (un)lucky to reach old age.
As for the issue of depreciation, simply make the contribution (and cap, if it still must be kept) track the inflation rate.
One more a**hole among that many. Why don't you use your brain to analyze the alternatives?
One one hand you have a system that has a very solid track record of financial responsibility and that runs with a very, very small overhead.
On the other, you have the hocus-pocus of stock and bond investment, that goes bust every 15 years or so and most everyone who played along looses money (except the very few who knew).
Why would anyone with an IQ above 50 would want to entrust his financial security to a rigged system in which there are so many free-riding lice?
WS is already wetting themselves fantasizing about this freakingly amazing windfall...
You mean the Monsanto Terminator technology. I remember they first try was to stealthly introduce to Europe a RoundUp-friendly potato with the Terminator gene.
The backlash was so terrible (they've lost their market in Europe because of that) that at least for the following years they did not attempt to commercialize anymore this technology.
Googling a bit, it seems that they started again pushing this towards the market.
Serban
Despite the horrible grammar, he has some quite valid points. Unlike some AC shithead (I'm talking about you :-)
What OS are you running on your PentiumM?
When I got my Inspiron 600m one year ago, I installed RH9 on it, just to find out that the 2.4 kernel was not supporting Banias' SpeedStep technology. At that time, Intel was promising to release a binary driver for Linux, but nothing came out in the following few months.
I would like to revisit the issue, as in WinXP I really appreciate the 8.5 hours of battery life (using also the second battery pack), but in Linux the juice dries off after less than 4 hours.
Could you share some info about what worked for you?
Thank you,
Serban
That's plain stupid. Chances are that their margins will increase if the Fab12 transition to 12" wafers succeeds (i.o.w. the CPU can be made with less money per unit so, amortization included and keeping the selling price the same, they gain more).
B.t.w., everyone else (including AMD) will eventually move to a 65nm feature set. Anyway, 2B$ are actually pocket money to pull off a 12", 65nm production line.
Serban
Remember that we reached the 1 billion mark somewhere at the end of the nineteenth century. The population growth rate in the absence of resources limitation is poissonian; it's true that war and epidemics would reduce the growth rate, but come on...
Regardless of the article conclusion (or the lack of it), I would have been impressed by the many coincidences around the today-5200y time, but inaccuracies like this question the validity of most of the article (b.t.w. the Otzi argument hints again a lack of substance).
Serban
On the other hand, SSOP is for sissy fads. Yes, when you first transition from DIP to SSOP you have a hard time understanding how can someone solder those by hand, but give it a year or two to adjust. After that the DIP seems h u g e.
My favorite PITA package is the 4X4 QFN. Being almost leadless and with such a narrow pitch, you have to have good coordination and an excellent flux to do it, but it's doable. This is about the limit to manual soldering without special equipment.
Serban
I think he means real equipment, not hobby kits. I still have operator's manuals for HP tools (the then awesome 5 1/2 digit multimeter or the signal generator or ...) where the complete set of schematics is shown. You actually learn a lot when looking at what the designers had to do to make test equipment that stays consistent no matter the climatic changes, age or batch.
You know who leaves, but you don't know who (maybe a much worse option?) will take the seat.
Does anyone else think that secunia's proof of concept looks like an attempt of /.-ing the CitiBank web portal?
Serban
Lacking mod points today, I would like to thank you for posting one of the rare insightful comments in this thread!
Serban
By picking up a history book.
First of all, even it's true that the Ottomans stopped (twice) at the gates of Vienna, both times they used ways that did not encompass the Romanian Principalities (esp. Vallachia) - check a map to see where Istanbul and where Vienna are.
Second, not all Balkan countries fared the same way in those times. Greece was not permanenetly occupied as Bulgaria or Albania were. What was real was the influence sphere Istambul radiated towards Europe in an almost circular shape.
The most gross mistatement is related to the Byzantine Empire. Even before the split with Rome (three hundred and what? a.C.), Constantinopolis was a very greek city in a very diverse region - that region has seen lots of nations passing through and leaving people and traditions planted behind. Even at the rather flat heights of the Byzantine empire (staring with Justinian and ending with the city's fall under the barbari^H^H^H^H crusaders), the Balkans were a mix of people of which the greeks were just a rather small part.
So no, the reason Greece is as big (or as small) as it is right now is because this is their national kernel, Cyprus and parts of Macedonia nonwithstanding.
Serban
The thing is, if you know how to solve the cube (I bet millions know how to), you can get to the point where the cube is solved with the exception of the misplaced stickers.
At that moment, you can point out that the cube was altered.
A side question to Rubik's cube lovers: where can one buy a quality one? I have an original cube (made in Hungary) and recently wanted to buy a new one (the sticker corners of the original have worn out). Every single cube I could find was made in China and is absolute crap. The original was made from a plastic that had the right amount of friction and feels very good when rotating the rows (some sort of tactile feedback through the plastic squeaking). The new ones use ordinary plastic and feel bad (I don't think they can be improved by changing the spring pressure or oiling them). So, does anyone make quality cubes these days?
Serban
The problem is not neccessarily related to open vs. closed. What is amazing is that this company (Alenia Spazio) ESA chose to use can produce such laughable, shitty equipment.
Come on, 8192 bits/second should not be that hard to manage, even by 1985 standards. I simply can't understand how come they didn't use a clock recovery scheme for synchronizing with the incoming serial stream of bits. The rate shift due to doppler effect would have been a non-issue.
The "engineers" at Alenia Spazio who designed this disgraceful POS should be given 10 whips on the bare back in a public place for shaming the Engineer name.
Who in the real world builds the Apple hardware? The smallest division of Quanta/TW (out of 5-6 groups). Compare that with the large number of OEM/ODMs building for x86.
In terms of computer-related equipment, I think that Apple-specific production is well below 1% of total. So much has been invested in the x86 infrastructure that it'll be damn hard to push it aside and start with something different. There is only that much you can reuse from the PC infrastructure to make a Mac. In the end, a Mac system will always be pricier than an x86 one and the technical benefits are simply not there.
Nah - I just know large systems and what it takes to consolidate servers. Your CIO and CEO don't give a rat's ass about what weird bit of wire sticks out of the back, they want return of investment - and fast.
Fully agree with that. I'm not sure that the upcoming Opterons (25x/26x) will not sweep the floor with the contemporary Power CPUs in terms of raw computing power. Even if they're just about the same, the AMD system will cost far less than a Mac one so the guy who spends the money will have a hard time understanding why would you choose a Mac.
Serban