Nope, not Socket7. Socket 7, fwiw, is pretty much officially dead by the end of this year/beginning of 2001. AMD will cut production on all non-mobile K6 line processors no later than Q1'01, if not earlier.
SOrry, you want a Duron, you need a SocketA board. Ditto Thunderbird (unless you get -really- lucky)
Except that AMD -also- has a half million units or so currentl6y in storage, ostensibly for the Dell deal (in the works.
Of course, it's not -classic- Athlons that they'd be shippingh to Dell, ANYWAYS. It'd be Spitfires or TBirds, and those won't be relesaed for another 2-4 weeks.
What the holy FUCK are you talking about??? AMD -OWNS- their plant in Austin, TX. AMD -OWNS- their plant in Dresden, Germany.
The quote is DIRECTLY in reference to AMD selling out -BECAUSE- Intel can't make enough chips to satisfy demand due to technological reasons (ie: Intel's Fabs are -fucked- right now).
Now then, where did you here this totally unsubstantiated and untrue rumor?
Re:Why didn't they expect this?
on
Athlons Sold Out
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· Score: 1
I'd like to note that this is the estimated production volume from their -Austin- fab that is sold out, since they won't begin volume shipments from Dresden until the copper TBirds come out. Spitfires are being made -exclusively- at Austin, as are the low-end/aluminum TBirds (yes, there will be -two- TBird revs.) AMD estimated -double- last quarter's demand for Athlons. I'd -also- like to point out that they've informed VIA to expect at -least- 3 million orders for Athlon chipsets. This tells me that they aren't having any productionproblems, they are actually producing MUCH more then they publically announced, and they are sold out of they're publically announce numbers. Trust me, I fully expect AMD to sell between 2.2 and 2.5 Athlons (Classic, Tbird and Spitfire) this quarter, and then double that for next quarter.
Also, it takes quite a while to ramp up a fab that can do 5000 wafers a week, especially when it'll be doing several Athlon related product lines.
Actually, you're (partially) wrong in your analysis. Yes, a great deal of selling -before- the 15th was due to tax time. EVEN MORE was because it's earnings season, and -lots- of the high flying.com's and other tech stocks are posting losses, or lower than expected earnings. Also of note, some institutional investors and analysts have actually done their job, and looked into the numbers behind some of the positive earnings reports, and found that they -really- sucked. Take Intel's, for example: They included a $.17 charge in their $.88 announcement, that shouldn't have been there, they also failed to take into acacount another $.05 to $.06 that they earned from their investment fund. This drops them to $.66, which is a couple of cents BELOW the consensus estimate. This is -very- bad for Intel and it's stock price, since it means that they -aren't- delivering in their core business (which, I should note, posted -lower- revenues than expected, and as expected, lower revenues than last quarter. Keep in mind that AMD posted -higher- revenues in it's MPU business, which is -completely- counter to what Intel was saying about demand and production issues. Intel -is- having issues, deal.)
Re:I speak for myself when I say...
on
Athlons Sold Out
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· Score: 1
And what the fuck are your uses? Writing Intel specific code? By this I'm talking -specifically- about KNI/SSI, and whatever other funny shit they keep doing to their instruction set to artifically speed it up.
Face it, for 99% of us out there (including those of us in software development outside of the game world...which Intel is losing face in, BTW), the Athlon -IS- 100% compatible. SSI is a hack job, and only done because AMD implemented a flawless MMX compatible set. Not to mention they had to do SOMETHING to combat the (soon to be released (at thye time) Athlon. And they -still- can't compete with it.
AMD spitfire chip is not out, cannot be purchased and is 100% speculation. Making it 0% worthwhile to speculate about. Bullshit.
It is -absolutely- worthwhile to speculate about this, because it's goign to be reality in less than 6 weeks, possibly no more than 3-4 weeks. It means something because -stock analysts- are actually paying attention to this sort of thing, as are folks who give a shit about their computing platforms.
Second, AMD has already demo'd Tbird at 1.1Ghz. All indications show that TBird will likely be at 1.4-1.6Ghz at the time Willamette is released (if you want to talk about vaporware...). All indications also show Spitfire outperforming, or being on par with, the current Athlon. We'd have Spitfire -now- if this weren't the case (the original launch date was Mid-April, it's been moved into May).
Speculation is what makes people rich, people with your attitude stay middle-class.
Ack! Silly me:) I -was- kinda thinking that I left someone out of the equation. Another thing to note: Hitachi also makes general purpose processors (including the one that's used in the Dreamcast). It DOES make one wonder if it isn't Andy Grove calling the shots over who to sue...
Where did you read this? If you're referring to the JEDEC conferences, then RMBS is still in the wrong by not informing any of the other companies about their pending patents on this particular technology. I agree that they should protect their IP, when it was developed entirely by them. However, this particular technology -wasn't- and they are trying to protect a patent that should be held by the JEDEC members as a group.
There's a LOT of stuff going on with this, and it's patent related, standards related, and all that other kinda stuff.
RMBS is suing Hitachi over -timing- techniques that RMBS has patented (think DDR type of things for an idea, IIRC). Normally, this wouldn't be -too- much of a problem (well, it would morally, but not legally), but these techniques were developed in an industry standards setting, JEDEC of which both Hitachi and RMBS were/are members.
Why is this such a problem? Because one of the things JEDEC memebrs agree to do is inform other members of pending patents, and to -not- patent technology developed in the JEDEC conferences/discussions. -THIS- is why Hitachi is counter suing, not to mention the anti-trust aspects as well. Take a look at how RMBS is licensing the technology: they require the licensing of -other- technologies from either themselves, or another outfit before the potential licensor can license the RMBS technology. This smacks of product tying in a possibly illegal manner.
Also note that killing Dreamcast off helps Intel (RMBS's heaviest investor and backer) -and- Microsoft with the XBox, by giving them only 2 competitors to try to nuke, instead of three. This is also -very- reminiscent of Intel's pending litigation with VIA...
This nonsense needs to stop, before we -really- see technological advance halt for 20 or 30 years.
However, the author's signed a contract with Mattel stating they they did not "assign" rights to the CPHack utility to anyone else. This is a problem for those to indivudals, inasmuch as that particular clause ain't true. Of course, being that CPHack is GPL'd, this may very well be the test case to show just how enforcable our favorite license is:)
It's a pity you don't know the difference between what Judge Jackson's role in this process is and reality. Jackson has -nothing- to do with the settlement offers. That is being handled by a second Judge (as mediator), and the lawyers from the DoJ and Microsoft (under orders from their respective bosses/employers). Jackson -wants- the sides to settle, because he's -going- to rule against MS tomorrow. Unfortuantely, MS most likely wants to be let off with another slap on the wrist, and the DoJ ain't going to get screwed by them again. Screw me once, shame on you, screw me a second time, shame on me. They ain't going to allow themselves to be screwed again.
Again, while the rest of your post makes some excellent point, the cluelessness of the first sentence on how this is actually handled in the court system taints it.
AMD has taken a "We don't announce until we can ship in volume" approach to the Athlon. If they announce that they have 1Ghz, then that means that they're shipping 1Ghz Athlons. This is completely different from how Intel has been doing things lately: making an announcement and not shipping more than a handful of processors for another 30-60 days. Not kosher. It means that AMD is beating the pants out of Intel, at the production level.
As an addendum to this: for versions of glibc -prior- to 2.x (I think it may be broken in 2.0 as well, but I don't recall what the results of the testing were), the aforementioned behaviour didn't exist.
This -has- been verified by using different glibc versions on the same machine, and using different glibc and C library versions on different operating systems (AIX, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux were the OS's used for testing this behaviour).
There's one bug in particular that I'd like to see fixed, but I don't know how prevalent of a thing it is...*shurgs* fork() is/was broken in 2.1.0, 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 for the specific app that it's being used for, and the manner that it's being used is consistent with how it's supposed to work (IIRC). *shrug* basically: in the case where an app forks off a child process, then returns, and then has another child process fork()'d (each process running the same external app), is it still freezing/not returning from the child cleanly?
That seems to be the bahaviour, at any rate... (source code for the app can be provided for testing of this behaviour).
I;m not going to comment on the performance comparison, but I'll say this: The Athlon is a 'true' 7th generation x86 processor. The PIII is still 6th generation (it's still the antiquated PPRo core). So, that means that WILLAMETTE is Intel's -7TH- generation chip. AKA: Intel's answer to AMD.
I'll note that other posters have mentioned that Willamette's FPU blows chunks, so I wouldn't be worried about AMD getting pushed out of the gaming market *shrug*
The K8, IIRC, is Sledgehammer, the hybrid 32/64, and is going to run 32Bit MUCH faster than Itanium. I'm going to make a (not so) bold predicion and say the Itanium, and POSSIBLY McKinley aren't going to go very far once they are actually released. We -STILL- don't have this chip on the market and they've been talking about the fucking thing for 3 years.
1. Willamette isn't out. Willamette won't BE out for a while yet (try October, based on Intel's current roadmap). 2. This is still part of the pissing match they have going on with AMD. Woopedy do. AMD is at least putting out products in volume when they announce. (don't start going off about being able to get 750Mhz and 800Mhz machines from Dell, Dell is just about the -only- vendor getting those parts right now). 3. Intel is scared shitless right now because AMD isn't screwing up for once. 4. This was at the Intel Developer's Conference. This means they're talking about products and projects at least 6 months down the road.
It boils down to this: So fucking what. They DON'T have 1 Ghz ready for the market, they WON'T have it ready for a while yet, and if/when they DO put it out, it's going to be atrociously expensive. Basically, just like AMD's 1.1 Ghz demo a few days back, this is meaningless. Of course, AMD is more likely to RELEASE that one sometime soon *shrug*
And where can I get a Dual 733 i840 board, and the processors? Oh wait, you mean I have to wait a month or two? No thanks.
THAT is the reality with going with Intel right now. They aren't just behind, they're so far behind they can't see the dust that AMD is leaving them in.
In all seriousness, the i840 is hard to come by, and any cuMine processor over 650 is hard to come by. Intel announced an 800Mhz part, but I have yet to so much as hear a PEEP from my suppliers about it. Ditto the 750. I can run down and get a 750Mhz Athlon right NOW. AMD is kicking Intels ass on the supply front. THAT is what matters. SMP and such is on it's way, hell, it's not like AMD is making the chipset for it. If they were, we'd likely have it, but we'd have to go through a Fester-like period while VIA, or ALI got there acts together on cloning it.
SMP will be out this year. It will rock. Hell, every benchmark I saw with a 733cuMine in the i820 has an Athlon 700 -STILL- beating it. The scores were close, but AMD still won. EVEN WITH the cache speed hit.
Except you forget exactly ONE thing, here: The US is -NOT- a democracy. It is -NOT- majority rule. The US -IS- a representative democracy, in which our representatives carry our vote. 270 million folks is just too damned many people for a true democracy to work. It's also too many people for a true communist or socialist government to work, as well (take a look at the former USSR and France as examples...I'm suprised that France hasn't collapsed upon itself...it's debt makes the US's look like pocket lint, at least percentage wise).
The death penalty has been abolished in a lot of countries because those countries pander to the whims of groups like Greenpeace, Amnesty International and the UN. They don't have the balls to tell these groups (one of which is starting to look like an attempt at world governance) to go fuck off because the application of one soverign nation's laws has ZIP to do with another's..
Actually, there's already punishment for Inciting crimes. There is -No- honorable way to punish someone for expresssing their opinion. If an individual actively excited a group (or an indivudal) so that they committed a crime, they are also culpable. Making an individual culpable for crimes NOT YET COMMITTED (for example, censoring the distribution of racist literature for fear that someone will commit a crime based on whatever information is contained therein) is even more heinous than the crimes that _MIGHT_ be committed.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, 1755
There are responsiblities that go along with certain rights, yes. However, punishing people for EXPRESSING those opinions is almost as heinous, to me and others of like mind, as what the Nazis did during WWII. Your rights end where mine begin, and mine end where yours begin. One of the rights that you do -NOT- have is to forcibly forbid me from expressing my opinion. China does this, and the whole world rails against it. You say that EXPRESSING feelings of racism is illegal in the Netherlands. I say it's a -DAMNED- good thing I don't live there. Not because I'm a racist, but because that is a limit upon an individuals creation-given -RIGHT- to express their personal beliefs. What you have in NL is repression of (at least some) thought, something that Orwell railed against in _1984_ ('thoughtcrime'). It is also something that Benjamin Franklin (indirectly) has also railed against, in more general terms: "He who gives up some measure of freedom for safety deserves neither." I firmly believe this, and so I say to all those who have allowed their governments to force censorship on them (including us in the US): NONE of you deserve true freedom until you are willing to fight for it.
To whoever it was who said that they would fight to the death for the right of a person to express his beliefs, no matter how vile, I salute you. YOU are the kind of person that is needed in the fight against tyranny. This sort of bullshit is just the start.
Be that as it may, they are STILL the cream de la creme when it comes to this sort of thing. No, they aren't perfect, noone is, and I HIGHLY doubt ANY company could be perfect. However, I think the overall point was that of all the game publishing/development out there, Squaresoft does a remarkably good job at producing solid games that (on their PRIMARY platform(s)) work. NOONE can really call FF8 a knockoff of FF7, just as FF7 has virtually nothing to do with FF5 and FF6. Hell, outside of the world, the Dragon Warrior series was somewhat discontinuous as well. New engines + better gameplay + solid story lines == good RPG games. That's what Squarsoft does best, and folks like me eat it up.
Re:works on my thinkpad, and I have an idea
on
IBM banks on Linux
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· Score: 1
Buying binary drivers are all nice in theory, but guess what? Every new major kernel release (and some minor releases) will _REQUIRE_ that you buy new drivers to work with that kernel.
Yep, you read me right: portable binary kernel mods will _NOT_ be supported by Linus (gleaned from his statements on l-k), and therefore by linux. Drivers are, by necessity and design, kernel mods. Therefore, since the kernel module APIs are going to change between version, binary module/driver compatability will not be guaranteed at all. Basically: if you have a piece of hardware and want to provide a driver for it, be prepared to either have a programmer or two always ready to forward port it, or be prepared to OS it. *plink**plink*
Slashdot Mirror
Nope, not Socket7.
Socket 7, fwiw, is pretty much officially dead by the end of this year/beginning of 2001. AMD will cut production on all non-mobile K6 line processors no later than Q1'01, if not earlier.
SOrry, you want a Duron, you need a SocketA board.
Ditto Thunderbird (unless you get -really- lucky)
Hey, dipshit: T-Bird is -replacing- the classic Athlon -before- the Spitfire hits market. :)
Become a chip junkie, it's fun
Except that AMD -also- has a half million units or so currentl6y in storage, ostensibly for the Dell deal (in the works.
Of course, it's not -classic- Athlons that they'd be shippingh to Dell, ANYWAYS. It'd be Spitfires or TBirds, and those won't be relesaed for another 2-4 weeks.
AMD has pretty much always had their FAB in Austin, TX. It was -not- opened in 1999. Dresden, on the other hand, was.
:)
Please pay more attention to what's going on in the future, pleaes
What the holy FUCK are you talking about???
AMD -OWNS- their plant in Austin, TX.
AMD -OWNS- their plant in Dresden, Germany.
The quote is DIRECTLY in reference to AMD selling out -BECAUSE- Intel can't make enough chips to satisfy demand due to technological reasons (ie: Intel's Fabs are -fucked- right now).
Now then, where did you here this totally unsubstantiated and untrue rumor?
I'd like to note that this is the estimated production volume from their -Austin- fab that is sold out, since they won't begin volume shipments from Dresden until the copper TBirds come out.
Spitfires are being made -exclusively- at Austin, as are the low-end/aluminum TBirds (yes, there will be -two- TBird revs.)
AMD estimated -double- last quarter's demand for Athlons. I'd -also- like to point out that they've informed VIA to expect at -least- 3 million orders for Athlon chipsets. This tells me that they aren't having any productionproblems, they are actually producing MUCH more then they publically announced, and they are sold out of they're publically announce numbers.
Trust me, I fully expect AMD to sell between 2.2 and 2.5 Athlons (Classic, Tbird and Spitfire) this quarter, and then double that for next quarter.
Also, it takes quite a while to ramp up a fab that can do 5000 wafers a week, especially when it'll be doing several Athlon related product lines.
Actually, you're (partially) wrong in your analysis. Yes, a great deal of selling -before- the 15th was due to tax time. EVEN MORE was because it's earnings season, and -lots- of the high flying .com's and other tech stocks are posting losses, or lower than expected earnings.
Also of note, some institutional investors and analysts have actually done their job, and looked into the numbers behind some of the positive earnings reports, and found that they -really- sucked. Take Intel's, for example: They included a $.17 charge in their $.88 announcement, that shouldn't have been there, they also failed to take into acacount another $.05 to $.06 that they earned from their investment fund. This drops them to $.66, which is a couple of cents BELOW the consensus estimate. This is -very- bad for Intel and it's stock price, since it means that they -aren't- delivering in their core business (which, I should note, posted -lower- revenues than expected, and as expected, lower revenues than last quarter. Keep in mind that AMD posted -higher- revenues in it's MPU business, which is -completely- counter to what Intel was saying about demand and production issues. Intel -is- having issues, deal.)
And what the fuck are your uses? Writing Intel specific code? By this I'm talking -specifically- about KNI/SSI, and whatever other funny shit they keep doing to their instruction set to artifically speed it up.
Face it, for 99% of us out there (including those of us in software development outside of the game world...which Intel is losing face in, BTW), the Athlon -IS- 100% compatible. SSI is a hack job, and only done because AMD implemented a flawless MMX compatible set. Not to mention they had to do SOMETHING to combat the (soon to be released (at thye time) Athlon.
And they -still- can't compete with it.
AMD spitfire chip is not out, cannot be purchased and is 100% speculation. Making it 0% worthwhile to speculate about. Bullshit.
It is -absolutely- worthwhile to speculate about this, because it's goign to be reality in less than 6 weeks, possibly no more than 3-4 weeks. It means something because -stock analysts- are actually paying attention to this sort of thing, as are folks who give a shit about their computing platforms.
Second, AMD has already demo'd Tbird at 1.1Ghz. All indications show that TBird will likely be at 1.4-1.6Ghz at the time Willamette is released (if you want to talk about vaporware...). All indications also show Spitfire outperforming, or being on par with, the current Athlon. We'd have Spitfire -now- if this weren't the case (the original launch date was Mid-April, it's been moved into May).
Speculation is what makes people rich, people with your attitude stay middle-class.
Ack! :)
Silly me
I -was- kinda thinking that I left someone out of the equation.
Another thing to note: Hitachi also makes general purpose processors (including the one that's used in the Dreamcast). It DOES make one wonder if it isn't Andy Grove calling the shots over who to sue...
Where did you read this?
If you're referring to the JEDEC conferences, then RMBS is still in the wrong by not informing any of the other companies about their pending patents on this particular technology.
I agree that they should protect their IP, when it was developed entirely by them. However, this particular technology -wasn't- and they are trying to protect a patent that should be held by the JEDEC members as a group.
There's a LOT of stuff going on with this, and it's patent related, standards related, and all that other kinda stuff.
RMBS is suing Hitachi over -timing- techniques that RMBS has patented (think DDR type of things for an idea, IIRC). Normally, this wouldn't be -too- much of a problem (well, it would morally, but not legally), but these techniques were developed in an industry standards setting, JEDEC of which both Hitachi and RMBS were/are members.
Why is this such a problem? Because one of the things JEDEC memebrs agree to do is inform other members of pending patents, and to -not- patent technology developed in the JEDEC conferences/discussions. -THIS- is why Hitachi is counter suing, not to mention the anti-trust aspects as well. Take a look at how RMBS is licensing the technology: they require the licensing of -other- technologies from either themselves, or another outfit before the potential licensor can license the RMBS technology. This smacks of product tying in a possibly illegal manner.
Also note that killing Dreamcast off helps Intel (RMBS's heaviest investor and backer) -and- Microsoft with the XBox, by giving them only 2 competitors to try to nuke, instead of three. This is also -very- reminiscent of Intel's pending litigation with VIA...
This nonsense needs to stop, before we -really- see technological advance halt for 20 or 30 years.
However, the author's signed a contract with Mattel stating they they did not "assign" rights to the CPHack utility to anyone else. :)
This is a problem for those to indivudals, inasmuch as that particular clause ain't true.
Of course, being that CPHack is GPL'd, this may very well be the test case to show just how enforcable our favorite license is
It's a pity you don't know the difference between what Judge Jackson's role in this process is and reality.
Jackson has -nothing- to do with the settlement offers. That is being handled by a second Judge (as mediator), and the lawyers from the DoJ and Microsoft (under orders from their respective bosses/employers). Jackson -wants- the sides to settle, because he's -going- to rule against MS tomorrow. Unfortuantely, MS most likely wants to be let off with another slap on the wrist, and the DoJ ain't going to get screwed by them again.
Screw me once, shame on you, screw me a second time, shame on me. They ain't going to allow themselves to be screwed again.
Again, while the rest of your post makes some excellent point, the cluelessness of the first sentence on how this is actually handled in the court system taints it.
AMD has taken a "We don't announce until we can ship in volume" approach to the Athlon.
If they announce that they have 1Ghz, then that means that they're shipping 1Ghz Athlons.
This is completely different from how Intel has been doing things lately: making an announcement and not shipping more than a handful of processors for another 30-60 days. Not kosher. It means that AMD is beating the pants out of Intel, at the production level.
As an addendum to this:
for versions of glibc -prior- to 2.x (I think it
may be broken in 2.0 as well, but I don't recall what the results of the testing were), the aforementioned behaviour didn't exist.
This -has- been verified by using different glibc versions on the same machine, and using different glibc and C library versions on different operating systems (AIX, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux were the OS's used for testing this behaviour).
There's one bug in particular that I'd like to see fixed, but I don't know how prevalent of a thing it is...*shurgs*
fork() is/was broken in 2.1.0, 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 for the specific app that it's being used for, and the manner that it's being used is consistent with how it's supposed to work (IIRC).
*shrug*
basically: in the case where an app forks off a child process, then returns, and then has another child process fork()'d (each process running the same external app), is it still freezing/not returning from the child cleanly?
That seems to be the bahaviour, at any rate...
(source code for the app can be provided for testing of this behaviour).
I;m not going to comment on the performance comparison, but I'll say this:
The Athlon is a 'true' 7th generation x86 processor. The PIII is still 6th generation (it's still the antiquated PPRo core). So, that means that WILLAMETTE is Intel's -7TH- generation chip.
AKA: Intel's answer to AMD.
I'll note that other posters have mentioned that Willamette's FPU blows chunks, so I wouldn't be worried about AMD getting pushed out of the gaming market *shrug*
The K8, IIRC, is Sledgehammer, the hybrid 32/64, and is going to run 32Bit MUCH faster than Itanium. I'm going to make a (not so) bold predicion and say the Itanium, and POSSIBLY McKinley aren't going to go very far once they are actually released. We -STILL- don't have this chip on the market and they've been talking about the fucking thing for 3 years.
1. Willamette isn't out. Willamette won't BE out for a while yet (try October, based on Intel's current roadmap).
2. This is still part of the pissing match they have going on with AMD. Woopedy do. AMD is at least putting out products in volume when they announce. (don't start going off about being able to get 750Mhz and 800Mhz machines from Dell, Dell is just about the -only- vendor getting those parts right now).
3. Intel is scared shitless right now because AMD isn't screwing up for once.
4. This was at the Intel Developer's Conference. This means they're talking about products and projects at least 6 months down the road.
It boils down to this: So fucking what. They DON'T have 1 Ghz ready for the market, they WON'T have it ready for a while yet, and if/when they DO put it out, it's going to be atrociously expensive. Basically, just like AMD's 1.1 Ghz demo a few days back, this is meaningless.
Of course, AMD is more likely to RELEASE that one sometime soon *shrug*
And where can I get a Dual 733 i840 board, and the processors? Oh wait, you mean I have to wait a month or two? No thanks.
:)
THAT is the reality with going with Intel right now. They aren't just behind, they're so far behind they can't see the dust that AMD is leaving them in.
In all seriousness, the i840 is hard to come by, and any cuMine processor over 650 is hard to come by. Intel announced an 800Mhz part, but I have yet to so much as hear a PEEP from my suppliers about it. Ditto the 750. I can run down and get a 750Mhz Athlon right NOW. AMD is kicking Intels ass on the supply front. THAT is what matters. SMP and such is on it's way, hell, it's not like AMD is making the chipset for it. If they were, we'd likely have it, but we'd have to go through a Fester-like period while VIA, or ALI got there acts together on cloning it.
SMP will be out this year. It will rock. Hell, every benchmark I saw with a 733cuMine in the i820 has an Athlon 700 -STILL- beating it. The scores were close, but AMD still won. EVEN WITH the cache speed hit.
C'mon, keep it up
The US is -NOT- a democracy. It is -NOT- majority rule. The US -IS- a representative democracy, in which our representatives carry our vote.
270 million folks is just too damned many people for a true democracy to work. It's also too many people for a true communist or socialist government to work, as well (take a look at the former USSR and France as examples...I'm suprised that France hasn't collapsed upon itself...it's debt makes the US's look like pocket lint, at least percentage wise).
The death penalty has been abolished in a lot of countries because those countries pander to the whims of groups like Greenpeace, Amnesty International and the UN. They don't have the balls to tell these groups (one of which is starting to look like an attempt at world governance) to go fuck off because the application of one soverign nation's laws has ZIP to do with another's..
Actually, there's already punishment for Inciting crimes. There is -No- honorable way to punish someone for expresssing their opinion. If an individual actively excited a group (or an indivudal) so that they committed a crime, they are also culpable.
Making an individual culpable for crimes NOT YET COMMITTED (for example, censoring the distribution of racist literature for fear that someone will commit a crime based on whatever information is contained therein) is even more heinous than the crimes that _MIGHT_ be committed.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, 1755
There are responsiblities that go along with certain rights, yes. However, punishing people for EXPRESSING those opinions is almost as heinous, to me and others of like mind, as what the Nazis did during WWII.
Your rights end where mine begin, and mine end where yours begin. One of the rights that you do -NOT- have is to forcibly forbid me from expressing my opinion. China does this, and the whole world rails against it. You say that EXPRESSING feelings of racism is illegal in the Netherlands. I say it's a -DAMNED- good thing I don't live there. Not because I'm a racist, but because that is a limit upon an individuals creation-given -RIGHT- to express their personal beliefs. What you have in NL is repression of (at least some) thought, something that Orwell railed against in _1984_ ('thoughtcrime'). It is also something that Benjamin Franklin (indirectly) has also railed against, in more general terms: "He who gives up some measure of freedom for safety deserves neither." I firmly believe this, and so I say to all those who have allowed their governments to force censorship on them (including us in the US): NONE of you deserve true freedom until you are willing to fight for it.
To whoever it was who said that they would fight to the death for the right of a person to express his beliefs, no matter how vile, I salute you. YOU are the kind of person that is needed in the fight against tyranny. This sort of bullshit is just the start.
Be that as it may, they are STILL the cream de la creme when it comes to this sort of thing.
No, they aren't perfect, noone is, and I HIGHLY doubt ANY company could be perfect. However, I think the overall point was that of all the game publishing/development out there, Squaresoft does a remarkably good job at producing solid games that (on their PRIMARY platform(s)) work. NOONE can really call FF8 a knockoff of FF7, just as FF7 has virtually nothing to do with FF5 and FF6.
Hell, outside of the world, the Dragon Warrior series was somewhat discontinuous as well. New engines + better gameplay + solid story lines == good RPG games. That's what Squarsoft does best, and folks like me eat it up.
Buying binary drivers are all nice in theory, but guess what? Every new major kernel release (and some minor releases) will _REQUIRE_ that you buy new drivers to work with that kernel.
Yep, you read me right: portable binary kernel mods will _NOT_ be supported by Linus (gleaned from his statements on l-k), and therefore by linux. Drivers are, by necessity and design, kernel mods. Therefore, since the kernel module APIs are going to change between version, binary module/driver compatability will not be guaranteed at all.
Basically: if you have a piece of hardware and want to provide a driver for it, be prepared to either have a programmer or two always ready to forward port it, or be prepared to OS it.
*plink**plink*