The freedom to take the software and fork it may be what keeps FOSS viable. It doesn't happen very often, but it's always a possibility and just that possibility can keep people honest.
With government, no matter what it is, you'll never have the freedom to just take matters into your own hands without serious personal risk.
All the cool things we can do with computers today are a direct result of the fact that they are faster and have more storage.
Sometimes, demands force progression. Other times, progression creates demand. But either way, the one single constant in computing technologies has been speed and storage. The shrinkage of computer chips is also a side-effect of this - the smaller the faster, and usually more reliable. Obviously now they try to really cram a lot into little places, and that helps push miniaturization too.
Perhaps computers of the future will make today's PC's look like toys but the only reason will be because they can do x amount of more processing and hold z amount more stuff.
ps. The Commodore 64 was actually 1Mhz. To be more specific, the PAL version was.970 Mhz, and the NTSC version was 1.023 Mhz.
Obviously they're completely different - but when you break it down to the very basics, it's all about more speed and more storage.
The reasons we need more computing power change from time to time and vary from industry to industry but it's the single common dominator in all advancements in computer technology. Make it faster. Make it hold more. And in the meantime, make it smaller, too.
The difference between Eniac and an Athlon 64 PC are.. speed and storage..
It's what that extra speed and storage enables you to do - a lot of the great inventions and engineering in modern PC's are under the hood.
Of course, there's more obvious things since Eniac, too. Cell phones are little computers. PDA's, wireless stuff, that big thing called the Internet.
But you're talking 8 years. There's been a lot of new stuff in 8 years, on par to what that book mentions I'd say. Of course, we're past the "golden age" of when computers were first moving in, and recently we're all becoming used to the Internet (which wasn't all that much longer then 8 years ago when it started to boom, really.)
It's easy to think that it hasn't changed much, but it's the little things you don't think about because they're so easy to take for granted.
"It's the AIR the car horn is pushing that makes the noise, so obviously the only way to make the horn quieter is quieter air.."
Give me a break. The POINT of a horn is to funnel air through some sort of shaped device in order to produce lound sounds.
"(I'm trying very hard not to call you an idiot)"
You didn't need to add that - are you TRYING to be a prick?
" It will then be unbalanced, spinning at a much higher speed than it should, the bearings ratling around, etc. "
I didn't say to rip the fins off with pliers.
"I've come across lots of quiet fans that move huge ammounts of air, and lots of noisy fans that move a tiny ammount of air."
I've come across some particularly loud cooling designs, too. Usually it has to do with where the air goes after it's forced through the fan, and sometimes it has to do with a shitty fan. Sure, there's cheapo fans that have terrible blade designs, but do you really think any NEW "innovation" will come from a fan, after nearly a century of fan design and production?
Computer makers can design the quietest fan that is possible to generate the required amount of air flow to cool a chip by modeling their fans after proven designs - putting a little thought into them - but nothing new, for certian. Of course, to get you that $2 fan, it won't happen.
"To illustrate my point, even with the quietest new harddrives, they are still louder than the fans in any of my computers."
Maybe your hard drives are a few years old, or you got a crappy one. A new drive from almost any manufacturer these days (SATA 7200RPM) are so quiet I can't hear them unless I put my ear next to them. Given that these are mechanical devices, they will wear out, and make more noise as they age. Replace your drives if you want them quiet.
This doesn't have anything to do with fans, though. So I'm not sure how it illustrates anything.
New is good. From the artist renderings, I think it looks interesting. Sometimes I look at some of these UI's out there and I see way too much color and things popping out at you all over the place, distracting you from what you're trying to do.
There's always going to be resistance but if you don't try to do something different, there will be nothing different about what you create.
Good luck; I look forward to seeing what comes next.
Yea, it would have been a good idea if they nuked all the ships at once, but like any SciFi thing, you could explain why they couldn't.
It seemed like it took a lot of work to set up one of the transports, so by the time they got the nuke onto the second or third ship they might have been able to eject them or something - thus destroying no ships. If they layed them in front of the ships, they would have been spotted immediately and simple maneuvered out of the way. Or shot them.
They only had to use one nuke to blow up the ships - more then one per ship wouldn't have made much difference since the explosion wouldn't effect the neighboring ships.
But, this is why I like SciFi =) Because you can think about these possibilites.
I like how Atlantis isn't just a spin-off and that's that - I was afraid of that because of the whole "we can't get back home" thing. I think they realized people didn't want another Star Trek Voyager, so they connected the two series and I think they'll leave them inter-twined to some degree. It makes sense; they shoot both series on the same sets, or at least the same campus.
It keeps things interesting. And that's what us SciFi fans like - something that's interesting. We can forgive minor plot errors and things that could never happen but we'll never forgive an unimaginative show.
I thought the last couple seasons of SG-1 were really good.
We know the characters. They've developed them all very well. So, they were able to concentrate on the story more instead of character development.
I've always liked how they continue to bring back the re-occuring characters. It really gives you a feeling that the show is "bigger" in a way.
But I like Ben Brower and I like Claudia Black, so I definately think they will bring new life into the show, keeping it going.
The show has definately changed though. Although it's always been a Science Fiction show, it has kept it's feet on the ground of viability. However, now there's spaceships, shields, and super space guns. It's fully engulfed in the SciFi space drama now.
It does make sense though; they've aquired technologies and made friends enough to build space ships and such.
I think some of the reason that there's this feeling of "hurry up!" in regards to Linux is the recent push for DRM that could lock OSS and Linux out.
Microsoft knows this, and I'm sure it's in their minds when pushing for it.
So, the faster we can get Linux marketshare, the slower DRM adoption will be because there will be a larger group of users, potential customers, locked out.
DRM is the only thing that worries me with OSS/Linux. I'm with you - I'm sure the next big OS will be Linux. But the DRM thing could put a huge wrench in the machine.
There's really only a few good spam filters out there now a days, but there's a LOT of mediochre ones.
SpamAssassin has proven over and over that it's really good. While some filter might say they do better for awhile, SpamAssassin is actively maintained, easy to deploy, and Just Works.
DSPAM is a very good spam filter if you seriously design and impliment your DSPAM solution.
Both of these filters provide high levels of accuracy and both of them are completely free.
If we want to be able to recieve internet mail from anyone, we're always going to have spam. It's unfortunate but it will never stop. Fortunately, things like SPF will help curb the forging problem so you can quickly identify "spam domains" and block them, and when spammers start registering thousands of domains every day - it'll be the registrars that will step in.
The spam problem is snowballing because the filters have gotten so good. Spammers need to send more and more spam to reach their goal number of recipients. There will be a breaking point - we'll have to wait and see what happens then.
"I don't see a price anywhere for the keyboard though."
It's concept art. It's rendered stuff, no real physical device.
It definately looks possible to create the thing - but it would have to be an intelligent keyboard with a processing unit and memory for all the graphics since it probably wouldn't plug into the VGA port.
I'd imagine something like this could potentially cost over $2,000 at it's introduction.
Unfortunately, since these guys are laying down the patents, we probably will never see one like this and if we do, those patents will ensure it's two grand.
I agree, it's not ready for every user as the every-day Desktop. But who said it was, or had to be?
I see lots of news stories and blogs and whatever on this same topic, and they mention the same tired arguements you used. Most of us know these shortcomings.
There's a whole lot of people that don't do much with their computers besides web browsing/web games, e-mail, and writing letters and spreadsheets. These are all things that can swiftly be done with your average Linux distribution. These things would be pre-installed by any Linux system seller, or any family geek. And you really can't say Gnome or KDE are very difficult to use. Sure, there's some UI improvements to be had, but it's NOT hard to navigate the system.
After all, what average user installs Windows?
I think about my sister, mom, aunt, and most other average computer users. They use the web, and if I have any say in the matter, they already use Firefox so they don't get all that spyware. None of them have had trouble adjusting to Firefox on Windows; it's my guess they wouldn't have trouble with Firefox on SuSE either.
I hope that some of the major issues you've mentioned (most notably software installation from 3rd parties) is resolved in some way or another, for sure. It could open up Linux to the "power user" or the users that like to install all this 3rd party software. It'll happen when the people that actually write the software see enough need for it.
While drivers for that new gadget at Best Buy might not be very forthcoming, you need to acknowledge how far Linux has come in supporting hardware. You can install it on almost any normal PC and everything will work. That's a dramatic improvement since just a few short years ago, and I don't see the improvement stopping just because you say it's not good enough. Do you?
What will Linux systems become in the future? It's anyone's guess.
There's only three reasons your Athlons burned up.
- Power problems. The PSU, motherboard, or mains surged and blew the chip.
- You ran one without proper cooling, or without the heat sink at all.
- You overclocked them.
I've subjected my Athlons to none of them, and all eight of my Athlon systems are running perfectly. Even the Athlon 500 cartridge system, and the Thunderbird 950, and the Barton 2200+, and the Athlon 64's... etc...
Learn to build a proper system and you won't have chips burning out. If they really shit the bed after two years you better believe we'd hear more about that. So far, you're the only one I've ever heard of that claims to have had these issues.
That's a good point, too. Not sure if that's a good or bad point for the Mac, though =)
I'm guessing most hardware drivers aren't written by Apple, but the hardware developer (Apple contracts out hardware design like any other company) and some drivers like video drivers are certianly not Apple.
But, Apple can sure QA their drivers a lot more then Microsoft can, so your point does remain.
"Intel motherboards are loaded with obsolete crap (floppy controllers, parallel ports, RS-232 serial, etc, etc, etc)."
Ohh yea, I mean, floppy controllers and parallel ports really drag down my system. I can't believe how slow my FX-55 system is - and it's all because of that little chip in the corner of the board that provides backward compatibility with 20 years of hardware! Dammit!!
"I don't mind an Intel processor based system as long as we can leave behind all of the cruft and crap that has been dragging down the PC for the last 10 years or so."
Such as what? The aforementioned serial or floppy ports? These don't affect performance, and most people don't use them these days anyways. They're there for backwards compatibility and many boards and PC's shipping these days don't have them.
The only major thing left in a PC that's affecting the system at all is the old style BIOS they still use - and it doesn't affect performance at all, it just makes the bootstrap a bit less flexible then it should be.
"In fact it will be interesting to see what Intel can do on a more restricted platform."
Nothing. If the hardware configuration strayed too far from the development units, they wouldn't be very good development units would they be? The dev boxes run XP just fine.
Maybe they'll replace the BIOS with something like Openfirmware or maybe not. Maybe they'll put in a DRM chip. But it won't make a shits difference once the kernel loads.
"Similarly I'm not interested in running Windows XP on a intel system designed for MacOS."
Who cares what you're interested in. There's a lot MORE people interested in running their current OS on a flashy new Mac then there are people that are against it.
"The ability to do so via RedBox or dualboot is a nice feature and might help Apple get into some corporate environments "
Apple won't ship Macs with Windows, thus there would be just as much corporate interest as there is now. Which is not much.
"I already have an Intel box to run Windows XP "
Maybe there's people that don't? Or maybe some people do but they're old and need upgrading, like the Macs, but need to run some old software that only runs on Windows? Maybe they don't like VirtualPC, or the software won't run on VirtualPC?
There's a lot of reasons why dual booting into Windows could be beneficial.
" I can't see how putting it on the Mac would make the experience any better as the lame OS architecture"
Ahh, now we get to your real motive. You are anti-Microsoft and will say anything if it drives your point, albiet misguided.
The Windows NT architecture isn't that bad. Microsoft's implimentation of Windows could use some work, but it's not a bad performer and it's definately got a lot of strong points. I've got no love for Microsoft either, but I'm neutral enough to appreciate strengths and weaknesses of any system. You aren't.
To Apple's benefit, they've been pretty good about maintaining compatbility with old Mac software while maintaining a pretty secure system in OSX. But I dare say that Apple, put in the position of maintainign a compatible system on x86, would have had a much harder time since x86 has always been such a moving target, and Apple wouldn't have had complete control over it.
This isn't surprising though, since Apple has always maintained a closed system. If Microsoft had that same opportunity, we might not have had such gaffs as Windows 95 and Windows ME. Of course, they would be just another Apple, since some other company would have exploited the commodity x86 hardware.
Historically, x86 systems haven't been the best, they haven't been the fastest, and there's been a lot of little compatibility things that has held it back. But if you take a look at a modern x86 system (which you obviously haven't) they're extremely advanced, fast, and all that legacy stuff has been pushed aside far enough that they don't matter anymore.
Get a grip. Enjoy technology. You don't always have to pick a side and then fight for it.
AMD doesn't need to certify anything. They usually provide some sort of reference chipset when they release a new platform, but for the most part it's the vendors that do the testing.
You can get high performance AMD boxes from Sun, HP, and IBM, among lots of others. I guarantee that these servers are just as stable as any Intel server.
Intel doesn't sell their processors because of their chipsets. They sell them because of their name. If IT more IT management was willing to buy on technical merit instead of brand names, there'd be a lot more Opteron servers out there right now.
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The freedom to take the software and fork it may be what keeps FOSS viable. It doesn't happen very often, but it's always a possibility and just that possibility can keep people honest.
With government, no matter what it is, you'll never have the freedom to just take matters into your own hands without serious personal risk.
All the cool things we can do with computers today are a direct result of the fact that they are faster and have more storage.
.970 Mhz, and the NTSC version was 1.023 Mhz.
Sometimes, demands force progression. Other times, progression creates demand. But either way, the one single constant in computing technologies has been speed and storage. The shrinkage of computer chips is also a side-effect of this - the smaller the faster, and usually more reliable. Obviously now they try to really cram a lot into little places, and that helps push miniaturization too.
Perhaps computers of the future will make today's PC's look like toys but the only reason will be because they can do x amount of more processing and hold z amount more stuff.
ps. The Commodore 64 was actually 1Mhz. To be more specific, the PAL version was
Communism has a bad rep because of the way it's been put into practice.
Communism is not supposed to be a bad thing - it's an idealistic form of government or system that benefits everyone.
Human nature has proven that Communism can't work in government on a large scale.
"Actually, pliers would be a fine way to do it."
What?
I stopped reading right there. If you want to argue with someone and keep them interested in your point, try not to be condescending punk.
Obviously they're completely different - but when you break it down to the very basics, it's all about more speed and more storage.
The reasons we need more computing power change from time to time and vary from industry to industry but it's the single common dominator in all advancements in computer technology. Make it faster. Make it hold more. And in the meantime, make it smaller, too.
The difference between Eniac and an Athlon 64 PC are .. speed and storage..
It's what that extra speed and storage enables you to do - a lot of the great inventions and engineering in modern PC's are under the hood.
Of course, there's more obvious things since Eniac, too. Cell phones are little computers. PDA's, wireless stuff, that big thing called the Internet.
But you're talking 8 years. There's been a lot of new stuff in 8 years, on par to what that book mentions I'd say. Of course, we're past the "golden age" of when computers were first moving in, and recently we're all becoming used to the Internet (which wasn't all that much longer then 8 years ago when it started to boom, really.)
It's easy to think that it hasn't changed much, but it's the little things you don't think about because they're so easy to take for granted.
"It's the AIR the car horn is pushing that makes the noise, so obviously the only way to make the horn quieter is quieter air.."
Give me a break. The POINT of a horn is to funnel air through some sort of shaped device in order to produce lound sounds.
"(I'm trying very hard not to call you an idiot)"
You didn't need to add that - are you TRYING to be a prick?
" It will then be unbalanced, spinning at a much higher speed than it should, the bearings ratling around, etc. "
I didn't say to rip the fins off with pliers.
"I've come across lots of quiet fans that move huge ammounts of air, and lots of noisy fans that move a tiny ammount of air."
I've come across some particularly loud cooling designs, too. Usually it has to do with where the air goes after it's forced through the fan, and sometimes it has to do with a shitty fan. Sure, there's cheapo fans that have terrible blade designs, but do you really think any NEW "innovation" will come from a fan, after nearly a century of fan design and production?
Computer makers can design the quietest fan that is possible to generate the required amount of air flow to cool a chip by modeling their fans after proven designs - putting a little thought into them - but nothing new, for certian. Of course, to get you that $2 fan, it won't happen.
"To illustrate my point, even with the quietest new harddrives, they are still louder than the fans in any of my computers."
Maybe your hard drives are a few years old, or you got a crappy one. A new drive from almost any manufacturer these days (SATA 7200RPM) are so quiet I can't hear them unless I put my ear next to them. Given that these are mechanical devices, they will wear out, and make more noise as they age. Replace your drives if you want them quiet.
This doesn't have anything to do with fans, though. So I'm not sure how it illustrates anything.
New is good. From the artist renderings, I think it looks interesting. Sometimes I look at some of these UI's out there and I see way too much color and things popping out at you all over the place, distracting you from what you're trying to do.
There's always going to be resistance but if you don't try to do something different, there will be nothing different about what you create.
Good luck; I look forward to seeing what comes next.
It's the AIR the fan is pushing that makes the noise. So I guess he wants quiet air..
Pull the fins off your fan and see how much noise it makes. It won't make much. Unless it's old and shitty, but that's not a valid arguement.
So, the "innovation" won't be in making quiet fans, it will be in making top of the line FAST chips that don't require them.
Yea, it would have been a good idea if they nuked all the ships at once, but like any SciFi thing, you could explain why they couldn't.
It seemed like it took a lot of work to set up one of the transports, so by the time they got the nuke onto the second or third ship they might have been able to eject them or something - thus destroying no ships. If they layed them in front of the ships, they would have been spotted immediately and simple maneuvered out of the way. Or shot them.
They only had to use one nuke to blow up the ships - more then one per ship wouldn't have made much difference since the explosion wouldn't effect the neighboring ships.
But, this is why I like SciFi =) Because you can think about these possibilites.
Yea man, she's awesome. I hope to see her in shows for a long time to come.
And I love her accent - it's british/austrailian but it's a little different.
I like how Atlantis isn't just a spin-off and that's that - I was afraid of that because of the whole "we can't get back home" thing. I think they realized people didn't want another Star Trek Voyager, so they connected the two series and I think they'll leave them inter-twined to some degree. It makes sense; they shoot both series on the same sets, or at least the same campus.
It keeps things interesting. And that's what us SciFi fans like - something that's interesting. We can forgive minor plot errors and things that could never happen but we'll never forgive an unimaginative show.
I thought the last couple seasons of SG-1 were really good.
We know the characters. They've developed them all very well. So, they were able to concentrate on the story more instead of character development.
I've always liked how they continue to bring back the re-occuring characters. It really gives you a feeling that the show is "bigger" in a way.
But I like Ben Brower and I like Claudia Black, so I definately think they will bring new life into the show, keeping it going.
The show has definately changed though. Although it's always been a Science Fiction show, it has kept it's feet on the ground of viability. However, now there's spaceships, shields, and super space guns. It's fully engulfed in the SciFi space drama now.
It does make sense though; they've aquired technologies and made friends enough to build space ships and such.
It's a good progession of the show.
I think some of the reason that there's this feeling of "hurry up!" in regards to Linux is the recent push for DRM that could lock OSS and Linux out.
Microsoft knows this, and I'm sure it's in their minds when pushing for it.
So, the faster we can get Linux marketshare, the slower DRM adoption will be because there will be a larger group of users, potential customers, locked out.
DRM is the only thing that worries me with OSS/Linux. I'm with you - I'm sure the next big OS will be Linux. But the DRM thing could put a huge wrench in the machine.
There's really only a few good spam filters out there now a days, but there's a LOT of mediochre ones.
SpamAssassin has proven over and over that it's really good. While some filter might say they do better for awhile, SpamAssassin is actively maintained, easy to deploy, and Just Works.
DSPAM is a very good spam filter if you seriously design and impliment your DSPAM solution.
Both of these filters provide high levels of accuracy and both of them are completely free.
If we want to be able to recieve internet mail from anyone, we're always going to have spam. It's unfortunate but it will never stop. Fortunately, things like SPF will help curb the forging problem so you can quickly identify "spam domains" and block them, and when spammers start registering thousands of domains every day - it'll be the registrars that will step in.
The spam problem is snowballing because the filters have gotten so good. Spammers need to send more and more spam to reach their goal number of recipients. There will be a breaking point - we'll have to wait and see what happens then.
"I don't see a price anywhere for the keyboard though."
It's concept art. It's rendered stuff, no real physical device.
It definately looks possible to create the thing - but it would have to be an intelligent keyboard with a processing unit and memory for all the graphics since it probably wouldn't plug into the VGA port.
I'd imagine something like this could potentially cost over $2,000 at it's introduction.
Unfortunately, since these guys are laying down the patents, we probably will never see one like this and if we do, those patents will ensure it's two grand.
Of course you're right but it wouldn't be nearly as cool =)
I agree, it's not ready for every user as the every-day Desktop. But who said it was, or had to be?
I see lots of news stories and blogs and whatever on this same topic, and they mention the same tired arguements you used. Most of us know these shortcomings.
There's a whole lot of people that don't do much with their computers besides web browsing/web games, e-mail, and writing letters and spreadsheets. These are all things that can swiftly be done with your average Linux distribution. These things would be pre-installed by any Linux system seller, or any family geek. And you really can't say Gnome or KDE are very difficult to use. Sure, there's some UI improvements to be had, but it's NOT hard to navigate the system.
After all, what average user installs Windows?
I think about my sister, mom, aunt, and most other average computer users. They use the web, and if I have any say in the matter, they already use Firefox so they don't get all that spyware. None of them have had trouble adjusting to Firefox on Windows; it's my guess they wouldn't have trouble with Firefox on SuSE either.
I hope that some of the major issues you've mentioned (most notably software installation from 3rd parties) is resolved in some way or another, for sure. It could open up Linux to the "power user" or the users that like to install all this 3rd party software. It'll happen when the people that actually write the software see enough need for it.
While drivers for that new gadget at Best Buy might not be very forthcoming, you need to acknowledge how far Linux has come in supporting hardware. You can install it on almost any normal PC and everything will work. That's a dramatic improvement since just a few short years ago, and I don't see the improvement stopping just because you say it's not good enough. Do you?
What will Linux systems become in the future? It's anyone's guess.
There's only three reasons your Athlons burned up.
- Power problems. The PSU, motherboard, or mains surged and blew the chip.
- You ran one without proper cooling, or without the heat sink at all.
- You overclocked them.
I've subjected my Athlons to none of them, and all eight of my Athlon systems are running perfectly. Even the Athlon 500 cartridge system, and the Thunderbird 950, and the Barton 2200+, and the Athlon 64's... etc...
Learn to build a proper system and you won't have chips burning out. If they really shit the bed after two years you better believe we'd hear more about that. So far, you're the only one I've ever heard of that claims to have had these issues.
That's a good point, too. Not sure if that's a good or bad point for the Mac, though =)
I'm guessing most hardware drivers aren't written by Apple, but the hardware developer (Apple contracts out hardware design like any other company) and some drivers like video drivers are certianly not Apple.
But, Apple can sure QA their drivers a lot more then Microsoft can, so your point does remain.
"Intel motherboards are loaded with obsolete crap (floppy controllers, parallel ports, RS-232 serial, etc, etc, etc)."
Ohh yea, I mean, floppy controllers and parallel ports really drag down my system. I can't believe how slow my FX-55 system is - and it's all because of that little chip in the corner of the board that provides backward compatibility with 20 years of hardware! Dammit!!
"I don't mind an Intel processor based system as long as we can leave behind all of the cruft and crap that has been dragging down the PC for the last 10 years or so."
Such as what? The aforementioned serial or floppy ports? These don't affect performance, and most people don't use them these days anyways. They're there for backwards compatibility and many boards and PC's shipping these days don't have them.
The only major thing left in a PC that's affecting the system at all is the old style BIOS they still use - and it doesn't affect performance at all, it just makes the bootstrap a bit less flexible then it should be.
"In fact it will be interesting to see what Intel can do on a more restricted platform."
Nothing. If the hardware configuration strayed too far from the development units, they wouldn't be very good development units would they be? The dev boxes run XP just fine.
Maybe they'll replace the BIOS with something like Openfirmware or maybe not. Maybe they'll put in a DRM chip. But it won't make a shits difference once the kernel loads.
"Similarly I'm not interested in running Windows XP on a intel system designed for MacOS."
Who cares what you're interested in. There's a lot MORE people interested in running their current OS on a flashy new Mac then there are people that are against it.
"The ability to do so via RedBox or dualboot is a nice feature and might help Apple get into some corporate environments "
Apple won't ship Macs with Windows, thus there would be just as much corporate interest as there is now. Which is not much.
"I already have an Intel box to run Windows XP "
Maybe there's people that don't? Or maybe some people do but they're old and need upgrading, like the Macs, but need to run some old software that only runs on Windows? Maybe they don't like VirtualPC, or the software won't run on VirtualPC?
There's a lot of reasons why dual booting into Windows could be beneficial.
" I can't see how putting it on the Mac would make the experience any better as the lame OS architecture"
Ahh, now we get to your real motive. You are anti-Microsoft and will say anything if it drives your point, albiet misguided.
The Windows NT architecture isn't that bad. Microsoft's implimentation of Windows could use some work, but it's not a bad performer and it's definately got a lot of strong points. I've got no love for Microsoft either, but I'm neutral enough to appreciate strengths and weaknesses of any system. You aren't.
To Apple's benefit, they've been pretty good about maintaining compatbility with old Mac software while maintaining a pretty secure system in OSX. But I dare say that Apple, put in the position of maintainign a compatible system on x86, would have had a much harder time since x86 has always been such a moving target, and Apple wouldn't have had complete control over it.
This isn't surprising though, since Apple has always maintained a closed system. If Microsoft had that same opportunity, we might not have had such gaffs as Windows 95 and Windows ME. Of course, they would be just another Apple, since some other company would have exploited the commodity x86 hardware.
Historically, x86 systems haven't been the best, they haven't been the fastest, and there's been a lot of little compatibility things that has held it back. But if you take a look at a modern x86 system (which you obviously haven't) they're extremely advanced, fast, and all that legacy stuff has been pushed aside far enough that they don't matter anymore.
Get a grip. Enjoy technology. You don't always have to pick a side and then fight for it.
Any true PC geek knows that AMD chips are better then Intel chips.
This solves nothing! hehe
AMD doesn't need to certify anything. They usually provide some sort of reference chipset when they release a new platform, but for the most part it's the vendors that do the testing.
You can get high performance AMD boxes from Sun, HP, and IBM, among lots of others. I guarantee that these servers are just as stable as any Intel server.
Intel doesn't sell their processors because of their chipsets. They sell them because of their name. If IT more IT management was willing to buy on technical merit instead of brand names, there'd be a lot more Opteron servers out there right now.
You're referring to sleep mode, which shuts down most everything but keeps the RAM charged.
The poster was referring to "Hibernation" which dumps RAM to disk and completely shuts off the machine - no battery required.
PC's have been able to do both for quite some years now.
"Third party kernel extensions are a bad idea on any OS."
I thought that's what most drivers were? Well, besides user-space ones like "printer drivers."