What's the point of dual and quad core, anyway? Anyone figured out why it's better than just having 2/4 CPUs?
It's better than just having 2/4 CPUs because you can now get dual CPU functionality on consumer-level mainboards. You get SMP without having to shell out for workstation or server level hardware. Of course, if you do have workstation or server boards with 2 or 4 CPU sockets on it, then you can put dual or quad core CPUs in those sockets as well. So instead of having 2-way SMP with 2 sockets you can have 4-way or 8-way SMP with those two sockets.
For example, back in the day if you wanted a 4-way x86 box from HP you needed to get a DL580 or DL740 server. They were big (4-6 rack units tall), drew a lot of power, and were very expensive. Now you can get a pair of dual core CPUs in a DL360, their 1U "entry level" server, which costs a lot less. You can also get dual or quad cores in their 2 socket bladeservers. So you can get a lot higher density for less money, so if you are performing compute intensive tasks (or even if you're not) you can do a lot more with less.
Another advantage comes down to software licensing costs. I know that when buying CPU licenses for Microsoft products they count sockets and not cores. So if you need a SQL server with four cores running SQL Server Enterprise (which is like $30k per CPU for processor licensing) you can get a quad core CPU and only buy a single $30k license, versus 4 single cores and $120k in software licenses. Performance should be fairly similar. And the same goes for many other software vendors (VMWare is a another one that licenses per socket, not per core).
So basically you get more performance for less money all around.
Actually, if you go waaaay back to the Socket 7 days you could have L3 cache as well. The AMD K6 and K6-2 CPUs only had on-die L1, and the L2 cache was on the mainbaord. But the K6-3 CPU had 256KB or 512KB of on-die L2 and was compatible with the same mainboards. So when you put that K6-3 in a socket 7 mainboard the mainboard's cache actually functioned as L3. Sure it wasn't on-chip, but L3 cache is definitely nothing new to x86.
1. There's no way they could possibly be unaware of the million dollar challenge, given their field of study.
2. Winning the challenge would not only get them a million dollars in funding, but *incredible* publicity leading to millions more.
3. They'd be crazy not to take the challenge if they knew they could win it.
4. They haven't taken the challenge.
Conclusion: They never discovered any repeatable paranormal phenomenon. Why am I not surprised?
If the million dollar challenge you are referring to is the James Randi challenge, then I'm not suprised that they haven't taken the guy up on it. Not that I'm arguing that ESP and the paranormal are real (I'm not), but from what I've read the criteria that you have to meet and tests that you have to pass to win are set by Randi, and that he is the sole judge of whether you have proven anything or passed any of the tests. By all of the accounts that I have read, the challenge is essentially set up in such a way that even if psychic powers were real and you were able to demonstrate them beyond a reasonable doubt, you still would fail to win the challenge. It's basically a publicity stunt put on by JREF. Again, I'm not saying that PEAR proved anything (because I honestly don't know), but if you take yourself to be a serious research institution you wouldn't want to get involved in someone else's publicity stunts (especially if they were guaranteed to make you look bad). It's kinda like how Saddam Hussein didn't mind having elections in Iraq, because he knew that he was always going to "win" 100% of the vote.
The new interface/interaction paradigm might be cool, but that should come out of Microsoft Research so they can do proper user experience testing (and not just test like 13 MS employees like they did with the ribbon (this was mentioned on the Office development blog)... The ribbon looks cool, but I find myself digging around for items that I used to just have a small toolbox pop up for or were just on the main toolbar--plus there doesn't appear to be a way to reorganize the ribbon...)
It was more than just 13 people at Microsoft. It was based on feedback from a lot of customers as well, not to mention multiple rounds of testing. The philosophy behind it was to make the menus more context sensitive, to reduce the number of clicks necessary to get something done. I've been at some demos where they discussed the number of clicks it takes to complete various tasks in Office 2003 versus Office 2007, and in many cases they've seen a 50-60% reduction in clicks (for example, the number of clicks it takes to insert a picture into a Word document). I agree that the ribbon takes some getting used to, but after using it for a few months I find that it is actually much easier and faster to use than navigating the old menus. The biggest problem is the learning curve for people who were used to the old way of doing things.
A well-cited example from the usability tests that they did while Office 2007 was in development: The testing team brought in two groups of people, one a group who had little to no MS-Office skills, and the other a group who used Office extensively. They sat them both down in front of PCs with Office 2003 loaded and assigned them a list of tasks to complete within a specified timeframe. Most of the "Office Experts" completed all of the tasks, and none of the "Office Newbies" completed all of the tasks. Then they sat them down in front of PCs with Office 2007 loaded and the same list of tasks. In this case, most of the "experts" completed most of the tasks, though it took them a little longer to do it. But most of the "newbies" also completed most of the tasks as well. This relatively simple test underlines to me just how much of an improvement the ribbon interface is (not to mention my personal experiences with it). If you take the time to use it you will undoubtedly find it faster over time.
Of course, the kicker to the experiment that MS did was that they offered the participants a free copy of MS Office for doing the test. They could have their choice of a full version of Office 2003, or a beta copy of Office 2007 and a free copy of the gold version when it was released. Most of the "experts" took 2003, while the "newbies" took 2007. Just goes to show you how entrenched some people get.
If we assume that MS actually delivers this new OS on time (which is a big if) there is not that long a wait between the time after lag for people to upgrade to Vista and the time this is released. Won't this reduce uptake on Vista? After all, if we are already happy with XP, why not wait?
This isn't an announcement. Someone just mentioned that yes, they have already started work on their next big OS upgrade project. But they can't even tell you what the new feature set is likely to include, so it's pretty clear that they're only at the drawing board stage. There is nothing unusual about this at all. Many software products have long development cycles. Even a fairly straightforward PC-based video game can easily take two years in development. An entirely new OS will likely take significantly longer. The reality is, if they want to ship a new version of Windows in the next five years, they need to start work now.
Some interesting comments from the article though, they indicated that they would have shipped Vista in 2.5 years if they hadn't stopped work on Vista to focus on XP security updates. But they didn't mention anywhere that after they got the XP security updates fairly well in hand, they basically ditched the Vista code and started over almost from scratch. That was a fairly long delay. And those sorts of unanticipated events could certainly push this 2.5 year timeline out considerably as well. If "Vienna" (just a code name for now) is going to be a revolutionary new product, I would guess that it's more like 4 years out at the minimum.
I honestly think that what would help Microsoft more is if they didn't focus on releasing huge new, completely revamped operating systems every few years and instead focused on providing updates to the current products. With Windows 95 there was the original release, then OSR2. Then Windows 98 came along, and the Windows 98 SE. The various Linux distros usually offer incremental (and often modular) improvements in subsequent versions. I think that Apple does something similar. IMHO, as long as you have a relatively stable foundation (which Vista is supposed to be) there shouldn't be a need to do a major ground-up rewriting of the OS.
I know that when WinFS was pulled from Vista that MS indicated that it would be released later as an update to Vista. Why can't they manage this with other changes/new functionality? I mean, the obvious answer is they want to sell new software to people, but they could just as easily offer consumers (businesses already have it) a subscription similar to OneCare that allowed them to get the latest updates of Windows. Of course, probably 95% of operating systems sold are OEM bundled with new PCs, so even the subscription model wouldn't have to apply to too many uses. I doubt that MS would lose much, if any, in sales by going with such a model. And they would be able to roll out technology updates more quickly.
NewCompany: Did he leave with notice?
Old Employer: No.
I've never heard that particular question when giving references before. Usually they use the far more subtle and inclusive question, "Is he eligible for rehire at your company?" If you leave without notice, the answer is usually "no." If you're fired for Xeroxing your ass and passing it around, the answer is "no." If you're fired because one day you threatened to kill a coworker, the answer is also "no." No matter the reason why you're not eligible for rehire, the mere fact that you are ineligible sounds bad. And in most cases the company will be unwilling to elaborate on why you are ineligible. Funny how a fairly harmless thing like failing to give notice can result in your getting blacklisted, isn't it?
You idiot, he clearly explained that it's not a matter of ill will towards the employee, it's a mutual understanding that "hey, you don't want to work here anymore, I'll let you go your own way right now, with the pay that you were willing to take to finish up your obligations around here because I have a solid enough business that we CAN make do without you for a short time." How can you even begin to find this insulting??? That's free FUCKING money, you FUCKTARD! Now you're potentially able to start at your new job 2 weeks early than anticipated, get paid for it, and you're BETTER OFF than if you had been required to stick around at your old employer. You don't want to work there anymore, REMEMBER?!?!
No, you are the one who doesn't understand the post. And no, I'm not the AC you're referring to. From the post in question:
When someone gives me notice, I send them home that day and usually pay out the rest of the week.
When I fire someone, I usually pay out the rest of the week; if they get paid the week after they work, I'll get them their last check as early as possible.
He's not saying that if you turn in two week's notice (or a month or whatever) that he sends you home and pays out your notice period. He's saying that if you turn in two week's notice that he will send you home and only pay out the rest of that week. If your new job can't start for two weeks then you're shorted at least one week's pay, plus benefits, etc. Depending on when/how you give notice, you're not only getting not getting paid for the entire notice period (you only get paid for up to one week of it at most), but you're potentially worse off than if you had said nothing at all and just walked out the door one day without coming back.
Idiot! (Or troll or flamer, I can't quite tell which it is)
When someone gives me notice, I send them home that day and usually pay out the rest of the week.
When I fire someone, I usually pay out the rest of the week; if they get paid the week after they work, I'll get them their last check as early as possible.
But once someone says "I'm leaving in two weeks", I cannot expect them to put 100% into their work -- and I certainly don't want them hanging around telling all my customers and employees about their great new job.
Well, I don't know what industry you work in, or what kind of workers you're hiring, but that seems like a particularly cynical view to take. I am a professional, and I work with and for professionals. And usually when you're dealing with professionals you don't have to worry as much about those sorts of issues.
For example, I just put in my notice this past Tuesday. I gave my employer about 2.5 weeks notice that I was leaving. It wasn't a situation where I hate the company that I work for, or the people that I work with, I was just looking for a new challenge (I joined this place in when it was a startup, now it's a mature company). Everyone that I work with respects that, and I'll be working out my notice.
During those two and a half weeks I will be wrapping up the projects that I can complete, and transitioning the ones that I can't complete to other team members. I'll be doing a lot of knowledge transfer as well. But I doubt that I'll be taking on any new projects. So technically you're right in saying that I won't be working at 100%, but the work that I will be doing will be key to making sure that my department continues to operate smoothly after I'm gone. And of course I will be available for the occasional call or email after I'm gone if they have a question about something that I had been working on. It's just good business not to burn bridges.
Now if my employer had shown me the door the minute I turned in my notice, they would be fairly screwed. The projects that I was working on would grind to a crawl (if not an outright stop) while someone else tries to figure out where we were when I was escorted out. Any specific or specialized knowledge would be lost. No knowledge transfer would take place. I would probably be somewhat resentful about the way I was treated and therefore be unwilling to help them out with any of the mess.
And what would that get you? Sure, I wouldn't be walking around your office talking to coworkers about my great new job, but if you think that coworkers don't talk to each other from time to time outside of work then you're mistaken. So that word would still get around. I'd also be likely to tell my future coworkers about how you treated me when I turned in my notice. I would be extremely unlikely to want to work for or with you again, and my friends and future coworkers would know why. This could potentially impact your ability to find future employees. Not having the knowledge transfer or a smooth transition also runs up costs associated with employee turnover. If I can offer some measure of training to the people who will be replacing me then I can save you money.
Running a company is a matter of managing liabilities: hey, if you do great work then I want you here. If I can no longer count on you to do great work, why would I keep you around?
I disagree. Running a company includes managing liabilities, but it's about far more than that. You also have to manage people and relationships (and lots of other things that aren't necessarily relevant here). If your people aren't happy, or you have a negative relationship towards your workers then your business will suffer. Not just in reduced productivity, but also in reduced reputation. Both of those will cost you money.
And I also think that it's ridiculous to think that just because someone is leaving the company that you can no longer count on them to do great work. If someone is a professional and you are paying them for work then I see no reason
Giving notice is purely a courtesy. It legally can not affect recommendations or references, and there is absolutely nothing any company can do to force you to stay at work in an at-will state. You're not in jail, you have no obligation to your company if you want to quit. Your company in turn has no obligation to you.
One common thread that I have noticed at all of the companies that I have worked for (in Indiana and Ohio) is that the company policies tend to say, "If you give us at least 2 weeks written notice then we will pay you for all of your unused PTO/vacation when you leave." So while there may be no legal requirement to give notice, there are certainly financial incentives in many cases. For example, I just turned in my notice at my current employer on Tuesday, and I gave them roughly 2.5 weeks notice. When I leave they're going to pay me about a month's salary in unused PTO. I would have been foolish to have passed on that money, unless there were some extenuating circumstances (my boss threatening me or something).
Users removing fans and heatsinks while the CPU is operating, no, fans failing and even heatsink clips failing while the CPU is operating, yes.
Well, I've had issues with CPU fans failing and never had any hardware failure as a result. In the cases that I have seen the temp will rise, and when it reaches an unsafe threshold the system shuts down, but that hardly means that your system is fried.
You can blow your "incredibly complicated software" and "my lack of PC knowledge" out of your ass.
There's an intelligent and well thought rebuttal. I think that I may have heard something similar on a playground once. If you want to ignore the possibility that your problems may have been the result of a software glitch or incorrect configuration, then I suppose that's your choice.
anyway, only an idiot would assume that "lack of pc knowledge" would allow simply swapping an AMD on Abit for an Intel on Abit, which, being bloody windows will require a complete OS reinstall anyway, is going to generate some instability because I forget to realign the dilithium crystals and twizzle the foo foo valve.
Let me make sure that I understand this clearly. You had problems with an AMD-based system. Then you swapped out the mainboard and CPU and reinstalled Windows, and the problem went away, therefore you believe that AMD was the problem? What if it was the mainboard? What if it was a software problem or corrupt file and reinstalling Windows fixed it?
In your own words, you RECENTLY outfitted your entire org with 250 AMD desktops and laptops.
RECENTLY, yet you still feel qualified to take a pop at people who have such experience under their belts, not once, and not recently.
Yes, but also in my own words, I said that "I've used AMD CPUs exclusively for years and had no issues with them." You very conveniently left that point out. When I made the comment about "recently outfitting my entire organization with AMD-based systems" I wasn't saying that "this is my only experience with AMD," though you obviously wanted to twist it that way. I was merely giving an example of the kinds of deployments that I have done with AMD, to demonstrate that I'm not some hobbyist who builds two PCs a year for his relatives and therefore considers himself an expert on the subject.
And for the record, I'm not "taking a pop" at anyone. I am merely correcting an erroneous statement that isn't supported by anything other anecdote. I haven't made any sorts of comments against you personally. But if you really want to get into a pissing match I suppose we can whip out our IT pedigrees and you can brag about how your 40 years of IT experience trumps my 30 years of IT experience, though anyone with an ounce of sense would realize that the net difference (especially when discussing current hardware) is nil.
Of course, you are also more than welcome to expand on your "decades of experience" in deploying both Intel and AMD-based solutions in enterprise environments. I'm assuming that you do have that sort of experience, right? Because if you've been deploying and working in Intel-only environments for decades, then you're hardly qualified to comment on the difference between the two vendors, are you?
IMHO based upon decades of experience, Intel is a better buy in the long run, more expensive, yes, at purchase time, but years down the line the quality wins out. I have never come across an Intel CPU that died in normal service, not one, ever.
I have. In fact, the only CPU that I ever had die on me was a Pentium 4. Go figure. You have anecdotal experience to support your case, I have anecdotal experience that undermines it. So who is right? I'm going to put my money on what the major PC and server manufacturers think. AMD was making CPUs for the IBM PC in the early 1980's, just like Intel was. Current AMD CPUs have been validated by all of the major manufacturers and are being sold in their consumer and enterprise hardware lines. If you want to put your anecdotal experience up against the thousands of hours of validation testing that these companies do, feel free, but you'll only make yourself look sillier by comparison.
The day you can remove the fan and heatsink from a running AMD CPU and it will simply carry on running throttled down until the fan and heatsink are replaced, they will be ready for "professional" use.
That's an oddly arbitrary statement. As an IT professional, I have to say that I have never once had the occasion to remove the HSF assembly from a CPU in a running PC (or had a user that did). In fact, it seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do. So why would that somehow be the mark of a "professional" CPU?
And more to the point, you're referring undoubtedly to that old Tom's Hardware article from 3 or 4 years ago where they performed this test to demonstrate the value of thermal monitoring circuitry. At the time they were comparing a Pentium 4 and an Athlon CPU. I don't think that it was even as current as an Athlon XP CPU, let alone an Athlon 64, X2, or Opteron (which BTW *DO* have the thermal protection circuitry in them).
I'm also curious about the constant claims of system instability on AMD-based systems. I've used AMD CPUs exclusively for years and had no issues with them. I recently outfitted my entire 250 system organization with AMD-based desktops and laptops, and have had no problem with them. Every tier 1 PC/server vendor (and most tier 2 and 3 vendors as well) have validated AMD CPUs and are selling systems based on them. Yet there's always someone claiming that AMD CPUs somehow aren't 100% compatible with Windows, or that they can't run an OS in a stable fashion. Have you ever considered that perhaps your problems have more to do with the incredibly complicated software that you're running (Windows), or your lack of PC knowledge?
I never said increase bandwidth, I said increase costs. Spammers using botnets, the cost is time and CPU cycles. A CPU cycle dealing with a bounce is not sending an offer they might make money from.
You're right, I did assume that cost = bandwidth. But the problem still stands that a significant portion of spam today (not sure if it is a majority or not) comes from zombie PCs, where the bandwidth and CPU cycles are essentially free to the spammer. Whether you are speaking in terms of monetary cost, or in terms of lack of availability to do other work, it would still drive up costs for legitimate emailers as well as spammers. For a legitimate emailer, that means buying another server or more bandwidth. For the spammer, that means picking up another couple zombies.
The interesting thing about the solution is that it will increase costs for the spammer. Their MTA's will either dump the original mail, as it is not configured to handle secondary MX records (non-RFC compliant sender) or it will spend the cycles that would normally be used sending other messages. While the bounces could be shuffled off to servers designed specifically for the purpose of fighting this approach, it is still a win against spammers, in the short term.
Not only do most spammers not pay for bandwidth (stealing it from broadband connected zombies instead), but most legitimate businesses do pay for bandwidth. So you're actually increasing the onus on all email servers in order to get a temporary reduction in spam, which will be reversed as soon as the spammers start programming zombies to try all MX servers listed. Not to mention the additional delay that retries on subsequent MX servers can introduce in mail delivery. People complain as it is if they have to wait 5 minutes for an email that someone sent them.
iTunes is good software, it's just the DRM piece of the music bought from the store that's bad. If you ripped them yourself then they're not DRM infected. I ripped all of my CDs to MP3 files, and I can play them anywhere. But I do really like the design and functionality of the iTunes software and Music Store. It's very easy to use, even for non-technical people like my in-laws.
I want to mount my secondary partition so that no application thinks I'm on D:, so that noone can say that I have a "nonstandard" installation when I put something on D:. You never worked in a Corporate Environment, do you?
That explains the problem. The way that you described it you indicated that you wanted to "mount" the contents of your "C:\documents and settings" folder to your D: drive, not the other way around.
And yes, I have worked in many corporate environments, ranging from small 300-person companies to Fortune 50 organizations with 100,000+ users. But your condescension is unwarranted considering that the cause of the misunderstanding was your failure to clearly communicate what you were trying to do, not my lack of experience.
Okay, let's use this "mounting" thingy I am used from at home. So, I mounted "C:\Documents And Settings\%USERNAMEATWORK%\My Documents" on the partition I just created. That worked (with some pain, but okay...)....
I've got no idea what you're talking about, as the "mount" command isn't present in Windows. I'm also not sure why you would want to "mount" a directory from your 8 GB C: drive to your 100 GB secondary partition.
(Why in the world would technology continue to have to fight the idiocy and unmanageability of logical drives these days -- I know, there's a way not to, but Microsoft in a competitive market would have had to fix this long ago.)
I know that you admitted that there's a way to not have to deal with logical drives, but it's much more than that. Microsoft fully fixed the logical drives mess back with Windows 2000. That's 7 years ago. The only reason that they are still around today is because (for some stupid reason) people like them. Seriously, they like them. We just finally managed to get enough management support behind us to get rid of them at my company, and now users are complaining that they're gone. There's no way in hell that I'll be bringing them back, but the point is that people like them, they miss them when they're gone, and they don't like adapting to the change.
So I think that it's extremely disingenuous to blame Microsoft for that particular problem, since they provided a much better alternative years ago. And it would be extremely difficult to fault them for not outright removing the support for logical drives when so many of their customers still want to use them. Not to mention a fair number of legacy applications that still want them.
So I start off my mornings relatively healthily. I eat 1 granola bar (not the chocolatey chewy kind, just a simple, plain, crunchy granola bar) and then have 1 cup of "lite" yogurt. Then I wash it all down with Diet Mountain Dew. A lot of it.
Hot drinks like tea or coffee in the morning just make me want to go back to sleep.
Hell yeah on Decent. It was like on FPS on steroids.
I agree. But while I never got motion sickness from playing FPS games, I almost always got motion sickness from Descent. Other than that it was an awesome game.
Ummmhhh,
And these PACS computers are patched on a regular basis ? (Solaris, Windows and/or AIX )
Medical devices with GE's/Siemens permission are patched ,
Sure.... they..... are....
not
I'm not sure what you're implying, or what it has to do with the post. Unless maybe you're trying to claim that they're wide open from a security perspective because they aren't patched? I don't know. Our PACS workstations do get patched regularly, although we do have to wait a little longer than usual because once the patches are released they have to be tested and approved by the vendor, whereas our regular PCs get patched almost immediately. But that's why our imaging network is firewalled off from our main network and can't access the Internet.
Do you really think that nobody in hospitals actually thinks about security these days? Seriously, what hospitals do you people go to?
They went to the trouble of putting out waivers. If they didn't know there were going to be medical consequences, why would they have drawn these up and required they be signed? The fact that they went to the trouble suggests a willful disreguard for human life, likely grounds for a more serious charge.
From the article that I cited:
Sherrod told The Bee that a deejay rebuffed the nurse and that the contestants signed waivers that addressed only publicity issues and made no mention of health or safety concerns.
Sounds like not only did they not know that it was potentially harmful, but that whatever lawyer or wannabee lawyer who drew up the waivers didn't know what they were doing either. All in all, I'd say that the radio station is screwed about 20 different ways. But then IANAL either.
But did she know that? Did the station inform her? Did the station know? When she started to feel sick, is it reasonable to expect her to go to the emergency room just for drinking water? And even if she had, was it already too late at that point?
According to this related article, a nurse called in to the radio station and told them that drinking water like that could be dangerous, and was rebuffed by the DJs. Regardless of whether that was true, it's pretty clear that someone is going to get the shit sued out of them.
Wake up, most IT is outsourced now and has been for a long time. Most hospitals have million dollar medical equipment connected to outdated and abused PC's that you wouldn't use to operate a toaster much less an MRI imaging program.
If you want to see penny pinching at it's best, go work in a hospital for awhile.
As I pointed out at the end of my original post, I do work for a hospital, and I do support PACS systems, so I do know what I'm talking about. And for the record, I have never seen a million dollar piece of equipment connected to an outdated and abused PC. The worst that I ever saw was an old MRI machine that was purchased third-hand from a hospital (supposedly in China, though more likely Taiwan), who had purchased it second hand from someone in the United States. The control station for it was based around an old SGI Octane workstation, but it was well maintained under contract and we never had a problem with it. And of course the entire thing cost considerably less than a million dollars.
And I don't know where it is that you have been working, but I have yet to work at a business (much less a hospital) that outsourced their entire IT department. Some businesses outsource their call centers, true. In very rare circumstances I have seen a company that outsources their desktop break/fix group, but never the entire IT department (or anywhere close to it).
Our license vendor will no longer sell licenses for Office 2003, it's 2007 or nothing. Needless to say, we are now looking for a new license vendor.
None of them will sell licenses for Office 2003. They've been selling Office 2007 licenses since early November, so it's doubtful that anyone has any left. However, if you talked to your vendor about it they should have told you that as long as you're buying on a volume licensing plan (including Open) that license for 2007 includes downgrade rights to 2003. So you can buy the 2007 license and install 2003 and still be compliant.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the point of dual and quad core, anyway? Anyone figured out why it's better than just having 2/4 CPUs?
It's better than just having 2/4 CPUs because you can now get dual CPU functionality on consumer-level mainboards. You get SMP without having to shell out for workstation or server level hardware. Of course, if you do have workstation or server boards with 2 or 4 CPU sockets on it, then you can put dual or quad core CPUs in those sockets as well. So instead of having 2-way SMP with 2 sockets you can have 4-way or 8-way SMP with those two sockets.
For example, back in the day if you wanted a 4-way x86 box from HP you needed to get a DL580 or DL740 server. They were big (4-6 rack units tall), drew a lot of power, and were very expensive. Now you can get a pair of dual core CPUs in a DL360, their 1U "entry level" server, which costs a lot less. You can also get dual or quad cores in their 2 socket bladeservers. So you can get a lot higher density for less money, so if you are performing compute intensive tasks (or even if you're not) you can do a lot more with less.
Another advantage comes down to software licensing costs. I know that when buying CPU licenses for Microsoft products they count sockets and not cores. So if you need a SQL server with four cores running SQL Server Enterprise (which is like $30k per CPU for processor licensing) you can get a quad core CPU and only buy a single $30k license, versus 4 single cores and $120k in software licenses. Performance should be fairly similar. And the same goes for many other software vendors (VMWare is a another one that licenses per socket, not per core).
So basically you get more performance for less money all around.
Xeons have featured L3 caches for years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xeon_mi croprocessors
Actually, if you go waaaay back to the Socket 7 days you could have L3 cache as well. The AMD K6 and K6-2 CPUs only had on-die L1, and the L2 cache was on the mainbaord. But the K6-3 CPU had 256KB or 512KB of on-die L2 and was compatible with the same mainboards. So when you put that K6-3 in a socket 7 mainboard the mainboard's cache actually functioned as L3. Sure it wasn't on-chip, but L3 cache is definitely nothing new to x86.
1. There's no way they could possibly be unaware of the million dollar challenge, given their field of study. 2. Winning the challenge would not only get them a million dollars in funding, but *incredible* publicity leading to millions more. 3. They'd be crazy not to take the challenge if they knew they could win it. 4. They haven't taken the challenge. Conclusion: They never discovered any repeatable paranormal phenomenon. Why am I not surprised?
If the million dollar challenge you are referring to is the James Randi challenge, then I'm not suprised that they haven't taken the guy up on it. Not that I'm arguing that ESP and the paranormal are real (I'm not), but from what I've read the criteria that you have to meet and tests that you have to pass to win are set by Randi, and that he is the sole judge of whether you have proven anything or passed any of the tests. By all of the accounts that I have read, the challenge is essentially set up in such a way that even if psychic powers were real and you were able to demonstrate them beyond a reasonable doubt, you still would fail to win the challenge. It's basically a publicity stunt put on by JREF. Again, I'm not saying that PEAR proved anything (because I honestly don't know), but if you take yourself to be a serious research institution you wouldn't want to get involved in someone else's publicity stunts (especially if they were guaranteed to make you look bad). It's kinda like how Saddam Hussein didn't mind having elections in Iraq, because he knew that he was always going to "win" 100% of the vote.
The new interface/interaction paradigm might be cool, but that should come out of Microsoft Research so they can do proper user experience testing (and not just test like 13 MS employees like they did with the ribbon (this was mentioned on the Office development blog)... The ribbon looks cool, but I find myself digging around for items that I used to just have a small toolbox pop up for or were just on the main toolbar--plus there doesn't appear to be a way to reorganize the ribbon...)
It was more than just 13 people at Microsoft. It was based on feedback from a lot of customers as well, not to mention multiple rounds of testing. The philosophy behind it was to make the menus more context sensitive, to reduce the number of clicks necessary to get something done. I've been at some demos where they discussed the number of clicks it takes to complete various tasks in Office 2003 versus Office 2007, and in many cases they've seen a 50-60% reduction in clicks (for example, the number of clicks it takes to insert a picture into a Word document). I agree that the ribbon takes some getting used to, but after using it for a few months I find that it is actually much easier and faster to use than navigating the old menus. The biggest problem is the learning curve for people who were used to the old way of doing things.
A well-cited example from the usability tests that they did while Office 2007 was in development: The testing team brought in two groups of people, one a group who had little to no MS-Office skills, and the other a group who used Office extensively. They sat them both down in front of PCs with Office 2003 loaded and assigned them a list of tasks to complete within a specified timeframe. Most of the "Office Experts" completed all of the tasks, and none of the "Office Newbies" completed all of the tasks. Then they sat them down in front of PCs with Office 2007 loaded and the same list of tasks. In this case, most of the "experts" completed most of the tasks, though it took them a little longer to do it. But most of the "newbies" also completed most of the tasks as well. This relatively simple test underlines to me just how much of an improvement the ribbon interface is (not to mention my personal experiences with it). If you take the time to use it you will undoubtedly find it faster over time.
Of course, the kicker to the experiment that MS did was that they offered the participants a free copy of MS Office for doing the test. They could have their choice of a full version of Office 2003, or a beta copy of Office 2007 and a free copy of the gold version when it was released. Most of the "experts" took 2003, while the "newbies" took 2007. Just goes to show you how entrenched some people get.
If we assume that MS actually delivers this new OS on time (which is a big if) there is not that long a wait between the time after lag for people to upgrade to Vista and the time this is released. Won't this reduce uptake on Vista? After all, if we are already happy with XP, why not wait?
This isn't an announcement. Someone just mentioned that yes, they have already started work on their next big OS upgrade project. But they can't even tell you what the new feature set is likely to include, so it's pretty clear that they're only at the drawing board stage. There is nothing unusual about this at all. Many software products have long development cycles. Even a fairly straightforward PC-based video game can easily take two years in development. An entirely new OS will likely take significantly longer. The reality is, if they want to ship a new version of Windows in the next five years, they need to start work now.
Some interesting comments from the article though, they indicated that they would have shipped Vista in 2.5 years if they hadn't stopped work on Vista to focus on XP security updates. But they didn't mention anywhere that after they got the XP security updates fairly well in hand, they basically ditched the Vista code and started over almost from scratch. That was a fairly long delay. And those sorts of unanticipated events could certainly push this 2.5 year timeline out considerably as well. If "Vienna" (just a code name for now) is going to be a revolutionary new product, I would guess that it's more like 4 years out at the minimum.
I honestly think that what would help Microsoft more is if they didn't focus on releasing huge new, completely revamped operating systems every few years and instead focused on providing updates to the current products. With Windows 95 there was the original release, then OSR2. Then Windows 98 came along, and the Windows 98 SE. The various Linux distros usually offer incremental (and often modular) improvements in subsequent versions. I think that Apple does something similar. IMHO, as long as you have a relatively stable foundation (which Vista is supposed to be) there shouldn't be a need to do a major ground-up rewriting of the OS.
I know that when WinFS was pulled from Vista that MS indicated that it would be released later as an update to Vista. Why can't they manage this with other changes/new functionality? I mean, the obvious answer is they want to sell new software to people, but they could just as easily offer consumers (businesses already have it) a subscription similar to OneCare that allowed them to get the latest updates of Windows. Of course, probably 95% of operating systems sold are OEM bundled with new PCs, so even the subscription model wouldn't have to apply to too many uses. I doubt that MS would lose much, if any, in sales by going with such a model. And they would be able to roll out technology updates more quickly.
NewCompany: Did he leave with notice? Old Employer: No.
I've never heard that particular question when giving references before. Usually they use the far more subtle and inclusive question, "Is he eligible for rehire at your company?" If you leave without notice, the answer is usually "no." If you're fired for Xeroxing your ass and passing it around, the answer is "no." If you're fired because one day you threatened to kill a coworker, the answer is also "no." No matter the reason why you're not eligible for rehire, the mere fact that you are ineligible sounds bad. And in most cases the company will be unwilling to elaborate on why you are ineligible. Funny how a fairly harmless thing like failing to give notice can result in your getting blacklisted, isn't it?
You idiot, he clearly explained that it's not a matter of ill will towards the employee, it's a mutual understanding that "hey, you don't want to work here anymore, I'll let you go your own way right now, with the pay that you were willing to take to finish up your obligations around here because I have a solid enough business that we CAN make do without you for a short time." How can you even begin to find this insulting??? That's free FUCKING money, you FUCKTARD! Now you're potentially able to start at your new job 2 weeks early than anticipated, get paid for it, and you're BETTER OFF than if you had been required to stick around at your old employer. You don't want to work there anymore, REMEMBER?!?!
No, you are the one who doesn't understand the post. And no, I'm not the AC you're referring to. From the post in question:
When someone gives me notice, I send them home that day and usually pay out the rest of the week.
When I fire someone, I usually pay out the rest of the week; if they get paid the week after they work, I'll get them their last check as early as possible.
He's not saying that if you turn in two week's notice (or a month or whatever) that he sends you home and pays out your notice period. He's saying that if you turn in two week's notice that he will send you home and only pay out the rest of that week. If your new job can't start for two weeks then you're shorted at least one week's pay, plus benefits, etc. Depending on when/how you give notice, you're not only getting not getting paid for the entire notice period (you only get paid for up to one week of it at most), but you're potentially worse off than if you had said nothing at all and just walked out the door one day without coming back.
Idiot! (Or troll or flamer, I can't quite tell which it is)
In your case it appears to be both.
When someone gives me notice, I send them home that day and usually pay out the rest of the week.
When I fire someone, I usually pay out the rest of the week; if they get paid the week after they work, I'll get them their last check as early as possible.
But once someone says "I'm leaving in two weeks", I cannot expect them to put 100% into their work -- and I certainly don't want them hanging around telling all my customers and employees about their great new job.
Well, I don't know what industry you work in, or what kind of workers you're hiring, but that seems like a particularly cynical view to take. I am a professional, and I work with and for professionals. And usually when you're dealing with professionals you don't have to worry as much about those sorts of issues.
For example, I just put in my notice this past Tuesday. I gave my employer about 2.5 weeks notice that I was leaving. It wasn't a situation where I hate the company that I work for, or the people that I work with, I was just looking for a new challenge (I joined this place in when it was a startup, now it's a mature company). Everyone that I work with respects that, and I'll be working out my notice.
During those two and a half weeks I will be wrapping up the projects that I can complete, and transitioning the ones that I can't complete to other team members. I'll be doing a lot of knowledge transfer as well. But I doubt that I'll be taking on any new projects. So technically you're right in saying that I won't be working at 100%, but the work that I will be doing will be key to making sure that my department continues to operate smoothly after I'm gone. And of course I will be available for the occasional call or email after I'm gone if they have a question about something that I had been working on. It's just good business not to burn bridges.
Now if my employer had shown me the door the minute I turned in my notice, they would be fairly screwed. The projects that I was working on would grind to a crawl (if not an outright stop) while someone else tries to figure out where we were when I was escorted out. Any specific or specialized knowledge would be lost. No knowledge transfer would take place. I would probably be somewhat resentful about the way I was treated and therefore be unwilling to help them out with any of the mess.
And what would that get you? Sure, I wouldn't be walking around your office talking to coworkers about my great new job, but if you think that coworkers don't talk to each other from time to time outside of work then you're mistaken. So that word would still get around. I'd also be likely to tell my future coworkers about how you treated me when I turned in my notice. I would be extremely unlikely to want to work for or with you again, and my friends and future coworkers would know why. This could potentially impact your ability to find future employees. Not having the knowledge transfer or a smooth transition also runs up costs associated with employee turnover. If I can offer some measure of training to the people who will be replacing me then I can save you money.
Running a company is a matter of managing liabilities: hey, if you do great work then I want you here. If I can no longer count on you to do great work, why would I keep you around?
I disagree. Running a company includes managing liabilities, but it's about far more than that. You also have to manage people and relationships (and lots of other things that aren't necessarily relevant here). If your people aren't happy, or you have a negative relationship towards your workers then your business will suffer. Not just in reduced productivity, but also in reduced reputation. Both of those will cost you money.
And I also think that it's ridiculous to think that just because someone is leaving the company that you can no longer count on them to do great work. If someone is a professional and you are paying them for work then I see no reason
Giving notice is purely a courtesy. It legally can not affect recommendations or references, and there is absolutely nothing any company can do to force you to stay at work in an at-will state. You're not in jail, you have no obligation to your company if you want to quit. Your company in turn has no obligation to you.
One common thread that I have noticed at all of the companies that I have worked for (in Indiana and Ohio) is that the company policies tend to say, "If you give us at least 2 weeks written notice then we will pay you for all of your unused PTO/vacation when you leave." So while there may be no legal requirement to give notice, there are certainly financial incentives in many cases. For example, I just turned in my notice at my current employer on Tuesday, and I gave them roughly 2.5 weeks notice. When I leave they're going to pay me about a month's salary in unused PTO. I would have been foolish to have passed on that money, unless there were some extenuating circumstances (my boss threatening me or something).
1. Harry goes to school.
Ha! You're obviously wrong, as Hogwart's was closed at the end of book 6 and Harry wasn't planning on going back anyways! Loser!
Users removing fans and heatsinks while the CPU is operating, no, fans failing and even heatsink clips failing while the CPU is operating, yes.
Well, I've had issues with CPU fans failing and never had any hardware failure as a result. In the cases that I have seen the temp will rise, and when it reaches an unsafe threshold the system shuts down, but that hardly means that your system is fried.
You can blow your "incredibly complicated software" and "my lack of PC knowledge" out of your ass.
There's an intelligent and well thought rebuttal. I think that I may have heard something similar on a playground once. If you want to ignore the possibility that your problems may have been the result of a software glitch or incorrect configuration, then I suppose that's your choice.
anyway, only an idiot would assume that "lack of pc knowledge" would allow simply swapping an AMD on Abit for an Intel on Abit, which, being bloody windows will require a complete OS reinstall anyway, is going to generate some instability because I forget to realign the dilithium crystals and twizzle the foo foo valve.
Let me make sure that I understand this clearly. You had problems with an AMD-based system. Then you swapped out the mainboard and CPU and reinstalled Windows, and the problem went away, therefore you believe that AMD was the problem? What if it was the mainboard? What if it was a software problem or corrupt file and reinstalling Windows fixed it?
In your own words, you RECENTLY outfitted your entire org with 250 AMD desktops and laptops.
RECENTLY, yet you still feel qualified to take a pop at people who have such experience under their belts, not once, and not recently.
Yes, but also in my own words, I said that "I've used AMD CPUs exclusively for years and had no issues with them." You very conveniently left that point out. When I made the comment about "recently outfitting my entire organization with AMD-based systems" I wasn't saying that "this is my only experience with AMD," though you obviously wanted to twist it that way. I was merely giving an example of the kinds of deployments that I have done with AMD, to demonstrate that I'm not some hobbyist who builds two PCs a year for his relatives and therefore considers himself an expert on the subject.
And for the record, I'm not "taking a pop" at anyone. I am merely correcting an erroneous statement that isn't supported by anything other anecdote. I haven't made any sorts of comments against you personally. But if you really want to get into a pissing match I suppose we can whip out our IT pedigrees and you can brag about how your 40 years of IT experience trumps my 30 years of IT experience, though anyone with an ounce of sense would realize that the net difference (especially when discussing current hardware) is nil.
Of course, you are also more than welcome to expand on your "decades of experience" in deploying both Intel and AMD-based solutions in enterprise environments. I'm assuming that you do have that sort of experience, right? Because if you've been deploying and working in Intel-only environments for decades, then you're hardly qualified to comment on the difference between the two vendors, are you?
IMHO based upon decades of experience, Intel is a better buy in the long run, more expensive, yes, at purchase time, but years down the line the quality wins out. I have never come across an Intel CPU that died in normal service, not one, ever.
I have. In fact, the only CPU that I ever had die on me was a Pentium 4. Go figure. You have anecdotal experience to support your case, I have anecdotal experience that undermines it. So who is right? I'm going to put my money on what the major PC and server manufacturers think. AMD was making CPUs for the IBM PC in the early 1980's, just like Intel was. Current AMD CPUs have been validated by all of the major manufacturers and are being sold in their consumer and enterprise hardware lines. If you want to put your anecdotal experience up against the thousands of hours of validation testing that these companies do, feel free, but you'll only make yourself look sillier by comparison.
The day you can remove the fan and heatsink from a running AMD CPU and it will simply carry on running throttled down until the fan and heatsink are replaced, they will be ready for "professional" use.
That's an oddly arbitrary statement. As an IT professional, I have to say that I have never once had the occasion to remove the HSF assembly from a CPU in a running PC (or had a user that did). In fact, it seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do. So why would that somehow be the mark of a "professional" CPU?
And more to the point, you're referring undoubtedly to that old Tom's Hardware article from 3 or 4 years ago where they performed this test to demonstrate the value of thermal monitoring circuitry. At the time they were comparing a Pentium 4 and an Athlon CPU. I don't think that it was even as current as an Athlon XP CPU, let alone an Athlon 64, X2, or Opteron (which BTW *DO* have the thermal protection circuitry in them).
I'm also curious about the constant claims of system instability on AMD-based systems. I've used AMD CPUs exclusively for years and had no issues with them. I recently outfitted my entire 250 system organization with AMD-based desktops and laptops, and have had no problem with them. Every tier 1 PC/server vendor (and most tier 2 and 3 vendors as well) have validated AMD CPUs and are selling systems based on them. Yet there's always someone claiming that AMD CPUs somehow aren't 100% compatible with Windows, or that they can't run an OS in a stable fashion. Have you ever considered that perhaps your problems have more to do with the incredibly complicated software that you're running (Windows), or your lack of PC knowledge?
I never said increase bandwidth, I said increase costs. Spammers using botnets, the cost is time and CPU cycles. A CPU cycle dealing with a bounce is not sending an offer they might make money from.
You're right, I did assume that cost = bandwidth. But the problem still stands that a significant portion of spam today (not sure if it is a majority or not) comes from zombie PCs, where the bandwidth and CPU cycles are essentially free to the spammer. Whether you are speaking in terms of monetary cost, or in terms of lack of availability to do other work, it would still drive up costs for legitimate emailers as well as spammers. For a legitimate emailer, that means buying another server or more bandwidth. For the spammer, that means picking up another couple zombies.
The interesting thing about the solution is that it will increase costs for the spammer. Their MTA's will either dump the original mail, as it is not configured to handle secondary MX records (non-RFC compliant sender) or it will spend the cycles that would normally be used sending other messages. While the bounces could be shuffled off to servers designed specifically for the purpose of fighting this approach, it is still a win against spammers, in the short term.
Not only do most spammers not pay for bandwidth (stealing it from broadband connected zombies instead), but most legitimate businesses do pay for bandwidth. So you're actually increasing the onus on all email servers in order to get a temporary reduction in spam, which will be reversed as soon as the spammers start programming zombies to try all MX servers listed. Not to mention the additional delay that retries on subsequent MX servers can introduce in mail delivery. People complain as it is if they have to wait 5 minutes for an email that someone sent them.
iTunes is good software, it's just the DRM piece of the music bought from the store that's bad. If you ripped them yourself then they're not DRM infected. I ripped all of my CDs to MP3 files, and I can play them anywhere. But I do really like the design and functionality of the iTunes software and Music Store. It's very easy to use, even for non-technical people like my in-laws.
I want to mount my secondary partition so that no application thinks I'm on D:, so that noone can say that I have a "nonstandard" installation when I put something on D:. You never worked in a Corporate Environment, do you?
That explains the problem. The way that you described it you indicated that you wanted to "mount" the contents of your "C:\documents and settings" folder to your D: drive, not the other way around.
And yes, I have worked in many corporate environments, ranging from small 300-person companies to Fortune 50 organizations with 100,000+ users. But your condescension is unwarranted considering that the cause of the misunderstanding was your failure to clearly communicate what you were trying to do, not my lack of experience.
Okay, let's use this "mounting" thingy I am used from at home. So, I mounted "C:\Documents And Settings\%USERNAMEATWORK%\My Documents" on the partition I just created. That worked (with some pain, but okay...)....
I've got no idea what you're talking about, as the "mount" command isn't present in Windows. I'm also not sure why you would want to "mount" a directory from your 8 GB C: drive to your 100 GB secondary partition.
(Why in the world would technology continue to have to fight the idiocy and unmanageability of logical drives these days -- I know, there's a way not to, but Microsoft in a competitive market would have had to fix this long ago.)
I know that you admitted that there's a way to not have to deal with logical drives, but it's much more than that. Microsoft fully fixed the logical drives mess back with Windows 2000. That's 7 years ago. The only reason that they are still around today is because (for some stupid reason) people like them. Seriously, they like them. We just finally managed to get enough management support behind us to get rid of them at my company, and now users are complaining that they're gone. There's no way in hell that I'll be bringing them back, but the point is that people like them, they miss them when they're gone, and they don't like adapting to the change.
So I think that it's extremely disingenuous to blame Microsoft for that particular problem, since they provided a much better alternative years ago. And it would be extremely difficult to fault them for not outright removing the support for logical drives when so many of their customers still want to use them. Not to mention a fair number of legacy applications that still want them.
So I start off my mornings relatively healthily. I eat 1 granola bar (not the chocolatey chewy kind, just a simple, plain, crunchy granola bar) and then have 1 cup of "lite" yogurt. Then I wash it all down with Diet Mountain Dew. A lot of it.
Hot drinks like tea or coffee in the morning just make me want to go back to sleep.
Hell yeah on Decent. It was like on FPS on steroids.
I agree. But while I never got motion sickness from playing FPS games, I almost always got motion sickness from Descent. Other than that it was an awesome game.
Ummmhhh, And these PACS computers are patched on a regular basis ? (Solaris, Windows and/or AIX ) Medical devices with GE's/Siemens permission are patched , Sure .... they ..... are ....
not
I'm not sure what you're implying, or what it has to do with the post. Unless maybe you're trying to claim that they're wide open from a security perspective because they aren't patched? I don't know. Our PACS workstations do get patched regularly, although we do have to wait a little longer than usual because once the patches are released they have to be tested and approved by the vendor, whereas our regular PCs get patched almost immediately. But that's why our imaging network is firewalled off from our main network and can't access the Internet.
Do you really think that nobody in hospitals actually thinks about security these days? Seriously, what hospitals do you people go to?
They went to the trouble of putting out waivers. If they didn't know there were going to be medical consequences, why would they have drawn these up and required they be signed? The fact that they went to the trouble suggests a willful disreguard for human life, likely grounds for a more serious charge.
From the article that I cited:
Sherrod told The Bee that a deejay rebuffed the nurse and that the contestants signed waivers that addressed only publicity issues and made no mention of health or safety concerns.
Sounds like not only did they not know that it was potentially harmful, but that whatever lawyer or wannabee lawyer who drew up the waivers didn't know what they were doing either. All in all, I'd say that the radio station is screwed about 20 different ways. But then IANAL either.
But did she know that? Did the station inform her? Did the station know? When she started to feel sick, is it reasonable to expect her to go to the emergency room just for drinking water? And even if she had, was it already too late at that point?
According to this related article, a nurse called in to the radio station and told them that drinking water like that could be dangerous, and was rebuffed by the DJs. Regardless of whether that was true, it's pretty clear that someone is going to get the shit sued out of them.
Wake up, most IT is outsourced now and has been for a long time. Most hospitals have million dollar medical equipment connected to outdated and abused PC's that you wouldn't use to operate a toaster much less an MRI imaging program.
If you want to see penny pinching at it's best, go work in a hospital for awhile.
As I pointed out at the end of my original post, I do work for a hospital, and I do support PACS systems, so I do know what I'm talking about. And for the record, I have never seen a million dollar piece of equipment connected to an outdated and abused PC. The worst that I ever saw was an old MRI machine that was purchased third-hand from a hospital (supposedly in China, though more likely Taiwan), who had purchased it second hand from someone in the United States. The control station for it was based around an old SGI Octane workstation, but it was well maintained under contract and we never had a problem with it. And of course the entire thing cost considerably less than a million dollars.
And I don't know where it is that you have been working, but I have yet to work at a business (much less a hospital) that outsourced their entire IT department. Some businesses outsource their call centers, true. In very rare circumstances I have seen a company that outsources their desktop break/fix group, but never the entire IT department (or anywhere close to it).
Our license vendor will no longer sell licenses for Office 2003, it's 2007 or nothing. Needless to say, we are now looking for a new license vendor.
None of them will sell licenses for Office 2003. They've been selling Office 2007 licenses since early November, so it's doubtful that anyone has any left. However, if you talked to your vendor about it they should have told you that as long as you're buying on a volume licensing plan (including Open) that license for 2007 includes downgrade rights to 2003. So you can buy the 2007 license and install 2003 and still be compliant.