Wow, it is pretty amazing how far we have come in CPU technologies. My introduction to computing came in the form of the MOS 6502 chip in my Apple II plus computer with a whopping 64k of RAM and a disk drive ! and a handset modem which I then used to talk to people all over the world. Pretty cool stuff for a twelve year old back in 1982. For my uses at the time however, that CPU speed was plenty and I was not processor bound in any of the tasks I handed it. Later uses however, started pushing the limits of CPU's and my computational (and financial) expenditures increased significantly. I realized that for our uses, the MIPS folks had the right concept going and I ended up buying SGI machines for our work in molecular modeling and statistics at the time, but those systems were soooo expensive. For comparison however, I have kept a standard dataset for years that has become my benchmark of sorts and have run calculations on it with a number of systems I've owned. On my old Indigo and Mac Quadra 840av's and Pentium I systems, this dataset would run for about three days before finishing. Just for kicks, I ran the same calculation on my new G5 and I was astounded to see it finish almost as quickly as I could press the "run" button. The G5 from IBM is truly amazing and I can get this performance in a dual G5 system all for a cost 1/8th of my SGI Octane.
Dude! I found this really cool thing a while back. It's called "Linux". Try googling it.
Dude! Don't be a smart ass. I will reiterate: Nothing is free. How many hours do you think have gone into Linux development? People's time is not free. It is worth something and if people wish to donate their time, that is their business, but arguably, Linux has proven its worth time and time again. I don't think anyone who contributes their efforts will believe their work valueless.
I want you all to read this very carefully: Nothing is free , except true charity and this is decidedly not charity. Somebody (Gratis Inc.) is making money. Let me tell you a secret.....your identity and demographic information is valuable. Individually, it means very little, but when you sell out your friends to get in on this scheme, numbers start adding up and marketing firms and companies are paying big for this information, thus the 500 iPods/week adding up to $6.5 Million US/year and the company is decidedly making a tidy profit on top of this expenditure.
Like the lined article says, Marathon was unique for its story. It went beyond the trick novelty of being a first person shooter and actually had pretty decent (for its time) story line. Not to mention the great networked game play that went on with wonderfully designed maps. Does anybody remember that little dark niche at the end of the hallway you had to walk towards to get up the staircase? Ha! You'd be walking down the hall and see a puff of flame and smoke only to find a SPNKR rocket headed right towards you. We had a great time in the genetics building late at night playing Marathon on Mac Quadra 840av's and when somebody got caught, you would hear a scream from somewhere in the building when they got killed (virtually of course).
Yes indeed. This was kinda one of those moments when everybody smacks their collective foreheads and says "Of Course!" "How Cool".
Kinda like the beginning of Quartz at a meeting of engineers when "Engineer X" speaks up and says "you know, instead of using the CPU to render all of this 2-D stuff, we could use the GPU............." This statement was followed by a long pause while the implications of this statement sunk into everybody's wetware (brain) only to be followed by a quiet "sunofa....." by the senior project manager.
Of course Microsoft is busy co-opting this idea which has been shipping now with OS X for a few years but, what else is new?
Vioxx and now Celebrex. The COX-2 inhibitors are revealing additional side effects like heart attack and kidney damage in a couple of studies now. Look, drugs are not benign things despite what marketing campaigns would have you believe and they should not be taken lightly. Apparently 44% of Americans are now on prescription drugs of one sort or another and one might start to wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.
As a followup to this, there are always "unintended effects" of supplemental drugs/molecules/herbs, whatever your X of choice. The stains on the lips from the sapho juice in Dune were relatively benign and a sign of the Mentat, but there are other effects of real world "additives" that one must be aware of and careful of when partaking. Celebrex should be the latest warning in a long line of possibly dangerous side effects.
Quote: It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
I work in vision research. While we are making advancements in vision rescue and understanding of processes that occur in retinal degenerations, we are some years off from a true rescue. Therefore, technologies such as the ones offered through OS X are going to be significant to our patients who are currently having to deal with vision loss.
Of course Apple was having to work on their accessibility issues for federal approval, but not only are they are going far beyond the absolute base requirements, they have made the same OS a productive work environment for scientific research as well. Therefore, I am more than happy to try and integrate OS X into patient education and use as well as in my basic science research in the lab.
P.S. There is a movement within the National Library for the Blind to replace all of their "books on tape" with a digital format compatible with.mp3 and the iPod would be absolutely ideal here as well with just a little software engineering.
There were a whole lot of reasons why 3dfx went belly up, but SLI and multicore were not it. What I have always wondered and never heard was: What happened with the big Army contract that 3dfx got for running the new displays in helicopters? Did this project just go away or did another company step in? Nvidia?
Well, I would not be considered a hardcore gamer per se and I am absolutely not going to purchase another computer just for games, but I did help with the beta test development of Halo on OS X and a fast graphics card was nice to have for that process. It also helps push all the pixels on my huge Cinema Displays and kept me from getting fragged by all the 12 year old twitch meisters out there. Damn some of those kids are monsters.
So, the question will be: Can we get drivers for this card that will work in Linux or OS X? It is based in Nvidia technology, so presumably one could write drivers for this card unless Gigabyte is keeping their stuff proprietary.....
It looks interesting and I would certainly be more than interested in plugging one into my dual G5, but I don't have time (or the interest) to write my own drivers.
True.....Forgive me. In addition to Poland I am sure there are other countries represented whose soldiers have died trying to fix this quagmire that I neglected to include in the original post.
I try and be non partisan here but I have a few questions: How much money is this system costing? How are we supposed to justify the cost in addition to the $100 Billion (approx 25 Billion more than Bush said we would need before the election) we are going to spend in Iraq and Afghanistan next year? How are we supposed to pay for this with the dollar at an all time low against the Euro? How are we supposed to pay for this and have the tax cuts made permanent? How are we supposed to pay for this and reduce the deficit (at an all time high off of a budget surplus just five years ago)? How are we supposed to pay for this and the new stealth spy satellite program that is currently under congressional review? If we are truly at war, then we have to consider some history: There has never before been a time in the history of the United States where during a time of war, we have had a tax cut. If our soldiers (Semper Fi) are paying the ultimate sacrifice (1,344 US Military and a significant number of British, Spanish and Iraqi troops in addition to unpublished numbers of private contractors), then we should at home be expected to sacrifice as well.
The performance of this program really does make one wonder what we are getting for our tax dollars and investment given all the dramatic failures this program has endured.
Presumably because if one could use your own cell phone, you have built within it in many cases, IM ability, video capability, email, address books etc... and it will likely be cheaper than using the phones built into the seats. Have you ever pulled one of the airphones out of the seats and actually used it? Hideously expensive.
it might also be a new way to annoy your nighbor sitting next to you.
This is exactly where it is going to go. This is going to be horrible having to listen to calls like this: "Dude, dude, dude......guess where I am? Hehehe, dude, I am in a plane he he whoooooaaaa dude" your breaking up there.....CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW??? HOW ABOUT NOW????!!!?. Yeah thats exactly what I want. If the airlines want to make people even more crazy in the air they will subject us to stuff like that. Now, if they are smart, they will create cell phone free zones so that everybody does not have to be subjected to the mindless banter that people inflict on others around them.
It might even be a more horrible experience than I had on a flight from Sydney to Australia a couple of months ago with a couple of ecstasy addled passengers in front of me who were mixing alcohol with their e's as well. Those guys would not shut up. Cell phones have the same effect on some folks. They appear to be oblivious to anybody else around them and start the most inane loud conversations obligatorily involving anybody within earshot. All I have to say is that a good investment in Bose noise canceling headsets have been one of the best investments ever and appear to possibly become a necessity when flying.
I agree and I am absolutely not advocating piracy or theft of any sort. I own no pirated software, music or movies and am very careful in my work environment as well to ensure there is no theft or possession of pirated software or products on any of our systems. By saying vote with your dollars I am saying "do not give your patronage to those businesses that bombard you with ads".
MTV was originally advertised as being "24hour music commercial free" hosted by VJ's who really did not waste much time in-between videos. Pretty cool. However, I made the mistake of tuning in to MTV a couple of months ago and I can certainly say that it is not "My MTV". Most of it is an ad for something including all of their product placements, and What happened to the videos? There do not appear to be ANY videos.
Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.
Then why did you include it in your post? Say this in a comment instead. Anyhow, I will respond: I agree that it is silly and frustrating to have to sit through tons of ads before a movie, the length of time by the way standard so you cannot say "I will simply come ten minutes later". Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies which works for nationally known companies but not so well for smaller local companies which I am sure is one of the biggest reasons behind the push of On Demand. Namely the ability to sell localized content ads for an "at home audience". We are going to be faced with a deluge of ads (even intimately targeted ads) no matter what. The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.
WTF? My initial reaction: "All I have got to say is that somebody is spending waaaaaay too much time playing games if they are willing to pony up that kind of cash for a virtual island". Then I realized (as I am browsing Slashdot wasting my time) that perhaps his person has plans to be a virtual developer which, while still the type of person associated with developing (build! build! build!) is developing and making money in a virtual world without the real world effects on the environment or populace that "real" developers have. Ah, I say go for it. We all gotta make money somehow, but I feel better telling my grandma I am a scientist as opposed to a make believe developer for a game. He will likely make more money than me anyway.
I had an Octane. Great system, but like you said the support costs were crazy. A support contract was costing me as much as a new G5 every year , so........I replaced it with a G5. The system architecture is like the Octane with completely separate busses for I/O, memory, CPU, storage etc.... and is actually a fair bit faster than the Octane.
Additionally, IRIX while very powerful, can be troublesome. When I let the support contract run out on my O2, I had a video card go bad and damn!, it took me a whole day to replace the card and get IRIX to recognize things again. OS X is soooo much more plug and play. If you like *nix, give OS X a try.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, it is pretty amazing how far we have come in CPU technologies. My introduction to computing came in the form of the MOS 6502 chip in my Apple II plus computer with a whopping 64k of RAM and a disk drive ! and a handset modem which I then used to talk to people all over the world. Pretty cool stuff for a twelve year old back in 1982. For my uses at the time however, that CPU speed was plenty and I was not processor bound in any of the tasks I handed it. Later uses however, started pushing the limits of CPU's and my computational (and financial) expenditures increased significantly. I realized that for our uses, the MIPS folks had the right concept going and I ended up buying SGI machines for our work in molecular modeling and statistics at the time, but those systems were soooo expensive. For comparison however, I have kept a standard dataset for years that has become my benchmark of sorts and have run calculations on it with a number of systems I've owned. On my old Indigo and Mac Quadra 840av's and Pentium I systems, this dataset would run for about three days before finishing. Just for kicks, I ran the same calculation on my new G5 and I was astounded to see it finish almost as quickly as I could press the "run" button. The G5 from IBM is truly amazing and I can get this performance in a dual G5 system all for a cost 1/8th of my SGI Octane.
Dude! I found this really cool thing a while back.
It's called "Linux". Try googling it.
Dude! Don't be a smart ass. I will reiterate: Nothing is free. How many hours do you think have gone into Linux development? People's time is not free. It is worth something and if people wish to donate their time, that is their business, but arguably, Linux has proven its worth time and time again. I don't think anyone who contributes their efforts will believe their work valueless.
I want you all to read this very carefully: Nothing is free , except true charity and this is decidedly not charity. Somebody (Gratis Inc.) is making money. Let me tell you a secret.....your identity and demographic information is valuable. Individually, it means very little, but when you sell out your friends to get in on this scheme, numbers start adding up and marketing firms and companies are paying big for this information, thus the 500 iPods/week adding up to $6.5 Million US/year and the company is decidedly making a tidy profit on top of this expenditure.
Like the lined article says, Marathon was unique for its story. It went beyond the trick novelty of being a first person shooter and actually had pretty decent (for its time) story line. Not to mention the great networked game play that went on with wonderfully designed maps. Does anybody remember that little dark niche at the end of the hallway you had to walk towards to get up the staircase? Ha! You'd be walking down the hall and see a puff of flame and smoke only to find a SPNKR rocket headed right towards you. We had a great time in the genetics building late at night playing Marathon on Mac Quadra 840av's and when somebody got caught, you would hear a scream from somewhere in the building when they got killed (virtually of course).
Yes indeed. This was kinda one of those moments when everybody smacks their collective foreheads and says "Of Course!" "How Cool".
Kinda like the beginning of Quartz at a meeting of engineers when "Engineer X" speaks up and says "you know, instead of using the CPU to render all of this 2-D stuff, we could use the GPU............." This statement was followed by a long pause while the implications of this statement sunk into everybody's wetware (brain) only to be followed by a quiet "sunofa....." by the senior project manager.
Of course Microsoft is busy co-opting this idea which has been shipping now with OS X for a few years but, what else is new?
Vioxx and now Celebrex. The COX-2 inhibitors are revealing additional side effects like heart attack and kidney damage in a couple of studies now. Look, drugs are not benign things despite what marketing campaigns would have you believe and they should not be taken lightly. Apparently 44% of Americans are now on prescription drugs of one sort or another and one might start to wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.
As a followup to this, there are always "unintended effects" of supplemental drugs/molecules/herbs, whatever your X of choice. The stains on the lips from the sapho juice in Dune were relatively benign and a sign of the Mentat, but there are other effects of real world "additives" that one must be aware of and careful of when partaking. Celebrex should be the latest warning in a long line of possibly dangerous side effects.
Quote: It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
~Thufir
I work in vision research. While we are making advancements in vision rescue and understanding of processes that occur in retinal degenerations, we are some years off from a true rescue. Therefore, technologies such as the ones offered through OS X are going to be significant to our patients who are currently having to deal with vision loss.
.mp3 and the iPod would be absolutely ideal here as well with just a little software engineering.
Of course Apple was having to work on their accessibility issues for federal approval, but not only are they are going far beyond the absolute base requirements, they have made the same OS a productive work environment for scientific research as well. Therefore, I am more than happy to try and integrate OS X into patient education and use as well as in my basic science research in the lab.
P.S. There is a movement within the National Library for the Blind to replace all of their "books on tape" with a digital format compatible with
There were a whole lot of reasons why 3dfx went belly up, but SLI and multicore were not it. What I have always wondered and never heard was: What happened with the big Army contract that 3dfx got for running the new displays in helicopters? Did this project just go away or did another company step in? Nvidia?
Well, I would not be considered a hardcore gamer per se and I am absolutely not going to purchase another computer just for games, but I did help with the beta test development of Halo on OS X and a fast graphics card was nice to have for that process. It also helps push all the pixels on my huge Cinema Displays and kept me from getting fragged by all the 12 year old twitch meisters out there. Damn some of those kids are monsters.
So, the question will be: Can we get drivers for this card that will work in Linux or OS X? It is based in Nvidia technology, so presumably one could write drivers for this card unless Gigabyte is keeping their stuff proprietary.....
It looks interesting and I would certainly be more than interested in plugging one into my dual G5, but I don't have time (or the interest) to write my own drivers.
you forgot Poland
True.....Forgive me. In addition to Poland I am sure there are other countries represented whose soldiers have died trying to fix this quagmire that I neglected to include in the original post.
I try and be non partisan here but I have a few questions: How much money is this system costing? How are we supposed to justify the cost in addition to the $100 Billion (approx 25 Billion more than Bush said we would need before the election) we are going to spend in Iraq and Afghanistan next year? How are we supposed to pay for this with the dollar at an all time low against the Euro? How are we supposed to pay for this and have the tax cuts made permanent? How are we supposed to pay for this and reduce the deficit (at an all time high off of a budget surplus just five years ago)? How are we supposed to pay for this and the new stealth spy satellite program that is currently under congressional review? If we are truly at war, then we have to consider some history: There has never before been a time in the history of the United States where during a time of war, we have had a tax cut. If our soldiers (Semper Fi) are paying the ultimate sacrifice (1,344 US Military and a significant number of British, Spanish and Iraqi troops in addition to unpublished numbers of private contractors), then we should at home be expected to sacrifice as well.
The performance of this program really does make one wonder what we are getting for our tax dollars and investment given all the dramatic failures this program has endured.
Presumably because if one could use your own cell phone, you have built within it in many cases, IM ability, video capability, email, address books etc... and it will likely be cheaper than using the phones built into the seats. Have you ever pulled one of the airphones out of the seats and actually used it? Hideously expensive.
Bah, I intended to type Sydney to Los Angeles..... Long day again.....
it might also be a new way to annoy your nighbor sitting next to you.
This is exactly where it is going to go. This is going to be horrible having to listen to calls like this: "Dude, dude, dude......guess where I am? Hehehe, dude, I am in a plane he he whoooooaaaa dude" your breaking up there.....CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW??? HOW ABOUT NOW????!!!?. Yeah thats exactly what I want. If the airlines want to make people even more crazy in the air they will subject us to stuff like that. Now, if they are smart, they will create cell phone free zones so that everybody does not have to be subjected to the mindless banter that people inflict on others around them.
It might even be a more horrible experience than I had on a flight from Sydney to Australia a couple of months ago with a couple of ecstasy addled passengers in front of me who were mixing alcohol with their e's as well. Those guys would not shut up. Cell phones have the same effect on some folks. They appear to be oblivious to anybody else around them and start the most inane loud conversations obligatorily involving anybody within earshot. All I have to say is that a good investment in Bose noise canceling headsets have been one of the best investments ever and appear to possibly become a necessity when flying.
watch them on my computer and I feel like a total asshat because my computer is here and the nice comfy couch is over there.
Ah, you need one of these. The big one.......Stunning.....simply stunning.
You asked Rob Glaser about the situation, and he said Real had a "comprehensive plan", whatever that means.
Nelson: Ha ha!
I agree and I am absolutely not advocating piracy or theft of any sort. I own no pirated software, music or movies and am very careful in my work environment as well to ensure there is no theft or possession of pirated software or products on any of our systems. By saying vote with your dollars I am saying "do not give your patronage to those businesses that bombard you with ads".
MTV was originally advertised as being "24hour music commercial free" hosted by VJ's who really did not waste much time in-between videos. Pretty cool. However, I made the mistake of tuning in to MTV a couple of months ago and I can certainly say that it is not "My MTV". Most of it is an ad for something including all of their product placements, and What happened to the videos? There do not appear to be ANY videos.
Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.
Then why did you include it in your post? Say this in a comment instead. Anyhow, I will respond: I agree that it is silly and frustrating to have to sit through tons of ads before a movie, the length of time by the way standard so you cannot say "I will simply come ten minutes later". Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies which works for nationally known companies but not so well for smaller local companies which I am sure is one of the biggest reasons behind the push of On Demand. Namely the ability to sell localized content ads for an "at home audience". We are going to be faced with a deluge of ads (even intimately targeted ads) no matter what. The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.
WTF? My initial reaction: "All I have got to say is that somebody is spending waaaaaay too much time playing games if they are willing to pony up that kind of cash for a virtual island". Then I realized (as I am browsing Slashdot wasting my time) that perhaps his person has plans to be a virtual developer which, while still the type of person associated with developing (build! build! build!) is developing and making money in a virtual world without the real world effects on the environment or populace that "real" developers have. Ah, I say go for it. We all gotta make money somehow, but I feel better telling my grandma I am a scientist as opposed to a make believe developer for a game. He will likely make more money than me anyway.
Sadly, some business guy tried to turn SGI into a PC company, and they alienated their devoted scientific and engineering users.
Believe it or not, that same guy after trying to get SGI to switch to Windows then went to work for Microsoft. Seriously!
I had an Octane. Great system, but like you said the support costs were crazy. A support contract was costing me as much as a new G5 every year , so........I replaced it with a G5. The system architecture is like the Octane with completely separate busses for I/O, memory, CPU, storage etc.... and is actually a fair bit faster than the Octane.
Additionally, IRIX while very powerful, can be troublesome. When I let the support contract run out on my O2, I had a video card go bad and damn!, it took me a whole day to replace the card and get IRIX to recognize things again. OS X is soooo much more plug and play. If you like *nix, give OS X a try.