By Michael Kanellos
Special to ZDNet
January 29, 2003, 8:04 AM PT
When National Semiconductor decided to challenge Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in the market for low-end microprocessors in 1997, CEO Brian Halla teased a group of skeptical analysts, saying they probably thought he had been sprinkling testosterone on his corn flakes.
And even though National's acquisition of Cyrix turned out to be a bad bet, Halla recovered from the blunder and returned the company to its roots in the analog chip business.
Analog chips capture sound, light, temperature and other real-world data and convert it for electronic equipment. Even though the analog business has been hurt during a prolonged industry slowdown, Halla expects a turnaround by the late spring. Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but he believes the revival will be triggered by a technological transformation in which analog chips become the workhorse component in the downloading of images and graphics from the Internet as well as for wireless transmissions of data signals.
In the process, Halla expects analog chips will displace the zeros and ones that have formed the heart of the binary language used in personal computing for most of the last couple of decades.
"The only things on the face of the planet that use zeros and ones are microprocessors and digital signal processors," he says. It's fine to do zeros and ones for spreadsheets and that's why the PC uses the least amount of analog. But we're not doing spreadsheets anymore.
Halla talked about the future of analog technology and the upcoming changes in computer chip manufacturing.
Q: National spends the bulk of its efforts on analog chips. You constantly hear that analog design is a black art. Why? There aren't a ton of analog companies.
A: Most universities switched from an analog discipline to digital, because digital was (considered) magic. At the same time, you had Mentor Graphics, Synopysis and Cadence (which all make semiconductor design tools) focus completely on digital design. Now what happened is that analog has become the emerging industry and a few universities, like Georgia Tech, Washington, Stanford and Berkeley, recognize the value of analog...and we get most of their Ph.D.s.
Will the black art aspect change as analog grows in importance?
The analog tool industry has to catch up. Even when they do, however, analog is still a real tough science. One of our guys, Larry Lewicki, says 'Brian, I could design an (analog to digital converter) at 30MHz. If you asked me to take it to 60MHz, it would take me one week. If you asked anyone else and gave them the documentation it would take them at least a year.' That's the difference. You just know how to do it.
What's driving consumption?
The only things on the face of the planet that use zeros and ones are microprocessors and digital signal processors (which manage digital signals in cell phones). Even a digital satellite signal rides on an analog carrier. You can't send a zero or a one. It doesn't have any meaning out there. It's fine to do zeros and ones for spreadsheets, and that's why the PC uses the least amount of analog. But we're not doing spreadsheets anymore. We're doing digital photography. We're downloading images and graphics from the Internet, and we're doing more and more stuff wirelessly. All of that is analog.
What are some of the coming analog ideas for wireless?
At Berkeley they are looking at a 10 gigabit-per-second radio with an onboard variable length inductor that can change its personality. You walk into the red carpet room at the airport and your PDA or your personal computer starts sniffing the air to see if there is a 2G, or a 2.5G, or 802.11b network. It covers the spectrum and it picks the cheapest path to the IP backbone and configures itself to be that radio. Let's say you're doing something that's voice intensive. It will still keep sniffing to see if another protocol gets introduced that is even cheaper.
What other projects is National working on?
We have this vision that your smart card will have biometric information. It will have your bank account and your passport and your medical data--but only your thumbprint can activate it. So you shove it into a slot and it says, 'Yeah, this guy's passport is real. Or 'yeah, this guy's got the bank account to back this up.' Or maybe you just load it up with $50,000 and burn it off over time. But if you ever lose it, (the card) doesn't have your thumbprint so it's useless. We're working with a particular technology where you don't leave your thumbprint; you rub it. We've been working on that for around six months.
Chip prices aren't extremely high for most analog products, though.
The (average selling prices) are low, but the margins are high. We're talking about chips where you can get 9,000 die per wafer. If you get 9,000 good die, 50 cents looks like a pretty good ASP. We have one chip were you can get 39,000 die per wafer. We had to invent our own saw to scribe it.
Once you've got that kind of technology and get pretty good yields, every fab can produce perfect wafers. We created this technology called chip scale packaging, where you epoxy the whole wafer, then saw it and throw away any chips that don't yield after packaging because you are so confident in your (quality).
Like nearly every other manufacturer in the world, National is rapidly moving into China. Why now?
One of the reasons we decided to build a test and assembly plant in China is that we ran out of capacity in our test and assembly plant in Malacca, Malaysia. Forty-eight percent of our business came out of Asia this past quarter. It used to be 10 percent. Over half of Taiwanese manufacturing has moved to China.
I have a prediction that reunification will happen sooner than anyone expects it to and it will be driven by Taiwan. There are a million Taiwanese expatriates in China. Look at Foxconn (a Taiwanese-based contract manufacturer). They have 70,000 employees. They are headquartered in Taipei. They have only 150 employees in Taipei.
National has tried to promote Internet appliances for years, without much success. Why don't these sell well?
The problem is the marketing. For 24 years, we've been told by Intel that the only thing that matters is megahertz. And so you have salesmen working at Fry's and Good Guys who can only talk about how many gigahertz a box has. So everybody said, 'Why should I pay more for something that is the subset of the PC?'
But is there really a market for something like that?
We have seven PCs per 10 houses in the U.S. That doesn't mean 70 percent of homes have a PC. We're probably still at the point where 45 percent of the families in the U.S. don't have a PC.
I've given my parents at least four ThinkPads and one Dell. I'm trying to get them up and running so I can send them e-mails and pictures and stuff. My mother's last feedback was that she was depressed and despondent because she feels like she's stupid. She cannot look at attachments I sent her. She can't get stuff on the Internet.
With the bill for semiconductor fabrication facilities to process chips from wafers with 300 millimeter diameters running close to $3 billion, how does a company like National stay competitive?
It's becoming almost impossible for the smaller semiconductor manufacturers, with smaller being anything less than an Intel, or a Texas Instruments or an NEC to afford these 300-millimeter fabs on your own nickel. The good news is that not all of us compete. For example, National and LSI don't compete in anything, so what you are going to see are more and more partnerships on these 300-millimeter fabs.
We have a partnership with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) They do the advanced process technology and we use their fabs for the prototyping and the early volume.
When did National begin to outsource manufacturing to foundries?
On 0.5 micron (in the mid-1990s), I had an epiphany. My process technology guy at the time told me, 'You know, from this point on, semiconductor guys aren't going to really add that much value to the process (manufacturing) technology roadmap. It's the equipment suppliers that determine the process technology roadmap.' If you think about it, we all buy commercially available off the shelf sputterers, steppers, etchers and it is really the equipment suppliers that determine what that process looks like. In reality, the drivers of process technology roadmaps are the Applied Materialses, the Nikons and Canons.
When it came to copper, only IBM had to invent their copper-sputtering machine. The rest of us could buy it off the shelf. The interesting thing is that we all have to recognize that the equipment suppliers play a more and more important role in the process technology roadmap.
Foundries, though, often suffer from a reputation for not being on the cutting edge. Is that the case?
Since TSMC is now one of the largest consumers of capital equipment in the semiconductor industry, the equipment suppliers are going to listen to them more and more. It is a myth that TSMC is behind the rest of the industry. They are as state of the art as anyone.
Heaven forbid I and I alone should task the capacity of the great and powerful/. Seems to me it takes more cycles to track and report back on a speedy submittal than it does to just simply take it in...what a load of admin bs.
Don't be joking about sushi. I love sushi...and sashimi...live octopus is my favorite...baby squid is fine, but the beaks are hard to get down. Remind me to show you this little tempura bar in Tachikawa...so good.
No kidding...great idea...have the intake scoop up fish, and they'd pop out the back ready to eat:) Now to figure out how to debone the little darlings in the process and we're set. Maybe shrimp....
Riiiiight...and prop guards save lives...and life jackets only work if you wear them and fish don't sleep. Just where do you think all that heat goes? Into the main cabin?:)
Missed points are everyone's problem (trying not to laugh here)...the world would be a better place if that simple tenet alone was recognized for what it is worth. Whatever it was you said above is lost on me (I learned to ignore limbaugh fan rants a long, long time ago, when he was haunting Sacramento radio), since it's simply too verbose for me to care. I didn't read it and I'm not likely to find time in the near future....thanks anyways. I would have felt slighted if you'd chosen to ignore me:)
The USA's two satellite radio providers, which were struggling to hold on last fall, appear to have turned a corner toward survival. They've been helped by a slew of new vehicles that will offer factory-installed systems and by an infusion of new long-term financing.
...or perhaps more accurately, worthwhile story suggestions that no doubt would have been rejected, had they been so foolishly submitted to./ for review..."
Sun blasts Microsoft's Java appeal A court order forcing Microsoft to distribute its rival's Java software is necessary to preserve competition, Sun tells a federal appeals court
Standard could boost chip bandwidth A key industry group is aiming to come out with a new specification for a high-speed chip connection technology that could more than triple the bandwidth for data.
Experts: Internet attack hunt difficult
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Leading experts on Internet security are skeptical that the FBI and other investigators will be able to track down the person responsible for last weekend's attack on the Internet.
My trauma induced decision to comment was purely in reaction to what seemed like a snippet from a class paper, rather than a true opinion, thoughtfully formed in the soup of an active mind.
I would rather see a dark moldy lump that concealed an original thought and interesting idea, as opposed to a trite comment wrapped in crisp paper and flowing ribbon. I'm sure you would too...at least I hope with glee steeped in non-angst that you as a clear thinking and unredoubtful person of untarnished demeanor will see the warmth of my pending delight and respond in kind, not with blatant fervor, but with charity of thought, glamour of kindness and alacrity of understanding that only bipeds and Popes can bring forth without miscue of character. Please do not fail or misconstrue my request for depth and humor as a disregard for clarity and a display of hubris, for I know that you have the ultimate capacity and sterling wit that such a non-flanged retort is not only possible, but probable beyond doubt and shapeless desire. Please, privy my ears and eyes and respond forthwith. I wait, with baited and pregnant breath for the joy I know and trust will grace these hallowed and sacred pages.
The correct method for countering satan-kissing, sack-of festering-goat-scrotum limbahj is a brutal smack to the back of the head with a shiny new hardwood baseball bat....for starters, that is.
I do agree with you about the slob being a 'host'...with the load-o'-crap-things that come out of his pizza hole, something is surely growing inside. Let us hope and pray to the suddenly devine that it devours the host it thrives on.
I remember when his step-daughter had her tongue pierced, and he could not figure out what the purpose of the stud was...no clue she was using it for sport-sucking...what a riot.
....are good...keep 'em coming. Who needs mod points when we can get instant feedback from the group at large. Why wait for the so-called site admins to turn over the right rock.
This so called 'web site' is a wall in a bathroom at a truck stop...such things spelling and grammar, along with logic and credibility are further down the road.
You seem to think this is some sort of legitimate news site...that's funny:)
I feel for anyone actually giving money to this site....why, oh why would you put up with this? Not only can you get the original stories from Wired, NYT, CNN, etc, this site laughs while it rakes in ad money. What a joke.
talk every day...and sometimes every night. I've lost track of the midnight calls on my cell phone from SJ. Believe me, there is no lack of communication.
A large % of the raw HDD's sold in Korea are now Samsung...up a bit over last year (2002 vs 2001). Quality is much better over a few years ago as well.
...Samsung isn't as suit happy as you claim. 'Hacker friendly' has nothing to do with a given companie's attitude...it has everything to do with engineering, however. Look on the net for Samsung DVD player hacks...you'll find several.
As for the capacity...maybe some of the space is for storing movies and some is for camera operation...you really have no idea what 'size' drive it is. You're just guessing, all around.
Give Samsung a bit of time to get another rev. of this camera to market (and for the price to soften)...or give me a couple of days to talk to the boys over in the DV camera division, and I'll let you know all about it...
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's
where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father
rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!
And
they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly
'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$250,000.00 and turn in my harddrive." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "mp3 filesharing." And they all moved away from me on the bench
there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it
up and said...
"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58 -words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-an y-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I- want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-got ta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:
("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")
I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and
said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington."
And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into
the shrink wherever you are,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the
guitar.
With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and
sing it when it does. Here it comes.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.
I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.
So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.
We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.
All right now.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
[clip] It further enabled (what I consider) abuse; and it enabled the ability...
I learned about this scam (bolier plate editorials) via Salon. Google had nothing to do with it (I don't use Google). I validated all the links via other search engines. The internet (as an 'it') may have been helpful in uncovering the slime involved, but google has no special claim to fame in why the story surfaced. That's like giving Goodyear credit for your being able to travel to Grandma's for Christmas, when the highway that connects the two of you is more likely the main reason. Too many people have google on the brain.
Slashdot Mirror
(without the widely abused ./ effect)
Halla: The future is analog
By Michael Kanellos Special to ZDNet January 29, 2003, 8:04 AM PT
When National Semiconductor decided to challenge Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in the market for low-end microprocessors in 1997, CEO Brian Halla teased a group of skeptical analysts, saying they probably thought he had been sprinkling testosterone on his corn flakes.
And even though National's acquisition of Cyrix turned out to be a bad bet, Halla recovered from the blunder and returned the company to its roots in the analog chip business.
Analog chips capture sound, light, temperature and other real-world data and convert it for electronic equipment. Even though the analog business has been hurt during a prolonged industry slowdown, Halla expects a turnaround by the late spring. Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but he believes the revival will be triggered by a technological transformation in which analog chips become the workhorse component in the downloading of images and graphics from the Internet as well as for wireless transmissions of data signals.
In the process, Halla expects analog chips will displace the zeros and ones that have formed the heart of the binary language used in personal computing for most of the last couple of decades.
"The only things on the face of the planet that use zeros and ones are microprocessors and digital signal processors," he says. It's fine to do zeros and ones for spreadsheets and that's why the PC uses the least amount of analog. But we're not doing spreadsheets anymore.
Halla talked about the future of analog technology and the upcoming changes in computer chip manufacturing.
Q: National spends the bulk of its efforts on analog chips. You constantly hear that analog design is a black art. Why? There aren't a ton of analog companies. A: Most universities switched from an analog discipline to digital, because digital was (considered) magic. At the same time, you had Mentor Graphics, Synopysis and Cadence (which all make semiconductor design tools) focus completely on digital design. Now what happened is that analog has become the emerging industry and a few universities, like Georgia Tech, Washington, Stanford and Berkeley, recognize the value of analog...and we get most of their Ph.D.s.
Will the black art aspect change as analog grows in importance? The analog tool industry has to catch up. Even when they do, however, analog is still a real tough science. One of our guys, Larry Lewicki, says 'Brian, I could design an (analog to digital converter) at 30MHz. If you asked me to take it to 60MHz, it would take me one week. If you asked anyone else and gave them the documentation it would take them at least a year.' That's the difference. You just know how to do it.
What's driving consumption? The only things on the face of the planet that use zeros and ones are microprocessors and digital signal processors (which manage digital signals in cell phones). Even a digital satellite signal rides on an analog carrier. You can't send a zero or a one. It doesn't have any meaning out there. It's fine to do zeros and ones for spreadsheets, and that's why the PC uses the least amount of analog. But we're not doing spreadsheets anymore. We're doing digital photography. We're downloading images and graphics from the Internet, and we're doing more and more stuff wirelessly. All of that is analog.
What are some of the coming analog ideas for wireless? At Berkeley they are looking at a 10 gigabit-per-second radio with an onboard variable length inductor that can change its personality. You walk into the red carpet room at the airport and your PDA or your personal computer starts sniffing the air to see if there is a 2G, or a 2.5G, or 802.11b network. It covers the spectrum and it picks the cheapest path to the IP backbone and configures itself to be that radio. Let's say you're doing something that's voice intensive. It will still keep sniffing to see if another protocol gets introduced that is even cheaper.
What other projects is National working on? We have this vision that your smart card will have biometric information. It will have your bank account and your passport and your medical data--but only your thumbprint can activate it. So you shove it into a slot and it says, 'Yeah, this guy's passport is real. Or 'yeah, this guy's got the bank account to back this up.' Or maybe you just load it up with $50,000 and burn it off over time. But if you ever lose it, (the card) doesn't have your thumbprint so it's useless. We're working with a particular technology where you don't leave your thumbprint; you rub it. We've been working on that for around six months.
Chip prices aren't extremely high for most analog products, though. The (average selling prices) are low, but the margins are high. We're talking about chips where you can get 9,000 die per wafer. If you get 9,000 good die, 50 cents looks like a pretty good ASP. We have one chip were you can get 39,000 die per wafer. We had to invent our own saw to scribe it.
Once you've got that kind of technology and get pretty good yields, every fab can produce perfect wafers. We created this technology called chip scale packaging, where you epoxy the whole wafer, then saw it and throw away any chips that don't yield after packaging because you are so confident in your (quality).
Like nearly every other manufacturer in the world, National is rapidly moving into China. Why now? One of the reasons we decided to build a test and assembly plant in China is that we ran out of capacity in our test and assembly plant in Malacca, Malaysia. Forty-eight percent of our business came out of Asia this past quarter. It used to be 10 percent. Over half of Taiwanese manufacturing has moved to China.
I have a prediction that reunification will happen sooner than anyone expects it to and it will be driven by Taiwan. There are a million Taiwanese expatriates in China. Look at Foxconn (a Taiwanese-based contract manufacturer). They have 70,000 employees. They are headquartered in Taipei. They have only 150 employees in Taipei.
National has tried to promote Internet appliances for years, without much success. Why don't these sell well? The problem is the marketing. For 24 years, we've been told by Intel that the only thing that matters is megahertz. And so you have salesmen working at Fry's and Good Guys who can only talk about how many gigahertz a box has. So everybody said, 'Why should I pay more for something that is the subset of the PC?'
But is there really a market for something like that? We have seven PCs per 10 houses in the U.S. That doesn't mean 70 percent of homes have a PC. We're probably still at the point where 45 percent of the families in the U.S. don't have a PC.
I've given my parents at least four ThinkPads and one Dell. I'm trying to get them up and running so I can send them e-mails and pictures and stuff. My mother's last feedback was that she was depressed and despondent because she feels like she's stupid. She cannot look at attachments I sent her. She can't get stuff on the Internet.
With the bill for semiconductor fabrication facilities to process chips from wafers with 300 millimeter diameters running close to $3 billion, how does a company like National stay competitive? It's becoming almost impossible for the smaller semiconductor manufacturers, with smaller being anything less than an Intel, or a Texas Instruments or an NEC to afford these 300-millimeter fabs on your own nickel. The good news is that not all of us compete. For example, National and LSI don't compete in anything, so what you are going to see are more and more partnerships on these 300-millimeter fabs.
We have a partnership with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) They do the advanced process technology and we use their fabs for the prototyping and the early volume.
When did National begin to outsource manufacturing to foundries? On 0.5 micron (in the mid-1990s), I had an epiphany. My process technology guy at the time told me, 'You know, from this point on, semiconductor guys aren't going to really add that much value to the process (manufacturing) technology roadmap. It's the equipment suppliers that determine the process technology roadmap.' If you think about it, we all buy commercially available off the shelf sputterers, steppers, etchers and it is really the equipment suppliers that determine what that process looks like. In reality, the drivers of process technology roadmaps are the Applied Materialses, the Nikons and Canons. When it came to copper, only IBM had to invent their copper-sputtering machine. The rest of us could buy it off the shelf. The interesting thing is that we all have to recognize that the equipment suppliers play a more and more important role in the process technology roadmap.
Foundries, though, often suffer from a reputation for not being on the cutting edge. Is that the case? Since TSMC is now one of the largest consumers of capital equipment in the semiconductor industry, the equipment suppliers are going to listen to them more and more. It is a myth that TSMC is behind the rest of the industry. They are as state of the art as anyone.
heheheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ROFL
/. Seems to me it takes more cycles to track and report back on a speedy submittal than it does to just simply take it in...what a load of admin bs.
"...a fair chance at posting a comment"
Heaven forbid I and I alone should task the capacity of the great and powerful
Don't be joking about sushi. I love sushi...and sashimi...live octopus is my favorite...baby squid is fine, but the beaks are hard to get down. Remind me to show you this little tempura bar in Tachikawa...so good.
No kidding...great idea...have the intake scoop up fish, and they'd pop out the back ready to eat :) Now to figure out how to debone the little darlings in the process and we're set. Maybe shrimp....
Riiiiight...and prop guards save lives...and life jackets only work if you wear them and fish don't sleep. Just where do you think all that heat goes? Into the main cabin? :)
Missed points are everyone's problem (trying not to laugh here)...the world would be a better place if that simple tenet alone was recognized for what it is worth. Whatever it was you said above is lost on me (I learned to ignore limbaugh fan rants a long, long time ago, when he was haunting Sacramento radio), since it's simply too verbose for me to care. I didn't read it and I'm not likely to find time in the near future....thanks anyways. I would have felt slighted if you'd chosen to ignore me :)
It's puppy love New robotic dog growing in popularity.
An eye on bioterror CDC monitoring system will serve as early warning.
Film at 11
What???? Still no repeats??? No bad grammar or poor spelling? No tossed assumptions? How can that be?
Satellite radio shifts into high gear
The USA's two satellite radio providers, which were struggling to hold on last fall, appear to have turned a corner toward survival. They've been helped by a slew of new vehicles that will offer factory-installed systems and by an infusion of new long-term financing.
Turner steps down from AOL Media giant posts $45B loss
No stories were repeated in this comment. (can't get enough? please wait....)
Sure, me too...I prefer steamed flesh any day, over chopped-by-prop mammals, who doesnt't?
...or perhaps more accurately, worthwhile story suggestions that no doubt would have been rejected, had they been so foolishly submitted to ./ for review..."
Sun blasts Microsoft's Java appeal A court order forcing Microsoft to distribute its rival's Java software is necessary to preserve competition, Sun tells a federal appeals court
Standard could boost chip bandwidth A key industry group is aiming to come out with a new specification for a high-speed chip connection technology that could more than triple the bandwidth for data.
IBM throwing its weight behind Linux The day is approaching when Linux will likely replace IBM's version of Unix, says the company's top software executive, another indication that the upstart's stature is rising. MS losing developers to Linux Siebel to create apps for IBM
Experts: Internet attack hunt difficult WASHINGTON (AP) -- Leading experts on Internet security are skeptical that the FBI and other investigators will be able to track down the person responsible for last weekend's attack on the Internet.
Samsung's audio player takes on iPod
And remember....mod early....mod often. Waste those points, matey...
My trauma induced decision to comment was purely in reaction to what seemed like a snippet from a class paper, rather than a true opinion, thoughtfully formed in the soup of an active mind.
I would rather see a dark moldy lump that concealed an original thought and interesting idea, as opposed to a trite comment wrapped in crisp paper and flowing ribbon. I'm sure you would too...at least I hope with glee steeped in non-angst that you as a clear thinking and unredoubtful person of untarnished demeanor will see the warmth of my pending delight and respond in kind, not with blatant fervor, but with charity of thought, glamour of kindness and alacrity of understanding that only bipeds and Popes can bring forth without miscue of character. Please do not fail or misconstrue my request for depth and humor as a disregard for clarity and a display of hubris, for I know that you have the ultimate capacity and sterling wit that such a non-flanged retort is not only possible, but probable beyond doubt and shapeless desire. Please, privy my ears and eyes and respond forthwith. I wait, with baited and pregnant breath for the joy I know and trust will grace these hallowed and sacred pages.
The correct method for countering satan-kissing, sack-of festering-goat-scrotum limbahj is a brutal smack to the back of the head with a shiny new hardwood baseball bat....for starters, that is.
I do agree with you about the slob being a 'host'...with the load-o'-crap-things that come out of his pizza hole, something is surely growing inside. Let us hope and pray to the suddenly devine that it devours the host it thrives on.
I remember when his step-daughter had her tongue pierced, and he could not figure out what the purpose of the stud was...no clue she was using it for sport-sucking...what a riot.
You've worked on his staff for how long, now?
"...a straightforward and honest answer"
Rather than a straightforward and dishonest answer, or a cryptic, yet honest answer? How about just 'truthful'.
"...creative elusiveness that has become the hallmark of modern politics."
Sure, like a lack of morals in politicians just started appearing this generation. Or does 'modern' mean since Ceasar's last reign?
Stop using your (AC) Boy Scout manual as a style guide and maybe you can come up with a point...maybe.
RIAA down (again/still...thank bhudda) ----> crapflood....Lucas Arts plans more toys---->flood of crap.
./ shows no hope of ever having logical submission handling, so we're have to send a man to do the job...that's us!
See..only one Kevin Bacon away.
Keep these adhoc submittals coming.
...that 'Lucas Arts franchise dealership' you wanted is closer to a reality!
....are good...keep 'em coming. Who needs mod points when we can get instant feedback from the group at large. Why wait for the so-called site admins to turn over the right rock.
Democracy rules.
I love it when you mod that way
...no kidding.
:)
This so called 'web site' is a wall in a bathroom at a truck stop...such things spelling and grammar, along with logic and credibility are further down the road.
You seem to think this is some sort of legitimate news site...that's funny
troll?
:)
What kind of idiot moderator passes up a chance like I just handed out, to mod as 'redundant'...? Talk about dim witted
...like an old retread.
I feel for anyone actually giving money to this site....why, oh why would you put up with this? Not only can you get the original stories from Wired, NYT, CNN, etc, this site laughs while it rakes in ad money. What a joke.
For every higher wall there is a taller ladder
talk every day...and sometimes every night. I've lost track of the midnight calls on my cell phone from SJ. Believe me, there is no lack of communication.
A large % of the raw HDD's sold in Korea are now Samsung...up a bit over last year (2002 vs 2001). Quality is much better over a few years ago as well.
...Samsung isn't as suit happy as you claim. 'Hacker friendly' has nothing to do with a given companie's attitude...it has everything to do with engineering, however. Look on the net for Samsung DVD player hacks...you'll find several.
As for the capacity...maybe some of the space is for storing movies and some is for camera operation...you really have no idea what 'size' drive it is. You're just guessing, all around.
Give Samsung a bit of time to get another rev. of this camera to market (and for the price to soften)...or give me a couple of days to talk to the boys over in the DV camera division, and I'll let you know all about it...
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!
8 -words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-an y-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I- want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-got ta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:
,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $250,000.00 and turn in my harddrive." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "mp3 filesharing." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said...
"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-5
("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")
I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."
And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are
And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.
With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.
So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling. We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.
All right now.
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
[clip] It further enabled (what I consider) abuse; and it enabled the ability...
I learned about this scam (bolier plate editorials) via Salon. Google had nothing to do with it (I don't use Google). I validated all the links via other search engines. The internet (as an 'it') may have been helpful in uncovering the slime involved, but google has no special claim to fame in why the story surfaced. That's like giving Goodyear credit for your being able to travel to Grandma's for Christmas, when the highway that connects the two of you is more likely the main reason. Too many people have google on the brain.
There is more than one way up or down a mountain.