Nuclear doesn't have problems (in general). Old tech water cooled uranium reactors are the problem (and even then a far smaller problem than the environmentalists would like us to believe). The real problem is GE / Hitachi / Westinghouse / Areva /... (the nuclear suppliers) that are used to this cozy profit margin (they sell the plant at cost and lock in a long term fuel supply contract, you can't use nuclear fuel from one company into another's nuclear station). They have ZERO interest in new Nuclear technology, unless it's at least as profitable as the prior technology. And Thorium nuclear promisses essentially zero fuel costs and 1/3th manufacturing costs. Add that to all the bullshit Green Peace has been feeding us, and voila, the US government isn't investing one cent in nuclear energy research, leaving only tiny companies with a really hard time finding the money to research Thorium / LFTR / Pebble Bed reactors for instance. And the green parties are even stronger in Europe. But safety wise, in reality Nuclear is probably the safest source of energy. More people die from coal mining / natural gas / oil exploration accidents per year than nuclear power plants killed / gave cancer to people since the first nuclear power plant came online decades ago. If people's attitude towards nuclear were applied to airplanes we wouldn't fly at all, regardless of the fact that it's the safest way of transportation available. But like airplanes, since we're not in control, we tend to freak out about accidents, not realizing the millions of flights that goes without incident (and the already infinite paranoia the NTSB / FAA / EASA /... have over accidents), you know the NRC is like: Safety isn't paramount, it's the ONLY thing that matters.
Just one change to the US electoral system would make it viable for third parties to get house seats. France has district voting very similar to the USA, except they have run up elections (if the winner don't get 50% + 1 of valid votes). And the runup election includes all candidates that got at least 10% of the voting. This creates a large incentive for the 2nd best voted to make serious alliances with the as many of the other voted as possible to win the run-up. This is the system I'm advocating for Brazil (which unfortunately has a brain dead proportional system that prevents voters from know exactly who represents them and prevents representatives from knowing who is their constituency). Of course even such a small change would take an act of god (in the USA, for Brazil it would be HUGE), but it would be a pursuit much more useful than anything the smaller parties are advocating for today. Only USA and UK seem to have such a totally polarized two party system. Here in Brazil our problem is the other way around, we have over 20 parties, with no more single one with more than 20% of the national assembly and no clear ideological identity for all but 3 or 4 very radical left parties. Everybody else either is a political whore to the party that won the presidency, plus a coalition of about 3 parties making some resemblance of an opposition to the party in power (labor). In the end, the USA system is better as it is (than what we have now). I lived in both countries. The biggest problem with democracy isn't the system, it's the stupidity of the voters ! The system is as good as the intelligence of the voters.
You probably don't understand the ARM ecosystem... ARM only design the CPUs, and license them. ARM licensees actually build the CPUs. So in the ARM world, there are at least 6 strong players. And 95+% of the costs / profits are on making the CPUs and the whole system, so the competition is a GIVEN. Cortex A15 have 5 licensees. Cortex A57 have 6 licensees. And those are the high end CPUs. The middle end / low end have even more licensees. In a way, the ARM model is fantastic for the consumers, much better than the Intel / AMD duopoly will ever be.
I both agree and disagree with you. Since you aren't explaining, I'll explain for you.
If you're trying to say that it would be very bad to have many more physically different processors, than yes, agreed 100%.
As a matter of fact, we should have even less CPU models. For instance, mobile / low power / desktop / server CPUs. STUPID The fair way to do it would be having core i5 small cache, core i5 large cache, core i7 small cache, core i7 large cache. The current core i7 users would use the small cache model (large by core i5 standards) and the servers would use either core i5 large cache or core i7 large cache. Get rid of the core i3 altogether.
But the same CPU would have ECC standard, and would be able to be configured at boot time to limit CPU frequencies, limit GPU frequencies, limit voltages (low frequency + low external voltage = ultra low power), overclock, you name it. After Intel killed AMD's mojo with plays taken by Microsoft and IBM at their darkest times, ARM has a good chance of eating Intel's lunch from the bottom up. Actually ARM licensees, since ARM design CPUs, but their licensees actually build them. I also believe that AMD will make an interesting come back in the next few years.
95% of my customer server's are core iX processors, they rarely are willing to pay 4x more for ECC, hardware I/O cache, and even then they end up with SATA drives anyways !
BTW, I'm not saying Intel will do it out of good intentions, only severe competition will make them do it. It will reduce profits. BTW, the argument that Intel has reserve juice to do what they did when AMD got close them, I'm not so sure. Linux / Android / iOS is making Intel CPUs no longer some gold standard due to compatibility. Linux / gcc / binutils already supports almost every CPU on the planet. Anything that runs on Intel and we have the source, can be ported to ARM, MIPS and PowerPC (the only relevant CPU architectures left, all the others are dying, even PowerPC is a little bit of a stretch).
Not the issue. For instance I'm using raspberry pi's as text console terminals, and I'm typing this on a chromebook ARM (Cortex A15 Exynos 5). It became my primary terminal, because for a 100% solid state computer (no moving parts, I can move it around when it's on, without ANY fear of breaking anything) it's dirt cheap. ECC is a nice feature, but I don't have customers demanding it, nor I had any cases of corrupt production data on a system without ECC. It should be a standard feature, with zero cost overhead, once it's a standard feature. Oh, it's not 12.5% extra cost. That's one parity bit for each 8 bits of data, ECC is 3 extra bits for every 8 bits (I'm not sure if it could be 3 extra bits for each 16 or even 32 bits), so it's more like 37,5% extra bits (assuming it works on a 8 bit level). It's been a long, long, long time since I studied ECC algorithms, but the 12.5% extra cost is parity for sure, not ECC. For instance if it worked on 16 bit level, it would be 18,75% overhead instead (3 extra bits for every 16 bits). This just goes to show most people criticizing x32 (definitely not all of them) don't have a clue what they're talking about, they seem to either the marketing people that work for companies that want to kill this, or people that have never learned assembly / low level computer stuff in detail. This discussion would be so much more productive if those uneducated people either educate themselves before talking about x32 or just went away. Oh, you can't call yourself a great C/C++ programmer if you don't have a full and correct understanding of CPU cache hits and stack frames which are the really important factors x32 affects. The hard RAM savings at the least important feature (except for embedded systems, but someone pointed very correctly the odds of an embedded system running an intel compatible system is one in a thousand or less). That's ARM / MIPS cpu land. The trend is quite the opposite, ARM is coming to the notebook / desktop world, and there's no stopping it (although it won't take over, it will be a slow movement).
The past is the past, the present is Oil is on it's way to obsolescence. Much like computers used to double in speed, half in power consumption and size every 18 months, electric batteries will follow that trend but more likely on a 8 year cycle. But in that case double power per weight, half price per power and increase rate of charging and discharging. And with just a half cycle (50% move) to make the high end electric car have a 400 mile range, and affordable cars (to the middle class) have 150 mile range. Since large scale eletricity production uses no oil, then the next generation electric cars will lead to the end of 95% of the need for oil. Even as we speak, Tesla Model S / GM Volt / Nissan Leaf is doing the first stage of this revolution is showing it's possible, even if still a little too expensive / too little range. But the current tech is good enough for most environment conscious upper middle class (in the case of the Tesla Model S). The next generation will start the mass migration. By 2025 gasoline cars will be only bought by the most ignorant climate change denier / I want a monster muscle car / my car must make big noise semi cave men.
The Solyndra case is typical GOP flip flopping. 1 - It was George W Bush initiative, approved by a GOP majority in the house 2 - Those gov't incentive plans are expected to have a small number of failures, otherwise the criteria of who gets the money is being too conservative, which means that innovation isn't being sparked 3 - The reason Solyndra failed wasn't their incompetence, but instead the Chinese dumping of solar panels below cost And they try to pin the blame on Obama and a democratic majority (at the time) in the house. Stop rehashing the same stupid misconceptions, it just shows how brainwashed you were by the Tea Party ! Most of the Tea Party platform is great in theory, but much, much worse than the status quo in practice, much like the libertarian platform. That's the consequence of trying to do politics driven by ideology, it tends to ignore a little think called FACTS !
The fact is the Tea Party doesn't want to help the middle class one little bit. It true purpose is to make the billionaires even more rich and try to rollback basic social advances created by the New Deal and the 1960s social policies. It's amazing how effective their brainwashing on the middle class of GOP voters work.
The simple fact is the USA needs a center party, based on pragmatism, and rejection of both labor union driven politics and big oil / the industrial military complex / unlimited power to the billionaires thinking. The problem is the vast majority of those is the middle just don't care enough to push for change, leaving a small minority that aligns themselves with the Tea Party out of ignorance.
It's called the effect of cheap VOIP ! you need a disruptive technology to change the ballgame. If all 2G technology were retired tomorrow, and all spectrum relocated to 3g / 3.5g / 3.75g / 4g the cost per minute of voice calls would essentially be free even a basic 3g network can place something like 1000 simultaneous calls per sector (each antenna is usually 6 sectors, so 6000 simultaneous calls on a single antenna) the numbers are huge, hence those 45% profit margins using lots of femtocells for high volume traffic offload would increase system wide capacity but a lot, since it helps frequency reutilization PS: I'm really knowledgeable on landline carriers (voice, data and internet) so my data might be a little off, but not by much, I'm typing on the top of my head
charging per invidividual SMS is criminal an SMS uses less network resources than if someone called someone else, it rang for 2 seconds and gave up (actually about one order of magnitude less) that's a normal consequence of not having enough competition SMS should be like US$ 5/month for unlimited texting (or perhaps 1000 texts, every extra 100 texts costs US$ 0,10) A single cell tower segment (one antenna) can handle at least 100 million texts / month if there was nothing else for it to do, and even with other activity something like 10 million texts easy peazy, so a whole USA nationwide network should be able to handle a trillion texts per year easy.
humm, I'm running firefox / chrome with 3GB total system RAM just fine dozens of tabs, flash, java, you name it many pages with hundreds of jpegs open the maximum virtual memory space for those jobs don't even get to 1GB I'm a MySQL/pgsql/Progress DBA and the only case I've seen that would require x86_64 is a customer with 6 Progress databases, a single local client attaches to all 6 dbs, requiring over 4GB of address space, all other cases don't come even close, all jvm I've ever seen, maxed out at 1.3GB again, most people posting on the x32 subject don't even know what exactly is a mmap mapping, a shared memory segment, memory allocated from sbrk and other methods, stacks allocated dynamically, and jump to the conclusion a browser must require over 4GB of address space unless you're running some exotic scientific application, some database with a huge cache, something custom made, you'll have to work realllllyyyyyy hard to need more than even 2GB of memory address space The issue benchmarks aren't being run isn't kinks in x32 itself, is most realworld apps can't be simply recompiled for x32 (a little bit of assembly code will mess it up for instance, most virtual machines have some assembly code for raw memory access - to read/write from C style structures for instance), and those maintainers don't want to get it done Those are the really telling benchmarks (java apps, python apps, php apps, perl apps) I'm willing to be some serious money those will have a 10+% speedup, and they're the typical CPU hogs, specially poorly written java apps we have no control over the source. Those virtual machines use pointers for everything, since almost everything is malloc'ed (each variable for instance). Databases also use and abuse pointers and benefit greatly from extra registers. So an x32 mysql / pgsql would be great (I'm not even considering Progress ever releasing an x32 version, they're way too conservative).
There's no need to collude. It's a natural thing. Less competition = higher prices. All the arguments that cell phone plan prices (per minute, per GB) are coming down, that's a given. The cost of ALL mobile hardware is coming down (handsets, radio base stations, backhaul connectivity, switching centers), that's ZERO excuse to say they should be allowed to merge. They should be coming down faster if there were enough competition. Plus the overcrowded airwaves are mainly the mobile companies fault, they keep advertising unlimited bandwidth plans, then when lots of customers tries to use their mobile data plan like they use their DSL = overcrowded airwaves. Mobile data plans aren't for p2p transfers, netflix, downloading linux distros/windows updates, that's for your wired broadband, but the mobile companies keep making you think the mobile plan is just as good. Finally, there's a simple solution to the crowded airwaves, it's called femtocells, which are coming to market really slowly, because they're much better for customers than they are for the mobile companies.
While it's possible to have a system with 16GB that could use only x32 (the kernel is still x86_64 under x32, so the kernel can see the 16GB), for instance running thousands of tasks using up to 4GB each just fine, plus the page cache is a kernel thing, so the I/O cache can always use all memory.
On the other hand, there are workloads that run on a 4GB system but that need x86_64 (mmaping of huge files for instance), and so boneheaded tasks reserve tons of never used RAM, it could actually use 1GB of RAM but reserve 8GB, the issue there really should be putting the coder in jail, but I digress.
But the vast majority of linux workloads today that use even a 8GB system would run just fine under x32. Like 95-98%. And nobody is even suggesting a mainstream linux distro without x86_64 userland. I'm sugesting all standard tools using x32, but keeping the x86_64 shared libraries and compilers, so if you need you could use some apps with full 64bit capability. Just use x32 by default.
Plus it's a good way to remind lazy developers that no matter how cheap RAM is, you should be serious about being efficient (specially to the KDE developers) ! KDE functionality is great, but they really have no clue about efficiency (RAM and CPU).
That's right. Unfortunately it's called the market. The same boneheads that says x32 isn't worth it, are the same boneheads which have no idea how ECC is important, how hard it is to properly code everything worrying about cache hits is. Probably people that never wrote a single line of C or assembly code.
But the Intel way of making the same physical hardware cost 50% more (with a simple on/off switch) will continue until ARM Cortex start giving intel some real competition (at least competing with the latest gen core i3).
In the ARM world, you can still get a 10 yr world CPU design (and for a pitance) because there's no forced obsolecence like Intel does.
Anxiously waiting for quad core Cortex A57 chromebooks in 2014 with 4GB of RAM. And a raspberry pi (or similar) with Cortex A53.
This whole thread is pointless. Everything about space beyond high (GEOsychronous) orbit is 100% done for national pride. When there's profit coming out of it it's from the tech developed to support said activity. Plastics, the micro processor revolution, many essential techs used in commercial aircraft came directly or indirectly from the Apollo project. Even with the cheapest launch costs expected for the next 36 months (SpaceX Falcon Heavy) it would cost one billion dollars just to send humans back to the moon for a (useless) week long trip. Establishing a moon colony just focused on mining would cost 50-100 billion USD. The earth has no shortage of cheap plentiful energy, if we'd just stopped being freaky about nuclear power. One square meter of dirty contains enough thorium (2 square centimeters) to produce as much electricity as 30000 square meters of Oil could produce. If the same governments interested in spending those tens of billions in mining the moon would spend just 10% of that in LFTR Thorium reactors (or some other modern Thorium nuclear option) we would have enough energy (assuming current continuous exponential growth for it) for another 10000 yrs at the very least. Without the carbon problems, or the pollution associated with massive scale space launches that would be needed to establish large moon mining infrastructure. Nuclear fusion is a pipe dream. The reason govts keep investing on it is pretty much the same reason we want to go to Mars. It's awesome PR. We've been 20-30 yrs away from Fusion becoming viable since research on this intensified in the 1980s. If you plot a chart with the moving target you'll see we're more likely 100 yrs away from viable fusion instead.
I apologize for being three times out of topic.... 1 - I care about the environment (far more than I care about the US deficit) 2 - If there were enough nuclear power plants, there would be far more than the usual, GE-Hitachi, Westinghouse (plus one supplier from each nuclear country) cartel, if there were 10x more nuclear power plants in operation and in construction the market would be very different 3 - With economies of scale and effective competition, a nuclear power plant would be much cheaper to operate than a coal or natural gas power 4 - The only way to solve the oil waste problem in the US is to tax the hell out of it, like it's done in Europe, Japan, Brazil and many other countries, then people will think with their wallets, an extremely unpopular solution for the US. Europe and Brazil pays about the same for a liter of gas (one quarter gallon) that you americans pay for a gallow, even in the UK and Norway (Oil exporting countries), my solution is to zero all payroll taxes even on the middle class and compensate for it on taxes on Oil and Coal (zero net increase) 5 - Brazil makes its own nuclear fuel, which is the largest long running cost of nuclear power plants (we have just 3 operating, I think Westinghouse technology, all within 20 miles of each other), you do know that there's zero competition for nuclear fuel in the USA, each manufacturer of the Nuclear Power plant is the sole supplier of fuel for that nuke ? It's a cartel, they don't want to compete with each other. Sell the plant at a tiny profit, then gouge on the nuclear fuel for its life. Result, there are many nuclear power plants being closed !
I call myself a peaceful, legal, one man wikileaks, no secret documents here, but tons and tons of facts that are often downplayed, ignored, ridiculed that if everybody knew about it (and acted on it), the world would be a much better place. I'm no Green Peace environmentalist (I found most of what they do pointless). I'm a pragmatic Green guy with the hobby of exposing everything the mainstream media buries that could change the world for the better.
Are you telling me those 6 scientists with impeccable reputation are stupid ? For christ sakes ! I said 48 hours, but it was actually two tests around 100 hours each. The energy generated had to either be nuclear or something in the wires. Please read the report, then criticise the report in a coherent fashion. It looks like you didn't read a single thing that wasn't what you wanted to see, "Anonymous Coward" !
Wish I could mod you funny, just to mod you a troll. hehehehehehe.
But seriously. There's a long way between a pickup truck and a tiny compact.
There are plenty of Sexy sports cars that uses very little more fuel than a compact and are great chick magnets. What you guys really need is to do is begin to have a mind of your own, instead of just copying the social standard. Damn it herd / me too mentality.
The biggest problem with american men isn't a tiny tool in the crotch, is the size of your brains. If you understood woman, you'd figure out being smart is far more sexy than the tool size.
Wasn't meant to start a flame war, it was meant to provoke people to think outside the box (another problem the average American men have).
WE'LL NEVER GET OUT OF OUR PITTY WAR / POVERTY / VIOLENCE / POLUTION PROBLEMS IF WE JUST KEEP THE STATUS QUO !
I just found out, the technology transfer isn't just so Embraer / Brazilian Air Force is fully independent (no backdoors, zero risk of being cut off maintentance wise) But also, Embraer can close deals and export Gripen NG to other countries (don't know about royalties) but Sweden would have zero authority to forbid re-exporting the product on a political basis. Plus if Brazil decides it wants another batch of aircraft, they can just produce it here. Done. What's unclear is if the 36 aircraft will be partially produced here (even if they were to be 100% produced in Sweden, the rest of the deal is way too sweet anyhow). Funny thing is the turbofan that equips the Gripen NG is american made, so it's likely the US could create trouble should Brazil try to sell this to some country the USA don't like, while Sweden wouldn't be able to say a word...
True, but the SH is a great bomb truck, ok for medium range a2a combat, but crappy at short range. For a non stealthy aircraft. In many ways the SH has been defined worse than the F18D for a2a combat.
The problem is the same, the US defense industrial complex is unwilling to do something really cost effective, for as long as there's budget (and clout with congress) to keep overcharging for military hardware.
The US would do itself a lot more good requiring cheap multi purpose UCAV aircrafts (a three/four way competition, contracting the two top winners), buy 4x more of those then it's fighter inventory at the height of the cold war, and keep only the F22, B1B and B2 as manned fighter/bombers (reactivating the F22 plant for another 100 aircraft and cancelling the F35 which is a failed project).
And try really hard to select at least one new company (not Boeing or Lockheed Martin). Ideally both options from new companies. A big part of the problem is keeping business as usual. There's way too much corruption between the Military Industrial Complex and the US Congress / DoD.
Of course, then I just woke up from my dream. What me, a Brazilian telling the Americans what to do ? Well, I lived in the US for a while, and would have stayed if I realisticly could, so I think I want USAF + US Navy air wings to continue being the best in the world.
The NSA debacle was just the cover story for the decision. Brazil wanted an aircraft that could be integrated with it's own present and future a2a missiles, it's own datalink system, and any other aspects they might desire to do in the future. All other choices were (pick two out of three): Too expensive, bad for our tecnological/operational sovereignty, bad for our economy profit over the deal. Countries shouldn't go out and spend billions of dollares in tech from other countries without large technological transfer unless they had no choice. The Boeing choice wasn't the worst choice, but it was bad enough compared to the Gripen NG deal. We would be tied with purchasing spare parts from Boeing forever. And wouldn't be able to learn from this tech.
Let me tell you a little (not so) secret. USA, UK, French, German, Russian aircraft are priced based on what their own air forces are willing to pay for them. Russia pays less for their own military hardware, so their aircraft don't end up being soo expensive, but in all other cases, those aircraft become un-affordable for exports into developing world.
The last US fighter that was mass exported into developing world countries was the Northrop F-5E, which was designed for that market. It was considered a crappy aircraft for USAF's own usage, although it was cheap (to buy and operate), very maneuverable, supersonic, but it was considered too fragile in face of enemy fire.
France seemed to be an exception, they sold lots of Mirage worldwide (probably because their prices weren't overblown). The same aircraft supplied to its own airforce in it's prime. Brazil had a history of buying aircraft from the french (Mirage III, replaced by surplus Mirage 2000)
My prediction is the Super Hornet, F35, F15 won't ever be sold to developing countries. OPEC countries and South Korea are the exceptions because they have to contend with Iran and North Korea, and have an interest in kissing USA ass to keep their military alliances alive.
I just started commenting on this topic. If this logic was true, then reselling stuff multiple times would balloon the GDP, and I'm positive this isn't true ! Added value is what matters. If boeing sold US$ 5B worth of fighters, with US$ 2B of aluminum and instead of buying from Alcoa, bought it from abroad (assuming everything else came domestic) then there would be US$ 3B worth of GDP, not US$ 5B. That's your mistake.
Then stop running Hummers, and other gas guzzlers. I lived in the USA for a while, in Texas it looks like everybody has a big pickup truck with cargo capacity they don't need just to drive a single person to/back from work every day. The US can save US$ 5B every week if they stopped the oil insanity ! Recently US congress killed a research project to make US aircraft carriers self sufficient in jet fuel (using heat from nuclear reactors, H2O from sea water, CO2 also from sea water, producing Jet Fuel). And the american people said nothing. Your trade imbalance is 100% your own fault (american people letting the Oil / Coal special interest tell the US govt what to do). You guys need lots of Nuclear energy now. The US could be a major oil exporter (exporting half what is produces) by 2030 if you just stopped being so energy irresponsible. Brazil also has plenty of cheap energy, we have lots of Hydro and Natural Gas electricity, and a ton of Oil. If it wasn't for our own govt incompetence, we'd be net exporting 20-30% of our Oil production already. This Gripen NG decision was one of the few smart decisions I saw the Brazilian govt doing in a long time (we have just as many insanities as the USA, except we're not considered a developed country anyways).
You're wrong. Added value is what matters, GDP would consider that 5B in economic activity, not 12B. As far as cash flow, than yes, that's 12B worth of cash flow, but only 5B worth of economic activity.
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Nuclear doesn't have problems (in general). ... (the nuclear suppliers) that are used to this cozy profit margin (they sell the plant at cost and lock in a long term fuel supply contract, you can't use nuclear fuel from one company into another's nuclear station). ... have over accidents), you know the NRC is like: Safety isn't paramount, it's the ONLY thing that matters.
Old tech water cooled uranium reactors are the problem (and even then a far smaller problem than the environmentalists would like us to believe).
The real problem is GE / Hitachi / Westinghouse / Areva /
They have ZERO interest in new Nuclear technology, unless it's at least as profitable as the prior technology.
And Thorium nuclear promisses essentially zero fuel costs and 1/3th manufacturing costs.
Add that to all the bullshit Green Peace has been feeding us, and voila, the US government isn't investing one cent in nuclear energy research, leaving only tiny companies with a really hard time finding the money to research Thorium / LFTR / Pebble Bed reactors for instance. And the green parties are even stronger in Europe.
But safety wise, in reality Nuclear is probably the safest source of energy.
More people die from coal mining / natural gas / oil exploration accidents per year than nuclear power plants killed / gave cancer to people since the first nuclear power plant came online decades ago.
If people's attitude towards nuclear were applied to airplanes we wouldn't fly at all, regardless of the fact that it's the safest way of transportation available.
But like airplanes, since we're not in control, we tend to freak out about accidents, not realizing the millions of flights that goes without incident (and the already infinite paranoia the NTSB / FAA / EASA /
Just one change to the US electoral system would make it viable for third parties to get house seats.
France has district voting very similar to the USA, except they have run up elections (if the winner don't get 50% + 1 of valid votes). And the runup election includes all candidates that got at least 10% of the voting.
This creates a large incentive for the 2nd best voted to make serious alliances with the as many of the other voted as possible to win the run-up.
This is the system I'm advocating for Brazil (which unfortunately has a brain dead proportional system that prevents voters from know exactly who represents them and prevents representatives from knowing who is their constituency).
Of course even such a small change would take an act of god (in the USA, for Brazil it would be HUGE), but it would be a pursuit much more useful than anything the smaller parties are advocating for today.
Only USA and UK seem to have such a totally polarized two party system. Here in Brazil our problem is the other way around, we have over 20 parties, with no more single one with more than 20% of the national assembly and no clear ideological identity for all but 3 or 4 very radical left parties. Everybody else either is a political whore to the party that won the presidency, plus a coalition of about 3 parties making some resemblance of an opposition to the party in power (labor).
In the end, the USA system is better as it is (than what we have now). I lived in both countries.
The biggest problem with democracy isn't the system, it's the stupidity of the voters ! The system is as good as the intelligence of the voters.
Mod parent up
You probably don't understand the ARM ecosystem...
ARM only design the CPUs, and license them.
ARM licensees actually build the CPUs.
So in the ARM world, there are at least 6 strong players. And 95+% of the costs / profits are on making the CPUs and the whole system, so the competition is a GIVEN.
Cortex A15 have 5 licensees.
Cortex A57 have 6 licensees.
And those are the high end CPUs. The middle end / low end have even more licensees.
In a way, the ARM model is fantastic for the consumers, much better than the Intel / AMD duopoly will ever be.
I both agree and disagree with you. Since you aren't explaining, I'll explain for you.
If you're trying to say that it would be very bad to have many more physically different processors, than yes, agreed 100%.
As a matter of fact, we should have even less CPU models. For instance, mobile / low power / desktop / server CPUs. STUPID
The fair way to do it would be having core i5 small cache, core i5 large cache, core i7 small cache, core i7 large cache. The current core i7 users would use the small cache model (large by core i5 standards) and the servers would use either core i5 large cache or core i7 large cache. Get rid of the core i3 altogether.
But the same CPU would have ECC standard, and would be able to be configured at boot time to limit CPU frequencies, limit GPU frequencies, limit voltages (low frequency + low external voltage = ultra low power), overclock, you name it.
After Intel killed AMD's mojo with plays taken by Microsoft and IBM at their darkest times, ARM has a good chance of eating Intel's lunch from the bottom up. Actually ARM licensees, since ARM design CPUs, but their licensees actually build them.
I also believe that AMD will make an interesting come back in the next few years.
95% of my customer server's are core iX processors, they rarely are willing to pay 4x more for ECC, hardware I/O cache, and even then they end up with SATA drives anyways !
BTW, I'm not saying Intel will do it out of good intentions, only severe competition will make them do it. It will reduce profits.
BTW, the argument that Intel has reserve juice to do what they did when AMD got close them, I'm not so sure.
Linux / Android / iOS is making Intel CPUs no longer some gold standard due to compatibility. Linux / gcc / binutils already supports almost every CPU on the planet. Anything that runs on Intel and we have the source, can be ported to ARM, MIPS and PowerPC (the only relevant CPU architectures left, all the others are dying, even PowerPC is a little bit of a stretch).
Not the issue. For instance I'm using raspberry pi's as text console terminals, and I'm typing this on a chromebook ARM (Cortex A15 Exynos 5). It became my primary terminal, because for a 100% solid state computer (no moving parts, I can move it around when it's on, without ANY fear of breaking anything) it's dirt cheap.
ECC is a nice feature, but I don't have customers demanding it, nor I had any cases of corrupt production data on a system without ECC. It should be a standard feature, with zero cost overhead, once it's a standard feature. Oh, it's not 12.5% extra cost. That's one parity bit for each 8 bits of data, ECC is 3 extra bits for every 8 bits (I'm not sure if it could be 3 extra bits for each 16 or even 32 bits), so it's more like 37,5% extra bits (assuming it works on a 8 bit level). It's been a long, long, long time since I studied ECC algorithms, but the 12.5% extra cost is parity for sure, not ECC. For instance if it worked on 16 bit level, it would be 18,75% overhead instead (3 extra bits for every 16 bits).
This just goes to show most people criticizing x32 (definitely not all of them) don't have a clue what they're talking about, they seem to either the marketing people that work for companies that want to kill this, or people that have never learned assembly / low level computer stuff in detail. This discussion would be so much more productive if those uneducated people either educate themselves before talking about x32 or just went away.
Oh, you can't call yourself a great C/C++ programmer if you don't have a full and correct understanding of CPU cache hits and stack frames which are the really important factors x32 affects. The hard RAM savings at the least important feature (except for embedded systems, but someone pointed very correctly the odds of an embedded system running an intel compatible system is one in a thousand or less). That's ARM / MIPS cpu land.
The trend is quite the opposite, ARM is coming to the notebook / desktop world, and there's no stopping it (although it won't take over, it will be a slow movement).
The past is the past, the present is Oil is on it's way to obsolescence. Much like computers used to double in speed, half in power consumption and size every 18 months, electric batteries will follow that trend but more likely on a 8 year cycle. But in that case double power per weight, half price per power and increase rate of charging and discharging. And with just a half cycle (50% move) to make the high end electric car have a 400 mile range, and affordable cars (to the middle class) have 150 mile range.
Since large scale eletricity production uses no oil, then the next generation electric cars will lead to the end of 95% of the need for oil.
Even as we speak, Tesla Model S / GM Volt / Nissan Leaf is doing the first stage of this revolution is showing it's possible, even if still a little too expensive / too little range. But the current tech is good enough for most environment conscious upper middle class (in the case of the Tesla Model S). The next generation will start the mass migration. By 2025 gasoline cars will be only bought by the most ignorant climate change denier / I want a monster muscle car / my car must make big noise semi cave men.
The Solyndra case is typical GOP flip flopping.
1 - It was George W Bush initiative, approved by a GOP majority in the house
2 - Those gov't incentive plans are expected to have a small number of failures, otherwise the criteria of who gets the money is being too conservative, which means that innovation isn't being sparked
3 - The reason Solyndra failed wasn't their incompetence, but instead the Chinese dumping of solar panels below cost
And they try to pin the blame on Obama and a democratic majority (at the time) in the house.
Stop rehashing the same stupid misconceptions, it just shows how brainwashed you were by the Tea Party !
Most of the Tea Party platform is great in theory, but much, much worse than the status quo in practice, much like the libertarian platform. That's the consequence of trying to do politics driven by ideology, it tends to ignore a little think called FACTS !
The fact is the Tea Party doesn't want to help the middle class one little bit. It true purpose is to make the billionaires even more rich and try to rollback basic social advances created by the New Deal and the 1960s social policies. It's amazing how effective their brainwashing on the middle class of GOP voters work.
The simple fact is the USA needs a center party, based on pragmatism, and rejection of both labor union driven politics and big oil / the industrial military complex / unlimited power to the billionaires thinking. The problem is the vast majority of those is the middle just don't care enough to push for change, leaving a small minority that aligns themselves with the Tea Party out of ignorance.
It's called the effect of cheap VOIP ! you need a disruptive technology to change the ballgame.
If all 2G technology were retired tomorrow, and all spectrum relocated to 3g / 3.5g / 3.75g / 4g the cost per minute of voice calls would essentially be free
even a basic 3g network can place something like 1000 simultaneous calls per sector (each antenna is usually 6 sectors, so 6000 simultaneous calls on a single antenna)
the numbers are huge, hence those 45% profit margins
using lots of femtocells for high volume traffic offload would increase system wide capacity but a lot, since it helps frequency reutilization
PS: I'm really knowledgeable on landline carriers (voice, data and internet) so my data might be a little off, but not by much, I'm typing on the top of my head
charging per invidividual SMS is criminal
an SMS uses less network resources than if someone called someone else, it rang for 2 seconds and gave up (actually about one order of magnitude less)
that's a normal consequence of not having enough competition
SMS should be like US$ 5/month for unlimited texting (or perhaps 1000 texts, every extra 100 texts costs US$ 0,10)
A single cell tower segment (one antenna) can handle at least 100 million texts / month if there was nothing else for it to do, and even with other activity something like 10 million texts easy peazy, so a whole USA nationwide network should be able to handle a trillion texts per year easy.
humm, I'm running firefox / chrome with 3GB total system RAM just fine
dozens of tabs, flash, java, you name it
many pages with hundreds of jpegs open
the maximum virtual memory space for those jobs don't even get to 1GB
I'm a MySQL/pgsql/Progress DBA and the only case I've seen that would require x86_64 is a customer with 6 Progress databases, a single local client attaches to all 6 dbs, requiring over 4GB of address space, all other cases don't come even close, all jvm I've ever seen, maxed out at 1.3GB
again, most people posting on the x32 subject don't even know what exactly is a mmap mapping, a shared memory segment, memory allocated from sbrk and other methods, stacks allocated dynamically, and jump to the conclusion a browser must require over 4GB of address space
unless you're running some exotic scientific application, some database with a huge cache, something custom made, you'll have to work realllllyyyyyy hard to need more than even 2GB of memory address space
The issue benchmarks aren't being run isn't kinks in x32 itself, is most realworld apps can't be simply recompiled for x32 (a little bit of assembly code will mess it up for instance, most virtual machines have some assembly code for raw memory access - to read/write from C style structures for instance), and those maintainers don't want to get it done
Those are the really telling benchmarks (java apps, python apps, php apps, perl apps) I'm willing to be some serious money those will have a 10+% speedup, and they're the typical CPU hogs, specially poorly written java apps we have no control over the source. Those virtual machines use pointers for everything, since almost everything is malloc'ed (each variable for instance).
Databases also use and abuse pointers and benefit greatly from extra registers. So an x32 mysql / pgsql would be great (I'm not even considering Progress ever releasing an x32 version, they're way too conservative).
There's no need to collude.
It's a natural thing. Less competition = higher prices.
All the arguments that cell phone plan prices (per minute, per GB) are coming down, that's a given.
The cost of ALL mobile hardware is coming down (handsets, radio base stations, backhaul connectivity, switching centers), that's ZERO excuse to say they should be allowed to merge.
They should be coming down faster if there were enough competition.
Plus the overcrowded airwaves are mainly the mobile companies fault, they keep advertising unlimited bandwidth plans, then when lots of customers tries to use their mobile data plan like they use their DSL = overcrowded airwaves.
Mobile data plans aren't for p2p transfers, netflix, downloading linux distros/windows updates, that's for your wired broadband, but the mobile companies keep making you think the mobile plan is just as good.
Finally, there's a simple solution to the crowded airwaves, it's called femtocells, which are coming to market really slowly, because they're much better for customers than they are for the mobile companies.
While it's possible to have a system with 16GB that could use only x32 (the kernel is still x86_64 under x32, so the kernel can see the 16GB), for instance running thousands of tasks using up to 4GB each just fine, plus the page cache is a kernel thing, so the I/O cache can always use all memory.
On the other hand, there are workloads that run on a 4GB system but that need x86_64 (mmaping of huge files for instance), and so boneheaded tasks reserve tons of never used RAM, it could actually use 1GB of RAM but reserve 8GB, the issue there really should be putting the coder in jail, but I digress.
But the vast majority of linux workloads today that use even a 8GB system would run just fine under x32. Like 95-98%.
And nobody is even suggesting a mainstream linux distro without x86_64 userland. I'm sugesting all standard tools using x32, but keeping the x86_64 shared libraries and compilers, so if you need you could use some apps with full 64bit capability. Just use x32 by default.
Plus it's a good way to remind lazy developers that no matter how cheap RAM is, you should be serious about being efficient (specially to the KDE developers) !
KDE functionality is great, but they really have no clue about efficiency (RAM and CPU).
That's right. Unfortunately it's called the market. The same boneheads that says x32 isn't worth it, are the same boneheads which have no idea how ECC is important, how hard it is to properly code everything worrying about cache hits is. Probably people that never wrote a single line of C or assembly code.
But the Intel way of making the same physical hardware cost 50% more (with a simple on/off switch) will continue until ARM Cortex start giving intel some real competition (at least competing with the latest gen core i3).
In the ARM world, you can still get a 10 yr world CPU design (and for a pitance) because there's no forced obsolecence like Intel does.
Anxiously waiting for quad core Cortex A57 chromebooks in 2014 with 4GB of RAM. And a raspberry pi (or similar) with Cortex A53.
This whole thread is pointless.
Everything about space beyond high (GEOsychronous) orbit is 100% done for national pride.
When there's profit coming out of it it's from the tech developed to support said activity. Plastics, the micro processor revolution, many essential techs used in commercial aircraft came directly or indirectly from the Apollo project.
Even with the cheapest launch costs expected for the next 36 months (SpaceX Falcon Heavy) it would cost one billion dollars just to send humans back to the moon for a (useless) week long trip.
Establishing a moon colony just focused on mining would cost 50-100 billion USD.
The earth has no shortage of cheap plentiful energy, if we'd just stopped being freaky about nuclear power.
One square meter of dirty contains enough thorium (2 square centimeters) to produce as much electricity as 30000 square meters of Oil could produce.
If the same governments interested in spending those tens of billions in mining the moon would spend just 10% of that in LFTR Thorium reactors (or some other modern Thorium nuclear option) we would have enough energy (assuming current continuous exponential growth for it) for another 10000 yrs at the very least.
Without the carbon problems, or the pollution associated with massive scale space launches that would be needed to establish large moon mining infrastructure.
Nuclear fusion is a pipe dream. The reason govts keep investing on it is pretty much the same reason we want to go to Mars. It's awesome PR. We've been 20-30 yrs away from Fusion becoming viable since research on this intensified in the 1980s.
If you plot a chart with the moving target you'll see we're more likely 100 yrs away from viable fusion instead.
I apologize for being three times out of topic....
1 - I care about the environment (far more than I care about the US deficit)
2 - If there were enough nuclear power plants, there would be far more than the usual, GE-Hitachi, Westinghouse (plus one supplier from each nuclear country) cartel, if there were 10x more nuclear power plants in operation and in construction the market would be very different
3 - With economies of scale and effective competition, a nuclear power plant would be much cheaper to operate than a coal or natural gas power
4 - The only way to solve the oil waste problem in the US is to tax the hell out of it, like it's done in Europe, Japan, Brazil and many other countries, then people will think with their wallets, an extremely unpopular solution for the US. Europe and Brazil pays about the same for a liter of gas (one quarter gallon) that you americans pay for a gallow, even in the UK and Norway (Oil exporting countries), my solution is to zero all payroll taxes even on the middle class and compensate for it on taxes on Oil and Coal (zero net increase)
5 - Brazil makes its own nuclear fuel, which is the largest long running cost of nuclear power plants (we have just 3 operating, I think Westinghouse technology, all within 20 miles of each other), you do know that there's zero competition for nuclear fuel in the USA, each manufacturer of the Nuclear Power plant is the sole supplier of fuel for that nuke ? It's a cartel, they don't want to compete with each other. Sell the plant at a tiny profit, then gouge on the nuclear fuel for its life. Result, there are many nuclear power plants being closed !
I call myself a peaceful, legal, one man wikileaks, no secret documents here, but tons and tons of facts that are often downplayed, ignored, ridiculed that if everybody knew about it (and acted on it), the world would be a much better place.
I'm no Green Peace environmentalist (I found most of what they do pointless).
I'm a pragmatic Green guy with the hobby of exposing everything the mainstream media buries that could change the world for the better.
Are you telling me those 6 scientists with impeccable reputation are stupid ?
For christ sakes !
I said 48 hours, but it was actually two tests around 100 hours each.
The energy generated had to either be nuclear or something in the wires.
Please read the report, then criticise the report in a coherent fashion.
It looks like you didn't read a single thing that wasn't what you wanted to see, "Anonymous Coward" !
Wish I could mod you funny, just to mod you a troll. hehehehehehe.
But seriously. There's a long way between a pickup truck and a tiny compact.
There are plenty of Sexy sports cars that uses very little more fuel than a compact and are great chick magnets. What you guys really need is to do is begin to have a mind of your own, instead of just copying the social standard. Damn it herd / me too mentality.
The biggest problem with american men isn't a tiny tool in the crotch, is the size of your brains. If you understood woman, you'd figure out being smart is far more sexy than the tool size.
Wasn't meant to start a flame war, it was meant to provoke people to think outside the box (another problem the average American men have).
WE'LL NEVER GET OUT OF OUR PITTY WAR / POVERTY / VIOLENCE / POLUTION PROBLEMS IF WE JUST KEEP THE STATUS QUO !
I just found out, the technology transfer isn't just so Embraer / Brazilian Air Force is fully independent (no backdoors, zero risk of being cut off maintentance wise)
But also, Embraer can close deals and export Gripen NG to other countries (don't know about royalties) but Sweden would have zero authority to forbid re-exporting the product on a political basis.
Plus if Brazil decides it wants another batch of aircraft, they can just produce it here. Done.
What's unclear is if the 36 aircraft will be partially produced here (even if they were to be 100% produced in Sweden, the rest of the deal is way too sweet anyhow).
Funny thing is the turbofan that equips the Gripen NG is american made, so it's likely the US could create trouble should Brazil try to sell this to some country the USA don't like, while Sweden wouldn't be able to say a word...
True, but the SH is a great bomb truck, ok for medium range a2a combat, but crappy at short range. For a non stealthy aircraft.
In many ways the SH has been defined worse than the F18D for a2a combat.
The problem is the same, the US defense industrial complex is unwilling to do something really cost effective, for as long as there's budget (and clout with congress) to keep overcharging for military hardware.
The US would do itself a lot more good requiring cheap multi purpose UCAV aircrafts (a three/four way competition, contracting the two top winners), buy 4x more of those then it's fighter inventory at the height of the cold war, and keep only the F22, B1B and B2 as manned fighter/bombers (reactivating the F22 plant for another 100 aircraft and cancelling the F35 which is a failed project).
And try really hard to select at least one new company (not Boeing or Lockheed Martin).
Ideally both options from new companies.
A big part of the problem is keeping business as usual.
There's way too much corruption between the Military Industrial Complex and the US Congress / DoD.
Of course, then I just woke up from my dream. What me, a Brazilian telling the Americans what to do ? Well, I lived in the US for a while, and would have stayed if I realisticly could, so I think I want USAF + US Navy air wings to continue being the best in the world.
The NSA debacle was just the cover story for the decision.
Brazil wanted an aircraft that could be integrated with it's own present and future a2a missiles, it's own datalink system, and any other aspects they might desire to do in the future.
All other choices were (pick two out of three): Too expensive, bad for our tecnological/operational sovereignty, bad for our economy profit over the deal.
Countries shouldn't go out and spend billions of dollares in tech from other countries without large technological transfer unless they had no choice.
The Boeing choice wasn't the worst choice, but it was bad enough compared to the Gripen NG deal.
We would be tied with purchasing spare parts from Boeing forever.
And wouldn't be able to learn from this tech.
Let me tell you a little (not so) secret.
USA, UK, French, German, Russian aircraft are priced based on what their own air forces are willing to pay for them.
Russia pays less for their own military hardware, so their aircraft don't end up being soo expensive, but in all other cases, those aircraft become un-affordable for exports into developing world.
The last US fighter that was mass exported into developing world countries was the Northrop F-5E, which was designed for that market. It was considered a crappy aircraft for USAF's own usage, although it was cheap (to buy and operate), very maneuverable, supersonic, but it was considered too fragile in face of enemy fire.
France seemed to be an exception, they sold lots of Mirage worldwide (probably because their prices weren't overblown). The same aircraft supplied to its own airforce in it's prime. Brazil had a history of buying aircraft from the french (Mirage III, replaced by surplus Mirage 2000)
My prediction is the Super Hornet, F35, F15 won't ever be sold to developing countries. OPEC countries and South Korea are the exceptions because they have to contend with Iran and North Korea, and have an interest in kissing USA ass to keep their military alliances alive.
I just started commenting on this topic.
If this logic was true, then reselling stuff multiple times would balloon the GDP, and I'm positive this isn't true !
Added value is what matters.
If boeing sold US$ 5B worth of fighters, with US$ 2B of aluminum and instead of buying from Alcoa, bought it from abroad (assuming everything else came domestic) then there would be US$ 3B worth of GDP, not US$ 5B.
That's your mistake.
Then stop running Hummers, and other gas guzzlers. I lived in the USA for a while, in Texas it looks like everybody has a big pickup truck with cargo capacity they don't need just to drive a single person to/back from work every day.
The US can save US$ 5B every week if they stopped the oil insanity !
Recently US congress killed a research project to make US aircraft carriers self sufficient in jet fuel (using heat from nuclear reactors, H2O from sea water, CO2 also from sea water, producing Jet Fuel).
And the american people said nothing.
Your trade imbalance is 100% your own fault (american people letting the Oil / Coal special interest tell the US govt what to do).
You guys need lots of Nuclear energy now.
The US could be a major oil exporter (exporting half what is produces) by 2030 if you just stopped being so energy irresponsible.
Brazil also has plenty of cheap energy, we have lots of Hydro and Natural Gas electricity, and a ton of Oil.
If it wasn't for our own govt incompetence, we'd be net exporting 20-30% of our Oil production already.
This Gripen NG decision was one of the few smart decisions I saw the Brazilian govt doing in a long time (we have just as many insanities as the USA, except we're not considered a developed country anyways).
You're wrong. Added value is what matters, GDP would consider that 5B in economic activity, not 12B.
As far as cash flow, than yes, that's 12B worth of cash flow, but only 5B worth of economic activity.