Ever been in the midwest? Ever seen photos of the area near the Burning Man? Has someone decided on a route in the less populated areas? Crossing Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, or simular states could be a real task. It will need to follow some strip of population somewhere to cross these open areas. It would be quite the task just to cross Oregon someplace East to West. There are too many places without line of sight to the next neighbor. Even the I84 between Hood River and Pendleton would be difficult.
Actualy there is an upper bound. When enough consumers drop TV, Cable, DVD's, Going out to movies, etc, this will be cut back. It's just seeking the balance point between advertising dollar revenue and loss of market share. They are looking for the max profit point.
How many blockbuster movies have you avoided because the start was delayed half an hour to push advertisements. How many times have you arrived late to a move because you knew you wouldn't miss the start. When enough people show up 15 minutes late as the norm and ask if the movie has started yet is when they will start to take notice.
Notice the Prof is now looking into the excess dammage by the DMCA and is contacting Congress? We need more of these to hit Congress.
Re:Also they cant just "mothball" a fab
on
DRAM Price Fixing
·
· Score: 1
I agree that they don't just mothball a FAB. However they do retool to other product so one product is running in the head of the fab while the last of the old product is completing in the back end. Sometimes they do mothball a fab to re-tool. Intel held on to the 858 process past it's planned end of life (8 inch aluminum interconnect tech) due to the demand for the Pentium III chips. They eventualy migrated FAB 20 to the 860 process (faster copper interconnects). Fabs can and do adjust the downtime for upgrades depending on the current demand for product. During the tech downturn one of the new fabs was put on hold mid construction. During recovery, they completed it. Construction was idle for about 8 months except to get the roof on to protect it from the elements. It is true that a FAB isn't usualy just mothballed, but tooling and process upgrades and new product introductions do adjust to the demand swings. Notice Intel is kinda quiet on the Strata Flash memory? Notice they are hot on wireless chipsets? Do you think this is because flash is a high demand, high price product? I don't think so. I do think wireless notebooks, PDA's and wireless web enabled phones are hot items. They are promoting WIFI hotspots and long battery life with wireless connections. Somehow I don't think the flash fab is making just flash chips waiting for the next memory market upturn.
I don't think it's a conspiracy to hold memory products off the market to drive up prices. I think it's making something else while the memory price is in the low-nil-loss profit range. I expect wireless products to also go into some serious volume/price/demand bumps.
I know it looks funny, but think about the market dynamics. Most chip manufactures can change photomasks and either make DRAM, Flash RAM, Cell Phone chips, Network Chips, etc. The market has some fluctiuations. When the price is up, management shifts to produce what is profitable. When the market is down, they sell off inventory and tool for other chips. I know Intel closed a flash plant when flash prices fell. They started again when Cell Phones needed lots more memory driving the price back up. The market swings. The manufactures can't instantly deliver. It takes time to react to the market. Starting a new product line takes several months from new raw wafers to finished deliverable components. It's easy to flood the market if you don't know your compeditors are also trying to fill 100% of a shortage. A shortage of 500,000 units could quickly become a glut of 1,500,000 units as 3 manufactures come on line to supply the shortage. They all get stung with the rapid price drop while trying to recover the manufacturing costs. The margins are quite thin most of the time in the DRAM market. Bumps in demand do catch the suppliers off guard.
Our computers are probably 10,000 times faster than they were twenty years ago. But operating them is much more complex
Let's see. IBM PC XT 4.7 Megahertz to Pentium 4 at 3 Gigahertz. (3,000 Megahertz) It seems a little shy of 10,000 times unless you factor going from an 8 bit processor to a 32 bit processer. That's 4X the bandwidth. I don't think they missed the mark by much. 10,000 times or 12,000 times, what the the diff?
save all your media to a network attached drive. Make sure your Linux box will play the media. Back it up onto CD's. DRM broken stuff will become evident. You can then cancel your subscription to the broken content. Remember the consumer is always right. In a free market the consumer has a vote. Be sure to vote. (hint; the vote is spelled $$.)
PC programs that required a dongle were voted down by the majority of consumers. Notice most of your games now don't include a dongle in the box? DRM music needs our same vote. No Compact Disk logo means no sale. I only buy the real red book music CD's. I left 4 CD's on the shelf last week for lack of the Compact Disk logo. (EMI get a hint and get back to advertising it's a real CD. You are loosing sales because the logo is missing.)
Regarding slowdowns, No problem. If the hardware just doesn't cut the grade, use your other hardware for your application.
I see the hardware having a split.
There will be the DRM machine for your secure online banking, telecomuting, shopping, Pay per view magazine subscriptions, streaming music service, etc. Only a few people will need this enough to buy it.
Fot the rest of us; The general use machine for everyting else.. games, music, movies, e-mail, web browsing, hacking, file sharing, photo editing, web page creation, office applications, online banking, shopping, online magagazines & newspapers, internet radio, CD burning, etc.
I like your countersuit example. It would be funny if it went like a drug case that was screwed up. The defendant bought fake drugs and got busted. The drug charge got tossed because the defendant didn't have drugs. I wonder if having the Madonna cursing file would get you busted for illegal content?
I know it's not pratical as most everybody has storage for a huge amount of files. You probably will get busted for something else that is copyrighted.
It sounds like they needed to use a hardware engineer as well as the software folks. A properly designed supply should have protected the hard drives from the power spike. A bicycle powered generator does not generate reliable 120 volt 60 cycle power. I wonder if they were trying to run the whole thing off a car alternator. Without a battery to buffer the output, rapid changes in RPM do cause rapid swings in output voltage. A properly designed power supply for this application would include a battery, a regulated charging circuit, and a regulated DC to DC converter which would protect the downstream electronics and hard drives from the voltage spike.
So copying music to cdrw is fine, you have already payed. (sp. paid) In the US, use the Music CDR for the pre-paid royalty. So far the Data CDR is not for music. It's still considered a data format, not a music format. I'm still not clear if an MP3 is a data format or a music format since it will not play in most CD players. I have a bunch of Audio CDR's for my music. I wouldn't want to be accused of piracy!
spread it thinly across using a credit card Spreading the grease is a bad idea. It puts ridges and valleys in the grease. When the parts are mated, the trapped air pockets create voids. Not a good idea. Always put a small dab in the center of the die and set the heatsink on it. Apply pressure and lock into place. The blob flattens out forcing all air out ahead of the grease. This prevents hotspots that lead to die failure. Don't remove the heatsink to inspect it. If you ever remove the heatsink, completely clean it and start over. You don't want air pockets in the grease.
This is easy to demonstrate. There are lots of 50,000 watt transmitters on the air. The signal is so weak you still need batteries in your walkman to get good volume out of the headphones. Crystal sets use the RF to power headphones withoug using an amplifier, but very rarely are they located close enough to the transmitter to get a few watts to speakers.
Before responding, here is what the post office says regarding a chain letter get rich scheme. http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspe ct/chainl et.htm
You are right. The first minute is a killer on the 1010 numbers. Use a calling card instead. Shop for one. The one I use is 2.99 cents/minute 24 hours a day all 50 states. (575 min for $19.95) I'd rather pay 3 to 6 cents than a dollar to leave a message on a machine. Most phones that dial a number for you can dial the access number for you so you don't have to key in the card number for each call.
If you are stuck with a land line, ditch the long distance provider entirely. Tell them you have a boarder who abuses the phone and makes calls on your nickel. Go entirely to pre-paid phone cards. Calls in-state are the same rate as cross country. Best part is it isn't loaded with all the added monthly charges or high daytime rates. My current long distance is 2.99 cents/min either in state, or out of state 24 hours a day. None of that evening and weekend plan junk. Who's bright idea was it for evening to begin at 9PM anyway on those cell plans? People with small kids have sent them to bed and don't appreciate the phone calls after the kids are supposed to be going to sleep.
I went the other route to eliminate this charge. I never signed up for touch tone service. When the CO upgraded equipment, it became standard. Then they wanted me to pay extra to support legacy pulse dial equipment. I told them I will upgrade and drop my legacy equipment. (I already had) Now they had no reason whatsoever to charge me for touch tone. I never paid that monthly charge.
I agree. All the add on charges to the land line is the biggest reason that cell phones are so popular. When they first came out, they were expensive and a status symbol. Now they simply match the price of a land line with the same features (caller ID, LD plan, call waiting, voice mailbox, etc.). The killer advantages for a cell phone are an effective telemarketer screen and portablilty. Since they are about the same price, landlines are starting to go away. Internet going broadband is a contributitor. Notice how the landline providers are desprate to include a generous long distance phone plan and a local telephone plan with your DSL discount? They don't want you to get broadband and drop local phone. Cable is the same way. They charge an extra $10/month if you don't also take cable TV. (they call it a discount, but it's really an extra charge for not having cable TV)
They would have been laughed at and ridiculed. But today
What's missing from the slashdot postings? Smilies;-) Acronims ROTFL. I was under the impression besides rage, there was lots of laughing and ridiculing going on.
I realy don't think anybody would think the parody is the real strawberry. It's way too crude. If this got sent to major newspapers by mistake, I doubt it would get printed.
I do have to admit, I only saw it because of the fuss over it. Wow, what a way to get your work noticed.
Even though the bug in the P1 only affected programs using some instruction of the floating point processer, Intel was responsible enough to disclose the problem and do a recall instead of hiding the problem and quietly repacing "defective" processers on a case by case basis as many companies do.
If you buy a product with a bug, do you want a free repacement, or be accused of operator/programmer error. (Windows crash/reboot cycle). I'd love MS to recall my WIN 98 CD's and provide a non-crash replacements for free. I know which company I have less bugs with.
I'm sticking with the reliable one. When I get a P4 with the 800 Mhz FSB, I know it's going to be reliable just like my 200 Mhz Pentium, 1 Ghz PIII & 2.4Ghz P4. I've had more bugs with the motherboard (1 replaced) and hard drives (2 replaced) than I have ever had with a processor (none replaced). If only everything else were as reliable I'd be very happy.
No connection with the product, just information. Check out the Toyota Prius. By using regenerative braking, it gets by with a much smaller engine while having all the zip of a larger engine. My dad has one. Don't let the 1.5L engine fool you. It's assisted by a 25 KW electric. No problem getting on the freeway onramp with it.
Wow, what an elaborate solution to a simple speed bumb problem. How about Mass of car & contents * speed^2 minus Mass of car & contents * speed^2 after the speed bump. In other words, how much energy have you lost because of going over the speed bump? I don't care how long it takes to asorb the vertical vibrations. It doesn't matter. The vibrations are converted into heat in the shocks. Better shocks take less time to dampen the vertical vibration. The energy of the vertical vibration came from a loss of forward motion or a conversion of forward kinetic energy into vertical vibrational energy which is lost to heat.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever been in the midwest? Ever seen photos of the area near the Burning Man? Has someone decided on a route in the less populated areas? Crossing Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, or simular states could be a real task. It will need to follow some strip of population somewhere to cross these open areas. It would be quite the task just to cross Oregon someplace East to West. There are too many places without line of sight to the next neighbor.
Even the I84 between Hood River and Pendleton would be difficult.
Actualy there is an upper bound. When enough consumers drop TV, Cable, DVD's, Going out to movies, etc, this will be cut back. It's just seeking the balance point between advertising dollar revenue and loss of market share. They are looking for the max profit point.
How many blockbuster movies have you avoided because the start was delayed half an hour to push advertisements. How many times have you arrived late to a move because you knew you wouldn't miss the start. When enough people show up 15 minutes late as the norm and ask if the movie has started yet is when they will start to take notice.
Notice the Prof is now looking into the excess dammage by the DMCA and is contacting Congress? We need more of these to hit Congress.
I agree that they don't just mothball a FAB. However they do retool to other product so one product is running in the head of the fab while the last of the old product is completing in the back end. Sometimes they do mothball a fab to re-tool. Intel held on to the 858 process past it's planned end of life (8 inch aluminum interconnect tech) due to the demand for the Pentium III chips. They eventualy migrated FAB 20 to the 860 process (faster copper interconnects). Fabs can and do adjust the downtime for upgrades depending on the current demand for product. During the tech downturn one of the new fabs was put on hold mid construction. During recovery, they completed it. Construction was idle for about 8 months except to get the roof on to protect it from the elements.
It is true that a FAB isn't usualy just mothballed, but tooling and process upgrades and new product introductions do adjust to the demand swings. Notice Intel is kinda quiet on the Strata Flash memory? Notice they are hot on wireless chipsets? Do you think this is because flash is a high demand, high price product? I don't think so. I do think wireless notebooks, PDA's and wireless web enabled phones are hot items. They are promoting WIFI hotspots and long battery life with wireless connections. Somehow I don't think the flash fab is making just flash chips waiting for the next memory market upturn.
I don't think it's a conspiracy to hold memory products off the market to drive up prices. I think it's making something else while the memory price is in the low-nil-loss profit range.
I expect wireless products to also go into some serious volume/price/demand bumps.
I know it looks funny, but think about the market dynamics. Most chip manufactures can change photomasks and either make DRAM, Flash RAM, Cell Phone chips, Network Chips, etc. The market has some fluctiuations. When the price is up, management shifts to produce what is profitable. When the market is down, they sell off inventory and tool for other chips. I know Intel closed a flash plant when flash prices fell. They started again when Cell Phones needed lots more memory driving the price back up. The market swings. The manufactures can't instantly deliver. It takes time to react to the market. Starting a new product line takes several months from new raw wafers to finished deliverable components. It's easy to flood the market if you don't know your compeditors are also trying to fill 100% of a shortage. A shortage of 500,000 units could quickly become a glut of 1,500,000 units as 3 manufactures come on line to supply the shortage. They all get stung with the rapid price drop while trying to recover the manufacturing costs. The margins are quite thin most of the time in the DRAM market. Bumps in demand do catch the suppliers off guard.
Our computers are probably 10,000 times faster than they were twenty years ago. But operating them is much more complex
Let's see. IBM PC XT 4.7 Megahertz to Pentium 4 at 3 Gigahertz. (3,000 Megahertz) It seems a little shy of 10,000 times unless you factor going from an 8 bit processor to a 32 bit processer. That's 4X the bandwidth. I don't think they missed the mark by much. 10,000 times or 12,000 times, what the the diff?
Tip,
save all your media to a network attached drive. Make sure your Linux box will play the media. Back it up onto CD's. DRM broken stuff will become evident. You can then cancel your subscription to the broken content. Remember the consumer is always right. In a free market the consumer has a vote. Be sure to vote. (hint; the vote is spelled $$.)
PC programs that required a dongle were voted down by the majority of consumers. Notice most of your games now don't include a dongle in the box? DRM music needs our same vote. No Compact Disk logo means no sale. I only buy the real red book music CD's. I left 4 CD's on the shelf last week for lack of the Compact Disk logo. (EMI get a hint and get back to advertising it's a real CD. You are loosing sales because the logo is missing.)
Regarding slowdowns, No problem. If the hardware just doesn't cut the grade, use your other hardware for your application.
I see the hardware having a split.
There will be the DRM machine for your secure online banking, telecomuting, shopping, Pay per view magazine subscriptions, streaming music service, etc. Only a few people will need this enough to buy it.
Fot the rest of us;
The general use machine for everyting else.. games, music, movies, e-mail, web browsing, hacking, file sharing, photo editing, web page creation, office applications, online banking, shopping, online magagazines & newspapers, internet radio, CD burning, etc.
I like your countersuit example. It would be funny if it went like a drug case that was screwed up. The defendant bought fake drugs and got busted. The drug charge got tossed because the defendant didn't have drugs. I wonder if having the Madonna cursing file would get you busted for illegal content?
I know it's not pratical as most everybody has storage for a huge amount of files. You probably will get busted for something else that is copyrighted.
It sounds like they needed to use a hardware engineer as well as the software folks. A properly designed supply should have protected the hard drives from the power spike. A bicycle powered generator does not generate reliable 120 volt 60 cycle power. I wonder if they were trying to run the whole thing off a car alternator. Without a battery to buffer the output, rapid changes in RPM do cause rapid swings in output voltage.
A properly designed power supply for this application would include a battery, a regulated charging circuit, and a regulated DC to DC converter which would protect the downstream electronics and hard drives from the voltage spike.
So copying music to cdrw is fine, you have already payed. (sp. paid)
In the US, use the Music CDR for the pre-paid royalty. So far the Data CDR is not for music. It's still considered a data format, not a music format. I'm still not clear if an MP3 is a data format or a music format since it will not play in most CD players.
I have a bunch of Audio CDR's for my music. I wouldn't want to be accused of piracy!
spread it thinly across using a credit card
Spreading the grease is a bad idea. It puts ridges and valleys in the grease. When the parts are mated, the trapped air pockets create voids. Not a good idea. Always put a small dab in the center of the die and set the heatsink on it. Apply pressure and lock into place. The blob flattens out forcing all air out ahead of the grease. This prevents hotspots that lead to die failure. Don't remove the heatsink to inspect it. If you ever remove the heatsink, completely clean it and start over. You don't want air pockets in the grease.
I've analyzed OGG, MP3, etc, and NONE of them come close to WMV
;-)
Um, we were looking for best sound quality, not the other end of the spectrum.
This is easy to demonstrate. There are lots of 50,000 watt transmitters on the air. The signal is so weak you still need batteries in your walkman to get good volume out of the headphones. Crystal sets use the RF to power headphones withoug using an amplifier, but very rarely are they located close enough to the transmitter to get a few watts to speakers.
It almost is a good enough reason to drop the landline entirely. It adds to the TCO of a landline.
Somehow I see E-mail dying (replaced by online feedback forms) and Landlines dying (replaced by VoIP and wireless).
Any good technology can be turned into trash with the right tools.
Before responding, here is what the post office says regarding a chain letter get rich scheme.e ct/chainl et.htm
http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/insp
Just needed to post the counterpoint.
You are right. The first minute is a killer on the 1010 numbers. Use a calling card instead. Shop for one. The one I use is 2.99 cents/minute 24 hours a day all 50 states. (575 min for $19.95) I'd rather pay 3 to 6 cents than a dollar to leave a message on a machine. Most phones that dial a number for you can dial the access number for you so you don't have to key in the card number for each call.
If you are stuck with a land line, ditch the long distance provider entirely. Tell them you have a boarder who abuses the phone and makes calls on your nickel. Go entirely to pre-paid phone cards. Calls in-state are the same rate as cross country. Best part is it isn't loaded with all the added monthly charges or high daytime rates. My current long distance is 2.99 cents/min either in state, or out of state 24 hours a day. None of that evening and weekend plan junk. Who's bright idea was it for evening to begin at 9PM anyway on those cell plans? People with small kids have sent them to bed and don't appreciate the phone calls after the kids are supposed to be going to sleep.
I went the other route to eliminate this charge. I never signed up for touch tone service. When the CO upgraded equipment, it became standard. Then they wanted me to pay extra to support legacy pulse dial equipment. I told them I will upgrade and drop my legacy equipment. (I already had) Now they had no reason whatsoever to charge me for touch tone. I never paid that monthly charge.
I agree. All the add on charges to the land line is the biggest reason that cell phones are so popular. When they first came out, they were expensive and a status symbol. Now they simply match the price of a land line with the same features (caller ID, LD plan, call waiting, voice mailbox, etc.). The killer advantages for a cell phone are an effective telemarketer screen and portablilty. Since they are about the same price, landlines are starting to go away. Internet going broadband is a contributitor. Notice how the landline providers are desprate to include a generous long distance phone plan and a local telephone plan with your DSL discount? They don't want you to get broadband and drop local phone. Cable is the same way. They charge an extra $10/month if you don't also take cable TV. (they call it a discount, but it's really an extra charge for not having cable TV)
They would have been laughed at and ridiculed. But today
;-) Acronims ROTFL. I was under the impression besides rage, there was lots of laughing and ridiculing going on.
What's missing from the slashdot postings? Smilies
I realy don't think anybody would think the parody is the real strawberry. It's way too crude. If this got sent to major newspapers by mistake, I doubt it would get printed.
I do have to admit, I only saw it because of the fuss over it. Wow, what a way to get your work noticed.
Even though the bug in the P1 only affected programs using some instruction of the floating point processer, Intel was responsible enough to disclose the problem and do a recall instead of hiding the problem and quietly repacing "defective" processers on a case by case basis as many companies do.
If you buy a product with a bug, do you want a free repacement, or be accused of operator/programmer error. (Windows crash/reboot cycle). I'd love MS to recall my WIN 98 CD's and provide a non-crash replacements for free. I know which company I have less bugs with.
I'm sticking with the reliable one. When I get a P4 with the 800 Mhz FSB, I know it's going to be reliable just like my 200 Mhz Pentium, 1 Ghz PIII & 2.4Ghz P4. I've had more bugs with the motherboard (1 replaced) and hard drives (2 replaced) than I have ever had with a processor (none replaced). If only everything else were as reliable I'd be very happy.
No connection with the product, just information. Check out the Toyota Prius. By using regenerative braking, it gets by with a much smaller engine while having all the zip of a larger engine. My dad has one. Don't let the 1.5L engine fool you. It's assisted by a 25 KW electric. No problem getting on the freeway onramp with it.
Wow, what an elaborate solution to a simple speed bumb problem. How about Mass of car & contents * speed^2 minus Mass of car & contents * speed^2 after the speed bump. In other words, how much energy have you lost because of going over the speed bump?
I don't care how long it takes to asorb the vertical vibrations. It doesn't matter. The vibrations are converted into heat in the shocks. Better shocks take less time to dampen the vertical vibration. The energy of the vertical vibration came from a loss of forward motion or a conversion of forward kinetic energy into vertical vibrational energy which is lost to heat.