What about the median and mode? Classical statistical problem with "average" is illustrated as such:
Among the 57 million people in Britain there are probably 5,000 people who have only one leg. Therefore the average number of legs is:
((5000 * 1) + (56,995,000 * 2)) / 57,000,000 = 1.9999123 and all the people with two legs have more than the average number!
I think its safe to safe more people are living longer than ever before. I don't think this is solely based on less people dying at infancy or through accidents. I think the percent of the population at a certain age is leaning towards the aged, especially in the western world. I know, for example, that 3 out 4 of my grandparents would have already died if it weren't for the medical advanced made available in the last 10-15 years.
I would think heart disease wasn't an issue at the turn of the century because the life expectancy was so low.
You think cancer, Alzheimer's Parkinson's and clogged arteries are much of a threat when you die at ~45 and below?
There are a lot of mitigating factors, many revolve around genetics, but I would think omega-3 fatty acids would be a good thing to eat as long as your sources, mainly fish, are mercury/heavy metal free.
For every diet strategy, for every study, there are many things that would make living a life fanatically devoted to a given strategy possibly detrimental.
Worry about carbs. Worry about vCJD and prions. Worry about saturated fats. Worry about eicosanoids. Worry about mercury. Worry about what excessive protein can do to the kidneys. Worry about growth hormones. Worry about liver toxicity index. Worry about actually finding foods with lots of poly and mono unsaturated fats. Worry about your myelin sheathing on your nerves and gulp down Lorenzo's oil. What pisses me off the most about all this worrying is that if you reference all diets all food is bad.
One might like to point out also that FreeBSD is the basis for the best routing OS there is: JunOS. FreeBSD is very ripe for being a commercial product because of the no-nonsense base install, the wonderful kernel which is exceedingly stable and despite the rants of others, is fairly close to being on par with Linux. Linux tends to change rapidly. FreeBSD changes in a more deterministic way. I also must say that bundling the c library and compiler along with a coherent well documented userland is something that Linux systems may want to take a long had look at. I also really like building the kernel, libraries, compiler and userland easily and reliably from a very easy to follow procedure, mine is: - cvsup the base system to latest CVS stable release - configure/etc/make.conf; CPUTYPE?=p3; CFLAGS= -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 ; CXXFLAGS+= -fmemoize-lookups -fsave-memoized -O2 -march=pentium3 ; [-march I do repetitively to make sure i get my probably not needed CPU optimizations;p] ; COPTFLAGS= -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 ; NOPROFILE= true ; WANT_EXT2FS_MODULE=yes ; MAKE_IDEA= YES ; COMPAT4X= yes ; configure cvsup in/etc/make.conf ; various other tweaks - reconfigure kernel config file to include SMP [options SMP; options APIC_IO], and a shorter timeout period for the SCSI driver [options SCSI_DELAY=4000], and I add a few things to support IDE-CD burning [device atapicam], etc. - backup/etc - clean out/usr/obj - in./usr/src, build system make clean && make cleandepend && make cleandir && make clean && make cleandepend && make cleandir [anal retentive cleansing] make buildworld ; make buildkernel KERNCONF=SMP make installkernel KERNCONF=SMP single user mode
fsck -p ; mount -u / ; mount -a -t ufs ; swapon -a ; adjkerntz -i; mergemaster -p ; make installworld ; mergemaster ; reboot
Now my whole system is custom made for my CPU and hardware. It lets me see the care taken in building the whole system and shows off a very clean build process.
The ports system has many meta-ports that make making an instant workstation quite easy to construct. If you don't want to build your ports with massive optimizations, a large cache of packages are available.
I would like to point out that I have never had an unbuildable world. I've heard of it on -CURRENT, but have never experienced it, but -STABLE is wonderfully - stable!
Ports could use a rollback feature such as the one found in Gentoo. Not that I long for Gentoo [I've used this system and deprecate it for a multitude of reasons, maybe later], I have supervised many systems and find that FreeBSD is the best in terms of stability and longevity. Of course uptime is more of a game, who can build a better mousetrap, but its certainly not a meaningless metric.
The biggest hole in FreeBSD at the moment is Sun's fault. Native Java 1.4 support is available with a bizarre license. Interestingly, IBM and Sun's Linux products actually run very well under the Linux emulation support.
I have never understood the hatred people have for FreeBSD. It bizarre and unfounded. Its a non-RedHat systems to Winux [Windows weenie Linux wannabees] admins, so they have a conniption that real UNIX is complex and detail oriented, and that reading mans, howtos and docs are par for the course - no admin wizards to "save the day." No, you must actually understand and configure something properly.
The documentation on FreeBSD is superior. There are many, many docs that cover basic to esoteric administration, with a lot of attention paid to performance enhancing things one can do.
Add Vinum and UFS2 to the stack of features, and you have yourself some fairly serious filesystem support. While I would like to see XFS in FreeBSD as well, it is a pipe dream, as it is still in "stable" Linux - the best file
The compiler? Compiler: Intel C/C++ 7.0 build 20021212Z and Intel Fortran 7.0 build 20021212Z, Compaq Visual Fortran Compiler Version 6.6 Update B, Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (libraries)7.0.9466, MicroQuill Smartheap Library 6.0
A few samples of the tweaks used to get peak? C +FD0 -O3 -QxW -Qipo; C++ +FD0 -Qipo -GX -GR; Fortran +FD0 -O3 -QaxK -Qipo -Oi-
Apple should be forced to do full disclosure and publish results. I think SPEC should forbid the quoting of unpublished SPEC marks.
I think people need to better understand these benchmarks before commenting on them.
I personally consider the peak scored for INT and FP because the OS, the compilers, the compiler flags and libraries used are generally "real" and good for multipurpose general use -not the case in a certain Apple benchmark where a library was used that would be useless on a production system quote from an Extreme Tech article
" Installed a high performance, single threaded malloc library. This library implementation is geared for speed rather than memory efficiency and is single-threaded which makes it unsuitable for many uses. Special provisions are made for very small allocations (less than 4 bytes). This library is accessed through use of the -lstmalloc flag during program".
What I find the most interesting thing to come of this whole mess is the fact than the Opteron produced some scores which challenge the Itanium 2 on Intel's own compiler.
The sad thing about the fork in this story leading to crap like this is that people politicize scientific endeavors to get floor time. Nuclear happens to be an unfortunate keyword.
I for one do not want to sit in the dark ages and think that if NASA determines it best to use fission reactors to best perform deep space studies, so be it. Fanatics will fantasize about a cabal of technophiles, Illuminati and energy moguls and the x-files guys all hanging out in a dastardly plan to bring about Armageddon because you know, all these rich powerful people really want say, a nuclear war so they can live out their days in a bunker on a destroyed earth because that's the very definition of FUN! It's like people in a vocal minority to maraud around looking to bring Bush or the liberal establishment or [name your group to blame everything on here ]into every discussion.
All countries "are". They are not good. They are not evil. They are all unilateralist whenever they can afford to be. If you want others to believe in your morality, grab an orange robe and become a Buddhist monk. Otherwise, you're a money grubber just like the rest of us.
Those who bet on apocalypse the end of days, bet against a bright future basically always lose. It's not wise to sell short on the progressive countries of the world. Luddites who hearken back to the good ole days are essentially insane.
Now as far as nuclear devices with regards to the US - the US has been in possession of nuclear weapons the longest and has been able to refrain from using them the longest (Time since Nagasaki, as in, longest period of years since they were last used in war) despite the apparent efficacy of nuclear attack in bringing WW2 to a close.. They are staggeringly expensive and have little military value (until recently, the below ground penetrating missile/bomb design and nuclear torpedoes are also effective, both of these are tactical applications) they are essentially a threat over population centers. The US would not use strategic weapons unless they are used upon the US. Strategic weapons are essentially possessed only by France, Britain, Russia, China, US (and a lesser extent, India, Pakistan). They are effectively deterrence in that populations centers will be totally destroyed if the US is attacked. I don't foresee the preemptive use of strategic weapons nor is there any evidence of that in US nuclear posturing doctrine, which is publicly available: FAS NPR , and Globalsecurity NPR, and DefenseLINK NPR.
The new preemptive nuclear strike parts of the doctrine basically wants to make a case for the use of tactical nuclear weapons against well fortified targets. Given that a swift conventional campaign in Iraq was so politically painful for the US, I seriously doubt that the US will ever use tactical nukes, much less preemptively. I think the document says it best: It's a nuclear posturing document. Anyone can break their own doctrine or even a SALT treaty anytime they want (See DPRK for an example of violating agreements). You think "dismantled" warheads aren't ready to go at Pentax? The modification of the nuclear posturing to say we will consider the use of preemptive nuclear strike in response to threats from Nuclear/Chemical/Biological attack or threat is simply this: Terrorist of the world and Countries of the world: Think long and hard about turning a blind eye or abetting subversive organizations that place US citizens under a potential deadly threat.
Strategic Weapons and the Cuban Missile Crisis: On October 25, 1962, Castro begged in a letter to Khruschev to preemptively strike the US. Khruschev was essentially shocked that Castro didn't get it. The posturing wasn't designed to start a strategic nuclear war, which Khruschev made clear in a letter to Castro on October 27, 1962,
Re:And still perl is a port now and java builds
on
FreeBSD 5.1 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
Man, does anyone who criticizes FreeBSD ever use it? Because I use it and like it quite a bit, and everyone I know who uses it likes it.
On Perl: Perl is not in the base install, it's a port installed by default, So What! It was moved to ports because people want to have a lot of flexibility when it comes to what version of perl they run. The FreeBSD team was doing just what the users wanted. And I would like to know how to install FreeBSD without that Perl port installed. You would have to go out of your way in every install method to take it out. Big deal it moved from/usr/bin to/usr/local/bin (they even put symlinks for you in/usr/bin) So as far as I can tell, FreeBSD 5.1 comes with perl 5.6.1 in the "default install." The only ramification is simply this. If you for some reason want to upgrade perl, you use ports and you don't have to wait for the FreeBSD team to update it, because rightly so, they see no reason to do it. Also note that why would you want perl scripts in an OS? Shell is perfectly adequate for the scripting needs of the base system, perl is something users use.
On Java: Sun is being an idiot with regards to Sun on anything but Solaris, Windows and Linux. They make it very hard to include the JVM in binary form in a "default install." They have a ridiculous license on they source code that makes it hard for FreeBSD to do much of anything about this. By they way, if you use ports the JVM 1.4 builds nicely and works rather well. I have personally written to Sun complaining about this - as have others, but they aren't willing to focus on FreeBSD. BTW, FreeBSD runs linux binaries and the Linux JVM works on that compatibility layer.
NVIDIA: Nvidia builds binary drivers for FreeBSD. Hardly 'niche.'
SMP, scheduler: SMP is vastly improved, scheduler and VM is very very good. This OS is very competitive with Linux, and despite what you may have heard, it is capable of outperforming it without sacrificing quality.
Matched c-library, GCC, userland and kernel: One must appreciate that the FreeBSD team is a very thorough. They are obsessively concerned with coherency and quality. This is not some slapped together random miasma in every incarnation, this is a well thought out combination of the vital system components. It works. Trust me, it works. If you want military grade, use 4.8+, if you want rock solid, use 5.1. Frankly, where FreeBSD-current is, is where most linuxes start in terms stability/coherency/usability. It is quite useable in its "unstable" form.
Polling Support: One of FreeBSD's best features is polling on networking devices to prevent interrupt driven livelock.
Proof in Pudding: Think of heavy iron appliances with various free operating systems in it. I can think of two for FreeBSD. The godly Juniper routers and the F5 BigIP. These are serious pieces of networking equipment and they chose FreeBSD for a reason - its far more pleasant to deal with commercially, its fast stable and coherent and the license permits modifications without divulging them to the world.
One project, one c compiler, one c library, one coherent userland, 5 different architectures, great portability, stability and commercial viability.
The last MULTICS box was taken down just a short while ago; it was in use by the Canadian Defense Department until October 30, 2000.
A long standing joke in the corporate computing world is all the anti MSFT vitriol and how godly Unix and Unix like OSes are compared to it in terms of security. MULTICS used to enjoy the same poking fun at Unix in this manner:
Multics security. Bell Labs answer: Unix. Who needs all that "extra" security junk in Multics. We don't need to protect/etc/passwd because we use DES crypt and users always choose strong passwords. We'll make the passwd file world readable so we can translate uid's to usernames. Multi-level security? Naw, its simpler just to make everything Superuser.
FORTRAN/COBOL array bounds checking. Bell Labs answer: C. Who wants the computer to check array lengths or pointers. Programmers know what they are doing, and don't need to be "constrained" by the programming language. Everyone knows programmers are better at arithmetic than computers. A programmer would never make an off-by-one error. The standard C run-time library. gets(char *buffer), strcpy(char *dest, char *src), -what were they thinking?
And some summation of various MULTICS history information:
"A Look Into The MULTICS Operating System" Joe Martin December 1, 2002 Introduction Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) is a timesharing operating system that was used in mainframe computers from 1970 to 2000. Multics has a historic role in operating system development. It was renowned for being highly reliable, configurable, upgradeable, and secure. Multics' unique virtual memory system was among the first to feature segmentation, paging, and dynamic linking. History The Multics operating system began in 1965 as a joint project by MIT, Bell Telephone Laboratories, and General Electric's computer products division. The majority of Multics development was done on-site at MIT. The chief source of funding for the project was provided by ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) of the US Department of Defense. ARPA contributed $2 million per year for eight years for Multics development. Bell Labs and GE also contributed comparable resources.2 In 1965, two of the lead Multics developers, Fernando Corbató and Victor Vyssotsky, wrote a paper entitled "Introduction and Overview of the Multics System." In the paper there were nine major goals laid out for Multics: Convenient remote terminal use. Continuous operation analogous to power & telephone services. A wide range of system configurations, changeable without system or user program reorganization. A high reliability internal file system. Support for selective information sharing. Hierarchical structures of information for system administration and decentralization of user activities. Support for a wide range of applications. Support for multiple programming environments & human interfaces. The ability to evolve the system with changes in technology and in user aspirations. In 1969, Bell Labs withdrew from the development effort. In 1970 GE sold its computer-related business to Honeywell, which offered Multics as a commercial product and sold it throughout the 1970's and 1980's. One thing that Multics is widely known for is being the parent OS of UNIX. Bell Labs engineers Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie worked on Multics until Bell Labs dropped out of the Multics development effort in 1969 functional by 1970. Whereas Multics could support several users, this new operating system could only support one user. Engineer Brian Kernighan jokingly referred to it as
Yes, but if a car has a recall on a daily basis we call it a lemon. The Windows products I find especially annoying because the don't have scheduled service intervals like Solaris, large patch updates that are welded into the base install (MU, or Lotus QMR) are released whenever Microsoft feels like it and not on a schedule.
If they expect governments to enforce the overzealous EULAs, and to insinuate the product has real monetary value and it should be criminal to misuse it, then they should be liable for its actions. The door swings both ways. To use the ridiculous but relevant car analogy, check out Ford/Firestone with the tire recall, they hat to eat a big huge monetary crap-sandwich to make up for that. They also have to provide parts for cars for 5 years after they sell them, by law, and they must also be subject to anti-lemon and consumer protection law.
While I don't foresee Microsoft getting chastised, lambasted and castigated as it should be here in the US where being a rich company has many, many benefits, I do see an opportunity for Microsoft to have to be held accountable for its actions in the EU and Asia. Also in Asian countries the logic is: If you expect me not to pirate this, it better do something good.
I hope this teaches Microsoft that the venue by which they made the 40 billion they have sitting in the bank is us, the victims of pre-installs on new PCs (I believe 80% of the MSFT revenue is from pre-install), we should get a piece of that if we are wronged by the software.
There is a huge disparity between what is claimed on the glossy box and what is delivered in reality, and the consumer needs to be protected from fraud and fiscal liability due to product failure.
It applies to every other business. Software should be the same.
Also, EULAs claim the license isn't transferable and resalable, I content that this means it then has no value. No one can tell you you can't sell your used car.
We export NFS here on Solaris/x86 because we have to. NFS as a server is essentially broken on Linux. I'm not a big x86-o-phile, but I would rather export NFS with NetApp or Sun's own than anything else - it just works.
Log into Grex [cyberspace.org] sometime, its an ancient (by computing standards) 2-way sun box running 4.1.4 on 4m. Works perfect. And it has 25,000 users in the/etc/passwd. How about that for "Sun being so bad."
Just to know, ICC has been known to optimize code for AMD processors quite nicely.
An application should compile nicely anywhere, for example, Apache. You name it, gcc, icc, forte - it compiles.
Also, applications should be developed against a standard c library/headers. None of this winsock or strange SYSVisms or/usr/include/linux stuff.
GCC (with some interesting non-standard extensions) and non standard platforms like RedHat makes for difficult porting. Bad discipline and non-standardness is what created a place in the world for the giant, titanic Java. It had gotten to the point where it was easier to port a VM to here or there than to simply compile the application somewhere else. We all know speed suffers for the abstraction which is of questionable value.
So, which compiler should be targeted? Which CPU? Well, unless the compiler is broken or the CPU has severe errata, all of them.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil, so making the first order of business deciding which compiler, platform and CPU the program is for is just that. Why do you think Knuth gives examples in a mythical assembly language for a mythical processor? (Partly due to the fact that it was mythical in a superior sense at the time he came up with it, but also to point out that proper algorithmic implementation and proper programming are architecture independent.)
One of the most impressive things about Linux is the XFS filesystem for it. It is thoroughly tested, production quality, and extremely robust. It is a please to deal with XFS. I personally have tested XFS for robustness and speed, and I have done things such as set up scripts to get, untar, copy erase, and start and stop various daemons and databases and then while this looping miasma was going on RIP THE HARD DRIVE from the system (SCA, SAF-TE, hop swappable). I have yet to see a lengthy FSCK or a corruption. Simply the best!
UFS2 is interesting, and provides a lot of improvements to UFS1, the soft updates are fairly effective at keeping things consistent and there is a background fsck in FreeBSD that works quite well.
A filesystem which is just as robust as XFS in terms of durability is JFS, but sadly I have found this filesystem to be a bit short on the performance side. I believe the main function of JFS is to provide support for those moving from older IBM systems to newer things that possibly include the us of Linux over AIX or OS/2.
I personally will not consider Reiser or EXT3 and could go into detail as to why. I have strong opinions as to what types of filesystems belong in production, and these will not qualify.
So, while JFS for FreeBSD is a good thing, I would like to see at some point an attempt to move XFS to FreeBSD, and if I had that capability, I would have already started.
FreeBSD is coherent, well documented and with things such as Vinum, and JFS-like filesystems and hopefully someday XFS, it really does quote a bit and is released under a flexible, corporate-friendly license (which I believe helps to foster and promulgate further development, not stifle or prevent it).
On of the series of equipment that I am most impressed with is the Juniper routers. They are the best routers available in my estimation (65xx switches are my most favored switches). I feel very at home with JunOS because it is largely FreeBSD: JuneOS version 5.6R1.3 built by builder on 2003-01-02 20:19:20 UTC Copyright (c) 1996-2001, Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1992-2001 The FreeBSD Project. Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. JUNOS 5.6R1.3 #0: 2003-01-02 20:38:33 UTC builder@zu.juniper.net.:/build/zu-b/5.6R1.3/o bj-i3 86/sys/compile/JUNIPER
wget is the god of resuming either ftp or http. I have yet to see either fail, and don't notice too much of a difference in speed.
There are many, many ftpds where there is one prevailing httpd. Apache is very good at shoveling things across a network to be sure, but there seems to be an ftp for any particular purpose. Lots of more commercial OSen use ProFTPD for its recognizable config file and configurability, also, check out kernel.org's bandwidth meter. I don't know how shoveling out 50-100mbits/sec of data to thousands of users at all times washes with people, but it seems to lend credibility to the idea that ftp is a performer. ncftpd also has legendary performance.. Let's not forget VSFTPD, ftp.redhat.com, ftp.openbsd.org and ftp.suse.com are vsftpd.
All in all, wget, apache, a good ftpd [take your pick, PRP, VS or NC] and ncftp are required for sane internet usage.
Dude, I cracked up at this: You mean like that version of Othello with Patrick Stewart
And also, dude, why do you hate me? We never talk anymore! You're out of communication with me! What did I do wrong? Why do you punish me so harshly as if by Sharia or some other Draconian system?!
Oh, well, because the law is overly complex and Judges that were lawyers once will invariably screw the shit out of anyone representing themselves means that lawyers are okay. Look, if you can't see that lawyers helped to ensure the growth of their industry by doing things that protect the existence of their jobs then you are blind. The problem in that enterprising lawyers creating more and more complicated laws to wade through, and the people pay the price. Now listen, I was making a fairly blanketed statement against lawyers, but I'm tired of them. Seriously. I know a few good ones, I'm sure. (I can't seem to recall anyone I'm friends with that is one however - oh wait, someone I know, Karen, she is a good lawyer, but she works for a philanthropy now in management.)
Sure I like the people working for EFF. But by the same token, lawyers will help to promulgate concepts that their own children would *never* want to live with and they do it. They do it for the money. If you don't admit that the archetype, "lawyer", is riddled with a greed stereotype for no reason, you are on crack. I have had to pay for lawyer services. Believe me I wasn't impressed. Lawyers know Judges as friends. That's most how it works. You get the wink and the nod half the time. For bigger civil and criminal stuff, the judges can't be so obvious, but im sure there is still room for greasing palms in any situation.
We have vastly departed from the original legal system envisioned by the framers of this country, assuming the US here.
An interesting take on law: George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-bowh) Ojibwa Chief 1818-1863 - "Among the Indians there have been no written laws. Customs handed down from generation to generation have been the only laws to guide them. Every one might act different from what was considered right did he choose to do so, but such acts would bring upon him the censure of the Nation.... This fear of the Nation's censure acted as a mighty band, binding all in one social, honorable compact."
Now, having said what I said, you know full well I don't hate all lawyers. It is amazing that employing melodrama and overstatement, a tactic used by every lawyer on the face of the earth, you fly out of your corner and try to maul me publicly. I hate when people get defensive.
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Lawyer: One who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Judge: A law student who marks his own papers. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) (being mostly lawyers, I have to agree)
If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Henry David Thoreau
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place. Mahatma Gandhi (12 jurors, a lawyer and a judge have let incontrovertibly guilty members of the KKK off back in the day - its documented. Only when they guilty were tried for civil rights violations did they finally get jail time.)
Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made. Otto Von Bismark (new laws usually get someone a new contract, and a few lawyers some money)
The more corrupt the state, the numerous the laws. Tacitus (and boy do we have so many, made by lawyers)
CNN has circulated horribly wrong information themselves. They come off as a final authority when they have made mistakes. They manipulate the public with dis-infotainment. It is sensationalized entertainment, not science based reporting (see: WSJ, The Economist, and a few others - you know it when you read it, it reads like news not like a Hollywood script).
I nailed them two times already on one recent issue and I barely read them.
I could go on and on, especially on consistent failure to properly report historical facts.
CNN = disinfotainment
People who mislead the public are essentially committing either treason against them or are parodying the real news. Either way, I fail to see the need to protect them. CNN is a mega moneymaking media machine. They are the rainmakers. Feel not for them but for the rights of us to make fun of their complete and total shit reporting.
Sad times are these when three letters in a row are special - "cable news network." Wow. Such a novel and interesting name, kind of like Mickey Mouse. Let us rabidly protect CNN from the very public by which CNN makes all of its money. I deprecate CNN. Incredibly poor biased incomplete conjecture laden reporting with little background information on the players in the situations or the economics of the situation, and a lame fetish for Real gold pass. The Economist, The Wall Street Journal are "real" news sources.
I don't seem how this use of parody falls under this king of scrutiny, but one of the most important things about parody is that it is done in jest, not for profit, you cant sell things under the guise of another's trademark. While I don't like shitty pop-ups (I shut the filter off to see it, what crap), I seriously doubt anyone would buy into that porn crap because they think CNN sanctions or backs it.
It all comes down to a Jeffersonian thing. Can you light another's candle without vanquishing your own? Sure. Will CNN die or lose one penny because of parody? No. In fact, they spent more on the lawyers to write that stupid letter than all the damages they could have ever accrued from this "evil parody."
Lawyers are the real bottom feeding scum. Everyone's asses hurt around them. I've personally been take for a lawyer-ride (without lubrication), shareholders get raped by lawyers, Enron still has lawyers on the payroll to date while 401ks lie empty (due to foolish investment strategies and ignoring reality, but still, its a bit unfair to think lawyers take precedent here har har). In fact the inexorably complex US tax code is created, administered and massively profited off of by lawyers. Judges are lawyers. Politicians are lawyers. Anyone who isn't a scientist, a manager, a doctor, a musician, in the military, well, there is a class of people who are really ancillary to everything around them. This class finds themselves needing work because they are inherently useless. So instead of sticking to trial law, lawyers band together to form raping bands of hyenas that rove the corporate and political landscape raping everything in sight. Why cant Ted Turner just call the webmaster and say, Hey, can you cut the shit? Mano a mano? These fucking lawyers have no face, no use and no spine. BAR. What a crock. Barrister. Some crappy construct leftover from the days of King George of England.
if its so so great being a top 1% person, and living off the efforts of others, say by running a great successful business, then do it yourself. do it. if its so trivial to come up with with working, profitable business model, do it and instead of complaining about how it sucks that rich people are rich and poor people are poor, do it.
dunkin donuts; started by a guy in the great depression selling ice chips.
donald trump; started with nothing, used leveraged property buyouts to become huge
hewlett packard; two dudes in a garage make an oscilloscope
microsoft; some guy [gates] get a really smart nerd [allen] to port basic [stolen from public domain] to a virtual machine of the altair using stolen university time on a PDP11. gates tells altaire that its done before its even started. so begins microsoft. gates' parents know the right people at IBM, and IBM signs one of the worst agreements in its history with Microsoft.
you get the idea. if its trivial, do it. now im struggling middle class myself, but i love every rich person i have ever met. i get to know them by impressing them with my work, and then they give me employment and we work together in symbiosis. sure he drives to work in an S class, but i get my own loaded sedan with all the trimmings, i few less horsepower and no star on the hood. i live better than 99% of the world population, i have nothing to complain about. i know how to read, i can eat food, whatever i want, whenever i want, at all times, i can travel, i can go to school and get dirt cheap loans. my company owned by sirty rich men pay for my education when applicaple to my job and health care, and pay for 3 weeks vacation, and pay for all sorts of things. i realized that if i want to make tons of money i need to do my own business, but its not easy!!!!
dont be angry at rich people, make them your friends. i've never, ever regretted helping out the rich folk. i have always gotten new opportunities and a great "tip!"
the only problem with a tax break for the mortgage is this: it helps only the banks. yes. a benefit that is given to everyone isnt really a benefit. here is the scenario. people dont buy a house with regard to its cost, its purchased based on a monthly payment. this monthly amount is reduced by about 30% by government subsidy (read: taxpayer money). So joe gets a mortgage payment of about $1000. $300 comes back to him, he doesnt even have to wait for a refund if he knows how to set his deductions correctly on the payroll. Now, you say this is good. Yes, but you see everyone's purchasing power went up. So the relative cost of housing goes up, oh, id say about the same 30% that you are giving yourself (because you are a taxpayer, that 30% you get back is really yours to begin with). real fair to most of the population that rents, btw. Anyways, now that everyone purchasing power went up 30%, and housing prices adjust accordingly, based on supply and demand, who makes out in the end? Well, the clever banks that lobbied to get the mortgage give-back laws to begin with. How? well, that $100,000 home (as if these exist anymore, lol) is now $130,000. And now who gets to lend out an extra $30,000 while culling interest? Mister Bank! Hehehe. Ingenious how retard voters took the bait. Anyways, lets all face it. Fuck the 401k, and the bonds, and everything but the Roth IRA. Fuck it. you ARE a slave, you WILL BE A SLAVE forever UNLESS you own your house, FLAT OUT. If you dont own a house, you are helping house owners and banks out, but fucking yourself!
I love how they try and get young people to 401k (this is still a decent idea if its matched as in your employer matches what you put in) and all this shit. Fuck, buy a house ASAP. You might be able to make 10% if you are really, really lucky on the markets. Meanwhile, you have a 30 year 6-7% mortgage. And people rarely do the smar thting and overpay by about 100 bucks. MORTgage. Mort - meaning death, from mourir. Amortize your loan out for the life of it and see what the bank gets. Do this, get an amortization formula out, calculate what the total interest if for a $100,000 house at 7% over 30 years. Then do the same for $130,000. Wow. Hoooweee! Banks! Gotta love them. Wish I owned a house (which i would probably leverage and then rent, if at all possible, rich people collect real estate and bonds).
Also, tax law professors, laywers, etc etc. They all make shitloads of cash dealing with this overly complex assholic tax code.
Alternate tax codes? VAT [states get money from sales tax], pay-by-use[tolls, road fees, etc] and either a flat income [everyone gets a 35K deduction, then pays 17-18% on every dollar after 35K]... Or maybe a real progresive tax [the richer you get, the harder your ass get reamed - yes i know what the top 1% pay 17% of all fed tax, and the top 5% pay 50% or some such number, but life is harder when you dont own a house or have cash saved up, and im working my ass off to get my first house, its getting ridiculously hard. I'm probably going to do the two family thing and rent out the bottom portion.] would be nice. By real progressive I mean bill gates get a really, really nasty tax bracket.
Does anyone know why they didn't come up with a nice continuous function to caclulate your tax. You could call it the progresive continuous tax function.
The USA has fairly low taxes, and besides the seirous health care problems (and the fact that your have to plan for your own retirement because SS is fairly austere), you get a lot of infrastructure and opportunity here, and everyone admits that green is the best color. I do like it here. But I hate when social aid programs get implemented here. Its almost always self-fucking. Its like GreenPeace protesting nuclear power, then creating a world oil mafia. Meanwhile, sweden and france and several other EU countries have clean, efficient nuclear power, we use mostly coal, propane and other fossil feuls for powere generation. People protested nuclear power, and now they bitch about this oil mess. Leave the fucking system alone. I swear, the politicians that screw with it too much always hand payola to the "big guys" - hard money givers - to apologize for the mess 'the people' get to make. Would have been better off with nuclear power, we would have been better off with no mortgage deduction, etc.
My experience has been that heat causes more problems over the long haul. Also, any time a hard drive is at an angle from level that isn't 0 or 90 degrees that is very bad. As far as vibration goes, I usually make an effort to fasten the drive firmly to the case (use all 4 screws), so like a seatbelt, this would prevent the hard drive from vibrating much unless the whole case it vibrating.
The new Cheetah 15.3 drives are double the density per platter, faster, give off less noise and dissipate less heat then previous generations. Less heat dissipation is the most impressive attribute moving forward. Any time you do see fast server drives implemented by vendors or in storage cabinets you notice the ventilation is superior, and that they suggest operating them in environments under 80 degrees F. (I prefer 72, low humidity).
The asics and electronics on the drive probably like cold temperatures rather than low vibration, and the speed of the platter's rotation created a gyroscopic effect meaning you would have to jar the drive well beyond the specified maximum (hard drive manuals list a maximum G shock while in operation). If you are vibrating the dive out of the specified limits, most likely a conservative figure, you are essentially intentionally trying to damage the disk.
How can you make this statement: "but that would be pretty pointless at a 4x bus." (note: you probably you meant ON, not at)
Look, if you want an SMP gaming box, this question should be automatically relegated to/dev/null, however, if you are seriously looking for a graphics workstation and thing AGP 8x is the bus to lust for, think again.
I've had the pleasure of using high end Sun and SGI workstations here and there. While they may not have the fill rate of their gaming friends, they have many, many "work smart, not hard" accelerations available to them that matter in the professional circuit. I would think that any serious graphics capabilities would be best served by an SGI box, and believe me, they don't get AGP So, if you are into MCAD/MCAE, Digital Mockup (DMU) , 3D Animation, Medical Imaging, Scientific Visualization, Oil and Gas (seismic interpretation), Visual Simulation, Editing and Compositing and Geospatial Imaging, you probably aren't the type to need to ask Slashdot where to buy a PC for any of these applications, many of which don't even run on PC architecture. It was a very recent thing where PC cards could even be competitive with professional cards in terms of brute forcing past the elegant hardware accelerations available to professional cards. No one with a professional 3d card on a real workstation feels bad because their metrics don't include Mad Onion/Future Mark 3DMark 2009 XP White Zinfandel Platinum Edition Build 1048576.
You need a dual gaming-only box Why? Why? Just get a single p4-3.06 HT and a Radeon 9700. Believe my, even if it doesn't have AGP 8x, its going to make no more than 5% difference. And who the hell cares about 5% when frame rates are coming out at two times the monitors refresh rate? Who cares?
If you are not a pure gamer, but do other things that fit the gamer archetype like ripping DIVX, then you probably want a fast integer rig for consumer operating systems like Windows XP, then get a Dual 2.8GHz Xeon with an ATI or Nvidia or even a Matrox Parhelia (a popular "professional" card due to 3 heads). Most of the professional PC cards require AGP Pro 110, so that's the slot you would be looking for, Pro 110 is a far more important consideration than AGP 8x. (110 being the watts that the slot can dish out).
I think this is a consumer grade Photoshop / Premiere / Lightwave / Bryce / QuickTime / DiVX / MPEG box. That is the "gamer" category as far as I'm concerned, and for any of those applications, AGP 8x makes no difference.
Don't be looking for Raytheon to start using junk PCs in simulations for any of the military grade stuff they design, it just isn't happening. Microsoft = consumer grade, Nvidia = consumer grade. Just because the really high end stuff is priced beyond the reach of consumers doesn't mean its junk.
I agree with your essay. You are acerbic, and your original post summed up what you explain here. You don't owe them an explanation however.
I thought this Japanime crap was interesting - high on marijuana. Some kid had it (the lacky-wannabe [the kind you send to get food when hungry] that invariably is present with a group of people get high, Towelie, wanna get high?), it was called Tank Police. It was all full of explosions, metal music. The next day, this bed wetter still wanted to watch it. And I thought it was crap, and knew that last night it was only interesting because it was colorful and had moving objects.
Its such a marketing scam, and the shit is expensive. And nothing ever happens. It takes YEARS of a series to progress 5 minutes (one kid used to like DBZ and the TV was in the same room as the computer, and that has got to be the worst shit ever, it rips the fabric of space and time).
Its quite clear to me that people in the computer related sciences who I admire patently don't like anime, or are obsessively geeky in any regard, save maybe the long hair bullshit. I doubt I'll ever see Joy, Ritchie, Thompson or Kernighan at a piece of shit Anime convention.
I even started to watch Akira [and another piece of shit she said was better was Devil Hunter Yoko or some crap] - some chick that was into Anime begged me to watch it [no, it wasnt worth the hookup, and she was good looking, but a god damn weirdo]. It is crap. Here I am, liking Shawshank Redemption, Sixth Sense, The Godfather, Memento, Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, The Usual Suspects, Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Y tu Mamá También , Like Water for Chocolate, Cinema Paradiso - and here lies this SHIT called Akira. What fucking crap. And you don't even have to direct or cast real living actors, detracting from the complexity, and it sucks so much shit. So, there you have it. Tank Police, Akira, Devil Hunter, Dragon Ball Z, SHIT SHIT SHIT and SHIT. And no, I don't want any suggestions for good anime from nerds, I have a life, a wife, travel plans and many assorted better things to do.
I've actually found cases where the SMP on FreeBSD 4.x was superior to Linux. In order to test Linux's networking performance vs. FreeBSD, I changed a program for an algorithm to just run in the background calculating the Ackermann Function.
Anyways, the base rate was to run two Ackerman's at once, thus causing 100% USER CPU usage on both CPUs. The base rate for FreeBSD 4.62 was 15.5 Ackerman's per time period, vs. Linux's v2.4.18 14.0 during the same time period. Now this isn't a smoking gun, but the hardware was identical, and they were both running on custom compiled thin as possible kernels under the same duress.
Why would anyone do this? Well, my goal was to eat up all USER CPU and see how much I could rob from user with system under severe network abuse. Needless to say, that both OS's did very poorly, with FreeBSD having a clear edge, when the interface was brought to promiscuous mode to listen to a packet flood. FreeBSD degraded less, but in both cases an almost useless amount of CPU was left over for USERland. FreeBSD with RX polling turned on - a feature that practically seems unique to FreeBSD, from the XORP router project. I am aware of polling endeavors in Linux but was never able to get them working. As usual with FreeBSD, 'features' aren't creeping in, so they tend to work. I even changed the polling to work under SMP (it wasn't designed to) and it worked in a situation where it shouldn't have. The usefulness of RX polling cannot be stressed enough, its imperative to consider the live-locking of interrupt driven kernels when dealing with massive amounts of bandwidth. If interested, see: 'Eliminating Receive Livelock in an Interrupt-driven Kernel', USENIX 1996, its amazing to me livelock still happens over 5 years after stuff like this gets presented to the public.
So, how bad is FreeBSD SMP? As far as I was concerned in my test, 2.4 Linux SMP seemed inferior (in my case) to FreeBSD on identical hardware. Are people touting Linux's big bad SMP zealots. Most probably, most good kernel hackers think highly of FreeBSD, particularly the VM. I find it amusing that RedHat is not porting to SPARC or Alpha anymore, and yes FreeBSD 5 is planned stable on IA64, IA32, SPARC64, PowerPC [stable planned a bit later, probably when a real PPC gets offered by IBM - die Motorola PPC, die] and Alpha. Clean code and standards compliance begets portability.
As far as saying "SMP" is better. Linux may have a better approach, but like my example, and I am sure there are others, empirical tests say a whole lot more. It's important to keep the machinery well oiled and coherent, which is something I think FreeBSD does rather nicely. Empirical tests such as mine prove that approach and theory and real life are different.
FreeBSD - it's coherent, well documented, "thin," bloody fast, BSD licensed so call it your own. You can see that well written code goes across architectures; the FreeBSD discipline is allowing them to easily stay stable on several platforms. I have run several tests that suggest that even FreeBSD 4.X is 'better' than Linux at various things, let alone 5.0. The VM subsystem is superior [2.5 is catching up]. Most big companies provide virtual servers with FreeBSD, such as Verio. The biggest irony of all is how small the FreeBSD community is compared to legions of hackers and companies trying to improve Linux. Yet why is Linux fragmented so horribly? You will eventually come to understand why this is the only free and open commercial grade OS there is. You will know what you are missing when you finally get a coherent UNIX. GCC, the C library and the kernel are all a matched set, not of this he said she said GNU-of-the-day distribution crap or fake compilers from RedHat and frozen broken CVS snapshots of the C library [RedHat again, with a fake C-lib on RH8]. FreeBSD is used by Juniper as the core OS, with network processors instead of 'real' network cards. It's beautiful. A full version of FreeBSD, relabeled JuneOS, with an IOS-like CLI for those who need it and superior design and interfaces. The UFS2 filesystem is also incredible. I really, really like XFS for Linux, but the Linux kernel maintainers won't merge it in [to 2.4] but have a myriad of vastly inferior filesystems merged into Linux [ext3 fake journaling, Reiser fsck for fun FS, JFS which is robust but slow]. RedHat's refusal not to embrace XFS with open arms boggles my mind. UFS2 addresses this problem. A fast, robust logging filesystem that is stable and in the kernel. I think UFS2 is a far superior improvement to UFS than was ETX3 to EXT2.
Anyways, I don't think I'll wait for Linux kernel 2.6 or any of the flavors of Linux distributors to come out with something stable, well documented, coherent with UNIX as a standard and each other. Don't be fooled, LSB is a standards base, but you don't get decades of discipline, you get maybe a years worth of un-actualized planning. FreeBSD 5.0 is here. This project needs a better installer, and some 'for workstation use' cleanups, and probably a better package system, although, there are lots of people who like PKG and PORTS much, much better than RPM or DEB. Another annoying omission [and yet another Sun self-screwing maneuver] it that it is difficult to get a JRE/JDK to run natively [1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 are available as ports] and Sun does not provide one [they are apparently planning one]. People have lots of luck though using the Linux binary emulator, FreeBSD can run everything Linux does in binary form and it's easier to port to. Another good reason to develop for FreeBSD is this: Linux has/usr/include/linux. That in and of itself is a reason not to start there for development work. World, see a more beautiful future, one which was paved with the golden road made of FreeBSD - Certainly FreeBSD has a place, and in my opinion it clearly deprecates Linux in some situations. Particularly if you need to have a nice server box stay up forever or stay GPL-virus-free. [this said affectionately, I like the GPL, but you may not be able to afford giving your intellectual property to the world but would like to contribute in some way nevertheless. If it's a non-novel concept, the "community" will just implement it out of need/demand, if it's too difficult for the hackers to trivially add, then it might just be worth calling intellectual property.]
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I would think heart disease wasn't an issue at the turn of the century because the life expectancy was so low.
:).
You think cancer, Alzheimer's Parkinson's and clogged arteries are much of a threat when you die at ~45 and below?
There are a lot of mitigating factors, many revolve around genetics, but I would think omega-3 fatty acids would be a good thing to eat as long as your sources, mainly fish, are mercury/heavy metal free.
For every diet strategy, for every study, there are many things that would make living a life fanatically devoted to a given strategy possibly detrimental.
Worry about carbs. Worry about vCJD and prions. Worry about saturated fats. Worry about eicosanoids. Worry about mercury. Worry about what excessive protein can do to the kidneys. Worry about growth hormones. Worry about liver toxicity index. Worry about actually finding foods with lots of poly and mono unsaturated fats. Worry about your myelin sheathing on your nerves and gulp down Lorenzo's oil. What pisses me off the most about all this worrying is that if you reference all diets all food is bad.
Oh well. Best not to worry
One might like to point out also that FreeBSD is the basis for the best routing OS there is: JunOS. FreeBSD is very ripe for being a commercial product because of the no-nonsense base install, the wonderful kernel which is exceedingly stable and despite the rants of others, is fairly close to being on par with Linux. Linux tends to change rapidly. FreeBSD changes in a more deterministic way. I also must say that bundling the c library and compiler along with a coherent well documented userland is something that Linux systems may want to take a long had look at. I also really like building the kernel, libraries, compiler and userland easily and reliably from a very easy to follow procedure, mine is: /etc/make.conf; CPUTYPE?=p3; CFLAGS= -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 ; CXXFLAGS+= -fmemoize-lookups -fsave-memoized -O2 -march=pentium3 ; [-march I do repetitively to make sure i get my probably not needed CPU optimizations ;p] ; COPTFLAGS= -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 ; NOPROFILE= true ; WANT_EXT2FS_MODULE=yes ; MAKE_IDEA= YES ; COMPAT4X= yes ; configure cvsup in /etc/make.conf ; various other tweaks /etc /usr/obj ./usr/src, build system ;
- cvsup the base system to latest CVS stable release
- configure
- reconfigure kernel config file to include SMP [options SMP; options APIC_IO], and a shorter timeout period for the SCSI driver [options SCSI_DELAY=4000], and I add a few things to support IDE-CD burning [device atapicam], etc.
- backup
- clean out
- in
make clean && make cleandepend && make cleandir && make clean && make cleandepend && make cleandir [anal retentive cleansing]
make buildworld ; make buildkernel KERNCONF=SMP
make installkernel KERNCONF=SMP
single user mode
fsck -p ; mount -u / ; mount -a -t ufs ; swapon -a ; adjkerntz -i
mergemaster -p ; make installworld ; mergemaster ; reboot
Now my whole system is custom made for my CPU and hardware. It lets me see the care taken in building the whole system and shows off a very clean build process.
The ports system has many meta-ports that make making an instant workstation quite easy to construct. If you don't want to build your ports with massive optimizations, a large cache of packages are available.
I would like to point out that I have never had an unbuildable world. I've heard of it on -CURRENT, but have never experienced it, but -STABLE is wonderfully - stable!
Ports could use a rollback feature such as the one found in Gentoo. Not that I long for Gentoo [I've used this system and deprecate it for a multitude of reasons, maybe later], I have supervised many systems and find that FreeBSD is the best in terms of stability and longevity. Of course uptime is more of a game, who can build a better mousetrap, but its certainly not a meaningless metric.
The biggest hole in FreeBSD at the moment is Sun's fault. Native Java 1.4 support is available with a bizarre license. Interestingly, IBM and Sun's Linux products actually run very well under the Linux emulation support.
I have never understood the hatred people have for FreeBSD. It bizarre and unfounded. Its a non-RedHat systems to Winux [Windows weenie Linux wannabees] admins, so they have a conniption that real UNIX is complex and detail oriented, and that reading mans, howtos and docs are par for the course - no admin wizards to "save the day." No, you must actually understand and configure something properly.
The documentation on FreeBSD is superior. There are many, many docs that cover basic to esoteric administration, with a lot of attention paid to performance enhancing things one can do.
Add Vinum and UFS2 to the stack of features, and you have yourself some fairly serious filesystem support. While I would like to see XFS in FreeBSD as well, it is a pipe dream, as it is still in "stable" Linux - the best file
Why doesn't Apple publish their marks on specbench.org? Why don't people look at
this:
http://www.specbench.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q
or
this:
http://www.specbench.org/cpu2000/results/res200
The compiler?
Compiler: Intel C/C++ 7.0 build 20021212Z and
Intel Fortran 7.0 build 20021212Z,
Compaq Visual Fortran Compiler Version 6.6
Update B, Microsoft Visual Studio
MicroQuill Smartheap Library 6.0
A few samples of the tweaks used to get peak?
C +FD0 -O3 -QxW -Qipo
C++ +FD0 -Qipo -GX -GR
Fortran +FD0 -O3 -QaxK -Qipo -Oi-
Apple should be forced to do full disclosure and publish results. I think SPEC should forbid the quoting of unpublished SPEC marks.
I think people need to better understand these benchmarks before commenting on them.
I personally consider the peak scored for INT and FP because the OS, the compilers, the compiler flags and libraries used are generally "real" and good for multipurpose general use -not the case in a certain Apple benchmark where a library was used that would be useless on a production system quote from an Extreme Tech article What I find the most interesting thing to come of this whole mess is the fact than the Opteron produced some scores which challenge the Itanium 2 on Intel's own compiler.
The sad thing about the fork in this story leading to crap like this is that people politicize scientific endeavors to get floor time. Nuclear happens to be an unfortunate keyword.
I for one do not want to sit in the dark ages and think that if NASA determines it best to use fission reactors to best perform deep space studies, so be it. Fanatics will fantasize about a cabal of technophiles, Illuminati and energy moguls and the x-files guys all hanging out in a dastardly plan to bring about Armageddon because you know, all these rich powerful people really want say, a nuclear war so they can live out their days in a bunker on a destroyed earth because that's the very definition of FUN! It's like people in a vocal minority to maraud around looking to bring Bush or the liberal establishment or [name your group to blame everything on here ]into every discussion.
All countries "are". They are not good. They are not evil. They are all unilateralist whenever they can afford to be. If you want others to believe in your morality, grab an orange robe and become a Buddhist monk. Otherwise, you're a money grubber just like the rest of us.
Those who bet on apocalypse the end of days, bet against a bright future basically always lose. It's not wise to sell short on the progressive countries of the world. Luddites who hearken back to the good ole days are essentially insane.
Now as far as nuclear devices with regards to the US - the US has been in possession of nuclear weapons the longest and has been able to refrain from using them the longest (Time since Nagasaki, as in, longest period of years since they were last used in war) despite the apparent efficacy of nuclear attack in bringing WW2 to a close.. They are staggeringly expensive and have little military value (until recently, the below ground penetrating missile/bomb design and nuclear torpedoes are also effective, both of these are tactical applications) they are essentially a threat over population centers. The US would not use strategic weapons unless they are used upon the US. Strategic weapons are essentially possessed only by France, Britain, Russia, China, US (and a lesser extent, India, Pakistan). They are effectively deterrence in that populations centers will be totally destroyed if the US is attacked. I don't foresee the preemptive use of strategic weapons nor is there any evidence of that in US nuclear posturing doctrine, which is publicly available:
FAS NPR , and Globalsecurity NPR, and DefenseLINK NPR.
The new preemptive nuclear strike parts of the doctrine basically wants to make a case for the use of tactical nuclear weapons against well fortified targets. Given that a swift conventional campaign in Iraq was so politically painful for the US, I seriously doubt that the US will ever use tactical nukes, much less preemptively. I think the document says it best: It's a nuclear posturing document. Anyone can break their own doctrine or even a SALT treaty anytime they want (See DPRK for an example of violating agreements). You think "dismantled" warheads aren't ready to go at Pentax? The modification of the nuclear posturing to say we will consider the use of preemptive nuclear strike in response to threats from Nuclear/Chemical/Biological attack or threat is simply this: Terrorist of the world and Countries of the world: Think long and hard about turning a blind eye or abetting subversive organizations that place US citizens under a potential deadly threat.
Strategic Weapons and the Cuban Missile Crisis: On October 25, 1962, Castro begged in a letter to Khruschev to preemptively strike the US. Khruschev was essentially shocked that Castro didn't get it. The posturing wasn't designed to start a strategic nuclear war, which Khruschev made clear in a letter to Castro on October 27, 1962,
Man, does anyone who criticizes FreeBSD ever use it? Because I use it and like it quite a bit, and everyone I know who uses it likes it.
/usr/bin to /usr/local/bin (they even put symlinks for you in /usr/bin) So as far as I can tell, FreeBSD 5.1 comes with perl 5.6.1 in the "default install." The only ramification is simply this. If you for some reason want to upgrade perl, you use ports and you don't have to wait for the FreeBSD team to update it, because rightly so, they see no reason to do it. Also note that why would you want perl scripts in an OS? Shell is perfectly adequate for the scripting needs of the base system, perl is something users use.
On Perl: Perl is not in the base install, it's a port installed by default, So What! It was moved to ports because people want to have a lot of flexibility when it comes to what version of perl they run. The FreeBSD team was doing just what the users wanted. And I would like to know how to install FreeBSD without that Perl port installed. You would have to go out of your way in every install method to take it out. Big deal it moved from
On Java: Sun is being an idiot with regards to Sun on anything but Solaris, Windows and Linux. They make it very hard to include the JVM in binary form in a "default install." They have a ridiculous license on they source code that makes it hard for FreeBSD to do much of anything about this. By they way, if you use ports the JVM 1.4 builds nicely and works rather well. I have personally written to Sun complaining about this - as have others, but they aren't willing to focus on FreeBSD. BTW, FreeBSD runs linux binaries and the Linux JVM works on that compatibility layer.
NVIDIA: Nvidia builds binary drivers for FreeBSD. Hardly 'niche.'
SMP, scheduler: SMP is vastly improved, scheduler and VM is very very good. This OS is very competitive with Linux, and despite what you may have heard, it is capable of outperforming it without sacrificing quality.
Matched c-library, GCC, userland and kernel: One must appreciate that the FreeBSD team is a very thorough. They are obsessively concerned with coherency and quality. This is not some slapped together random miasma in every incarnation, this is a well thought out combination of the vital system components. It works. Trust me, it works. If you want military grade, use 4.8+, if you want rock solid, use 5.1. Frankly, where FreeBSD-current is, is where most linuxes start in terms stability/coherency/usability. It is quite useable in its "unstable" form.
Polling Support: One of FreeBSD's best features is polling on networking devices to prevent interrupt driven livelock.
Proof in Pudding: Think of heavy iron appliances with various free operating systems in it. I can think of two for FreeBSD. The godly Juniper routers and the F5 BigIP. These are serious pieces of networking equipment and they chose FreeBSD for a reason - its far more pleasant to deal with commercially, its fast stable and coherent and the license permits modifications without divulging them to the world.
One project, one c compiler, one c library, one coherent userland, 5 different architectures, great portability, stability and commercial viability.
The last MULTICS box was taken down just a short while ago; it was in use by the Canadian Defense Department until October 30, 2000.
A long standing joke in the corporate computing world is all the anti MSFT vitriol and how godly Unix and Unix like OSes are compared to it in terms of security. MULTICS used to enjoy the same poking fun at Unix in this manner:
And some summation of various MULTICS history information:
Yes, but if a car has a recall on a daily basis we call it a lemon. The Windows products I find especially annoying because the don't have scheduled service intervals like Solaris, large patch updates that are welded into the base install (MU, or Lotus QMR) are released whenever Microsoft feels like it and not on a schedule.
If they expect governments to enforce the overzealous EULAs, and to insinuate the product has real monetary value and it should be criminal to misuse it, then they should be liable for its actions. The door swings both ways. To use the ridiculous but relevant car analogy, check out Ford/Firestone with the tire recall, they hat to eat a big huge monetary crap-sandwich to make up for that. They also have to provide parts for cars for 5 years after they sell them, by law, and they must also be subject to anti-lemon and consumer protection law.
While I don't foresee Microsoft getting chastised, lambasted and castigated as it should be here in the US where being a rich company has many, many benefits, I do see an opportunity for Microsoft to have to be held accountable for its actions in the EU and Asia. Also in Asian countries the logic is: If you expect me not to pirate this, it better do something good.
I hope this teaches Microsoft that the venue by which they made the 40 billion they have sitting in the bank is us, the victims of pre-installs on new PCs (I believe 80% of the MSFT revenue is from pre-install), we should get a piece of that if we are wronged by the software.
There is a huge disparity between what is claimed on the glossy box and what is delivered in reality, and the consumer needs to be protected from fraud and fiscal liability due to product failure.
It applies to every other business. Software should be the same.
Also, EULAs claim the license isn't transferable and resalable, I content that this means it then has no value. No one can tell you you can't sell your used car.
This is a poorly formatted, half assed troll.
And your use of ** for *emphasis* dates you as a fucking retard Apple ][e shithead - but certainly not before.
What a fucking retard.
Thanks for taking out the troll with the cluebat.
/etc/passwd. How about that for "Sun being so bad."
We export NFS here on Solaris/x86 because we have to. NFS as a server is essentially broken on Linux. I'm not a big x86-o-phile, but I would rather export NFS with NetApp or Sun's own than anything else - it just works.
Log into Grex [cyberspace.org] sometime, its an ancient (by computing standards) 2-way sun box running 4.1.4 on 4m. Works perfect. And it has 25,000 users in the
Just to know, ICC has been known to optimize code for AMD processors quite nicely.
/usr/include/linux stuff.
An application should compile nicely anywhere, for example, Apache. You name it, gcc, icc, forte - it compiles.
Also, applications should be developed against a standard c library/headers. None of this winsock or strange SYSVisms or
GCC (with some interesting non-standard extensions) and non standard platforms like RedHat makes for difficult porting. Bad discipline and non-standardness is what created a place in the world for the giant, titanic Java. It had gotten to the point where it was easier to port a VM to here or there than to simply compile the application somewhere else. We all know speed suffers for the abstraction which is of questionable value.
So, which compiler should be targeted? Which CPU? Well, unless the compiler is broken or the CPU has severe errata, all of them.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil, so making the first order of business deciding which compiler, platform and CPU the program is for is just that. Why do you think Knuth gives examples in a mythical assembly language for a mythical processor? (Partly due to the fact that it was mythical in a superior sense at the time he came up with it, but also to point out that proper algorithmic implementation and proper programming are architecture independent.)
One of the most impressive things about Linux is the XFS filesystem for it. It is thoroughly tested, production quality, and extremely robust. It is a please to deal with XFS. I personally have tested XFS for robustness and speed, and I have done things such as set up scripts to get, untar, copy erase, and start and stop various daemons and databases and then while this looping miasma was going on RIP THE HARD DRIVE from the system (SCA, SAF-TE, hop swappable). I have yet to see a lengthy FSCK or a corruption. Simply the best!
o bj-i3 86/sys/compile/JUNIPER
UFS2 is interesting, and provides a lot of improvements to UFS1, the soft updates are fairly effective at keeping things consistent and there is a background fsck in FreeBSD that works quite well.
A filesystem which is just as robust as XFS in terms of durability is JFS, but sadly I have found this filesystem to be a bit short on the performance side. I believe the main function of JFS is to provide support for those moving from older IBM systems to newer things that possibly include the us of Linux over AIX or OS/2.
I personally will not consider Reiser or EXT3 and could go into detail as to why. I have strong opinions as to what types of filesystems belong in production, and these will not qualify.
So, while JFS for FreeBSD is a good thing, I would like to see at some point an attempt to move XFS to FreeBSD, and if I had that capability, I would have already started.
FreeBSD is coherent, well documented and with things such as Vinum, and JFS-like filesystems and hopefully someday XFS, it really does quote a bit and is released under a flexible, corporate-friendly license (which I believe helps to foster and promulgate further development, not stifle or prevent it).
On of the series of equipment that I am most impressed with is the Juniper routers. They are the best routers available in my estimation (65xx switches are my most favored switches). I feel very at home with JunOS because it is largely FreeBSD:
JuneOS version 5.6R1.3 built by builder on 2003-01-02 20:19:20 UTC
Copyright (c) 1996-2001, Juniper Networks, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1992-2001 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
JUNOS 5.6R1.3 #0: 2003-01-02 20:38:33 UTC
builder@zu.juniper.net.:/build/zu-b/5.6R1.3/
wget is the god of resuming either ftp or http. I have yet to see either fail, and don't notice too much of a difference in speed.
;p
There are many, many ftpds where there is one prevailing httpd. Apache is very good at shoveling things across a network to be sure, but there seems to be an ftp for any particular purpose. Lots of more commercial OSen use ProFTPD for its recognizable config file and configurability, also, check out kernel.org's bandwidth meter. I don't know how shoveling out 50-100mbits/sec of data to thousands of users at all times washes with people, but it seems to lend credibility to the idea that ftp is a performer. ncftpd also has legendary performance.. Let's not forget VSFTPD, ftp.redhat.com, ftp.openbsd.org and ftp.suse.com are vsftpd.
All in all, wget, apache, a good ftpd [take your pick, PRP, VS or NC] and ncftp are required for sane internet usage.
And I've never seen wget fail a re-get...
and death to IIS
Dude, I cracked up at this:
You mean like that version of Othello with Patrick Stewart
And also, dude, why do you hate me? We never talk anymore! You're out of communication with me! What did I do wrong? Why do you punish me so harshly as if by Sharia or some other Draconian system?!
Oh, well, because the law is overly complex and Judges that were lawyers once will invariably screw the shit out of anyone representing themselves means that lawyers are okay. Look, if you can't see that lawyers helped to ensure the growth of their industry by doing things that protect the existence of their jobs then you are blind. The problem in that enterprising lawyers creating more and more complicated laws to wade through, and the people pay the price. Now listen, I was making a fairly blanketed statement against lawyers, but I'm tired of them. Seriously. I know a few good ones, I'm sure. (I can't seem to recall anyone I'm friends with that is one however - oh wait, someone I know, Karen, she is a good lawyer, but she works for a philanthropy now in management.)
Sure I like the people working for EFF. But by the same token, lawyers will help to promulgate concepts that their own children would *never* want to live with and they do it. They do it for the money. If you don't admit that the archetype, "lawyer", is riddled with a greed stereotype for no reason, you are on crack. I have had to pay for lawyer services. Believe me I wasn't impressed. Lawyers know Judges as friends. That's most how it works. You get the wink and the nod half the time. For bigger civil and criminal stuff, the judges can't be so obvious, but im sure there is still room for greasing palms in any situation.
We have vastly departed from the original legal system envisioned by the framers of this country, assuming the US here.
An interesting take on law: George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-bowh) Ojibwa Chief 1818-1863 - "Among the Indians there have been no written laws. Customs handed down from generation to generation have been the only laws to guide them. Every one might act different from what was considered right did he choose to do so, but such acts would bring upon him the censure of the Nation.... This fear of the Nation's censure acted as a mighty band, binding all in one social, honorable compact."
Now, having said what I said, you know full well I don't hate all lawyers. It is amazing that employing melodrama and overstatement, a tactic used by every lawyer on the face of the earth, you fly out of your corner and try to maul me publicly. I hate when people get defensive.
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Lawyer: One who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Judge: A law student who marks his own papers.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) (being mostly lawyers, I have to agree)
If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
Mahatma Gandhi (12 jurors, a lawyer and a judge have let incontrovertibly guilty members of the KKK off back in the day - its documented. Only when they guilty were tried for civil rights violations did they finally get jail time.)
Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.
Otto Von Bismark (new laws usually get someone a new contract, and a few lawyers some money)
The more corrupt the state, the numerous the laws.
Tacitus (and boy do we have so many, made by lawyers)
CNN has circulated horribly wrong information themselves. They come off as a final authority when they have made mistakes. They manipulate the public with dis-infotainment. It is sensationalized entertainment, not science based reporting (see: WSJ, The Economist, and a few others - you know it when you read it, it reads like news not like a Hollywood script).
CNN also reported that the Shuttle was going 18 times the speed of light.
See people talking of it here.
CNN said of the shuttle disaster: "officials were searching a 500 square mile radius"
See some Usenet-age on that here.
I nailed them two times already on one recent issue and I barely read them.
I could go on and on, especially on consistent failure to properly report historical facts.
CNN = disinfotainment
People who mislead the public are essentially committing either treason against them or are parodying the real news. Either way, I fail to see the need to protect them. CNN is a mega moneymaking media machine. They are the rainmakers. Feel not for them but for the rights of us to make fun of their complete and total shit reporting.
Sad times are these when three letters in a row are special - "cable news network." Wow. Such a novel and interesting name, kind of like Mickey Mouse. Let us rabidly protect CNN from the very public by which CNN makes all of its money. I deprecate CNN. Incredibly poor biased incomplete conjecture laden reporting with little background information on the players in the situations or the economics of the situation, and a lame fetish for Real gold pass. The Economist, The Wall Street Journal are "real" news sources.
I don't seem how this use of parody falls under this king of scrutiny, but one of the most important things about parody is that it is done in jest, not for profit, you cant sell things under the guise of another's trademark. While I don't like shitty pop-ups (I shut the filter off to see it, what crap), I seriously doubt anyone would buy into that porn crap because they think CNN sanctions or backs it.
It all comes down to a Jeffersonian thing. Can you light another's candle without vanquishing your own? Sure. Will CNN die or lose one penny because of parody? No. In fact, they spent more on the lawyers to write that stupid letter than all the damages they could have ever accrued from this "evil parody."
Lawyers are the real bottom feeding scum. Everyone's asses hurt around them. I've personally been take for a lawyer-ride (without lubrication), shareholders get raped by lawyers, Enron still has lawyers on the payroll to date while 401ks lie empty (due to foolish investment strategies and ignoring reality, but still, its a bit unfair to think lawyers take precedent here har har). In fact the inexorably complex US tax code is created, administered and massively profited off of by lawyers. Judges are lawyers. Politicians are lawyers. Anyone who isn't a scientist, a manager, a doctor, a musician, in the military, well, there is a class of people who are really ancillary to everything around them. This class finds themselves needing work because they are inherently useless. So instead of sticking to trial law, lawyers band together to form raping bands of hyenas that rove the corporate and political landscape raping everything in sight. Why cant Ted Turner just call the webmaster and say, Hey, can you cut the shit? Mano a mano? These fucking lawyers have no face, no use and no spine. BAR. What a crock. Barrister. Some crappy construct leftover from the days of King George of England.
if its so so great being a top 1% person, and living off the efforts of others, say by running a great successful business, then do it yourself. do it. if its so trivial to come up with with working, profitable business model, do it and instead of complaining about how it sucks that rich people are rich and poor people are poor, do it.
dunkin donuts; started by a guy in the great depression selling ice chips.
donald trump; started with nothing, used leveraged property buyouts to become huge
hewlett packard; two dudes in a garage make an oscilloscope
microsoft; some guy [gates] get a really smart nerd [allen] to port basic [stolen from public domain] to a virtual machine of the altair using stolen university time on a PDP11. gates tells altaire that its done before its even started. so begins microsoft. gates' parents know the right people at IBM, and IBM signs one of the worst agreements in its history with Microsoft.
you get the idea. if its trivial, do it. now im struggling middle class myself, but i love every rich person i have ever met. i get to know them by impressing them with my work, and then they give me employment and we work together in symbiosis. sure he drives to work in an S class, but i get my own loaded sedan with all the trimmings, i few less horsepower and no star on the hood. i live better than 99% of the world population, i have nothing to complain about. i know how to read, i can eat food, whatever i want, whenever i want, at all times, i can travel, i can go to school and get dirt cheap loans. my company owned by sirty rich men pay for my education when applicaple to my job and health care, and pay for 3 weeks vacation, and pay for all sorts of things. i realized that if i want to make tons of money i need to do my own business, but its not easy!!!!
dont be angry at rich people, make them your friends. i've never, ever regretted helping out the rich folk. i have always gotten new opportunities and a great "tip!"
the only problem with a tax break for the mortgage is this: it helps only the banks. yes. a benefit that is given to everyone isnt really a benefit. here is the scenario. people dont buy a house with regard to its cost, its purchased based on a monthly payment. this monthly amount is reduced by about 30% by government subsidy (read: taxpayer money). So joe gets a mortgage payment of about $1000. $300 comes back to him, he doesnt even have to wait for a refund if he knows how to set his deductions correctly on the payroll. Now, you say this is good. Yes, but you see everyone's purchasing power went up. So the relative cost of housing goes up, oh, id say about the same 30% that you are giving yourself (because you are a taxpayer, that 30% you get back is really yours to begin with). real fair to most of the population that rents, btw. Anyways, now that everyone purchasing power went up 30%, and housing prices adjust accordingly, based on supply and demand, who makes out in the end? Well, the clever banks that lobbied to get the mortgage give-back laws to begin with. How? well, that $100,000 home (as if these exist anymore, lol) is now $130,000. And now who gets to lend out an extra $30,000 while culling interest? Mister Bank! Hehehe. Ingenious how retard voters took the bait. Anyways, lets all face it. Fuck the 401k, and the bonds, and everything but the Roth IRA. Fuck it. you ARE a slave, you WILL BE A SLAVE forever UNLESS you own your house, FLAT OUT. If you dont own a house, you are helping house owners and banks out, but fucking yourself!
I love how they try and get young people to 401k (this is still a decent idea if its matched as in your employer matches what you put in) and all this shit. Fuck, buy a house ASAP. You might be able to make 10% if you are really, really lucky on the markets. Meanwhile, you have a 30 year 6-7% mortgage. And people rarely do the smar thting and overpay by about 100 bucks. MORTgage. Mort - meaning death, from mourir. Amortize your loan out for the life of it and see what the bank gets. Do this, get an amortization formula out, calculate what the total interest if for a $100,000 house at 7% over 30 years. Then do the same for $130,000. Wow. Hoooweee! Banks! Gotta love them. Wish I owned a house (which i would probably leverage and then rent, if at all possible, rich people collect real estate and bonds).
Also, tax law professors, laywers, etc etc. They all make shitloads of cash dealing with this overly complex assholic tax code.
Alternate tax codes? VAT [states get money from sales tax], pay-by-use[tolls, road fees, etc] and either a flat income [everyone gets a 35K deduction, then pays 17-18% on every dollar after 35K]... Or maybe a real progresive tax [the richer you get, the harder your ass get reamed - yes i know what the top 1% pay 17% of all fed tax, and the top 5% pay 50% or some such number, but life is harder when you dont own a house or have cash saved up, and im working my ass off to get my first house, its getting ridiculously hard. I'm probably going to do the two family thing and rent out the bottom portion.] would be nice. By real progressive I mean bill gates get a really, really nasty tax bracket.
Does anyone know why they didn't come up with a nice continuous function to caclulate your tax. You could call it the progresive continuous tax function.
The USA has fairly low taxes, and besides the seirous health care problems (and the fact that your have to plan for your own retirement because SS is fairly austere), you get a lot of infrastructure and opportunity here, and everyone admits that green is the best color. I do like it here. But I hate when social aid programs get implemented here. Its almost always self-fucking. Its like GreenPeace protesting nuclear power, then creating a world oil mafia. Meanwhile, sweden and france and several other EU countries have clean, efficient nuclear power, we use mostly coal, propane and other fossil feuls for powere generation. People protested nuclear power, and now they bitch about this oil mess. Leave the fucking system alone. I swear, the politicians that screw with it too much always hand payola to the "big guys" - hard money givers - to apologize for the mess 'the people' get to make. Would have been better off with nuclear power, we would have been better off with no mortgage deduction, etc.
My experience has been that heat causes more problems over the long haul. Also, any time a hard drive is at an angle from level that isn't 0 or 90 degrees that is very bad. As far as vibration goes, I usually make an effort to fasten the drive firmly to the case (use all 4 screws), so like a seatbelt, this would prevent the hard drive from vibrating much unless the whole case it vibrating.
The new Cheetah 15.3 drives are double the density per platter, faster, give off less noise and dissipate less heat then previous generations. Less heat dissipation is the most impressive attribute moving forward. Any time you do see fast server drives implemented by vendors or in storage cabinets you notice the ventilation is superior, and that they suggest operating them in environments under 80 degrees F. (I prefer 72, low humidity).
The asics and electronics on the drive probably like cold temperatures rather than low vibration, and the speed of the platter's rotation created a gyroscopic effect meaning you would have to jar the drive well beyond the specified maximum (hard drive manuals list a maximum G shock while in operation). If you are vibrating the dive out of the specified limits, most likely a conservative figure, you are essentially intentionally trying to damage the disk.
How can you make this statement: "but that would be pretty pointless at a 4x bus." (note: you probably you meant ON, not at)
/dev/null, however, if you are seriously looking for a graphics workstation and thing AGP 8x is the bus to lust for, think again.
Look, if you want an SMP gaming box, this question should be automatically relegated to
I've had the pleasure of using high end Sun and SGI workstations here and there. While they may not have the fill rate of their gaming friends, they have many, many "work smart, not hard" accelerations available to them that matter in the professional circuit. I would think that any serious graphics capabilities would be best served by an SGI box, and believe me, they don't get AGP So, if you are into MCAD/MCAE, Digital Mockup (DMU) , 3D Animation, Medical Imaging, Scientific Visualization, Oil and Gas (seismic interpretation), Visual Simulation, Editing and Compositing and Geospatial Imaging, you probably aren't the type to need to ask Slashdot where to buy a PC for any of these applications, many of which don't even run on PC architecture. It was a very recent thing where PC cards could even be competitive with professional cards in terms of brute forcing past the elegant hardware accelerations available to professional cards. No one with a professional 3d card on a real workstation feels bad because their metrics don't include Mad Onion/Future Mark 3DMark 2009 XP White Zinfandel Platinum Edition Build 1048576.
You need a dual gaming-only box Why? Why? Just get a single p4-3.06 HT and a Radeon 9700. Believe my, even if it doesn't have AGP 8x, its going to make no more than 5% difference. And who the hell cares about 5% when frame rates are coming out at two times the monitors refresh rate? Who cares?
If you are not a pure gamer, but do other things that fit the gamer archetype like ripping DIVX, then you probably want a fast integer rig for consumer operating systems like Windows XP, then get a Dual 2.8GHz Xeon with an ATI or Nvidia or even a Matrox Parhelia (a popular "professional" card due to 3 heads). Most of the professional PC cards require AGP Pro 110, so that's the slot you would be looking for, Pro 110 is a far more important consideration than AGP 8x. (110 being the watts that the slot can dish out).
I think this is a consumer grade Photoshop / Premiere / Lightwave / Bryce / QuickTime / DiVX / MPEG box. That is the "gamer" category as far as I'm concerned, and for any of those applications, AGP 8x makes no difference.
Don't be looking for Raytheon to start using junk PCs in simulations for any of the military grade stuff they design, it just isn't happening. Microsoft = consumer grade, Nvidia = consumer grade. Just because the really high end stuff is priced beyond the reach of consumers doesn't mean its junk.
GCC 3.2.x vs. Intel C++ 7 would have been interesting. This just isn't.
e l_gcc_bench2.html
Go here for GCC 3.2 vs. Intel 7 information:
http://www.coyotegulch.com/reviews/intel_comp/int
GCC has done quite a bit to catch up.
I agree with your essay. You are acerbic, and your original post summed up what you explain here. You don't owe them an explanation however.
I thought this Japanime crap was interesting - high on marijuana. Some kid had it (the lacky-wannabe [the kind you send to get food when hungry] that invariably is present with a group of people get high, Towelie, wanna get high?), it was called Tank Police. It was all full of explosions, metal music. The next day, this bed wetter still wanted to watch it. And I thought it was crap, and knew that last night it was only interesting because it was colorful and had moving objects.
Its such a marketing scam, and the shit is expensive. And nothing ever happens. It takes YEARS of a series to progress 5 minutes (one kid used to like DBZ and the TV was in the same room as the computer, and that has got to be the worst shit ever, it rips the fabric of space and time).
Its quite clear to me that people in the computer related sciences who I admire patently don't like anime, or are obsessively geeky in any regard, save maybe the long hair bullshit. I doubt I'll ever see Joy, Ritchie, Thompson or Kernighan at a piece of shit Anime convention.
I even started to watch Akira [and another piece of shit she said was better was Devil Hunter Yoko or some crap] - some chick that was into Anime begged me to watch it [no, it wasnt worth the hookup, and she was good looking, but a god damn weirdo]. It is crap. Here I am, liking Shawshank Redemption, Sixth Sense, The Godfather, Memento, Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, The Usual Suspects, Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Y tu Mamá También , Like Water for Chocolate, Cinema Paradiso - and here lies this SHIT called Akira. What fucking crap. And you don't even have to direct or cast real living actors, detracting from the complexity, and it sucks so much shit. So, there you have it. Tank Police, Akira, Devil Hunter, Dragon Ball Z, SHIT SHIT SHIT and SHIT. And no, I don't want any suggestions for good anime from nerds, I have a life, a wife, travel plans and many assorted better things to do.
I've actually found cases where the SMP on FreeBSD 4.x was superior to Linux. In order to test Linux's networking performance vs. FreeBSD, I changed a program for an algorithm to just run in the background calculating the Ackermann Function.
/usr/include/linux. That in and of itself is a reason not to start there for development work. World, see a more beautiful future, one which was paved with the golden road made of FreeBSD - Certainly FreeBSD has a place, and in my opinion it clearly deprecates Linux in some situations. Particularly if you need to have a nice server box stay up forever or stay GPL-virus-free. [this said affectionately, I like the GPL, but you may not be able to afford giving your intellectual property to the world but would like to contribute in some way nevertheless. If it's a non-novel concept, the "community" will just implement it out of need/demand, if it's too difficult for the hackers to trivially add, then it might just be worth calling intellectual property.]
Anyways, the base rate was to run two Ackerman's at once, thus causing 100% USER CPU usage on both CPUs. The base rate for FreeBSD 4.62 was 15.5 Ackerman's per time period, vs. Linux's v2.4.18 14.0 during the same time period. Now this isn't a smoking gun, but the hardware was identical, and they were both running on custom compiled thin as possible kernels under the same duress.
Why would anyone do this? Well, my goal was to eat up all USER CPU and see how much I could rob from user with system under severe network abuse. Needless to say, that both OS's did very poorly, with FreeBSD having a clear edge, when the interface was brought to promiscuous mode to listen to a packet flood. FreeBSD degraded less, but in both cases an almost useless amount of CPU was left over for USERland. FreeBSD with RX polling turned on - a feature that practically seems unique to FreeBSD, from the XORP router project. I am aware of polling endeavors in Linux but was never able to get them working. As usual with FreeBSD, 'features' aren't creeping in, so they tend to work. I even changed the polling to work under SMP (it wasn't designed to) and it worked in a situation where it shouldn't have. The usefulness of RX polling cannot be stressed enough, its imperative to consider the live-locking of interrupt driven kernels when dealing with massive amounts of bandwidth. If interested, see: 'Eliminating Receive Livelock in an Interrupt-driven Kernel', USENIX 1996, its amazing to me livelock still happens over 5 years after stuff like this gets presented to the public.
So, how bad is FreeBSD SMP? As far as I was concerned in my test, 2.4 Linux SMP seemed inferior (in my case) to FreeBSD on identical hardware. Are people touting Linux's big bad SMP zealots. Most probably, most good kernel hackers think highly of FreeBSD, particularly the VM. I find it amusing that RedHat is not porting to SPARC or Alpha anymore, and yes FreeBSD 5 is planned stable on IA64, IA32, SPARC64, PowerPC [stable planned a bit later, probably when a real PPC gets offered by IBM - die Motorola PPC, die] and Alpha. Clean code and standards compliance begets portability.
As far as saying "SMP" is better. Linux may have a better approach, but like my example, and I am sure there are others, empirical tests say a whole lot more. It's important to keep the machinery well oiled and coherent, which is something I think FreeBSD does rather nicely. Empirical tests such as mine prove that approach and theory and real life are different.
FreeBSD - it's coherent, well documented, "thin," bloody fast, BSD licensed so call it your own. You can see that well written code goes across architectures; the FreeBSD discipline is allowing them to easily stay stable on several platforms. I have run several tests that suggest that even FreeBSD 4.X is 'better' than Linux at various things, let alone 5.0. The VM subsystem is superior [2.5 is catching up]. Most big companies provide virtual servers with FreeBSD, such as Verio. The biggest irony of all is how small the FreeBSD community is compared to legions of hackers and companies trying to improve Linux. Yet why is Linux fragmented so horribly? You will eventually come to understand why this is the only free and open commercial grade OS there is. You will know what you are missing when you finally get a coherent UNIX. GCC, the C library and the kernel are all a matched set, not of this he said she said GNU-of-the-day distribution crap or fake compilers from RedHat and frozen broken CVS snapshots of the C library [RedHat again, with a fake C-lib on RH8]. FreeBSD is used by Juniper as the core OS, with network processors instead of 'real' network cards. It's beautiful. A full version of FreeBSD, relabeled JuneOS, with an IOS-like CLI for those who need it and superior design and interfaces. The UFS2 filesystem is also incredible. I really, really like XFS for Linux, but the Linux kernel maintainers won't merge it in [to 2.4] but have a myriad of vastly inferior filesystems merged into Linux [ext3 fake journaling, Reiser fsck for fun FS, JFS which is robust but slow]. RedHat's refusal not to embrace XFS with open arms boggles my mind. UFS2 addresses this problem. A fast, robust logging filesystem that is stable and in the kernel. I think UFS2 is a far superior improvement to UFS than was ETX3 to EXT2.
Anyways, I don't think I'll wait for Linux kernel 2.6 or any of the flavors of Linux distributors to come out with something stable, well documented, coherent with UNIX as a standard and each other. Don't be fooled, LSB is a standards base, but you don't get decades of discipline, you get maybe a years worth of un-actualized planning. FreeBSD 5.0 is here. This project needs a better installer, and some 'for workstation use' cleanups, and probably a better package system, although, there are lots of people who like PKG and PORTS much, much better than RPM or DEB. Another annoying omission [and yet another Sun self-screwing maneuver] it that it is difficult to get a JRE/JDK to run natively [1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 are available as ports] and Sun does not provide one [they are apparently planning one]. People have lots of luck though using the Linux binary emulator, FreeBSD can run everything Linux does in binary form and it's easier to port to. Another good reason to develop for FreeBSD is this: Linux has