The system, developed by Californian start-up company Cooligy, aims to silently solve the problem that the faster chips get, the hotter they become.
Water cooling only improves the heat dissipation by some constant factor, keeping the chips from melting down until they get yet faster and smaller. Next year, I guess we'll be hearing about liquid sodium cooling systems.
But note that exotic cooling systems don't actually make the the heat go away, they just move it to a different part of the room. This does nothing to solve the closet-full-of-computers problem. Your home is still going to get hotter than you want in summer. In fact, cooling systems themselves generate heat so any cooling that isn't actually needed to keep the processor from melting down actually makes the heat problem worse.
It's always nice when noise goes away though.
Back to the heat question, this kind of thing is great for pushing forward the frontier of single-cpu systems. But single cpu systems aren't where the action is, it's in SMP and clusters. For that reason, I'm a lot more interested in systems that generate fewer calories per mip in the first place.
I've been following gnumeric for a few years now, and I think that it is one of the best OSS projects available currently.
I have to agree there. Once it got stable, a little after 0.30 I think, it got really useful. I found the data import from ascii files particularly useful for various ad hoc benchmarking things I've had to do.
it could be very cool to support the sxc (openoffice) format. what about this ?
Indeed. It's silly to have to use.xls format to move data between spreadsheets on Linux. On the other hand, OASIS format is a lot more important strategically, at this point. But what the heck, we're spoiled, we want both, don't we.
Most people don't give a flying toss about their operating system as long as they are comfortable using it and are the most productive. They get that with windows because that what they have used for years. They get that with windows because everyone else around them has windows so they can get the software or support they need. They get that with windows because they know that whatever they buy will just work.
Sorry for sounding elitist, but Universities are in fact supposed to be schools for the elite. The "most people" you are talking about are definitely not elite material. If they can't handle the mundane differences between Windows and, say, KDE, then they really should not be in a four year degree program, they are just incapable of learning the subject material.
I've been using Windows ever since 95 and I can tell you now that is does not take "an afternoon's effort" to get to the same level of understanding about Linux than it does with Windows.
For the basic functionality word processing and browsing. I've seen firsthand proof of it. My mother sat down at my Linux+KDE machine and didn't have to be told a thing, except for which Icon was the browser and where on the menu to find OpenOffice. In the end, she didn't see any difference between Linux and Windows.
But yesterday when I called her up and told her here computer was infected with a virus (sobig) and that Linux could not be affected by this virus, or any other virus as far as I know, then she saw the difference. She agreed right away to have her Windows OS replaced by Linux, to keep her files safe.
"Now, MS is closing off their service (so it appears..."
Not at all... they are forcing compliance to a newer version to keep support costs down, and for security purposes.
They say that is the reason, but as usual it is doublespeak. Having seen these same old thuggish tactics used time and again to establish control over a market, I for one, have no illusions about their true motivation. As a Microsoft apologist, of course, you are entitled to your own opinion.
It simply shows that it is wrong to rely on any proprietary form of messaging. Unfortunately, there are a few million clueless users out there who have no idea why that's true. Well, I don't care really, Microsoft is simply creating a new category of AOLer: the MSNer.
There are a substantial proportion of the people out there in the world that can use Windows, don't want to use anything else, have invested the money in Windows (well, maybe a few) and see no reason to move off an operating system that is used by 90% of the population.
Those that you do get to convert, will plague the helpdesk for years to come and probably resent you from forcing a change on them that they didn't want and don't see the need of.
That is not what going to uni is all about.
True. Going to university is about learning to think for yourself. I see no evidence of that in someone who is willing to put themselves at risk and put up with constant cycles of virus infections for years, when a free and secure alternative is available, and an afternoon's effort is all it takes to do something about it.
"So why don't you ban M$ computers? Surely, you have better things to do with your time and school money than support Microsoft's broken shit."
Because they are students computers. When you start going to college, you'll understand this.
I did go to college (we call it university) and I understand this: I most certainly would not have had that crap on my computer. The only programs you actually use for school are a wordprocesser and a browser, neither of which require Microsoft software. If I can get software that isn't a virus magnet for free, to protect my valuable term papers, it's a no brainer.
And don't tell me that somebody who made it to university can't figure out how to stick an Knoppix disk in the CD drive.
Actually, while I find this quite funny, I also find it a bit odd (and perhaps telling). I have read several previous interviews with Linus Torvalds on various topics and he almost never says something like this. (At least that's how I remember it. I'm sure many will correct me if I'm mistaken.) Although he always clearly states his opinion, he usually avoids getting into this sort of direct attack on an organization or person. This quote from him could mean a few different things. It's possible his nerves are getting a little frayed from all the SCO threats and related media blitz. I know I'm starting to get tired of it and I'm just a random, lazy slashdot poster. It must be much more uncomfortable where Linus is at. Also, although MS has frequently tried to marginalize Linux or say it doesn't count for anything, they never actually tried to claim ownership of it. Perhaps Torvalds considers that more of a personal attack.
There's another possibility you failed to consider: you don't know what you're talking about.
Or to put it more gently, perhaps you don't follow lkml. In fact, that's just perfectly normal Linus-speak.
They're saying that the jump from 2.2 to 2.6 an "Improbable Linux Development Path". For me, a non-kernel hacker, can someone explain why this particular point isn't true? Or do you have to pull from many examples in order to prove otherwise?
I agree it's improbable, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened, and we did it ourselves. The big lie is that it happened by incorporating SCO's code or ideas. I know that's ridiculous, because I was there for almost the whole period in question, working on my little parts of the kernel, but also watching others work on theirs, talking with them, seeing the ideas develop and patches take shape. In fact, this stuff is all in the public record, it's in the linux kernel mailing list archives, particularly the work on SMP and NUMA.
What a 'great' lawyer he's turned out to be. He's allowed his client to shoot off his mouth, display false or at the least misleading information and thereby created limitless liability for SCO. WHERE IS HE? I think he was rented for the publicity folks. Really.
He's managed to shred his former good reputation into little tiny pieces. Who would hire this bumm after watching this string of errors in judgement unfold?
The courts will almost always grant injunctive relief for the duration of the trial if there is any reasonable evidence that there is any merit to the claim.
My layman's understanding is that judges grant preliminary injunctions only when they think the complainant has a high probability of winning their case.
I don't think anybody should take legal advice from you;-)
One of the last repressive, dictatorial governments on the planet is using Linux. Yay. I hear that Osama Bin Laden uses Linux too, but I haven't seen a story there.
Please mod this obvious troll into oblivion. The story doesn't have a thing to do with Linux, for one thing.
> > > It's pretty obvious that Redhat went to short EOL cycles on their consumer distros > > > to push businesses to RH Enterprise and Advanced with their longer EOL cycles." > > > > Nonsense. If that was the strategy, then Redhat would not be dropping their consumer > > distribution. > > Redhat is not dropping their consumer distribution; they're working hard on the next > version.
Mea culpa, I should have said "boxed sets", not "consumer distribution". Or maybe I should have just said: "it's pretty obvious you are grasping at straws". Desktop users want short cycles, enterprise users want long cycles, give people what they want and they will be happy.
It's pretty obvious that Redhat went to short EOL cycles on their consumer distros to push businesses to RH Enterprise and Advanced with their longer EOL cycles.
Nonsense. If that was the strategy, then Redhat would not be dropping their consumer distribution.
the timing seems odd, given that the airlines are all hemmoraging money right now...
On the contrary, these are exactly the economic conditions under which an up-front investment to reduce long-term operating costs make more sense than ever. It's only during the fat times that gross inefficiencies from, say, excessive downtime or wasteful license audits, can go unnoticed and uncorrected.
Why are we being hardasses about making sure that people agree to licenses? It's a combination of the way the legal system works, and our general conservativeness that stems from being a publicly traded company.
Right, well look: here is an example of an exemplary corporate-sponsored open source project. Rule number 1:
Do not make it difficult to get the source.
Once you're made the decision to go open source, then you have to walk the walk.
Note that Larry's tract is oriented towards end users presumably of binary programs. You're dealing with developers, that's already a big difference. For example, you know the developers intend to pass the licensed material on to others, and you know they won't enforce the same level of documentation as you do on your main page.
Note also, that Larry's paper doesn't say anything about requiring the licensee to identify themself.
Now let me say, I'm disappointed to see the kind of reaction you're getting from many people here to what I see as an important and valuable contribution. What can you do to fix that? Start with your home page. Why is it https, for starters? OK, let's not go there. Just think about this: go out there to any of the thousands of OSS project pages and consider the difference between them and your page.
As an OSS developer, the links I want to see on a project page are:
- What is this
- Who are we
- link to FAQ
- News
- License
- *Download*
- Mailing lists (archives, subscribe)
- Become a registered developer
- Now the PR...
You can leave out much stuff like "Welcome" and "Participating". The people coming into your site already know they're welcome if they see links such as above, and they know what to do with them, i.e., they already know how to participate.
As for assenting to the license agreement, just link the agreement from the download link, and link the tarball page from the license. Nice and easy, and normal.
Don't require anybody to fill out questionaires to get the source. That's a guaranteed way to get off on the wrong foot. Instead, save the questionaire for people who want to become registered developers. The key point here: you don't get a second chance to make a first impression, make the first one a good one.
Presumably, your job #1 is to get the source code out. Anything you do to interfere with that is just getting in the way of your own agenda. I strongly suggest you go out and start looking at other project pages, and make yours look more like the others.
According to SCO, if you have a TiVo set-top box, or those models of Sharp Zaurus which use Linux, someone now owes them $32...
Um. Microsoft's WebTV efforts would certainly benefit from any legal or licensing problems Tivo might run into. And Microsoft's arguments against cost of Linux ownership would certainly be helped if Linux cost the same or even more than XP. It really is odd how each of SCO's actions seems to benefit Microsoft so directly.
I can't help thinking that McBride's attack on the GPL yesterday sounds exactly like what Ballmer used to say, before he discovered that such things made people angry... at him.
Except for this guy, Kevin Skousen... he's exercising an option at $10, if I read this right. What sort of upside does he see and what color is the sky in his world?!
Typically, the stock would be purchased at the option price and sold at the market price - 20-50% higher - on the same day. In other words, it's free money.
Whether it's legally earned money is an entirely different question. It's going to be fun to watch that one play out.
Slashdot Mirror
The system, developed by Californian start-up company Cooligy, aims to silently solve the problem that the faster chips get, the hotter they become.
Water cooling only improves the heat dissipation by some constant factor, keeping the chips from melting down until they get yet faster and smaller. Next year, I guess we'll be hearing about liquid sodium cooling systems.
But note that exotic cooling systems don't actually make the the heat go away, they just move it to a different part of the room. This does nothing to solve the closet-full-of-computers problem. Your home is still going to get hotter than you want in summer. In fact, cooling systems themselves generate heat so any cooling that isn't actually needed to keep the processor from melting down actually makes the heat problem worse.
It's always nice when noise goes away though.
Back to the heat question, this kind of thing is great for pushing forward the frontier of single-cpu systems. But single cpu systems aren't where the action is, it's in SMP and clusters. For that reason, I'm a lot more interested in systems that generate fewer calories per mip in the first place.
I've been following gnumeric for a few years now, and I think that it is one of the best OSS projects available currently.
I have to agree there. Once it got stable, a little after 0.30 I think, it got really useful. I found the data import from ascii files particularly useful for various ad hoc benchmarking things I've had to do.
it could be very cool to support the sxc (openoffice) format. what about this ?
.xls format to move data between spreadsheets on Linux. On the other hand,
Indeed. It's silly to have to use
OASIS format is a lot more important strategically, at this point. But what the heck, we're spoiled, we want both, don't we.
does it real .123 format? I have some old lotus Spreadsheets that I can't open any more. It would be neat if it could read them.
Obviously, you can add it, or if you can't program, find a friend who can.
Most people don't give a flying toss about their operating system as long as they are comfortable using it and are the most productive. They get that with windows because that what they have used for years. They get that with windows because everyone else around them has windows so they can get the software or support they need. They get that with windows because they know that whatever they buy will just work.
Sorry for sounding elitist, but Universities are in fact supposed to be schools for the elite. The "most people" you are talking about are definitely not elite material. If they can't handle the mundane differences between Windows and, say, KDE, then they really should not be in a four year degree program, they are just incapable of learning the subject material.
I've been using Windows ever since 95 and I can tell you now that is does not take "an afternoon's effort" to get to the same level of understanding about Linux than it does with Windows.
For the basic functionality word processing and browsing. I've seen firsthand proof of it. My mother sat down at my Linux+KDE machine and didn't have to be told a thing, except for which Icon was the browser and where on the menu to find OpenOffice. In the end, she didn't see any difference between Linux and Windows.
But yesterday when I called her up and told her here computer was infected with a virus (sobig) and that Linux could not be affected by this virus, or any other virus as far as I know, then she saw the difference. She agreed right away to have her Windows OS replaced by Linux, to keep her files safe.
"Now, MS is closing off their service (so it appears..."
Not at all... they are forcing compliance to a newer version to keep support costs down, and for security purposes.
They say that is the reason, but as usual it is doublespeak. Having seen these same old thuggish tactics used time and again to establish control over a market, I for one, have no illusions about their true motivation. As a Microsoft apologist, of course, you are entitled to your own opinion.
It simply shows that it is wrong to rely on any proprietary form of messaging. Unfortunately, there are a few million clueless users out there who have no idea why that's true. Well, I don't care really, Microsoft is simply creating a new category of AOLer: the MSNer.
There are a substantial proportion of the people out there in the world that can use Windows, don't want to use anything else, have invested the money in Windows (well, maybe a few) and see no reason to move off an operating system that is used by 90% of the population.
Those that you do get to convert, will plague the helpdesk for years to come and probably resent you from forcing a change on them that they didn't want and don't see the need of.
That is not what going to uni is all about.
True. Going to university is about learning to think for yourself. I see no evidence of that in someone who is willing to put themselves at risk and put up with constant cycles of virus infections for years, when a free and secure alternative is available, and an afternoon's effort is all it takes to do something about it.
"So why don't you ban M$ computers? Surely, you have better things to do with your time and school money than support Microsoft's broken shit."
Because they are students computers. When you start going to college, you'll understand this.
I did go to college (we call it university) and I understand this: I most certainly would not have had that crap on my computer. The only programs you actually use for school are a wordprocesser and a browser, neither of which require Microsoft software. If I can get software that isn't a virus magnet for free, to protect my valuable term papers, it's a no brainer.
And don't tell me that somebody who made it to university can't figure out how to stick an Knoppix disk in the CD drive.
Why was the safety monitoring system on a nuclear power plant exposed, even indirectly, to the internet?
Why was it running Windows?
The BSA went after him because he was well known and too small to fight back. They wanted publicity.
They got it too, but it wasn't the kind they were hoping for.
The "smoking crack" phrase is just a figure of speech for deranged and fradulent...
It just means "deranged". Linus hasn't said anything about fraud yet, and indeed, that's the responsibility of the SEC and the justice system.
Actually, while I find this quite funny, I also find it a bit odd (and perhaps telling). I have read several previous interviews with Linus Torvalds on various topics and he almost never says something like this. (At least that's how I remember it. I'm sure many will correct me if I'm mistaken.) Although he always clearly states his opinion, he usually avoids getting into this sort of direct attack on an organization or person. This quote from him could mean a few different things. It's possible his nerves are getting a little frayed from all the SCO threats and related media blitz. I know I'm starting to get tired of it and I'm just a random, lazy slashdot poster. It must be much more uncomfortable where Linus is at. Also, although MS has frequently tried to marginalize Linux or say it doesn't count for anything, they never actually tried to claim ownership of it. Perhaps Torvalds considers that more of a personal attack.
There's another possibility you failed to consider: you don't know what you're talking about.
Or to put it more gently, perhaps you don't follow lkml. In fact, that's just perfectly normal Linus-speak.
They're saying that the jump from 2.2 to 2.6 an "Improbable Linux Development Path". For me, a non-kernel hacker, can someone explain why this particular point isn't true? Or do you have to pull from many examples in order to prove otherwise?
I agree it's improbable, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened, and we did it ourselves. The big lie is that it happened by incorporating SCO's code or ideas. I know that's ridiculous, because I was there for almost the whole period in question, working on my little parts of the kernel, but also watching others work on theirs, talking with them, seeing the ideas develop and patches take shape. In fact, this stuff is all in the public record, it's in the linux kernel mailing list archives, particularly the work on SMP and NUMA.
What a 'great' lawyer he's turned out to be. He's allowed his client to shoot off his mouth, display false or at the least misleading information and thereby created limitless liability for SCO. WHERE IS HE? I think he was rented for the publicity folks. Really.
He's managed to shred his former good reputation into little tiny pieces. Who would hire this bumm after watching this string of errors in judgement unfold?
The courts will almost always grant injunctive relief for the duration of the trial if there is any reasonable evidence that there is any merit to the claim.
;-)
My layman's understanding is that judges grant preliminary injunctions only when they think the complainant has a high probability of winning their case.
I don't think anybody should take legal advice from you
...how the hell do you pronounce it?
"Ex-oo-vehrt".
Got any questions that actually matter?
But why are they writing their own, rather than taking the already very good OpenOffice.org, and working on that?
Perhaps because the office suite they're talking about has been around since 1988?
One of the last repressive, dictatorial governments on the planet is using Linux. Yay. I hear that Osama Bin Laden uses Linux too, but I haven't seen a story there.
Please mod this obvious troll into oblivion. The story doesn't have a thing to do with Linux, for one thing.
> > > It's pretty obvious that Redhat went to short EOL cycles on their consumer distros
> > > to push businesses to RH Enterprise and Advanced with their longer EOL cycles."
> >
> > Nonsense. If that was the strategy, then Redhat would not be dropping their consumer
> > distribution.
>
> Redhat is not dropping their consumer distribution; they're working hard on the next
> version.
Mea culpa, I should have said "boxed sets", not "consumer distribution". Or maybe I should have
just said: "it's pretty obvious you are grasping at straws". Desktop users want short cycles,
enterprise users want long cycles, give people what they want and they will be happy.
It's pretty obvious that Redhat went to short EOL cycles on their consumer distros to push businesses to RH Enterprise and Advanced with their longer EOL cycles.
Nonsense. If that was the strategy, then Redhat would not be dropping their consumer distribution.
the timing seems odd, given that the airlines are all hemmoraging money right now...
On the contrary, these are exactly the economic conditions under which an up-front investment to reduce long-term operating costs make more sense than ever. It's only during the fat times that gross inefficiencies from, say, excessive downtime or wasteful license audits, can go unnoticed and uncorrected.
Why are we being hardasses about making sure that people agree to licenses? It's a combination of the way the legal system works, and our general conservativeness that stems from being a publicly traded company.
Right, well look: here is an example of an exemplary corporate-sponsored open source project. Rule number 1:
Do not make it difficult to get the source.
Once you're made the decision to go open source, then you have to walk the walk.
Note that Larry's tract is oriented towards end users presumably of binary programs. You're dealing with developers, that's already a big difference. For example, you know the developers intend to pass the licensed material on to others, and you know they won't enforce the same level of documentation as you do on your main page.
Note also, that Larry's paper doesn't say anything about requiring the licensee to identify themself.
Now let me say, I'm disappointed to see the kind of reaction you're getting from many people here to what I see as an important and valuable contribution. What can you do to fix that? Start with your home page. Why is it https, for starters? OK, let's not go there. Just think about this: go out there to any of the thousands of OSS project pages and consider the difference between them and your page.
As an OSS developer, the links I want to see on a project page are:
- What is this
- Who are we
- link to FAQ
- News
- License
- *Download*
- Mailing lists (archives, subscribe)
- Become a registered developer
- Now the PR...
You can leave out much stuff like "Welcome" and "Participating". The people coming into your site already know they're welcome if they see links such as above, and they know what to do with them, i.e., they already know how to participate.
As for assenting to the license agreement, just link the agreement from the download link, and link the tarball page from the license. Nice and easy, and normal.
Don't require anybody to fill out questionaires to get the source. That's a guaranteed way to get off on the wrong foot. Instead, save the questionaire for people who want to become registered developers. The key point here: you don't get a second chance to make a first impression, make the first one a good one.
Presumably, your job #1 is to get the source code out. Anything you do to interfere with that is just getting in the way of your own agenda. I strongly suggest you go out and start looking at other project pages, and make yours look more like the others.
According to SCO, if you have a TiVo set-top box, or those models of Sharp Zaurus which use Linux, someone now owes them $32...
Um. Microsoft's WebTV efforts would certainly benefit from any legal or licensing problems Tivo might run into. And Microsoft's arguments against cost of Linux ownership would certainly be helped if Linux cost the same or even more than XP. It really is odd how each of SCO's actions seems to benefit Microsoft so directly.
I can't help thinking that McBride's attack on the GPL yesterday sounds exactly like what Ballmer used to say, before he discovered that such things made people angry... at him.
Except for this guy, Kevin Skousen... he's exercising an option at $10, if I read this right. What sort of upside does he see and what color is the sky in his world?!
Typically, the stock would be purchased at the option price and sold at the market price - 20-50% higher - on the same day. In other words, it's free money.
Whether it's legally earned money is an entirely different question. It's going to be fun to watch that one play out.