Well, business might not have police etc. but they can buy it. The gouvernment is a service provider...and it provides it to those where the people running that service provider see the most benefit for themselves. And that just happens to be the big business (or neccessarily is) most of the time, except when some lifestock for votes is needed. But that is irrevelant now, since the vote counting is in the hands of business now too.
Then why is it still around? Considering that you cannot get rid of it altogether after load, that you cannot really call BIOS functions without switching to real mode, that the IRQ setup is still done in the BIOS and fixed (no matter how many transformations Windows does with it afterwards...another source of endless joy in finding errors). Sure-Big parts get unloaded after bootup. Nonetheless we still have the whole lower 1MB of system memory cluttered up with memory areas that cannot be used and cannot be moved with some stripes of virtually unusable free memory inbetween.
If they scrap the BIOS and do all the dirty things the x386 architechture requires in the Firmware, and the OS diesn't have to deal with that in the first place we might get a more reasonable system. But that also means you cannot use unmodified standard hardware you put in any Wintel machine in there.
Especially the "Windows XP installs without a hitch " makes me think hard. That means there is a normal BIOS, that also means segmented memory, thaold 640k limit A20 gate, realmode bootup, completely messed up ACPI implementations, no relible and stadrad way to get hardware information from the firmware...all doors for all the Problems we all so love with our Wintel machines are open.
Just as I said before... Apple basically gave up building good harware.
You can't blame any technology on for how it's put to use. It's always humans that use any way and means they have to exploit everything more efficiently.
Like they say...guns don't kill people, people kill people. And while controlling guns makes killing other people harder for most people, and thus will reduce the death toll, it certainly won't chnage anything about humans being what they are.
The only way to make thiw world a better place is to get rid of mankind. And the only thing you have to do to achive that is lean back and watch.
You're right. Publicly funded research should be abolished. Nothing that has ever come out of any public university should be available for free. Who needs such things as theory of relativity, quantum theory, Space programs with all the technology coming from it.
Give me abreak...there is too much work that needs to be done, but that no company would do, because it doesn't pay off quickly enough. See, I'm not even saying not paying off. Just not paying off in the same year, or the next year. See all the hoopla about the cell processor. That was a joint venture of 3 of the biggest private corporations out there...and one of the biggest undertakings of private enterprises. The investment was something like 2 billions, the timeframe was something like 4 years. That is about the most extreme limit any private research and enginieering project would go. Any research, that needs more time and dedication simply wouldn't exist without payment of the gouvernment.
They may not be faster, due to a lack of investment in that area. But they certainly perform better, Watt per Watt.
8 Watt Notebook Processor with enough punch for anything you do with notebooks (yes, even normal gaming)
20 Watt Desktop Processors with enough punch for anything you do on a Desktop?
40 Watt Workstation Processors, with enough punch to do anything you do on a Workstation?
Let me tell you, 20% - 40% of the power consumption is more noticable on your payroll than 10%-20% more performance are in any everyday computer work. A silent system is more important to usability than 10 more fps in UT2003. You can keep your water cooled monstrosities. Or your 6lb laptops with 2 hours battery life. A Powerbook can crunch more number with one charge than any Intel Notebrick.
It's knowing that nothing will have the chance to replace x86 architecture anytime soon (except Cell is really as awesome as the hype).
The steam engine made meachanical energy usable, affordable and abundant. The x86 made computing usable, affordable and abundant. But we just don't use steam engines anymore...since there are better things around.
It's like we never had switched to Otto and Diesel and electro motors, becasue they are not compatible with coal...
All the insane things you have to do and puti in silicon on the chip to make an x86 system run...just to be able to still run code that isn't really used anymore for 15-20 years (and if it's still used, then certainly not on a Pentium or anything beyond that).
Modern x86 CPUs may be faster than othwer modern CPUs. Modern Steam engines can be faster than modern Diesel engines too. You just have to invest insane amounts...and they will never be as efficient.
Well, mainstream media has an army of professional headhunters wtaching the queen every second. But they don't have an army of Zealots watching every move of Steve's lips and anus.
So that's why we have less Royal rumors and non-stries here, but much much more Apple rumors and non-stories.
That being said, I have a Power Mac and an XServe. But that is the only and last Apple Hardware I will have. They announced last week, that they won't make good hardware anymore.
Well, a booming marked isn't neccessarily a good working market.
A good working market would also cleanse itself from crap. That obviously involves times where there is recession. The.com bubble was a sign af a good working market. Microsoft still being around is a sign of a badly working market.
Well, Apple might have built good computers. With Intel Chips that won't be possible anymore, simply because of the immense amount of workarounds and dirty hacks required to make it working.
Sure, the cases and the GUI will still look all shiny and be really functional. But the insides will all be foul. The "Just Works" won't be true for apple anymore in the near future.
Yes, I do assembly programming. x86 back in the days, but also 68000, ARM and PPC. And while it's only very little code I do by hand (as assmebly programming should be), x86 just isn't fun (although you get the most info on it on the net). But more important than just the assembly programming itself is, what possibilities the architecture gives you for the operating system. See, not being able to properly access the firmware without switching to 16bit real mode and all the other little nuisances. It isn't primarily speed that matters. It is primarily how the architecture you have to deal with cripples innovation and new approaches to system design, because you have to do so many workarounds.
To be liked/loved for what you are, you have to have money and/or be popular. If you are neither you have to act like something that you aren't, e.g. lie.
If you don't want to do that...my pasty hand isn't that unattractive.
Hey...things will get better by just leaning back and watching the show. That's all you have to do. Mankind will vanish sooner or later, and all will be better.
Well, my two reasons to switch to Apple a few months ago (apart from usual Windows frustration), was is doesn't use x86 CPUs and is has OpenFirmware.
Both will get dropped. iwon't buy any Mac with an x86 CPU or without OpenFirmware. Simple as that.
Anyone who knows a little about Chip design or actually just did some Assembly programming on more than just x86 knows what a crippled and cumbersome Archtecture x86 is. And anyone who knows a little about PC Startup knows what cumbersome and crippled process the whole BIOS (in combination with the good ol' blessed x86 real mode) is.
The recent Slashdot story about the Mach kernel with all the wrappers around it being an intense Performance hog did make me think a little. Mircrokernels rule, Mach is just an outdated implementation put into wrappers to make it backward compatible. Now Apple computers will have the same sticky things happening on the CPU level as well.
I guess I'll start building my own computer. ARM Kits aren't that expensive. And with a few friends in manufactoring I can put them in shiny cases too. Or that new open Cell Platform could be interesting too.
I was one of the best of my year. And ever since 5th grade I never did any homework (except for special projects). I got enough bad grades for not doing homework...but my excellent other grades more than made up for that.
Don't work hard to get your work done. Work hard on your abilities, so you you have no problems to get your work done.
Those of you who want to take away democracy just because your candidate lost an election can kiss my hairy ass!
True that! This is no reason. The real reason is, that it actually doesn't matter which candidate is elected. And if it matters at all then its always just a "anyone but this one" decision.
I say it again...every doorman has to go through employment tests. The head of state gets elected...
At least you have a proper command prompt there, in case something went wrong...which is rare enough.
Was a Linux and Windows guy until last November, when my barely a year old Wintel Machine broke down (and I mean completely broke down, not just one of the usual nuisances you get at least once a day that cost you only 30-60 min to fix). That it only takes me half a day to computer sweep the computer and the resinstall the os (in case I don't get infected before I got to downloaded and install the latest patches) and all drivers and applications again doesn't mean it's user friendly. Well, I bought a PowerMac last November and dumped my Windows. The only hard crash that needed a reboot I ever had since then was a serious World of Warcraft crash. And the only nuisance I had was, that it took me a while for me to make OS X ignore my unpartitioned 2nd hard drive (I do strange things with my Mac I could never do with a PC, thanks to Open Firmware) on boot, and not asking me to partition it. Other than that...this is the most pleasant computer experience I ever had. That doen't mean there are still a lot of things I don't like...but that is just because I'm a maniac.
Ah...I'd love all companies to turn into banks...and then find the technichal means for controlled energy/matter conversion. Once we have Star Trek replicators and beaming all markets and all business is gone...yay! No more ads! No more exploitation! No more annoying business people! No more need to earn money. Us slashdotters still wouldn't get laid under any circumstances...but hey, we have holodecks then.
Isn't it strange, that every major player in any business has at least on product many people feel passionate about, and that are undoubtely admired by all in the know? I will stick to IT for now, but HP had the pocket calculators and really good printers. IBM has the mainframes and ThinkPads and more. Apple has so many strongly felt for products that it gets sappy... But can for any sake not think of any Microsoft product that gives me or anyone I know the dreamy eyes...
The thing is, when some of those "coding is a destiny types" actually get a job they pretty quickly become the workforce of whole departments, who actually get work done.
If you only hire people who look good on the jobmarket, who sell themselves well, you either get bogus posers who don't get anything done, or if they are really good (yes, sometimes looking good and being good coincides), they pretty soon find a better job, since the others notice too.
"The gulf between the people making software and the people using it is widening,"
Now, the reason for that is basically that more and more users with no idea of computers are able to use it and use it. So it's not a sign of a Software designer failure but a sign that Software designers are doing "The Right Thing" TM and successfully so.
So the following quote
"Over time, software has come to demand an impossibly high level of computer literacy" is basically wrong. Just compare it to the times when the interface was binary machine code.
The base intetion of the article I agree with though...the Safari Engine is much mure advanced than KHTML, due to more pragmatism in development.
As long as you build software on operating systems who still are stuck in the concepts developed 30 years ago, you have to be pragmatic. Basically implementing anything there is a workaround.
Being white is also a genetical illness that makes you prone to sunburns and less able to live in certain climates. It should be treated, since it prevents you from functioning properly in this world.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? Innovation? Since when was x86 innovation? All they did is incorporate innovations from other architectures and and manufactoring advances.
Well, business might not have police etc. but they can buy it. The gouvernment is a service provider...and it provides it to those where the people running that service provider see the most benefit for themselves. And that just happens to be the big business (or neccessarily is) most of the time, except when some lifestock for votes is needed. But that is irrevelant now, since the vote counting is in the hands of business now too.
Then why is it still around? Considering that you cannot get rid of it altogether after load, that you cannot really call BIOS functions without switching to real mode, that the IRQ setup is still done in the BIOS and fixed (no matter how many transformations Windows does with it afterwards...another source of endless joy in finding errors). Sure-Big parts get unloaded after bootup. Nonetheless we still have the whole lower 1MB of system memory cluttered up with memory areas that cannot be used and cannot be moved with some stripes of virtually unusable free memory inbetween.
If they scrap the BIOS and do all the dirty things the x386 architechture requires in the Firmware, and the OS diesn't have to deal with that in the first place we might get a more reasonable system. But that also means you cannot use unmodified standard hardware you put in any Wintel machine in there.
Especially the "Windows XP installs without a hitch " makes me think hard. That means there is a normal BIOS, that also means segmented memory, thaold 640k limit A20 gate, realmode bootup, completely messed up ACPI implementations, no relible and stadrad way to get hardware information from the firmware...all doors for all the Problems we all so love with our Wintel machines are open.
... Apple basically gave up building good harware.
Just as I said before
You can't blame any technology on for how it's put to use. It's always humans that use any way and means they have to exploit everything more efficiently.
Like they say...guns don't kill people, people kill people. And while controlling guns makes killing other people harder for most people, and thus will reduce the death toll, it certainly won't chnage anything about humans being what they are.
The only way to make thiw world a better place is to get rid of mankind. And the only thing you have to do to achive that is lean back and watch.
You're right. Publicly funded research should be abolished. Nothing that has ever come out of any public university should be available for free. Who needs such things as theory of relativity, quantum theory, Space programs with all the technology coming from it.
Give me abreak...there is too much work that needs to be done, but that no company would do, because it doesn't pay off quickly enough. See, I'm not even saying not paying off. Just not paying off in the same year, or the next year.
See all the hoopla about the cell processor. That was a joint venture of 3 of the biggest private corporations out there...and one of the biggest undertakings of private enterprises. The investment was something like 2 billions, the timeframe was something like 4 years. That is about the most extreme limit any private research and enginieering project would go. Any research, that needs more time and dedication simply wouldn't exist without payment of the gouvernment.
They may not be faster, due to a lack of investment in that area. But they certainly perform better, Watt per Watt.
8 Watt Notebook Processor with enough punch for anything you do with notebooks (yes, even normal gaming)
20 Watt Desktop Processors with enough punch for anything you do on a Desktop?
40 Watt Workstation Processors, with enough punch to do anything you do on a Workstation?
Let me tell you, 20% - 40% of the power consumption is more noticable on your payroll than 10%-20% more performance are in any everyday computer work. A silent system is more important to usability than 10 more fps in UT2003. You can keep your water cooled monstrosities. Or your 6lb laptops with 2 hours battery life. A Powerbook can crunch more number with one charge than any Intel Notebrick.
It's not just the Assembly.
It's knowing that nothing will have the chance to replace x86 architecture anytime soon (except Cell is really as awesome as the hype).
The steam engine made meachanical energy usable, affordable and abundant. The x86 made computing usable, affordable and abundant. But we just don't use steam engines anymore...since there are better things around.
It's like we never had switched to Otto and Diesel and electro motors, becasue they are not compatible with coal...
All the insane things you have to do and puti in silicon on the chip to make an x86 system run...just to be able to still run code that isn't really used anymore for 15-20 years (and if it's still used, then certainly not on a Pentium or anything beyond that).
Modern x86 CPUs may be faster than othwer modern CPUs. Modern Steam engines can be faster than modern Diesel engines too. You just have to invest insane amounts...and they will never be as efficient.
Well, mainstream media has an army of professional headhunters wtaching the queen every second. But they don't have an army of Zealots watching every move of Steve's lips and anus.
So that's why we have less Royal rumors and non-stries here, but much much more Apple rumors and non-stories.
That being said, I have a Power Mac and an XServe. But that is the only and last Apple Hardware I will have. They announced last week, that they won't make good hardware anymore.
Well, a booming marked isn't neccessarily a good working market.
.com bubble was a sign af a good working market. Microsoft still being around is a sign of a badly working market.
A good working market would also cleanse itself from crap. That obviously involves times where there is recession. The
Well, Apple might have built good computers. With Intel Chips that won't be possible anymore, simply because of the immense amount of workarounds and dirty hacks required to make it working.
Sure, the cases and the GUI will still look all shiny and be really functional. But the insides will all be foul. The "Just Works" won't be true for apple anymore in the near future.
Yes, I do assembly programming. x86 back in the days, but also 68000, ARM and PPC. And while it's only very little code I do by hand (as assmebly programming should be), x86 just isn't fun (although you get the most info on it on the net).
But more important than just the assembly programming itself is, what possibilities the architecture gives you for the operating system. See, not being able to properly access the firmware without switching to 16bit real mode and all the other little nuisances. It isn't primarily speed that matters. It is primarily how the architecture you have to deal with cripples innovation and new approaches to system design, because you have to do so many workarounds.
See...that's it.
To be liked/loved for what you are, you have to have money and/or be popular. If you are neither you have to act like something that you aren't, e.g. lie.
If you don't want to do that...my pasty hand isn't that unattractive.
Hey...things will get better by just leaning back and watching the show. That's all you have to do. Mankind will vanish sooner or later, and all will be better.
Well, my two reasons to switch to Apple a few months ago (apart from usual Windows frustration), was is doesn't use x86 CPUs and is has OpenFirmware.
Both will get dropped. iwon't buy any Mac with an x86 CPU or without OpenFirmware. Simple as that.
Anyone who knows a little about Chip design or actually just did some Assembly programming on more than just x86 knows what a crippled and cumbersome Archtecture x86 is.
And anyone who knows a little about PC Startup knows what cumbersome and crippled process the whole BIOS (in combination with the good ol' blessed x86 real mode) is.
The recent Slashdot story about the Mach kernel with all the wrappers around it being an intense Performance hog did make me think a little. Mircrokernels rule, Mach is just an outdated implementation put into wrappers to make it backward compatible. Now Apple computers will have the same sticky things happening on the CPU level as well.
I guess I'll start building my own computer. ARM Kits aren't that expensive. And with a few friends in manufactoring I can put them in shiny cases too. Or that new open Cell Platform could be interesting too.
Great...No x86 and the programmable firmmware, those were my reasons to switch to Apple last year. I think I'll have to roll my own computers...
I was one of the best of my year. And ever since 5th grade I never did any homework (except for special projects). I got enough bad grades for not doing homework...but my excellent other grades more than made up for that.
Don't work hard to get your work done. Work hard on your abilities, so you you have no problems to get your work done.
Those of you who want to take away democracy just because your candidate lost an election can kiss my hairy ass!
True that! This is no reason. The real reason is, that it actually doesn't matter which candidate is elected. And if it matters at all then its always just a "anyone but this one" decision.
I say it again...every doorman has to go through employment tests. The head of state gets elected...
At least you have a proper command prompt there, in case something went wrong...which is rare enough.
Was a Linux and Windows guy until last November, when my barely a year old Wintel Machine broke down (and I mean completely broke down, not just one of the usual nuisances you get at least once a day that cost you only 30-60 min to fix). That it only takes me half a day to computer sweep the computer and the resinstall the os (in case I don't get infected before I got to downloaded and install the latest patches) and all drivers and applications again doesn't mean it's user friendly.
Well, I bought a PowerMac last November and dumped my Windows. The only hard crash that needed a reboot I ever had since then was a serious World of Warcraft crash. And the only nuisance I had was, that it took me a while for me to make OS X ignore my unpartitioned 2nd hard drive (I do strange things with my Mac I could never do with a PC, thanks to Open Firmware) on boot, and not asking me to partition it.
Other than that...this is the most pleasant computer experience I ever had. That doen't mean there are still a lot of things I don't like...but that is just because I'm a maniac.
Ah...I'd love all companies to turn into banks...and then find the technichal means for controlled energy/matter conversion. Once we have Star Trek replicators and beaming all markets and all business is gone...yay! No more ads! No more exploitation! No more annoying business people! No more need to earn money. Us slashdotters still wouldn't get laid under any circumstances...but hey, we have holodecks then.
Isn't it strange, that every major player in any business has at least on product many people feel passionate about, and that are undoubtely admired by all in the know? I will stick to IT for now, but HP had the pocket calculators and really good printers. IBM has the mainframes and ThinkPads and more. Apple has so many strongly felt for products that it gets sappy...
But can for any sake not think of any Microsoft product that gives me or anyone I know the dreamy eyes...
The thing is, when some of those "coding is a destiny types" actually get a job they pretty quickly become the workforce of whole departments, who actually get work done.
If you only hire people who look good on the jobmarket, who sell themselves well, you either get bogus posers who don't get anything done, or if they are really good (yes, sometimes looking good and being good coincides), they pretty soon find a better job, since the others notice too.
All we need is another multi billion dollar company with a reason to lobby for invading Cuba...
"The gulf between the people making software and the people using it is widening,"
Now, the reason for that is basically that more and more users with no idea of computers are able to use it and use it. So it's not a sign of a Software designer failure but a sign that Software designers are doing "The Right Thing" TM and successfully so.
So the following quote
"Over time, software has come to demand an impossibly high level of computer literacy" is basically wrong. Just compare it to the times when the interface was binary machine code.
The base intetion of the article I agree with though...the Safari Engine is much mure advanced than KHTML, due to more pragmatism in development.
As long as you build software on operating systems who still are stuck in the concepts developed 30 years ago, you have to be pragmatic. Basically implementing anything there is a workaround.
Being white is also a genetical illness that makes you prone to sunburns and less able to live in certain climates. It should be treated, since it prevents you from functioning properly in this world.