" Personally I appreciate it. Changing the speed limit signs to increase should be the only way to move faster, not violation of existing ones.
Now if the highway is not busy most (if not all drivers) are violating the law by speeding. It's bad because it creates a style of thinking: "it's ok beacuse everyone's doing the same". No need to mention that many people are dead from speeding. "
Hmmm... Larger, more powerful government... good. Protecting the ignorant masses from themselves... good. You've got to be a far-left-winger.
Myself? I believe in personal responsibility. You caused an accident? Not good. Someone got killed due to the accident caused by you? Very bad. You were speeding at the time of the accident which you caused, and which resulted in the death of another individual? You're going to jail for a long, long time. Prosecute those who infringe upon the rights of others.
Creating a technology-automated totalitarian state is most certainly not the answer to transportation safety issues.
"I don't think that anything's wrong with tracking my speed. One way or another cops are doing it anyway. Let's them just do it in a style of 21 century:)"
This same logic could be used to justify placing an automated wiretaping system on every citizen's home, or a camera in every room of your house. Some people might not mind a 1984-style system of government. Some people are so afraid to live that they'll plead for their government to run their life for them; removing some of the fear and uncertainty of life. Something a lot of people don't realize is that the phrase, "Big Brother is watching you!" can actually be comforting to some people. What gets lost in the mix of things is simple human dignity. We're either consumers, or we're marketing subjects, or we're citizen #xyz, or some other nameless and faceless mass - anything but a human being.
If you want your government to tag you like a bird and watch your every move so you can be protected from yourself and from life, then kindly move to China. We're working on something called Freedom in the USA, and it's pretty tough to do, as it actually involves living your own life without constant paralyzing fear of everything. If you're that afraid of people speeding, try walking. If you're that afraid of life, lock yourself in a bomb shelter and wait for the reaper.
But whatever you do, please stop posting your "I, for one, welcome any overlord!" drivel on slashdot.
"The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it."
This assumes that the artist was entitled to Bob's money in the first place. Using this logic, it could well be said that if Bob was going to purchase a CD, but saw a really nice chess set and used the CD money to purchase that instead of the CD, the chess set manufacturer has 'robbed' the artist of a sale. The artist was going to get Bob's money, but someone else's actions (the creation and marketing of the chess set) cancelled an otherwise-guaranteed sale.
If you really want to see how the artist is deprived of money, you should check into how much the record industry takes (as a matter of general practice) out of the artist's cut of album sales to cover the cost of broken records using a model which was created when vinyl records were sold. Nevermind the fact that the percentage of CDs broken during shipping is a mere fraction of the number of vinyl records that were broken; they're taking the same cut. Or perhaps you could look at how the industry manipulates artists' contracts using high-powered lawyers to ensure that artists are locked into a single company for eternity without even the option of going out on their own. When an artist is contracted to produce 5 albums, the recording company will often ignore albums that don't sell well, keeping the artist locked into a perpetual contract that actually hinders their ability to create new content. The record company makes a bunch of money from the first album, but gives the artist next to nothing from it, citing "recording, studio, manufacturing, shipping, marketing, promotional costs, etc", then shelves the next 5 or 6 albums when it becomes clear they're not selling as well as the first, but then tells the artist that they've only created one album. And don't go thinking that this only happens rarely, or to small artists. The Dixie Chicks just recently had to sue their label to get more than $4million that was owed to them. If memory serves, they recorded an album that went platinum, for which their label refused to pay them. Talk about real theft.
"My problem has always been this: In the heyday of file sharing (2000 or so), I worked in a lab and saw the students downloading thousands of mp3s a day, and the whole "well, if I like it I'll buy it" argument was never voiced. A friend is a DJ (mp3J?) that uses all stolen songs on his laptop instead of CDs. He certainly didn't buy any."
The "I'm just demoing it" argument has always been a bit weak, though not entirely inaccurate. While there are some folks who really do buy more music when they download, I'm certain that, at least a majority, do not. That being said, I think the real problem is that when people look at a CD, they're thinking less about an artist making it, and more about a multi-national conglomerate mega-corp that produced it and is trying to sell it to them at extremely inflated prices. My personal argument in this whole thing is that I will not put my money into the hands of corrupt organizations that should have been broken up decades ago, with their top brass jailed on RICO violations. They've now grown so bold as to demand to be exempt from all anti-trust lawsuits. This is like the mafia demanding to be exempt from murder prosecutions. I suppose the logic is, "we've been breaking these laws for so long, why don't you just stop bugging us about it?". I do buy CDs, T-shirts, concert tickets, etc from non-RIAA affiliated bands that I like. That is how I show my support. If Metallica wants another dollar from me (I've bought their stuff in the past), they'd best get away from their RIAA whore of a label and stop treating their fans like garbage. I absolutely support the rights of artists and others to make a profit from their intellectual property. What I do not support in any way are corrupt organizations (as defined under US Federal RICO statutes). I will not pay them money, and I will not support t
" is inconsequential to the message that the Bible conveys."
The message that the Bible conveys is so convoluted and contradictory that it could well be said that the book in-and-of-itself, in its current form, is inconsequential. Now before you grab a sword and swear a death oath on me, let me qualify that. I'm not about to say one way or another that the Bible is/was right or wrong, merely that human intervention (interference) over the past 7,000 years (Genesis?) has corrupted and contorted every word in so many ways that there is virtually nothing left of what was originally said. About the only thing you could really take from it with any confidence is the idea that we're all of the same bunch (species), and so we should all look after one another and treat each other right. The rest of the stuff is almost entirely crap that's been tossed in by "scholars" throughout the ages who felt they needed to make their particular mark on the rest of us unwashed masses. When you look at who has had control over the words and texts over the course of history, it becomes quite obvious that the original words and meanings have been twisted in such a way as to manipulate the masses at a given time in a given way. In the times of the old testement, it was about keeping the masses under strict controls to ensure that disease and other consequences of newely-made-immoral acts didn't wipe out the population. In the middle ages, it was about keeping the coffers full in the Church, and about grabbing up as much land and power as possible. Whatever. The point is, from any reasonable perspective I can see, to trust the words we see on the pages today is equivelent to trusting Father McFeely's advice to not tell the folks about the 'private sermons' on Thursday afternoon.
"Imagine a sphere about 50 light-years in diameter rapidly expanding with I Love Lucy riding the wave up in front;-)"
If there's any truth to what was said in the movie Contact, the first major broadcast with enough power to make it to deep space relatively clean would be the Olympic Games in Berlin under Nazis rule. This could, of course, have simply been a clever device thrown into the film to catch everyone off-guard, but it would make sense. Thankfully, as was pointed out in the film, the politics and atrocities of the Nazis would not be carried within this broadcast, and would therefore not influence how we are viewed amoung potential extra-terrestrial viewers.
That being said, having to watch half a decade worth of Survivor might just drive them to annihilate us.
"Windows 2000 and XP can't (won't, actually) format a FAT32 parition over 32gb."
Sure they will; just not during setup. Check in the disk administrator instead once you have the OS up and running.
"Theoretically, I've read that you can fdisk and format a bigger parition with a Win98/ME boot disk, but I tried that and for some reason I couldn't do it."
Your system's BIOS probably wasn't detecting the drive's size correctly. This has nothing to do with the software used. Aside from this, Symantec's gdisk (included with Ghost) works far more efficiently and predictably than fdisk. I've used fdisk on 40GB drives before, and I've used gdisk (simple DOS program) to format 120s.
"Run fdisk, make a partition of Win95 type b or c. (I'm not sure if both work; I used LBA and it did fine; I think that's c)"
I can't recall the last time I played with partitioning in Linux (I'm more of a FreeBSD person myself) but some of this just doesn't make sense to me. First of all, Windows 95B and C both used FAT32 for partitions larger than 2GB. LBA, on the other hand, generally refers to how the size of a hard disk is asessed by software (usually the BIOS). Modern hard disks all require LBA due to the fact that we don't have drives with 100 cylinders running around.
"After that, I mounted it as/storage, then booted into Windows and used a little-known option in Disk Manager to mount the new partition in a directory. "
It's hardly 'hidden' or 'secretive'. Rather, it's simply an option checkbox when you format a drive (known as a 'volume' under 2k/XP) in the disk administrator.
Has announced that they have hired Voyager's Kes, who can see past the subatomic level. Thus, AMD expects Moore's Law to survive for many years to come. Said one senior engineer at AMD's Dresden facility:
"will include their names, ages and birth dates, where they live, where they work or attend school, and which offense they were convicted of. Photographs will soon be posted, as well."
My problem here is two-fold. First of all, whenever any information is outdated or incorrect (and there is ample evidence that this happens commonly), you get innocent folks labled as sex offenders. This could be solved in a couple of different ways, which I'll discuss later. Secondly, once you've posted this information, you create a number of problems for the people who have already served their time. Vigilante attacks that put these people in the hospital and leave their property destroyed are not uncommon. You may say that they 'deserve whatever they get', but our laws state that they have paid their debt to society by serving their time and doing whatever the court has ordered. The vigilante attacks on these individuals and their property are criminal acts no matter which way you slice it. You are attacking a person or property when they have done nothing to you whatsoever, except that they exist. If you believe that their existence justifies your burning down their home, then I believe that your existence justifies me burning down your's.
Then we go on to the next 'layer' of problems with these registries; vigilante groups which claim to be 'victim advocacy' groups. Now there are indeed plenty of genuine victims' advocacy groups that most certainly do a lot of good for folks - these are not the ones to which I'm referring. I'm talking about the self-appointed guardians of the masses who see fit to go all over town posting information from the sex offender registry in every shop, store, public building, and on every street corner in town. I'm talking about the people who find the offender's home and go out several times a week to picket outside to all hours of the night "informing" the neighborhood about this person's arrival. I put that in quotes because the neighborhood was already informed by the registy itself, if not by the thousands upon thousands of posters these vigilantes have posted all over town. These picketers are there for one reason only; to scare the hell out of the person or persons living where the sex offender registry says a sex offender lives. These could even be characterized under new legislation as "terrorist" groups, though I would disagree with that particular lable. Instead, I would say a more apt comparison would be made between these people and the KKK. Much like the KKK does these days, these groups go to the very edge of what the law allows, knowing that the police are too afraid to even attempt to keep them in line for fear of being accused of sticking up for a sex offender. Instead, these people simply do whatever they please, which generally means filling the offender's life with constant fear and making it impossible for them to ever reintegrate with society again. This brings me to my third critisism of the sex offender registry: it is used in such a way that those listed find it nearly impossible to live a normal life.
I only know one person who is on a registry, and he's an asshole. He's my step-brother's cousin, in case you're wondering. That being said, he's lost jobs, lost friends, and been almost completely cut off from his own family; not because of his crime (for which he served 10 years), but because no one wants to get anywhere near someone who's on that registry for fear of being labled "one of them". Every time he manages to get a job to try and support himself, anonymous faxes and letters pour in from all over the place, invariably causing him to be fired almost as soon as he gets the job. So far as I know, he hasn't been able to hold a steady job for more than a couple of weeks at a time through no current or work-related fault of his own. He receives constant threats and had to get rid of his landline in favor of a cell phone, which is harder to track down to a phone number with an address. Most of the family won't even talk with him anymore, let alone
"shouldn't it be \. so the slash leans to the left like most of the readers? With YRO posts about Voting and politics you think someone would come with with a politics website for slashdot readers. "
"The "War Driver" was caught naked from the waist down driving the wrong way down a one-way street, with a laptop in hand [downloading child pornography]."
I should think that perhaps the "Theft of Communications" charge is the least of this individual's problems. That's really one for the record books there, almost to the point of being a publicity stunt of some sort. Naked from the waist down, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, using a laptop, and downloading child pornography. What do you say to something like that? I mean that for each person.
[Suspect] "There a... problem officer?"
[Officer] "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
-blank stare-
[Officer] "You were driving the wrong way down this one-way street."
[Suspect] "Oh my, well I'm sorry about that, officer..."
[Officer] "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to write you a... hey, where are your pants?!"
[Suspect] "Oh.. well.. I'm getting them clea..." -gets cut off by cop-
[Officer] "What is that? Are you using a laptop computer while driving sir??"
[Suspect] "Well, I uhh..." -gets cut off again-
[Officer] "What the HELL is that??!! Is that child pornography??!! Oh God..
[Suspect] "No, no! It's not what you think!"
[Officer] "Just where the hell are you getting that from?! Oh, so you're connected to someone's wireless internet from here???"
-Cop thinks to himself: "how the hell am I going to write this one up?"
"Either you ARE arguing that Xeon with 64 bit addressing OR Opteron will make Itanium unneeded or you're not. Please decide. "
I've already decided. To quote myself in my previous post:
"[If Xeon goes 64-bit] Itanium will have a small, niche market alongside IBM's and Sun's offerings. If Intel can't push Itaniums en masse, then it stands to lose an incredible amount of money and clout. Selling 100 systems a year on that chip just isn't going to sustain the R&D."
And later:
"The point is, is Intel going to be able to build Itanium sales to the point where it's profitable and can sustain marketing and R&D while paying back all the money that's been spent on it in the past 10 years? That's really the essential question upon which Itanium's future rests."
My point in all of this is that without the smaller end of the market, which would be absorbed by 64-bit Xeons and Opterons, Itanium's only remaining niche is at the upper end, where sales are too small to sustain R&D + marketing + paying back 10 years of prior R&D.
"But I wouldn't assume Intel doesn't think there's a role for both architectures."
I think Intel is hoping there's a sustainable market for Itanium post-64-bit Xeon. I think they're scrambling to crunch the numbers and figure out what Itanium's market figures look like in a 64-bit Xeon world. I also think that Intel will continue to sell Itaniums, even if they lose a small amount of money each year thanks to R&D plus marketing costs, simply so they can continue to have a presence in the upper end of the market. If the numbers come out looking like Intel will lose money hand over fist as soon as 64-bit Xeon debuts, then I think it turns into a debate about how much it's worth to Intel to have the clout of Itanium. Once their foot is in the door of a large corporation thanks to a high end server based on Itanium, then they may be able to push enough Xeons through that same door to make up for the money lost sustaining Itanium's life.
In any case, I think that Opteron really has to make Intel sweat. Opteron competes with Itanium in a number of ways, and really forces Intel's hand. A current Intel customer with a need for 64-bits who can't afford the 2, 3, 4-way Itanium server could very well opt for an Opteron box instead. To avoid this happening en masse, Intel releases 64-bit Xeons. Companies a bit further up the food chain who were looking at Itanium servers suddenly see Xeon and Opteron machines that perform better at lower prices. Now they're only looking at it as Xeon vs Opteron, with Itanium no longer in the picture. The second type of customer is really Itanium's bread and butter. They might only buy 5 or 10 Itanium-based servers, but each has 2 or 4 CPUs. Multiply that by the number of customers who exist within this segment and you get into what makes this area so vital to Itanium.
But as I said before, Intel has more than enough money to sell Itaniums indefinitely, regardless of losses. The question then, however, is for investors: "do we really want our company selling a 'losing' product that doesn't look like it's going to recover any time soon?".
"how long before some state court says that's unconstitutional and lets spammers spam?"
Pretty long, seeing as state courts can't rule on a Federal issue. Spam, being 'insterstate commerce' (in a manner of speaking) is most certainly all Federal. I also doubt there are many Federal courts that would consider the question of the bill's constitutionality. You have the right to speak, not to be heard; most certainly not at someone else's expense. If you had the right to be heard by your audience, you could sue deaf people for violating your right to free speech. How absurd is that? Free speech protects you when you're standing on a corner preaching your religious views or publishing a political opposition newspaper. It does not force everyone to stop and listen to you speak, nor force anyone to buy a copy of your newspaper.
If spammers want to continue to spam legally, they ought to stand on a street corner and hand out fliers to anyone who wants one. Thus, the optimal example of an 'opt-in' system. The way it works now, they're jamming the fliers into your pocket, whether you want them or not, to the point that your pockets explode when you get home. Every time you try to cover your pockets, they find another way to jam another flier into your pants. Activity like that would get you shot in New York, and perhaps worse in L.A.
I agree completely, but what does that have to do with this story about a kid's parents being sued for copyright infringement?
You can call it theft, murder, rape, or even terrorism if you like, but the law calls it copyright infringement.
I feel zero pity also. Instead, I'm a bit angry. I'm angry that our court system and copyright law have been hijacked by a band of greedy criminals and used as a weapon against average folks unable to defend themselves. I'm upset that this girl's parents will have to shell out her college tuition money because certain people who have built up an industry based on raketeering, price-fixing, fraud, extortion, anti-trust violations, and numerous other crimes don't want to let go of their corrupt organization (as defined under the Federal RICO Act). But most of all, I'm angry that no one in our elected government is doing anything to combat the massive, corrupt organization which has taken a liking to extracting its customers' last dollars via lawsuits because the complete and utter shit they've been pushing for so many years isn't selling very well lately.
"Most people I talked to thought it was an actual market for betting on terrorism."
Let's see, people are staking on the uncertain outcome of future events, (betting) such as assassinations, coups, and bombings (terrorism). You know... that sounds a bit like betting on terrorism.
"a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats"
Ahh, yes, like a crystal ball for the masses! Listen, would you be at all offended if me and a couple guys 'set up a futures market' (bet) for "elusive human threats" to your family? You know, things like your kids being kidnapped, your wife getting murdered, your mother having a heart attack? Or more to the point, would you be offended if I collected my ten grand because some mugger killed your wife for $20 and jewelry?
When you bet (and that's exactly what it is) on things like bombings, you're betting on peoples' wives, sons, daughters, mothers, and friends dying horrible, senseless deaths. When you bet on a coup happening in, say, Jordan, you're betting on whether the freedom of millions of Jordanians disappears forever. There's a reason the program was dropped - the essence of what makes a human being a human being could'nt allow such repugnancy at the hands of elected and publicly-funded government. It's absolutely disgusting in the most horrifying sense of the word.
"Why not just install it by default? Given the advantages it would give law enforcement..."
Why not install cameras throughout your home, in every room including your bedroom and bathroom, and then broadcast it all over the internet? That way, not only could the police make sure that no crimes are being committed in your house, but your neighbors could come and help you if you were hurt or in danger. Obviously, they'll need to also record sound and have night vision capabilities, and we'll have to make sure there's no easy way to disable them so an intruder can't render the system ineffective. We'll also have to make sure there aren't any uncovered areas of your house, especially in your bedroom and shower, where you are most vulnerable! Won't you feel safer knowing that all your neighbors are watching your children sleep at night? Doesn't it make you feel safe to know that your government is keeping a close eye on you at all times?
We could eliminate virtually all crime if we installed cameras in every room of every building in the country, along with all public areas, and then had law enforcement conduct daily door-to-door searches of every home and office in America. Violators of any law could simply be executed on the spot, as the evidence of their crimes would be obvious from the video tape. We'd have an almost crimeless society within 20 years; doesn't that sound wonderful?
We live with an imperfect system because the cost of perfection is our humanity. Stripping the dignity and individuality of each and every person is the goal of a totalitarian regime; not a freedom-loving society.
" If Opterons were faster in absolute terms then they would be in the Top Ten perf list not just the Price/Perf list. "
Using this logic, if I take 200,000,0000 Pentium Pro CPUs and put them into a system/cluster, then any system/cluster that doesn't beat it is slower in 'absolute terms'. They're not at the top because there were no systems listed with nearly that many Opterons in it. That's not because they don't exist or are not possible, but because no one has submitted the results of a specific benchmark to this specific site.
"Instead, unlike the million+ tpm the best Itanium system supported, the best Opteron result was a piddly 20k "
The best Opteron result on this specific benchmark submitted to this specific website was a 4-way system (that was a link, by the way) from Racksaver which trashed every Xeon and PIII Xeon system within $100,000 of its cost, with the exceptioon of one, (also a link) which was a mere $80,000 more expensive. But hey, what's $80,000 when you're looking at buying a $225,000 server? Oh yeah, 35%. That "piddly" 20k score, by the way, beat out 27 Intel machines running Xeons and PIII Xeons. In terms of price, this $42,000 machine outperformed everything Intel had up 'til you hit a $99,000 dual 2.8GHz Xeon system.
" (Because Racksaver is only showing results from ONE cpu. -if it scaled, maybe showing MORE than one cpu would make sense...)"
As would reading my post, or looking on the site itself. The system is listed here, and I posted a link to it specifically in my last posting. It's a $223,000 quad Opteron 844 system from Racksaver.
"Anyway, if your solution really needs the high thoughput, it doesn't matter how cheap it is if you can't do the job. Price/perf only applies when you meet job criteria."
Which you can do if you put together a system with enough CPUs. As I said, you can do the job of 64 Itaniums with around 50 Opterons. That's a conservative estimate, mind you. Someone putting together a more optimized solution may find even better results. Don't forget as well that the Itanium box is running on HP-UX, whereas the Opteron was running under Windows 2003. A more fair assessment would show results under something like Linux. Once FreeBSD's SMP support is improved, it would provide an even more interesting look into performance differences, considering its incredible high load scalability.
" No one (that I know of) has built a large scale SMP or NUMA (non-clustered) architecture with Opterons (Hypertransport makes small sub-8-way SMP and clustering much more attractive) so they are not playing in this space yet. I'm skeptical about whether this would be worth the effort for Opterons -unlike Itaniums which were designed to be very 32-way+ scalable (explict parallelism, very large caches etc.)"
AIST in Japan, Los Alamos National Labs, Texas A&M University and The University of Utah are putting together large-scale Opteron systems as we speak. While these are indeed all clusters, we're just talking about performance, right? Many of the systems listed for the TCP-C benchmarks are indeed clusters. In terms of Opteron's cache, AMD already has plans to launch them with larger caches. We'll most likely see those debut around the same time as the multi-core Opterons. Oh yes, Opteron was designed for multiple cores right from the start, and so will get them most likely in 2005. Oddly enough, that's the same year Intel plans to introduce multi-core Itaniums. Odd how they changed that from 2007 to 2005 right after AMD started answering questions about Opteron's multi-core future.
"As for the performance of your multi-way Opteron system, you may want to read some CompSci texts on how SMP scaling works (hint: simply mulitplying 1
"Check out the Top Ten Performance TPC-C benchmarks for on OLTP and 5 of the top 10 systems are Itanium and ALL of the the top 3. An HP Superdome with 64 Itaniums running Oracle 10g was the first ever system to do OVER 1 MILLION transactions per minute.
NO ARCHITECTURE, Opteron, Xeon, Power, (Certainly not SPARC or MIPS) can touch that right now."
Actually, Opteron could do it with 50 CPUs, where it took 64 Itaniums. If we look over here, we see that there are no Itaniums in the top 10 for price/performance. In fact, Opteron leads the pack in this field, with only Xeons competing with it at all. If we look at the performance in a 4-way Opteron system (number 8 on the price/performance list), we see that Opteron scales better than linear, and that roughly 50 Opterons would overtake the top Itanium system, which uses 64 Itaniums. Some rough calculations assuming a basic $55,000/CPU figure (ok, extremely rough estimates) based on the 4-way Rackserver system yield an Opteron-based system that outperforms the top Itanium box at a cost of around $2.8mUSD; a far cry from the $8.4mUSD Itanium system. Don't even try to come back with, "well a 50-CPU Opteron system doesn't exist", because neither does the system you're talking about. If you'll check the availability, you'll notice that it lists a future date, 04/14/04.
If that's considered "kicking butt", then I'd love to see what you'd consider calling a 64-CPU Opteron box, which should show something along the lines of ~1.3 million transactions per minute.
I'd say that's an architecture that goes a bit beyond 'touch'ing the Itaniums.;)
"The more I read on this the more I wonder wtf is going on. It has long since passed the point of being rational."
It's actually perfectly rational, and rather easy to explain. Just take a look at this line from this interview in CRN:
"David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14. That's some of the best money we've spent, not even money, some of the best stock we've issued."[Emph Mine]
Look at what SCO has done so far: made a bunch of far-reaching claims and launched a massive lawsuit against IBM. It doesn't matter that the only 'evidence' they've shown so far was debunked as ridiculously overused code that's been out and around publicly since the 80s. It doesn't matter that they haven't been able to substantiate a single claim. None of this matters, because investors are purchasing the stock, hoping for the big pay-off because they don't know that the entire lawsuit is doomed to failure. Daryl took a dying company and got its stock to jump 1400%. That's not to say that Daryl isn't more evil than Bill Gates, (he obviously is), but he's neither insane, nor stupid. It's about the money; it always was. Now he's paying his legal team with stock that was worthless before the claims began, so he's not even dipping into his operating capital. That's just ingenius.
Only on Slashdot can a comment which pokes fun at a multi-billion dollar company's decisions on the basis that they don't fit the individual poster's immediate or predicted needs be modded 'insightful' while another comment from a poster who uses a bit of sarcasm to point out the fact that future market does not depend entirely on that individual is modded as a 'troll'.
It's these little idiosyncrasies that put a smile on my face and keep me coming back for more.
"What more is the market than many people each enacting on their own selfish needs? Go fuck yourself."
If the posting account belongs to a union of 300,000 consumers who are in the market for a new PC within the next two years, then you're absolutely correct. That being said, no multi-billion dollar market depends on the immediate needs of a particular individual. As for the colorful language you trot out at the end, I can only assume that your lack of a well-thought-out argument necessitated an obscenity drawing attention away from it.
Slashdot Mirror
" Personally I appreciate it. Changing the speed limit signs to increase should be the only way to move faster, not violation of existing ones.
:)"
Now if the highway is not busy most (if not all drivers) are violating the law by speeding. It's bad because it creates a style of thinking: "it's ok beacuse everyone's doing the same". No need to mention that many people are dead from speeding. "
Hmmm... Larger, more powerful government... good. Protecting the ignorant masses from themselves... good. You've got to be a far-left-winger.
Myself? I believe in personal responsibility. You caused an accident? Not good. Someone got killed due to the accident caused by you? Very bad. You were speeding at the time of the accident which you caused, and which resulted in the death of another individual? You're going to jail for a long, long time. Prosecute those who infringe upon the rights of others.
Creating a technology-automated totalitarian state is most certainly not the answer to transportation safety issues.
"I don't think that anything's wrong with tracking my speed. One way or another cops are doing it anyway. Let's them just do it in a style of 21 century
This same logic could be used to justify placing an automated wiretaping system on every citizen's home, or a camera in every room of your house. Some people might not mind a 1984-style system of government. Some people are so afraid to live that they'll plead for their government to run their life for them; removing some of the fear and uncertainty of life. Something a lot of people don't realize is that the phrase, "Big Brother is watching you!" can actually be comforting to some people. What gets lost in the mix of things is simple human dignity. We're either consumers, or we're marketing subjects, or we're citizen #xyz, or some other nameless and faceless mass - anything but a human being.
If you want your government to tag you like a bird and watch your every move so you can be protected from yourself and from life, then kindly move to China. We're working on something called Freedom in the USA, and it's pretty tough to do, as it actually involves living your own life without constant paralyzing fear of everything. If you're that afraid of people speeding, try walking. If you're that afraid of life, lock yourself in a bomb shelter and wait for the reaper.
But whatever you do, please stop posting your "I, for one, welcome any overlord!" drivel on slashdot.
"The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it."
This assumes that the artist was entitled to Bob's money in the first place. Using this logic, it could well be said that if Bob was going to purchase a CD, but saw a really nice chess set and used the CD money to purchase that instead of the CD, the chess set manufacturer has 'robbed' the artist of a sale. The artist was going to get Bob's money, but someone else's actions (the creation and marketing of the chess set) cancelled an otherwise-guaranteed sale.
If you really want to see how the artist is deprived of money, you should check into how much the record industry takes (as a matter of general practice) out of the artist's cut of album sales to cover the cost of broken records using a model which was created when vinyl records were sold. Nevermind the fact that the percentage of CDs broken during shipping is a mere fraction of the number of vinyl records that were broken; they're taking the same cut. Or perhaps you could look at how the industry manipulates artists' contracts using high-powered lawyers to ensure that artists are locked into a single company for eternity without even the option of going out on their own. When an artist is contracted to produce 5 albums, the recording company will often ignore albums that don't sell well, keeping the artist locked into a perpetual contract that actually hinders their ability to create new content. The record company makes a bunch of money from the first album, but gives the artist next to nothing from it, citing "recording, studio, manufacturing, shipping, marketing, promotional costs, etc", then shelves the next 5 or 6 albums when it becomes clear they're not selling as well as the first, but then tells the artist that they've only created one album. And don't go thinking that this only happens rarely, or to small artists. The Dixie Chicks just recently had to sue their label to get more than $4million that was owed to them. If memory serves, they recorded an album that went platinum, for which their label refused to pay them. Talk about real theft.
"My problem has always been this: In the heyday of file sharing (2000 or so), I worked in a lab and saw the students downloading thousands of mp3s a day, and the whole "well, if I like it I'll buy it" argument was never voiced. A friend is a DJ (mp3J?) that uses all stolen songs on his laptop instead of CDs. He certainly didn't buy any."
The "I'm just demoing it" argument has always been a bit weak, though not entirely inaccurate. While there are some folks who really do buy more music when they download, I'm certain that, at least a majority, do not. That being said, I think the real problem is that when people look at a CD, they're thinking less about an artist making it, and more about a multi-national conglomerate mega-corp that produced it and is trying to sell it to them at extremely inflated prices. My personal argument in this whole thing is that I will not put my money into the hands of corrupt organizations that should have been broken up decades ago, with their top brass jailed on RICO violations. They've now grown so bold as to demand to be exempt from all anti-trust lawsuits. This is like the mafia demanding to be exempt from murder prosecutions. I suppose the logic is, "we've been breaking these laws for so long, why don't you just stop bugging us about it?". I do buy CDs, T-shirts, concert tickets, etc from non-RIAA affiliated bands that I like. That is how I show my support. If Metallica wants another dollar from me (I've bought their stuff in the past), they'd best get away from their RIAA whore of a label and stop treating their fans like garbage. I absolutely support the rights of artists and others to make a profit from their intellectual property. What I do not support in any way are corrupt organizations (as defined under US Federal RICO statutes). I will not pay them money, and I will not support t
" is inconsequential to the message that the Bible conveys."
The message that the Bible conveys is so convoluted and contradictory that it could well be said that the book in-and-of-itself, in its current form, is inconsequential. Now before you grab a sword and swear a death oath on me, let me qualify that. I'm not about to say one way or another that the Bible is/was right or wrong, merely that human intervention (interference) over the past 7,000 years (Genesis?) has corrupted and contorted every word in so many ways that there is virtually nothing left of what was originally said. About the only thing you could really take from it with any confidence is the idea that we're all of the same bunch (species), and so we should all look after one another and treat each other right. The rest of the stuff is almost entirely crap that's been tossed in by "scholars" throughout the ages who felt they needed to make their particular mark on the rest of us unwashed masses. When you look at who has had control over the words and texts over the course of history, it becomes quite obvious that the original words and meanings have been twisted in such a way as to manipulate the masses at a given time in a given way. In the times of the old testement, it was about keeping the masses under strict controls to ensure that disease and other consequences of newely-made-immoral acts didn't wipe out the population. In the middle ages, it was about keeping the coffers full in the Church, and about grabbing up as much land and power as possible. Whatever. The point is, from any reasonable perspective I can see, to trust the words we see on the pages today is equivelent to trusting Father McFeely's advice to not tell the folks about the 'private sermons' on Thursday afternoon.
" And when did having faith in something become the requirement for being a decent person living a respectable life?"
About 4 years ago, when Bush took office - you Godless Commie Queer. [/satire]
(Don't take offense, t'was a joke!)
"Imagine a sphere about 50 light-years in diameter rapidly expanding with I Love Lucy riding the wave up in front ;-)"
If there's any truth to what was said in the movie Contact, the first major broadcast with enough power to make it to deep space relatively clean would be the Olympic Games in Berlin under Nazis rule. This could, of course, have simply been a clever device thrown into the film to catch everyone off-guard, but it would make sense. Thankfully, as was pointed out in the film, the politics and atrocities of the Nazis would not be carried within this broadcast, and would therefore not influence how we are viewed amoung potential extra-terrestrial viewers.
That being said, having to watch half a decade worth of Survivor might just drive them to annihilate us.
"Windows 2000 and XP can't (won't, actually) format a FAT32 parition over 32gb."
/storage, then booted into Windows and used a little-known option in Disk Manager to mount the new partition in a directory. "
Sure they will; just not during setup. Check in the disk administrator instead once you have the OS up and running.
"Theoretically, I've read that you can fdisk and format a bigger parition with a Win98/ME boot disk, but I tried that and for some reason I couldn't do it."
Your system's BIOS probably wasn't detecting the drive's size correctly. This has nothing to do with the software used. Aside from this, Symantec's gdisk (included with Ghost) works far more efficiently and predictably than fdisk. I've used fdisk on 40GB drives before, and I've used gdisk (simple DOS program) to format 120s.
"Run fdisk, make a partition of Win95 type b or c. (I'm not sure if both work; I used LBA and it did fine; I think that's c)"
I can't recall the last time I played with partitioning in Linux (I'm more of a FreeBSD person myself) but some of this just doesn't make sense to me. First of all, Windows 95B and C both used FAT32 for partitions larger than 2GB. LBA, on the other hand, generally refers to how the size of a hard disk is asessed by software (usually the BIOS). Modern hard disks all require LBA due to the fact that we don't have drives with 100 cylinders running around.
"After that, I mounted it as
It's hardly 'hidden' or 'secretive'. Rather, it's simply an option checkbox when you format a drive (known as a 'volume' under 2k/XP) in the disk administrator.
Has announced that they have hired Voyager's Kes, who can see past the subatomic level. Thus, AMD expects Moore's Law to survive for many years to come. Said one senior engineer at AMD's Dresden facility:
"Physical limitations? Fuck physical limitations!"
"will include their names, ages and birth dates, where they live, where they work or attend school, and which offense they were convicted of. Photographs will soon be posted, as well."
My problem here is two-fold. First of all, whenever any information is outdated or incorrect (and there is ample evidence that this happens commonly), you get innocent folks labled as sex offenders. This could be solved in a couple of different ways, which I'll discuss later. Secondly, once you've posted this information, you create a number of problems for the people who have already served their time. Vigilante attacks that put these people in the hospital and leave their property destroyed are not uncommon. You may say that they 'deserve whatever they get', but our laws state that they have paid their debt to society by serving their time and doing whatever the court has ordered. The vigilante attacks on these individuals and their property are criminal acts no matter which way you slice it. You are attacking a person or property when they have done nothing to you whatsoever, except that they exist. If you believe that their existence justifies your burning down their home, then I believe that your existence justifies me burning down your's.
Then we go on to the next 'layer' of problems with these registries; vigilante groups which claim to be 'victim advocacy' groups. Now there are indeed plenty of genuine victims' advocacy groups that most certainly do a lot of good for folks - these are not the ones to which I'm referring. I'm talking about the self-appointed guardians of the masses who see fit to go all over town posting information from the sex offender registry in every shop, store, public building, and on every street corner in town. I'm talking about the people who find the offender's home and go out several times a week to picket outside to all hours of the night "informing" the neighborhood about this person's arrival. I put that in quotes because the neighborhood was already informed by the registy itself, if not by the thousands upon thousands of posters these vigilantes have posted all over town. These picketers are there for one reason only; to scare the hell out of the person or persons living where the sex offender registry says a sex offender lives. These could even be characterized under new legislation as "terrorist" groups, though I would disagree with that particular lable. Instead, I would say a more apt comparison would be made between these people and the KKK. Much like the KKK does these days, these groups go to the very edge of what the law allows, knowing that the police are too afraid to even attempt to keep them in line for fear of being accused of sticking up for a sex offender. Instead, these people simply do whatever they please, which generally means filling the offender's life with constant fear and making it impossible for them to ever reintegrate with society again. This brings me to my third critisism of the sex offender registry: it is used in such a way that those listed find it nearly impossible to live a normal life.
I only know one person who is on a registry, and he's an asshole. He's my step-brother's cousin, in case you're wondering. That being said, he's lost jobs, lost friends, and been almost completely cut off from his own family; not because of his crime (for which he served 10 years), but because no one wants to get anywhere near someone who's on that registry for fear of being labled "one of them". Every time he manages to get a job to try and support himself, anonymous faxes and letters pour in from all over the place, invariably causing him to be fired almost as soon as he gets the job. So far as I know, he hasn't been able to hold a steady job for more than a couple of weeks at a time through no current or work-related fault of his own. He receives constant threats and had to get rid of his landline in favor of a cell phone, which is harder to track down to a phone number with an address. Most of the family won't even talk with him anymore, let alone
"shouldn't it be \. so the slash leans to the left like most of the readers?
;) )
With YRO posts about Voting and politics you think someone would come with with a politics website for slashdot readers. "
Look! Someone did!
(It's just a joke, mods, chill out
Guess we're stuck with Plan B.
(Just Kidding)
I think this is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I've really got to browse at -1 more often.
"The "War Driver" was caught naked from the waist down driving the wrong way down a one-way street, with a laptop in hand [downloading child pornography]."
I should think that perhaps the "Theft of Communications" charge is the least of this individual's problems. That's really one for the record books there, almost to the point of being a publicity stunt of some sort. Naked from the waist down, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, using a laptop, and downloading child pornography. What do you say to something like that? I mean that for each person.
[Suspect] "There a... problem officer?"
[Officer] "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
-blank stare-
[Officer] "You were driving the wrong way down this one-way street."
[Suspect] "Oh my, well I'm sorry about that, officer..."
[Officer] "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to write you a... hey, where are your pants?!"
[Suspect] "Oh.. well.. I'm getting them clea..." -gets cut off by cop-
[Officer] "What is that? Are you using a laptop computer while driving sir??"
[Suspect] "Well, I uhh..." -gets cut off again-
[Officer] "What the HELL is that??!! Is that child pornography??!! Oh God..
[Suspect] "No, no! It's not what you think!"
[Officer] "Just where the hell are you getting that from?! Oh, so you're connected to someone's wireless internet from here???"
-Cop thinks to himself: "how the hell am I going to write this one up?"
"Either you ARE arguing that Xeon with 64 bit addressing OR Opteron will make Itanium unneeded or you're not. Please decide. "
I've already decided. To quote myself in my previous post:
"[If Xeon goes 64-bit] Itanium will have a small, niche market alongside IBM's and Sun's offerings. If Intel can't push Itaniums en masse, then it stands to lose an incredible amount of money and clout. Selling 100 systems a year on that chip just isn't going to sustain the R&D."
And later:
"The point is, is Intel going to be able to build Itanium sales to the point where it's profitable and can sustain marketing and R&D while paying back all the money that's been spent on it in the past 10 years? That's really the essential question upon which Itanium's future rests."
My point in all of this is that without the smaller end of the market, which would be absorbed by 64-bit Xeons and Opterons, Itanium's only remaining niche is at the upper end, where sales are too small to sustain R&D + marketing + paying back 10 years of prior R&D.
"But I wouldn't assume Intel doesn't think there's a role for both architectures."
I think Intel is hoping there's a sustainable market for Itanium post-64-bit Xeon. I think they're scrambling to crunch the numbers and figure out what Itanium's market figures look like in a 64-bit Xeon world. I also think that Intel will continue to sell Itaniums, even if they lose a small amount of money each year thanks to R&D plus marketing costs, simply so they can continue to have a presence in the upper end of the market. If the numbers come out looking like Intel will lose money hand over fist as soon as 64-bit Xeon debuts, then I think it turns into a debate about how much it's worth to Intel to have the clout of Itanium. Once their foot is in the door of a large corporation thanks to a high end server based on Itanium, then they may be able to push enough Xeons through that same door to make up for the money lost sustaining Itanium's life.
In any case, I think that Opteron really has to make Intel sweat. Opteron competes with Itanium in a number of ways, and really forces Intel's hand. A current Intel customer with a need for 64-bits who can't afford the 2, 3, 4-way Itanium server could very well opt for an Opteron box instead. To avoid this happening en masse, Intel releases 64-bit Xeons. Companies a bit further up the food chain who were looking at Itanium servers suddenly see Xeon and Opteron machines that perform better at lower prices. Now they're only looking at it as Xeon vs Opteron, with Itanium no longer in the picture. The second type of customer is really Itanium's bread and butter. They might only buy 5 or 10 Itanium-based servers, but each has 2 or 4 CPUs. Multiply that by the number of customers who exist within this segment and you get into what makes this area so vital to Itanium.
But as I said before, Intel has more than enough money to sell Itaniums indefinitely, regardless of losses. The question then, however, is for investors: "do we really want our company selling a 'losing' product that doesn't look like it's going to recover any time soon?".
"how long before some state court says that's unconstitutional and lets spammers spam?"
Pretty long, seeing as state courts can't rule on a Federal issue. Spam, being 'insterstate commerce' (in a manner of speaking) is most certainly all Federal. I also doubt there are many Federal courts that would consider the question of the bill's constitutionality. You have the right to speak, not to be heard; most certainly not at someone else's expense. If you had the right to be heard by your audience, you could sue deaf people for violating your right to free speech. How absurd is that? Free speech protects you when you're standing on a corner preaching your religious views or publishing a political opposition newspaper. It does not force everyone to stop and listen to you speak, nor force anyone to buy a copy of your newspaper.
If spammers want to continue to spam legally, they ought to stand on a street corner and hand out fliers to anyone who wants one. Thus, the optimal example of an 'opt-in' system. The way it works now, they're jamming the fliers into your pocket, whether you want them or not, to the point that your pockets explode when you get home. Every time you try to cover your pockets, they find another way to jam another flier into your pants. Activity like that would get you shot in New York, and perhaps worse in L.A.
"including five years in [Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass] prison"
Bet someone's going to regret pushing all those penis patches (of grow 3 inches! fame).
You mean their press releases?
Heroic RIAA takes on terrifying twelve year old!
Underdog Music Industry battles Mac-owning grandmother
Struggling music companies take the fight to pillaging undergrad
Recording industry courageously combats filching fifteen year old
"Theivery is theivery, be you 15 or 115."
I agree completely, but what does that have to do with this story about a kid's parents being sued for copyright infringement?
You can call it theft, murder, rape, or even terrorism if you like, but the law calls it copyright infringement.
I feel zero pity also. Instead, I'm a bit angry. I'm angry that our court system and copyright law have been hijacked by a band of greedy criminals and used as a weapon against average folks unable to defend themselves. I'm upset that this girl's parents will have to shell out her college tuition money because certain people who have built up an industry based on raketeering, price-fixing, fraud, extortion, anti-trust violations, and numerous other crimes don't want to let go of their corrupt organization (as defined under the Federal RICO Act). But most of all, I'm angry that no one in our elected government is doing anything to combat the massive, corrupt organization which has taken a liking to extracting its customers' last dollars via lawsuits because the complete and utter shit they've been pushing for so many years isn't selling very well lately.
"Most people I talked to thought it was an actual market for betting on terrorism."
Let's see, people are staking on the uncertain outcome of future events, (betting) such as assassinations, coups, and bombings (terrorism). You know... that sounds a bit like betting on terrorism.
"a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats"
Ahh, yes, like a crystal ball for the masses! Listen, would you be at all offended if me and a couple guys 'set up a futures market' (bet) for "elusive human threats" to your family? You know, things like your kids being kidnapped, your wife getting murdered, your mother having a heart attack? Or more to the point, would you be offended if I collected my ten grand because some mugger killed your wife for $20 and jewelry?
When you bet (and that's exactly what it is) on things like bombings, you're betting on peoples' wives, sons, daughters, mothers, and friends dying horrible, senseless deaths. When you bet on a coup happening in, say, Jordan, you're betting on whether the freedom of millions of Jordanians disappears forever. There's a reason the program was dropped - the essence of what makes a human being a human being could'nt allow such repugnancy at the hands of elected and publicly-funded government. It's absolutely disgusting in the most horrifying sense of the word.
"Pink Sunglasses Linux.....
Green Visor Linux"
Big Johnson Linux - 'In the world of the geek, the 4-inch Johnson is king'
"Why not just install it by default? Given the advantages it would give law enforcement..."
Why not install cameras throughout your home, in every room including your bedroom and bathroom, and then broadcast it all over the internet? That way, not only could the police make sure that no crimes are being committed in your house, but your neighbors could come and help you if you were hurt or in danger. Obviously, they'll need to also record sound and have night vision capabilities, and we'll have to make sure there's no easy way to disable them so an intruder can't render the system ineffective. We'll also have to make sure there aren't any uncovered areas of your house, especially in your bedroom and shower, where you are most vulnerable! Won't you feel safer knowing that all your neighbors are watching your children sleep at night? Doesn't it make you feel safe to know that your government is keeping a close eye on you at all times?
We could eliminate virtually all crime if we installed cameras in every room of every building in the country, along with all public areas, and then had law enforcement conduct daily door-to-door searches of every home and office in America. Violators of any law could simply be executed on the spot, as the evidence of their crimes would be obvious from the video tape. We'd have an almost crimeless society within 20 years; doesn't that sound wonderful?
We live with an imperfect system because the cost of perfection is our humanity. Stripping the dignity and individuality of each and every person is the goal of a totalitarian regime; not a freedom-loving society.
" If Opterons were faster in absolute terms then they would be in the Top Ten perf list not just the Price/Perf list. "
Using this logic, if I take 200,000,0000 Pentium Pro CPUs and put them into a system/cluster, then any system/cluster that doesn't beat it is slower in 'absolute terms'. They're not at the top because there were no systems listed with nearly that many Opterons in it. That's not because they don't exist or are not possible, but because no one has submitted the results of a specific benchmark to this specific site.
"Instead, unlike the million+ tpm the best Itanium system supported, the best Opteron result was a piddly 20k "
The best Opteron result on this specific benchmark submitted to this specific website was a 4-way system (that was a link, by the way) from Racksaver which trashed every Xeon and PIII Xeon system within $100,000 of its cost, with the exceptioon of one, (also a link) which was a mere $80,000 more expensive. But hey, what's $80,000 when you're looking at buying a $225,000 server? Oh yeah, 35%. That "piddly" 20k score, by the way, beat out 27 Intel machines running Xeons and PIII Xeons. In terms of price, this $42,000 machine outperformed everything Intel had up 'til you hit a $99,000 dual 2.8GHz Xeon system.
" (Because Racksaver is only showing results from ONE cpu. -if it scaled, maybe showing MORE than one cpu would make sense...)"
As would reading my post, or looking on the site itself. The system is listed here, and I posted a link to it specifically in my last posting. It's a $223,000 quad Opteron 844 system from Racksaver.
"Anyway, if your solution really needs the high thoughput, it doesn't matter how cheap it is if you can't do the job. Price/perf only applies when you meet job criteria."
Which you can do if you put together a system with enough CPUs. As I said, you can do the job of 64 Itaniums with around 50 Opterons. That's a conservative estimate, mind you. Someone putting together a more optimized solution may find even better results. Don't forget as well that the Itanium box is running on HP-UX, whereas the Opteron was running under Windows 2003. A more fair assessment would show results under something like Linux. Once FreeBSD's SMP support is improved, it would provide an even more interesting look into performance differences, considering its incredible high load scalability.
" No one (that I know of) has built a large scale SMP or NUMA (non-clustered) architecture with Opterons (Hypertransport makes small sub-8-way SMP and clustering much more attractive) so they are not playing in this space yet. I'm skeptical about whether this would be worth the effort for Opterons -unlike Itaniums which were designed to be very 32-way+ scalable (explict parallelism, very large caches etc.)"
AIST in Japan, Los Alamos National Labs, Texas A&M University and The University of Utah are putting together large-scale Opteron systems as we speak. While these are indeed all clusters, we're just talking about performance, right? Many of the systems listed for the TCP-C benchmarks are indeed clusters. In terms of Opteron's cache, AMD already has plans to launch them with larger caches. We'll most likely see those debut around the same time as the multi-core Opterons. Oh yes, Opteron was designed for multiple cores right from the start, and so will get them most likely in 2005. Oddly enough, that's the same year Intel plans to introduce multi-core Itaniums. Odd how they changed that from 2007 to 2005 right after AMD started answering questions about Opteron's multi-core future.
"As for the performance of your multi-way Opteron system, you may want to read some CompSci texts on how SMP scaling works (hint: simply mulitplying 1
"Check out the Top Ten Performance TPC-C benchmarks for on OLTP and 5 of the top 10 systems are Itanium and ALL of the the top 3. An HP Superdome with 64 Itaniums running Oracle 10g was the first ever system to do OVER 1 MILLION transactions per minute.
;)
NO ARCHITECTURE, Opteron, Xeon, Power, (Certainly not SPARC or MIPS) can touch that right now."
Actually, Opteron could do it with 50 CPUs, where it took 64 Itaniums. If we look over here, we see that there are no Itaniums in the top 10 for price/performance. In fact, Opteron leads the pack in this field, with only Xeons competing with it at all. If we look at the performance in a 4-way Opteron system (number 8 on the price/performance list), we see that Opteron scales better than linear, and that roughly 50 Opterons would overtake the top Itanium system, which uses 64 Itaniums. Some rough calculations assuming a basic $55,000/CPU figure (ok, extremely rough estimates) based on the 4-way Rackserver system yield an Opteron-based system that outperforms the top Itanium box at a cost of around $2.8mUSD; a far cry from the $8.4mUSD Itanium system. Don't even try to come back with, "well a 50-CPU Opteron system doesn't exist", because neither does the system you're talking about. If you'll check the availability, you'll notice that it lists a future date, 04/14/04.
If that's considered "kicking butt", then I'd love to see what you'd consider calling a 64-CPU Opteron box, which should show something along the lines of ~1.3 million transactions per minute.
I'd say that's an architecture that goes a bit beyond 'touch'ing the Itaniums.
"The more I read on this the more I wonder wtf is going on. It has long since passed the point of being rational."
It's actually perfectly rational, and rather easy to explain. Just take a look at this line from this interview in CRN:
"David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14. That's some of the best money we've spent, not even money, some of the best stock we've issued."[Emph Mine]
Look at what SCO has done so far: made a bunch of far-reaching claims and launched a massive lawsuit against IBM. It doesn't matter that the only 'evidence' they've shown so far was debunked as ridiculously overused code that's been out and around publicly since the 80s. It doesn't matter that they haven't been able to substantiate a single claim. None of this matters, because investors are purchasing the stock, hoping for the big pay-off because they don't know that the entire lawsuit is doomed to failure. Daryl took a dying company and got its stock to jump 1400%. That's not to say that Daryl isn't more evil than Bill Gates, (he obviously is), but he's neither insane, nor stupid. It's about the money; it always was. Now he's paying his legal team with stock that was worthless before the claims began, so he's not even dipping into his operating capital. That's just ingenius.
Only on Slashdot can a comment which pokes fun at a multi-billion dollar company's decisions on the basis that they don't fit the individual poster's immediate or predicted needs be modded 'insightful' while another comment from a poster who uses a bit of sarcasm to point out the fact that future market does not depend entirely on that individual is modded as a 'troll'.
It's these little idiosyncrasies that put a smile on my face and keep me coming back for more.
"What more is the market than many people each enacting on their own selfish needs? Go fuck yourself."
If the posting account belongs to a union of 300,000 consumers who are in the market for a new PC within the next two years, then you're absolutely correct. That being said, no multi-billion dollar market depends on the immediate needs of a particular individual. As for the colorful language you trot out at the end, I can only assume that your lack of a well-thought-out argument necessitated an obscenity drawing attention away from it.