Informative? I don't think so. (Moderators, please check the crack that you are smoking)
Amdahl's law makes a (wrong) statement about the amount of speedup that can be obtained through parallel as opposed to serial execution. (By the way, the number 10 doesn't come into it anywhere. You might as well have mentioned the speed of sound.).
Here, we are talking about the comparative performance of two operating systems running on the same number of processors. Since there is no limit on how stupidly the original could have been implemented, there is correspondingly no limit on the amount of possible speedup due to a better implementation.
Anyway, if you think you know something about Amdahl's law, you need to google for "Gustafsons's law". Executive summary: Amdahl was wrong. Exactly how wrong is still a matter of debate, but it's generally agreed that it lies somewhere between "very" and "completely". Please don't quote this nonsense in support of anything, just don't do it.
Actually, the hyperthreading only helps in apps that support hyperthreading.
Not exactly. The processor presents itself as two separate CPUs, so any multithreaded app or simultaneous apps will 'just work' and should show some improvement. Not much, mind you.
This chip is more interesting than just the normal megahertz hike. It's the first of the desktop hyperhreaded chips - previously only available in the Xeon range (well, from Intel anyway. Other manufacturers had them).
It doesn't help a lot, at the very most a 20% speedup, typically much closer to 0%. This iteration just isn't that effective, maybe next time round with better management of cache or something, they might get it working more like separate chips. Right now it just doesn't.
It's good to see this entering mainstream though. It provides an incentive to write the kinds of multi-threaded applications that can actually squeeze out the full 20% speedup, and in turn, those applications will automatically be able to take advantage of real multi-processor boards without further changes. So this process ends with everybody having SMP laptops:-)
No, I'm not an english native speaker. Corrections are welcome.
Really, it was 100% accurate and stylistically better than many native speakers, besides being a remarkably concise recipe for a sound switch-over strategy.
Instead of "final user" you might say "end user", but then again, that's one of those meaningless marketing/astroturfing buzzwords that should just die. What exactly would a non-end user be?
In general, do not take advice on how to write a device driver from a laywer. Or, if he/she insists, invite them to write the driver for you. Pay only if it works.
Windows revenue accounts for precisely *dick* when measured up against a million OEM MSOffice licenses, per-seat DB licenses, multiprocessor Exchange licenses, etc. (My company recently dropped $15k for MSSQL on a 2 processor box.)
You're quite wrong about that. Microsoft's operating system revenue is about 40% of their entire take.
Nothing in this provision shall prohibit Microsoft from enforcing any provision of any license with any OEM or any intellectual property right that is not inconsistent with this Final Judgment.
In other words, this order allows Microsoft to use or create bogus intellectual property (e.g., patents on protocols and formats) just to control its OEMs and to disadvantage its competitors. Same game, different cards.
Using the language of this order, Microsoft can hide behind any thin veneer of deniability. For example, it can argue that there exists some legitmate purpose for the IP in question, even if the primary function ends up being simple exercise of control. It's a cinch that Bush's DoJ will be cooperative in looking the other way, or rubber stamping whatever reasons suit Microsoft to put forth as explanations for restrictive IP licenses.
It's quite insufficient just to say that this judge's order will fail to correct the past anticompetitive behaviour or prevent more of it in the future. It's more accurate to say that the order simply blesses Microsoft's behaviour patterns and provides abundant possibilities for strategems to circumvent whatever small inconvenience the order may present.
So I do not think that this order is in the public interest. But I'm not surprised at this. I can only conclude that Bill Gates' apparent contempt for the U.S. justice system is justified.
Mozilla is plenty fast on my systems, but phoenix absolutely SMOKES any browser I have ever seen, by a very, very long shot. Seriously, wow. They're doing something right.
I like Phoenix a lot - it's going to be my main browser pretty soon if it keeps going the way it's going. However, there *are* faster browsers out there, Opera for one. Dillo is probably the fastest browser in the universe, you really have to see it to believe it.
Watching TV on a computer is (for me, at least) much like reading e-books on a palm or an Ipaq or on the computer screen in a library -- it gets the job done, yes, but it's not very enjoyable. (I'm trying to figure out why the only ebooks I'm able read at any length are non-fiction. I can't, for example, bring myself to read fiction electronically. It seems, well, not right. And not comfortable. Yet I can sit on my little ragged sofa -- feet up, trusty Bawls soda beside me -- and can read deadtree fiction until the cows come home. But that's another story for another day...)
I read the Count of Monte Cristo online, here, just to see what it would be like. My assessment: just like reading the dead tree version. I remember the literature, not the act of reading it. Well, I also remember my laptop being a little clumsy for this job, but it worked. I sure wouldn't do it sitting on a swivel chair looking at a monitor.
I really enjoyed the story, it's clear why it's a monument. I'd read another book this way, when I get time. Moral of the story: the literature itself is actually a lot more important than the media.
While that tutorial gets you quite a bit for XUL coding, the overall documentation for Mozilla is sparse. I've been working on a bug for a couple weeks now, and in the process I've learned a lot of how Mozilla works, but I've had to do it the hard way. I use a lot of find and grep to trace conceptual maps of data flow and how Moz keeps track of certain things.
That's the hard way. Try a source indexing program like Source Navigator, or my personal favorite, LXR. The latter requires that you figure out how to install and configure a CGI script to run under Apache (or whatever httpd), so it takes some effort to get it going, but being able to surf into localhost and browse all your source, hyperlinked, witht he browser of your choice, is a decadent luxury that just can't be beat. Get it here if you're interested. The source is on the site, and there is also an ambitious lxr2 project out there, using PostGres as the back end.
The BBC [bbc.co.uk] were also using it for a while, but I think it vanished:(
It was just a test, part of the process of establishing feasability. Now, to show your interest, write to them (snail mail better than email, it sticks better on the desk).
Yes, Ogg is good for low bitrates, and it'd be great to see it adopted as a streaming format, but I don't think there's really a need to convert to Ogg yet.
True, and there's no real need to step out of the way of that train just behind you.
I don't know about XFree86, it has always been fast enough for me. But I don't play games.
It's not just games. I run X over 5 MHz WiFi as my main development interface and I often notice performance problems, even in such simple cases as running a shell, let alone a web browser or a double buffered game.
If this lame name whinging is the best Ogg's detractors can do then it should go like gangbusters. Incidentally, the audio codec is simply Vorbis. Ogg is a container format like Quicktime.
Well said. I just call it "ogg", and that to me sounds... compressed.
You know, this is actually pretty cheap. I had no idea how inexpensive this was...I thought Fraunhaufer & Co were taking a percentage of your company's profits a la Unisys, or a per song cost. $.75 per player is nothing...I have a dozen players, hardware & software alike, and they all amount to under $10.
It went from $0.00 per player to $0.75 per player in one day, what makes you think it will stop there? Oh, and you are wrong about the percentage of profits. You obviously did not bother to look at Fraunhofer's posted rates for streaming mp3.
Chances are that like most patents recently filed the ones in question are junk. The best move is probably to form the Linux Expeditionary Legal Team - LELT? - to proactively get these patents derecognized.
I'd appreciate it if people would actually read my post, follow the links to the patents, and see if they agree with me that SGI is essentially claiming to own the whole concept of reverse mapping. (Reverse mapping is where each physical page of memory has a list of pointers back to the page table entries that point to it.)
Surely, around the time SGI applied for this patent, the technique was already in widespread use. Details anybody?
I didn't like it either. How do you "whack" Microsoft? Fly a jet plane into their Redmond campus? I'd rather not be identified with the sort of person who does that.
Anybody who takes the 'whack' comment seriously is an idiot, and probably believes that penguins really can charge at you in excess of 100 miles per hour.
Linus isn't interested in standing up for our right to code. He'd doesn't like politics, and would prefer to ignore the problem. But the problem won't go away. Rather than say immature stuff like that, it's time for him to use his notoriety to speak publicly about the problem and why it should be fixed.
I interpreted Linus's outburst as an admission that he really does care about this issue a great deal but hates the idea of his core developers being distracted by it. Personally I don't want to see Linus at all distracted by this either. His energy is much better spent quarterbacking the development effort. Actually, it's up to people like you, Bruce, to take the lead.
I keep hearing little tidbits about Tux2 (Tux2: The Filesystem That Would Be King). I can't find Daniel Phillips's website anymore nor have I seen any
more information about it in the last few months. What I have read and heard about it sounded very interesting (I would say it's sounds promising but I
don't know enough about file systems to know how good an idea it is realistically).
Would this be under "currently abandonded" or "abducted by aliens"?
I took a several-month detour to build a new directory indexing system (Htree) for Ext2, something it needs badly. Now it's back to Tux2, keep tuned. The new homepage for the project is:
The mailing list is still hosted by innominate, but I am not with innominate any more. When I get time I'll move the list and resubscribe everybody.
--
So how does it feel working for the evil empire? Michael, there is more to life that you think, there is a free world out here. Get out of your cubicle in Redmond and be somebody again, make a difference. Instead of being a minion. Let's see you apply your considerable talent to doing something that will be remembered in a more favorable light than just helping billg buy his way into another market.
--
Each toolkit (or window manager) has a certain feel to it: the mousing threshhold is generally different. Themes do not change this. Consequently, gtk's
radio buttons will feel like gtk's radio buttons no matter what theme you're using.
He was complaining about the look, not the feel, so changing themes is the correct solution here.
I often wonder who ever thought it was a good idea to ever use a selection button with an ambiguous up/down state. Theme-makers, please note. --
On the other hand,
things like compression algorythms which are developed in house and not released to the world until patented are ok.
So you think that both the gif situation with Unisys and mp3 situation with Frauenhoffer are ok? IOW, let the world get hooked on a particular compression format, then surprise! It's patented, pay up everybody. And of course Frauenhoffer seems prepared to sue everybody into the ground who might even try an alternative, non-patented compression algorithm. Which they will be well able to do, with their monopoly-fueled profits. Would you please explain to me how this benefits anybody but Frauenhoffer?
What happens when we explain the facts clearly to everybody, then let them take a vote? --
The concept of patents are not bad, but they have to be applied right.
This is an argument that could only be loved by lawyers. It goes like this: trust us, we'll fix the fact that the patent system only works for corporations who can afford to put up the required bucks by making the process even longer and more complex, and of course, needing more lawyer's time, and then everything will be ok.
No. The basic system is broken. Now, the software part of the system is what's most badly broken, and it's where I can have some influence, so it's where I've decided to take a stand. As for those countless unfortunates who can't get the medicines they need because drug companies prefer to develop and distribute only patentable medicines, I can just feel sorrow, and hope that I myself can always afford to pay for what medicine I need. --
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Informative? I don't think so. (Moderators, please check the crack that you are smoking)
Amdahl's law makes a (wrong) statement about the amount of speedup that can be obtained through parallel as opposed to serial execution. (By the way, the number 10 doesn't come into it anywhere. You might as well have mentioned the speed of sound.).
Here, we are talking about the comparative performance of two operating systems running on the same number of processors. Since there is no limit on how stupidly the original could have been implemented, there is correspondingly no limit on the amount of possible speedup due to a better implementation.
Anyway, if you think you know something about Amdahl's law, you need to google for "Gustafsons's law". Executive summary: Amdahl was wrong. Exactly how wrong is still a matter of debate, but it's generally agreed that it lies somewhere between "very" and "completely". Please don't quote this nonsense in support of anything, just don't do it.
Actually, the hyperthreading only helps in apps that support hyperthreading.
Not exactly. The processor presents itself as two separate CPUs, so any multithreaded app or simultaneous apps will 'just work' and should show some improvement. Not much, mind you.
This chip is more interesting than just the normal megahertz hike. It's the first of the desktop hyperhreaded chips - previously only available in the Xeon range (well, from Intel anyway. Other manufacturers had them).
:-)
It doesn't help a lot, at the very most a 20% speedup, typically much closer to 0%. This iteration just isn't that effective, maybe next time round with better management of cache or something, they might get it working more like separate chips. Right now it just doesn't.
It's good to see this entering mainstream though. It provides an incentive to write the kinds of multi-threaded applications that can actually squeeze out the full 20% speedup, and in turn, those applications will automatically be able to take advantage of real multi-processor boards without further changes. So this process ends with everybody having SMP laptops
No, I'm not an english native speaker. Corrections are welcome.
Really, it was 100% accurate and stylistically better than many native speakers, besides being a remarkably concise recipe for a sound switch-over strategy.
Instead of "final user" you might say "end user", but then again, that's one of those meaningless marketing/astroturfing buzzwords that should just die. What exactly would a non-end user be?
In general, do not take advice on how to write a device driver from a laywer. Or, if he/she insists, invite them to write the driver for you. Pay only if it works.
Windows revenue accounts for precisely *dick* when measured up against a million OEM MSOffice licenses, per-seat DB licenses, multiprocessor Exchange licenses, etc. (My company recently dropped $15k for MSSQL on a 2 processor box.)
You're quite wrong about that. Microsoft's operating system revenue is about 40% of their entire take.
Nothing in this provision shall prohibit Microsoft from enforcing any provision of any license
with any OEM or any intellectual property right that is not inconsistent with this Final Judgment.
In other words, this order allows Microsoft to use or create bogus intellectual property (e.g., patents on protocols and formats) just to control its OEMs and to disadvantage its competitors. Same game, different cards.
Using the language of this order, Microsoft can hide behind any thin veneer of deniability. For example, it can argue that there exists some legitmate purpose for the IP in question, even if the primary function ends up being simple exercise of control. It's a cinch that Bush's DoJ will be cooperative in looking the other way, or rubber stamping whatever reasons suit Microsoft to put forth as explanations for restrictive IP licenses.
It's quite insufficient just to say that this judge's order will fail to correct the past anticompetitive behaviour or prevent more of it in the future. It's more accurate to say that the order simply blesses Microsoft's behaviour patterns and provides abundant possibilities for strategems to circumvent whatever small inconvenience the order may present.
So I do not think that this order is in the public interest. But I'm not surprised at this. I can only conclude that Bill Gates' apparent contempt for the U.S. justice system is justified.
Mozilla is plenty fast on my systems, but phoenix absolutely SMOKES any browser I have ever seen, by a very, very long shot. Seriously, wow. They're doing something right.
I like Phoenix a lot - it's going to be my main browser pretty soon if it keeps going the way it's going. However, there *are* faster browsers out there, Opera for one. Dillo is probably the fastest browser in the universe, you really have to see it to believe it.
Watching TV on a computer is (for me, at least) much like reading e-books on a palm or an Ipaq or on the computer screen in a library -- it gets the job done, yes, but it's not very enjoyable. (I'm trying to figure out why the only ebooks I'm able read at any length are non-fiction. I can't, for example, bring myself to read fiction electronically. It seems, well, not right. And not comfortable. Yet I can sit on my little ragged sofa -- feet up, trusty Bawls soda beside me -- and can read deadtree fiction until the cows come home. But that's another story for another day ...)
I read the Count of Monte Cristo online, here, just to see what it would be like. My assessment: just like reading the dead tree version. I remember the literature, not the act of reading it. Well, I also remember my laptop being a little clumsy for this job, but it worked. I sure wouldn't do it sitting on a swivel chair looking at a monitor.
I really enjoyed the story, it's clear why it's a monument. I'd read another book this way, when I get time. Moral of the story: the literature itself is actually a lot more important than the media.
While that tutorial gets you quite a bit for XUL coding, the overall documentation for Mozilla is sparse. I've been working on a bug for a couple weeks now, and in the process I've learned a lot of how Mozilla works, but I've had to do it the hard way. I use a lot of find and grep to trace conceptual maps of data flow and how Moz keeps track of certain things.
That's the hard way. Try a source indexing program like Source Navigator, or my personal favorite, LXR. The latter requires that you figure out how to install and configure a CGI script to run under Apache (or whatever httpd), so it takes some effort to get it going, but being able to surf into localhost and browse all your source, hyperlinked, witht he browser of your choice, is a decadent luxury that just can't be beat. Get it here if you're interested. The source is on the site, and there is also an ambitious lxr2 project out there, using PostGres as the back end.
The BBC [bbc.co.uk] were also using it for a while, but I think it vanished :(
It was just a test, part of the process of establishing feasability. Now, to show your interest, write to them (snail mail better than email, it sticks better on the desk).
Yes, Ogg is good for low bitrates, and it'd be great to see it adopted as a streaming format, but I don't think there's really a need to convert to Ogg yet.
True, and there's no real need to step out of the way of that train just behind you.
I don't know about XFree86, it has always been fast enough for me. But I don't play games.
It's not just games. I run X over 5 MHz WiFi as my main development interface and I often notice performance problems, even in such simple cases as running a shell, let alone a web browser or a double buffered game.
Still couldn't live without it, though.
If this lame name whinging is the best Ogg's detractors can do then it should go like gangbusters. Incidentally, the audio codec is simply Vorbis. Ogg is a container format like Quicktime.
Well said. I just call it "ogg", and that to me sounds... compressed.
You know, this is actually pretty cheap. I had no idea how inexpensive this was...I thought Fraunhaufer & Co were taking a percentage of your company's profits a la Unisys, or a per song cost. $.75 per player is nothing...I have a dozen players, hardware & software alike, and they all amount to under $10.
It went from $0.00 per player to $0.75 per player in one day, what makes you think it will stop there? Oh, and you are wrong about the percentage of profits. You obviously did not bother to look at Fraunhofer's posted rates for streaming mp3.
Chances are that like most patents recently filed the ones in question are junk. The best move is probably to form the Linux Expeditionary Legal Team - LELT? - to proactively get these patents derecognized.
I'd appreciate it if people would actually read my post, follow the links to the patents, and see if they agree with me that SGI is essentially claiming to own the whole concept of reverse mapping. (Reverse mapping is where each physical page of memory has a list of pointers back to the page table entries that point to it.)
Surely, around the time SGI applied for this patent, the technique was already in widespread use. Details anybody?
I didn't like it either. How do you "whack" Microsoft? Fly a jet plane into their Redmond campus? I'd rather not be identified with the sort of person who does that.
Anybody who takes the 'whack' comment seriously is an idiot, and probably believes that penguins really can charge at you in excess of 100 miles per hour.
Linus isn't interested in standing up for our right to code. He'd doesn't like politics, and would prefer to ignore the problem. But the problem won't go away. Rather than say immature stuff like that, it's time for him to use his notoriety to speak publicly about the problem and why it should be fixed.
I interpreted Linus's outburst as an admission that he really does care about this issue a great deal but hates the idea of his core developers being distracted by it. Personally I don't want to see Linus at all distracted by this either. His energy is much better spent quarterbacking the development effort. Actually, it's up to people like you, Bruce, to take the lead.
Nuff said, now it's just part of a marketing machine. Next, please.
--
I took a several-month detour to build a new directory indexing system (Htree) for Ext2, something it needs badly. Now it's back to Tux2, keep tuned. The new homepage for the project is:
href=http://nl.linux.org/~phillips/tux2
The mailing list is still hosted by innominate, but I am not with innominate any more. When I get time I'll move the list and resubscribe everybody.
--
So how does it feel working for the evil empire? Michael, there is more to life that you think, there is a free world out here. Get out of your cubicle in Redmond and be somebody again, make a difference. Instead of being a minion. Let's see you apply your considerable talent to doing something that will be remembered in a more favorable light than just helping billg buy his way into another market.
--
He was complaining about the look, not the feel, so changing themes is the correct solution here.
I often wonder who ever thought it was a good idea to ever use a selection button with an ambiguous up/down state. Theme-makers, please note.
--
So you think that both the gif situation with Unisys and mp3 situation with Frauenhoffer are ok? IOW, let the world get hooked on a particular compression format, then surprise! It's patented, pay up everybody. And of course Frauenhoffer seems prepared to sue everybody into the ground who might even try an alternative, non-patented compression algorithm. Which they will be well able to do, with their monopoly-fueled profits. Would you please explain to me how this benefits anybody but Frauenhoffer?
What happens when we explain the facts clearly to everybody, then let them take a vote?
--
So you must believe that we need to protect the small-time programmer too, and therefore we need to have software patents, right?
--
This is an argument that could only be loved by lawyers. It goes like this: trust us, we'll fix the fact that the patent system only works for corporations who can afford to put up the required bucks by making the process even longer and more complex, and of course, needing more lawyer's time, and then everything will be ok.
No. The basic system is broken. Now, the software part of the system is what's most badly broken, and it's where I can have some influence, so it's where I've decided to take a stand. As for those countless unfortunates who can't get the medicines they need because drug companies prefer to develop and distribute only patentable medicines, I can just feel sorrow, and hope that I myself can always afford to pay for what medicine I need.
--
- It's so ridiculous that it should make people think
- It's owned by a non-U.S. corporation. This should make the traditional patent-mongering U.S. corporations think
- It shows exactly why the whole idea of software patents hurts society instead of helping it
So, I wish BT the best in their pursuit of royalties for this one - it can only hasten the end of this whole embarrassingly silly fiasco.--