Potential, true, but Transmeta was doomed long ago. With StrongARM processers in PocketPCs which run faster than the original Celerons (400MhZ Pocket PCs vs 300 on my old POS Compuke), way higher speed current generation celerons, and Centrino as a way of marketing a chip / board / etc combination, Intel pretty much has the low through high end (along with AMD) of the market covered.
I know someone, had I not mentioned it, would instantly pipe in that all MhZs are not created equal (I'm a Mac nut- trust me I know), but I'm merely trying to say that there really is no niche for Transmeta anymore.
OK, for better (in forethought) or worse (in hindsight) I actually took a few hours and showed up when it was in Maryland a couple of weeks ago. A timeline...
~2:00PM Stroll into the mall thinking 'Really cool concept on paper- especially if they let you use such junk as the espresso machine from StarBucks, the ear piercing gun from Claire's, the laser barcode scanners from any store, and god only knows what else to create a Caffiene powered, laser guided, ear piercer (or something)'
~2:01PM I see the stage. Sort of. There's about 5 million kids, many on the shoulders of (more patient than I could be-Thank god for birth control) parents, blocking my ability to see anything.
~2:15 Waiting in line to build some silly car to race on a racetrack where the right lane had won each of the last 6 races Word of note: If you want to keep your kids, or worse, yourself, from being publicly humiliated, you might have to shed some blood to get that lane.
~2:30 We decided to take turns waiting. I took off to find me some shoes- in case you were curious.
~3:45 Cell phone rings. We're almost at the front of the line.
~4:00 Dinner break for the JYW crew. They'll be back in an hour or so. We decide to not wait it out. I can live without the YoYo or whatever the prize was.
~4:15 Walking out of the mall, whom should we stumble across, but a whole JYW crew outside chain smoking and swearing up a storm.
That's my story.
I'm not claiming that they need to uphold some sort of moral standard, or that it's not worth it- Some of us really need that yoyo, but my experience was lackluster.
My advice- Clean that disgusting bathroom you've been meaning to get to for the last month or so instead...
...who happened to be played by a Microsoft worker dressed in a red T-shirt adorned with a skull...
Hmmm...They finally have gotten uniforms in line with the corporate culture...
Not just secrets
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I have a relative who works for SAIC, and it's not all spooks and defense work. The National Institutes of Health also sub contracts large portions of it's intramural research to SAIC labs, both on the main Bethesda MD campus and sattelite campuses scattered around.
As for the quality of the organization, relative to the rest of the NIH, it really depends. The cost sensitivites are a bit different than working for the government proper, and perhaps there is a slightly higher caliber of employees at SAIC, but that may as much be the lack of cushy, sit in the break room and read the paper, job security a government job gets you.
Not that I'm condoning poking around in the debris that may be showing up in Texas, but the warnings from nasa about the debris being toxic are sort of silly. Nitrogen tetraoxide, as well and Hydrogen gas (the shuttle's propellants) would be long since burned away. Keep in mind, when picking propellants one of the main criteria is chosing something that burns like hell won't have it. In fact, from the tempratures that must have been achieved during reentry, there is little chance of anything volitilizing or otherwise posing significant health risks once on the ground.
The only potential risk I can see (not being a doctor, or a rocket scientist, for that matter)is any radioactive material that may have been on board, though a) this is very low amounts. Keep in mind, you've got 7 people on board, not to mention a public which is very very touchy about the thought of potentially releasing the material in the event of a tragedy such as this, and b) a debris field likely spread over hundreds of miles. Even if a tiny piece of plutonium made it back to earth without becoming miniscule pieces of dust spread throughout the atmosphere, you'd have to be the least lucky person on earth to happen to come across it.
For those who are unfamiliar with the DNA sequencing and analysis world, BLAST is an algorithm for finding similarities in DNA sequence. For example, I find a gene that codes for nerdiness, and sequence it. I can then run the sequence through BLAST and not only find out where in the genome (~3 billion G,C,A, and Ts) the sequence is, but also what other genes are similar or whether the same or a similar gene is in another species, such as mouse. Without a highly efficient homology algorithm, it's safe to say that the genome would be far from complete. I'm more of a bio guy than a CS guy, so I'm not really qualified to say whether it is as elegant as it appears from the outside, but hey, it got the job done either way
If nothing else, 3 or 4 months ago Steve Jobs was glowing on stage at some conference touting how much the Mac kicks the butt of the PC in BLAST speed. No one, of course, bothered to mention that you'd be crazy to try to run BLAST with even a bacterial genome on a personal computer of any sort. It's efficient, but come on.
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I know someone, had I not mentioned it, would instantly pipe in that all MhZs are not created equal (I'm a Mac nut- trust me I know), but I'm merely trying to say that there really is no niche for Transmeta anymore.
Once again from your intellectual, moral, social, and emotional superior,
~2:00PM Stroll into the mall thinking 'Really cool concept on paper- especially if they let you use such junk as the espresso machine from StarBucks, the ear piercing gun from Claire's, the laser barcode scanners from any store, and god only knows what else to create a Caffiene powered, laser guided, ear piercer (or something)'
~2:01PM I see the stage. Sort of. There's about 5 million kids, many on the shoulders of (more patient than I could be-Thank god for birth control) parents, blocking my ability to see anything.
~2:15 Waiting in line to build some silly car to race on a racetrack where the right lane had won each of the last 6 races Word of note: If you want to keep your kids, or worse, yourself, from being publicly humiliated, you might have to shed some blood to get that lane.
~2:30 We decided to take turns waiting. I took off to find me some shoes- in case you were curious.
~3:45 Cell phone rings. We're almost at the front of the line.
~4:00 Dinner break for the JYW crew. They'll be back in an hour or so. We decide to not wait it out. I can live without the YoYo or whatever the prize was.
~4:15 Walking out of the mall, whom should we stumble across, but a whole JYW crew outside chain smoking and swearing up a storm.
That's my story.
I'm not claiming that they need to uphold some sort of moral standard, or that it's not worth it- Some of us really need that yoyo, but my experience was lackluster.
My advice- Clean that disgusting bathroom you've been meaning to get to for the last month or so instead...
Hmmm...They finally have gotten uniforms in line with the corporate culture...
I have a relative who works for SAIC, and it's not all spooks and defense work. The National Institutes of Health also sub contracts large portions of it's intramural research to SAIC labs, both on the main Bethesda MD campus and sattelite campuses scattered around. As for the quality of the organization, relative to the rest of the NIH, it really depends. The cost sensitivites are a bit different than working for the government proper, and perhaps there is a slightly higher caliber of employees at SAIC, but that may as much be the lack of cushy, sit in the break room and read the paper, job security a government job gets you.
Not that I'm condoning poking around in the debris that may be showing up in Texas, but the warnings from nasa about the debris being toxic are sort of silly. Nitrogen tetraoxide, as well and Hydrogen gas (the shuttle's propellants) would be long since burned away. Keep in mind, when picking propellants one of the main criteria is chosing something that burns like hell won't have it. In fact, from the tempratures that must have been achieved during reentry, there is little chance of anything volitilizing or otherwise posing significant health risks once on the ground. The only potential risk I can see (not being a doctor, or a rocket scientist, for that matter)is any radioactive material that may have been on board, though a) this is very low amounts. Keep in mind, you've got 7 people on board, not to mention a public which is very very touchy about the thought of potentially releasing the material in the event of a tragedy such as this, and b) a debris field likely spread over hundreds of miles. Even if a tiny piece of plutonium made it back to earth without becoming miniscule pieces of dust spread throughout the atmosphere, you'd have to be the least lucky person on earth to happen to come across it.
If nothing else, 3 or 4 months ago Steve Jobs was glowing on stage at some conference touting how much the Mac kicks the butt of the PC in BLAST speed. No one, of course, bothered to mention that you'd be crazy to try to run BLAST with even a bacterial genome on a personal computer of any sort. It's efficient, but come on.