Intel used to stamp the iCOMP index on their processors so that people could compare the Intel benchmark of performance of the 80486 with the Pentium. Intel touted the slower Pentium 60 as being faster than the 80486-66 which was true. However, the stamp was nice and small - and was not a major advertising point. Intel dropped it, I believe, during the latter portion of the regular Pentium era.
AMD's rating gives me a good idea of X processor is slower than Y processor and the difference in cost is N. If the companies switch to something, hopefully they will KISS to maximize what it is intended to do - show the basic improvement of one processor over another.
This has also been mentioned, but what I'm saying is, I have NO idea how they will get any kind of clockspeed out of this thing. It's been tooth and nail to try to get it to run where it is even. They can drop the process size to get more speed out of it, but that only takes you so far. You will have to lenghten the pipeline eventually which carries with it all the problems of the P4.
I just honestly cant see them taking the P6 core any further. I'm suprised they can even do what they do with it.
I see a plethora of possibilities for the P6 core without having to adopt all the performance penalities introduced in the latest P4 chips. Again, Intel's direction is exploring the use of multiple cores (like SMP on a chip), adding or enhancing existing the ALU to make processing threads more efficient, etc.
The one thing Intel has been able to achieve since the popularity of the 8088 (God has it been that long??) is being able to develop innovative ways to get a little better performance out of a processor.
AMD has achieved this quite nicely (even getting the speeds above 2GHz) on a much simpler design. Although they can't obtain the latest P4 speeds, performance translates to near equal of the faster (GHz) Intel Pentium 4s.
Windows NT 4.0 was released in 1996. Eight years later, it is still supported by Microsoft for security fixes, bug fixes, and moderate enhancements. NT 4.0 is still a powerful, light-weight operating system that can run even some of the newest technologies Microsoft is churning out, like the.NET Framework.
1. Make a 64-bit challenger to Athlon64. If it means butchering the Itanium die and adding a 32-bit co-processor, so be it.
Intel has already announced that it will also be releasing a variant of the x86-64 technology that was developed by AMD. You can see their announcement here. While technology analysts see that there are indeed differences, it is approached fundamentally in the same manner that AMD used - making compiler development for the "extended" 64-bit Intel processors easier.
This does not mean Intel is simply give up on the Itanium. They have more than a decade worth of R&D dollars into the processor. I don't believe they will actively pursue integrated the two 64-bit processors under one flag, either, because it would be easier to keep one facility churning out Itaniums and all their other facilities to make modified P4/PM chips with 64-bit extensions.
2. Enable SMP on something faster than Tualatin.
This is a matter of market preference. The market prefers a single processor (right now). I remember seeing supporting statistics but I can't find those at the moment. It was better than 90%. R&D is currently focusing on making single processors more efficient (Intel's hyperthreading is a good example). All these improvements will eventually trickle down to the small SMP sector Intel supports.
Also, Intel wishes to keep its Xeon and Xeon MP line strong. To do so would be to limit the offerings of SMP capable chips and chipsets to focus the multiprocessor market for higher profitability.
3. Wake up to the fact that Intel can no longer dominate the CPU market on name recognition and MHz rating alone.
Intel is beginning to realize this, but this does not change the fact that there are many people that will still choose Intel over AMD just based on name alone. I run into these types on a regular basis.
Many people don't realize how smart modern page caches are designed to speed their system. Linux, MacOS X, Win2K+, etc. all boast aggressive page caches that make loading applications from disk more efficient.
Without a swap file, the kernel has no place to stick memory segments that are rarely used. They stay in resident memory la-la land until the process is terminated. Those segments add up over time and erode the memory available to the page cache.
Page caches are wonderful. When you load an application (like Firefox), you're not just getting the web browser. You're firing up a large chain of shared objects/DLLs that support the widgets, I/O, and components of the application. All of these components must be read into memory anyhow for program operation, so the kernel tends to just leave it in there for future use (the page cache).
When you shutdown Firefox, you're also releasing the necessity of those libraries (provided nothing else is using them). Those libraries also remove themselves from memory. If you load another application (like Thunderbird) that uses the same type of libraries, the kernel will not have to go to disk in order to fetch those libraries. It will instead opt for the page cache contents.
Turning off the swap file in the historic era of VM infancy was the best way to remove the hard drive bottleneck from system. The operating systems of yester-year did not have good page cache schemes that took advantage of all that unused memory. It is a little different now.
Applications are so modularized that they are broken up into a billions of smaller libraries so that code can be shared. This increases memory efficiency by keeping a shared library resident for multiple processes. These libraries are frequently accessed, more often than many people realized. Getting THOSE into memory is better than making sure my 500+ Linux applications stay resident.
Notice that on a web server with 1GB of RAM the Linux kernel is still putting things out to swap. These processes that stay asleep for long periods of time do not need to waste the memory that page cache is currently using (892309504 bytes or 753.7MB). What would be stored in that 753.7MB of memory? The database that drives the website (instead of having to seek the disk). The entire web page hierarchy used to display pages on the web site. All the scripts that are used to display dynamic content on the web site (etc. etc.)
Now, if we subtracted from the page cache the amount of memory that was stored in the swap file, we would have over 200MB less that we could keep cached in memory. That could be an entire database that the kernel would then waste needless CPU cycles to fetch from disk.
The only advantage to turning off a swap file on these modern machines would be for a machine that runs only a select few applications, and not having a lot of processes in the background doing things.
People were afraid that once the Federation had figured out a way to combat/make peace with the Klingons (ST:VI), the Borg (ST:VOY), and then finally the Romulans (ST:X) the story would start to run out of steam.
I believe there is still much life in the Star Trek universe. Unfortunately, the young-ones of today's modern shows do not see the qualities of the episodes the older generations remember. Star Fleet is about exploration (to avoid using the show's cliche) and meeting new races. The UFP does not encompass every civilization from the Alpha to Delta quadrants. I can remember being mesmerized by the countless ST:TOS episodes of meeting new aliens and the numerous occasions where the Enterprise was about to be blown to smithereens.
There was an episode of ST:TNG (the Traveller) where Commander Data said that Star Fleet had only explored a little more than 11% of _our galaxy_ in the three hundred years of space development and exploration. Even with ST:DS9 and ST:VOY timelines, that leaves over 85% of the galaxy as uncharted. There are tons of lifeforms and battles to be generated with 85% of the galaxy remaining. ST:VOY revealed the transwarp system developed by the Borg for fast movements throughout the quadrants. And Starfleet captains still do not always agree with the Federation Council.
The problem with modern Star Trek is the incorporation of Soap Opera-like drama into the storyline. The audience is now addicted to this notion that an episode must be directed as if it were a feature film. Many episodes of the TOS did not focus on character development directly. Instead, we learned about these characters by their everyday performance of their duties. ST:ENT is currently battling this very issue.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the ten films produced under the Star Trek banner. When it comes down to it, I would prefer an episode over a film anyday. Look at how much stuff can occur to capture an audience's interest in a season. ST:ENT reveals a modern take as to the lessons that had to be learned before the great Jim Kirk could take the center stage out into the Alpha quadrant. Think about all the historical development of the Federation we've heard about (especially in ST:TNG) that have yet to be shown on TV or in a film...
The episode was called Yesterday's Enterprise, which aired 19 Feb 1990. It just so happens to be one of my favorite TNG episodes. This episode also opened the door to the Romulan side-arc, Commander Sela, the daughter of the captured Enterprise-C Tasha Yar.
This is one of the most ludicrous statements I've heard in a while. I can't believe it was declared "Insightful" by a moderator.
To be so ignorant as to imply that the FBI doing its job in domestic affairs will deter its ability to prevent terrorism (by any organization) is amazing to me.
The FBI is not an entity with one sole investigative purpose. It is an entity that is the federal government's ability to make sure that federal law is respected and upheld. They are a law enforcement group. Copyright infringement is just one of their purposes - they've been tracking down copyright infringement even before the popularity of trading music on the Internet (have you ever seen one of those big FBI warnings at the start of a movie).
1. Protect the United States from terrorist attack.
Top priority would mean that most of the agents working for the FBI would be dedicated to preventing another attack from a terrorist organization.
2. Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage.
What good is freedom if foreign governments get to decide what happens with our government? I can completely understand why this ranks #2 on their list of priorities.
3. Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.
Although it may be a highly debated topic, exchanging software, music, or other digital data that is a copyrighted work without the permission of the publisher or author is illegal. The fact that it is the third priority means that this would also have quite a few agents to investigate these crimes. In my opinion, I believe that they are probably understaffed for this particular task.
4. Combat public corruption at all levels.
This would include state officials. Imagine the scope of work that is necessary to fulfill this priority.
5. Protect civil rights. 6. Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises. 7. Combat major white-collar crime. 8. Combat significant violent crime. 9. Support federal, state, county, municipal, and international partners. 10. Upgrade technology to successfully perform the FBI's mission.
If you have any doubt in the FBI's ability to investigate possible terrorist threats, go their website and do the research for yourself. I would hate to think what would happen to this country if our sole purpose was to defeat terrorism while neglecting our domestic issues. A crime is a crime - and affects us all, in the end.
But the effect is still anti-competitive. Microsoft has the money to buy up just about any talent around the world they like to. Where would the computer industry go if everybody who knows how to do anything gets hired by Microsoft? Because that's where this is going.
The person was not forced to work for Microsoft. As a person who possesses an ability that someone else wants, it is MY choice to whom I work for. Usually, it's a huge variety of factors (benefits, location, environment). In other times, it comes down to the bottom dollar.
Microsoft has great talent because it has a great reputation for helping their employees become better people. Microsoft provides a huge benefits package, better than adequate pay, and a stable environment to work for. Although people may question their business tactics, as I do, the fact of the matter is - when you're an employee of Microsoft, you're generally a happy person.
Since Microsoft cannot force people to work for them, it is not logical to assume that all the world's talent is going to work for Microsoft. Look at the open-source community. Look at the developers for the Linux kernel. Do you not think these people have the capability of applying their knowledge and talent by working for Microsoft? I believe Microsoft would be highly interested in talking with some of the best skilled developers in the open-source community about hiring them. Those people, however, are either not interested in working for Microsoft or have not asked to work at Microsoft. They have chosen their path to continue working on their current projects.
Does anyone question whether or not Microsoft would be a great company to work for? Think now - think as a software developer. If you're a potential CEO wanting to work for Microsoft, you might want to help them have a better relationship with their customers and quit trampling smaller companies.
Read the article again as to why MySQL has had enormous acceptance. It really is a good read. The article's intention was not to say the MySQL is the answer to any and all RDBMS questions. Point being - MySQL works because it's light-weight and fast enough to support even large websites. For the vast majority of general web scripts and even small applications, MySQL does the job - and does so quite nicely.
If you, in particular, need row-locking capability - look elsewhere. The beauty of open-source is that you have a choice, whether to use or go without. So as far as your "bad" point - MySQL would not be the answer would it?
To address your peeve, the nice thing about MySQL is that it provides a structured, easy-to-interface method to store a large amount of data for a variety of applications. Sure, you could use a flat-file or BerkleyDB - but then you constrict yourself to how you can access that database.
MySQL (not to say it's the only one) allow you to connect via a variety of interfaces, a local socket or across a network (standard or encrypted). Having a networked database allows for all kinds of uses for applications that may or may not want to store its data on the computer they are running upon.
I was just thinking about that. If someone said, "we're doing an article about passwords, if you'll participate by giving us YOUR password - we'll give you this 50 cent candy bar."
I'd tell them whatever they wanted to hear.
Unfortunately, I believe there is a measure of accuracy in their survey. Having been a former system administrator at a major university, I can't tell you how many times someone would give their password away with no thought. As you could also imagine, cracking passwords was a huge measure of simplicity - seeing the lack of originality of their password.
The survey is focused on their computer passwords. The responses from the people are typical considering the average person does not know how much is tied to that password. "I don't have anything special in my email that someone can read..." or "What can someone do with my password...?"
The survey should have also asked the following questions:
1) Please specify your major credit card number and expiration date. 2) Please specify your address, bank account number, and SSN (if it applied to citizens of the United States - otherwise insert THEIR form of special identification).
Would the numbers have coincided as to who revealed that particular bit of information? Absolutely not. The average person would see the risk in giving those pieces of information to a complete stranger.
If a direct association could be made between their Internet password and their money, those people would have guarded their password under lock and key. Why? Because the loss of money is readily understood, versus having to call an ISP and say "Someone hijacked my account."
Although people may be tired of using passwords (or PIN numbers), they are still a somewhat effective means of preventing improper access to their assets, be it Internet access, money, or personal information. The quality of the password is directly related to the importance of the stuff being protected.
The article cites that birthdates, pet names, etc. are common passwords. However, if someone applied the same level of protection on say...
Instead of asking that 16-digit number (an abstract version of a password), one were to ask "What is your credit card phrase?" Answer: "Buddy."
Instead of asking that expiration date, one were to ask "What is your age?" Answer: 30. These easy "passwords" would make is easier to make fraudulant charges on someone's account.
Public awareness of the importance of securing their own personal information is a key issue that needs to be resolved. Using an easy to understand analogy would be a good first step for those who are being surveyed.
It's different about GCC. The compiler group is split up into distinct sections, each supporting their particular architecture. One person may contribute PPC enhancements - another StrongARM - another MIPS, etc.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has software that's primarily for the standard 32-bit x86. Would it not be logical to assume that the majority of its compiler group effort would be to the enhancement and reliability of the standard 32-bit x86 compiler?
AMD64 support is simply logical (x86-64). x86-64 captures many aspects of the existing compiler. The AMD64 supports execution of the tried and true 32-bit code Microsoft supported prior to x86-64. Since they have many similarities, the 32-bit group would be able to contribute their experience to better understand how to optimize the AMD64 processor. The maturity of supporting that processor has yet to be established as it will take years of development to tweak the performance to the ability that Microsoft has for ia32 architecture.
I will concede that Microsoft has written compilers for the PowerPC, Itanium, Alpha, etc. - there was never a question about that. Face the facts: just because Microsoft wrote a compiler for a processor does not mean it had all the optimizations that the x86 compiler did. In fact, using GNU's compiler as an example, you cannot simply "port" an optimization and expect it to work. It must be taylored for each processor. Where has Microsoft's concentration been for the last decade?
Intel's Linux compiler is available for free under a restricted license. To be able to use it, as intended as a product, you must purchase a full-flegded license for the compiler. Intel does not have a free compiler for Windows.
Also, Intel's compiler's optimizations are taylored for their processors, not x86 generic like Microsoft's.
Microsoft has spent over a decade essentially supporting only ONE processor architecture, x86. The GNU project has to worry about applying optimization to a plethora of architectures, including the quirks associated with each particular implementation.
Not Microsoft - it gets to focus on how to produce the most amount of work out of a processor of at least 80486 grade instructions. How easy is that? They get to throw a hundred developers to extract every bit of performance possible out of one processor. Every now and then make a modification to support a new supplemental instruction set (MMX, 3dnow!, SSE, etc.)
If you read their optimization whitepapers, you will notice that much of their optimization is done at the math level - nothing Win32 specific. Also, their memory optimization, loop unrolling, inlining, etc. is considered top notch by many software developers.
Microsoft wants its developers to shed the legacy-method of developing applications for Windows. Instead of using OLE and COM, they want developers to use.NET. Is there a big problem with this idea?
I think not. In many ways,.NET is far superior than writing against MFC. Performance is quite adequate as CLR does produce optimized executable code during each run of the application. Flexibility is phenomenal compared with MFC.
Microsoft is weening developers off using a toolkit (the MFC), the same thing we've been using for over a decade (MFC has its birth even in the Win16 world) to move on to something a bit more refined.
Don't knock.NET until you've tried it (either its native Windows part or its Mono counterpart for Linux). It's quite nice.
The Mono group (http://www.go-mono.com) has been working on achieving platform independence with.NET and C#. Programming in C#, in many respects, has the feel that C++ is just getting ancient. C# constructs and methods, although not entirely mature, have learned from the best object oriented languages that we have right now.
C# code for Microsoft's compiler (of an ECMA standard programming language), should run as advertised on a Mono CLR environment - once it becomes mature. Look at the many cross-platform (Windows/Linux) classes available for both.NET and Mono.
Since Mono is an open-source effort, Mono could be extended to MacOS X, FreeBSD, etc.
True portability is one source code - many OSes and architectures.
Give Linux away for free - they will come. Same principle applies.
If you bothered to download the.NET Framework SDK (even back to Version 1.0) it included a fully functional compiler that allowed you to compile C# applications under the CLR. I believe "cl.exe" was also included, the optimizing C/C++ compiler, with the SDK.
Giving the compiler away for free MAKES sense. The only free, mature Windows compiler available is GNU's C/C++ compiler. Although I prefer open-source tools for development, I cannot dismiss Microsoft's compiler as being one of of the best optimizing compilers _there is_. Its only major caveat is the fact that it is designed for one platform only - Windows.
GNU's compiler puts heavyweight, albeit extraordinarily useful, symbols for debugging and profiling in their executables. When optimizing, Microsoft's compiler will not add any debugging symbols to the executable. Did you run strip on the G++ generated executable?
The black box is another piece of available evidence, but I would venture, not the most important piece of evidence in such a trial. If a vehicle does not have an automobile which possesses such a device, then other factors will weigh in on final judgment. If the reliability of such a device comes into question, forensics and witnesses will still be used to determine judgment.
1.) Is there a uniform standard for what data and how many seconds of time is allowed to be kept in the auto's black box?
To my knowledge, there is not a DOT standard that says what a black box should and should not record for a period of time. However, in the best interests of lowering costs, I would not be surprised if automobile manufacturers are not acquiring their black box firmware from a limited number of vendors. These vendors, no doubt, would recommend to their customer to use the same recording techniques as they have developed in the past.
2.) How is the accuracy insured? Can someone run into a kid and the black box show that they were only going 25 mph when they were actually going 50?
The manufacturer would run its own quality-assurance tests on their device. Different organizations, I would imagine ESPECIALLY insurance companies, would also do their own testing. Think about it - insurance fraud is common and costs insurance companies millions upon millions of dollars a year.
If the insurance companies had their way, the black box would do more than record a few seconds prior to an accident. These companies would test the machines not only to determine accuracy, but how the data recorded could be used to potentially settle any claims made against an insurance policy.
Nonetheless, if a question were to be raised in court as to the validity of such devices and their reliability of recording information - the evidence (the recorded data) would be challenged by the defense, and ultimately - an investigation into the testing of such devices would be admitted into court.
3.) The SRS (safety restraining system)is checked each time I start the engine, but that is only a processor and sensor-OK test. If the airbag does not employ properly or rapidly, does the black box still say it was ok when I started?
If you look at the schematics of most SRS systems in vehicles, you will notice how many fail-safes are installed to ensure that the device works as advertised. There is usually a backup system that can take over if the primary fails to ensure there is not a vulnerable circuit in the SRS system.
The black box could record any number of things - status of the primary and secondary test system. The status of the system five seconds prior to the crash. Which system (primary or secondary) actually triggered the deployment. The amount of data recorded is virtually limitless - the selection of what data is recorded is a choice by the manufacturer.
UBE/UCE Liability Issues?
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Paid To Spam
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· Score: 3, Funny
Does that mean that for a buck an hour, you also get your own set of legal issues if some ISP, like AOL, decides to come after you for spamming their customers?
I wholly agree, provided there are accountability measures in place to ensure that the privacy of that information is not abused. Although we may not necessarily know what those safeguards are, I believe those measures are in place because too much is at risk. Although it may not be readily evident, the use of that information must be authorized by a convening authority, a federal judge. Misuse of the information will be catostrophic to the organization and/or business that had access to the information. In this country, misuse of your information would never land you in jail (too many references to cite where a botched job of acquiring evidence has led to an acquittal).
My only problem with companies sharing the information with the government is if their privacy policy dictated that it would not do so. This particular misuse would be potentially catostrophic to the airline who provided the information as consumer, you and I, would choose to fly with someone else. Since the rules of air travel have changed since 11 September, it would only be common sense to know that airlines will provide any strange booking activities to the TSA, a preemptive step to obtaining intelligence to prevent a further attack.
Although this government may seem shakey on some things, I believe when it comes to the security of our nation - people who are doing bad things should be found and caught. Remember, a person's rights ends where another begins. So as long as you are within your realm of freedoms and not infringing upon others - you should have nothing to worry about. Nobody said this war on terror would be executed with perfect precision.
Although many people either have forgotten or have made the choice to do so, crashing planes into buildings have proved that we are indeed vulnerable, not only to the loss of life but also prosperity (jobs, wealth, and general happiness). I for one am glad that something is being done so that we haven't seen yet another plane crash into some of our buildings.
Having been exposed to so many different languages, I'm not quite understanding the selection of Java for processor intensive applications when so much more is offered - all the while keeping the spirit of platform independence. Not to troll, but if I'm running processor intensive simulations, I want to take advantage of the processor power available to produce a result in the least amount of time.
Being an regular software developer and a web applications developer, I have found the versatility of Java does not outweigh the performance penalty attributed to emulated code execution. Java (historically) does not, in my opinion, adequately take advantage of new processor features (MMX, SSE, etc.) to accelerate code execution. I believe, in fact, it was only announced recently that Sun would be aggressively adding better MMX and SSE support in the virtual machine. Even poorly written C++ code will be optimized by a smartly written compiler to run very fast.
Could Java's lack of aggressive optimization be due to Sun's focus on reality being away from the most popular instruction set on the planet for personal computing (x86)? Further, why re-emulate the same byte-code over and over? The JIT has to produce the equivalent native language codes to get it to run on a particular processor platform. Why not cache these codes (like what DEC did with the Alpha's x86 interpreter or like.NET's CLR compiler)? Nonetheless, Sun has much learning to do to make Java the "answer to all problems" language it was touting in the later 90's. While people may believe that opening the source of Java is the answer, I firmly believe that like C++, Java is beginning to show its age.
There are emerging languages and technologies that are attempting to complement older languages, provide the wealth of structure that Java has laid out, but still build further to make it that "answer to all problems" language. Sun's interdicting hold on Java makes its development as fast as its developers and contractors can muster. Other companies or open source communities have the potential to make great strides in rapid development. Look where C# is (upon the Mono or.NET platform) in the last few years compared to Java in the first few years.
A side arc (experiment, if you will) would be to port the application to C++ and to C# (CLR) and run the calculations on both Windows and Linux - take a comparison against Java running on those two platforms. I believe it is quite obvious WHICH language(s) would be declared the winner. So, instead of us having to dedicate a few trillion cycles, maybe one trillion would do.
What users want to see on the desktop is the ability to buy a game at the store, install it, and play it. If you go to a computer store, the majority of the software that sits on the shelves are games. Linux has the desktop applications that are available to Windows users. Although Loki Games attempted, Linux still has inadequate game support - even through WINE enviornments.
The best way to spread the features, flexibility and freedom of Linux is by word of mouth or on-hands exposure. But without the games, their visits to Linux as their Desktop environment of choice may not be as frequent.
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Intel used to stamp the iCOMP index on their processors so that people could compare the Intel benchmark of performance of the 80486 with the Pentium. Intel touted the slower Pentium 60 as being faster than the 80486-66 which was true. However, the stamp was nice and small - and was not a major advertising point. Intel dropped it, I believe, during the latter portion of the regular Pentium era.
AMD's rating gives me a good idea of X processor is slower than Y processor and the difference in cost is N. If the companies switch to something, hopefully they will KISS to maximize what it is intended to do - show the basic improvement of one processor over another.
The one thing Intel has been able to achieve since the popularity of the 8088 (God has it been that long??) is being able to develop innovative ways to get a little better performance out of a processor.
AMD has achieved this quite nicely (even getting the speeds above 2GHz) on a much simpler design. Although they can't obtain the latest P4 speeds, performance translates to near equal of the faster (GHz) Intel Pentium 4s.
Windows NT 4.0 was released in 1996. Eight years later, it is still supported by Microsoft for security fixes, bug fixes, and moderate enhancements. NT 4.0 is still a powerful, light-weight operating system that can run even some of the newest technologies Microsoft is churning out, like the
Intel has already announced that it will also be releasing a variant of the x86-64 technology that was developed by AMD. You can see their announcement here. While technology analysts see that there are indeed differences, it is approached fundamentally in the same manner that AMD used - making compiler development for the "extended" 64-bit Intel processors easier.
This does not mean Intel is simply give up on the Itanium. They have more than a decade worth of R&D dollars into the processor. I don't believe they will actively pursue integrated the two 64-bit processors under one flag, either, because it would be easier to keep one facility churning out Itaniums and all their other facilities to make modified P4/PM chips with 64-bit extensions.
This is a matter of market preference. The market prefers a single processor (right now). I remember seeing supporting statistics but I can't find those at the moment. It was better than 90%. R&D is currently focusing on making single processors more efficient (Intel's hyperthreading is a good example). All these improvements will eventually trickle down to the small SMP sector Intel supports.
Also, Intel wishes to keep its Xeon and Xeon MP line strong. To do so would be to limit the offerings of SMP capable chips and chipsets to focus the multiprocessor market for higher profitability.
Intel is beginning to realize this, but this does not change the fact that there are many people that will still choose Intel over AMD just based on name alone. I run into these types on a regular basis.
Without a swap file, the kernel has no place to stick memory segments that are rarely used. They stay in resident memory la-la land until the process is terminated. Those segments add up over time and erode the memory available to the page cache.
Page caches are wonderful. When you load an application (like Firefox), you're not just getting the web browser. You're firing up a large chain of shared objects/DLLs that support the widgets, I/O, and components of the application. All of these components must be read into memory anyhow for program operation, so the kernel tends to just leave it in there for future use (the page cache).
When you shutdown Firefox, you're also releasing the necessity of those libraries (provided nothing else is using them). Those libraries also remove themselves from memory. If you load another application (like Thunderbird) that uses the same type of libraries, the kernel will not have to go to disk in order to fetch those libraries. It will instead opt for the page cache contents.
Turning off the swap file in the historic era of VM infancy was the best way to remove the hard drive bottleneck from system. The operating systems of yester-year did not have good page cache schemes that took advantage of all that unused memory. It is a little different now.
Applications are so modularized that they are broken up into a billions of smaller libraries so that code can be shared. This increases memory efficiency by keeping a shared library resident for multiple processes. These libraries are frequently accessed, more often than many people realized. Getting THOSE into memory is better than making sure my 500+ Linux applications stay resident.Notice that on a web server with 1GB of RAM the Linux kernel is still putting things out to swap. These processes that stay asleep for long periods of time do not need to waste the memory that page cache is currently using (892309504 bytes or 753.7MB). What would be stored in that 753.7MB of memory? The database that drives the website (instead of having to seek the disk). The entire web page hierarchy used to display pages on the web site. All the scripts that are used to display dynamic content on the web site (etc. etc.)
Now, if we subtracted from the page cache the amount of memory that was stored in the swap file, we would have over 200MB less that we could keep cached in memory. That could be an entire database that the kernel would then waste needless CPU cycles to fetch from disk.
The only advantage to turning off a swap file on these modern machines would be for a machine that runs only a select few applications, and not having a lot of processes in the background doing things.
[puts on the Star Trek hat]....
People were afraid that once the Federation had figured out a way to combat/make peace with the Klingons (ST:VI), the Borg (ST:VOY), and then finally the Romulans (ST:X) the story would start to run out of steam.
I believe there is still much life in the Star Trek universe. Unfortunately, the young-ones of today's modern shows do not see the qualities of the episodes the older generations remember. Star Fleet is about exploration (to avoid using the show's cliche) and meeting new races. The UFP does not encompass every civilization from the Alpha to Delta quadrants. I can remember being mesmerized by the countless ST:TOS episodes of meeting new aliens and the numerous occasions where the Enterprise was about to be blown to smithereens.
There was an episode of ST:TNG (the Traveller) where Commander Data said that Star Fleet had only explored a little more than 11% of _our galaxy_ in the three hundred years of space development and exploration. Even with ST:DS9 and ST:VOY timelines, that leaves over 85% of the galaxy as uncharted. There are tons of lifeforms and battles to be generated with 85% of the galaxy remaining. ST:VOY revealed the transwarp system developed by the Borg for fast movements throughout the quadrants. And Starfleet captains still do not always agree with the Federation Council.
The problem with modern Star Trek is the incorporation of Soap Opera-like drama into the storyline. The audience is now addicted to this notion that an episode must be directed as if it were a feature film. Many episodes of the TOS did not focus on character development directly. Instead, we learned about these characters by their everyday performance of their duties. ST:ENT is currently battling this very issue.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the ten films produced under the Star Trek banner. When it comes down to it, I would prefer an episode over a film anyday. Look at how much stuff can occur to capture an audience's interest in a season. ST:ENT reveals a modern take as to the lessons that had to be learned before the great Jim Kirk could take the center stage out into the Alpha quadrant. Think about all the historical development of the Federation we've heard about (especially in ST:TNG) that have yet to be shown on TV or in a film...
The episode was called Yesterday's Enterprise, which aired 19 Feb 1990. It just so happens to be one of my favorite TNG episodes. This episode also opened the door to the Romulan side-arc, Commander Sela, the daughter of the captured Enterprise-C Tasha Yar.
This is one of the most ludicrous statements I've heard in a while. I can't believe it was declared "Insightful" by a moderator.
To be so ignorant as to imply that the FBI doing its job in domestic affairs will deter its ability to prevent terrorism (by any organization) is amazing to me.
The FBI is not an entity with one sole investigative purpose. It is an entity that is the federal government's ability to make sure that federal law is respected and upheld. They are a law enforcement group. Copyright infringement is just one of their purposes - they've been tracking down copyright infringement even before the popularity of trading music on the Internet (have you ever seen one of those big FBI warnings at the start of a movie).
The FBI states that its priorities are as follows:
1. Protect the United States from terrorist attack.
Top priority would mean that most of the agents working for the FBI would be dedicated to preventing another attack from a terrorist organization.
2. Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage.
What good is freedom if foreign governments get to decide what happens with our government? I can completely understand why this ranks #2 on their list of priorities.
3. Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.
Although it may be a highly debated topic, exchanging software, music, or other digital data that is a copyrighted work without the permission of the publisher or author is illegal. The fact that it is the third priority means that this would also have quite a few agents to investigate these crimes. In my opinion, I believe that they are probably understaffed for this particular task.
4. Combat public corruption at all levels.
This would include state officials. Imagine the scope of work that is necessary to fulfill this priority.
5. Protect civil rights.
6. Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises.
7. Combat major white-collar crime.
8. Combat significant violent crime.
9. Support federal, state, county, municipal, and international partners.
10. Upgrade technology to successfully perform the FBI's mission.
If you have any doubt in the FBI's ability to investigate possible terrorist threats, go their website and do the research for yourself. I would hate to think what would happen to this country if our sole purpose was to defeat terrorism while neglecting our domestic issues. A crime is a crime - and affects us all, in the end.
The person was not forced to work for Microsoft. As a person who possesses an ability that someone else wants, it is MY choice to whom I work for. Usually, it's a huge variety of factors (benefits, location, environment). In other times, it comes down to the bottom dollar.
Microsoft has great talent because it has a great reputation for helping their employees become better people. Microsoft provides a huge benefits package, better than adequate pay, and a stable environment to work for. Although people may question their business tactics, as I do, the fact of the matter is - when you're an employee of Microsoft, you're generally a happy person.
Since Microsoft cannot force people to work for them, it is not logical to assume that all the world's talent is going to work for Microsoft. Look at the open-source community. Look at the developers for the Linux kernel. Do you not think these people have the capability of applying their knowledge and talent by working for Microsoft? I believe Microsoft would be highly interested in talking with some of the best skilled developers in the open-source community about hiring them. Those people, however, are either not interested in working for Microsoft or have not asked to work at Microsoft. They have chosen their path to continue working on their current projects.
Does anyone question whether or not Microsoft would be a great company to work for? Think now - think as a software developer. If you're a potential CEO wanting to work for Microsoft, you might want to help them have a better relationship with their customers and quit trampling smaller companies.
Read the article again as to why MySQL has had enormous acceptance. It really is a good read. The article's intention was not to say the MySQL is the answer to any and all RDBMS questions. Point being - MySQL works because it's light-weight and fast enough to support even large websites. For the vast majority of general web scripts and even small applications, MySQL does the job - and does so quite nicely.
If you, in particular, need row-locking capability - look elsewhere. The beauty of open-source is that you have a choice, whether to use or go without. So as far as your "bad" point - MySQL would not be the answer would it?
To address your peeve, the nice thing about MySQL is that it provides a structured, easy-to-interface method to store a large amount of data for a variety of applications. Sure, you could use a flat-file or BerkleyDB - but then you constrict yourself to how you can access that database.
MySQL (not to say it's the only one) allow you to connect via a variety of interfaces, a local socket or across a network (standard or encrypted). Having a networked database allows for all kinds of uses for applications that may or may not want to store its data on the computer they are running upon.
I was just thinking about that. If someone said, "we're doing an article about passwords, if you'll participate by giving us YOUR password - we'll give you this 50 cent candy bar."
I'd tell them whatever they wanted to hear.
Unfortunately, I believe there is a measure of accuracy in their survey. Having been a former system administrator at a major university, I can't tell you how many times someone would give their password away with no thought. As you could also imagine, cracking passwords was a huge measure of simplicity - seeing the lack of originality of their password.
The survey is focused on their computer passwords. The responses from the people are typical considering the average person does not know how much is tied to that password. "I don't have anything special in my email that someone can read..." or "What can someone do with my password...?"
The survey should have also asked the following questions:
1) Please specify your major credit card number and expiration date.
2) Please specify your address, bank account number, and SSN (if it applied to citizens of the United States - otherwise insert THEIR form of special identification).
Would the numbers have coincided as to who revealed that particular bit of information? Absolutely not. The average person would see the risk in giving those pieces of information to a complete stranger.
If a direct association could be made between their Internet password and their money, those people would have guarded their password under lock and key. Why? Because the loss of money is readily understood, versus having to call an ISP and say "Someone hijacked my account."
Although people may be tired of using passwords (or PIN numbers), they are still a somewhat effective means of preventing improper access to their assets, be it Internet access, money, or personal information. The quality of the password is directly related to the importance of the stuff being protected.
The article cites that birthdates, pet names, etc. are common passwords. However, if someone applied the same level of protection on say...
Instead of asking that 16-digit number (an abstract version of a password), one were to ask "What is your credit card phrase?" Answer: "Buddy."
Instead of asking that expiration date, one were to ask "What is your age?" Answer: 30. These easy "passwords" would make is easier to make fraudulant charges on someone's account.
Public awareness of the importance of securing their own personal information is a key issue that needs to be resolved. Using an easy to understand analogy would be a good first step for those who are being surveyed.
It's different about GCC. The compiler group is split up into distinct sections, each supporting their particular architecture. One person may contribute PPC enhancements - another StrongARM - another MIPS, etc.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has software that's primarily for the standard 32-bit x86. Would it not be logical to assume that the majority of its compiler group effort would be to the enhancement and reliability of the standard 32-bit x86 compiler?
AMD64 support is simply logical (x86-64). x86-64 captures many aspects of the existing compiler. The AMD64 supports execution of the tried and true 32-bit code Microsoft supported prior to x86-64. Since they have many similarities, the 32-bit group would be able to contribute their experience to better understand how to optimize the AMD64 processor. The maturity of supporting that processor has yet to be established as it will take years of development to tweak the performance to the ability that Microsoft has for ia32 architecture.
I will concede that Microsoft has written compilers for the PowerPC, Itanium, Alpha, etc. - there was never a question about that. Face the facts: just because Microsoft wrote a compiler for a processor does not mean it had all the optimizations that the x86 compiler did. In fact, using GNU's compiler as an example, you cannot simply "port" an optimization and expect it to work. It must be taylored for each processor. Where has Microsoft's concentration been for the last decade?
Essentially one architecture.
It's amazing how many people decide to overlook the beauty of the English language. I said essentially ONE architecture - not exclusively.
Some people need to take a lesson in grammar - or perhaps, simply say aloud the sentence they are reading.
OF ALL THE SOFTWARE MICROSOFT PRODUCES, you can damn sure bet the 95%+ is for x86, the remaining 5% have support but not like x86.
Comprende?
Intel's Linux compiler is available for free under a restricted license. To be able to use it, as intended as a product, you must purchase a full-flegded license for the compiler. Intel does not have a free compiler for Windows.
Also, Intel's compiler's optimizations are taylored for their processors, not x86 generic like Microsoft's.
Microsoft has spent over a decade essentially supporting only ONE processor architecture, x86. The GNU project has to worry about applying optimization to a plethora of architectures, including the quirks associated with each particular implementation.
Not Microsoft - it gets to focus on how to produce the most amount of work out of a processor of at least 80486 grade instructions. How easy is that? They get to throw a hundred developers to extract every bit of performance possible out of one processor. Every now and then make a modification to support a new supplemental instruction set (MMX, 3dnow!, SSE, etc.)
If you read their optimization whitepapers, you will notice that much of their optimization is done at the math level - nothing Win32 specific. Also, their memory optimization, loop unrolling, inlining, etc. is considered top notch by many software developers.
Microsoft wants its developers to shed the legacy-method of developing applications for Windows. Instead of using OLE and COM, they want developers to use .NET. Is there a big problem with this idea?
.NET is far superior than writing against MFC. Performance is quite adequate as CLR does produce optimized executable code during each run of the application. Flexibility is phenomenal compared with MFC.
.NET until you've tried it (either its native Windows part or its Mono counterpart for Linux). It's quite nice.
I think not. In many ways,
Microsoft is weening developers off using a toolkit (the MFC), the same thing we've been using for over a decade (MFC has its birth even in the Win16 world) to move on to something a bit more refined.
Don't knock
The Mono group (http://www.go-mono.com) has been working on achieving platform independence with .NET and C#. Programming in C#, in many respects, has the feel that C++ is just getting ancient. C# constructs and methods, although not entirely mature, have learned from the best object oriented languages that we have right now.
.NET and Mono.
C# code for Microsoft's compiler (of an ECMA standard programming language), should run as advertised on a Mono CLR environment - once it becomes mature. Look at the many cross-platform (Windows/Linux) classes available for both
Since Mono is an open-source effort, Mono could be extended to MacOS X, FreeBSD, etc.
True portability is one source code - many OSes and architectures.
Give Linux away for free - they will come. Same principle applies.
.NET Framework SDK (even back to Version 1.0) it included a fully functional compiler that allowed you to compile C# applications under the CLR. I believe "cl.exe" was also included, the optimizing C/C++ compiler, with the SDK.
If you bothered to download the
Giving the compiler away for free MAKES sense. The only free, mature Windows compiler available is GNU's C/C++ compiler. Although I prefer open-source tools for development, I cannot dismiss Microsoft's compiler as being one of of the best optimizing compilers _there is_. Its only major caveat is the fact that it is designed for one platform only - Windows.
GNU's compiler puts heavyweight, albeit extraordinarily useful, symbols for debugging and profiling in their executables. When optimizing, Microsoft's compiler will not add any debugging symbols to the executable. Did you run strip on the G++ generated executable?
To my knowledge, there is not a DOT standard that says what a black box should and should not record for a period of time. However, in the best interests of lowering costs, I would not be surprised if automobile manufacturers are not acquiring their black box firmware from a limited number of vendors. These vendors, no doubt, would recommend to their customer to use the same recording techniques as they have developed in the past.
The manufacturer would run its own quality-assurance tests on their device. Different organizations, I would imagine ESPECIALLY insurance companies, would also do their own testing. Think about it - insurance fraud is common and costs insurance companies millions upon millions of dollars a year.
If the insurance companies had their way, the black box would do more than record a few seconds prior to an accident. These companies would test the machines not only to determine accuracy, but how the data recorded could be used to potentially settle any claims made against an insurance policy.
Nonetheless, if a question were to be raised in court as to the validity of such devices and their reliability of recording information - the evidence (the recorded data) would be challenged by the defense, and ultimately - an investigation into the testing of such devices would be admitted into court.
If you look at the schematics of most SRS systems in vehicles, you will notice how many fail-safes are installed to ensure that the device works as advertised. There is usually a backup system that can take over if the primary fails to ensure there is not a vulnerable circuit in the SRS system.
The black box could record any number of things - status of the primary and secondary test system. The status of the system five seconds prior to the crash. Which system (primary or secondary) actually triggered the deployment. The amount of data recorded is virtually limitless - the selection of what data is recorded is a choice by the manufacturer.
Does that mean that for a buck an hour, you also get your own set of legal issues if some ISP, like AOL, decides to come after you for spamming their customers?
I wholly agree, provided there are accountability measures in place to ensure that the privacy of that information is not abused. Although we may not necessarily know what those safeguards are, I believe those measures are in place because too much is at risk. Although it may not be readily evident, the use of that information must be authorized by a convening authority, a federal judge. Misuse of the information will be catostrophic to the organization and/or business that had access to the information. In this country, misuse of your information would never land you in jail (too many references to cite where a botched job of acquiring evidence has led to an acquittal).
My only problem with companies sharing the information with the government is if their privacy policy dictated that it would not do so. This particular misuse would be potentially catostrophic to the airline who provided the information as consumer, you and I, would choose to fly with someone else. Since the rules of air travel have changed since 11 September, it would only be common sense to know that airlines will provide any strange booking activities to the TSA, a preemptive step to obtaining intelligence to prevent a further attack.
Although this government may seem shakey on some things, I believe when it comes to the security of our nation - people who are doing bad things should be found and caught. Remember, a person's rights ends where another begins. So as long as you are within your realm of freedoms and not infringing upon others - you should have nothing to worry about. Nobody said this war on terror would be executed with perfect precision.
Although many people either have forgotten or have made the choice to do so, crashing planes into buildings have proved that we are indeed vulnerable, not only to the loss of life but also prosperity (jobs, wealth, and general happiness). I for one am glad that something is being done so that we haven't seen yet another plane crash into some of our buildings.
Having been exposed to so many different languages, I'm not quite understanding the selection of Java for processor intensive applications when so much more is offered - all the while keeping the spirit of platform independence. Not to troll, but if I'm running processor intensive simulations, I want to take advantage of the processor power available to produce a result in the least amount of time.
.NET's CLR compiler)? Nonetheless, Sun has much learning to do to make Java the "answer to all problems" language it was touting in the later 90's. While people may believe that opening the source of Java is the answer, I firmly believe that like C++, Java is beginning to show its age.
.NET platform) in the last few years compared to Java in the first few years.
Being an regular software developer and a web applications developer, I have found the versatility of Java does not outweigh the performance penalty attributed to emulated code execution. Java (historically) does not, in my opinion, adequately take advantage of new processor features (MMX, SSE, etc.) to accelerate code execution. I believe, in fact, it was only announced recently that Sun would be aggressively adding better MMX and SSE support in the virtual machine. Even poorly written C++ code will be optimized by a smartly written compiler to run very fast.
Could Java's lack of aggressive optimization be due to Sun's focus on reality being away from the most popular instruction set on the planet for personal computing (x86)? Further, why re-emulate the same byte-code over and over? The JIT has to produce the equivalent native language codes to get it to run on a particular processor platform. Why not cache these codes (like what DEC did with the Alpha's x86 interpreter or like
There are emerging languages and technologies that are attempting to complement older languages, provide the wealth of structure that Java has laid out, but still build further to make it that "answer to all problems" language. Sun's interdicting hold on Java makes its development as fast as its developers and contractors can muster. Other companies or open source communities have the potential to make great strides in rapid development. Look where C# is (upon the Mono or
A side arc (experiment, if you will) would be to port the application to C++ and to C# (CLR) and run the calculations on both Windows and Linux - take a comparison against Java running on those two platforms. I believe it is quite obvious WHICH language(s) would be declared the winner. So, instead of us having to dedicate a few trillion cycles, maybe one trillion would do.
What users want to see on the desktop is the ability to buy a game at the store, install it, and play it. If you go to a computer store, the majority of the software that sits on the shelves are games. Linux has the desktop applications that are available to Windows users. Although Loki Games attempted, Linux still has inadequate game support - even through WINE enviornments.
The best way to spread the features, flexibility and freedom of Linux is by word of mouth or on-hands exposure. But without the games, their visits to Linux as their Desktop environment of choice may not be as frequent.