"Arguably, so is the Xenon. The Cell is perhaps better in some ways, but I don't think anything on the 360 has really yet taken advantage of all 6 cores either."
That's the problem with the symmetric multi-core processors: they excel for server loads, but not so for gaming. The explicit asymmetric design of the Cell has processors tailored for game play (the Power units) and über-DSPs (the SPUs) for massively parallel logic. It also has an outstanding floating-point throughput no other processor in its class (and many above it) can match.
Not to say I wouldn't love a desktop computer with a Xenon, but, unfortunately, if Microsoft ever releases such an animal, it will run Windows and only Windows.
I don't know why there is nobody trying to make a non-x86 desktop processor. In the 90s the issue of porting Windows to it could be a show stopper, but now any longer. We have several full software stacks ported for every binary architecture imaginable, from ARM to zSeries. There are very interesting processors on the market. It's easy to build a multi-core ARM11 thing. It's about time we saw something like it.
It's a shame Sun has no Niagara-based workstations.
"more than a few people have pointed out that the F-22 has a better thrust to weight ratio than the SR-71... thus, all things being equal, this ought to be one fast bird."
The SR-71 went very fast at very, very high altitudes. I am sure the F-22 is not capable of flying that high, thus, it must negotiate that thrust in much denser air. It may be able to accelerate faster, but it's maximum speed is, probably, much lower. There are also considerations on engine design - how fast the intake airflow can go before the engine stops functioning. Usually this is a major PITA.
I also think that using afterburners more or less eliminates much of the stealthiness of any plane. It will have a huge glowing IR plume right behind the plane. Easily visible if you have the right sensors.
Still, since it's a fighter, it must be designed to fast acceleration and high-G maneuvers, not top speed.
Not only that, but key functions were dependent on context.
For instance, when you were beginning a command line, numbers were numbers, but letters were BASIC keywords, like LIST or PRINT. After the keyword, typing was, more or less, free until an end of command when BASIC keywords would be back as the default function.
It's kind of hard to explain to the other readers (you obviously know what I am talking about). They will have to grab a Sinclair ZX emulator (I had one in my deceased Sony Ericsson P-800) and try it.
Well... I was aiming for "Funny", not "Informative".
Anyway, you always have to think what a person/company stands to gain from an action like this. The XO is not a direct competitor of none of their products. They make keyboards and software that goes with them, while the XO is a computer governments buy for students.
Unless government purchases for schools is a significant market niche for them (I assume they sell to OEMs that, in turn, sell computers to the government - a business that would remain untouched by the XO), there is no reason for this lawsuit. The company stands to gain nothing directly from halting sales of the XO to Nigerian government.
When we start to consider this as a proxy stunt (because it is not in LANCOR's best interest to pursue it - they will spend money and, probably, get nothing but bad will in return), we end up with another question: if not LANCOR, who stands to gain from it? This is the point you can fit your preferred conspiracy theory.
BTW, everything relating to this sounds _very_ fishy - no real data as on what the patents are about, a perceived abundance of prior art and a probably non-infringing XO all point to a maneuver to divert business from one group to another by creating a temporary legal uncertainty. It smells really, really bad.
If proved without merit, OLPC should counter-sue them into oblivion.
It is about using videogames for other things than playing games.
BTW, since you mention the Wii, I will feel free to point out it would never be used for anything other than playing games because it simply doesn't have the processing power to do anything else. It's still a lot of fun, but that's not the point.
The point is there is a readily available supply of supercomputing-class machines in stores all over the place. Now may be the right time to beef up your cryptography, because much better lock picking tools are flooding market.
- The PS3 is a real nice console - The PS3 runs Linux - The Cell processor inside the PS3 is way cool - We prefer to see Sony hurting Microsoft than the other way around
I would tag the rocks with solar-powered transmitters, deploy a couple solar-powered weather stations around and track their relative positions from a heavier anchored station that could, once a day, relay data on rock and station positions and weather conditions. That way very little data would have to be stored and the devices could be very, very rugged. If data storage becomes a problem, you could even record data at a very slow pace and kick collection into high gear only when interesting things are happening.
As for the rock tracking, I would go either with a minimalistic RFID tag based mechanism (measuring signal strength on many stations to get positioning info) or instrument pack with small (but precise enough) GPS, compass, transmitter and a solar-charged battery. Oh. And, BTW, I would bring my own rocks so I could experiment with shape and other characteristics.
Sounds expensive but not particularly complex. It must be quite doable.
And, even if no tagged rocks move, there would be an interesting record of weather patterns.
In other news, Microsoft will announce the licensing LANCOR keyboard input-method technology that is scheduled to be included in future versions of Windows. The amount being paid will not be disclosed, but we will all suspect it will be enough to fund these trolls for years.
IIRC the MIT Lisp machines had keyboards with "hyper", "super", "meta" and "greek" shift keys. That should be considered enough prior art (although I don't know if Nigerian law agrees with that).
Here we own a lot of books. We also have quite a few bookshelves around the house. We also have a splendid collection of vintage computers. We don't have them to impress people, although we love to invite our friends for dinner. What I like about having books around is the feeling it gives me when I pass by a shelf and grab some book I liked and re-read a couple pages on the couch. What I like about them is the fact I can pass by the shelf and pick one up at random and, when I am gone, my children and grandchildren will be able to both read them and enjoy them.
I like the eBook thing. I would love to have all my technical books in electronic, searchable, extremely portable form. I am considering either a Kindle or a Sony reader for that. It will not, however, capture the joy of opening a book given to me by my grandfather and telling those stories to my kids across, often, at least a century. It will never duplicate the experience. It's a new thing. It's practical, perhaps, and, in some measure, even a satisfying replacement. But not a complete one. Just not yet. I bet we will be around for the next decades and be able to see what happens.
I am sorry you consider the owners (I would rather use the term "keepers") of personal libraries are snobs, but I am sorry for you, not for us.
TFA says (I know.. this is/. and we are not supposed to read it) it hooks up via USB and behaves like a hard disk. You can drag.txt and.mobi files over to a folder and read them.
Anyway, I still think it's too expensive right now.
"My 50-something parents shouldn't have to learn about virus scans and disk defragmenting and registry maintenance in order to surf the web and send email. They have already spent their careers learning their own specialties."
That's why I set up my 70-something mother with a Macintosh.
Car analogies cannot, unlike cars themselves, go too far.
Fixing a car requires specialized tools. It makes little sense to inform the owner that "fuel injector for cylinder 3 has limited flow" rather than "take your car to a dealership as soon as possible" and let the mechanic know that a fuel injector has a problem.
On the other hand, all you need to fix a "Unable to obtain an IP address from a DHCP server" is right there in the computer (or, at most, a phone call away). You could even have a "Unable to gain access to local network" with a "more" button leading to the full hyperlinked (to a local mirror of documentation) explanation of what happened.
Treating people as if they were stupid is not a hallmark of great design. When you have an error condition, you should make the error message as helpful as possible and, maybe, turn it into a learning opportunity. If you treat people as if they were trained monkeys you get people who can't follow simple instructions unless you put a banana in front of them.
Too bad I am out of modpoints... +1 insightful for you.
Loved the "When Apple fired "professional management" and brought Steve Jobs "back," he had the clout to do whatever he wanted." part. In fact, Apple was doing everything by the book and still failed miserably. It took a crazy person to turn the company around.
Not that I think throwing chairs is a symptom of sanity, but the job requires the _right_ kind of crazy person.
My next PC may run Vista, but it will only run it as long as it takes to me to find and click the "No, thanks. I want my money back" button or I get fed up and install Ubuntu on top of it anyway (as it happened with the last one - I couldn't find that functionality).
"There are crazy people. Carzy people will kill other people. You can't stop the crazy people without becoming a totalitarian police state and taking away freedoms from everyone."
I have to disagree.
First, what you call crazy people is, in fact, acting in perfect accord to what they believe. The POTUS believes the world was created in 6 days and those crazy people believe they will go to heaven after killing themselves in specific ways.
And yes - you cannot stop crazy people, but you may be able to avoid creating the kind of resentment they feel against our Western civilization by reducing foreign intervention. I still remember the US backed Saddam Hussein when he was fighting Iran and the theocracy there that emerged from a revolution against a government that was, pretty much, a US-endorsed very bloody dictatorship. I also remember that the Taliban also enjoyed the support from the US while they were battling the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There is a fine and blurry line between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter.
If the US limits its interference in external affairs, it may be forgotten by those very lunatics who insist on blowing themselves up.
While those lunatics may find other enemies to blow up, at least, _you_ will be safe.
You can't make friends by imposing your way of life upon them. While I love democracy and all the nice stuff that goes around it, I also know it has to be conquered. It can't be a gift you receive from someone.
In The End of Eternity it's not the Eternals who make sure space travel is developed before time travel - quite the contrary - they make sure space travel is not developed at all. And, BTW, there is no proof either whether Noys Lambent is or not human nor if the ones who raised her are.
Asus is doing what just about every company (except a few notable exceptions) does.
They violate what they have to and see if they get away with that. If they can, all is good because they didn't have to incur extra expenses to comply with the license terms.
If, however, some customer notices and decides to complain, they spend the money required to comply.
BTW, we are blaming Asus. Are we sure it's not something coming from the Xandros folks?
Engaging conspiracy-mode, maybe MS is paying them to botch this one and to get Asus to embed Windows on the EeePC.
"See, why the heck "everyone" would want space-based living is beyond me"
Call it asteroid insurance. Some day Earth may face a big chunk of rock we will not be able to avoid. The one that killed the dinosaurs was big, but there is not much of an upper limit to the size of the rocks that fall from the sky and, while our civilization could survive something that size (even get rid of it, if we had the time), we may not be so lucky when it's our turn and out rock can be much bigger or faster.
And I am not limiting my considerations to kinetic foes. Any significant star-sized mishap close enough (read, depending on size, a couple hundred light-years _is_ close enough) can bath the Earth in lethal radiation without any early warning. It would not even have to be directly lethal as just wiping out half of our Ozone layer is a quite deadly situation.
The fact something incredibly bad hasn't happened for the last couple hundred million years brings little comfort.
Having self-sustaining outposts in as many as possible places is a clever thing to do for a species because very bad things happen.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's the legal equivalent to sticking-their-heads-on-poles-as-a-warning thing.
It's usually quite effective.
Well... They have an easy one this time. It only has to be safer than nerve gas.
"Arguably, so is the Xenon. The Cell is perhaps better in some ways, but I don't think anything on the 360 has really yet taken advantage of all 6 cores either."
That's the problem with the symmetric multi-core processors: they excel for server loads, but not so for gaming. The explicit asymmetric design of the Cell has processors tailored for game play (the Power units) and über-DSPs (the SPUs) for massively parallel logic. It also has an outstanding floating-point throughput no other processor in its class (and many above it) can match.
Not to say I wouldn't love a desktop computer with a Xenon, but, unfortunately, if Microsoft ever releases such an animal, it will run Windows and only Windows.
I don't know why there is nobody trying to make a non-x86 desktop processor. In the 90s the issue of porting Windows to it could be a show stopper, but now any longer. We have several full software stacks ported for every binary architecture imaginable, from ARM to zSeries. There are very interesting processors on the market. It's easy to build a multi-core ARM11 thing. It's about time we saw something like it.
It's a shame Sun has no Niagara-based workstations.
"more than a few people have pointed out that the F-22 has a better thrust to weight ratio than the SR-71... thus, all things being equal, this ought to be one fast bird."
The SR-71 went very fast at very, very high altitudes. I am sure the F-22 is not capable of flying that high, thus, it must negotiate that thrust in much denser air. It may be able to accelerate faster, but it's maximum speed is, probably, much lower. There are also considerations on engine design - how fast the intake airflow can go before the engine stops functioning. Usually this is a major PITA.
I also think that using afterburners more or less eliminates much of the stealthiness of any plane. It will have a huge glowing IR plume right behind the plane. Easily visible if you have the right sensors.
Still, since it's a fighter, it must be designed to fast acceleration and high-G maneuvers, not top speed.
Not only that, but key functions were dependent on context.
For instance, when you were beginning a command line, numbers were numbers, but letters were BASIC keywords, like LIST or PRINT. After the keyword, typing was, more or less, free until an end of command when BASIC keywords would be back as the default function.
It's kind of hard to explain to the other readers (you obviously know what I am talking about). They will have to grab a Sinclair ZX emulator (I had one in my deceased Sony Ericsson P-800) and try it.
Well... I was aiming for "Funny", not "Informative".
Anyway, you always have to think what a person/company stands to gain from an action like this. The XO is not a direct competitor of none of their products. They make keyboards and software that goes with them, while the XO is a computer governments buy for students.
Unless government purchases for schools is a significant market niche for them (I assume they sell to OEMs that, in turn, sell computers to the government - a business that would remain untouched by the XO), there is no reason for this lawsuit. The company stands to gain nothing directly from halting sales of the XO to Nigerian government.
When we start to consider this as a proxy stunt (because it is not in LANCOR's best interest to pursue it - they will spend money and, probably, get nothing but bad will in return), we end up with another question: if not LANCOR, who stands to gain from it? This is the point you can fit your preferred conspiracy theory.
BTW, everything relating to this sounds _very_ fishy - no real data as on what the patents are about, a perceived abundance of prior art and a probably non-infringing XO all point to a maneuver to divert business from one group to another by creating a temporary legal uncertainty. It smells really, really bad.
If proved without merit, OLPC should counter-sue them into oblivion.
"The more rational, logical conclusion is that, contrary to the marketing drivel, "most powerful" means fuckall in terms of actual gaming enjoyment."
Yes, but as the article points out, processing power is everything for cracking passwords.
The article is not about videogame sales.
It is about using videogames for other things than playing games.
BTW, since you mention the Wii, I will feel free to point out it would never be used for anything other than playing games because it simply doesn't have the processing power to do anything else. It's still a lot of fun, but that's not the point.
The point is there is a readily available supply of supercomputing-class machines in stores all over the place. Now may be the right time to beef up your cryptography, because much better lock picking tools are flooding market.
Because:
- The PS3 is a real nice console
- The PS3 runs Linux
- The Cell processor inside the PS3 is way cool
- We prefer to see Sony hurting Microsoft than the other way around
I wouldn't try to record video.
I would tag the rocks with solar-powered transmitters, deploy a couple solar-powered weather stations around and track their relative positions from a heavier anchored station that could, once a day, relay data on rock and station positions and weather conditions. That way very little data would have to be stored and the devices could be very, very rugged. If data storage becomes a problem, you could even record data at a very slow pace and kick collection into high gear only when interesting things are happening.
As for the rock tracking, I would go either with a minimalistic RFID tag based mechanism (measuring signal strength on many stations to get positioning info) or instrument pack with small (but precise enough) GPS, compass, transmitter and a solar-charged battery. Oh. And, BTW, I would bring my own rocks so I could experiment with shape and other characteristics.
Sounds expensive but not particularly complex. It must be quite doable.
And, even if no tagged rocks move, there would be an interesting record of weather patterns.
Not a bad idea at all.
In other news, Microsoft will announce the licensing LANCOR keyboard input-method technology that is scheduled to be included in future versions of Windows. The amount being paid will not be disclosed, but we will all suspect it will be enough to fund these trolls for years.
IIRC the MIT Lisp machines had keyboards with "hyper", "super", "meta" and "greek" shift keys. That should be considered enough prior art (although I don't know if Nigerian law agrees with that).
Well...
Here we own a lot of books. We also have quite a few bookshelves around the house. We also have a splendid collection of vintage computers. We don't have them to impress people, although we love to invite our friends for dinner. What I like about having books around is the feeling it gives me when I pass by a shelf and grab some book I liked and re-read a couple pages on the couch. What I like about them is the fact I can pass by the shelf and pick one up at random and, when I am gone, my children and grandchildren will be able to both read them and enjoy them.
I like the eBook thing. I would love to have all my technical books in electronic, searchable, extremely portable form. I am considering either a Kindle or a Sony reader for that. It will not, however, capture the joy of opening a book given to me by my grandfather and telling those stories to my kids across, often, at least a century. It will never duplicate the experience. It's a new thing. It's practical, perhaps, and, in some measure, even a satisfying replacement. But not a complete one. Just not yet. I bet we will be around for the next decades and be able to see what happens.
I am sorry you consider the owners (I would rather use the term "keepers") of personal libraries are snobs, but I am sorry for you, not for us.
TFA says (I know.. this is /. and we are not supposed to read it) it hooks up via USB and behaves like a hard disk. You can drag .txt and .mobi files over to a folder and read them.
Anyway, I still think it's too expensive right now.
"My 50-something parents shouldn't have to learn about virus scans and disk defragmenting and registry maintenance in order to surf the web and send email. They have already spent their careers learning their own specialties."
That's why I set up my 70-something mother with a Macintosh.
Car analogies cannot, unlike cars themselves, go too far.
Fixing a car requires specialized tools. It makes little sense to inform the owner that "fuel injector for cylinder 3 has limited flow" rather than "take your car to a dealership as soon as possible" and let the mechanic know that a fuel injector has a problem.
On the other hand, all you need to fix a "Unable to obtain an IP address from a DHCP server" is right there in the computer (or, at most, a phone call away). You could even have a "Unable to gain access to local network" with a "more" button leading to the full hyperlinked (to a local mirror of documentation) explanation of what happened.
Treating people as if they were stupid is not a hallmark of great design. When you have an error condition, you should make the error message as helpful as possible and, maybe, turn it into a learning opportunity. If you treat people as if they were trained monkeys you get people who can't follow simple instructions unless you put a banana in front of them.
BTW, shouldn't the OpenOffice.org folks sue Microsoft for this?
The use of OO in OOXML seems to deliberately cause confusion with all things OOo.
As someone pointed out, but with a slightly different exercise:
1) power up
2) wait for chime
3) press and hold "E"
Done it hundreds of times (I have a collection of interesting old computers with many Macs among them)
Too bad I am out of modpoints... +1 insightful for you.
Loved the "When Apple fired "professional management" and brought Steve Jobs "back," he had the clout to do whatever he wanted." part. In fact, Apple was doing everything by the book and still failed miserably. It took a crazy person to turn the company around.
Not that I think throwing chairs is a symptom of sanity, but the job requires the _right_ kind of crazy person.
My next PC may run Vista, but it will only run it as long as it takes to me to find and click the "No, thanks. I want my money back" button or I get fed up and install Ubuntu on top of it anyway (as it happened with the last one - I couldn't find that functionality).
"There are crazy people.
Carzy people will kill other people.
You can't stop the crazy people without becoming a totalitarian police state and taking away freedoms from everyone."
I have to disagree.
First, what you call crazy people is, in fact, acting in perfect accord to what they believe. The POTUS believes the world was created in 6 days and those crazy people believe they will go to heaven after killing themselves in specific ways.
And yes - you cannot stop crazy people, but you may be able to avoid creating the kind of resentment they feel against our Western civilization by reducing foreign intervention. I still remember the US backed Saddam Hussein when he was fighting Iran and the theocracy there that emerged from a revolution against a government that was, pretty much, a US-endorsed very bloody dictatorship. I also remember that the Taliban also enjoyed the support from the US while they were battling the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There is a fine and blurry line between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter.
If the US limits its interference in external affairs, it may be forgotten by those very lunatics who insist on blowing themselves up.
While those lunatics may find other enemies to blow up, at least, _you_ will be safe.
You can't make friends by imposing your way of life upon them. While I love democracy and all the nice stuff that goes around it, I also know it has to be conquered. It can't be a gift you receive from someone.
It takes generations, but it comes.
And since when did anyone develop gameboy software in a gameboy?
But that's an interesting question: What kind of computer did they use top develop those games?
In The End of Eternity it's not the Eternals who make sure space travel is developed before time travel - quite the contrary - they make sure space travel is not developed at all. And, BTW, there is no proof either whether Noys Lambent is or not human nor if the ones who raised her are.
Asus is doing what just about every company (except a few notable exceptions) does.
They violate what they have to and see if they get away with that. If they can, all is good because they didn't have to incur extra expenses to comply with the license terms.
If, however, some customer notices and decides to complain, they spend the money required to comply.
BTW, we are blaming Asus. Are we sure it's not something coming from the Xandros folks?
Engaging conspiracy-mode, maybe MS is paying them to botch this one and to get Asus to embed Windows on the EeePC.
"So the US government supports terrorism"
No. No... You got it wrong... They are freedom fighters.
See the difference?
"See, why the heck "everyone" would want space-based living is beyond me"
Call it asteroid insurance. Some day Earth may face a big chunk of rock we will not be able to avoid. The one that killed the dinosaurs was big, but there is not much of an upper limit to the size of the rocks that fall from the sky and, while our civilization could survive something that size (even get rid of it, if we had the time), we may not be so lucky when it's our turn and out rock can be much bigger or faster.
And I am not limiting my considerations to kinetic foes. Any significant star-sized mishap close enough (read, depending on size, a couple hundred light-years _is_ close enough) can bath the Earth in lethal radiation without any early warning. It would not even have to be directly lethal as just wiping out half of our Ozone layer is a quite deadly situation.
The fact something incredibly bad hasn't happened for the last couple hundred million years brings little comfort.
Having self-sustaining outposts in as many as possible places is a clever thing to do for a species because very bad things happen.