I have a difficult time accepting Apple's tripe concerning G3/4 performance, as they only compare using ByteMark, an irrellevant benchmark, and magazines tend to compare using (mainly / only?) Photoshop tests - which is better optimized and originally written for Macs.
Good luck finding spec marks on Apple machines (spec is a bit setup dependent - OS, caches, compiler, RAM etc), I haven't seen one in a loooong time. Motorola puts them out for the PPC chips and they seem to match PII/IIIs ok, but not anything significant to write home about.
I've heard that the same program (Lightwave?) run natively on Celeron 300 vs. native G3 400 nets a big margin favoring the Celeron (cache speed a huge help?).
It does seem interesting that the 21264 Alphas deck even the K7's 2x on spec(Int|FP) same clock, so apparently there is still room for improvement all around.
What the heck is going on that makes the help desk cost that much to fix a password? Come on!
Either someone doesn't know how to estimate, there is _far_ too much bloat in the organization or some wacky combo of both.
In UNIX, doesn't helpdesk just have to:
passwd "usr" "somedummypswd" "somedummypswd"
give the dummy password to the user? Unless the (l)user looses the password twenty times or more a year, I can't see how password fixing is really a problem. The only thing is things lost because superuser can't remember password, then you're screwed out of much invested data in the system, even then, there are quick work arounds.
Clue stick anyone? (I don't want to login NYT, so I haven't read it)
What the heck is going on that makes the help desk cost that much to fix a password? Come on!
Either someone doesn't know how to estimate, there is _far_ too much bloat in the organization or some wacky combo of both.
In UNIX, doesn't helpdesk just have to:
passwd
give the dummy password to the user? Unless the (l)user looses the password twenty times or more a year, I can't see how password fixing is really a problem. The only thing is things lost because superuser can't remember password, then you're screwed out of much invested data in the system, even then, there are quick work arounds.
Clue stick anyone? (I don't want to login NYT, so I haven't read it)
I can't find an appropriate thread for my comments, so here it goes...
The only way to fairly do this is to make a federal sales tax on EVERYTHING. A phone, fax or mail order should count, as we get the product by mail. And what about the store fronts that have a showroom and a web order site? Just because web orders aren't taxed doesn't mean the feds should do it.
I try to support local stores, but really, I hate driving. Amazon doesn't really discount books enough to take the hit off shipping, their main benefit is having books in stock and at my door in a week, but I really don't remember ordering much from them, at least I check them out.
A better way to 'help' communities is to change some laws or ammend the contitution to clean up the 'export' loophole, but that might move the 'mail-order' businesses outside of communities that charge local taxes.
Hollings, get off my back. Fix the stupid national debt while you are at it, rather than finding new stupid problems to spend money on.
as others have noted, 63MUS$ is pocket change in reality. It is likely the amount of money Americans spend on snacks PER DAY. George W Bush raised 40M$ for his OWN political campaign.
You do touch on an issue. There are people that believe that the NASA money should be spent on social problems, poverty or disease, but really, those programs have been around for decades with trillions down the tube with little improvement (our poverty level hasn't changed by much more than a percent since the 60's). And the NASA budget is peanuts compared to the social programs that we have.
The issue is rarely money. This government has not proven that it is capable of wisely spending what it has, and making all sorts of strange and costly stipulations in order for companies to get a government supplier contract.
Don't forget that mankind should always keep an eye on the future. Eventually our sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take with it Marylin Monroe, Lao Tzu, Einstein, and everything we've accomplished was for nothing, unless we leave the cradle and go to the stars. (Babylon 5 plug)
I would like some of the money I earn go to something that won't just be consumed by me or someone else without some investment into the future.
There are a few things you can do to improve mp3 playback. The site said it used a SPDIF connector on the sound card / motherboard with a TOSLINK adaptor to a reciever. If you use the analog link, you're more likely to get noise as analog electronics and DACS in sound cards are pretty cheap.
Another is to max the bitrate. I thought 512k rates were possible, but I never tried. There are also better encoders available. I'd say which ones, but I really don't remember. Some encoders do better than others.
But if you already believe that CDs are crap, then you're screwed, as entropy dictates any transfer will only be as good as the source, no better, and likely worse, and I guess there are enough people that believe MP3s are crap at any rate, so I can't help on that.
Well, there was this idea of freedom, freedom to worship the way you believe, and didn't like the state-run official religions. The only problem is that in the beginning, people clumped together into communities of like beliefs, so if you didn't agree, you went to a different town. So much for true freedom, but no one is perfect.
Make sure you don't shoot people for having ideals that were different from reality... This nation is slowly correcting these differences... women's rights, slavery, civil rights, and unfortunately reproductive rights also. Don't get me wrong, but some people don't deserve to reproduce.
As for prostitution, I don't know what to believe. It does seem degrading to women and men to let them be so base as to trade sex for money.
Pornography... I am certainly not one to believe that exposure of a certain 5% of body area is going to tear society asunder, but some people would really rather not see some of that or some 90% of other surface area of some people.
This feature has been around for a while now. I am guessing it was around before AGP become widely available. We now need PC machines to boot off the network, a feature comming soon with Mac OS X, I believe, and was available for many a Unix system for a long time.
Uh... You should be able to import the beasts, if you aren't terribly concerned about warranties. You could ask a local Palm distributor if they'd support warranties on imported Palms, I'm guessing not, so you'd have to ship it to the States yourself if it goes kaput. I've seen Japanese Dreamcasts in the States months before they'll be released officially.
Yeah, politics is one thing, but I'm not sure I want more than three major small package shipping companies. Shoot, in one day, my dad's business can be visited by UPS, USPS and FedEx. Privatizing the phone system makes sense, but I'd really rather not have more delivery companies visit, as it is ecologically unsound in the first place. USPS really don't do a bad job for me, I have never lost an item in the mail that I remember.
I really don't understand why people fawn all over celebreties like they do with Princes Diana, the Kennedys, OJ Simpson, etc. Really, their lives are as worthless as everyone else's. Yes, read the last line again. Come on, the divorce, bankrupcy, crime, drug use and suicide rates must be higher for the 'stars' as they are usually pretty shallow. The only thing they have going for them is that they get / have more money. Otherwise they'd be ignored IMO, as they really don't have much personality and most except maybe Di only do token gestures of helping humanity, and even then Mother Theresa's character blows them all out of the water combined, even Di.
It looks too much like the lunar lander for the Apollo missions, besides, how do you get in/on the thing?
The site is too messy to have been made by a good artist. Good artists like simplicity and smooth design in aesthetics. The system itself is interesting, but I can probably make a more useful and flexible system custom machined for 1k$ myself.
BTW, I have an Aeron too. I am ambivalent about it, but I do hate most other chairs ('cept the Eames Lounge chair), but most people that try my chair love it. Maybe a good chair shouldn't excite the emotions while sitting in it - just stay out of mind to concentrate on important stuff.
I have my Aeron because I used to work for Herman Miller, so I had a nice discount, and I wanted something cool.:)
Nice... You partially answered the reason why I suggest not running a 15" unit above 1024x768... The bandwidth required for good refresh above that typically requires that you go out and pay more money, so you might just as well get a 17" unit for that amount of money. I'm all for smooth fonts, but I believe eye strain to be more dependent on refresh than dot blockiness. And I'm suggesting that you do get more pixels with dual head.
In my dual-head system, I am currently running 2048x768 : 1.5 Mpixels 2304x864 : 1.99 Mpix 2560x1024: 2.6 Mpix
Normal single screen modes: 1024x768 : 0.8 Mpix 1280x1024: 1.3 Mpix 1600x1200: 1.92 Mpix
So I get as many or more pixels, more screen surface area, save money, better refresh if I go down a tube size.
My suggestion wasn't about DPI. On paper, dots are almost everything. On screen, flicker happens. I'm not sure how close your eyes are to your screen, but I'm not anywhere near bothered by minute text blockiness as I am with flicker and high tube prices for marginal size and performance gain.
Re:NO! Go dual head and save money.
on
XFree86 News
·
· Score: 2
15" = 1152x900
You think THIS is a good idea? A 15" unit shouldn't be run above 1024x760 for ergonomic reasons.
But really, I'm ahead of the game. People blow good cash on a 21" monitor when they should go dual head with 17's and 19's. I'm willing to gamble that the two 19's cost less than a single 21" can give you better than 70% more total pixels at a better refresh rate with more than 70% additional screen surface area. That is from my own analysis. I'd post the numbers, but I lost them. I considered getting a 19" when the costed about 400$, but I found a pair of cheap 17" for about 350$, an extra video card for the remainder savings (Matrox Millennium 8MB - solid units) and come out way ahead. MetroX also supports multiple screens on all Matrox products.
I believe William Shatner said it best....
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
"Get a Life".
As I understand it, he said this after finding out from fans that one of his real-life horses gave birth, before then, Shatner didn't know himself. I believe that Lucas himself made statements to the same.
Dissing Jar Jar, R2D2, C3PO or the Ewoks just because you don't like them isn't the way to go. It would seem that people deify George Lucas or say he's great with reservations about certain plot items. I'm sorry, the movies are already made. You'll have to take them as they are or leave them. If you don't like it, I'm sure there are many other movies as good or better out there to check out. Or get _really_ good at acting, computer animation or something else useful to Lucasfilm to get Lucas's ear in time for Eps 2 & 3 (hopefully to convince him into doing 7-9!)
If they had stronger quality testing before stuff goes out the door, then RH _might_ be worth it. Any RedHat x.0 release sucks, and bad stuff still happens on a x.1 (like 'man' segfaulting). Their erratum list is just flat too long to trust the system as a whole.
The RedHat 6.0 for Alpha stunk horribly. I did 5 installs before I got everything right. If you tell the installer not to init X windows on boot, it won't work properly, set a default WM, and I couldn't open an xterm to save my life......all I got was a repeating 'alert' on the virtual console that xinit was run. There was one install in which updatedb and locate didn't work, which makes fixing other problems a pain. It works now, but segfaults happen in something as simple as a badly set 'mv' command.
You know, if this is going to be a daily thing, you are going to need mirrors, or else you are just loading down one server and frustrating everyone in the process, especially those getting.7 kbps. and getting knocked off 1/3 of the way in.
People would have to really like it to put up with this.
Dude, as I understand it, most normal DVDs use UFS, which I believe is a bit experimental anyways, but is available in the current kernel. Whether there is a mkufs or such software available, I haven't checked. See Freshmeat.
That isn't an encoder, simply the base file system for the DVD standard (like iso9660 is to CD).
64 bits at 66MHz is still 528MBytes/sec. Or is that one transfer/2 clocks? Still, 264MBps.
I was a bit off, but a dual channel U3W card theoretically gets 320 MBps. 64/66 PCI at 528MBps (400MBps in good implementation)/practice. It would give 64/33 a good run for the money, that is if you can afford to load it up with enough drives and use it effectively.
I assume that this beast sits on a 64 bit PCI bus? I seem to remember that 32 bit 33MHz PCI theoretically maxes out at 133MBps, and Intel chipsets seem to have a 80MBps upper limit.
I suppose that this is an argument for the newer Alpha systems as they have several independed PCI buses, each tested capable of 200MBps in 64 bit mode.
Hey, Samsung makes Alphas in S. Korea, AMD will make K7's in Dresden, Germany, Fujitsu makes Sparcs in Japan, Intel has loads of plants in places like Isreal, Maylasia, Singaphore, etc.
I wonder if this will make weenies go for more treaties. Ugh.
There will be 1U chassis for a variation of the Compaq DS10 computer. Pricing hasn't been determined, but it is a huge bang for buck. The main drawback of such size is lack of expandability - only 1GB RAM, one drive and one open PCI slot. The time is this summer, I think.
Gee, a sound, solid and informative article and it is ranked 'only' 2! I'd say that this article was interesting and more meaningful than the articles rated three or higher.
I concur. I can't imagine why a lightbulb would not radiate radio signals if powered by electricity containing said high frequency components. At a very high frequencies, any sharp corner becomes a transmitter, a problem in microchips too. On most light bulbs that I look at, there is an element suspended between two conducting wires, a sharp corner in the cunduction path. Any bulb that uses coiled conducting elements can have a similar effect.
Remember that at a few hundred feet, a watt of radio frequency can cause significant interference. My radio knowledge is limited so I can't pull any numbers around to make a case.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a difficult time accepting Apple's tripe concerning G3/4 performance, as they only compare using ByteMark, an irrellevant benchmark, and magazines tend to compare using (mainly / only?) Photoshop tests - which is better optimized and originally written for Macs.
Good luck finding spec marks on Apple machines (spec is a bit setup dependent - OS, caches, compiler, RAM etc), I haven't seen one in a loooong time. Motorola puts them out for the PPC chips and they seem to match PII/IIIs ok, but not anything significant to write home about.
I've heard that the same program (Lightwave?) run natively on Celeron 300 vs. native G3 400 nets a big margin favoring the Celeron (cache speed a huge help?).
It does seem interesting that the 21264 Alphas deck even the K7's 2x on spec(Int|FP) same clock, so apparently there is still room for improvement all around.
What the heck is going on that makes the help desk cost that much to fix a password? Come on!
Either someone doesn't know how to estimate, there is _far_ too much bloat in the organization or some wacky combo of both.
In UNIX, doesn't helpdesk just have to:
passwd "usr"
"somedummypswd"
"somedummypswd"
give the dummy password to the user? Unless the (l)user looses the password twenty times or more a year, I can't see how password fixing is really a problem. The only thing is things lost because superuser can't remember password, then you're screwed out of much invested data in the system, even then, there are quick work arounds.
Clue stick anyone? (I don't want to login NYT, so I haven't read it)
What the heck is going on that makes the help desk cost that much to fix a password? Come on!
Either someone doesn't know how to estimate, there is _far_ too much bloat in the organization or some wacky combo of both.
In UNIX, doesn't helpdesk just have to:
passwd
give the dummy password to the user? Unless the (l)user looses the password twenty times or more a year, I can't see how password fixing is really a problem. The only thing is things lost because superuser can't remember password, then you're screwed out of much invested data in the system, even then, there are quick work arounds.
Clue stick anyone? (I don't want to login NYT, so I haven't read it)
I can't find an appropriate thread for my comments, so here it goes...
The only way to fairly do this is to make a federal sales tax on EVERYTHING. A phone, fax or mail order should count, as we get the product by mail. And what about the store fronts that have a showroom and a web order site? Just because web orders aren't taxed doesn't mean the feds should do it.
I try to support local stores, but really, I hate driving. Amazon doesn't really discount books enough to take the hit off shipping, their main benefit is having books in stock and at my door in a week, but I really don't remember ordering much from them, at least I check them out.
A better way to 'help' communities is to change some laws or ammend the contitution to clean up the 'export' loophole, but that might move the 'mail-order' businesses outside of communities that charge local taxes.
Hollings, get off my back. Fix the stupid national debt while you are at it, rather than finding new stupid problems to spend money on.
as others have noted, 63MUS$ is pocket change in reality. It is likely the amount of money Americans spend on snacks PER DAY. George W Bush raised 40M$ for his OWN political campaign.
You do touch on an issue. There are people that believe that the NASA money should be spent on social problems, poverty or disease, but really, those programs have been around for decades with trillions down the tube with little improvement (our poverty level hasn't changed by much more than a percent since the 60's). And the NASA budget is peanuts compared to the social programs that we have.
The issue is rarely money. This government has not proven that it is capable of wisely spending what it has, and making all sorts of strange and costly stipulations in order for companies to get a government supplier contract.
Don't forget that mankind should always keep an eye on the future. Eventually our sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take with it Marylin Monroe, Lao Tzu, Einstein, and everything we've accomplished was for nothing, unless we leave the cradle and go to the stars. (Babylon 5 plug)
I would like some of the money I earn go to something that won't just be consumed by me or someone else without some investment into the future.
There are a few things you can do to improve mp3 playback. The site said it used a SPDIF connector on the sound card / motherboard with a TOSLINK adaptor to a reciever. If you use the analog link, you're more likely to get noise as analog electronics and DACS in sound cards are pretty cheap.
Another is to max the bitrate. I thought 512k rates were possible, but I never tried. There are also better encoders available. I'd say which ones, but I really don't remember. Some encoders do better than others.
But if you already believe that CDs are crap, then you're screwed, as entropy dictates any transfer will only be as good as the source, no better, and likely worse, and I guess there are enough people that believe MP3s are crap at any rate, so I can't help on that.
This is somewhat vaguely from memory...
Well, there was this idea of freedom, freedom to worship the way you believe, and didn't like the state-run official religions. The only problem is that in the beginning, people clumped together into communities of like beliefs, so if you didn't agree, you went to a different town. So much for true freedom, but no one is perfect.
Make sure you don't shoot people for having ideals that were different from reality... This nation is slowly correcting these differences... women's rights, slavery, civil rights, and unfortunately reproductive rights also. Don't get me wrong, but some people don't deserve to reproduce.
As for prostitution, I don't know what to believe. It does seem degrading to women and men to let them be so base as to trade sex for money.
Pornography... I am certainly not one to believe that exposure of a certain 5% of body area is going to tear society asunder, but some people would really rather not see some of that or some 90% of other surface area of some people.
This feature has been around for a while now. I am guessing it was around before AGP become widely available. We now need PC machines to boot off the network, a feature comming soon with Mac OS X, I believe, and was available for many a Unix system for a long time.
Uh... You should be able to import the beasts, if you aren't terribly concerned about warranties. You could ask a local Palm distributor if they'd support warranties on imported Palms, I'm guessing not, so you'd have to ship it to the States yourself if it goes kaput. I've seen Japanese Dreamcasts in the States months before they'll be released officially.
Yeah, politics is one thing, but I'm not sure I want more than three major small package shipping companies. Shoot, in one day, my dad's business can be visited by UPS, USPS and FedEx. Privatizing the phone system makes sense, but I'd really rather not have more delivery companies visit, as it is ecologically unsound in the first place. USPS really don't do a bad job for me, I have never lost an item in the mail that I remember.
I really don't understand why people fawn all over celebreties like they do with Princes Diana, the Kennedys, OJ Simpson, etc. Really, their lives are as worthless as everyone else's. Yes, read the last line again. Come on, the divorce, bankrupcy, crime, drug use and suicide rates must be higher for the 'stars' as they are usually pretty shallow. The only thing they have going for them is that they get / have more money. Otherwise they'd be ignored IMO, as they really don't have much personality and most except maybe Di only do token gestures of helping humanity, and even then Mother Theresa's character blows them all out of the water combined, even Di.
It looks too much like the lunar lander for the Apollo missions, besides, how do you get in/on the thing?
The site is too messy to have been made by a good artist. Good artists like simplicity and smooth design in aesthetics. The system itself is interesting, but I can probably make a more useful and flexible system custom machined for 1k$ myself.
BTW, I have an Aeron too. I am ambivalent about it, but I do hate most other chairs ('cept the Eames Lounge chair), but most people that try my chair love it. Maybe a good chair shouldn't excite the emotions while sitting in it - just stay out of mind to concentrate on important stuff.
I have my Aeron because I used to work for Herman Miller, so I had a nice discount, and I wanted something cool.
Nice... You partially answered the reason why I suggest not running a 15" unit above 1024x768... The bandwidth required for good refresh above that typically requires that you go out and pay more money, so you might just as well get a 17" unit for that amount of money. I'm all for smooth fonts, but I believe eye strain to be more dependent on refresh than dot blockiness. And I'm suggesting that you do get more pixels with dual head.
In my dual-head system,
I am currently running
2048x768 : 1.5 Mpixels
2304x864 : 1.99 Mpix
2560x1024: 2.6 Mpix
Normal single screen modes:
1024x768 : 0.8 Mpix
1280x1024: 1.3 Mpix
1600x1200: 1.92 Mpix
So I get as many or more pixels, more screen surface area, save money, better refresh if I go down a tube size.
My suggestion wasn't about DPI. On paper, dots are almost everything. On screen, flicker happens. I'm not sure how close your eyes are to your screen, but I'm not anywhere near bothered by minute text blockiness as I am with flicker and high tube prices for marginal size and performance gain.
15" = 1152x900
You think THIS is a good idea? A 15" unit shouldn't be run above 1024x760 for ergonomic reasons.
But really, I'm ahead of the game. People blow good cash on a 21" monitor when they should go dual head with 17's and 19's. I'm willing to gamble that the two 19's cost less than a single 21" can give you better than 70% more total pixels at a better refresh rate with more than 70% additional screen surface area. That is from my own analysis. I'd post the numbers, but I lost them. I considered getting a 19" when the costed about 400$, but I found a pair of cheap 17" for about 350$, an extra video card for the remainder savings (Matrox Millennium 8MB - solid units) and come out way ahead. MetroX also supports multiple screens on all Matrox products.
"Get a Life".
As I understand it, he said this after finding out from fans that one of his real-life horses gave birth, before then, Shatner didn't know himself. I believe that Lucas himself made statements to the same.
Dissing Jar Jar, R2D2, C3PO or the Ewoks just because you don't like them isn't the way to go. It would seem that people deify George Lucas or say he's great with reservations about certain plot items. I'm sorry, the movies are already made. You'll have to take them as they are or leave them. If you don't like it, I'm sure there are many other movies as good or better out there to check out. Or get _really_ good at acting, computer animation or something else useful to Lucasfilm to get Lucas's ear in time for Eps 2 & 3 (hopefully to convince him into doing 7-9!)
If they had stronger quality testing before stuff goes out the door, then RH _might_ be worth it. Any RedHat x.0 release sucks, and bad stuff still happens on a x.1 (like 'man' segfaulting). Their erratum list is just flat too long to trust the system as a whole.
The RedHat 6.0 for Alpha stunk horribly. I did 5 installs before I got everything right. If you tell the installer not to init X windows on boot, it won't work properly, set a default WM, and I couldn't open an xterm to save my life...
You know, if this is going to be a daily thing, you are going to need mirrors, or else you are just loading down one server and frustrating everyone in the process, especially those getting
People would have to really like it to put up with this.
Dude, as I understand it, most normal DVDs use UFS, which I believe is a bit experimental anyways, but is available in the current kernel. Whether there is a mkufs or such software available, I haven't checked. See Freshmeat.
That isn't an encoder, simply the base file system for the DVD standard (like iso9660 is to CD).
64 bits at 66MHz is still 528MBytes/sec. Or is that one transfer/2 clocks? Still, 264MBps.
I was a bit off, but a dual channel U3W card theoretically gets 320 MBps. 64/66 PCI at 528MBps (400MBps in good implementation)/practice. It would give 64/33 a good run for the money, that is if you can afford to load it up with enough drives and use it effectively.
I checked the release for an ASIC - their dual channel U3W can ride a 66MHz 64 bit bus. This still pretty much maxes _that_ bus too.
I assume that this beast sits on a 64 bit PCI bus? I seem to remember that 32 bit 33MHz PCI theoretically maxes out at 133MBps, and Intel chipsets seem to have a 80MBps upper limit.
I suppose that this is an argument for the newer Alpha systems as they have several independed PCI buses, each tested capable of 200MBps in 64 bit mode.
Hey, Samsung makes Alphas in S. Korea, AMD will make K7's in Dresden, Germany, Fujitsu makes Sparcs in Japan, Intel has loads of plants in places like Isreal, Maylasia, Singaphore, etc.
I wonder if this will make weenies go for more treaties. Ugh.
There will be 1U chassis for a variation of the Compaq DS10 computer. Pricing hasn't been determined, but it is a huge bang for buck. The main drawback of such size is lack of expandability - only 1GB RAM, one drive and one open PCI slot. The time is this summer, I think.
Gee, a sound, solid and informative article and it is ranked 'only' 2! I'd say that this article was interesting and more meaningful than the articles rated three or higher.
I concur. I can't imagine why a lightbulb would not radiate radio signals if powered by electricity containing said high frequency components. At a very high frequencies, any sharp corner becomes a transmitter, a problem in microchips too. On most light bulbs that I look at, there is an element suspended between two conducting wires, a sharp corner in the cunduction path. Any bulb that uses coiled conducting elements can have a similar effect.
Remember that at a few hundred feet, a watt of radio frequency can cause significant interference. My radio knowledge is limited so I can't pull any numbers around to make a case.