The result? We get a summary of Cicero that reads like a probate hearing, instead his actual writings. To hell with the boilerplate textbooks; they're awful. If public schools can't deal with William Calvin or Stephen Hawking in the classroom, then that is best left to institutions of higher learning.
It's even worse than that...we're in the middle of a politically-correct rewriting of history that will have untold effects. Also, there is an Orwellian twisting of our textbooks that no one seems to recognize as such.
Here in California, there was recently a law passed that will require the replacement of most of the elementary and high school textbooks in the state.
"Founding Fathers" was found to be too sexist - now it must be "Framers" (as in "framers" of the Constitution). Mount Rushmore is too sexist - every President pictured is a man, so it must be banned from all California textbooks. There is a preponderance of DWM (Dead White Men) in the current textbooks, so in the interests of race and gender equality we'll have a female poet replace the Wright Brothers in textbooks from now on. Thomas Edison is another one - no more mention for him, an ethnic example who made a much more minor contribution from society must be used. It is completely sickening.
Oh, also, all mention of fast food and other unhealthy items (such as soda) has been banned from textbooks.
All this textbook replacement is also happening during the worst budget crisis in state history. Nice.
So, aside from whatever lack of decent core curriculum we now have (my son was not taught a science class in fourth grade last year) we have to deal with the consequences of the ill-advised leading the ill-informed. What fun.
Fortunately, I'm headed for another state soon.;-)
Indeed, one can't deny that 50 years ago technology and magic were one and the same. Most people couldn't tell you what Newton's 3 laws were, and Einstein's relativity was considered utterly incomprehensible. Most people's understanding of math stopped at arithmetic. A learned man might know algebra. The true wizards of the math world grocked calculis.
Here we are 50 years later, and nothing has changed...except that 50 years ago almost everyone knew how to spell "calculus".:-/
For most people today, even a toaster is way beyond their comprehension. That problem is getting worse, not better. There is an increasing lack of interest in or respect for learning in general, IMO.
That is all helped right along by our consumer/pop culture, which is far more interested in the travails of the current hot celebrity rather than the latest advances in science. Sad, really.
I think if things continue this way for an extended period, the U.S. will lose it's leadership position in technology. It doesn't help that scientists and technologists have been getting screwed economically for years...
Re:Lies, statistics, and analysts
on
Java vs .NET
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· Score: 1
Lower licensing costs than mono?
Theres a free solution for either.
Sure, until Microsoft asserts patents relating to things like WinForms (that aren't in the ECMA standard). Then "free.Net" goes *poof*.
The C# compiler and runtime(s) for Mono are interesting...but Java is much more compelling overall, IMO. A long term investment in Java is far more solid...Microsoft technology directions change like the wind.
He's not celebrating the differences between the sexes. He's celebrating the fact that he can always make sure that the man is in control.
OK, after reading both your post and the parent, I certainly get your point. I would have to say "Glory Road" had quite the opposite plot, but it was an exception no doubt. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" also featured some very tough women who weren't 'crying types'. Interesting that both were from a short timespan in his long career.
I'd say there were many possible motivations for RAH to use those plot devices in so many stories. First of all, to a large degree the appeal of his books is wish-fulfillment. I'm sure he viewed his work as appealing primarily to men and his female characters reflect that (or his concept of what was attractive/sexy at the time). On the other hand, I'd have to say that plenty of modern portrayals of women are less flattering and less respectful. Just about anything on MTV comes to mind.;-)
As to the crying thing, well he should simply have gone the Sopranos route and had an uncontrollable male cryer as a character. That would have been equal time at least.
He should also be (on whatever PC scale we're discussing here) be given credit for featuring a disabled hero in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". (Also note the fact that most polyandrous relationships on the Moon involved multiple men to one woman, due to the gender mix of the prison population;).
Just a few thoughts...always good to see a couple of female science fiction fans!!!:-)
His chauvinism occasionally sets my teeth on edge, and his later works are preachy, but these are small blemishes on the body of work of a man, who above everything else, knew how to tell a story.
Given that you're a fan overall, I can't be too hard on you.;-)
However, I'd suggest that Heinlein wasn't "chauvinistic", just that he celebrated the differences between men and women (which any sane individual recognizes, no?).
Heinlein's women piloted starships, fought alongside the men in battle, and generally bested the males involved in most situations. Given that a lot of those writings appeared in the 50's, I think he should be recognized as one of the most progressive proponents of women's equality (superiority?) of the 20th Century.
I realize some of his writings may lead in other directions;-) but hey you have have to look at the overall picture...:-)
Re:"Heinleins . . . detroyed all the copies . . ."
on
New Heinlein Novel
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· Score: 4, Interesting
That is, does it undermine the straight-on patriarchial onanism of Stranger in a Strange Land or the more shame-riddled tone of "Job."
Er, "Stranger" and "Job" were both from the late phase of his career. The early phase consisted of "Have Spacesuit Will Travel", "Red Planet", "The Rolling Stones", "Starman Jones", "The Starbeast", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Farnham's Freehold", "The Puppet Masters", "Tunnel in the Sky", "Starship Troopers" and so on. All of those novels were targeted at the "young adolescent" of the time, but were still entertaining, thought provoking stuff. They also included enough hard science to be dangerous.
His later phase, which began around the time of "Glory Road" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (now THAT should be made into a movie;), was more adult oriented and controversial - still with a stiff dose of plausibility and real science.
Say what you like about Heinlein and his social ideas, but fundamentally he was a freedom lover who wanted nothing so much as to see humanity grow up and move beyond the nest. He also had the ideas for several inventions including the waterbed and the "waldo" (remote manipulators used with hazardous materials). Very few of those who bash him have made a similar contribution to society.
I'm sure I'll read his "new" novel with quite a bit of enjoyment, whatever the quality of the work.:-)
Ever thought about the consequence of a car suddenly malfunctioning when you fly 1000ft above a residential neighborohood?
Yes, everyone better be able to hear the warning buzzer and/or see the strobe light when the personal flyer being autopiloted under the large parafoil finally makes it to a landing area.
How embarrasing for the pilot...having to call SkyClub and all.
(BTW, with automated flying cars, do you know how many fewer collisions there'd be? Also, the road maintenance costs would be *much lower*.;)
There are commercially available "whole aircraft" para(chute/foil) systems right now.
The only cases where its sound and economical to fly today are long distances togeheter with a bunch of other people to cut cost.
Um...no. Do a little research, starting with "bush pilot".
During the dot-com boom, I was being paid $100,000 a year by a San Francisco dot-com. Of that, $50,000 went to Federal and California taxes, leaving me with $50K.
$100,000 a year, even now in Southern California, is not a "comfortable" amount of money if you want a "nice" house. And things are about to get worse if new taxes kick in (or if more jobs move out).
No you didn't. You complained about "BSTR vs. WSTR" (and isn't that stupid) but nowhere did you qualify your assertion that ".NET is a kludge on top of COM". I'd like to see that, if you don't mind.
To quote directly from Dr. Gui: "You can even use.NET components as you would any COM object-so your new.NET code can be used with old COM applications." However you are right, the purpose of.Net is to get rid of a lot of the pain of dealing with COM/DCOM (you should also remember the fawning over DCOM in the article summary that prompted my remarks in the first place).
I hope that adding that COM compatibility neither added overhead to.Net, nor compromised it's internal architecture.
It's a rip-off, and it's also better. It fixes everything that is wrong with Java.
Well, it certainly "fixed" running on other platforms than Windows.;-)
Really, I think you should be more specific about the issues that.Net has "fixed", and by extension what you feel are Javas weak points.
For instance, I would claim that the CLR's support of multiple languages has largely been a failure. VB.net (arguably Microsoft's real flagship language) has been ill-received. Here's a typical excerpt:
Might not be the answer you want to hear but go back to vb6.
Seriously, we deserve a better compiler. Since version 1 every new
version has been worth using and relearning with the exception of.NET.
The new generation of MS developers are trying to make a name for
themselves by doing something radical and different. Doesn't mean it's
better, faster, more portable, more secure or even smaller in
filesize..NET falls short in every single aspect.
If you can't see that, well, that's not my problem. But then again, it also rips off C++ and Delphi and VB. Take your pick.
It doesn't "rip off" any of the above, they are either public standards, or Microsoft has a right to use the associated intellectual property. If Microsoft were intellectually honest, though, C# would be clearly labelled as "derived from Java". Large chunks of the class libraries are almost verbatim identical.
I would like to see Sun at least make older versions of Java open standards. Making JDK 1.2 (at least) open source at this point would go a long way for Sun I think.
Secondly, the Windows port of Java is arguably the most robust port of any
Wow, I didn't get the memo on that.
Windows is a premier platform - Sun knew that Java had to work well there to have a chance. Believe me, I know Sun and Java have had problems too - don't get me wrong there. However, after a lot of blood, sweat and tears all around Java has progressed a long ways from the early days. The JDKs are actually even getting quite solid on Linux these days.
Finally, comparable Java code often outperforms C# on Windows
Perhaps you'd like to provide some backing to that? I mean, just about everyone and their mother has proved that given the same non-trivial app on the same hardware any of the.NET languages are far faster than Java could ever hope to be. That's the advantage of not selling "write once run everyhwere" bullshit - it's optimized for Windows. And that's the way most of us like it, sicne we couldn't give a rat's ass if it runs anywhere else.
First of all, ".NET languages" are running on a VM just like Java is. That removes the single advantage (precompilation) that true native apps enjoy. I've already seen and personally verified several Java apps that run faster than comparable fully optimized VC 6 C++ programs regardless. I've also seen head-to-head be
Read some of my other responses, I think I covered almost everything there. The one bit I need to respond to is your comment regarding Java:
Almost as great as everything else that happens to be an afterthought port of some wacky technology from another OS.
First off,.Net is clearly the sincerest form of flattery: a blatant ripoff of Java in almost every respect.
Secondly, the Windows port of Java is arguably the most robust port of any, so calling it an "afterthought" simply labels you as ignorant.
Finally, comparable Java code often outperforms C# on Windows...so any imaginary advantage you think.Net might have on it's "native platform" is exactly that. Imaginary.
And upon reading your comment, I realized I was reading a statement by an unqualified critic.
Well, I'm certainly qualified in one sense of the word. I've developed COM components in C++(ATL). Have you? It was not a fun experience. Do you know the difference between a BSTR, and a WSTR? What a mess.
In fact,.Net is largely the latest kludge slapped on top of COM/DCOM to try and hide it's hideous complexity. The programming community should wake up and see the obvious fact that Java provides everything that.Net provides, but in a platform neutral and sane manner. It even works great on Windows. (And for those of you that would bring up Mono - we'll discuss that again the day that Microsoft sues for patent infringement under the DMCA.)
No,.Net is not a kludge slapped on top of of COM. It is a platform created from the ground up to replace COM, among many other things. Many of the.Net APIs do call upon various services implemented in COM. But that is only because Micrsoft has not had the time to port that code to managed.Net code. I will agree that Java and.Net provide many similar services, they have more things in common than differences. However there are some things Java does better, and there are some things that.Net does better.
What, exactly, does ".Net do better"? What advantage could it possibly confer that would make up for platform and vendor lockin? Any sane manager should want platform independence, so they can get the most for their money down the road.
Also, I'd be willing to wager that Java will be a more stable long-term platform than.Net.
And your statement about Mono? How on earth does the DMCA relate to patent law? It is called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
It also protects trade secrets. This is how it is used in connection with decss, for instance.
Upon finding the following statement, I realized I was either the victim of a hoax, or reading a review by a fairly unqualified reviewer.;-)
And I have always been fascinated by the distributed nature of DCOM, which seemed to me much more graspable than complex monsters like CORBA and J2EE.
First of all, J2EE is not the relevant technology. Java RMI is. RMI is massively simpler than DCOM, which, contrary to this author's take, is a nasty mess of C-inspired foolishness.;-)
In fact,.Net is largely the latest kludge slapped on top of COM/DCOM to try and hide it's hideous complexity. The programming community should wake up and see the obvious fact that Java provides everything that.Net provides, but in a platform neutral and sane manner. It even works great on Windows. (And for those of you that would bring up Mono - we'll discuss that again the day that Microsoft sues for patent infringement under the DMCA.)
Firewire 800 does not have anything near the bandwidth necessary for this sort of thing.
A P4 has a 6.4 GB/s system bus. PCI-X does maybe 1 GB/s. Firewire does ~100 MB/s.
Please define "this sort of thing". I'm sure we have "a failure to communicate".
There is a frontside bus on the card, providing an interface to local DDR memory (ala the 6.4 GB/s system bus). That is independent of the bus connection to the host computer. Believe me, Firewire 800 will do just fine for virtualizing display and storage...and those are the only two issues. In fact, the card should also have an (Gigabit) Ethernet port so it can function as a second network connection / firewall etc. Another cool use as a "slave" Linux/Windows node - with zero overhead for the host computer compared to a normal network card.
Actually, the more I think about this idea, the more I like it. The fact that it isn't original with me really has nothing to do with it.:-)
I have a local PCI-X capable design firm on tap. C'mon, there *must* be some interest out there!:-)
By the way, one more point about this: Virtual PC bundled with a copy of Win XP Home is $219.99 at CompUSA. I'm pretty sure that price could be beat with a hardware solution - which would run faster, use fewer Mac resources and be 100% compatible. And heck, how cool would it be to have an x86 Linux node in your Mac when you don't need Windows?;-)
As far as I can tell, not counting NRE costs, the raw materials per board should be less than $100 - lower yet with sufficient volume.
The problem was that the overhead of getting data in and out of the card was pretty substantial, so AFAIR it wasn't that much faster than software unless you were running something CPU-intensive that didn't do much I/O.
Not sure why there was that much of a bottleneck with S-Bus, but both PCI-X and Firewire 800 have plenty of bandwidth.
Slashdot Mirror
You are requesting proof of what, exactly? Be precise. ;-)
The upcoming changes to our California textbooks are well documented. Do some Google searching...
Er, "to society"..sorry! Better proofreading in the future!
It's even worse than that...we're in the middle of a politically-correct rewriting of history that will have untold effects. Also, there is an Orwellian twisting of our textbooks that no one seems to recognize as such.
Here in California, there was recently a law passed that will require the replacement of most of the elementary and high school textbooks in the state.
"Founding Fathers" was found to be too sexist - now it must be "Framers" (as in "framers" of the Constitution). Mount Rushmore is too sexist - every President pictured is a man, so it must be banned from all California textbooks. There is a preponderance of DWM (Dead White Men) in the current textbooks, so in the interests of race and gender equality we'll have a female poet replace the Wright Brothers in textbooks from now on. Thomas Edison is another one - no more mention for him, an ethnic example who made a much more minor contribution from society must be used. It is completely sickening.
Oh, also, all mention of fast food and other unhealthy items (such as soda) has been banned from textbooks.
All this textbook replacement is also happening during the worst budget crisis in state history. Nice.
So, aside from whatever lack of decent core curriculum we now have (my son was not taught a science class in fourth grade last year) we have to deal with the consequences of the ill-advised leading the ill-informed. What fun.
Fortunately, I'm headed for another state soon. ;-)
Here we are 50 years later, and nothing has changed...except that 50 years ago almost everyone knew how to spell "calculus". :-/
For most people today, even a toaster is way beyond their comprehension. That problem is getting worse, not better. There is an increasing lack of interest in or respect for learning in general, IMO.
That is all helped right along by our consumer/pop culture, which is far more interested in the travails of the current hot celebrity rather than the latest advances in science. Sad, really.
I think if things continue this way for an extended period, the U.S. will lose it's leadership position in technology. It doesn't help that scientists and technologists have been getting screwed economically for years...
Theres a free solution for either.
Sure, until Microsoft asserts patents relating to things like WinForms (that aren't in the ECMA standard). Then "free .Net" goes *poof*.
The C# compiler and runtime(s) for Mono are interesting...but Java is much more compelling overall, IMO. A long term investment in Java is far more solid...Microsoft technology directions change like the wind.
OK, after reading both your post and the parent, I certainly get your point. I would have to say "Glory Road" had quite the opposite plot, but it was an exception no doubt. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" also featured some very tough women who weren't 'crying types'. Interesting that both were from a short timespan in his long career.
I'd say there were many possible motivations for RAH to use those plot devices in so many stories. First of all, to a large degree the appeal of his books is wish-fulfillment. I'm sure he viewed his work as appealing primarily to men and his female characters reflect that (or his concept of what was attractive/sexy at the time). On the other hand, I'd have to say that plenty of modern portrayals of women are less flattering and less respectful. Just about anything on MTV comes to mind. ;-)
As to the crying thing, well he should simply have gone the Sopranos route and had an uncontrollable male cryer as a character. That would have been equal time at least.
He should also be (on whatever PC scale we're discussing here) be given credit for featuring a disabled hero in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". (Also note the fact that most polyandrous relationships on the Moon involved multiple men to one woman, due to the gender mix of the prison population;).
Just a few thoughts...always good to see a couple of female science fiction fans!!! :-)
Please explain what exactly you find "fascist" regarding "Starship Troopers"?
What are you, some kind of bug-loving crazy?!?
Given that you're a fan overall, I can't be too hard on you. ;-)
However, I'd suggest that Heinlein wasn't "chauvinistic", just that he celebrated the differences between men and women (which any sane individual recognizes, no?).
Heinlein's women piloted starships, fought alongside the men in battle, and generally bested the males involved in most situations. Given that a lot of those writings appeared in the 50's, I think he should be recognized as one of the most progressive proponents of women's equality (superiority?) of the 20th Century.
I realize some of his writings may lead in other directions ;-) but hey you have have to look at the overall picture... :-)
Er, "Stranger" and "Job" were both from the late phase of his career. The early phase consisted of "Have Spacesuit Will Travel", "Red Planet", "The Rolling Stones", "Starman Jones", "The Starbeast", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Farnham's Freehold", "The Puppet Masters", "Tunnel in the Sky", "Starship Troopers" and so on. All of those novels were targeted at the "young adolescent" of the time, but were still entertaining, thought provoking stuff. They also included enough hard science to be dangerous.
His later phase, which began around the time of "Glory Road" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (now THAT should be made into a movie;), was more adult oriented and controversial - still with a stiff dose of plausibility and real science.
Say what you like about Heinlein and his social ideas, but fundamentally he was a freedom lover who wanted nothing so much as to see humanity grow up and move beyond the nest. He also had the ideas for several inventions including the waterbed and the "waldo" (remote manipulators used with hazardous materials). Very few of those who bash him have made a similar contribution to society.
I'm sure I'll read his "new" novel with quite a bit of enjoyment, whatever the quality of the work. :-)
No, you know you're on Slashdot when someone is unsure of the spelling of "OSHA" and the post gets modded to "+5 Interesting". ;-)
Perhaps not compared with blade servers (like the upcoming G5 XServes).
However, compared with Opteron workstations, the G5s are a great deal. :-)
Suggestion: do not try this at home...no matter how tempting it might be. ;-)
However, I'm sure the penalties would be much lighter for a mass moon-in at SCO Headquarters. =:-)
That should be covered on First Amendment grounds.
Who would buy a system with this issue hanging over their head? Computers are uncertain enough as it is!
Yes, so far Dell has offered no protection - over a deal that likely won't result in any damages. Get over it.
Yes, everyone better be able to hear the warning buzzer and/or see the strobe light when the personal flyer being autopiloted under the large parafoil finally makes it to a landing area.
How embarrasing for the pilot...having to call SkyClub and all.
(BTW, with automated flying cars, do you know how many fewer collisions there'd be? Also, the road maintenance costs would be *much lower*. ;)
There are commercially available "whole aircraft" para(chute/foil) systems right now.
The only cases where its sound and economical to fly today are long distances togeheter with a bunch of other people to cut cost.
Um...no. Do a little research, starting with "bush pilot".
Wow! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of...
Er, ah, forget I said anything.
The *real* reason no ban on cloning will work... ;-)
$100,000 a year, even now in Southern California, is not a "comfortable" amount of money if you want a "nice" house. And things are about to get worse if new taxes kick in (or if more jobs move out).
To quote directly from Dr. Gui: "You can even use .NET components as you would any COM object-so your new .NET code can be used with old COM applications." However you are right, the purpose of .Net is to get rid of a lot of the pain of dealing with COM/DCOM (you should also remember the fawning over DCOM in the article summary that prompted my remarks in the first place).
I hope that adding that COM compatibility neither added overhead to .Net, nor compromised it's internal architecture.
It's a rip-off, and it's also better. It fixes everything that is wrong with Java.
Well, it certainly "fixed" running on other platforms than Windows. ;-)
Really, I think you should be more specific about the issues that .Net has "fixed", and by extension what you feel are Javas weak points.
For instance, I would claim that the CLR's support of multiple languages has largely been a failure. VB.net (arguably Microsoft's real flagship language) has been ill-received. Here's a typical excerpt:
Might not be the answer you want to hear but go back to vb6. Seriously, we deserve a better compiler. Since version 1 every new version has been worth using and relearning with the exception of .NET.
The new generation of MS developers are trying to make a name for themselves by doing something radical and different. Doesn't mean it's better, faster, more portable, more secure or even smaller in filesize. .NET falls short in every single aspect.
Here's the link.
If you can't see that, well, that's not my problem. But then again, it also rips off C++ and Delphi and VB. Take your pick.
It doesn't "rip off" any of the above, they are either public standards, or Microsoft has a right to use the associated intellectual property. If Microsoft were intellectually honest, though, C# would be clearly labelled as "derived from Java". Large chunks of the class libraries are almost verbatim identical.
I would like to see Sun at least make older versions of Java open standards. Making JDK 1.2 (at least) open source at this point would go a long way for Sun I think.
Secondly, the Windows port of Java is arguably the most robust port of any
Wow, I didn't get the memo on that.
Windows is a premier platform - Sun knew that Java had to work well there to have a chance. Believe me, I know Sun and Java have had problems too - don't get me wrong there. However, after a lot of blood, sweat and tears all around Java has progressed a long ways from the early days. The JDKs are actually even getting quite solid on Linux these days.
Finally, comparable Java code often outperforms C# on Windows
Perhaps you'd like to provide some backing to that? I mean, just about everyone and their mother has proved that given the same non-trivial app on the same hardware any of the .NET languages are far faster than Java could ever hope to be. That's the advantage of not selling "write once run everyhwere" bullshit - it's optimized for Windows. And that's the way most of us like it, sicne we couldn't give a rat's ass if it runs anywhere else.
First of all, ".NET languages" are running on a VM just like Java is. That removes the single advantage (precompilation) that true native apps enjoy. I've already seen and personally verified several Java apps that run faster than comparable fully optimized VC 6 C++ programs regardless. I've also seen head-to-head be
Read some of my other responses, I think I covered almost everything there. The one bit I need to respond to is your comment regarding Java:
Almost as great as everything else that happens to be an afterthought port of some wacky technology from another OS.
First off, .Net is clearly the sincerest form of flattery: a blatant ripoff of Java in almost every respect.
Secondly, the Windows port of Java is arguably the most robust port of any, so calling it an "afterthought" simply labels you as ignorant.
Finally, comparable Java code often outperforms C# on Windows...so any imaginary advantage you think .Net might have on it's "native platform" is exactly that. Imaginary.
Very courageous posting as an AC, BTW. ;-)
Have a nice day.
Well, I'm certainly qualified in one sense of the word. I've developed COM components in C++(ATL). Have you? It was not a fun experience. Do you know the difference between a BSTR, and a WSTR? What a mess.
In fact, .Net is largely the latest kludge slapped on top of COM/DCOM to try and hide it's hideous complexity. The programming community should wake up and see the obvious fact that Java provides everything that .Net provides, but in a platform neutral and sane manner. It even works great on Windows. (And for those of you that would bring up Mono - we'll discuss that again the day that Microsoft sues for patent infringement under the DMCA.)
No, .Net is not a kludge slapped on top of of COM. It is a platform created from the ground up to replace COM, among many other things. Many of the .Net APIs do call upon various services implemented in COM. But that is only because Micrsoft has not had the time to port that code to managed .Net code. I will agree that Java and .Net provide many similar services, they have more things in common than differences. However there are some things Java does better, and there are some things that .Net does better.
What, exactly, does ".Net do better"? What advantage could it possibly confer that would make up for platform and vendor lockin? Any sane manager should want platform independence, so they can get the most for their money down the road.
Also, I'd be willing to wager that Java will be a more stable long-term platform than .Net.
And your statement about Mono? How on earth does the DMCA relate to patent law? It is called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
It also protects trade secrets. This is how it is used in connection with decss, for instance.
Are you claiming that every .Net component isn't a COM component?
Further, the "wrappers" you mentioned are exactly the kludge I was referring to. ;-)
And I have always been fascinated by the distributed nature of DCOM, which seemed to me much more graspable than complex monsters like CORBA and J2EE.
First of all, J2EE is not the relevant technology. Java RMI is. RMI is massively simpler than DCOM, which, contrary to this author's take, is a nasty mess of C-inspired foolishness. ;-)
In fact, .Net is largely the latest kludge slapped on top of COM/DCOM to try and hide it's hideous complexity. The programming community should wake up and see the obvious fact that Java provides everything that .Net provides, but in a platform neutral and sane manner. It even works great on Windows. (And for those of you that would bring up Mono - we'll discuss that again the day that Microsoft sues for patent infringement under the DMCA.)
Microsoft - Just Say No.
that 10,000 Opteron Cray supercomputer comes online...although I guess that system may not be unclassified.
A P4 has a 6.4 GB/s system bus. PCI-X does maybe 1 GB/s. Firewire does ~100 MB/s.
Please define "this sort of thing". I'm sure we have "a failure to communicate".
There is a frontside bus on the card, providing an interface to local DDR memory (ala the 6.4 GB/s system bus). That is independent of the bus connection to the host computer. Believe me, Firewire 800 will do just fine for virtualizing display and storage...and those are the only two issues. In fact, the card should also have an (Gigabit) Ethernet port so it can function as a second network connection / firewall etc. Another cool use as a "slave" Linux/Windows node - with zero overhead for the host computer compared to a normal network card.
Actually, the more I think about this idea, the more I like it. The fact that it isn't original with me really has nothing to do with it. :-)
I have a local PCI-X capable design firm on tap. C'mon, there *must* be some interest out there! :-)
By the way, one more point about this: Virtual PC bundled with a copy of Win XP Home is $219.99 at CompUSA. I'm pretty sure that price could be beat with a hardware solution - which would run faster, use fewer Mac resources and be 100% compatible. And heck, how cool would it be to have an x86 Linux node in your Mac when you don't need Windows? ;-)
As far as I can tell, not counting NRE costs, the raw materials per board should be less than $100 - lower yet with sufficient volume.
Not sure why there was that much of a bottleneck with S-Bus, but both PCI-X and Firewire 800 have plenty of bandwidth.