They come from the same wafers. What makes a 4800+ a 4800+? It was just a better core that went through testing better
Does this mean a processor labelled as 4400+ would have failed some tests? Then how come overclocking seems so successful unless these processors passed the tests but are just being sold to run slower?
Global warming will not be solved by conservation measures. Mathematically, it's like running down a very fast up escalator. The population is growing rapidly with more people wanting to use technology in order to achieve a higher standard of living. Can't blame these poor schmucks, but web servers can come to our rescue!
Not only does the internet cut down the number of energy consuming activities such as trips to libraries, corporate espionage, commuting to desk jobs, visits to stores, etc., it has the potential to help us dig our way out of the destructive consumption spiral the whole world is executing.
Recently I read about some politicians on a visit to Beijing, China. They complained that their visibility radius was less than 100 metres because of the pollution. That country needs trees, but it's not stopping for anybody.
Global warming will not be affected by saving energy. Let's pull out the stops. Don't just replace web servers with more efficient ones. Instead, install them in bulk - the more, the merrier. We need faster computers. higher bandwidth, faster and bigger everything in the information infrastructure. It's time to fight fire with firepower. Ultimately we have to reach, through working smarter not harder, technological solutions that just don't pollute much, as well as raise a global mindset to limit the availability of useless or low value items that end up lying around ignored even though so many people are banking their livelihoods on producing junk.
If user interaction with displayed objects can be achieved, we'll be looking at a rudimentary form of the Star Trek holodeck. That would make quite a computer monitor.
If high school was no challenge why would university be a challenge? After all it's geared to average learning for people who survived public school.
The whole idea is to have an effective algorithm for acquiring knowledge. Bingo, you don't need school. What you need is a bit of time to learn (i.e., run the algorithm) and objectives or problems or whatever. In other words, after a year or two, graduate and get on with life.
Now can we have the 10 DVD set of Educate Yourself This Week by Watching Nonstop? After a person goes through school, how much of that knowledge is ever applied? It all seems so irrelevant. Let me see, the last time I applied the quadratic equation... Was it that long ago that I balanced a chemical equation?
By the way, we never really explained to you, school is just an IQ test. It seems a bit of a waste of 12+ years. Why not just launch kids straight into university right out of kindergarten - in other words, make graduating really count?
The one thing about university is it's rigor - failure is not tolerated well. The age of the student means nothing in first year. Even someone 80 years old is totally comfortable.
But, you know, starting kids into university young may be a good thing. A lot of people don't know how to communicate well, and first year university would be mostly about communications since 5 and 6 year olds really have no language skills. A university-standard education on communications would do wonders for the world. At any rate, it would cause wonders.
Who wants to be illiterate? Life is so hard - but are children too distracted by entertainment to gain the skills demanded by business?
At any rate, statements like half of x has property p should be substantiated by sources. If half of students can't read wouldn't we hear about it on CNN?
The level of reading required for self-education could be deficient though. It is a lot better now than a few years ago, especially with the power of Google. No one can go to class for every aspect of life or work, and there's no telling whether a book is available to help. Computers to our rescue.
Whenever I go to the library I see thousands of books, but it never gets easy to tell which books are applicable to the current situation at hand. One time I read a few pages about the theory of flaws in metal casting processes. Intriguing but not totally relevant mainly because even if I felt I could make my fortune in the business, I just had no confidence I could assemble enough books in that library to self-educate to the point that I could cast things with less cost, more strength, or whatever. For one thing, casting is bound to be a smelly process and not to be attempted without access to equipment and facilities. So to say that many people cannot read-well, that may be better stated as many people cannot acquire sufficient knowledge for the achievement of even the most fundamental activities occurring in the background of civilization.:)
So if more and more people get hold of computers, there will be more and more voices clamouring for information, and that should be a good thing. It would be a lot easier for me to acquire comprehensive black and white knowledge for any particular objective.
I say Google is a glimpse of the future. Let's quantify the creative output of humanity, both cumulative and instantaneous. There is a trend. What I'm alluding to is the possibility of a pattern or set of predictive rules that can tell us how to compute the next output of the most useful creativity (while ignoring the junk). If the knowledge of humanity is computerized systematically - cue in Google - it can be combined to produce valuable opinions. Google Print is a technology that analyzes useful combinations of knowledge while Google cache is a vast receptacle of human knowledge.
Currently the technology is really basic but once the computerization reaches a certain level, the chains of reasoning and knowledge manipulation leading from raw ideas towards deeply creative works can be studied. This study can lead to a set of rules that suggest efficient or powerful combinations of ideas.
Will this lead to computer understanding or computer creativity? Creativity can be simulated but understanding is more difficult to evaluate. For one thing, if suggestions of computer creativity occur, a major effort in computer understanding will have to be done. A computer can behave as though it understands fundamental axioms of geometry and set theory, especially those axioms that are used in every day activities. Essentially a computer would enumerate small objects. A class in C++ is made of a data structure and a set of methods. If a computer can enumerate and evaluate small data structures along with short methods, it will basically sort objects according to any programmer-controlled criteria. Then the computer can use the most interesting classes, which lie at the extremes of the sort order, to manage inputs from the real world. The computer would exhibit a particular behavior, and if this behavior is constructive, it may be said to understand.
The other day I heard a name, Chindia. Who is this? Cynthia? No, it is the combined impacts of the economies China and India! The very symbolism of the third world being raised by technology to become an economic player. Now are people going to truck books into the hinterland or do they run cables? The cables will go in long before the books. My prediction is a system like Google Print will cause creativity, especially in the hyperactive developed countries, the likes of which have not often been seen. Chindia is capable of relegating more and more products into the dollar stores. What people have left to trade with is their creative output. Google Print enables Chindia to export their creativity too!!
I've been hearing other things, like "as it is above, so it is below." Human intelligence is being taxed to its limits for the sake of individual economic position while computer intelligence threatens to take over menial decision making. At the same time, the Internet will inhibit people from getting paid for their labors! What is the world coming to? Well, regardless of who should be paid, which is the distribution of scarce resources, there are some fundamentals.
People have to live.
Resources will be consumed.
The most worthy recipients of wealth could be judged by natural market forces to be those that create the most effective knowledge, that is, knowledge publically computed to be the greatest necessity of a class of good or service. Like the game Monopoly everyone may periodically receive an equal sum of money and stock in all economic arenas. It may be possible for anyone to simply survive on this income, but the fiercest competitors would as always get the most. How much will the arts be worth? Perhaps next to nothing. Algorithms will exist to generate art of any caliber and people won't know the difference between human generated and computer generated. One day it may be the most amazing art will be computer generated. Art = algorithm.
We expect Google to reflect our own handling of knowledge and information. What we want to do with knowledge should be done by Google. It's an inevitable output of our creativity and intelligence. Isn't that what we've been taught as children, to be human and achieve more than the average animal?
AMD developed their CPUs to beat Intel on a clock cycle for clock cycle basis. But isn't it about time both companies show new architectural wonders? Of course, they don't want to quit the market immediately after all the investment to make dual core processors running almost 4 GHz but Intel is reaching the limits of power consumption so what else is coming?
I never thought I would play Russian Roulette. Meteors do make good bullets but have missed so far. I've been hit by the odd car. All the same, I've never bagged a deer and I would like to experience this element of culture in case fate is against me.
can obtain the information from them when they need it (say, when they find a fake twenty with the dot pattern embedded)
Dots representing a pattern. Do you hear any bells ringing? Try SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. That's right. What we've got is a totally new definition of SETI@Home, only they're out there and they're trying to communicate. So, what's our response?
First of all, in Wikipedia you are not supposed to be subjective. If there is any contention, present an opinion supported by expert arguments. In the case of the undecided, present both points of view and note the existing debate. Further mention of any ongoing research into the issue would be informative.
Wikipedia is far from a thousand monkeys pounding on typewriters. Yes, some contributors are not the most experienced, but if many contributors, even those ignorant about a particular aspect of knowledge, try to self edit and get the details right, over time the result will be so positive that conductive breakdown will occur and lightning will happen.
Consider this. When Hardy saw Ramanujan's for the first time, he figured that "a single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, for if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them". Similarly, Wikipedia info is no joke - there are so many serious articles that people put enormous effort into. This should encourage anyone who really cares about any shortcoming to put some work into making the marginal improvements that ultimately benefit us all.
A message to people who have poor communications skills - just express yourself. Do not give in to embarrassment. Put in your knowledge and take a look at other articles. Even copying someone else's style will enable you to enhance your input. If someone edits your work, that's supposed to be a good thing, as long as you maintain the attitude of writing with higher and higher quality.
Somehow the wrong moderation was sent so I'll post something and cancel my moderation in this topic.
It is possible, very possible, that Bill Gates has some expectation of benefit to Microsoft. Rather than finding fault with Bill or raise questions about conflict of interest or even contemplate that Bill ought to return some cash into the needier aspects of computing, I'll suggest that from an objective view Microsoft has made contributions to computing industry worth preserving. Microsoft products typically have not been sold as luxury items and I doubt a big donation was intended to attract people with overly expensive displays. Any presentation of Microsoft or the impacts of Microsoft will likely be costly so give Bill a chance to pay for some of it. Bill could have paid for the entire museum but he made a fairly proportionate contribution. Jobs for artists and tourism. No biggie.
This doesn't mean you should go round feasting on raw burgers, but more importantly it does mean that it's not a big deal if your child (God forbid) plays outside, scrapes their knee or rolls in the mud. Actually, by keeping them inside your sanitised bubble you put them more at risk of developing asthma and other allergies, as studies have shown.
Well, perhaps raw burgers will be possible. Mind over matter indeed, especially if you eat edible raw burger:) Does anyone know if UV is currently being used to any success in food processing or water purification? A focused beam may be more effective at any rate - but could it make food radioactive?
Waxing prophetically, soldiers will be more willing to fight in jungles. Or governments will be more willing to send troops.
The possibilities for disease treatment - zap specific cells or viruses.
There is a balance between overuse of antibacterial products and hygiene. Vaccines, clean operating rooms, and prophylaxis have helped people live longer and stronger.
Devices that kill germs may allow people to treat themselves in times where no professional is available. People who can't pay for treatment will have some recourse.
Astronauts on the moon, going to Mars, or even leaving the solar system will have another essential tool.
A professor once explained that engineering requires advanced study by saying that even the task of assembling a television is not possible without some understanding - if one were to just put the TV parts in a box and shake the box, the result won't be a television.
Random parts may be stretching things, but what about a different kind of delivery model for geek gear where the system is constructible at random? Put the parts in a box, push the box down the stairs a few times and the output is bingo! a completely assembled item with a modicum of chaotic appearance. Not very realistic, but it'll kind of render to mythology the idea that ignorant people can't assemble devices. Also think of the manufacturing and military possibilities: dump a grab bag of parts into a crate and they will self-assemble while in transport.
Now, in the nanotech future these notions will be fairly degenerate but for the bored, we can make component interfaces a bit more idiot proof.
technically if not totally legally including installation on multiple boxen. If a blank PC is considered to be just as profitable to Dell as a PC without Windows it is fairly clear that Dell must be paying next to nothing to Micro$oft for each copy.
Micro$oft is probably regarding the supposed lack of revenues from Dell as sheer marketing cost. It's likely also that higher end machines pay off more to Microsoft though since they aren't being sold to poor/penny-pinching people.
Corollary - what's the difference to Microsoft if they just sold Windows at very affordable prices? Standalone Windows pricing is just to appease the trustbusters
The question begged is what is Microsoft getting out of all this? Is it really worth it to be competing with open source operating system at an equivalent price? Will the ultimate operating system be open source? If you buy from Dell you're not paying more. This is just the first PC offering from Dell with no Windows. Quite possibly the economy of scale for entry-level machines having Windows included actually cost LESS!! It's all about warranty and support infrastructure, perhaps. Let's see what happens with later machines as Moore's law drives prices lower and lower. If Microsoft seeks to build higher level software while leaving the operating system to the public domain, it'll be an interesting world.
What can I say? With Basic you can't have your cake and eat it too. I started learning programming with Applesoft Basic, and naming was hellish. No matter what names you used, they all referred to the same name whenever the first two characters are the same.
I say, use arrays.
But what does it matter anyways how you name things? Reality and interpretation are two different things. An interpreted language merely represents reality, and a storm will hit you regardless of its presence in a symbol table.
According to Big bang theory space itself, which is what you can drive the USS Enterprise through, sprouted from the originating singularity, along with the other stuff in the universe. Now to us, especially without instrumentation, space is perceived as uniform and 3 dimensional, basically as far as you can see.
However, we are easily fooled creatures. We may believe that space grows at approximately the speed of light in all directions, if inflation never occurred. Then the Enterprise can go to any point in the space but never reach the boundary since it is moving at light speed away from the centre. If the Enterprise turned on its warp drive though, it would find that it may run out of space to move in just like a train on a track reaching the end of the track.
But space is really what? Who can really know? We are inside. It may be nothing more than a fixed volume inside a larger universe and everything inside is just shrinking and giving us the illusion that space itself is growing.
In many ways we see fractals in nature - self similarity at smaller and smaller scales. Perhaps we can see the structure of the universe in a local phenomenon. Do we see things actually shrinking anywhere? We see objects under construction or growth where the components maintain their size while the overall dimension increases. But now we have computer components where data densities and circuits are shrinking albeit from generation to generation while the outside casing hardly changes.
Space itself emerging from the big bang singularlty seems really counterintuitive to me. It's plausible but not really sensible. After all it's very natural for space to just exist without bound. Yet quantum mechanics suggests that at small scales matter can appear and disappear momentarily, but this theory is considered only to be applicable inside the space that we are in, and no theories are assumed for the space outside our space.
Slashdot Mirror
What games actually take advantage of those dual cores?
Well, now you can play both sides against the middle.
They come from the same wafers. What makes a 4800+ a 4800+? It was just a better core that went through testing better
Does this mean a processor labelled as 4400+ would have failed some tests? Then how come overclocking seems so successful unless these processors passed the tests but are just being sold to run slower?
Tablet PC that can really read handwriting
Global warming will not be solved by conservation measures. Mathematically, it's like running down a very fast up escalator. The population is growing rapidly with more people wanting to use technology in order to achieve a higher standard of living. Can't blame these poor schmucks, but web servers can come to our rescue!
Not only does the internet cut down the number of energy consuming activities such as trips to libraries, corporate espionage, commuting to desk jobs, visits to stores, etc., it has the potential to help us dig our way out of the destructive consumption spiral the whole world is executing.
Recently I read about some politicians on a visit to Beijing, China. They complained that their visibility radius was less than 100 metres because of the pollution. That country needs trees, but it's not stopping for anybody.
Global warming will not be affected by saving energy. Let's pull out the stops. Don't just replace web servers with more efficient ones. Instead, install them in bulk - the more, the merrier. We need faster computers. higher bandwidth, faster and bigger everything in the information infrastructure. It's time to fight fire with firepower. Ultimately we have to reach, through working smarter not harder, technological solutions that just don't pollute much, as well as raise a global mindset to limit the availability of useless or low value items that end up lying around ignored even though so many people are banking their livelihoods on producing junk.
If user interaction with displayed objects can be achieved, we'll be looking at a rudimentary form of the Star Trek holodeck. That would make quite a computer monitor.
If high school was no challenge why would university be a challenge? After all it's geared to average learning for people who survived public school.
... Was it that long ago that I balanced a chemical equation?
The whole idea is to have an effective algorithm for acquiring knowledge. Bingo, you don't need school. What you need is a bit of time to learn (i.e., run the algorithm) and objectives or problems or whatever. In other words, after a year or two, graduate and get on with life.
Now can we have the 10 DVD set of Educate Yourself This Week by Watching Nonstop? After a person goes through school, how much of that knowledge is ever applied? It all seems so irrelevant. Let me see, the last time I applied the quadratic equation
By the way, we never really explained to you, school is just an IQ test. It seems a bit of a waste of 12+ years. Why not just launch kids straight into university right out of kindergarten - in other words, make graduating really count?
The one thing about university is it's rigor - failure is not tolerated well. The age of the student means nothing in first year. Even someone 80 years old is totally comfortable.
But, you know, starting kids into university young may be a good thing. A lot of people don't know how to communicate well, and first year university would be mostly about communications since 5 and 6 year olds really have no language skills. A university-standard education on communications would do wonders for the world. At any rate, it would cause wonders.
Who wants to be illiterate? Life is so hard - but are children too distracted by entertainment to gain the skills demanded by business?
:)
At any rate, statements like half of x has property p should be substantiated by sources. If half of students can't read wouldn't we hear about it on CNN?
The level of reading required for self-education could be deficient though. It is a lot better now than a few years ago, especially with the power of Google. No one can go to class for every aspect of life or work, and there's no telling whether a book is available to help. Computers to our rescue.
Whenever I go to the library I see thousands of books, but it never gets easy to tell which books are applicable to the current situation at hand. One time I read a few pages about the theory of flaws in metal casting processes. Intriguing but not totally relevant mainly because even if I felt I could make my fortune in the business, I just had no confidence I could assemble enough books in that library to self-educate to the point that I could cast things with less cost, more strength, or whatever. For one thing, casting is bound to be a smelly process and not to be attempted without access to equipment and facilities. So to say that many people cannot read-well, that may be better stated as many people cannot acquire sufficient knowledge for the achievement of even the most fundamental activities occurring in the background of civilization.
So if more and more people get hold of computers, there will be more and more voices clamouring for information, and that should be a good thing. It would be a lot easier for me to acquire comprehensive black and white knowledge for any particular objective.
I say Google is a glimpse of the future. Let's quantify the creative output of humanity, both cumulative and instantaneous. There is a trend. What I'm alluding to is the possibility of a pattern or set of predictive rules that can tell us how to compute the next output of the most useful creativity (while ignoring the junk). If the knowledge of humanity is computerized systematically - cue in Google - it can be combined to produce valuable opinions. Google Print is a technology that analyzes useful combinations of knowledge while Google cache is a vast receptacle of human knowledge.
Currently the technology is really basic but once the computerization reaches a certain level, the chains of reasoning and knowledge manipulation leading from raw ideas towards deeply creative works can be studied. This study can lead to a set of rules that suggest efficient or powerful combinations of ideas.
Will this lead to computer understanding or computer creativity? Creativity can be simulated but understanding is more difficult to evaluate. For one thing, if suggestions of computer creativity occur, a major effort in computer understanding will have to be done. A computer can behave as though it understands fundamental axioms of geometry and set theory, especially those axioms that are used in every day activities. Essentially a computer would enumerate small objects. A class in C++ is made of a data structure and a set of methods. If a computer can enumerate and evaluate small data structures along with short methods, it will basically sort objects according to any programmer-controlled criteria. Then the computer can use the most interesting classes, which lie at the extremes of the sort order, to manage inputs from the real world. The computer would exhibit a particular behavior, and if this behavior is constructive, it may be said to understand.
The other day I heard a name, Chindia. Who is this? Cynthia? No, it is the combined impacts of the economies China and India! The very symbolism of the third world being raised by technology to become an economic player. Now are people going to truck books into the hinterland or do they run cables? The cables will go in long before the books. My prediction is a system like Google Print will cause creativity, especially in the hyperactive developed countries, the likes of which have not often been seen. Chindia is capable of relegating more and more products into the dollar stores. What people have left to trade with is their creative output. Google Print enables Chindia to export their creativity too!!
I've been hearing other things, like "as it is above, so it is below." Human intelligence is being taxed to its limits for the sake of individual economic position while computer intelligence threatens to take over menial decision making. At the same time, the Internet will inhibit people from getting paid for their labors! What is the world coming to? Well, regardless of who should be paid, which is the distribution of scarce resources, there are some fundamentals.
The most worthy recipients of wealth could be judged by natural market forces to be those that create the most effective knowledge, that is, knowledge publically computed to be the greatest necessity of a class of good or service. Like the game Monopoly everyone may periodically receive an equal sum of money and stock in all economic arenas. It may be possible for anyone to simply survive on this income, but the fiercest competitors would as always get the most. How much will the arts be worth? Perhaps next to nothing. Algorithms will exist to generate art of any caliber and people won't know the difference between human generated and computer generated. One day it may be the most amazing art will be computer generated. Art = algorithm.
We expect Google to reflect our own handling of knowledge and information. What we want to do with knowledge should be done by Google. It's an inevitable output of our creativity and intelligence. Isn't that what we've been taught as children, to be human and achieve more than the average animal?
I wonder what the problem is with Dell and AMD. A Dell system with AMD inside might be referred to in short as D-AMD.
AMD developed their CPUs to beat Intel on a clock cycle for clock cycle basis. But isn't it about time both companies show new architectural wonders? Of course, they don't want to quit the market immediately after all the investment to make dual core processors running almost 4 GHz but Intel is reaching the limits of power consumption so what else is coming?
I never thought I would play Russian Roulette. Meteors do make good bullets but have missed so far. I've been hit by the odd car. All the same, I've never bagged a deer and I would like to experience this element of culture in case fate is against me.
Click.
Click. Click. Click.
can obtain the information from them when they need it (say, when they find a fake twenty with the dot pattern embedded)
Dots representing a pattern. Do you hear any bells ringing? Try SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. That's right. What we've got is a totally new definition of SETI@Home, only they're out there and they're trying to communicate. So, what's our response?
First of all, in Wikipedia you are not supposed to be subjective. If there is any contention, present an opinion supported by expert arguments. In the case of the undecided, present both points of view and note the existing debate. Further mention of any ongoing research into the issue would be informative.
Just hold on for a minute!
Wikipedia is far from a thousand monkeys pounding on typewriters. Yes, some contributors are not the most experienced, but if many contributors, even those ignorant about a particular aspect of knowledge, try to self edit and get the details right, over time the result will be so positive that conductive breakdown will occur and lightning will happen.
Consider this. When Hardy saw Ramanujan's for the first time, he figured that "a single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, for if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them". Similarly, Wikipedia info is no joke - there are so many serious articles that people put enormous effort into. This should encourage anyone who really cares about any shortcoming to put some work into making the marginal improvements that ultimately benefit us all.
A message to people who have poor communications skills - just express yourself. Do not give in to embarrassment. Put in your knowledge and take a look at other articles. Even copying someone else's style will enable you to enhance your input. If someone edits your work, that's supposed to be a good thing, as long as you maintain the attitude of writing with higher and higher quality.
Somehow the wrong moderation was sent so I'll post something and cancel my moderation in this topic.
It is possible, very possible, that Bill Gates has some expectation of benefit to Microsoft. Rather than finding fault with Bill or raise questions about conflict of interest or even contemplate that Bill ought to return some cash into the needier aspects of computing, I'll suggest that from an objective view Microsoft has made contributions to computing industry worth preserving. Microsoft products typically have not been sold as luxury items and I doubt a big donation was intended to attract people with overly expensive displays. Any presentation of Microsoft or the impacts of Microsoft will likely be costly so give Bill a chance to pay for some of it. Bill could have paid for the entire museum but he made a fairly proportionate contribution. Jobs for artists and tourism. No biggie.
Break out the aluminium foil
Not to worry. If you don't have an oven, you can still use the foil to wrap your pillow or your head.
This doesn't mean you should go round feasting on raw burgers, but more importantly it does mean that it's not a big deal if your child (God forbid) plays outside, scrapes their knee or rolls in the mud. Actually, by keeping them inside your sanitised bubble you put them more at risk of developing asthma and other allergies, as studies have shown.
:) Does anyone know if UV is currently being used to any success in food processing or water purification? A focused beam may be more effective at any rate - but could it make food radioactive?
Well, perhaps raw burgers will be possible. Mind over matter indeed, especially if you eat edible raw burger
Waxing prophetically, soldiers will be more willing to fight in jungles. Or governments will be more willing to send troops.
The possibilities for disease treatment - zap specific cells or viruses.
There is a balance between overuse of antibacterial products and hygiene. Vaccines, clean operating rooms, and prophylaxis have helped people live longer and stronger.
Devices that kill germs may allow people to treat themselves in times where no professional is available. People who can't pay for treatment will have some recourse.
Astronauts on the moon, going to Mars, or even leaving the solar system will have another essential tool.
You have begged the question I never wanted asked. I'll have to see if I can even write with anything.
That was sure funny.
A professor once explained that engineering requires advanced study by saying that even the task of assembling a television is not possible without some understanding - if one were to just put the TV parts in a box and shake the box, the result won't be a television.
Random parts may be stretching things, but what about a different kind of delivery model for geek gear where the system is constructible at random? Put the parts in a box, push the box down the stairs a few times and the output is bingo! a completely assembled item with a modicum of chaotic appearance. Not very realistic, but it'll kind of render to mythology the idea that ignorant people can't assemble devices. Also think of the manufacturing and military possibilities: dump a grab bag of parts into a crate and they will self-assemble while in transport.
Now, in the nanotech future these notions will be fairly degenerate but for the bored, we can make component interfaces a bit more idiot proof.
The user is free to do with his copy
technically if not totally legally including installation on multiple boxen. If a blank PC is considered to be just as profitable to Dell as a PC without Windows it is fairly clear that Dell must be paying next to nothing to Micro$oft for each copy.
Micro$oft is probably regarding the supposed lack of revenues from Dell as sheer marketing cost. It's likely also that higher end machines pay off more to Microsoft though since they aren't being sold to poor/penny-pinching people.
Corollary - what's the difference to Microsoft if they just sold Windows at very affordable prices? Standalone Windows pricing is just to appease the trustbusters
The question begged is what is Microsoft getting out of all this? Is it really worth it to be competing with open source operating system at an equivalent price? Will the ultimate operating system be open source? If you buy from Dell you're not paying more. This is just the first PC offering from Dell with no Windows. Quite possibly the economy of scale for entry-level machines having Windows included actually cost LESS!! It's all about warranty and support infrastructure, perhaps. Let's see what happens with later machines as Moore's law drives prices lower and lower. If Microsoft seeks to build higher level software while leaving the operating system to the public domain, it'll be an interesting world.
do just fine in outer space wearing nothing but a face mask?
You're talking abuot my lingerie, you insensitive clod!
No worries. By the time most people get around to Vista the base requirements will be affordable, if Moore's law has any sustainability.
What can I say? With Basic you can't have your cake and eat it too. I started learning programming with Applesoft Basic, and naming was hellish. No matter what names you used, they all referred to the same name whenever the first two characters are the same.
I say, use arrays.
But what does it matter anyways how you name things? Reality and interpretation are two different things. An interpreted language merely represents reality, and a storm will hit you regardless of its presence in a symbol table.
Because I'm a Mandriva.
According to Big bang theory space itself, which is what you can drive the USS Enterprise through, sprouted from the originating singularity, along with the other stuff in the universe. Now to us, especially without instrumentation, space is perceived as uniform and 3 dimensional, basically as far as you can see.
However, we are easily fooled creatures. We may believe that space grows at approximately the speed of light in all directions, if inflation never occurred. Then the Enterprise can go to any point in the space but never reach the boundary since it is moving at light speed away from the centre. If the Enterprise turned on its warp drive though, it would find that it may run out of space to move in just like a train on a track reaching the end of the track.
But space is really what? Who can really know? We are inside. It may be nothing more than a fixed volume inside a larger universe and everything inside is just shrinking and giving us the illusion that space itself is growing.
In many ways we see fractals in nature - self similarity at smaller and smaller scales. Perhaps we can see the structure of the universe in a local phenomenon. Do we see things actually shrinking anywhere? We see objects under construction or growth where the components maintain their size while the overall dimension increases. But now we have computer components where data densities and circuits are shrinking albeit from generation to generation while the outside casing hardly changes.
Space itself emerging from the big bang singularlty seems really counterintuitive to me. It's plausible but not really sensible. After all it's very natural for space to just exist without bound. Yet quantum mechanics suggests that at small scales matter can appear and disappear momentarily, but this theory is considered only to be applicable inside the space that we are in, and no theories are assumed for the space outside our space.