The FAA has the power to regulate, which is different from passing laws. They can not put you in jail, but they can take away a company's license to run a commercial air service.
The super rich avoid estate taxes as much as possible - why do you think that Warren Buffet is donating so much to the Gates Foundation. It's the moderately successful that get bit by estate taxes. Of course they avoid estate taxes. Who wouldn't- don't you? That doesn't mean they avoid them completely. If you are moderately successful, you should also have an accountant and/or estate planner that can help you reduce your exposure to estate taxes.
I don't see a problem with them redistributing their money to those less well off through foundations they set up as opposed to just having the government take it and redistribute it as they see fit. Everyone wins.
Wealth is storage, an accumulation. The US gov't does not tax based on how much wealth you have, it taxes based on how much income you have. Assets can and often do produce income, either through dividends, capital appreciation, or similar means, and that is taxed. The government does tax wealth when you die via estate taxes, which are pretty brutal and have done their intended job- to prevent a ruling class of super-rich. You will find that the top 1% of earners do pay an inordinate amount of taxes. (I forget the exact figures, but I think it is something like top 1%=20% of all taxes, top 5%=50% of all taxes). So yes, the progressive tax system is in place.
Could you imagine a tax system based on wealth? You are essentially encouraging people to have no savings and spend every dollar they save. This would spur economic activity, but at the first sign of a downturn, people are going to be jumping either off buildings or into bankruptcy court.
This is not a politically correct opinion, but I would much rather this be your mom's $200 problem than mine (and every other taxpayers). I personally think that we have gone way overboard in this country catering to everyone and all their problems.
To be honest, $200 is really a small amount in the grand scheme of things, especially if this helps her live her life. I am sure she spent many times that amount on medical care or training.
You should really get a class action lawsuit going against every home builder that has ever existed. There are MASSIVE security flaws in my house. There are "windows" that require nothing but a small rock to break through, and they don't even lock themselves or make it aware to me that they are unlocked when I am not home! My door locks can often be picked off with nothing but a credit card, but even if I install the upgrade (a deadbolt), the door can be broken through! What's worse, is that even if I install bullet proof windows and a steel door which are reasonably secure, the house is made of wood! Wood has been known to be easily cut through and set on fire for thousands of years! This is just absolutely scandalous, someone needs to think of the children and call a politician, these flaws have been known for centuries.
I understand that we should make secure software, and not fixing known critical bugs is irresponsible, but I do not understand why we place all the blame on the software companies, when there are people knowingly breaking the law out there causing all of these problems. If there were masked men constantly roving your neighborhood checking to see that your doors and windows were closed and locked, I don't think you would be calling the manufacturers, you would be grabbing your gun.
I disagree on the Knuth. I don't really know anyone who has made anything more than a tiny dent into any of them. Most programmers I know that actually own it use it mostly for shelf candy. Maybe if you are into pure computer science, this is a great book, but most of us have work to do, and Knuth is way too dense. There are better and more practical books out there.
This brings up an interesting point... what if a minor clicks accept? As far as I remember from my college business law classes, a EULA is a contract, and a minor can not enter into a contract and be bound to it. I know I hit a lot of accept buttons before I was 18.
I bought an LCD Projection 50" TV online about a year and a half ago. Price in brick and mortars: $3000. Price online: $2000. Delivery $150. I got it in two days. I was a little skeptical about how great a deal I got so I put it on my Amex for protection in case the site was bogus. I had no problems whatsoever though.
You sound like a high end, high service type shop that probably does a decent job of informing your customers, which is great (though usually one pays through the nose at places like this, even compared to places like Best Buy). However, for those of us that are techies/enthusiasts and research the shiat out of any electronics purchase over $50, we just don't need you and we will go online and save a ton of money.
I have saved about $2000 (about 30% on average) by buying big ticket items online. I have heard similar arguments from my aunt who is a retail manager that you have. Your talking points are almost exactly the same, though she tends to focus on the "price difference is not that great, and if you have to take it back, you're screwed." angle. Perhaps you should consider getting into the e-tailing business instead of getting beat up by it?
There are many ways to dress well, a suit is not required.
Like it or not, but every day, every single day, you are selling yourself. Now yes, the main criteria in our field to yourself by is definitely your intelligence/knowledge. But you know who the PHB's remember? That really smart guy that looked good and could provide a convincing argument to a group of people at their level and got along with everyone.
I consider myself to dress pretty well, and I own 2 suits, which I wear only on interviews, weddings, funerals, and similar functions. I wear jeans alot, but not the 80's nuthuggers. Go to a mall, get yourself some decent jeans and some shirts (hint: the ones that are 80% off are there for a reason), button down... standard. Get a little creative to stand out a bit.
It may depend, I work in finance, and my bosses from the business side are really sharp, they know their shit, and they take people with them when they get promoted often. So impressing them by trying to get on their level is more important than at a more techie-only firm like MS.
And if none of the above reasons convince you, take a look at that cute asian girl (stereotype stereotype I know, but come on now there is some truth no?) in the cube on the other side of the floor. She's cute, which is cool, she can code and probably has a math or CS degree, which is hot, and when she starts talking about the advantages of the linux tcp/ip stack over windows, you just want to take your pants off. She is probably going to notice the guy that actually pays attention to his appearance than the legions of dudes wearing ratty years old t-shirts from computer companies.
My brief summary is this: For video and 3D rendering, quad core KICKS ASS. For more routine tasks, it's performance edge isn't a big deal and probably not worth it. Keep in mind though that these tests were done on "beta" chips, other performance areas and heat dissipation might improve .
I really wish sites would do benchmarks on things like compilation times (a bunch of sites used to do this based on compiling the source for the Linux Kernel) and web serving performance, which will help to better inform developers and small businesses of what they can get out of upgrading their hardware, as these two groups probably round out the consumers of high end hardware aside from the gamers, 3D guys and video guys.
And Because I can't stand the fact that Toms Hardware has become an ad whore, I give you their summary:
Compared with the already not-too-shabby Intel Core 2 Duo/Extreme, the Core 2 Quadro can give performance a mighty tweak - but only for specific applications. In the best-case scenario, performance can even be doubled. However, this depends on the particular program. Software makers have yet to initiate the needed optimizations for multiple physical CPU units. The table below lists a hodgepodge of applications that benefit from four cores right away.
The future belongs to HD content. If we take our benchmarks into consideration you can no longer get by without a quad-core processor. Test results with the software packages Main Concept with H.264 encoding and the WMV-HD conversion make this very clear. We noticed performance jumps of up to 80% when compared to the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed (2.66 GHz). A Core 2 Quadro at 2.66 GHz and higher is the answer for HD video (editing and rendering) at full HD resolution (1920x1080).
Ambitious video geeks will want to have four cores or even more. But that's still a way off, even as the developers of both AMD and Intel are working on it.
Gaming fans, however, can confidently stick with the Core 2 Duo/Extreme or the legendary Pentium D 805. That's due to a lack of adaptations for four CPUs - in practice, only a maximum of two processors are used in games.
Overclocking fetishists can rest assured. Our test samples ran reliably at 3.33 GHz with no voltage increase - including a sound boost in performance.
With a maximum system power draw of 260 W, the power consumption of the Core 2 Quadro system levels out in the same league as a Pentium EE 965. In idle mode, the system required 167 W - this is the same amount of power that a Core 2 Extreme demands at full load. The reason for this likely lies with incomplete implementation of Intel's SpeedStep technology at this stage. In terms of computing performance, the Core 2 Quadro is worlds apart compared to the classic Pentium 4/D processors: It performs more than twice as fast than the Pentium EE 965, but requires less power input. A Core 2 Quadro does get hotter than a Core 2 Duo/Extreme, though.
Intel intends to offer the top-of-the-line version of the Core 2 Quadro for about $1,000. The customer will bring home a quad-core 2.66 GHz processor with 8 MB of L2 cache. Topics Programs Performance Core 2 Quadro vs. Core 2 Duo 3D rendering 3D Studio Max 8.0 100% video editing Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 80% HD video encoding Main Concept H.264 70% video encoding Windows Media Encoder 9 63% video encoding DivX 6.2 27% image editing Adobe Photoshop CS2 24% file compression WinRAR 3.6 10% Editor's Opinion
For me, working with one of the first quad core systems was amazing. No matter how many applications you run at the same time, the system reacts to user commands quickly. Some applications require half the time to finish tasks. To me, it's like being catapulted a year into the future and is unlike the past few years when computing power increased only marginally. Intel pumped out 30% more performance with Core 2 Duo and will double that again with Core 2 Quadro soon.
I disagree that I have really missed the point, I think you missed that I specifically mentioned a fight that can be heard outside the walls of your house. The point being is that the second you can raise your voice so that it can be heard from outside, you are "in public" and therefore in the original poster's eyes asking to have it broadcast to the world. Once I can hear it from outside your home, its no longer a private conversation. If your neighbor put a microphone on his fence and distributed every argument he heard as a podcast on the internet and sent updates to your family and friends whenever a new fight occurred, I think you might object.
Not all information that is put out in "public" is intended to be broadcasted to everyone.
So if you get divorced because she left you and cheated on you, thats a public record, and you obviously would not mind one bit if on the day of the filing that was on the front page of the NY Times? Or how about you got in a fight with your wife and I could hear it from outside so I recorded and played it back over the PA system at your office the next day?
Or how about how much you paid for your house? You have no problem with me sending a letter to all of your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc telling them exactly how much you paid for it? That is most likely listed on the deed to your house which is a public record.
I disagree. There is a societal expectation that your private life not be broadcast even though it is "public." This expectation will probably change as tools like this become available. If you break up with someone, you may not care if people know, but just because your coworkers are linked to you on a social networking site doesn't mean you want that information immediately and easily available.
I perfectly understand how tools like this are deemed unacceptable and thats OK. It is how our society functions. If I have the time and effort, I can dig up dirt on anyone, but it will take more time and effort than I really care for. You can make a claim that this all goes out the window because its on the internet, but these sites are trying to mimic online what goes on in the real world, and enable real world friendships. However, making "stalking" like this so easy just deters people from making social connections. Just because I met a girl I kind of like at a bar last weekend and I made her my friend on Myspace does not mean that I want some girl I am seeing to get an immediate update of that fact. You are saying that this is obviously exactly what I want, and that is just not true.
As someone who works in finance in derivatives (for a wall st firm), I agree to an extent... but every position I have seen requires an advanced degree. Actually, just about every position I have seen requires a PHD. And your PHD thesis should be at least tangentially applicable to the area of finance you want to work in.
But other than that, you are right. Derivatives are ON FIRE. Hedge funds are popping up like.com's in the late 90's (don't bet the farm on these guys though, the SEC is getting impatient with a lot of their shenanigans, and the status symbol of having investments in a "hedge fund" is starting to lose its luster). Actually, I think I recall the article you are talking about, and I can tell you that, even though your base may start in the low to mid 100's, if you can make it through your first few years, you will soon find yourself with a Tribeca apartment with water views, a Benz, and any other toys you desire. That article was also specifically referring to one of the most sought after European teachers, something the equivalent of an MIT graduate here.
My main point is that this guy seemed to be asking about what he can do with an undergraduate math degree presumably from a typical and non super-elite school, and I have yet to meet someone with that profile getting a job on wall st.
First things first... be wary of a lot of investment advice given on slashdot. These are the guys that fueled the bubble and think Google having a P/E of over 100 is A-OK.
I do work in finance, and have a great personal interest in these things also. I am assuming you have no debt, and are perhaps on a scholarship so you have extra money around that you can play with. If you are in debt, I suggest you pay off all credit cards first (it will be nearly miraculous for you to get an 18% return or whatever your card charges you).
As for actual investments, I am assuming you have little money to invest. Investing in individual stocks will KILL you on fees and eat into any returns. I suggest a no-load, light fee mutual fund based off of an index (be it the S&P 500, Russel 2000, wilshire 5000, energy sector, whatever). These give you a great deal of diversification and you are not subject to the risk of pictures of the CEO doing a line of coke off a 14 year old hookers ass getting out. At this point, mutual funds are the way to go. When you hopefully start massing real wealth in your 30's and 40's it will be cheap enough for you to invest in individual stocks. if you really like a certain area, IE emerging markets, transportation, etc... there is definitely a fund out there for you.
A note on diversification: I recommend against investing in tech stocks (assuming you are a techie). If the tech market bombs, your employment prospects will be shaky and your wealth will have taken a hit too, a potentially disastrous combination.
I am a little late in replying here (long weekend) but I think you should look into TeamTrack which is made by Serena. I have a considerable amount of experience in this area, as BPM was a major part of my last job (with the other major component being SCM- Software Configuration Management), and I still try to keep up with the major developments in these areas.
In general do I recommend a BPM/Workflow tool? Hell yes. I am not sure how things are currently handled in your organization, but most management and tracking is probably done via a combination of Outlook, Project, and maybe Excel. This may seem to be functioning ok for your team(s) now, but once you put a workflow management system in place, you will probably wonder how you ever got anything done before. You won't have to spend half the day just walking the floor finding out where people are with certain tasks. The reporting tools will do that for you, and also clear up miscommunications about what is done and not done. However, this only works for teams that have definable repeatable processes, but if you look at enough sample workflows, you will learn how to think from that perspective, and you will realize that most teams do have repeated processes that can be defined into workflows.
You are also going to spend a lot of time defining these processes. You will probably also spend a few months tweaking everything to get the forms and rules just right. But once you are there, you will probably find that updates are few and far between and driven mostly by business changes (IE now there is a compliance officer that has to approve all budget changes over $X dollars, or all customer complaints in the system for more than 5 days need to be escalated to a more senior manager).
Why do I recommend TT specifically: Pros: Once you learn the system, on the fly workflow changes are trivial. With a fairly experienced administrator and a good spec, you can get an entire workflow implemented from start to finish in a few hours. Tweaks and changes are done in minutes. Of course, this depends on your level of complexity and how anal you are (TT allows you pretty much complete control over its look and feel so it can look all company branded).
Cons: Nearly anything is possible as far as integration and additional functionality goes via its teamscript and API interfaces. However, these interfaces are pretty poor. I would make sure TT can do 90% of what you want it to do out of the box.
Its a general workflow tool-not software development specific. It is not clear that you want a specific software development tool, but if you do, there may be better (though more expensive) tools out there. TT is a nice balance between the heavy systems like Lotus and the barebones bugzilla/excel solutions to the problem I have seen.
You can look at this through two different lenses (well probably more, but these are what come to my mind):
One: The Vista Beta was so bad from a user perspective that they are racing to fix all the problems found to make it desirable to use.
Two: MS understands that this is the biggest release in their history, it is a pivotal moment for the company, and they absolutely have to get this right and hitting on all cylinders to ensure their continued dominance.
Of course, what is really going on is probably somewhere in between. MS knows this release is vital, and the feedback from the beta users was worse (perhaps far worse) than expected. On the bright side though, this means they are probably busy fixing the multiple dialog boxes from hell that people were complaining about. I wouldn't hold my breath for January though, they are missing the December holiday rush, and I don't see what incentive they will have to push it out in January when the next big sales blip is the May/June graduation season. Unless perhaps the OEM's or MS give a free upgrade to Vista with any machine purchased at the end of this year, that would be a smart move.
Dairy Farmers and more notably swine (pig) farms to the best of my knowledge always produce far far more manure than they could ever use as fertilizer. The economics of shipping it to suburban/urban areas for use as fertilizer apparently do not work either, though I don't know why and find it hard to believe. Swine farms though in particular often have HUGE lagoons full of the manure- the pigs eat feed, they don't graze on grass.
As an aside, I have read several comments here about how this is "subsidizing" the farmers and alternative electricity forms. I think these people are forgetting that burning the methane prevents this greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and doing damage. Combustion of the methane produces something like 1/20th of the greenhouse gasses. The cost is high, but this is really a huge win for the environment, and we are taking waste and making it productive.
Can I ask why a chess game really needs to be in 3D? Whenever I see a 3D chess game, I find the "graphics" just interfere with the game, and almost immediately put it in 2D mode if thats is available. It is a shame that Windows no longer bundles chess as one of its games, that and Ski-free were highly entertaining.
The quality of a chess game is almost never measured by its graphics.
I find it hard to believe that having a programmer on hand to generate targeted reports from a database for you application monitoring, wouldn't be better then having (how many people do you need to parse through a 86,400 record spreadsheet, looking for important rows?). No, at least for your example, database would absolutly be better, no question. As far as it being throw away data, you just clear the table. Hell the database can have triggers based on the data, then you don't need anyone to parse through the doc, then it could archinve those trigger points. Dude, do you need a contract software developer? I could be available.
A programmer on hand to generate targeted reports? My perl +csvfile + excel macro solution does that every day and was developed in about half a day. Its fully automated, no human intervention is required. Triggers? parsing through data? This is starting to sound like a resource requiring project... Perl + regex did this all for me already. This is data gleamed from pure raw log files that aren't clean, half the time was spent figuring out the regex's to use to get the data I need. No, writing all this log output to a database is not feasible, and its also unnecessary. The log files measure GB's of data per day for some components. I think you may have missed the point of the spreadsheet, it is not for anyone to read the actual data, just as a dataset from which to use excel's analytical tools to produce data that people will actually use (IE pretty graphs, percentages, and the variance of the data).
You are right on target, thats exactly what we use. A perl script outputs a csv file. Then an excel macro does analysis and makes pretty graphs that my boss likes. The total development and automation time took half a day at most. Your last sentence is the exact reason why we did not use the DB approach.
I am not a business type at all, but I bump into the 65k row limit often. We do analysis on our applications to see things like utilization %, and this is an app that is up 24 hours a day, and we want a per/second granularity in the statistics we do. 60seconds * 60minutes *24hours = 86,400 records. We get around the problem usually by just chopping off the slow early morning hours that we know aren't going to be a problem, but its a pain to work around, and as our business is becomming increasingly 24/7, those "dead hours" are becomming more dangerous to ignore. This type of stuff is throw away data, and makes no sense to put in a DB at all. We do the analysis, make sure we are meeting our internal QOS standards, and if we start exceeding them we look to add capacity. In addition, we are talking about 7 columns worth of data that we do analysis on.
I know of many other scenarios in my group where we have lots of datapoints (1-200k+), but maybe only 3 or 4 different fields (columns) of data, which just need to be analyzed to produce a human readable representation of our system's performance. A database would never, ever, make sense to use in this scenario. It is an order of magnitude times slower to develop an app that will write to it (as opposed to a simple script that will just output a csv file), and usually an order of magnitude slower to RUN such an application.
It is probably always going to be the case the programmers will overuse databases, while business types will always overuse spreadsheets. However, anyone that makes the blanket statement that anyone that needs a million row spreadsheet is an asshat, really needs to look into the mirror to see the asshat.
Sir, have you read about Guantanamo lately? Our political opponents and critics are indeed in jail and in some cases dying, communist bloc, cold war style.
THIS time period, right here, right now, is a period in time that I fully expect some president 50+ years from now to be apologizing about, similar to the internment of the Japanese in WWII.
I just read a similar thread over on techdirt about the same subject, and it appears that the quality issue may be only on the portable units. This may be the case since I have a portable unit, though I don't have a non-portable to compare to. In either case, this doesn't appear to be rare.
Now, that does not necessarily mean it is FAR worse than FM, just that it is worse. After listening for awhile, you don't notice it really, but every once in awhile the encoding does a particularly poor job and you notice. I also don't notice it much on my cheap-o headphones, but when I hook up my unit to my fairly high end home theater system, its a piece of cake to tell that FM is better. I live in NYC and get a full strength signal at home.
I am hoping that the HD channels that they are going to roll out Real Soon Now, will fix this problem, and be of CD quality.
Slashdot Mirror
The FAA has the power to regulate, which is different from passing laws. They can not put you in jail, but they can take away a company's license to run a commercial air service.
I don't see a problem with them redistributing their money to those less well off through foundations they set up as opposed to just having the government take it and redistribute it as they see fit. Everyone wins.
Wealth is storage, an accumulation. The US gov't does not tax based on how much wealth you have, it taxes based on how much income you have. Assets can and often do produce income, either through dividends, capital appreciation, or similar means, and that is taxed. The government does tax wealth when you die via estate taxes, which are pretty brutal and have done their intended job- to prevent a ruling class of super-rich. You will find that the top 1% of earners do pay an inordinate amount of taxes. (I forget the exact figures, but I think it is something like top 1%=20% of all taxes, top 5%=50% of all taxes). So yes, the progressive tax system is in place.
Could you imagine a tax system based on wealth? You are essentially encouraging people to have no savings and spend every dollar they save. This would spur economic activity, but at the first sign of a downturn, people are going to be jumping either off buildings or into bankruptcy court.
This is not a politically correct opinion, but I would much rather this be your mom's $200 problem than mine (and every other taxpayers). I personally think that we have gone way overboard in this country catering to everyone and all their problems.
To be honest, $200 is really a small amount in the grand scheme of things, especially if this helps her live her life. I am sure she spent many times that amount on medical care or training.
Hell, you are her son, buy her one for Christmas!
You should really get a class action lawsuit going against every home builder that has ever existed. There are MASSIVE security flaws in my house. There are "windows" that require nothing but a small rock to break through, and they don't even lock themselves or make it aware to me that they are unlocked when I am not home! My door locks can often be picked off with nothing but a credit card, but even if I install the upgrade (a deadbolt), the door can be broken through! What's worse, is that even if I install bullet proof windows and a steel door which are reasonably secure, the house is made of wood! Wood has been known to be easily cut through and set on fire for thousands of years! This is just absolutely scandalous, someone needs to think of the children and call a politician, these flaws have been known for centuries.
I understand that we should make secure software, and not fixing known critical bugs is irresponsible, but I do not understand why we place all the blame on the software companies, when there are people knowingly breaking the law out there causing all of these problems. If there were masked men constantly roving your neighborhood checking to see that your doors and windows were closed and locked, I don't think you would be calling the manufacturers, you would be grabbing your gun.
I disagree on the Knuth. I don't really know anyone who has made anything more than a tiny dent into any of them. Most programmers I know that actually own it use it mostly for shelf candy. Maybe if you are into pure computer science, this is a great book, but most of us have work to do, and Knuth is way too dense. There are better and more practical books out there.
This brings up an interesting point... what if a minor clicks accept? As far as I remember from my college business law classes, a EULA is a contract, and a minor can not enter into a contract and be bound to it. I know I hit a lot of accept buttons before I was 18.
-K
I am sorry, but I call FUD here.
I bought an LCD Projection 50" TV online about a year and a half ago. Price in brick and mortars: $3000. Price online: $2000. Delivery $150. I got it in two days. I was a little skeptical about how great a deal I got so I put it on my Amex for protection in case the site was bogus. I had no problems whatsoever though.
You sound like a high end, high service type shop that probably does a decent job of informing your customers, which is great (though usually one pays through the nose at places like this, even compared to places like Best Buy). However, for those of us that are techies/enthusiasts and research the shiat out of any electronics purchase over $50, we just don't need you and we will go online and save a ton of money.
I have saved about $2000 (about 30% on average) by buying big ticket items online. I have heard similar arguments from my aunt who is a retail manager that you have. Your talking points are almost exactly the same, though she tends to focus on the "price difference is not that great, and if you have to take it back, you're screwed." angle. Perhaps you should consider getting into the e-tailing business instead of getting beat up by it?
There are many ways to dress well, a suit is not required.
Like it or not, but every day, every single day, you are selling yourself. Now yes, the main criteria in our field to yourself by is definitely your intelligence/knowledge. But you know who the PHB's remember? That really smart guy that looked good and could provide a convincing argument to a group of people at their level and got along with everyone.
I consider myself to dress pretty well, and I own 2 suits, which I wear only on interviews, weddings, funerals, and similar functions. I wear jeans alot, but not the 80's nuthuggers. Go to a mall, get yourself some decent jeans and some shirts (hint: the ones that are 80% off are there for a reason), button down... standard. Get a little creative to stand out a bit.
It may depend, I work in finance, and my bosses from the business side are really sharp, they know their shit, and they take people with them when they get promoted often. So impressing them by trying to get on their level is more important than at a more techie-only firm like MS.
And if none of the above reasons convince you, take a look at that cute asian girl (stereotype stereotype I know, but come on now there is some truth no?) in the cube on the other side of the floor. She's cute, which is cool, she can code and probably has a math or CS degree, which is hot, and when she starts talking about the advantages of the linux tcp/ip stack over windows, you just want to take your pants off. She is probably going to notice the guy that actually pays attention to his appearance than the legions of dudes wearing ratty years old t-shirts from computer companies.
Just my $.02
This should enlighten you a bit: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/10/four_cores_ on_the_rampage/
My brief summary is this: For video and 3D rendering, quad core KICKS ASS. For more routine tasks, it's performance edge isn't a big deal and probably not worth it. Keep in mind though that these tests were done on "beta" chips, other performance areas and heat dissipation might improve .
I really wish sites would do benchmarks on things like compilation times (a bunch of sites used to do this based on compiling the source for the Linux Kernel) and web serving performance, which will help to better inform developers and small businesses of what they can get out of upgrading their hardware, as these two groups probably round out the consumers of high end hardware aside from the gamers, 3D guys and video guys.
And Because I can't stand the fact that Toms Hardware has become an ad whore, I give you their summary:
Compared with the already not-too-shabby Intel Core 2 Duo/Extreme, the Core 2 Quadro can give performance a mighty tweak - but only for specific applications. In the best-case scenario, performance can even be doubled. However, this depends on the particular program. Software makers have yet to initiate the needed optimizations for multiple physical CPU units. The table below lists a hodgepodge of applications that benefit from four cores right away.
The future belongs to HD content. If we take our benchmarks into consideration you can no longer get by without a quad-core processor. Test results with the software packages Main Concept with H.264 encoding and the WMV-HD conversion make this very clear. We noticed performance jumps of up to 80% when compared to the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed (2.66 GHz). A Core 2 Quadro at 2.66 GHz and higher is the answer for HD video (editing and rendering) at full HD resolution (1920x1080).
Ambitious video geeks will want to have four cores or even more. But that's still a way off, even as the developers of both AMD and Intel are working on it.
Gaming fans, however, can confidently stick with the Core 2 Duo/Extreme or the legendary Pentium D 805. That's due to a lack of adaptations for four CPUs - in practice, only a maximum of two processors are used in games.
Overclocking fetishists can rest assured. Our test samples ran reliably at 3.33 GHz with no voltage increase - including a sound boost in performance.
With a maximum system power draw of 260 W, the power consumption of the Core 2 Quadro system levels out in the same league as a Pentium EE 965. In idle mode, the system required 167 W - this is the same amount of power that a Core 2 Extreme demands at full load. The reason for this likely lies with incomplete implementation of Intel's SpeedStep technology at this stage. In terms of computing performance, the Core 2 Quadro is worlds apart compared to the classic Pentium 4/D processors: It performs more than twice as fast than the Pentium EE 965, but requires less power input. A Core 2 Quadro does get hotter than a Core 2 Duo/Extreme, though.
Intel intends to offer the top-of-the-line version of the Core 2 Quadro for about $1,000. The customer will bring home a quad-core 2.66 GHz processor with 8 MB of L2 cache.
Topics Programs Performance
Core 2 Quadro vs. Core 2 Duo
3D rendering 3D Studio Max 8.0 100%
video editing Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 80%
HD video encoding Main Concept H.264 70%
video encoding Windows Media Encoder 9 63%
video encoding DivX 6.2 27%
image editing Adobe Photoshop CS2 24%
file compression WinRAR 3.6 10%
Editor's Opinion
For me, working with one of the first quad core systems was amazing. No matter how many applications you run at the same time, the system reacts to user commands quickly. Some applications require half the time to finish tasks. To me, it's like being catapulted a year into the future and is unlike the past few years when computing power increased only marginally. Intel pumped out 30% more performance with Core 2 Duo and will double that again with Core 2 Quadro soon.
I disagree that I have really missed the point, I think you missed that I specifically mentioned a fight that can be heard outside the walls of your house. The point being is that the second you can raise your voice so that it can be heard from outside, you are "in public" and therefore in the original poster's eyes asking to have it broadcast to the world. Once I can hear it from outside your home, its no longer a private conversation. If your neighbor put a microphone on his fence and distributed every argument he heard as a podcast on the internet and sent updates to your family and friends whenever a new fight occurred, I think you might object.
Not all information that is put out in "public" is intended to be broadcasted to everyone.
So if you get divorced because she left you and cheated on you, thats a public record, and you obviously would not mind one bit if on the day of the filing that was on the front page of the NY Times? Or how about you got in a fight with your wife and I could hear it from outside so I recorded and played it back over the PA system at your office the next day?
Or how about how much you paid for your house? You have no problem with me sending a letter to all of your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc telling them exactly how much you paid for it? That is most likely listed on the deed to your house which is a public record.
I disagree. There is a societal expectation that your private life not be broadcast even though it is "public." This expectation will probably change as tools like this become available. If you break up with someone, you may not care if people know, but just because your coworkers are linked to you on a social networking site doesn't mean you want that information immediately and easily available.
I perfectly understand how tools like this are deemed unacceptable and thats OK. It is how our society functions. If I have the time and effort, I can dig up dirt on anyone, but it will take more time and effort than I really care for. You can make a claim that this all goes out the window because its on the internet, but these sites are trying to mimic online what goes on in the real world, and enable real world friendships. However, making "stalking" like this so easy just deters people from making social connections. Just because I met a girl I kind of like at a bar last weekend and I made her my friend on Myspace does not mean that I want some girl I am seeing to get an immediate update of that fact. You are saying that this is obviously exactly what I want, and that is just not true.
You forgot "Dupe Squad"... oh wait Slashdot already has that one trademarked...
As someone who works in finance in derivatives (for a wall st firm), I agree to an extent... but every position I have seen requires an advanced degree. Actually, just about every position I have seen requires a PHD. And your PHD thesis should be at least tangentially applicable to the area of finance you want to work in.
.com's in the late 90's (don't bet the farm on these guys though, the SEC is getting impatient with a lot of their shenanigans, and the status symbol of having investments in a "hedge fund" is starting to lose its luster). Actually, I think I recall the article you are talking about, and I can tell you that, even though your base may start in the low to mid 100's, if you can make it through your first few years, you will soon find yourself with a Tribeca apartment with water views, a Benz, and any other toys you desire. That article was also specifically referring to one of the most sought after European teachers, something the equivalent of an MIT graduate here.
But other than that, you are right. Derivatives are ON FIRE. Hedge funds are popping up like
My main point is that this guy seemed to be asking about what he can do with an undergraduate math degree presumably from a typical and non super-elite school, and I have yet to meet someone with that profile getting a job on wall st.
First things first... be wary of a lot of investment advice given on slashdot. These are the guys that fueled the bubble and think Google having a P/E of over 100 is A-OK.
I do work in finance, and have a great personal interest in these things also. I am assuming you have no debt, and are perhaps on a scholarship so you have extra money around that you can play with. If you are in debt, I suggest you pay off all credit cards first (it will be nearly miraculous for you to get an 18% return or whatever your card charges you).
As for actual investments, I am assuming you have little money to invest. Investing in individual stocks will KILL you on fees and eat into any returns. I suggest a no-load, light fee mutual fund based off of an index (be it the S&P 500, Russel 2000, wilshire 5000, energy sector, whatever). These give you a great deal of diversification and you are not subject to the risk of pictures of the CEO doing a line of coke off a 14 year old hookers ass getting out. At this point, mutual funds are the way to go. When you hopefully start massing real wealth in your 30's and 40's it will be cheap enough for you to invest in individual stocks. if you really like a certain area, IE emerging markets, transportation, etc... there is definitely a fund out there for you.
A note on diversification: I recommend against investing in tech stocks (assuming you are a techie). If the tech market bombs, your employment prospects will be shaky and your wealth will have taken a hit too, a potentially disastrous combination.
I am a little late in replying here (long weekend) but I think you should look into TeamTrack which is made by Serena. I have a considerable amount of experience in this area, as BPM was a major part of my last job (with the other major component being SCM- Software Configuration Management), and I still try to keep up with the major developments in these areas.
In general do I recommend a BPM/Workflow tool? Hell yes. I am not sure how things are currently handled in your organization, but most management and tracking is probably done via a combination of Outlook, Project, and maybe Excel. This may seem to be functioning ok for your team(s) now, but once you put a workflow management system in place, you will probably wonder how you ever got anything done before. You won't have to spend half the day just walking the floor finding out where people are with certain tasks. The reporting tools will do that for you, and also clear up miscommunications about what is done and not done. However, this only works for teams that have definable repeatable processes, but if you look at enough sample workflows, you will learn how to think from that perspective, and you will realize that most teams do have repeated processes that can be defined into workflows.
You are also going to spend a lot of time defining these processes. You will probably also spend a few months tweaking everything to get the forms and rules just right. But once you are there, you will probably find that updates are few and far between and driven mostly by business changes (IE now there is a compliance officer that has to approve all budget changes over $X dollars, or all customer complaints in the system for more than 5 days need to be escalated to a more senior manager).
Why do I recommend TT specifically:
Pros:
Once you learn the system, on the fly workflow changes are trivial. With a fairly experienced administrator and a good spec, you can get an entire workflow implemented from start to finish in a few hours. Tweaks and changes are done in minutes. Of course, this depends on your level of complexity and how anal you are (TT allows you pretty much complete control over its look and feel so it can look all company branded).
Cons:
Nearly anything is possible as far as integration and additional functionality goes via its teamscript and API interfaces. However, these interfaces are pretty poor. I would make sure TT can do 90% of what you want it to do out of the box.
Its a general workflow tool-not software development specific. It is not clear that you want a specific software development tool, but if you do, there may be better (though more expensive) tools out there. TT is a nice balance between the heavy systems like Lotus and the barebones bugzilla/excel solutions to the problem I have seen.
You can look at this through two different lenses (well probably more, but these are what come to my mind):
One: The Vista Beta was so bad from a user perspective that they are racing to fix all the problems found to make it desirable to use.
Two: MS understands that this is the biggest release in their history, it is a pivotal moment for the company, and they absolutely have to get this right and hitting on all cylinders to ensure their continued dominance.
Of course, what is really going on is probably somewhere in between. MS knows this release is vital, and the feedback from the beta users was worse (perhaps far worse) than expected. On the bright side though, this means they are probably busy fixing the multiple dialog boxes from hell that people were complaining about. I wouldn't hold my breath for January though, they are missing the December holiday rush, and I don't see what incentive they will have to push it out in January when the next big sales blip is the May/June graduation season. Unless perhaps the OEM's or MS give a free upgrade to Vista with any machine purchased at the end of this year, that would be a smart move.
Dairy Farmers and more notably swine (pig) farms to the best of my knowledge always produce far far more manure than they could ever use as fertilizer. The economics of shipping it to suburban/urban areas for use as fertilizer apparently do not work either, though I don't know why and find it hard to believe. Swine farms though in particular often have HUGE lagoons full of the manure- the pigs eat feed, they don't graze on grass.
As an aside, I have read several comments here about how this is "subsidizing" the farmers and alternative electricity forms. I think these people are forgetting that burning the methane prevents this greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and doing damage. Combustion of the methane produces something like 1/20th of the greenhouse gasses. The cost is high, but this is really a huge win for the environment, and we are taking waste and making it productive.
Can I ask why a chess game really needs to be in 3D? Whenever I see a 3D chess game, I find the "graphics" just interfere with the game, and almost immediately put it in 2D mode if thats is available. It is a shame that Windows no longer bundles chess as one of its games, that and Ski-free were highly entertaining.
The quality of a chess game is almost never measured by its graphics.
I find it hard to believe that having a programmer on hand to generate targeted reports from a database for you application monitoring, wouldn't be better then having (how many people do you need to parse through a 86,400 record spreadsheet, looking for important rows?). No, at least for your example, database would absolutly be better, no question. As far as it being throw away data, you just clear the table. Hell the database can have triggers based on the data, then you don't need anyone to parse through the doc, then it could archinve those trigger points. Dude, do you need a contract software developer? I could be available.
A programmer on hand to generate targeted reports? My perl +csvfile + excel macro solution does that every day and was developed in about half a day. Its fully automated, no human intervention is required. Triggers? parsing through data? This is starting to sound like a resource requiring project... Perl + regex did this all for me already. This is data gleamed from pure raw log files that aren't clean, half the time was spent figuring out the regex's to use to get the data I need. No, writing all this log output to a database is not feasible, and its also unnecessary. The log files measure GB's of data per day for some components. I think you may have missed the point of the spreadsheet, it is not for anyone to read the actual data, just as a dataset from which to use excel's analytical tools to produce data that people will actually use (IE pretty graphs, percentages, and the variance of the data).
You are right on target, thats exactly what we use. A perl script outputs a csv file. Then an excel macro does analysis and makes pretty graphs that my boss likes. The total development and automation time took half a day at most. Your last sentence is the exact reason why we did not use the DB approach.
I am not a business type at all, but I bump into the 65k row limit often. We do analysis on our applications to see things like utilization %, and this is an app that is up 24 hours a day, and we want a per/second granularity in the statistics we do. 60seconds * 60minutes *24hours = 86,400 records. We get around the problem usually by just chopping off the slow early morning hours that we know aren't going to be a problem, but its a pain to work around, and as our business is becomming increasingly 24/7, those "dead hours" are becomming more dangerous to ignore. This type of stuff is throw away data, and makes no sense to put in a DB at all. We do the analysis, make sure we are meeting our internal QOS standards, and if we start exceeding them we look to add capacity. In addition, we are talking about 7 columns worth of data that we do analysis on.
I know of many other scenarios in my group where we have lots of datapoints (1-200k+), but maybe only 3 or 4 different fields (columns) of data, which just need to be analyzed to produce a human readable representation of our system's performance. A database would never, ever, make sense to use in this scenario. It is an order of magnitude times slower to develop an app that will write to it (as opposed to a simple script that will just output a csv file), and usually an order of magnitude slower to RUN such an application.
It is probably always going to be the case the programmers will overuse databases, while business types will always overuse spreadsheets. However, anyone that makes the blanket statement that anyone that needs a million row spreadsheet is an asshat, really needs to look into the mirror to see the asshat.
Sir, have you read about Guantanamo lately? Our political opponents and critics are indeed in jail and in some cases dying, communist bloc, cold war style.
THIS time period, right here, right now, is a period in time that I fully expect some president 50+ years from now to be apologizing about, similar to the internment of the Japanese in WWII.
I just read a similar thread over on techdirt about the same subject, and it appears that the quality issue may be only on the portable units. This may be the case since I have a portable unit, though I don't have a non-portable to compare to. In either case, this doesn't appear to be rare.
I assure you sir, the quality is worse than FM.
Now, that does not necessarily mean it is FAR worse than FM, just that it is worse. After listening for awhile, you don't notice it really, but every once in awhile the encoding does a particularly poor job and you notice. I also don't notice it much on my cheap-o headphones, but when I hook up my unit to my fairly high end home theater system, its a piece of cake to tell that FM is better. I live in NYC and get a full strength signal at home.
I am hoping that the HD channels that they are going to roll out Real Soon Now, will fix this problem, and be of CD quality.