But anyhow. I like AMD they are a good brand but to be honest their 6 core dose not undercut intel's 6 core.
If I R'd TFS correctly, by about $800 dollars. But you mean purely based on dick-swinging numbers I assume.:-P
See, for a lot of people (ie. non gamers and people not doing CPU intensive stuff) being CPU bound is rarely something they'll encounter. Multiple cores have the benefit of making the operating system more responsive since a busy app doesn't make the whole system crawl. My current Quad core has probably never had all four pegged at once, so I don't need faster. In fact, I'm not sure I've needed faster in a bunch of years.
Now, for me, the best way to get the most out of a machine is to put what sounds like an obscene amount of memory on it so it's future proof. You can survive software bloat if you piled on the memory up front.:-P
they'll be able to make even more money while providing less service
But, they're just being good capitalists and trying to maximize shareholder value and increase profitability on an annualized basis. Companies (mostly) exist to make money -- that's what they do.
Since people don't have much choice on who to go to, it would be nice if they allowed competitors to use the same lines.
There's two problems with that. Possibly more, but I'll stick to two.
1) Why would you equip someone to compete with you? Are you expecting altruism from them?
2) Do you think the data would magically travel to its destination without needing to travel over the telcos equipment and using their bandwidth and resources? They currently lease capacity to people to do this, and you think they should just give it away?
Seriously, I think telcos are evil greedy bastards too. But the economic and technical realities is they're not just going to give it away, and, they need to figure out how to do it cheaper every year so the executive bonuses can be paid out.
How much competition is up there? More competition would not hurt [the consumer]. Trouble is consumers do not know that things could be better for them.
But, Canada is a big place, and relatively sparsely populated. In the case of the telcos, they own the existing infrastructure -- they built it, they paid for it, and it costs them to operate it. It sucks, but how do you introduce competition in this domain without laying a crapload of new wires??
Bell is basically the old phone company, and the Cable companies own the rest of the connect-to-the-home infrastructure. How do you think someone is going to "compete" with Bell or the Cable company short of buying capacity from them, and selling it to consumers. Essentially, you get a slice of the pie, but you do so at the mercy of the company you buy from -- who, being a company, will eventually attempt to eat you.:-P
Competition against the phone and cable companies is actually hard to do.
This shit isn't physics, there are no absolutes in human affairs.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, I'm more relativist than those who believe in "absolute truth" would be happy about.
See, the problem about talking about "rights" in the context of any commercial activity is that commercial activity is not just about personal liberty. Both parties are free to choose to engage in the trade of goods, and determine the conditions under which they'll do it.
If I have an lemonade stand, I have the right to not sell to you. You don't have the right to buy from me if I don't want to sell it to you. That would basically mean you're taking it from me by force.
Now, don't take that to mean that I don't think what Comcast et al do is despicable, especially if they're the only game in town. Because that's not what I'm saying -- I would argue cable TV isn't a right, even in America.
I believe that true rights exist outside of any legal framework, but that likely without some framework to enforce them once we've decided what we think they are, we'd basically degenerate into savages in a short period of time.
I don't trust to the innate sense of fair-play among humans -- I assume everyone is likely looking out for themselves, and doesn't give a rats ass about you unless there's something keeping them in check. Civility only works because it keeps most people happy, and we like it -- but, it breaks down quickly.
Because the "lol Apples are for people that HAVE A LIFE" mentality is the most obnoxious thing to come out of the Apple vs. Everything else dichotomy.
OK, my bad for actually using the words "having a life".
But, the poster I was responding to was asking why on Earth anyone would own an iPad since you can't do and "work" on it. When he defined "work", he specifically mentioned lame stuff like Microsoft Office and a spreadsheet for crying out loud.
My point is that maybe, just maybe, people will be using the iPad as more of a utility and entertainment device, instead of as a tool for doing what is essentially chores. I also pointed out that the poster was essentially sounding like a proof of Apple's marketing campaign that stereo-types PC's as being all about the Office apps (which you can agree with or disagree with at your leisure).
On a site where literally hundreds of people are frothing at the mouth over the functionality of a device they can't see the merit of, don't want, and are convinced everyone is wrong and the people buying iPads must be insane... it's kind of amusing to be bitching about who has a life.
I never cease to be amused by the fact that people here on Slashdot have already made up their minds so strongly, that trying to explain a contrary position (regardless of if you're advocating it) causes people to disagree because they're no longer capable of thinking about it objectively.
Go back and read my post. I was merely trying to answer the poster's question and offer some perspective.
But, don't let any that get in the way of your whining about Apple. And, certainly, don't wonder what about this device is so compelling they've sold a million of then in 28 days.
That's a fancy way of saying you have to pay Apple $99 just to run your own applications, even ones that you developed for your own personal use.
That cut both ways. By restricting what applications can be installed on the device by some form of vetting procedure, they also cut down heavily on the likelihood of malware.
So, by restricting what everyone can do, they also curtail the malicious idiots out there. Which, is remarkably consistent with Apple trying to give their users a non-sucky experience with their products.
It says Apple violated a well-established social norm, aka, a "right".
You're describing a privilege that has been taken for granted and assumed to be a right.
And, really, as someone who can't really stand Flash... if you listen to what Jobs has said about Flash, and why it isn't really suited to the iPad (it makes web-based assumptions whereas the iPad is not just a web browser), IMO not supporting Flash was actually a good choice. (And, for the record, the only products I own are my iPods, so I'm not exactly a Mac fanboi.)
People don't like Apple because they're a closed down platform. The people who buy Apple like it because it gives a consistent, integrated experience that behaves like you'd expect without some of the warts. It's simple, easy to use, and does what they want it to.
You have a right to not buy Apple's product. Apple has the right to decide what features they want supported in their product. Everyone on Slashdot has a right to say whatever the heck they want about it and squeal about it however they choose. The rights pretty much end there in terms of Flash being supported on the iPad.
Why on earth would you want to use an iPad to browse the internet if you have a laptop? Tiny screen, no Flash support, no keyboard... when did it become hip to use crippled devices?
You know, if you're holding it at less than arms length, I suspect it's a pretty usable screen size since it' about the size of a book. I see people use their CrackBerry's for Google, and you'll notice they've got an even smaller screen.
As to flash, I don't have it installed on most of my browsers, so it's not like you're missing anything. I can't view flash on my current machine because I've chosen to do without it -- it' hardly mandatory. In fact, it's a bloody nuisance.
If you're truly browsing the internet, you mostly don't need a keyboard for the most part.
With a form factor more like a book, I can see sitting in a comfy chair looking up stuff on the internet or reading an e-book or what have you. And, with a purported 10 hour battery life, that's pretty good.
I'm not going to run out and buy one, but I'm keeping an eye on them -- might be something to ponder in a year or so if they come down in price.
You can do real work on a netbook, and by work I mean Microsoft Office and Quickbooks work.
You know, I think you've basically just proved Apple's marketing campaign for the last several years.
Usually the PC is saying they can do spreadsheets and other similar boring business type tasks. The Mac is more concerned about doing interesting things like managing photos and playing music and having a life.
To a lot of people, Microsoft Office and Quickbooks aren't things they want to do. Apple seems to have made a market about selling people devices which do fun things. And, yes, that likely is a whole new audience.
The fact they've sold a million in this timeframe means it's a big audience. I don't know what I'd do with one, but what I've seen of them makes me secretly want one -- I won't be buying one, but I do covet them.
Since you have a British-style parliament, aren't you able to do things like votes of no confidence to get rid of a PM (or any MP, for that matter)?
You do realize that in the last several years Canadians have had what feels like a bunch of elections -- I think it's three elections since 2006, but I'm not 100% sure. I have quite honestly lost track.
A vote of no-confidence (which has caused the last few elections) causes a new election, and ends up with almost the same relative (and geographic) distribution of party power as the previous one.
We've been dealing with a minority parliament for quite some years -- it's largely dysfunctional since the government uses confidence vote as brinkmanship (vote for my bill, or force an election now).
We're in a bit of a deadlock -- the government won't work with opposition, who disagree with almost everything the (for Canada) "right-wing" government advocates. Opposition can't disagree too strongly with the government, or risk causing an election.
We have effectively four parties in federal politics (and one of them would like to form their own country), and the relative voting hasn't changed much the last few times we've gone to the polls. So, all that happens from a vote of "no confidence" is we spend a lot of money to get back exactly where we were, a slight shift in power ensues, and the parties then proceed to bicker about how to do things. On some things, they agree. On others, they strongly disagree. And, on some issues, some of them will team up with the sitting government to force an issue through if it meets their agenda.
And, every time they all disagree, the threat if a no confidence vote looms -- usually because the current government is prone to decreeing every debate as a confidence motion. Meaning, if the opposition doesn't vote in favor of it, they trigger an immediate dissolution of parliament and a new election.
It's got to suck to see all of those "Canada is a US state/protectorate/pawn" digs gain traction, eh?
Alarmingly, this current government is single-hand-edly the most sycophantic and leg-humping I recall in my lifetime when it comes to following US interests.
I'm surprised this hasn't become a huge political liability for him. Wouldn't it take just one commercial showing how he bends the country over for his "American corporate masters" to get him out of office?
I'm not sure most Canadians would be able to see it that way without some background -- I agree with you, but that idea sells as a little "fringe" up here in Canada because people don't think about it like that (or at all). Essentially, the same level of apathy as in the US on the topic.
Canada, you're supposed to be the sane one in this relationship. Don't make us hit you.
Don't hit us, but feel free to strongly object, and lob polite (but non-threatening) barbs at our current government -- god knows we do it to you guys all the time.:-P
And why go underwater? Facebook security [techcrunch.com] conventions should get you the requisite amount of isolation to practice for deep space travel!
Simple, because it's actually a hostile environment if you're not careful, and because for any space-suit training, it's the closest thing to low gravity we can simulate.
When you're trying to seriously evaluate how you would handle an extreme environment, you don't just run around playing make-believe.
Air locks and the associated protocols are important both under water and in space.
Back in the mid 90's, a former co-worker opined that the web had put user-interface design back by at least a decade -- it may have been attributable to someone else, not sure.
Fifteen years later, and I still find myself using a lot of web-based software and wondering what went wrong.
With older multi-core processors if you had a quad core 1.6ghz and you had a program that could only use 1 core then you would effectively just have a 1.6ghz processor
See, my problem with this is the expectation that the application can use multiple cores. I don't care if an application can use multiple cores, I want the operating system to be able to make use of them.
The day an application sees that I have four cores and can feel free to use all of them, we're pretty much hosed, because we'll have apps chewing CPU because they can. Most people are never CPU bound in the true sense of the word. Additional cores make it so that if one application is fairly busy the rest of the system is still usable.
As soon as an application is capable of trying to use multiple cores, it will require multiple cores. And, I'm imagining a really annoying scenario whereby Office will require multiple cores so that it can run Clippy on a different one.
I'm running more than just one piece of software at any given time, so I sure as hell don't want each of them to be trying to maximize how many CPUs they're using. Me, I've got VMWare, iTunes, several browser windows, and likely more at any given time -- if each app decides it wants to use all four of my cores, my overall system is going to be slower.
Who the hell has a single application running that they need to squeeze as much performance as possible out of? You're talking very specialized apps. For the rest of us, an application exists in the context of many other things. Multiple cores make multi-tasking work very nicely, and I'd hate to start sacrificing that for an optimization to speed up a very small amount of apps which need to use as much CPU as available.
That aside, this is actually a pretty big discovery; very few ancient civilizations actually managed complex engineering achievements like running water.
Actually, the more I hear about ancient civilizations, the more I believe that in at least some regards, they had knowledge that was lost to the West until sometime after the Renaissance. They didn't know everything, but they sure as shit knew a lot. Certainly a lot more than has been attributed to them during most of my lifetime.
If anything this just adds to the mystery, if they had engineering knowledge of similar level to the Romans, why did their civilization suddenly die out?
One could ask the same question of Western Society -- a tremendous amount of stuff which was apparently fairly well-known in antiquity didn't get found out again until the last several hundred years.
How is is that "our" civilizations suddenly died out? There's probably a good 1000 years in which we managed to root around in the muck whereas before we had better ways of doing it. WTF happened there?
Most of the "Developing nations" out there are still having trouble with clean water, roads, and reliable power. So we're going to stick them with solar ? First, who is going to pay for it ? Second, if they aren't getting reliable power through more traditional means (like coal), how is this REALLY going to help them at all ?
Well, solar can be hooked up directly to the building you need to power, so you could get power into a school, for example, without needing any infrastructure.
And, I can see someone using this to run one of those UV water sterilizers. Imagine that -- a method of actually getting them sanitary water.
Getting cheap power to remote places facing the problems you identify might actually help them to try to alleviate some of the problems. I bet there's loads of examples that people can identify that if you can provide power, you can do something. Having power is better than not since you get more options.
Slashdot Mirror
OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse. Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor. Stupid git!!
If I R'd TFS correctly, by about $800 dollars. But you mean purely based on dick-swinging numbers I assume. :-P
See, for a lot of people (ie. non gamers and people not doing CPU intensive stuff) being CPU bound is rarely something they'll encounter. Multiple cores have the benefit of making the operating system more responsive since a busy app doesn't make the whole system crawl. My current Quad core has probably never had all four pegged at once, so I don't need faster. In fact, I'm not sure I've needed faster in a bunch of years.
Now, for me, the best way to get the most out of a machine is to put what sounds like an obscene amount of memory on it so it's future proof. You can survive software bloat if you piled on the memory up front. :-P
But, they're just being good capitalists and trying to maximize shareholder value and increase profitability on an annualized basis. Companies (mostly) exist to make money -- that's what they do.
There's two problems with that. Possibly more, but I'll stick to two.
1) Why would you equip someone to compete with you? Are you expecting altruism from them?
2) Do you think the data would magically travel to its destination without needing to travel over the telcos equipment and using their bandwidth and resources? They currently lease capacity to people to do this, and you think they should just give it away?
Seriously, I think telcos are evil greedy bastards too. But the economic and technical realities is they're not just going to give it away, and, they need to figure out how to do it cheaper every year so the executive bonuses can be paid out.
But, Canada is a big place, and relatively sparsely populated. In the case of the telcos, they own the existing infrastructure -- they built it, they paid for it, and it costs them to operate it. It sucks, but how do you introduce competition in this domain without laying a crapload of new wires??
Bell is basically the old phone company, and the Cable companies own the rest of the connect-to-the-home infrastructure. How do you think someone is going to "compete" with Bell or the Cable company short of buying capacity from them, and selling it to consumers. Essentially, you get a slice of the pie, but you do so at the mercy of the company you buy from -- who, being a company, will eventually attempt to eat you. :-P
Competition against the phone and cable companies is actually hard to do.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, I'm more relativist than those who believe in "absolute truth" would be happy about.
See, the problem about talking about "rights" in the context of any commercial activity is that commercial activity is not just about personal liberty. Both parties are free to choose to engage in the trade of goods, and determine the conditions under which they'll do it.
If I have an lemonade stand, I have the right to not sell to you. You don't have the right to buy from me if I don't want to sell it to you. That would basically mean you're taking it from me by force.
Now, don't take that to mean that I don't think what Comcast et al do is despicable, especially if they're the only game in town. Because that's not what I'm saying -- I would argue cable TV isn't a right, even in America.
I believe that true rights exist outside of any legal framework, but that likely without some framework to enforce them once we've decided what we think they are, we'd basically degenerate into savages in a short period of time.
I don't trust to the innate sense of fair-play among humans -- I assume everyone is likely looking out for themselves, and doesn't give a rats ass about you unless there's something keeping them in check. Civility only works because it keeps most people happy, and we like it -- but, it breaks down quickly.
Cheers
OK, my bad for actually using the words "having a life".
But, the poster I was responding to was asking why on Earth anyone would own an iPad since you can't do and "work" on it. When he defined "work", he specifically mentioned lame stuff like Microsoft Office and a spreadsheet for crying out loud.
My point is that maybe, just maybe, people will be using the iPad as more of a utility and entertainment device, instead of as a tool for doing what is essentially chores. I also pointed out that the poster was essentially sounding like a proof of Apple's marketing campaign that stereo-types PC's as being all about the Office apps (which you can agree with or disagree with at your leisure).
On a site where literally hundreds of people are frothing at the mouth over the functionality of a device they can't see the merit of, don't want, and are convinced everyone is wrong and the people buying iPads must be insane ... it's kind of amusing to be bitching about who has a life.
I never cease to be amused by the fact that people here on Slashdot have already made up their minds so strongly, that trying to explain a contrary position (regardless of if you're advocating it) causes people to disagree because they're no longer capable of thinking about it objectively.
Go back and read my post. I was merely trying to answer the poster's question and offer some perspective.
But, don't let any that get in the way of your whining about Apple. And, certainly, don't wonder what about this device is so compelling they've sold a million of then in 28 days.
That cut both ways. By restricting what applications can be installed on the device by some form of vetting procedure, they also cut down heavily on the likelihood of malware.
So, by restricting what everyone can do, they also curtail the malicious idiots out there. Which, is remarkably consistent with Apple trying to give their users a non-sucky experience with their products.
You're describing a privilege that has been taken for granted and assumed to be a right.
And, really, as someone who can't really stand Flash ... if you listen to what Jobs has said about Flash, and why it isn't really suited to the iPad (it makes web-based assumptions whereas the iPad is not just a web browser), IMO not supporting Flash was actually a good choice. (And, for the record, the only products I own are my iPods, so I'm not exactly a Mac fanboi.)
People don't like Apple because they're a closed down platform. The people who buy Apple like it because it gives a consistent, integrated experience that behaves like you'd expect without some of the warts. It's simple, easy to use, and does what they want it to.
You have a right to not buy Apple's product. Apple has the right to decide what features they want supported in their product. Everyone on Slashdot has a right to say whatever the heck they want about it and squeal about it however they choose. The rights pretty much end there in terms of Flash being supported on the iPad.
You know, if you're holding it at less than arms length, I suspect it's a pretty usable screen size since it' about the size of a book. I see people use their CrackBerry's for Google, and you'll notice they've got an even smaller screen.
As to flash, I don't have it installed on most of my browsers, so it's not like you're missing anything. I can't view flash on my current machine because I've chosen to do without it -- it' hardly mandatory. In fact, it's a bloody nuisance.
If you're truly browsing the internet, you mostly don't need a keyboard for the most part.
With a form factor more like a book, I can see sitting in a comfy chair looking up stuff on the internet or reading an e-book or what have you. And, with a purported 10 hour battery life, that's pretty good.
I'm not going to run out and buy one, but I'm keeping an eye on them -- might be something to ponder in a year or so if they come down in price.
They sold 1 million. In 28 days. They can't make enough to sell one to everyone who would happily plunk down money for it.
Unless they were complete idiots and sold it at a loss, I highly doubt it.
You know, I think you've basically just proved Apple's marketing campaign for the last several years.
Usually the PC is saying they can do spreadsheets and other similar boring business type tasks. The Mac is more concerned about doing interesting things like managing photos and playing music and having a life.
To a lot of people, Microsoft Office and Quickbooks aren't things they want to do. Apple seems to have made a market about selling people devices which do fun things. And, yes, that likely is a whole new audience.
The fact they've sold a million in this timeframe means it's a big audience. I don't know what I'd do with one, but what I've seen of them makes me secretly want one -- I won't be buying one, but I do covet them.
Apple's profits?
Clearly, a lot of people want one -- so either they have no idea of what they'll use it for, or it fills a niche that nobody realized was there.
You do realize that in the last several years Canadians have had what feels like a bunch of elections -- I think it's three elections since 2006, but I'm not 100% sure. I have quite honestly lost track.
A vote of no-confidence (which has caused the last few elections) causes a new election, and ends up with almost the same relative (and geographic) distribution of party power as the previous one.
We've been dealing with a minority parliament for quite some years -- it's largely dysfunctional since the government uses confidence vote as brinkmanship (vote for my bill, or force an election now).
We're in a bit of a deadlock -- the government won't work with opposition, who disagree with almost everything the (for Canada) "right-wing" government advocates. Opposition can't disagree too strongly with the government, or risk causing an election.
We have effectively four parties in federal politics (and one of them would like to form their own country), and the relative voting hasn't changed much the last few times we've gone to the polls. So, all that happens from a vote of "no confidence" is we spend a lot of money to get back exactly where we were, a slight shift in power ensues, and the parties then proceed to bicker about how to do things. On some things, they agree. On others, they strongly disagree. And, on some issues, some of them will team up with the sitting government to force an issue through if it meets their agenda.
And, every time they all disagree, the threat if a no confidence vote looms -- usually because the current government is prone to decreeing every debate as a confidence motion. Meaning, if the opposition doesn't vote in favor of it, they trigger an immediate dissolution of parliament and a new election.
Messed up, isn't it? :-P
Alarmingly, this current government is single-hand-edly the most sycophantic and leg-humping I recall in my lifetime when it comes to following US interests.
I'm not sure most Canadians would be able to see it that way without some background -- I agree with you, but that idea sells as a little "fringe" up here in Canada because people don't think about it like that (or at all). Essentially, the same level of apathy as in the US on the topic.
Don't hit us, but feel free to strongly object, and lob polite (but non-threatening) barbs at our current government -- god knows we do it to you guys all the time. :-P
Simple, because it's actually a hostile environment if you're not careful, and because for any space-suit training, it's the closest thing to low gravity we can simulate.
When you're trying to seriously evaluate how you would handle an extreme environment, you don't just run around playing make-believe.
Air locks and the associated protocols are important both under water and in space.
Plenty of outside as well. :-P
Back in the mid 90's, a former co-worker opined that the web had put user-interface design back by at least a decade -- it may have been attributable to someone else, not sure.
Fifteen years later, and I still find myself using a lot of web-based software and wondering what went wrong.
See, my problem with this is the expectation that the application can use multiple cores. I don't care if an application can use multiple cores, I want the operating system to be able to make use of them.
The day an application sees that I have four cores and can feel free to use all of them, we're pretty much hosed, because we'll have apps chewing CPU because they can. Most people are never CPU bound in the true sense of the word. Additional cores make it so that if one application is fairly busy the rest of the system is still usable.
As soon as an application is capable of trying to use multiple cores, it will require multiple cores. And, I'm imagining a really annoying scenario whereby Office will require multiple cores so that it can run Clippy on a different one.
I'm running more than just one piece of software at any given time, so I sure as hell don't want each of them to be trying to maximize how many CPUs they're using. Me, I've got VMWare, iTunes, several browser windows, and likely more at any given time -- if each app decides it wants to use all four of my cores, my overall system is going to be slower.
Who the hell has a single application running that they need to squeeze as much performance as possible out of? You're talking very specialized apps. For the rest of us, an application exists in the context of many other things. Multiple cores make multi-tasking work very nicely, and I'd hate to start sacrificing that for an optimization to speed up a very small amount of apps which need to use as much CPU as available.
Actually, the more I hear about ancient civilizations, the more I believe that in at least some regards, they had knowledge that was lost to the West until sometime after the Renaissance. They didn't know everything, but they sure as shit knew a lot. Certainly a lot more than has been attributed to them during most of my lifetime.
One could ask the same question of Western Society -- a tremendous amount of stuff which was apparently fairly well-known in antiquity didn't get found out again until the last several hundred years.
How is is that "our" civilizations suddenly died out? There's probably a good 1000 years in which we managed to root around in the muck whereas before we had better ways of doing it. WTF happened there?
Again ... with the whooshing sound.
I believe the GGP was accusing me of being obtuse. The thud was counter-humor. :-P
Well, you see, the new owners (Oracle) have decided that the Hardware business isn't nearly as lucrative as the maintenance business.
That's where the big money is. Oracle figured that out a long time ago, and they're just moving Sun to be in line with existing corporate policies.
Same greed, different day.
Which is kind of why I thought the question of "how could this possibly help" was a little odd. :-P
Well, solar can be hooked up directly to the building you need to power, so you could get power into a school, for example, without needing any infrastructure.
And, I can see someone using this to run one of those UV water sterilizers. Imagine that -- a method of actually getting them sanitary water.
Getting cheap power to remote places facing the problems you identify might actually help them to try to alleviate some of the problems. I bet there's loads of examples that people can identify that if you can provide power, you can do something. Having power is better than not since you get more options.
Cheers
*laugh* Followed by a loud thud.
But ... there' only one ocean.