Tough call, really. I tend to view every move of Gates in terms of wondering if he's
doing these things with the ulterior motive of helping his company, Microsoft. There was
a considerable ($300m, IIRC) gift to a cause in India about the time of debate over state
use of Open Source in preference to Microsoft (closed source, foreign owned.) There's also the matter
of how you feel people and businesses have been exploited and compromised by this behemmouth (granted
users of Microsoft products, myself included, share some responsibility for helping set the hook) which
has enriched this person, thus putting him in such a position to be generous.
I don't look to Jobs with any more expectation than he does good things in business, which
forces other businesses and concerns to react to the public in more favorable ways e.g. itunes selling for
far less than RIAA was comfortable with, Pixar producing quality entertainment over the utter pap from
Disney (well, we'll see how this goes, won't we?)
I don't know... I'm no mainframe guy, but I've seen guarantees of the impending doom of big iron for a decade now, and they still seem to be chugging along.
Just very, very few of them left. Most enterprise systems are becoming multi-processor build around Pentium and AMD64 variations. Where I worked in 2000 they scaled back from 3 to 1 and are likely soon going to be running on Pentium(Xeon) or AMD servers.
Reliable, can segment them, run other OSes ontop, good history... it's going to take some time for other options to get the history needed for people to chuck the iron.
Oh, no doubt, these were rock-solid systems! I truly miss working on them, but they cost HUGE amounts of money and absolutely required an expensive field service contract with fast response.
In short, the commodity hardware has been a cost cutter's dream, even if you could only do it once. Unfortunately along with the deaths of many big iron manufacturers so has gone the way of getting decent field service.
seems just a bit too late. they should donate to help feed some starving children not starving platforms.
How do you know they aren't planning this as some method of helping bring an end to wars? If they get the pentagon buying Itanium equipped missiles, just think what they could do!
AFGHANISTAN - YBN Today it was confirmed that Osama Bin-laden was killed as a Cruise Missile, manufactured by Strongbad Industries asploded near his hideout. The Cruise Missile was equipped with an HP computer guidance system which employed an Intel Itanium processor. The missile missed the target, but Mr. Bin-laden was struck in the head by the processor's heatsink and died later from the injury.
Seems to me that HP are better off keeping their piece of the $10 billion. You gotta spend money to make money but I fear this isnt the best way to improve their bottom line in the short term. [...]
You also have to spend money to lose money. The trick is getting something to come back. HP are already doing things with AMD processors so you gotta figure there's some real head-scratching going on among the workforce at HP.
Intel and HP spend untold sums of cash developing and rolling out a chip that comparatively few use. Thus, the market has effectively told them that there is not a large need for this behemoth. So how do they respond? A pledge to spend $10 billion more? How does this make sense again?
Poor wage-slave peons like me call this "throwing good money after bad", but in business it's "an investment."
perhaps if we glue enough feathers to this boat anchor it will fly!
In the words of The Gambler. "You gotta know when to fold em."
It smacks of prior business arrangement HP, et al, agreed to back in days of yor, while Itanium was supposed to be "the next big thing", when Intel was telling everyone they wouldn't need the 64 bit CPU's AMD was gearing up to peddle. Intel's calling in all those promisory notes after making compilers and stuff available for so long. Having their druthers, I think everyone else would rather not.
Last Gasp for Big Iron?
So as I'm reading this there's a big plug for AMD Opteron just below the article. This
would appear to me to be the threat to the Itanium, the same which effectively has killed
big iron -- inexpensive commodity hardware. Sink a few thousand into Opteron systems and run
what you already have, or sink far larger amounts into some gobble-de-gook system which won't
run, except under software emulation, what your multiprocessor system does. Sorry HP/Intel and
everyone else dumping money down this rabbit hole, I think you've lost the plot. Today's super
computers are parallel computing down with 64bit Gen x86 processors, like the AMD Opteron. The
glue is in the software, not in big fat chunks of expensive silicon.
if still not convinced, i might have a few meg of core to sell you
Just wait until we start blasting spent nuclear fuel into the Sun. The the Space-environment hippies will really let us have it!
The strongest, and most rational argument I've heard against this idea is what may be the fallout if there's a launch problem. Potential harm far outweighs the benefit of sending it to the moon or sun.
In order to determine if old spacesuits can be effective satellites, the crew on the International Space Station will be throwing one overboard on February 3rd.
Man! The lengths NASA will go to to shave expenses! They could bring it home, but nnnnooooooo,
they're going to just chuck it and further clutter space! Oh, sure, they're clever,
they'll pass this off as some official test (by loading the suit up with
a bunch of other old junk from the ISS such as radios, empty TV Dinner In A Tube
containers, stinky space diapers and a redundant Machine That Goes 'Ping' to lure every
Thomas, Richard and Herrance to listen in or watch with their
telescope, but
it's really just a Dump-n-Run.
now with this eyepiece and just a bit finer focus.. yes.. yes, i can just make out the nike swoosh on it, so it's an advertising vehicle, too!
Any aliens visiting earth will easily determine that NASA was one of the earth's chief ethically-challenged waste disposal
companies.
Or does somehow the magic Apple logo protect you from all harm - and Bill Gates?
It protects you from everything up to the Triassic period. After that, you're on your own. These were ancient flaws, vulerable to ancient threats. Don't boot up in a museum of natural history or you're toast.
Google will have the same problem as Microsoft in this area, lack of a consistent platform and user play-back device.
I think you'll find Google tend to be better focused. Microsoft wants to tie you into the spiderweb of their product line, rather than sell you something you'll be tickeled with. Google seems to have the grasp of catering to what the market likes.
'Further, Nielsen indicates that iTunes users form a distinct target audience with brand preferences along autos, alcohol beverages, magazines, and television,' he added.
It would be interesting to see if they are more pedestrian tastes or trendy.
Quite similar. Initially Despair.com attempted a copyright on:-( and was rejected. That was my orginal submission, back in the days of yor (when it was rejected) seems they shifted footing and went for Trademark.
Still, the patent for emoticons is preposterous and whoever granted it should be publicly flogged. They probably are some old cuss who has never been on the internet and still write with an Underwood typewritter.
Yeah, that's der bunny. I posted that years ago and it was rejected as a post. Now/. editors see this as serious, nevermind the seeds were sewn years ago.
A trademark, however is just the permission to grant rather exclusive use of a design. Patenting a system for manipulating punctuation into moods is, well, about as dumb as moodrings.
Years ago I tried to submit a story about a.com trying to copyright the:-( emoticon. Seems nobody took me seriously then. Now Cingular, following in their footsteps is all the rage.
Well, yeah, they're making an almighty grab for the system. Never mind I received my first list of emoticons, a rather comprehensive one at that, back in the 80's.
No, it was two references to trying to hide behind an al queda defense and a "you betcha" reference. You can't seriously think that I was the one making this a political argument.
Yep, I surely do. You're way off base. You should consider through what colour glasses you are reading and how you arrived at your conclusion. It'll save you a lot of huffing and puffing in the future.
Remember when american made goods were the best in the world?
I'm only 34, so, no.
Not actually that long ago for many things. I've still got a set of sockets, one of which withstood 175 ft/lbs of torque to remove a stubborn headbolt on an AMC 360 V8 (the engine was wrecked by a dropped valve and shattered piston, but in the sort of grim fascination engineering types hold for such things, we just had to take it apart to see the carnage). Two taiwanese sockets (lifetime guarantee!) split at about 90 ft/lbs.
Friends returning from being stationed in Korea were fascinated by the locals affinity for american made toasters, pans, etc, which servicemen and their families had taken with them but chose not to haul back home. Seems the koreans prefered these goods as they were far more durable than anything they could find in their markets. Ok, that was probably 10 years ago or so, but you weren't living under a mushroom at that time, were you?
No no no, you don't get to tell me I "misunderstand" because I called you on your veiled political swipes that had NOTHING to do with the discussion.
"veiled political swipes"???
One reference to a company running screaming to the government to help it cover it's ass, which has an actual basis in fact (Microsoft willing the government to prevent revelations of Windows security holes on the grounds of National Security) is an attack on Bush and/or Republicans and/or the intelligence community and/or Congress? You hyper-sensitive twit!
"Why did you buy such a sh!tty game?"
"Because somehow I thought it would get me closer to one of the booth girls."
"You. You utter nerd. You utter and complete nerd."
I was expecting something a little more Barad-Dur-ish. You know, heads of traitors impaled on the bridge as a warning to others.
You mean as a punishment/warning to those who fail in 'due dilligence' of securing sensitive information and validating their clients? Doesn't anyone use Dunn & Bradstreet anymore?
probably not, it would have probably cost $9m for their services
For the three months ending Dec. 31, ChoicePoint said it earned $27.68 million on revenues of over one billion dollars in 2005
Chump Change with their Revenues
Um, I'm familiar with legitimate accounting (GAAP) and $27.68m on revenues over $1b is a very, very tight margin of profit. I can't see how $10m is chump change on that, unless, by some incredibly humourous twist you can deduct a $10m fine from your gross, as a business expense, thus increasing your net.
Slashdot Mirror
Tough call, really. I tend to view every move of Gates in terms of wondering if he's doing these things with the ulterior motive of helping his company, Microsoft. There was a considerable ($300m, IIRC) gift to a cause in India about the time of debate over state use of Open Source in preference to Microsoft (closed source, foreign owned.) There's also the matter of how you feel people and businesses have been exploited and compromised by this behemmouth (granted users of Microsoft products, myself included, share some responsibility for helping set the hook) which has enriched this person, thus putting him in such a position to be generous.
I don't look to Jobs with any more expectation than he does good things in business, which forces other businesses and concerns to react to the public in more favorable ways e.g. itunes selling for far less than RIAA was comfortable with, Pixar producing quality entertainment over the utter pap from Disney (well, we'll see how this goes, won't we?)
Just very, very few of them left. Most enterprise systems are becoming multi-processor build around Pentium and AMD64 variations. Where I worked in 2000 they scaled back from 3 to 1 and are likely soon going to be running on Pentium(Xeon) or AMD servers.
Reliable, can segment them, run other OSes ontop, good history... it's going to take some time for other options to get the history needed for people to chuck the iron.
Oh, no doubt, these were rock-solid systems! I truly miss working on them, but they cost HUGE amounts of money and absolutely required an expensive field service contract with fast response.
In short, the commodity hardware has been a cost cutter's dream, even if you could only do it once. Unfortunately along with the deaths of many big iron manufacturers so has gone the way of getting decent field service.
How do you know they aren't planning this as some method of helping bring an end to wars? If they get the pentagon buying Itanium equipped missiles, just think what they could do!
You also have to spend money to lose money. The trick is getting something to come back. HP are already doing things with AMD processors so you gotta figure there's some real head-scratching going on among the workforce at HP.
Poor wage-slave peons like me call this "throwing good money after bad", but in business it's "an investment."
perhaps if we glue enough feathers to this boat anchor it will fly!
It smacks of prior business arrangement HP, et al, agreed to back in days of yor, while Itanium was supposed to be "the next big thing", when Intel was telling everyone they wouldn't need the 64 bit CPU's AMD was gearing up to peddle. Intel's calling in all those promisory notes after making compilers and stuff available for so long. Having their druthers, I think everyone else would rather not.
So as I'm reading this there's a big plug for AMD Opteron just below the article. This would appear to me to be the threat to the Itanium, the same which effectively has killed big iron -- inexpensive commodity hardware. Sink a few thousand into Opteron systems and run what you already have, or sink far larger amounts into some gobble-de-gook system which won't run, except under software emulation, what your multiprocessor system does. Sorry HP/Intel and everyone else dumping money down this rabbit hole, I think you've lost the plot. Today's super computers are parallel computing down with 64bit Gen x86 processors, like the AMD Opteron. The glue is in the software, not in big fat chunks of expensive silicon.
if still not convinced, i might have a few meg of core to sell you
The strongest, and most rational argument I've heard against this idea is what may be the fallout if there's a launch problem. Potential harm far outweighs the benefit of sending it to the moon or sun.
Traditionally, NASA have warned us that anything which did survive re-entry is potentially toxic and should be handled by experts.
it's probably the flaming remains of space diapers they they want to keep off eBay
801234547 LQQK - NASA Space debris!! RARE!
In order to determine if old spacesuits can be effective satellites, the crew on the International Space Station will be throwing one overboard on February 3rd.
Man! The lengths NASA will go to to shave expenses! They could bring it home, but nnnnooooooo, they're going to just chuck it and further clutter space! Oh, sure, they're clever, they'll pass this off as some official test (by loading the suit up with a bunch of other old junk from the ISS such as radios, empty TV Dinner In A Tube containers, stinky space diapers and a redundant Machine That Goes 'Ping' to lure every Thomas, Richard and Herrance to listen in or watch with their telescope, but it's really just a Dump-n-Run.
now with this eyepiece and just a bit finer focus .. yes .. yes, i can just make out the nike swoosh on it, so it's an advertising vehicle, too!
Any aliens visiting earth will easily determine that NASA was one of the earth's chief ethically-challenged waste disposal companies.
Zort, is that an antenna or is it glad to see us?
They may be all over the map, but they're focused where they are.
It protects you from everything up to the Triassic period. After that, you're on your own. These were ancient flaws, vulerable to ancient threats. Don't boot up in a museum of natural history or you're toast.
I think you'll find Google tend to be better focused. Microsoft wants to tie you into the spiderweb of their product line, rather than sell you something you'll be tickeled with. Google seems to have the grasp of catering to what the market likes.
It would be interesting to see if they are more pedestrian tastes or trendy.
Google sees no evil by choosing not to see evil.
Quite similar. Initially Despair.com attempted a copyright on :-( and was rejected. That was my orginal submission, back in the days of yor (when it was rejected) seems they shifted footing and went for Trademark.
Still, the patent for emoticons is preposterous and whoever granted it should be publicly flogged. They probably are some old cuss who has never been on the internet and still write with an Underwood typewritter.
Yeah, that's der bunny. I posted that years ago and it was rejected as a post. Now /. editors see this as serious, nevermind the seeds were sewn years ago.
A trademark, however is just the permission to grant rather exclusive use of a design. Patenting a system for manipulating punctuation into moods is, well, about as dumb as moodrings.
Well, yeah, they're making an almighty grab for the system. Never mind I received my first list of emoticons, a rather comprehensive one at that, back in the 80's.
Yep, I surely do. You're way off base. You should consider through what colour glasses you are reading and how you arrived at your conclusion. It'll save you a lot of huffing and puffing in the future.
Now after we've had the media assailing blogging, how does this all fit together?
"New Zork Times sez: proof you can't trust politicians, they blog! (and you know how unreliable that can be with plants and such!)"
Not actually that long ago for many things. I've still got a set of sockets, one of which withstood 175 ft/lbs of torque to remove a stubborn headbolt on an AMC 360 V8 (the engine was wrecked by a dropped valve and shattered piston, but in the sort of grim fascination engineering types hold for such things, we just had to take it apart to see the carnage). Two taiwanese sockets (lifetime guarantee!) split at about 90 ft/lbs.
Friends returning from being stationed in Korea were fascinated by the locals affinity for american made toasters, pans, etc, which servicemen and their families had taken with them but chose not to haul back home. Seems the koreans prefered these goods as they were far more durable than anything they could find in their markets. Ok, that was probably 10 years ago or so, but you weren't living under a mushroom at that time, were you?
"veiled political swipes"???
One reference to a company running screaming to the government to help it cover it's ass, which has an actual basis in fact (Microsoft willing the government to prevent revelations of Windows security holes on the grounds of National Security) is an attack on Bush and/or Republicans and/or the intelligence community and/or Congress? You hyper-sensitive twit!
"Why did you buy such a sh!tty game?"
"Because somehow I thought it would get me closer to one of the booth girls."
"You. You utter nerd. You utter and complete nerd."
You mean as a punishment/warning to those who fail in 'due dilligence' of securing sensitive information and validating their clients? Doesn't anyone use Dunn & Bradstreet anymore?
probably not, it would have probably cost $9m for their services
Where's Arthur Anderson when you need them?