So, would you say that you're suffering from the same problem that the USPTO suffers from? You may be bringing in more than enough revenue to fully fund your department, but your state legislature sets a budget for you, and wanders off with any of the 'excess' funds for political boondoggles / favors?
Then drop the price, and go in for the kill (profit by volume). As stated before, piracy is typically a result of a poor business plan: if they like it enough to pirate it, then wait a while, and put forth a real deal. See piracy as free advertizement, the same way B. Gates once did.
You don't want to get into the DRM game: it's a fool's game, up there with playing the lottery. Finally, make it so if the license is invalid, or the program patched, it outputs the video with a nice transparent watermark with a silly pirate in the background. The trick is to make unwinding / decompiling the code a hassle, not a challenge (or you'll attract the kinds of people who will crack it just because it's a challenge).
Finally, e-mail the various warez groups, and ask them (politely) to please stop cracking your software. Surprisingly, that has been known to work in a few cases. However, if you threaten them with legal action, or LEOs, they'll laugh at you from whatever country they're hiding in, and place your software at the top of all subsequent to-do crack lists. No, you do not need to pay them anything, aside from some small token of respect and the general civility which has been known to avert major wars.
The above may be more difficult today than several years ago, as the actions of various 'do-gooder' organizations and legislation have driven these people even further underground, so just getting an audience with them may require several months of work. Thank your leaders for their foresight in cashing in on some cheap political capital, and cutting the lines of communication necessary to keep the wheels on the cart.
Was it our good friends, the TSA, or is this a private venture? I ask because there was an article, a while back, which mentioned that airports could provide their own security forces if they chose to; moreover, this article does not mention who, exactly, denied him an exit.
Why yes, that's just what we need, more discipline in schools. And if that doesn't work, then we need even more discipline. And so on.
Perhaps it's time to throw out the old model, and create a new one. Pity that the effects of the current system dull the creativity of its 'products,' such that the proper solution may never occur to them.
And if we mandated basic IT classes, we could cut that down to one person, right?
Or we could keep those three people, and let IT focus on actually useful projects (you know, those hideously large projects that require 6 months just to get the design perfected?), instead of being everyone's technological cabana boy. There is nothing worse than having the network admin drop everything he is doing, so he can replace a toner cartridge on the network laser printer (come on people, it's not hard to figure out how to open a printer, nor difficult to replace a toner cartridge). Seriously, IT doesn't suffer from lack of work, only lack of time / resources.
And it would be nice if people would show a little more care for their own edification. When the great technological boom happened, most of the early-adopters were projecting the utility of the average person to sky-rocket, by doing work more efficiently + more free time + higher pay. Instead, the human race, in its infinite majesty, realized it could take a 'shortcut' to the apparently 'painful' learning of new technology (and the associated exploration process, of how to use it / integrate it into your life) by off-loading the work onto those early-adopters (f*ck it, let them learn, and we'll profit (somehow)!). So, now IT is seen as a cost center (thanks guys), filled with magical gnomes / elves, who are treated like underpaid secretaries. So much potential, wasted.
The funny part is, by screwing with IT's wages, the smarter members have moved on to better paying fields (programming or somewhere else entirely). And it shows. I will never understand how or why the central nervous system of most companies (it is; IT deals with information, the reception and transmission of it) gets treated like sh*t. Even in companies who primarily focus on manufacturing, your orders are rolling in through IT's systems, and sales / marketing's projections of a fabulous next quarter are done on Powerpoint.
And easily-defeated. One of the projects of my senior class at university was the building of software to defeat that kind of detection. It was crafted primarily so dissidents in foreign countries could speak without fear, by analyzing the author's writing patterns, and offering solutions to shift the writing to a different style.
True. Here in the US, you realize quickly that democracy has never graced the halls of the elected or appointed officials.
Democracy is a powerful lie, which lets people think they have power, right up until the point where they actually need to use it. Then they realize that they have no power, the laws were written by career bureaucrats who have no interest in whether or not they should be making laws, let alone good ones, for the simple reason that they themselves will never be affected by them. We had a judge, up here in Lancaster, PA, who was dismissing her own summons for various traffic violations: she just logged into the system, and altered the records. These are the very judges, mind you, who do not allow you a jury (sorry, it's just misdemeanor!) when you got to fight them, and who lovingly (he said sarcastically) click their tongues and berate you over the 'danger to society' your reckless driving could have caused, while the trooper (who arranged the date for his day off (time and a half, right guys?) and on the day you need to be elsewhere) smiles his knowing smile (he's a professional witness, your word against his...sure it's a racket, but fuck you).
I've realize why they have the Bible in the courtroom -> because by the time you get there, only God can save you.
Goose, golden eggs, killing of said goose to get the gold inside, followed by the realization that there is no gold inside.
Two other thoughts:
1.) It's rare to see a government so openly declaring economic warfare on its own populace. 2.) I'm surprised that the Financial District, which employs and contributes over 10% of the population and taxes, respectively, hasn't ordered a hit on the people behind this. In order to make good (profitable) trades, fast & accurate information is required (every millisecond counts, and you are competing with people in other countries); in so far as this will be putting up a few new walls between them and the rest of the world, it's not a 'good' law, I would assume, from their vantage point. With the amount of influence they have in the UK, they should easily be able to stop this problem (before it snowballs).
On behalf of the rest of the world, we'll miss you guys.
Websites like The Register & the BBC have provided valuable information about the UK, its culture, its way of life, and at times, a better understanding of your country. Still, if your leaders are intent on cutting off their country's arm at the wrist, and cannot be persuaded against such an action, the rest of the world shall get together every September 4th, and host a UK day, during which we will look through the internet archives, and relive the experience of.uk websites.
Let's bad freedom too. I have information which indicates that only terrorists & rapists speak about 'freedom.'
They also, on occasion, speak about some fictitious 'Bill of Rights,' that supposedly limits what our 'Dear Leaders' in the Roman Senate can and cannot do to the peasantry. Terrorists, all of them: they should be found, and subjected to experiments (like the effects of prolonged frostbite, or the stuffing of human beings into very warm ovens), for the good of society.
What a bunch of weirdos, they don't seem to understand that anyone who has a badge and a gun is God's right-hand on earth. How do we know this? Because for the last two thousand years, the Almighty hasn't said a word against the countless genocides and massacres that were carried out by those acting in His name. Trust me, if he didn't like the fine job our CIA is doing, sowing hate among our allies, we'd know it. Instead, he appears on slices of toasted bread, giving us the thumbs up. USA! USA! USA!
32 GB SSD? Who would use something so small? I pair 128 GB SSDs with my PCs as the standard, and have been moving to 240 GB SSDs as of late. It's actually more cost-effective to use the 240 GB SSDs ($ / GB) or so I've found. That means that the OS + a fair number of applications get a hideous speed boost.
The latest 8-core processor from AMD (3.6 Ghz stock, with Turbo it's higher) is around $260: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103960 And yes, it can run stably beyond 4.5 Ghz (hence my suggestion to spec in a water cooler; only on a i7 is 50 degrees centigrade considered "normal" idling temperatures).
As for the motherboard, I do not know enough about the performance characteristics of the one you selected to offer a valid comparison. As previously, I offer the Crosshair V and its feature-set: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131735 ($214). It has at least 3 x16 slots, 6 Gbs for all 7 SATA ports, USB 3.0, and an Intel NIC.
The primary cost savings comes from not from purchasing an Intel machine from major computer manufacturer: the CPU upgrades from one variant of Intel to another typically cost around $500. Building one yourself, admittedly, is less expensive and grants better hardware. Still, I would need to compare things with similar hardware to get a better idea of the cost difference. If I asked you to spec in an overclocker's motherboard (typically higher quality components), feature-rich, which would you choose?
I understand what you're getting at here (ID10Ts value something according to how much you charge them, and think that a more expensive processor is better). Still, I disagree with it in implementation, as one of AMD's great strengths is the fact that they don't gouge their customers on their consumer product line (the server line, on the other hand, could use some better pricing; however, if they could convince motherboard manufacturers to throw on a few more sockets for their Magny-Cours, I might be willing to look the other way).
Why was he trying to crack Facebook's security? Was he contracted through another party to do so, was he invited to do so? Or was this just some random "I'm a good person who like to find security issues on someone's website and tell them" thing? Why Facebook?
Asus makes Crosshair motherboards, which have been pretty freaking awesome for AMD chips, and they've done pretty well with my current motherboard, the Crosshair Formula 4. No frustration here.
On a side note, there does appear to be some possible issues with NewEgg, however. If you check out the Crosshair V (5) section, there have been some comments with suggest that NewEgg has been recycling equipment (DOAs, and what not; many of the comments are recent), and Asus may be feeling some indirect hate for that. Personally, I've had two Corsair H70s, that were ordered as 'new' (i.e. not open-box), show up with obvious signs of previous use. I had been told, after the first incident, that it had been a mistake ("Someone must have grabbed things from the wrong pile"), but after the second incident, I am not so sure. I find this entire business to be incredibly annoying, as NewEgg has been a good supplier of equipment in times past...but I do not appreciate the problems they are causing me (Corsair has the latest H70, and is replacing it directly; still, it's taking almost a month to get this mess cleaned up).
Re:They woke the sleeping giant that was Intel...
on
AMD: What Went Wrong?
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· Score: 1
Indeed. But if they tread too far into that line of thought, the DoJ will break them up for being a monopoly (monopoly where it's politically convenient to say that they've become too powerful, not necessarily the academic meaning, and that the politcos want to flex their muscle).
"Once Intel realised they were falling behind, they dropped their brain-dead policies and pushed out better chips than AMD's."
Hmm. Not so much. More along the lines of they had a "Oh Shit!" moment, and cross-licensed AMD's 64-bit design (Intellectual Property swap) to get back in the game. Even Intel's earliest attempts (at a 64-bit x86 architecture) were pathetic in this area, with numerous complaints about their broken, half-assed 64-bit support (it supported, at first, only a handful of 64-bit instructions that AMD did, and required some unnecessary work, hence the bitching from the programmers). There's a reason the architecture is commonly referred to as AMD64, even after attempts to change the name to something more neutral.
This is not to say that Intel doesn't put out some good products, their NICs are simply wonderful.
It certainly didn't help that computer manufacturers have treated AMD as a budget CPU for many years. Looking back through history, a fair number of AMD CPUs were actually superior to Intel CPUs, but when paired up with crap motherboards and computer manufacturer's attempt to nickle and dime everywhere they could (emulated sound card? why not, it won't tax the CPU that much; (supposedly, in a few cases) emulate part of the video card using the CPU? why not, that won't tax the CPU much), Since the CPU is so overtaxed dealing with things it should not, you get crap performance, and begin to associate that brand of CPU with crap in general.
If I were a major computer manufacturer these days, I'd spec in AMD CPUs (Black Editions, etc.), then attach a self-contained coolant system to it, and crank it until it reached the temperatures that the i7 normally operates at. The $500 in cost savings would appeal to my customers, and I'd be able to price my competitors out of the market. If I spec'ed in SSDs for the primary OS, and a large media drive for what-have-you, and let potential customers test-drive it, they'd change their minds about Intel in a week. Tackling Intel's marketing arm is something of a b*tch, from what I understand.
Bah, it's a new design. They get an upgrade cycle to fix the bugs before we declare Bulldozer to be the new Itanium.
Supposedly, there is a hotfix for Windows 7 which deals with a lot of the issues. Again, this problem isn't too dissimilar to the one Intel enjoyed with Hyper-threading many moons ago.
As for their server offerings, I am a little unhappy that while we are getting more cores per chip (always a win), they are fairly slow. And the prices...could be better.
Hmm. The US's approach to a global network is somewhat backward -> who wants to do business with us if the mere interaction may result in your extradition from your home country? Since any interaction, including having US customers or storing files on a server located on US-controlled territory, can result in a potential disaster, why take the chance? It's not like the internet infrastructure the US does have is anything special -> we may have cooked up the idea of the internet, but our residential connections are far below that of many of our peers (and to add insult to injury, legislation is trying to make those connections slower with higher costs). I imagine that storing data on our servers is looked upon, by citizens of our countries, as the equivalent of spending a weekend with the KGB; yes, yes, we're Americans, we're morally superior, we're the good guys, right? But people are often blind to their own errors of judgement.
"And here, we do a lot of lying, a lot of propogandizing, a lot of glossing over what we don't know, and a lot of ignoring problems that can't be solved without sacrificing short term comforts."
Indeed. And the human race shall die when the last philosopher, scientist, or heretic is hung from a tree. It's only because some members of our race question convention-able wisdom that age-old lies are discovered and destroyed. It's a continuous process that periodically cleanses human knowledge of older faults, and introduces some new ones to think about (String Theory, how you perplex my Physicist friends...). Annoying, yes, but it's the best we have, or so I can tell.
"My hope, is that the major religions of the world, will go far beyond the roman catholic pope's recent easing of dogmas related to birth control. Such that it becomes politically feasible for richer countries to provide as much contraceptive aid as they do food aid. And that as a result of both of those things, the world population decreases, such that we need less energy, and produce less dangerous nuclear waste (yeah, you could throw something at me for that 'propaganda', but recent history suggests a departure from the safety that scientists can design on paper, and what actually happens in reality (think back to my first paragraph- there is the ideal, and then there is planet earth)."
And my hope is that the world's population never decreases, as the current genomic evidence relating to our ancestors implies that doing so would cripple it beyond repair. I would add, however, that I hope that human beings do figure out their problems, social / spiritual / familial / and technological (and so forth). I have a vested interest in ensuring that my descendants, provided I have some, will not be eating their meals through stomach tubes, even if that does mean they will be on another planet.
"It seems too much to me, that when it comes to energy production and global society, that we are just building up a ponzi scheme, that will come crashing down."
Possibly. However, I liken it more to our society being out of touch with reality: we're attempting too large a leap from fossil fuels to green technologies, without having developed the technology necessary to actually do it. It's like jumping out of an airplane, and trying to figure out how to create and deploy a parachute before you hit the ground.
"And it's all about the desire to have nice, biologically rewarding large families, living with all the modern comforts that cheap energy provides. But the same basic thing is I suspect at play with a heroine addict, preferring the pleasures of the moment, to the long term best interests of those they care about."
Indeed. However, the primary requirements for large families I would wager rest around economics and the time / love necessary to raise them. Failure on either part creates massive problems. As for summarizing our situation, I'd say the problem lies less in an addiction (which some of my friends would argue is more a matter of supply), and more along the lines of eccentricity / thought disorder. We're not being honest with ourselves over not being able to have it all: a clean, limitless power source for a loss / no cost. We keep investing in scams & fly-by-night outfits which promise the world with the next technological revolution right around the corner. That's not to say that progress isn't being made, or that revolutions do not happen, but to bet the farm on one happening next Saturday at 3:12 PM has largely been seen as a bad idea.
Slashdot Mirror
The "most offensive" music being...music made by brown-skinned people?
So, would you say that you're suffering from the same problem that the USPTO suffers from? You may be bringing in more than enough revenue to fully fund your department, but your state legislature sets a budget for you, and wanders off with any of the 'excess' funds for political boondoggles / favors?
Obfuscate the code.
Then drop the price, and go in for the kill (profit by volume). As stated before, piracy is typically a result of a poor business plan: if they like it enough to pirate it, then wait a while, and put forth a real deal. See piracy as free advertizement, the same way B. Gates once did.
You don't want to get into the DRM game: it's a fool's game, up there with playing the lottery. Finally, make it so if the license is invalid, or the program patched, it outputs the video with a nice transparent watermark with a silly pirate in the background. The trick is to make unwinding / decompiling the code a hassle, not a challenge (or you'll attract the kinds of people who will crack it just because it's a challenge).
Finally, e-mail the various warez groups, and ask them (politely) to please stop cracking your software. Surprisingly, that has been known to work in a few cases. However, if you threaten them with legal action, or LEOs, they'll laugh at you from whatever country they're hiding in, and place your software at the top of all subsequent to-do crack lists. No, you do not need to pay them anything, aside from some small token of respect and the general civility which has been known to avert major wars.
The above may be more difficult today than several years ago, as the actions of various 'do-gooder' organizations and legislation have driven these people even further underground, so just getting an audience with them may require several months of work. Thank your leaders for their foresight in cashing in on some cheap political capital, and cutting the lines of communication necessary to keep the wheels on the cart.
Was it our good friends, the TSA, or is this a private venture? I ask because there was an article, a while back, which mentioned that airports could provide their own security forces if they chose to; moreover, this article does not mention who, exactly, denied him an exit.
Why yes, that's just what we need, more discipline in schools. And if that doesn't work, then we need even more discipline. And so on.
Perhaps it's time to throw out the old model, and create a new one. Pity that the effects of the current system dull the creativity of its 'products,' such that the proper solution may never occur to them.
Grand-parent is troll.
Parent is spot on, mod up!
And if we mandated basic IT classes, we could cut that down to one person, right?
Or we could keep those three people, and let IT focus on actually useful projects (you know, those hideously large projects that require 6 months just to get the design perfected?), instead of being everyone's technological cabana boy. There is nothing worse than having the network admin drop everything he is doing, so he can replace a toner cartridge on the network laser printer (come on people, it's not hard to figure out how to open a printer, nor difficult to replace a toner cartridge). Seriously, IT doesn't suffer from lack of work, only lack of time / resources.
And it would be nice if people would show a little more care for their own edification. When the great technological boom happened, most of the early-adopters were projecting the utility of the average person to sky-rocket, by doing work more efficiently + more free time + higher pay. Instead, the human race, in its infinite majesty, realized it could take a 'shortcut' to the apparently 'painful' learning of new technology (and the associated exploration process, of how to use it / integrate it into your life) by off-loading the work onto those early-adopters (f*ck it, let them learn, and we'll profit (somehow)!). So, now IT is seen as a cost center (thanks guys), filled with magical gnomes / elves, who are treated like underpaid secretaries. So much potential, wasted.
The funny part is, by screwing with IT's wages, the smarter members have moved on to better paying fields (programming or somewhere else entirely). And it shows. I will never understand how or why the central nervous system of most companies (it is; IT deals with information, the reception and transmission of it) gets treated like sh*t. Even in companies who primarily focus on manufacturing, your orders are rolling in through IT's systems, and sales / marketing's projections of a fabulous next quarter are done on Powerpoint.
And easily-defeated. One of the projects of my senior class at university was the building of software to defeat that kind of detection. It was crafted primarily so dissidents in foreign countries could speak without fear, by analyzing the author's writing patterns, and offering solutions to shift the writing to a different style.
Rule by an apathetic populace would be considered a possible downfall of this system.
True. Here in the US, you realize quickly that democracy has never graced the halls of the elected or appointed officials.
Democracy is a powerful lie, which lets people think they have power, right up until the point where they actually need to use it. Then they realize that they have no power, the laws were written by career bureaucrats who have no interest in whether or not they should be making laws, let alone good ones, for the simple reason that they themselves will never be affected by them. We had a judge, up here in Lancaster, PA, who was dismissing her own summons for various traffic violations: she just logged into the system, and altered the records. These are the very judges, mind you, who do not allow you a jury (sorry, it's just misdemeanor!) when you got to fight them, and who lovingly (he said sarcastically) click their tongues and berate you over the 'danger to society' your reckless driving could have caused, while the trooper (who arranged the date for his day off (time and a half, right guys?) and on the day you need to be elsewhere) smiles his knowing smile (he's a professional witness, your word against his...sure it's a racket, but fuck you).
I've realize why they have the Bible in the courtroom -> because by the time you get there, only God can save you.
Goose, golden eggs, killing of said goose to get the gold inside, followed by the realization that there is no gold inside.
Two other thoughts:
1.) It's rare to see a government so openly declaring economic warfare on its own populace.
2.) I'm surprised that the Financial District, which employs and contributes over 10% of the population and taxes, respectively, hasn't ordered a hit on the people behind this. In order to make good (profitable) trades, fast & accurate information is required (every millisecond counts, and you are competing with people in other countries); in so far as this will be putting up a few new walls between them and the rest of the world, it's not a 'good' law, I would assume, from their vantage point. With the amount of influence they have in the UK, they should easily be able to stop this problem (before it snowballs).
I will take super-economic sabotage for $500.
The crack spider is right. Building webs is for suckas.
On behalf of the rest of the world, we'll miss you guys.
Websites like The Register & the BBC have provided valuable information about the UK, its culture, its way of life, and at times, a better understanding of your country. Still, if your leaders are intent on cutting off their country's arm at the wrist, and cannot be persuaded against such an action, the rest of the world shall get together every September 4th, and host a UK day, during which we will look through the internet archives, and relive the experience of .uk websites.
Good-bye, and fair wishes to you all.
Let's bad freedom too. I have information which indicates that only terrorists & rapists speak about 'freedom.'
They also, on occasion, speak about some fictitious 'Bill of Rights,' that supposedly limits what our 'Dear Leaders' in the Roman Senate can and cannot do to the peasantry. Terrorists, all of them: they should be found, and subjected to experiments (like the effects of prolonged frostbite, or the stuffing of human beings into very warm ovens), for the good of society.
What a bunch of weirdos, they don't seem to understand that anyone who has a badge and a gun is God's right-hand on earth. How do we know this? Because for the last two thousand years, the Almighty hasn't said a word against the countless genocides and massacres that were carried out by those acting in His name. Trust me, if he didn't like the fine job our CIA is doing, sowing hate among our allies, we'd know it. Instead, he appears on slices of toasted bread, giving us the thumbs up. USA! USA! USA!
*shrugs* The parasite is outgrowing its host.
One day, there will only be government, and no people.
32 GB SSD? Who would use something so small? I pair 128 GB SSDs with my PCs as the standard, and have been moving to 240 GB SSDs as of late. It's actually more cost-effective to use the 240 GB SSDs ($ / GB) or so I've found. That means that the OS + a fair number of applications get a hideous speed boost.
The latest 8-core processor from AMD (3.6 Ghz stock, with Turbo it's higher) is around $260: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103960
And yes, it can run stably beyond 4.5 Ghz (hence my suggestion to spec in a water cooler; only on a i7 is 50 degrees centigrade considered "normal" idling temperatures).
As for the motherboard, I do not know enough about the performance characteristics of the one you selected to offer a valid comparison. As previously, I offer the Crosshair V and its feature-set: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131735 ($214). It has at least 3 x16 slots, 6 Gbs for all 7 SATA ports, USB 3.0, and an Intel NIC.
The primary cost savings comes from not from purchasing an Intel machine from major computer manufacturer: the CPU upgrades from one variant of Intel to another typically cost around $500. Building one yourself, admittedly, is less expensive and grants better hardware. Still, I would need to compare things with similar hardware to get a better idea of the cost difference. If I asked you to spec in an overclocker's motherboard (typically higher quality components), feature-rich, which would you choose?
I understand what you're getting at here (ID10Ts value something according to how much you charge them, and think that a more expensive processor is better). Still, I disagree with it in implementation, as one of AMD's great strengths is the fact that they don't gouge their customers on their consumer product line (the server line, on the other hand, could use some better pricing; however, if they could convince motherboard manufacturers to throw on a few more sockets for their Magny-Cours, I might be willing to look the other way).
Why was he trying to crack Facebook's security? Was he contracted through another party to do so, was he invited to do so? Or was this just some random "I'm a good person who like to find security issues on someone's website and tell them" thing? Why Facebook?
Asus makes Crosshair motherboards, which have been pretty freaking awesome for AMD chips, and they've done pretty well with my current motherboard, the Crosshair Formula 4. No frustration here.
On a side note, there does appear to be some possible issues with NewEgg, however. If you check out the Crosshair V (5) section, there have been some comments with suggest that NewEgg has been recycling equipment (DOAs, and what not; many of the comments are recent), and Asus may be feeling some indirect hate for that. Personally, I've had two Corsair H70s, that were ordered as 'new' (i.e. not open-box), show up with obvious signs of previous use. I had been told, after the first incident, that it had been a mistake ("Someone must have grabbed things from the wrong pile"), but after the second incident, I am not so sure. I find this entire business to be incredibly annoying, as NewEgg has been a good supplier of equipment in times past...but I do not appreciate the problems they are causing me (Corsair has the latest H70, and is replacing it directly; still, it's taking almost a month to get this mess cleaned up).
Indeed. But if they tread too far into that line of thought, the DoJ will break them up for being a monopoly (monopoly where it's politically convenient to say that they've become too powerful, not necessarily the academic meaning, and that the politcos want to flex their muscle).
"Once Intel realised they were falling behind, they dropped their brain-dead policies and pushed out better chips than AMD's."
Hmm. Not so much. More along the lines of they had a "Oh Shit!" moment, and cross-licensed AMD's 64-bit design (Intellectual Property swap) to get back in the game. Even Intel's earliest attempts (at a 64-bit x86 architecture) were pathetic in this area, with numerous complaints about their broken, half-assed 64-bit support (it supported, at first, only a handful of 64-bit instructions that AMD did, and required some unnecessary work, hence the bitching from the programmers). There's a reason the architecture is commonly referred to as AMD64, even after attempts to change the name to something more neutral.
This is not to say that Intel doesn't put out some good products, their NICs are simply wonderful.
It certainly didn't help that computer manufacturers have treated AMD as a budget CPU for many years. Looking back through history, a fair number of AMD CPUs were actually superior to Intel CPUs, but when paired up with crap motherboards and computer manufacturer's attempt to nickle and dime everywhere they could (emulated sound card? why not, it won't tax the CPU that much; (supposedly, in a few cases) emulate part of the video card using the CPU? why not, that won't tax the CPU much), Since the CPU is so overtaxed dealing with things it should not, you get crap performance, and begin to associate that brand of CPU with crap in general.
If I were a major computer manufacturer these days, I'd spec in AMD CPUs (Black Editions, etc.), then attach a self-contained coolant system to it, and crank it until it reached the temperatures that the i7 normally operates at. The $500 in cost savings would appeal to my customers, and I'd be able to price my competitors out of the market. If I spec'ed in SSDs for the primary OS, and a large media drive for what-have-you, and let potential customers test-drive it, they'd change their minds about Intel in a week. Tackling Intel's marketing arm is something of a b*tch, from what I understand.
Bah, it's a new design. They get an upgrade cycle to fix the bugs before we declare Bulldozer to be the new Itanium.
Supposedly, there is a hotfix for Windows 7 which deals with a lot of the issues. Again, this problem isn't too dissimilar to the one Intel enjoyed with Hyper-threading many moons ago.
As for their server offerings, I am a little unhappy that while we are getting more cores per chip (always a win), they are fairly slow. And the prices...could be better.
Hmm. The US's approach to a global network is somewhat backward -> who wants to do business with us if the mere interaction may result in your extradition from your home country? Since any interaction, including having US customers or storing files on a server located on US-controlled territory, can result in a potential disaster, why take the chance? It's not like the internet infrastructure the US does have is anything special -> we may have cooked up the idea of the internet, but our residential connections are far below that of many of our peers (and to add insult to injury, legislation is trying to make those connections slower with higher costs). I imagine that storing data on our servers is looked upon, by citizens of our countries, as the equivalent of spending a weekend with the KGB; yes, yes, we're Americans, we're morally superior, we're the good guys, right? But people are often blind to their own errors of judgement.
"And here, we do a lot of lying, a lot of propogandizing, a lot of glossing over what we don't know, and a lot of ignoring problems that can't be solved without sacrificing short term comforts."
Indeed. And the human race shall die when the last philosopher, scientist, or heretic is hung from a tree. It's only because some members of our race question convention-able wisdom that age-old lies are discovered and destroyed. It's a continuous process that periodically cleanses human knowledge of older faults, and introduces some new ones to think about (String Theory, how you perplex my Physicist friends...). Annoying, yes, but it's the best we have, or so I can tell.
"My hope, is that the major religions of the world, will go far beyond the roman catholic pope's recent easing of dogmas related to birth control. Such that it becomes politically feasible for richer countries to provide as much contraceptive aid as they do food aid. And that as a result of both of those things, the world population decreases, such that we need less energy, and produce less dangerous nuclear waste (yeah, you could throw something at me for that 'propaganda', but recent history suggests a departure from the safety that scientists can design on paper, and what actually happens in reality (think back to my first paragraph- there is the ideal, and then there is planet earth)."
And my hope is that the world's population never decreases, as the current genomic evidence relating to our ancestors implies that doing so would cripple it beyond repair. I would add, however, that I hope that human beings do figure out their problems, social / spiritual / familial / and technological (and so forth). I have a vested interest in ensuring that my descendants, provided I have some, will not be eating their meals through stomach tubes, even if that does mean they will be on another planet.
"It seems too much to me, that when it comes to energy production and global society, that we are just building up a ponzi scheme, that will come crashing down."
Possibly. However, I liken it more to our society being out of touch with reality: we're attempting too large a leap from fossil fuels to green technologies, without having developed the technology necessary to actually do it. It's like jumping out of an airplane, and trying to figure out how to create and deploy a parachute before you hit the ground.
"And it's all about the desire to have nice, biologically rewarding large families, living with all the modern comforts that cheap energy provides. But the same basic thing is I suspect at play with a heroine addict, preferring the pleasures of the moment, to the long term best interests of those they care about."
Indeed. However, the primary requirements for large families I would wager rest around economics and the time / love necessary to raise them. Failure on either part creates massive problems. As for summarizing our situation, I'd say the problem lies less in an addiction (which some of my friends would argue is more a matter of supply), and more along the lines of eccentricity / thought disorder. We're not being honest with ourselves over not being able to have it all: a clean, limitless power source for a loss / no cost. We keep investing in scams & fly-by-night outfits which promise the world with the next technological revolution right around the corner. That's not to say that progress isn't being made, or that revolutions do not happen, but to bet the farm on one happening next Saturday at 3:12 PM has largely been seen as a bad idea.