When I studied engineeering (Mechanical Engineering at Birmingham University in Edgbaston, 1986 - 1989) the Iraqi students I knew all took final-year projects related to projectiles. To me this implied deliberate attempts by Iraq to bolster their supergun project. Failing that the only theory I have is that it was a spooky coincidence.
If we assume the Oxford article has any merit (big assumption) then perhaps the engineers are targetted because of their abilities.
Bridge building isnt really all that complex, there is a hell of a lot more going on in a software product of any real magnitude than in a bridge
I'd really like to see someone prove this or even provide any evidence at all. A real bridge is a collection of thousands or even millions of parts. Each and every part is unique when considered in fine detail. The crystal structure of the metal, the exact surface detail, the exact overall shape, the stresses experienced during manufacture, the stresses experienced in service, the surface exposure to the atmosphere/corrosion etc etc.
In actual fact the precise mathematical simulation of a bridge is infeasible now and probably for a long long time. Instead, bridges are built to be incredibly strong so that even if the simplified analysis bridge designers do do is seriously off they don't fall down (for the most part). According to my professors when I studied mechanical engineering something like a bridge is designed to be 10X stronger than it probably needs to be to allow for the unexpected. By comparison a car is thought to be about 5X stronger than necessary, and only in aerospace engineering is the design aimed at being about "right" (factor of safety of, say, 1.1) - because you can't make a rocket 10X stronger than it needs to be and get it off the ground.
You can't kill something that is already dead. From my perspective (financial software development) it emitted its last dying gasp approximately 3-4 years ago.
It pains me to say this, but I made a living with and used Unix on the desktop for just about ten years and I'm still glad it's dead. Mac OS X is so much better at GUIs, and if we didn't have that I'm afraid I might just use Windows instead (with cygwin and Emacs, naturally).
For me it's Linux and Solaris on my servers, MacOS on my laptop, programming Windows to pay the rent.
I was part of the effort to keep Unix on the desktop alive, believe me. I work for a company with a premium product in our space that used to run on Windows and also on Solaris/SPARC. We fought to keep our Solaris port alive, we did our Linux port on our own time, but nothing was able to produce a viable user base of paying customers using either.
If you haven't noticed, I'm funny and enjoy having fun. Enjoy my site, tell me if you use my projects. Don't take it too seriously though, it's all an act.
Dell also uses similar bundling tactics, or did last time I checked.
I have no objection to them doing this, by the way, it's up to them, but it dissuaded me from buying from them a couple of times.
The issue seems to be Dell's desire (or perhaps Intel's desire) to hide the cost of top-of-the-line CPUs, so any PC that has one fitted tends to be bundled with a lot of other high-grade options which (presumably) are intended to enhance the purchasers perception of the value they are getting.
what this means in practice is it's very difficult to get a Dell with their nicest case and motherboard, great speakers, all the frills, but put a Celeron class cheapie processor in the machine. Their website wont allow cetain combinations that should be valid in the sense that the motherboard in the model selected could accept certain cheaper and slower processors.
Understandable but sucky. They may say they only validate a limited range of combinations and "everything nice but the CPU" is not one of them, but one could say "but did you ever TRY?"
To me the blackberry is a blessing, because it helps me find out about things sooner. If I didn't find out about some things on the blackberry, then I'd only find out about them when I next get to the office, except more time would have elapsed and the urgency would be higher. So for me a little bit of intrusiveness (urgent email when I'm on my way home) is more than offset by reducing the stress of getting to work and finding shit happened last night and I wasn't aware).
However I do establish limits on the intrusiveness of the blackberry. Mine never buzzes for email and is switched off entirely from about mid-evening to around breakfast the next day. During that off period people can contact me on my cellphone if they really need me.
If there isn't that time critical element to a persons responsibilities then I can imagine it being not worth it.
easy, it only has to look for non-crappy service on any non-ISP-troubling protocol. In that unlikely event the troublesome protocols must be being victimised by something other than usual crappy service.
Hey nice to meet you. I wonder if we'd have gotten to know each other if the login prompt had ever appeared that night.
As I understand it, the very first version of Unix was in assembly language and machine specific. The portability was a goal of the C rewrite if I recall correctly.
Multi-processor support was definitely lacking for years though!
In the "Dunnet" adventure game built-in to GNU Emacs there is a VAX cabinet. If you find the CPU board and plug it in the thing runs and you can logon to the system and even execute commands. So I think someone skilled in Emacs Lisp (certainly not me) should implement a MULTICS system inside this game also. Given the birthplace of the original Emacs, this would be somewhat ironic.
(when I last saw the word MULTICS in a computer room, it was definitely spelt that way - maybe they were wrong then).
I started college at the University of Birmingham in Edgbaston (near Birmingham), England in 1986. They had a MULTICS installation and on my registration day the university computer club took those of us interested in it to a terminal room to show us the ropes.
The guy hit a key to get a login prompt. During the half-hour we were there the system did not manage to cough up even the prompt, so we got no demo. I never tried again.
Instead I got involved in the local programming going on in my department (Mechanical Engineering) and hence learned about Turbo Pascal on PCs and then Apollo workstations running their unix-like Domain OS - much better.
My final year project was an emulation of part of a mainframe/multics graphics library to the Apollo workstations so that the large deformation finite element analysis software they were developing could work entirely on the workstations, bypassing the central computing facilities entirely. They were already able to split jobs up and run work packets across multiple CPUs on the network. The combined computation performed by their workstation network was already outperforming their slice of the central mainframe. Before my project however they still had to transfer the output files over to the multics system so they could use the nice high speed plotters that the computer center had. With my project they could finally get nice large engineeering plots made locally.
If I recall correctly I provided a "GINO" emulation library that output large F/E plots as CAD symbol files which could be read by the "DOGS" CAD system they had. My memory is rusty on any more details than that. It was very cool to be involved in that, even if it was all in FORTRAN 77.
So I like to think I helped kill off Multics (if only infinitesimally).
Yes, some child in a developing nation will definitely get one if you order the buy one give one package. You get one too. I have a 4 year old daughter who currently borrows our laptops to play the flash games on PBSKIDS.ORG. I am hoping this will be easy for her to use.
It runs Linux. Good battery life. Interesting screen. Modest CPU and graphics horsepower.
This a very unconvincing argument to me. History doesn't necessarily prove that Sony always loses. An equally compelling interpretation is that that the format with more capacity and better library of titles wins. Well that was VHS last time and Blu-Ray this time. VHS allowed an entire feature length movie on one tape and had more of them to offer when it launched. Many people have said that was the key reason that VHS won.
By the way, I don't disagree that the formats you mention failed, but I seem to recall Sony being one of the two developers (with Philips) of this little thing called audio CD. How did that do?:)
I'm very happy with my purchase and have already spent about a hundred bucks on Blu-Ray movies, and I've only had the thing two weeks. So to me it seems Blu-Ray is healthy enough.
Nevertheless the format issue is a problem - if my player did HD-DVD also then I'd buy some of the HD-DVD only titles such as The Matrix. But as it is those movies are just out of the question to me now. I'm not buying ANOTHER player, so I'm stuck with my 1999/2000 era original matrix DVD (definitely showing its age now!).
So some consumers are holding back entirely, but those of us who have taken the plunge end up (realistically speaking) having to pick one format and then our choice of movies is diminished. Now that I have a high-def player I am less likely to want to buy many movies in standard-def regular DVD any more.
So it's a real problem for consumers either way - buy now or wait, it sucks.
Ideally dual-format players would come out, and at much lower prices, then the consumers wouldn't care so much and the technical war could go back to a back-room debate for engineers over laser wavelengths, number of layers etc etc.
Record companies are in the publicity business. They attempt to get people interested in a band and its music. Radiohead has achieved this in part due to the efforts of its prior record labels (Yes, AS WELL AS their music). They are now in the happy position that people (such as myself) will buy something with their name on it sign unseen, but they got there via a major label deal.
To a first approximation, record companies are NOT in the business of making music (that's what the musicians do), manufacturing compact discs and LPs (that's what their manufacturing partners do). Almost none of the stuff being discussed here really matters. No they are mainly paid to promote the output of their artists. The artists with the most money tend to hire the most talented promoters, which helps their sales and so they have even more money. So Justin Timberlake videos cost millions to make, but you better believe he's making money.
This Radiohead stunt is just not a case that generalises to all music, all musicians. Sorry.
If some unheard of band offered to sell downloads for whatever you want to pay or 40 pounds for a box'o'stuff, it would be hard for any of us to asses the prospect. We'd want to know about the band and the music first. How do we learn about bands and music? Advertising, radio, music placement in jingles, tv shows, promotional CDs, compilations, artist features in magazines, known-reviewer reviews etc etc. These are all things that fight their way into your life so that you get the chance to form a judgement on their artists.
The only artists you have a chance of supporting are those that get your attention. There is nothing fair about how that happens, it can be pure and innocent (word of mouth starting with friends of the band) but most of us will also end up CDs or MP3s or whatnot from bands that we learned about at first through publicity, no matter how distateful one might find it being "sold" on a band.
The music industry tries to hire people talented at this fight for attention just Anheuser-Busch hires expert photographers for their mini-epic TV adverts. You have to pay to hire these people, that's just how it goes.
Of course any band can choose to "go-it-alone", that's fine, but they should know that there are millions of bands, including some who are smart, or talented, or photogenic, or hard-working, or canny, or street-smart, or all of the above and more, who just will never make enough to even cover basic expenses. The majority of the money will go to a small minority of such bands or artists, and one key factor is how well their product is marketed, at least until they have a fan base.
You could always use "bollocks" here in America and absolutely no one would know what you're saying or understand it. If fact, i don't even know if I'm even using it in the correct context...
Yep, I still use that from time to time. It's too good a word to give up just because people don't understand it here!
I grew up in Britain but now work in America. When I figure I can get away with it, and when the situation calls for it, I sometimes let loose with a well-timed swear word. I can sense that my fully american colleagues are always a little bit shocked, however I also feel it REALLY gets their attention, and thus can be a good thing.
For example, I told my (then current) boss that the interference from her (then) boss had gotten completely out of hand. The way I phrased it was "I have nearly gotten to the point of just telling him to fuck off". That would be such a flagrant breach of protocol that I'm glad I didn't, however just/mentioning/ the word made the situation crystal clear (mention as oppose to use - it was hypothetical swearing).
In fact, work is almost the last frontier where swearing is still effective, and so it's the only place where's really still worthwhile. I suppose if I swore at customer support from some vendor it would also have an effect, but I have too much sympathy for what those people put up with.
Out on the street, or on public transport, however, swearing is just like noise on the signal. Any ten-year old kid can be overheard using "fuck, shit, motherfucker". One of the few words that still has some kick to it, for some reason, is "cunt". I think the most memorable usage was still in the Bridget Jones movie...
Wouldn't it rather be IBM that might offer this, since they actually make the cell?
Yes, actually I think you are correct. If I recall correctly it's Sony, IBM and Toshiba in the cell consortium, and the most ovious vendor of a "compute-node Cell module" would indeed be IBM, not Sony, good point.
By the way, I had a typo, it would not be an "HPC PSP3" of course, the Cell is way too hot and power hungry! Although... of course with sufficient shrinks and price reductions the current Cell might well one day be in a portable game console. Then we could have another round of speculation on personal clusters. I love the "wheel of reincarnation" in digital technology!
Well the guy used to use a 200-node parallel supercomputer, but now he prefers to use 8 PS3s. That to me proves that 8 PS3s is like a supercomputer TO HIM.
I'm sure there are faster setups available if had the money, but 100% of 8 PS3s indefinitely is preferable, from what he says, to the costly little slices of "real" supercomputers he tried to rent before.
I wonder if Sony could offer a "HPC PSP3" which provided a stripped down processor board without the shiny case, graphics memory etc. It would be interesting if the Cell processor could get better economies of scale.
My entire adult life, every few years there are expanded cuts, director cuts, ultimate cuts, supercuts, etc. of this particular movie. I'm waiting for the best boy & gaffer cut after this one.
Are we talking about the same movie? On DVD at least there was just one lousy version for the entire history of the DVD format, until a slightly better version last year (Director's Cut, better transfer). Now this year we finally get some real new stuff. Ok so on tape there is some variety, and also on laserdisc, but really how many of us bother with those formats these days?
Chris (still has his original PAL VHS UK version of course)
actual real news story?
on
Ask Rob Malda
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
When will Slashdot stop posting unsubstantiated, or (sometimes) completely merit-free stories with a question mark at the end, as if that was some kind of excuse?
As I understand it, HDMI has no error correction per se, just error detection, so it's not quite like TCP/IP over ethernet where you get every bit perfect but the latency can vary. A single bit error received at the output device will be detected but they repeat previous non-damaged samples or interpolate, just like CD players. If a gold-plated connector removed errors, it could improve the fidelity a tiny little bit. However I think single bit errors are normally limited to causing a least-significant-bit error in the output, which is going to be very very slight in all cases.
know who you are and what firm you're talking about. If you pre-declared your PHP variables or turned off notices in php.ini you'd cut your disk use by 2/3rds.
Slashdot Mirror
When I studied engineeering (Mechanical Engineering at Birmingham University in Edgbaston, 1986 - 1989) the Iraqi students I knew all took final-year projects related to projectiles. To me this implied deliberate attempts by Iraq to bolster their supergun project. Failing that the only theory I have is that it was a spooky coincidence. If we assume the Oxford article has any merit (big assumption) then perhaps the engineers are targetted because of their abilities.
Bridge building isnt really all that complex, there is a hell of a lot more going on in a software product of any real magnitude than in a bridge
I'd really like to see someone prove this or even provide any evidence at all. A real bridge is a collection of thousands or even millions of parts. Each and every part is unique when considered in fine detail. The crystal structure of the metal, the exact surface detail, the exact overall shape, the stresses experienced during manufacture, the stresses experienced in service, the surface exposure to the atmosphere/corrosion etc etc.
In actual fact the precise mathematical simulation of a bridge is infeasible now and probably for a long long time. Instead, bridges are built to be incredibly strong so that even if the simplified analysis bridge designers do do is seriously off they don't fall down (for the most part). According to my professors when I studied mechanical engineering something like a bridge is designed to be 10X stronger than it probably needs to be to allow for the unexpected. By comparison a car is thought to be about 5X stronger than necessary, and only in aerospace engineering is the design aimed at being about "right" (factor of safety of, say, 1.1) - because you can't make a rocket 10X stronger than it needs to be and get it off the ground.
You can't kill something that is already dead. From my perspective (financial software development) it emitted its last dying gasp approximately 3-4 years ago.
It pains me to say this, but I made a living with and used Unix on the desktop for just about ten years and I'm still glad it's dead. Mac OS X is so much better at GUIs, and if we didn't have that I'm afraid I might just use Windows instead (with cygwin and Emacs, naturally).
For me it's Linux and Solaris on my servers, MacOS on my laptop, programming Windows to pay the rent.
I was part of the effort to keep Unix on the desktop alive, believe me. I work for a company with a premium product in our space that used to run on Windows and also on Solaris/SPARC. We fought to keep our Solaris port alive, we did our Linux port on our own time, but nothing was able to produce a viable user base of paying customers using either.
Funny.
If you haven't noticed, I'm funny and enjoy having fun. Enjoy my site, tell me if you use my projects. Don't take it too seriously though, it's all an act.
I think he is having you all on.
Chris
--I love Ruby, by the way, not that it matters
Dell also uses similar bundling tactics, or did last time I checked.
I have no objection to them doing this, by the way, it's up to them, but it dissuaded me from buying from them a couple of times.
The issue seems to be Dell's desire (or perhaps Intel's desire) to hide the cost of top-of-the-line CPUs, so any PC that has one fitted tends to be bundled with a lot of other high-grade options which (presumably) are intended to enhance the purchasers perception of the value they are getting.
what this means in practice is it's very difficult to get a Dell with their nicest case and motherboard, great speakers, all the frills, but put a Celeron class cheapie processor in the machine. Their website wont allow cetain combinations that should be valid in the sense that the motherboard in the model selected could accept certain cheaper and slower processors.
Understandable but sucky. They may say they only validate a limited range of combinations and "everything nice but the CPU" is not one of them, but one could say "but did you ever TRY?"
To me the blackberry is a blessing, because it helps me find out about things sooner. If I didn't find out about some things on the blackberry, then I'd only find out about them when I next get to the office, except more time would have elapsed and the urgency would be higher. So for me a little bit of intrusiveness (urgent email when I'm on my way home) is more than offset by reducing the stress of getting to work and finding shit happened last night and I wasn't aware).
However I do establish limits on the intrusiveness of the blackberry. Mine never buzzes for email and is switched off entirely from about mid-evening to around breakfast the next day. During that off period people can contact me on my cellphone if they really need me.
If there isn't that time critical element to a persons responsibilities then I can imagine it being not worth it.
...to Dvorak is just to buy one. I did.
When can we expect a better moderated Slashdot or people who can read?
That's going to be an in-game feature of Duke Nukem Forever.
easy, it only has to look for non-crappy service on any non-ISP-troubling protocol. In that unlikely event the troublesome protocols must be being victimised by something other than usual crappy service.
Hey nice to meet you. I wonder if we'd have gotten to know each other if the login prompt had ever appeared that night.
As I understand it, the very first version of Unix was in assembly language and machine specific. The portability was a goal of the C rewrite if I recall correctly.
Multi-processor support was definitely lacking for years though!
In the "Dunnet" adventure game built-in to GNU Emacs there is a VAX cabinet. If you find the CPU board and plug it in the thing runs and you can logon to the system and even execute commands. So I think someone skilled in Emacs Lisp (certainly not me) should implement a MULTICS system inside this game also. Given the birthplace of the original Emacs, this would be somewhat ironic.
I started college at the University of Birmingham in Edgbaston (near Birmingham), England in 1986. They had a MULTICS installation and on my registration day the university computer club took those of us interested in it to a terminal room to show us the ropes.
The guy hit a key to get a login prompt. During the half-hour we were there the system did not manage to cough up even the prompt, so we got no demo. I never tried again.
Instead I got involved in the local programming going on in my department (Mechanical Engineering) and hence learned about Turbo Pascal on PCs and then Apollo workstations running their unix-like Domain OS - much better.
My final year project was an emulation of part of a mainframe/multics graphics library to the Apollo workstations so that the large deformation finite element analysis software they were developing could work entirely on the workstations, bypassing the central computing facilities entirely. They were already able to split jobs up and run work packets across multiple CPUs on the network. The combined computation performed by their workstation network was already outperforming their slice of the central mainframe. Before my project however they still had to transfer the output files over to the multics system so they could use the nice high speed plotters that the computer center had. With my project they could finally get nice large engineeering plots made locally.
If I recall correctly I provided a "GINO" emulation library that output large F/E plots as CAD symbol files which could be read by the "DOGS" CAD system they had. My memory is rusty on any more details than that. It was very cool to be involved in that, even if it was all in FORTRAN 77.
So I like to think I helped kill off Multics (if only infinitesimally).
$423 including shipping.
Yes, some child in a developing nation will definitely get one if you order the buy one give one package. You get one too. I have a 4 year old daughter who currently borrows our laptops to play the flash games on PBSKIDS.ORG. I am hoping this will be easy for her to use.
It runs Linux. Good battery life. Interesting screen. Modest CPU and graphics horsepower.
There is no crank.
Order soon, supplies are limited.
Yes, I ordered one.
This a very unconvincing argument to me. History doesn't necessarily prove that Sony always loses. An equally compelling interpretation is that that the format with more capacity and better library of titles wins. Well that was VHS last time and Blu-Ray this time. VHS allowed an entire feature length movie on one tape and had more of them to offer when it launched. Many people have said that was the key reason that VHS won.
By the way, I don't disagree that the formats you mention failed, but I seem to recall Sony being one of the two developers (with Philips) of this little thing called audio CD. How did that do? :)
I'm very happy with my purchase and have already spent about a hundred bucks on Blu-Ray movies, and I've only had the thing two weeks. So to me it seems Blu-Ray is healthy enough.
Nevertheless the format issue is a problem - if my player did HD-DVD also then I'd buy some of the HD-DVD only titles such as The Matrix. But as it is those movies are just out of the question to me now. I'm not buying ANOTHER player, so I'm stuck with my 1999/2000 era original matrix DVD (definitely showing its age now!).
So some consumers are holding back entirely, but those of us who have taken the plunge end up (realistically speaking) having to pick one format and then our choice of movies is diminished. Now that I have a high-def player I am less likely to want to buy many movies in standard-def regular DVD any more.
So it's a real problem for consumers either way - buy now or wait, it sucks.
Ideally dual-format players would come out, and at much lower prices, then the consumers wouldn't care so much and the technical war could go back to a back-room debate for engineers over laser wavelengths, number of layers etc etc.
Record companies are in the publicity business. They attempt to get people interested in a band and its music. Radiohead has achieved this in part due to the efforts of its prior record labels (Yes, AS WELL AS their music). They are now in the happy position that people (such as myself) will buy something with their name on it sign unseen, but they got there via a major label deal.
To a first approximation, record companies are NOT in the business of making music (that's what the musicians do), manufacturing compact discs and LPs (that's what their manufacturing partners do). Almost none of the stuff being discussed here really matters. No they are mainly paid to promote the output of their artists. The artists with the most money tend to hire the most talented promoters, which helps their sales and so they have even more money. So Justin Timberlake videos cost millions to make, but you better believe he's making money.
This Radiohead stunt is just not a case that generalises to all music, all musicians. Sorry.
If some unheard of band offered to sell downloads for whatever you want to pay or 40 pounds for a box'o'stuff, it would be hard for any of us to asses the prospect. We'd want to know about the band and the music first. How do we learn about bands and music? Advertising, radio, music placement in jingles, tv shows, promotional CDs, compilations, artist features in magazines, known-reviewer reviews etc etc. These are all things that fight their way into your life so that you get the chance to form a judgement on their artists.
The only artists you have a chance of supporting are those that get your attention. There is nothing fair about how that happens, it can be pure and innocent (word of mouth starting with friends of the band) but most of us will also end up CDs or MP3s or whatnot from bands that we learned about at first through publicity, no matter how distateful one might find it being "sold" on a band.
The music industry tries to hire people talented at this fight for attention just Anheuser-Busch hires expert photographers for their mini-epic TV adverts. You have to pay to hire these people, that's just how it goes.
Of course any band can choose to "go-it-alone", that's fine, but they should know that there are millions of bands, including some who are smart, or talented, or photogenic, or hard-working, or canny, or street-smart, or all of the above and more, who just will never make enough to even cover basic expenses. The majority of the money will go to a small minority of such bands or artists, and one key factor is how well their product is marketed, at least until they have a fan base.
You could always use "bollocks" here in America and absolutely no one would know what you're saying or understand it. If fact, i don't even know if I'm even using it in the correct context...
Yep, I still use that from time to time. It's too good a word to give up just because people don't understand it here!
You mean like this?
Thought I replied to this, but can't see it.
Anyway, yes, that's jus the ticket, except it's $19k!!
All of a sudden racking up actual Sony PS3s with their curved shiny cases, graphics chip etc seems eminently sensible
I grew up in Britain but now work in America. When I figure I can get away with it, and when the situation calls for it, I sometimes let loose with a well-timed swear word. I can sense that my fully american colleagues are always a little bit shocked, however I also feel it REALLY gets their attention, and thus can be a good thing.
For example, I told my (then current) boss that the interference from her (then) boss had gotten completely out of hand. The way I phrased it was "I have nearly gotten to the point of just telling him to fuck off". That would be such a flagrant breach of protocol that I'm glad I didn't, however just /mentioning/ the word made the situation crystal clear (mention as oppose to use - it was hypothetical swearing).
In fact, work is almost the last frontier where swearing is still effective, and so it's the only place where's really still worthwhile. I suppose if I swore at customer support from some vendor it would also have an effect, but I have too much sympathy for what those people put up with.
Out on the street, or on public transport, however, swearing is just like noise on the signal. Any ten-year old kid can be overheard using "fuck, shit, motherfucker". One of the few words that still has some kick to it, for some reason, is "cunt". I think the most memorable usage was still in the Bridget Jones movie...
Wouldn't it rather be IBM that might offer this, since they actually make the cell?
Yes, actually I think you are correct. If I recall correctly it's Sony, IBM and Toshiba in the cell consortium, and the most ovious vendor of a "compute-node Cell module" would indeed be IBM, not Sony, good point.
By the way, I had a typo, it would not be an "HPC PSP3" of course, the Cell is way too hot and power hungry! Although ... of course with sufficient shrinks and price reductions the current Cell might well one day be in a portable game console. Then we could have another round of speculation on personal clusters. I love the "wheel of reincarnation" in digital technology!
Well the guy used to use a 200-node parallel supercomputer, but now he prefers to use 8 PS3s. That to me proves that 8 PS3s is like a supercomputer TO HIM.
I'm sure there are faster setups available if had the money, but 100% of 8 PS3s indefinitely is preferable, from what he says, to the costly little slices of "real" supercomputers he tried to rent before.
I wonder if Sony could offer a "HPC PSP3" which provided a stripped down processor board without the shiny case, graphics memory etc. It would be interesting if the Cell processor could get better economies of scale.
Are we talking about the same movie? On DVD at least there was just one lousy version for the entire history of the DVD format, until a slightly better version last year (Director's Cut, better transfer). Now this year we finally get some real new stuff. Ok so on tape there is some variety, and also on laserdisc, but really how many of us bother with those formats these days?
Chris (still has his original PAL VHS UK version of course)
When will Slashdot stop posting unsubstantiated, or (sometimes) completely merit-free stories with a question mark at the end, as if that was some kind of excuse?
Chris
who of course reads such things anyway
As I understand it, HDMI has no error correction per se, just error detection, so it's not quite like TCP/IP over ethernet where you get every bit perfect but the latency can vary. A single bit error received at the output device will be detected but they repeat previous non-damaged samples or interpolate, just like CD players. If a gold-plated connector removed errors, it could improve the fidelity a tiny little bit. However I think single bit errors are normally limited to causing a least-significant-bit error in the output, which is going to be very very slight in all cases.
know who you are and what firm you're talking about. If you pre-declared your PHP variables or turned off notices in php.ini you'd cut your disk use by 2/3rds.
I've never used PHP personally in my life.