its called finding the silver lining in the cloud.
My industry (very not related to tech) has been down 30% a year for a few years. We have grown in excess of 40% per year during this time. We found a way to grow in turbulent times. This doesn't make us bad, or the fact that we did hogwash. It means we are playing the game smarter.
The top 25% and the top 1% are generally there for a reason. I don't begrudge anyone who is more successful than I am, and would rather emulate them than bitch. That may be why we succeed where other just complain.
No one wants to interview an unsuccessful person. Failing is easy, just complain and don't try. Kicking ass in this economy is hard, and worth looking at.
Gotta disagree with you here. If you blow the whistle after being laid off, you should get preferential treatment by the courts.
I see your point. My preference is to punish those still there who know it is going on, really wasn't thinking about the guy who turned them in. Once someone has rolled, that is a different thing.
Thats exactly it, So far Lindows is focused on becoming as good as Windows, but it needs to be BETTER than Windows to compete with Windows, not just as good, BETTER.
I disagree in a way. If 'more' means better, then I disagree. In the rush to make Linux 'better' it is becoming bloated.
To me, better is smaller, faster, simpler, more reliable. I don't need Linux to second guess me like windows tries to. I don't need it to offer to report a crash to someone. I don't need it to slow me down with its 'convenience'. I don't need everything tied to the kernel. I don't need it to do everything windows does, because windows simply tries to do too much.
I have several computers. On some, I don't care about playing mp3s, or other media. On some, 3d matters, on other, it doesn't. What we need is a modular system, NOT a one size fits all approach.
What I need (and I assume many others) is a clean, fast interface and underlying operating system that allows my applications to run in a brisk and reliable manner, and doesn't try to second guess me. What a concept, huh?
Amen. Once you know that your company, and you by extension is ripping people off, you should be held responsible as aiding and abetting the crime. At the very least, probation and a permanant record. This would provide incentive for employees to REPORT this kind of crap instead of tolorate it.
But adding more ram only incurs boot time overhead in 'checking' that ram to make sure it's good.
Need to check your facts. Try running 98 or ME with over 256mb ram. Also, on ANY system, the more ram, the more OS overhead. Its a price worth paying if you use it. but if you put 16gb of ram on your moms email machine, it would slow it down because the os keeps track of something it doesn't use. It doesnt manage memory it doesnt have, only memory it does.
Can anyone PLEASE explain to me why Tesla is less known than Edison and Einstein??
They had better marketing.
Tesla is a very interesting character, as well. I have read quite a deal about him, but the more I read, the most I become convinced no one really knew him.
What I find more interesting is that NO ONE has said anything about Nicola Tesla. While I don't think he invisioned microwaves, he DID invision, and bascially PREDICT electricity without wires, and spend a good deal of his life working toward this. His ideas were both out of time(r) and often wrong, but his foresight was amazing.
Once again, he has been redeamed in his belief that it could be done. While some of his claims are a bit overstated, the majority of his work was so advanced, he deserves the name "man out of time", which is also an excellent book about him by Margaret Cheney.
If you haven't read enough or really know who Nicola Tesla is, herearesomemisc.linksabouthim, including his patents. (Not to be confused with the very excellent band named Tesla.)
Enjoy the links, at least until they are slashdotted.
what i have seen in solid state drives start at $2000 for very small, and $10,000 for not as small. Just like ram, when you get into larger sizes, you don't get the same "$ per mb" savings you would expect, because the volume is so low.
As a point of comparison, compare 1gb vs 256mb ram prices.
More ram incurs more overhead. After a point, it ends up slowing your box down if you are not actually USING the extra ram.
Even with a 15k scsi drive, if you handle large files, which is becoming more and more common, the hard drive is going to be the bottleneck. Even if you only handle small files, the access time for a hard drive is generally 100 times slower than the access time for ram, regardless of how you RAID it, or the spindle speed. That is a lot of idle time when loading large files, or accessing lots of small files. Granted, SCSI helps because it takes the load off the cpu.
I can't possibly see how your athlon 2200 is the bottle neck, except when you are doing cpu intensive stuff. If I am pulling a filter in Photoshop, yea. Raytracing, etc. I expect that. But I use photoshop every day, and the amount of time I spend pulling a filter is still much less than loading and saving files.
for most people, it makes more sense to store DVDs on the disks they came on. Assuming you bought them. But even then, MOST of us need speed more than more space. If all else fails, I can easily add an external usb2 or firewire hard drive cheap enough, but that isnt going to make the computer FASTER. The hard drive IS the bottleneck for anyone doing more with their computer than surfing and email.
yeah, speed is important, but really only for high end stuff. I think that perhaps you are missing the point of super-high density information storage systems. I mean, sure you would want solid state storage for your desktop and laptop, where size isn't super critical, but what about the guy that wants to carry around the entire library of congress in his watch? i know that is kinda a stupid example, but i think the point is clear. Stuff like this will be great to carrying around mass amounts of information in a itty bitty living space.
No, i dont think its a dumb example at all, its just a different application. Even there, the 'watch hard drive' has moving parts and is more fragile than a solid state device, however. but I can see applications where you have super high density (storage) and where solid state is more imporant. I handle large graphics, so solid state would make my computer literally 3 to 4 times faster. These are files from 10gb to 400gb in size.
Movie production, animation, databases, would benefit from solid state. Solid state will be much smaller in the short run, regardless. Google might love the extra speed of solid state, but because of the sheer volume of material they store, they will still use traditional hard drives for many years to come. A smaller company might prefer solid state, because it could afford all their web site data on a, say 10gb drive. May keep the OS and libs on a traditional, and just use the hard drive for actual data.
Solid state is ALREADY taking off, in small ways. My Nikon coolpix 990 uses a 256mb flash card, my printer accepts smart sticks (never used it though). Those of us that handle large media files will benefit. Even in the hobby area, I record tv shows and bust them down to mpegs, to watch later on my pc. These are often 5 gigs in size, with 2x that used as swap to edit the commercials out.
What is holding it back is critical mass, until people DEMAND it, no one will fully develop it, and until it is developed and produced in great quantities, you can't expect the 'economy of scale' to kick in.
It WILL the future, SOME type of solid state storage. Just like VCRs, video cams, etc., its expensive at first until sales reach a point that the manufacturers see enough demand to develop it further, and reap the benefits of the volumes. Then competition will kick in, which will drop the prices. Ironically, this means two years AFTER everyone wants it, but it is coming. Its the last of the moving parts in a computers (fans not included).
Personally, I would settle for a nice 10gb solid state drive for doing work, and batch it all back to a traditional hard drive after I am done working, as a stop gap measure. They have drives this size, but they don't publish prices generally (any vendor) and it falls under the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" catagory, still.
but still, anything with moving parts is going to be slower than anything without, generally speaking. I work with large files, my harddrive is absolutely the bottleneck. 64 bit architecture is not a god send, however. If you only need 32 bits to get the job done, you are forcing the cpu and memory to drag the other 32 bits around while doing nothing. I think AMD and IBM have the right approach, a hybrid that allows 32 and 64 bit apps to run at par speeds.
Yea, this is all fine and dandy, but doesn't help with speed.
The real revolution waiting to happen is solid state hard drives that are affordable. Until we get rid of the moving parts, hard drives are going to be very very slow, relatively speaking. For the desktop, this is more important that storage space, since we already have 240gb drives that few can fill.
I've just recently found out about modding XP's so they'll look like MP's, and fit in a dual-cpu boards.
A link(s) would be nice. I would like more info on this. Probably still reluctant for a server, since its obviously an unsupported hack, but would make a killer workstation.
My servers are all PPro200 and P3/1ghz+, duals, of course:) I would not consider either xeon or p4 in a server environment, since well, the performance sucks for the p4, and the xeon is just too expensive vs. performance. I have a reluctance for AMDmp, party because of price/performance.
Personally, I am looking at the IBM970 (article posted two days ago) and hoping I can afford a couple 2x or 4x systems with these. Obviously, my server needs are not exactly the biggest, but still need the reliability. I have always used Intel on the server side, and until the last year or so, been pretty happy with them. I am still leary of AMD on the server side, not sure why, just am.
not that i disagree with your main point, but you would have to buy a new motherboard to upgrade from a p3/700 to a Celeron 2.2 as well. He quoted a cheap board at $54 I think. He also states you might have to buy a new case/ps as well.
Not to be elitist or anything, but a Celeron review?
Yea, that doesn't sound elitest at all.
Not everyone needs the newest cpu around. Some just need Office to run really fast. Some don't even need that. The review is a comparison, upgrading an older p3/700. Try RTFA next time.
Short, straight to the point. Is it me, or is the gap between Celeron and P4s in performance getting larger? Seems this would make AMD a better choice, dollar per dollar, if the big resellers would use them.
My point of comparison was a Dell 2.0ghz Celeron system I purchased at Christmas for my parents. Good thing they don't play Quake III. Now I wish I would have gotten them the AMD system from someone else.
My bet is that most people write open source software for many reasons and that, even for an individual, those reasons change from one day to the next.
You raise a good point. Everyone wants to pigeon-hole OSS programmers into groups, explaining in order of importance WHY they do what they do. So many still think its purely benevolence, and put the programmers on pedestals, when its often not warranted. Some start something and are too lazy to finish it alone. Some write a program that fits their needs and just don't want the hassle and unlikely scenario of making money on it, since few need that particular program. Many are university students and the program is a hobby, or project, or whatever. Many are benevolent, many are not. Some may write programs that depends on the GPL, or based on other GPL software, and do not have lot of choice about releasing the code if they want to distribute the binaries. Some probably do want props.
I think its fruitless to attempt to explain why people write OSS because its too broad a collection of people who do. I guess it may be fun for article writers, a purely academic exercise, but as these articles demonstrate, there is no "correct" answer. Many people try to do the same with/. readers as well, "you are all nerds" but if you read, its pretty easy to tell that is not the case, some of the readers obviously don't know anything about computers;)
I think if you asked Linus, I doubt he expected Linux to take off the way it has, 12 years later. His motivations in 1991 would be kind of irrelevent now.
Re:Obligatory
on
Mini-Box M-100
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· Score: 3, Informative
You'ld also be able to drive about 20 monitors off of the cluster of EPIA's. Try building that into a single board computer, I bet it costs more. Really though, who needs to drive 20 monitors?
Its friday and we are debating a beowolf of mini computers. Im married, whats your excuse?:)
The point is this isnt a good beowolf. Get a blade server if space is a concern. 20 of them, with NO hard drive is $5000. (they sell for $495 w/o HD and a 533 cpu) Not counting single monitor, switchbox, etc. I can get two 3ghz, or more importantly I can buy 1.3ghz athlons with 40gb drives for $279 each, shipping and all, close to half the price, so I could get 10 of them, having more power, for half the money if space isnt the concern.
In a nutshell, these are great one and a time, but not a cluster. Now get out of the house dammit!
Slashdot Mirror
its called finding the silver lining in the cloud.
My industry (very not related to tech) has been down 30% a year for a few years. We have grown in excess of 40% per year during this time. We found a way to grow in turbulent times. This doesn't make us bad, or the fact that we did hogwash. It means we are playing the game smarter.
The top 25% and the top 1% are generally there for a reason. I don't begrudge anyone who is more successful than I am, and would rather emulate them than bitch. That may be why we succeed where other just complain.
No one wants to interview an unsuccessful person. Failing is easy, just complain and don't try. Kicking ass in this economy is hard, and worth looking at.
Gotta disagree with you here. If you blow the whistle after being laid off, you should get preferential treatment by the courts.
I see your point. My preference is to punish those still there who know it is going on, really wasn't thinking about the guy who turned them in. Once someone has rolled, that is a different thing.
Thats exactly it, So far Lindows is focused on becoming as good as Windows, but it needs to be BETTER than Windows to compete with Windows, not just as good, BETTER.
I disagree in a way. If 'more' means better, then I disagree. In the rush to make Linux 'better' it is becoming bloated.
To me, better is smaller, faster, simpler, more reliable. I don't need Linux to second guess me like windows tries to. I don't need it to offer to report a crash to someone. I don't need it to slow me down with its 'convenience'. I don't need everything tied to the kernel. I don't need it to do everything windows does, because windows simply tries to do too much.
I have several computers. On some, I don't care about playing mp3s, or other media. On some, 3d matters, on other, it doesn't. What we need is a modular system, NOT a one size fits all approach.
What I need (and I assume many others) is a clean, fast interface and underlying operating system that allows my applications to run in a brisk and reliable manner, and doesn't try to second guess me. What a concept, huh?
Amen. Once you know that your company, and you by extension is ripping people off, you should be held responsible as aiding and abetting the crime. At the very least, probation and a permanant record. This would provide incentive for employees to REPORT this kind of crap instead of tolorate it.
It IS their business to report this.
More ram does and does not incur more overhead...
But adding more ram only incurs boot time overhead in 'checking' that ram to make sure it's good.
Need to check your facts. Try running 98 or ME with over 256mb ram. Also, on ANY system, the more ram, the more OS overhead. Its a price worth paying if you use it. but if you put 16gb of ram on your moms email machine, it would slow it down because the os keeps track of something it doesn't use. It doesnt manage memory it doesnt have, only memory it does.
Can anyone PLEASE explain to me why Tesla is less known than Edison and Einstein??
They had better marketing.
Tesla is a very interesting character, as well. I have read quite a deal about him, but the more I read, the most I become convinced no one really knew him.
What I find more interesting is that NO ONE has said anything about Nicola Tesla. While I don't think he invisioned microwaves, he DID invision, and bascially PREDICT electricity without wires, and spend a good deal of his life working toward this. His ideas were both out of time(r) and often wrong, but his foresight was amazing.
Once again, he has been redeamed in his belief that it could be done. While some of his claims are a bit overstated, the majority of his work was so advanced, he deserves the name "man out of time", which is also an excellent book about him by Margaret Cheney.
If you haven't read enough or really know who Nicola Tesla is, here are some misc. links about him, including his patents. (Not to be confused with the very excellent band named Tesla.)
Enjoy the links, at least until they are slashdotted.
what i have seen in solid state drives start at $2000 for very small, and $10,000 for not as small. Just like ram, when you get into larger sizes, you don't get the same "$ per mb" savings you would expect, because the volume is so low.
As a point of comparison, compare 1gb vs 256mb ram prices.
More ram incurs more overhead. After a point, it ends up slowing your box down if you are not actually USING the extra ram.
Even with a 15k scsi drive, if you handle large files, which is becoming more and more common, the hard drive is going to be the bottleneck. Even if you only handle small files, the access time for a hard drive is generally 100 times slower than the access time for ram, regardless of how you RAID it, or the spindle speed. That is a lot of idle time when loading large files, or accessing lots of small files. Granted, SCSI helps because it takes the load off the cpu.
I can't possibly see how your athlon 2200 is the bottle neck, except when you are doing cpu intensive stuff. If I am pulling a filter in Photoshop, yea. Raytracing, etc. I expect that. But I use photoshop every day, and the amount of time I spend pulling a filter is still much less than loading and saving files.
for most people, it makes more sense to store
DVDs on the disks they came on. Assuming you bought them. But even then, MOST of us need speed more than more space. If all else fails, I can easily add an external usb2 or firewire hard drive cheap enough, but that isnt going to make the computer FASTER. The hard drive IS the bottleneck for anyone doing more with their computer than surfing and email.
yeah, speed is important, but really only for high end stuff. I think that perhaps you are missing the point of super-high density information storage systems. I mean, sure you would want solid state storage for your desktop and laptop, where size isn't super critical, but what about the guy that wants to carry around the entire library of congress in his watch? i know that is kinda a stupid example, but i think the point is clear. Stuff like this will be great to carrying around mass amounts of information in a itty bitty living space.
No, i dont think its a dumb example at all, its just a different application. Even there, the 'watch hard drive' has moving parts and is more fragile than a solid state device, however. but I can see applications where you have super high density (storage) and where solid state is more imporant. I handle large graphics, so solid state would make my computer literally 3 to 4 times faster. These are files from 10gb to 400gb in size.
Movie production, animation, databases, would benefit from solid state. Solid state will be much smaller in the short run, regardless. Google might love the extra speed of solid state, but because of the sheer volume of material they store, they will still use traditional hard drives for many years to come. A smaller company might prefer solid state, because it could afford all their web site data on a, say 10gb drive. May keep the OS and libs on a traditional, and just use the hard drive for actual data.
Solid state is ALREADY taking off, in small ways. My Nikon coolpix 990 uses a 256mb flash card, my printer accepts smart sticks (never used it though). Those of us that handle large media files will benefit. Even in the hobby area, I record tv shows and bust them down to mpegs, to watch later on my pc. These are often 5 gigs in size, with 2x that used as swap to edit the commercials out.
What is holding it back is critical mass, until people DEMAND it, no one will fully develop it, and until it is developed and produced in great quantities, you can't expect the 'economy of scale' to kick in.
It WILL the future, SOME type of solid state storage. Just like VCRs, video cams, etc., its expensive at first until sales reach a point that the manufacturers see enough demand to develop it further, and reap the benefits of the volumes. Then competition will kick in, which will drop the prices. Ironically, this means two years AFTER everyone wants it, but it is coming. Its the last of the moving parts in a computers (fans not included).
Personally, I would settle for a nice 10gb solid state drive for doing work, and batch it all back to a traditional hard drive after I am done working, as a stop gap measure. They have drives this size, but they don't publish prices generally (any vendor) and it falls under the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" catagory, still.
but still, anything with moving parts is going to be slower than anything without, generally speaking. I work with large files, my harddrive is absolutely the bottleneck. 64 bit architecture is not a god send, however. If you only need 32 bits to get the job done, you are forcing the cpu and memory to drag the other 32 bits around while doing nothing. I think AMD and IBM have the right approach, a hybrid that allows 32 and 64 bit apps to run at par speeds.
Yea, this is all fine and dandy, but doesn't help with speed.
The real revolution waiting to happen is solid state hard drives that are affordable. Until we get rid of the moving parts, hard drives are going to be very very slow, relatively speaking. For the desktop, this is more important that storage space, since we already have 240gb drives that few can fill.
You fools, you know they do this stuff on pupose ;)
No, that was April fools day. And I still think April fools day was accidental, and they really just ran the same dupe 5 times.
Why couldn't a link have been given to the place that first aired this story?
/. works. Try reading the FAQ before opening your yap.
You obviously do not understand how
Also, by removing down-moderating this post, you are proving my point that you censor what isn't convenient or fits your own purposes.
Once again, read the FAQ. Nothing is censored. Set your threshold to -1 and you can read all the trolls, like this one.
You are clueless.
I've just recently found out about modding XP's so they'll look like MP's, and fit in a dual-cpu boards.
A link(s) would be nice. I would like more info on this. Probably still reluctant for a server, since its obviously an unsupported hack, but would make a killer workstation.
The XP 3000 took the title back from the P4 3.06 which had edged out the XP 2800. Seems like there's very little difference between the two brands.
Availability in the channel is one difference. the number one computer seller won't sell AMD systems, Dell.
My servers are all PPro200 and P3/1ghz+, duals, of course:) I would not consider either xeon or p4 in a server environment, since well, the performance sucks for the p4, and the xeon is just too expensive vs. performance. I have a reluctance for AMDmp, party because of price/performance.
Personally, I am looking at the IBM970 (article posted two days ago) and hoping I can afford a couple 2x or 4x systems with these. Obviously, my server needs are not exactly the biggest, but still need the reliability. I have always used Intel on the server side, and until the last year or so, been pretty happy with them. I am still leary of AMD on the server side, not sure why, just am.
not that i disagree with your main point, but you would have to buy a new motherboard to upgrade from a p3/700 to a Celeron 2.2 as well. He quoted a cheap board at $54 I think. He also states you might have to buy a new case/ps as well.
Not to be elitist or anything, but a Celeron review?
Yea, that doesn't sound elitest at all.
Not everyone needs the newest cpu around. Some just need Office to run really fast. Some don't even need that. The review is a comparison, upgrading an older p3/700. Try RTFA next time.
Short, straight to the point. Is it me, or is the gap between Celeron and P4s in performance getting larger? Seems this would make AMD a better choice, dollar per dollar, if the big resellers would use them.
My point of comparison was a Dell 2.0ghz Celeron system I purchased at Christmas for my parents. Good thing they don't play Quake III. Now I wish I would have gotten them the AMD system from someone else.
My bet is that most people write open source software for many reasons and that, even for an individual, those reasons change from one day to the next.
/. readers as well, "you are all nerds" but if you read, its pretty easy to tell that is not the case, some of the readers obviously don't know anything about computers ;)
You raise a good point. Everyone wants to pigeon-hole OSS programmers into groups, explaining in order of importance WHY they do what they do. So many still think its purely benevolence, and put the programmers on pedestals, when its often not warranted. Some start something and are too lazy to finish it alone. Some write a program that fits their needs and just don't want the hassle and unlikely scenario of making money on it, since few need that particular program. Many are university students and the program is a hobby, or project, or whatever. Many are benevolent, many are not. Some may write programs that depends on the GPL, or based on other GPL software, and do not have lot of choice about releasing the code if they want to distribute the binaries. Some probably do want props.
I think its fruitless to attempt to explain why people write OSS because its too broad a collection of people who do. I guess it may be fun for article writers, a purely academic exercise, but as these articles demonstrate, there is no "correct" answer. Many people try to do the same with
I think if you asked Linus, I doubt he expected Linux to take off the way it has, 12 years later. His motivations in 1991 would be kind of irrelevent now.
You'ld also be able to drive about 20 monitors off of the cluster of EPIA's. Try building that into a single board computer, I bet it costs more. Really though, who needs to drive 20 monitors?
:)
Its friday and we are debating a beowolf of mini computers. Im married, whats your excuse?
The point is this isnt a good beowolf. Get a blade server if space is a concern. 20 of them, with NO hard drive is $5000. (they sell for $495 w/o HD and a 533 cpu) Not counting single monitor, switchbox, etc. I can get two 3ghz, or more importantly I can buy 1.3ghz athlons with 40gb drives for $279 each, shipping and all, close to half the price, so I could get 10 of them, having more power, for half the money if space isnt the concern.
In a nutshell, these are great one and a time, but not a cluster. Now get out of the house dammit!
i'd sell my soul. anyoen seen somethign liek that? for around $200 ? anybody?
Walmart has an Athlon 1.1ghz box with Linux on it, hardrive, cd, kb, mouse, for 199.99
Please reply back with your email address, and I will forward you an address to send your soul.