One, dealing with them having a monopoly in many areas.
Cellphones are not a monopoly, yet are still regulated.
Two, making sure everyone can have a phone.
How is Vonage exempt from this?
And three, dealing with the property rights involved in laying physical lines.
Maybe, but most companies deal with that privately.
I fail to see your point. Why should a company not have to follow the same rules everyone else has to follow? Just because they transmit their phone calls over the internet instead of private fiberoptic lines? I fail to see your point.
Well, for one, if nobody optimizes their applications for Altivec, then that technology is not very useful, at least for desktop users. Therefore, if your objective is to use the system for, say, running Gentoo, then it is a fair benchmark.
Synthetic benchmarks are almost never fair, simply because every processor has its own advantages. For instance, any benchmark which heavily relies on fast system memory would run circles around the G5 when run on an Opteron, since the Opteron connects to memory directly (and uses NUMA in a dual-proc configuration). If your benchmark merely does computations, then the G5 may very well be faster. If I try it out with a real-world application, I will know for sure that it is either slower or faster at that application.
Use whatever is the standard compiler for that platform. For G5, that would be GCC. After all, how good a compiler is largely determines how fast the processor is, so if a really fast processor doesn't have a good compiler, then it's worthless for nearly all practical purposes.
So what? It's STILL a telephone service. It doesn't matter how you conduct a telephone call -- over an internet, over the air, over fiberoptics, or some other way. The thing is, it's still a telephone call. This, of course, is a perfectly logical decision.
Well, it's very hard to create benchmarks that effectively compare architectures.
Why? Take a Linux distro (Gentoo), recompile it for both architectures, run some application benchmarks that represent what you typically do with your computer (i.e. an MP3/Ogg/Divx encoder, Mozilla, OpenOffice...). The thing is, x86 usually wins those types of comparisons. I think that was the point the parent was trying to make.
It doesn't matter. Every computationally intensive program makes use of SSE/MMX/3Dnow instructions, which are pretty much meant to bypass the CISC part of the processor.
I have a much lower-end Opteron 140 in my box, and for all I know, it runs about 50% cooler than a comparable Athlon XP. I wouldn't worry too much about cooling them, just don't go for the super-high-end stuff. If you are looking for low power consumption, get the slowest chip that's made with the smallest process size.
I haven't researched what that is, but I think its an artifact of TDMA encoding
It's not that, it's just your poorly shielded speakers picking up the RF signal and you probably hear some kind of beat frequency or something. Any reasonably powerful transmitter will cause hum and buzz. My 5 watt 2m ham radio transceiver causes nearby computer speakers to hum, and it's straight FM.
Repeat after me: 3 volts do not arc. 3 volts do not arc. 3 volts do not arc.
Tell that to the people who use arc welders every day. Those things typically use anything from 1V to 25V, and manage to arc just fine. 3V can very well arc -- hook a battery up to a small DC motor and watch sparks fly. Of course, you would have to switch a somewhat inductive load -- a pin of a microcontroller getting pulled up to Vcc does not qualify.
What if 10^100 is put through a certain algorithm to create a copyrighted song.
No algorithm can change 10^100 to a copyrighted song, unless the algorithm contains a copy of said song. There isn't enough information in that number to do anything interesting with it.
The insurance industry is more like the music industry in terms of stability
Except that it's a fairly competitive industry. Let's see, how many labels can you buy a particular CD from? That's right, just one. In contrast, auto insurers generally compete on the basis of price (as witnessed by the annoying commercials).
As for highway speeds, they're only beginning to reflect what they were before the federally-mandated 55mph speed limits were introduced 30 years ago.
No shit, Sherlock, that's exactly what I said. The thing is, everyone ALREADY drives 90 when there is a 70-mph speed limit. There are two problems with that. First, you have a small but nonzero chance of getting arrested. Second, some also drive 110 or 120. If speed limit enforcement was more effective, speed limits would have been raised a long time ago.
Driving above a reasonable speed is not good for safety, so speed limits are a good thing. The problem is, enforcement is so spotty that speed limits are set very low, mainly to provide revenue for the police department. Since the speed limits are rarely enforced, people just put up with it.
If these things make the speed limits enforced 100%, then speed limits will go up and actually start to reflect the concept of a maximum safe speed. That might not be such a bad thing.
You need to retake that high school physics class you flunked. Weight IS a force, and it is measured in Newtons in the metric system and pounds in the English system. Mass is measured in kilograms in the metric system (SI) and slugs in the English system. Weight depends on gravity, mass doesn't.
Recorded sales pitches are illegal in most states, and this constitutes harassment. Contact your phone company about tracing the calls. They have the capability to do this.
Also, the BBB will be completely useless here. You need to contact the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC. The former regulates various consumer-related things, and the latter enforces many phone regulations.
If you purchased something from that website, you simply deserve to be ripped off. Note the following: - It is extremely poorly designed for a website that sells expensive things. The spelling/grammar is screwed up in a few places. - There is no contact information, no street address, and it's hard to even tell what country they are in. - They accept Paypal instead of having a normal credit card processor - They try to sell you vacations and such - There is no policy page. Nothing is mentioned about returns. Nothing about the authenticity policy is in writing. - There are many links to suspicious websites
Basically, a web store that looks like this is an obvious scam. And chances are, if it looks like a scam, it probably is.
Yeah, yeah. Keep listening to the Ayn Rand bullshit. The reason Bill Gates and Ellison are both rich is because they had a lot of money and good connections when they hit the gold. If you think IBM normally awards significant contracts to random dropouts, I got news for you. They don't, and Bill G. probably knew someone on the inside.
Paying tens of thousands of dollars to get a useless degree in games is just stupid. If you think you have what it takes, pick up a C++ book and you will be programming games in about 6 months if you actually read it. Of course, it won't be anything like Doom 3, but for that you pretty much need talent, as well as an extremely strong CS background. You will gain neither by going to one of these places.
Trying to get into programming games as a job is just stupid. Let's see, how many companies hire game developers? Two or three? Think about it.
True, Apple did not put in too many choices. But they compensated for it with a lot of UI research and fine-tuning. Their preferences actually turned out to correspond to what most people want. That is not the case with Gnome.
Again, some of their ideas sound good on paper, but are a total trainwreck when actually implemented. Hell, half the time they rip off Apple, but don't do it right. As a result, the desktop starts to combine the worst features from many different UIs.
OK, what do you not like about KDE? Let's hear it.
Here's a list of my problems with Gnome: - ugly, buggy toolkit (GTK+ is a joke, try finding a GTK program that doesn't segfault every hour or so) - ugly default look (GTK+ looks worse than Win3.11) - lack of configuration options (control panel is a joke) - buggy, slow, bloated applications (nautilus is a prime example) - counterintuitive UI (spatial nautilus) - missing features (look at the file selector) Do you actually have a point, or are you just trolling?
Wrong. He says that Gnome UI developers are incompetent. That is most certainly true, and it most certainly cannot be fixed by adding options, checkboxes, or anything else.
Basically, he says the people writing Gnome seem to want to impose their personal preferences onto everyone, defending them as design choices. If their personal preferences reflected the preferences of the majority of users, that would not be a problem. However, these preferences seem to be very peculiar, and the product that results is flawed.
I am not intending to start a KDE vs. Gnome flamewar, but seriously. I agree with the guy 100%, and his point is completely valid. The Gnome project somehow manages to become worse with every version, when it has never been that good to begin with.
Spatial nautilus is a horrible idea, period. The interface is too minimalist, and every option needs to be changed through some obscure method like Gconf because the interface is "simplified".
If you really like Gnome, that just means you have never tried to use KDE for longer than 10 minutes. Gnome can best be compared to a Yugo -- ugly and clunky.
How is this anything like breaking the GPL? Let's see: - Companies that break the GPL infringe someone's copyright, and generally use the work commercially where they would have to pay millions of dollars if not for the GPL'd software - PlayFair does not infringe anyone's copyright and merely allows someone who legally purchased a song from iTMS to enjoy it outside of iTunes. Nobody is using this for piracy -- who the hell wants to pirate crappy 128Kbps AAC files when 192Kbps MP3s are readily available?
Again, can you tell me how the situations are even remotely close? What I DO see a lot on slashdot is Apple fanboyism, where people applaud anything Apple does without stopping and thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
One, dealing with them having a monopoly in many areas.
Cellphones are not a monopoly, yet are still regulated.
Two, making sure everyone can have a phone.
How is Vonage exempt from this?
And three, dealing with the property rights involved in laying physical lines.
Maybe, but most companies deal with that privately.
I fail to see your point. Why should a company not have to follow the same rules everyone else has to follow? Just because they transmit their phone calls over the internet instead of private fiberoptic lines? I fail to see your point.
Well, for one, if nobody optimizes their applications for Altivec, then that technology is not very useful, at least for desktop users. Therefore, if your objective is to use the system for, say, running Gentoo, then it is a fair benchmark.
Synthetic benchmarks are almost never fair, simply because every processor has its own advantages. For instance, any benchmark which heavily relies on fast system memory would run circles around the G5 when run on an Opteron, since the Opteron connects to memory directly (and uses NUMA in a dual-proc configuration). If your benchmark merely does computations, then the G5 may very well be faster. If I try it out with a real-world application, I will know for sure that it is either slower or faster at that application.
Use whatever is the standard compiler for that platform. For G5, that would be GCC. After all, how good a compiler is largely determines how fast the processor is, so if a really fast processor doesn't have a good compiler, then it's worthless for nearly all practical purposes.
So what? It's STILL a telephone service. It doesn't matter how you conduct a telephone call -- over an internet, over the air, over fiberoptics, or some other way. The thing is, it's still a telephone call. This, of course, is a perfectly logical decision.
Well, it's very hard to create benchmarks that effectively compare architectures.
Why? Take a Linux distro (Gentoo), recompile it for both architectures, run some application benchmarks that represent what you typically do with your computer (i.e. an MP3/Ogg/Divx encoder, Mozilla, OpenOffice...). The thing is, x86 usually wins those types of comparisons. I think that was the point the parent was trying to make.
It doesn't matter. Every computationally intensive program makes use of SSE/MMX/3Dnow instructions, which are pretty much meant to bypass the CISC part of the processor.
I have a much lower-end Opteron 140 in my box, and for all I know, it runs about 50% cooler than a comparable Athlon XP. I wouldn't worry too much about cooling them, just don't go for the super-high-end stuff. If you are looking for low power consumption, get the slowest chip that's made with the smallest process size.
I haven't researched what that is, but I think its an artifact of TDMA encoding
It's not that, it's just your poorly shielded speakers picking up the RF signal and you probably hear some kind of beat frequency or something. Any reasonably powerful transmitter will cause hum and buzz. My 5 watt 2m ham radio transceiver causes nearby computer speakers to hum, and it's straight FM.
Repeat after me: 3 volts do not arc. 3 volts do not arc. 3 volts do not arc.
Tell that to the people who use arc welders every day. Those things typically use anything from 1V to 25V, and manage to arc just fine. 3V can very well arc -- hook a battery up to a small DC motor and watch sparks fly. Of course, you would have to switch a somewhat inductive load -- a pin of a microcontroller getting pulled up to Vcc does not qualify.
What if 10^100 is put through a certain algorithm to create a copyrighted song.
No algorithm can change 10^100 to a copyrighted song, unless the algorithm contains a copy of said song. There isn't enough information in that number to do anything interesting with it.
The insurance industry is more like the music industry in terms of stability
Except that it's a fairly competitive industry. Let's see, how many labels can you buy a particular CD from? That's right, just one. In contrast, auto insurers generally compete on the basis of price (as witnessed by the annoying commercials).
As for highway speeds, they're only beginning to reflect what they were before the federally-mandated 55mph speed limits were introduced 30 years ago.
No shit, Sherlock, that's exactly what I said. The thing is, everyone ALREADY drives 90 when there is a 70-mph speed limit. There are two problems with that. First, you have a small but nonzero chance of getting arrested. Second, some also drive 110 or 120. If speed limit enforcement was more effective, speed limits would have been raised a long time ago.
When's the last time you heard the government (any government) say they'd like to collect less money :)
When there is a good chance some official will not be re-elected.
Driving above a reasonable speed is not good for safety, so speed limits are a good thing. The problem is, enforcement is so spotty that speed limits are set very low, mainly to provide revenue for the police department. Since the speed limits are rarely enforced, people just put up with it.
If these things make the speed limits enforced 100%, then speed limits will go up and actually start to reflect the concept of a maximum safe speed. That might not be such a bad thing.
You need to retake that high school physics class you flunked. Weight IS a force, and it is measured in Newtons in the metric system and pounds in the English system. Mass is measured in kilograms in the metric system (SI) and slugs in the English system. Weight depends on gravity, mass doesn't.
Recorded sales pitches are illegal in most states, and this constitutes harassment. Contact your phone company about tracing the calls. They have the capability to do this.
Also, the BBB will be completely useless here. You need to contact the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC. The former regulates various consumer-related things, and the latter enforces many phone regulations.
If you don't like it, go away and/or STFU.
If you purchased something from that website, you simply deserve to be ripped off. Note the following:
- It is extremely poorly designed for a website that sells expensive things. The spelling/grammar is screwed up in a few places.
- There is no contact information, no street address, and it's hard to even tell what country they are in.
- They accept Paypal instead of having a normal credit card processor
- They try to sell you vacations and such
- There is no policy page. Nothing is mentioned about returns. Nothing about the authenticity policy is in writing.
- There are many links to suspicious websites
Basically, a web store that looks like this is an obvious scam. And chances are, if it looks like a scam, it probably is.
Yeah, yeah. Keep listening to the Ayn Rand bullshit. The reason Bill Gates and Ellison are both rich is because they had a lot of money and good connections when they hit the gold. If you think IBM normally awards significant contracts to random dropouts, I got news for you. They don't, and Bill G. probably knew someone on the inside.
Paying tens of thousands of dollars to get a useless degree in games is just stupid. If you think you have what it takes, pick up a C++ book and you will be programming games in about 6 months if you actually read it. Of course, it won't be anything like Doom 3, but for that you pretty much need talent, as well as an extremely strong CS background. You will gain neither by going to one of these places.
Trying to get into programming games as a job is just stupid. Let's see, how many companies hire game developers? Two or three? Think about it.
STFU faggot.
True, Apple did not put in too many choices. But they compensated for it with a lot of UI research and fine-tuning. Their preferences actually turned out to correspond to what most people want. That is not the case with Gnome.
Again, some of their ideas sound good on paper, but are a total trainwreck when actually implemented. Hell, half the time they rip off Apple, but don't do it right. As a result, the desktop starts to combine the worst features from many different UIs.
OK, what do you not like about KDE? Let's hear it.
Here's a list of my problems with Gnome:
- ugly, buggy toolkit (GTK+ is a joke, try finding a GTK program that doesn't segfault every hour or so)
- ugly default look (GTK+ looks worse than Win3.11)
- lack of configuration options (control panel is a joke)
- buggy, slow, bloated applications (nautilus is a prime example)
- counterintuitive UI (spatial nautilus)
- missing features (look at the file selector)
Do you actually have a point, or are you just trolling?
Wrong. He says that Gnome UI developers are incompetent. That is most certainly true, and it most certainly cannot be fixed by adding options, checkboxes, or anything else.
Basically, he says the people writing Gnome seem to want to impose their personal preferences onto everyone, defending them as design choices. If their personal preferences reflected the preferences of the majority of users, that would not be a problem. However, these preferences seem to be very peculiar, and the product that results is flawed.
I am not intending to start a KDE vs. Gnome flamewar, but seriously. I agree with the guy 100%, and his point is completely valid. The Gnome project somehow manages to become worse with every version, when it has never been that good to begin with.
Spatial nautilus is a horrible idea, period. The interface is too minimalist, and every option needs to be changed through some obscure method like Gconf because the interface is "simplified".
If you really like Gnome, that just means you have never tried to use KDE for longer than 10 minutes. Gnome can best be compared to a Yugo -- ugly and clunky.
How is this anything like breaking the GPL? Let's see:
- Companies that break the GPL infringe someone's copyright, and generally use the work commercially where they would have to pay millions of dollars if not for the GPL'd software
- PlayFair does not infringe anyone's copyright and merely allows someone who legally purchased a song from iTMS to enjoy it outside of iTunes. Nobody is using this for piracy -- who the hell wants to pirate crappy 128Kbps AAC files when 192Kbps MP3s are readily available?
Again, can you tell me how the situations are even remotely close? What I DO see a lot on slashdot is Apple fanboyism, where people applaud anything Apple does without stopping and thinking.