And then the boss complains to the IT person that the computer is broken. The IT grunt can't figure it out - maybe it is a virus? Run the virus software! it didn't fix it! Hmm! Well, this computer is broken, we need to buy a new one.
Nope, I'm not exaggerating... When you have an algorithm like ray tracing that needs random access to a huge data set it is very disruptive to scrunch it into a SPE.
A company I work with was in negotiations with IBM and Sony's approval of the potential sale was an issue. They refused to sell us any Cell chips by themselves and refused to make available any data sheets - even to know what pins (balls) are power - even though we could figure that out by taking apart a PS3. However they would sell us pre-made motherboards.
It would have been cheaper to just buy a thousand ps3's and rip out the motherboards, run linux on them and use the USB ports as I/O to other custom boards.
And not just general code, it falls down on any problem that requires a non-trivial amount of memory to be available to each Cell SPE. It is like each SPE is an Altivec engine running only with cache memory and you must manually manage the cache completely. It is probably cheaper and easier to just stick two quad core intel cpu's into a system, and you'll get a better price/performance ratio especially when you consider the price of development to the arcane architecture.
PLUS the astonishing thing is that you can't buy Cell chips on their own! they don't sell them! they have no datasheets on them. IBM will only sell you large quantitiess of pre-made motherboards that have a cell on them for a huge cost per board, and they'll charge you $1 million dollars to design the board in the first place. The reason is that Sony and IBM co-designed the chip (Toshiba is involved too I think) and they have agreements where IBM won't sell to anyone without Sony approving it in case it may conflict with Sony's business interest.
Yes, at first the Cell looks/looked exciting, but after we went though the whole mess with IBM it just is not worth it or good enough.
So the presence of Internet Explorer's "SSL.DLL", which is encryption software, may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent! I KNEW microsoft was up to something fishy!
But microsoft IS thinking of their customers... The thing is, the users of the operating system are not their primary customers!
At some point, if their user base dwindles then their real customers will not be happy. But vista is typically not a choice anymore when someone buys a new non-apple computer. It is typically forced upon you...
And even though I own apple mac's, make no mistake, apple is poised to go even further than microsoft in these regards (I have to pay $1 to convert my own compositions into a ring tone, dtrace unable to trace itunes, code signing of iphone software). I hope I'm wrong.
But in the meantime I love my linux based asus eeepc ultra-ultra-portable laptop!!!
Reading from write-only registers would give you weird numbers. Then someone figured out that these numbers being read were the last byte being read at that time by the video circuitry. Using this concept, I could fill a horizontal line with an oddball text character, then run a tight loop which polls $c0x0. When it sees this special byte, it changes display modes to hires. Then it searches for another oddball character expected in a horizontal line in hires more. At that point, switch back to text mode.
The net result was a solid image with text mode up top and hires (or lores) mode at the bottom of the screen!
Problems like this are more common and varied than most people think - this is why I make a point of telling people that typical email services are neither secure nor guaranteed - and when important discussion emails are received, please email acknowledgements, for I will not assume you got my message until you do.
Very true, but sometimes the people in the company doing the purchasing really do think at the time of purchase that they do not want to change the purchased company at all...
And then in 6 to 12 months, reality sets in and the business requirements start affecting things. It starts with synchronization of Human Resources policies and procedures, then I.T. Infrastructure, and then when any crucial decision is to be made by the purchased company, the owners of the purchasing company (rightfully) assert control.
It will be interesting to see where the focus changes at trolltech aka Nokia in the next year.
Unfortunately, their code signing efforts on the iPhone implies other reasons.
Currently, their code signing on Leopard is just fine.
But they always have the option in the future to close the dtrace hack hole (and others) by enforcing code signing on drivers and itunes.
Hopefully they won't... but the infrastructure is there and just like on iphone, if there is a compelling business need to lock things down (like ring tones), they will.
But all they have to do is make the kernel only allow the syscalls that dtrace needs to applications signed by apple... This is not hard for them to do, and is similar to what they have done on the iPhone and the signing there.
For now, yes... But apple has been in the process of creating cryptographically secure signing and verification of system applications. The next step for them will be to have system tools like this be executed ONLY if they are the unmodified, signed applications that apple originally released.
When that happens, it wouldn't matter if you recompile dtrace - your modified version would just not run.
for info on the current code signing specification from apple (which is pretty much benign for now), see:
You know, I am unashamedly both a linux and a mac fan-boy... I was waiting with baited breath for today's announcement as I have both a 12" powerbook g4 and a 15" powerbook waiting to be retired...
I have been a bit disappointed.
I wish Apple had made an ultraportable which competed well with the Toshiba R500.... The R500 with the trans-flective display is very tempting. I wish I didn't have to pay the microsoft tax with it as I would run Linux only on it.
I was hoping for an Apple ultraportable with a smaller, higher resolution trans-flective screen. I thought about it hard and was ready to plunk down my money today, but the 'thin-ness' of the Macbook Air is not really important to me - Even though it does look 'sexy'... Portability and usability outdoors is more important for me. If it were a 12" or 11" screen I'd be a lot happier with it even though the lack of firewire is a problem for me.
What you say may or may not be true, but what IS true is that Intel was caught being dishonest and broke agreements with OLPC and as a result was kicked out of the OLPC's group.
What do YOU do when business partners are dishonest and break agreements with YOU?
Having to teach inexperienced devs how to deal with variable sized record payloads is better than having the hardware restrict your packet contents such that software features become impossible to implement...
Someone who puts a wood stove in her van and lives in the woods in it is probably not that bright, would not have much money and would also not have a mailing address for them to send the bill to...
Slashdot Mirror
But then prince would sue them for copyright infringement on his song....
--jeffk++
Actually, Apple DID evaluate linux before NeXT became MacOSX. They ported linux to apple powerpc hardware under the mach microkernel in 1996.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux
--jeffk++
And then the boss complains to the IT person that the computer is broken. The IT grunt can't figure it out - maybe it is a virus? Run the virus software! it didn't fix it! Hmm! Well, this computer is broken, we need to buy a new one.
Don't laugh, I saw this kind of thing happen.
--jeffk++
Okay then, which xml parsers properly cache the DTD's and which ones don't? Which ones automatically download by default?
--jeffk++
Nope, I'm not exaggerating... When you have an algorithm like ray tracing that needs random access to a huge data set it is very disruptive to scrunch it into a SPE.
A company I work with was in negotiations with IBM and Sony's approval of the potential sale was an issue. They refused to sell us any Cell chips by themselves and refused to make available any data sheets - even to know what pins (balls) are power - even though we could figure that out by taking apart a PS3. However they would sell us pre-made motherboards.
It would have been cheaper to just buy a thousand ps3's and rip out the motherboards, run linux on them and use the USB ports as I/O to other custom boards.
--jeffk++
And not just general code, it falls down on any problem that requires a non-trivial amount of memory to be available to each Cell SPE. It is like each SPE is an Altivec engine running only with cache memory and you must manually manage the cache completely. It is probably cheaper and easier to just stick two quad core intel cpu's into a system, and you'll get a better price/performance ratio especially when you consider the price of development to the arcane architecture.
PLUS the astonishing thing is that you can't buy Cell chips on their own! they don't sell them! they have no datasheets on them. IBM will only sell you large quantitiess of pre-made motherboards that have a cell on them for a huge cost per board, and they'll charge you $1 million dollars to design the board in the first place. The reason is that Sony and IBM co-designed the chip (Toshiba is involved too I think) and they have agreements where IBM won't sell to anyone without Sony approving it in case it may conflict with Sony's business interest.
Yes, at first the Cell looks/looked exciting, but after we went though the whole mess with IBM it just is not worth it or good enough.
--jeffk++
Typical windows laptops nowadays come shipped with hidden partitions which contain the system restore cd.... So they don't add up anyways.
--jeffk++
So the presence of Internet Explorer's "SSL.DLL", which is encryption software, may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent! I KNEW microsoft was up to something fishy!
--jeffk++
But microsoft IS thinking of their customers... The thing is, the users of the operating system are not their primary customers!
At some point, if their user base dwindles then their real customers will not be happy. But vista is typically not a choice anymore when someone buys a new non-apple computer. It is typically forced upon you...
And even though I own apple mac's, make no mistake, apple is poised to go even further than microsoft in these regards (I have to pay $1 to convert my own compositions into a ring tone, dtrace unable to trace itunes, code signing of iphone software). I hope I'm wrong.
But in the meantime I love my linux based asus eeepc ultra-ultra-portable laptop!!!
--jeffk++
Reading from write-only registers would give you weird numbers. Then someone figured out that these numbers being read were the last byte being read at that time by the video circuitry. Using this concept, I could fill a horizontal line with an oddball text character, then run a tight loop which polls $c0x0. When it sees this special byte, it changes display modes to hires. Then it searches for another oddball character expected in a horizontal line in hires more. At that point, switch back to text mode.
The net result was a solid image with text mode up top and hires (or lores) mode at the bottom of the screen!
Now, get off my lawn! http://www.jdkoftinoff.com/main/Information/About_Jeff_Koftinoff/1979_Article
--jeffk++
Problems like this are more common and varied than most people think - this is why I make a point of telling people that typical email services are neither secure nor guaranteed - and when important discussion emails are received, please email acknowledgements, for I will not assume you got my message until you do.
--jeffk++
Very true, but sometimes the people in the company doing the purchasing really do think at the time of purchase that they do not want to change the purchased company at all...
And then in 6 to 12 months, reality sets in and the business requirements start affecting things. It starts with synchronization of Human Resources policies and procedures, then I.T. Infrastructure, and then when any crucial decision is to be made by the purchased company, the owners of the purchasing company (rightfully) assert control.
It will be interesting to see where the focus changes at trolltech aka Nokia in the next year.
--jeffk++
Unfortunately, their code signing efforts on the iPhone implies other reasons.
Currently, their code signing on Leopard is just fine.
But they always have the option in the future to close the dtrace hack hole (and others) by enforcing code signing on drivers and itunes.
Hopefully they won't... but the infrastructure is there and just like on iphone, if there is a compelling business need to lock things down (like ring tones), they will.
--jeffk++
But all they have to do is make the kernel only allow the syscalls that dtrace needs to applications signed by apple... This is not hard for them to do, and is similar to what they have done on the iPhone and the signing there.
--jeffk++
For now, yes... But apple has been in the process of creating cryptographically secure signing and verification of system applications. The next step for them will be to have system tools like this be executed ONLY if they are the unmodified, signed applications that apple originally released.
When that happens, it wouldn't matter if you recompile dtrace - your modified version would just not run.
for info on the current code signing specification from apple (which is pretty much benign for now), see:
--jeffk++
You know, I am unashamedly both a linux and a mac fan-boy... I was waiting with baited breath for today's announcement as I have both a 12" powerbook g4 and a 15" powerbook waiting to be retired...
I have been a bit disappointed.
I wish Apple had made an ultraportable which competed well with the Toshiba R500.... The R500 with the trans-flective display is very tempting. I wish I didn't have to pay the microsoft tax with it as I would run Linux only on it.
I was hoping for an Apple ultraportable with a smaller, higher resolution trans-flective screen. I thought about it hard and was ready to plunk down my money today, but the 'thin-ness' of the Macbook Air is not really important to me - Even though it does look 'sexy'... Portability and usability outdoors is more important for me. If it were a 12" or 11" screen I'd be a lot happier with it even though the lack of firewire is a problem for me.
--jeffk++
What you say may or may not be true, but what IS true is that Intel was caught being dishonest and broke agreements with OLPC and as a result was kicked out of the OLPC's group.
What do YOU do when business partners are dishonest and break agreements with YOU?
--jeffk++
Having to teach inexperienced devs how to deal with variable sized record payloads is better than having the hardware restrict your packet contents such that software features become impossible to implement...
--jeffk++
You are incorrect.
Peru decided what they wanted, and it was the OLPC. Peru rejected the Intel offers even though they had the full ability to choose the intel options.
At no time in this deal did Negroponte decide what Peru wanted.
--jeffk++
Evolution is the right term - it certainly could not have been 'Intelligent Design!'
jeffk
That sounds like the apple tv commercial:
"If your printer doesn't work with Vista, BUY a new printer!"
--jeffk++
Where do these people get educated anyways? And how much of my tax dollars are going to pay for this incompetence?
This is such a simplistic error - it means that there are more simplistic errors hiding in the website as well, not only this one.
passport security is so important, why don't they audit the website BEFORE it goes live?
--jeffk++
Someone who puts a wood stove in her van and lives in the woods in it is probably not that bright, would not have much money and would also not have a mailing address for them to send the bill to...
jeffk
hmm.. Wouldn't it be more cost effective just to pay each of the insurgents half that and convert them to like us?
--jeffk++
About 10 years ago, a woman who lived in her Van did a good number on a gas station in my home town, Grand Forks, BC, Canada...
She pulled up to the gas station and started filling up her gas tank.
She did NOT put out the fire in her makeshift home made wood stove that was installed in her Van!
The fumes ignited and luckily no one was hurt, but the gas station was destroyed.
--jeffk++