Nvidia and ATI refuse to release full featured OpenGL drivers on the linux platform.
Simply not true. Unlike ATI, NVIDIA has provided excellent Linux driver support for some time. Note that in the release notes for the latest release, one item is "Fixed problem in GLSL with shadow2DProj.". This indicates support for a bleeding-edge OGL feature.
True, Doom III runs somewhat slower under Linux. However, it's hard to say why at this point. There are many more variables than just the graphics drivers. I'm sure NVIDIA (which seems quite committed to Linux) will work hard to squeeze every ounce of performance out of its hardware on that platform.
By the way, IBM BlueGene/L is going to produce 360 teraflops by end 2004, so if the report of Moravec's estimate is correct, and he is correct, that AI Overlord welcome could be pretty soon.
If you read the article (I know, I know) you'll find that the peak performance of this Cray system is 144 teraflops with 30,000 processors.
"If I'm wearing a red jersey and so drunk I can't stand up and I meet a guy in a blue jersey who's so drunk that he can't stand up, what happens?" joked Davis.
It keeps you from supporting Kyoto as a start, because that first step doesn't complete your agenda to produce more poisonous and risky radioactivity.
What about the poisonous and risky coal-fired plants we have now? They're killing people every day (as well as contributing CO2 to the atmosphere).
Nuclear is a clean, efficient energy source. We have plenty of nuclear fuel. We should be building new pebble bed reactors.
We should also be working on cheaper, more efficient solar, fusion, and renewable sources of energy. However, those sources won't be doing the heavy lifting for quite a while. You should try to lose your irrational fear of nuclear power...at least the icecaps won't melt if we switch to largely nuclear power generation...
Re:Sounds a lot like religion
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Java is not any more closer than C# to open source technologies. Sun doesn't like open source, just as Microsoft.
How do you explain that Sun provides official Java runtimes for Linux (and for that matter sells Linux boxes) as opposed to Microsoft's complete lack of support for anything except Windows?
Sun has always been much more open than Microsoft. They are also allowing open-source implementations without fear of reprisal. We'll see if Microsoft manages the same tolerance with Mono.
I'm sure there's plenty of prior art (although none of these articles actually mentioned the date of the patent itself).
I think before a company can go after another for patent violations, it must have a competing product. Since Kodak doesn't, it should be forced to take it's marbles and go home.
As Groklaw points out, patents only apply to software because of case law. That precedent should be overturned...perhaps this is the case that could make it happen. Software patents have been a bad idea from the get-go, and should have been squashed a long time ago.
As an aside, to those Microsoft people laughing at Sun's discomfiture in this case - Kodak went after the little fish first to get an easy win, it'll go after the big one next. Not only.Net, but VB also, is apparently within the scope of this thing. How many billions will that be worth? Stay tuned...
Why do you view this as a problem? Assuming (and it is an assumption at this point) that you can compile Sphinx with gcj, I expect it will run fine on 800 MHz. hardware (if it would have in C that is). Another question is whether your boxes have enough RAM, speech recognition software (regardless if Java or not) will likely need plenty of RAM.
Java is becoming the new Lisp in terms of being used for things which are just silly.
If anything, you should have written "becoming the new C++" rather than "becoming the new Lisp". C++ was and is an inappropriate language for most large-scale software development, unlike Java.
Java, as the first somewhat sane replacement for C++, won over plenty of converts easily. It isn't the best language ever, but it is constantly improving. Personally, I hope there's a numerics extension soon, including lightweight types, operator overloading, etc.
In a world of 512+ MB RAM, 2+ GHz processor desktops (and single-tasking humans), Java is a perfectly suitable desktop development language, especially when coupled with SWT.
Sorry if that conflicts with your prejudices, but Eclipse is an existence proof.
Older devices will only suffer from read-only'age on windows.
That completely depends on how the hardware is implemented. Perhaps the new USB chips will require a key exchange before enabling write capability - which would require a DMCA violation to circumvent.
It occurs to me that all that's really required is a BIOS option that locks the USB ports to read-only for those so inclined, but apparently that's too simple (and open) of a solution for Microsoft. *sigh*
MS's evil business practices haven't been getting the warmest of welcomes lately. They can only go on for so long bullying everyone else and building on their monopoly. Eventually MS is going to be reduced significantly, it's just a matter of when.
The one hope is that Linux is too widespread and the Linux user community (including several government entities around the world) too vocal for this to fly by the time hardware companies might think about building machines based on the new spec. I'm glad there are those like Cringely out there to publicize these kinds of issues before it's too late.
All the benchmarks I have seen test the Itanium on workstation-style or single-task-sever jobs. The (theoretical) strength of the Itanium is in its multitasking. Its simpler design should reduce the overhead of switching tasks significantly. This makes benchmarking it kind of hard, since benchmarks generally only test one thing at a time.
Single tasks are certainly an important measure of performance, especially in scientific computing (one of Itaniums obvious markets, since it has strong FP performance).
I'm not sure why you think it's so good at multitasking. There's a reason it requires such large cache sizes, and that's not a good sign for multitasking performance. Personally I'm pretty sure a similarly priced dual-Opteron will outperform current Itaniums, even heavily multitasked...;-)
...that they seemed to run only processor-native code. Even Linux-Quake: Linux IS ported to the Mac
No. From the website:
Dynamite allows software that has been compiled for one processor/operating system to be run on another processor/operating system without any source code or binary changes. To do this, Dynamite provides a hardware virtualization technology that consists of four key components. First, an integration "FUSE" allows Dynamite to be easily integrated into the target system. Second, a dynamic binary translator tackles the challenge of moving from one instruction set architecture to another. Third, an operating system mapper translates operating system calls from the source system to the target system in situations where the source and target operating systems are different. Finally, a graphics subsystem mapper translates graphics system calls from the source to the target system in situations where the source and target graphics systems are different.
Isn't this thing with DB's getting a little excessive? You're adding another layer and step to storing data which will in all likely hinder performance. I'm not sure the benefit out weight the cost.
[sarcasm]Yeah, you sure wouldn't want to gratuitously use the 99.5% idle time your desktop computer is currently wasting.[/sarcasm]
Actually, my sarcastic response isn't even right..this will only affect performance when you're searching for a file, or saving one. How much time do you really spend doing that? Further, how much time will you save because you're able to find things efficiently? Nothing wrong with using the CPU to simplify life for the user...if the user so desires of course.
Come on, face it. The "real" solution to both all our environmental problems and global warming is to simply scale our use of resources back to the point at which it wasn't a problem.
This is just as "realistic" as proposing we sprinkle magic fairy dust all around to make things better.
With a world population exceeding 6 billion people, and many third world countries making the move into becoming industrialized societies, it isn't going to happen. We need better, cleaner technology using abundant or renewable resources - not Luddite calls for "less resource use".
People need to stop overpopulating as well, but we have a long way to go on that front...
Yup, the parachute just pops out automatically and always opens correctly (no matter what altitude) and you float nicely and calmly down to a soft open patch of foam.
Assclown.
Did I claim the parachute would always work flawlessly?
You seem to think regular automobiles are relatively safe, so why don't you go head-on a semi in your vehicle with both of you travelling 60 MPH in each direction. Be sure to post how the experiment goes...;-)
My point is that there are risks with both modes of transportation, the big issue is which one is safer overall...
Slashdot Mirror
Simply not true. Unlike ATI, NVIDIA has provided excellent Linux driver support for some time. Note that in the release notes for the latest release, one item is "Fixed problem in GLSL with shadow2DProj.". This indicates support for a bleeding-edge OGL feature.
True, Doom III runs somewhat slower under Linux. However, it's hard to say why at this point. There are many more variables than just the graphics drivers. I'm sure NVIDIA (which seems quite committed to Linux) will work hard to squeeze every ounce of performance out of its hardware on that platform.
If you read the article (I know, I know) you'll find that the peak performance of this Cray system is 144 teraflops with 30,000 processors.
Why, you both fall down of course!
The U.S. Navy is claiming it'll have operational railguns around the end of the decade that could easily hit this (200 km. horizontal range)...not that anyone else will have any anytime soon.
What about the poisonous and risky coal-fired plants we have now? They're killing people every day (as well as contributing CO2 to the atmosphere).
Nuclear is a clean, efficient energy source. We have plenty of nuclear fuel. We should be building new pebble bed reactors.
We should also be working on cheaper, more efficient solar, fusion, and renewable sources of energy. However, those sources won't be doing the heavy lifting for quite a while. You should try to lose your irrational fear of nuclear power...at least the icecaps won't melt if we switch to largely nuclear power generation...
How do you explain that Sun provides official Java runtimes for Linux (and for that matter sells Linux boxes) as opposed to Microsoft's complete lack of support for anything except Windows?
Sun has always been much more open than Microsoft. They are also allowing open-source implementations without fear of reprisal. We'll see if Microsoft manages the same tolerance with Mono.
Well, UCSD Pascal (P System) appears to date from the late 70's...so there's prior art right there.
If another poster's correct, and Sun produced 77 boxes worth of prior art, this should be appealed to a higher court that knows what it's doing.
He's referring to UCSD Pascal, I think, which was a fairly successful cross-platform interpreted language. More info here.
I think before a company can go after another for patent violations, it must have a competing product. Since Kodak doesn't, it should be forced to take it's marbles and go home.
As Groklaw points out, patents only apply to software because of case law. That precedent should be overturned...perhaps this is the case that could make it happen. Software patents have been a bad idea from the get-go, and should have been squashed a long time ago.
As an aside, to those Microsoft people laughing at Sun's discomfiture in this case - Kodak went after the little fish first to get an easy win, it'll go after the big one next. Not only .Net, but VB also, is apparently within the scope of this thing. How many billions will that be worth? Stay tuned...
Why do you view this as a problem? Assuming (and it is an assumption at this point) that you can compile Sphinx with gcj, I expect it will run fine on 800 MHz. hardware (if it would have in C that is). Another question is whether your boxes have enough RAM, speech recognition software (regardless if Java or not) will likely need plenty of RAM.
If anything, you should have written "becoming the new C++" rather than "becoming the new Lisp". C++ was and is an inappropriate language for most large-scale software development, unlike Java.
Java, as the first somewhat sane replacement for C++, won over plenty of converts easily. It isn't the best language ever, but it is constantly improving. Personally, I hope there's a numerics extension soon, including lightweight types, operator overloading, etc.
In a world of 512+ MB RAM, 2+ GHz processor desktops (and single-tasking humans), Java is a perfectly suitable desktop development language, especially when coupled with SWT.
Sorry if that conflicts with your prejudices, but Eclipse is an existence proof.
Check out gcj. One of it's primary uses is targeting embedded systems. It's quite lean and mean for a Java runtime.
HTH.
Except for the fact that you can't program a custom application such as a virtual tourguide, or run any other software that might come in handy.
Two entirely different beasts...
This is, of course, a simple corollary of Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crap".
That completely depends on how the hardware is implemented. Perhaps the new USB chips will require a key exchange before enabling write capability - which would require a DMCA violation to circumvent.
It occurs to me that all that's really required is a BIOS option that locks the USB ports to read-only for those so inclined, but apparently that's too simple (and open) of a solution for Microsoft. *sigh*
MS's evil business practices haven't been getting the warmest of welcomes lately. They can only go on for so long bullying everyone else and building on their monopoly. Eventually MS is going to be reduced significantly, it's just a matter of when.
The one hope is that Linux is too widespread and the Linux user community (including several government entities around the world) too vocal for this to fly by the time hardware companies might think about building machines based on the new spec. I'm glad there are those like Cringely out there to publicize these kinds of issues before it's too late.
Single tasks are certainly an important measure of performance, especially in scientific computing (one of Itaniums obvious markets, since it has strong FP performance).
I'm not sure why you think it's so good at multitasking. There's a reason it requires such large cache sizes, and that's not a good sign for multitasking performance. Personally I'm pretty sure a similarly priced dual-Opteron will outperform current Itaniums, even heavily multitasked... ;-)
No. From the website:
No. They are specifically banning access points connected to outside providers, on the grounds of interference with the campus WiFi network.
This might be an interesting test case of FCC policy.
[sarcasm]Yeah, you sure wouldn't want to gratuitously use the 99.5% idle time your desktop computer is currently wasting.[/sarcasm]
Actually, my sarcastic response isn't even right..this will only affect performance when you're searching for a file, or saving one. How much time do you really spend doing that? Further, how much time will you save because you're able to find things efficiently? Nothing wrong with using the CPU to simplify life for the user...if the user so desires of course.
Looks like an interesting project...
This is just as "realistic" as proposing we sprinkle magic fairy dust all around to make things better.
With a world population exceeding 6 billion people, and many third world countries making the move into becoming industrialized societies, it isn't going to happen. We need better, cleaner technology using abundant or renewable resources - not Luddite calls for "less resource use".
People need to stop overpopulating as well, but we have a long way to go on that front...
Not true. 10,000,000 tons of water, and a near-infinite supply of radiation/meteorite shielding...at a minimum. :-)
Case in point that you tried to reply logically to my troll.
Assclown.
s/tried to reply/replied/
My new point is that some people are a waste of perfectly good air. Case in point...
Thanks for the correction...I posted without checking. :-)
Any CD that's copy protected shouldn't be called a CD. Simple enough...
Assclown.
Did I claim the parachute would always work flawlessly?
You seem to think regular automobiles are relatively safe, so why don't you go head-on a semi in your vehicle with both of you travelling 60 MPH in each direction. Be sure to post how the experiment goes... ;-)
My point is that there are risks with both modes of transportation, the big issue is which one is safer overall...