Huh? I've bought several DS (some for gifts) and none had dead pixels. I've not heard any reports of problems with DS dead pixels. I do know that Nintendo will exchange a DS for a new one if there's even one dead pixel. So what are you talking about?
There is a difference between Stock, and Stock Options.
Yes indeed! But please note that one of the similarities between the two is that neither is capitalized in proper written English. Moreover, neither poses a special grammatical case where a comma is required after it for no apparent reason.
Please don't take this as a flame or troll; it's just that your post was very smart, but your presentation could stand some improvement. If nothing else, just leave out all commas and you'll be grammatically correct more often than you were.
First, sure, he can file bankruptcy, but that doesn't affect legal judgements (or student loans, the only other type of debt bankruptcy can't get out out of.)
The second point is just silly, pessimistic, unfounded speculation basd in nothing.
Then again, www.opencores.org, www.fpga4fun.com, etc., already have quite a number of CPU cores available
OK, well -- you got me there -- four (4) is a number. Even "quite" a number, I guess. Of course, the available free verilog and/or VHDL CPU cores only adds up to four if you're very generous with your definition of CPU core, and if you specifically avoid requiring it to be in the same league as a sparc. But if you don't insist on that criteria, you could include all of them and call it 20. But you'd be including a bunch of old, slow, 8- and 16-bit cores that aren't very well tested, don't include consttaints, and are a bitch to implement (I've tried.)
Seriously, the open-source hardware arena is still quite the slim pickins. Of course there are many reasons for that, not the least of which is the fact that you need more than a free copy of gcc and a $300 computer to compile and make it work. What Sun is doing here is good -- near meningless in and of itself, but still good in the long run. They're raising the bar for open source CPU (and other) cores -- and that's sorely needed.
If a "handfull" can be as large as 40 structured ASIC (ISSP) may work for you. But if it always and forever will need to be completely reprogrammed, then you're stuck with FPGAs. ISSPs can support considerably on-the-fly reprogrammability via configurable processor blocks (sorta like mini, custom-instruction CPUs) but not 100% logic changes.
Or, possibly, one or two big ASICs loaded with Tensilica Extensa CPU cores. Before you say a CPU is too slow or too big, check out Extensa -- it allows custom instructions that easily trounce any FPGA on performance for any applciaton. Volumes may still be a problem, but the NRE on older (>130nm) technologies is getting really low.
Sorry for the derail and sales pitch -- I'll stop now, but I was just trying to help out:)
A bit OT, but if you've got a dozen multi-million gate FPGAs and 3Gbps signals on your board, you need to talk to an ASIC designer -- stat! Whether it's a custom SoC or a set of structured ASICs, you can save a lot of money, hassle, and headache. Please consider contacting NEC Electronics America and talking to an engineer. They (well, we) run the show there, too.
Fordiman suitably chastised you for your failure to read the article and your misinformed post. I'd like to go one step further and humbly ask that you at least read the summary before posting FUD and falsehoods.
You say: These things spin *quickly*. Far faster than the windspeed.
The summary says: Because it spins at wind speed, it doesn't kill birds,...
And, believe it or not, reading the article would seem to support that you're wrong and the summary is correct.
What about bloggers? Can someone make a successful "peer" reviewed and validated online blog-based news source with micropayments for stories and photos, with some kind of social rating/filtering system? I bet someone does.
if the Slantinel goes away, who is going to report any local news at all? Do you think Reuters will hire a full-time Orlando reporter? The Associated Press?
Well, I like to think it will be hordes of bloggers reaping micropayments and publishing their stories to cooperative social-filtering and validation systems online.
But who knows? Nature (and the market) abhors a vacuum.
And that baffles me, since it's so readily cured with cheap tree bark or even a few hundred gin and tonics.
Why are we, and the kind Mr. Gates worried about a disease that's easily and cheaply cured (and even prevented?) And why are people still dying from malaria?
Yes, fiber is cheap for point-to-point routings, but I doubt it scales well. What happens when a motherboard becomes 100% optical interconnect -- with virtually every chip and attached device using optics to communicate? Optical connections would run from the CPU (maybe each core of the CPU) to memory controller, cache, main memory banks (perhaps one fiber per optically connected RAM card), I/O controllers, mass storage devices, I/O ports, expansion bus slots (again, one fiber per slot), etc. A single motherboard might have easily have dozens of optical interconnections.
Your doubts are unfounded. Fiber scales better than PCB traces because it has a higher bandwidth density (more bandwidth for a given amount of space occupied) and it's easy to cluster tighly without fear of crosstalk and signal integrity issues that plague PCBs. If it can be done on a PCB, it can be done with fiber, more easily and less expensively (from an interconnect standpoint -- the optical drivers are still way expensive compared to simple electrical drivers, but this article is about how that might be changing with on-chip optical drivers.)
I'm suggesting that printing the channels becomes cheaper than mechanically laying dozens of fibers.
And I'm telling you that you're wrong.
With discrete fibers, doubling the number of interconnections doubles the cost because each added fiber must be laid into place during the manufacturing phase.
Have you ever done any PCB design? Because "Just another trace" is kinda funny to someone who has. See, there are design rules and signal integrity issues that must be considered in PCB design. You can't just cram in as many wires as you want -- traces need a minimum spacing that depends on their width and frequency of operation. Adding more traces eventually requires more PCB layers so they can all be routed, and every new layer adds a lot of expense.
With printed optical traces, the cost is nearly independent of the number of interconnections -- just add another trace in the mask during the design phase.
First, there is no such thing as a "printed optical trace". You're making it up without even realizing what a huge hassle such a thing would be to work with (do you think light likes to travel down the 90-degree and 45-degree angles common on PCB layouts, or were you going to add a mirror at every corner? Maybe use some circular design rules and bezier all the routes? lol!) Second, even in the case of traditional traces on PCBs, the cost is directly related to the number of layers and design rule flexibility of the PCB, which are both dictated by the number of interconnections required. So, the idea that "the cost is nearly independent of the number of interconnections" is pretty naieve.
It's the same logic that means that people use PCBs and not wire-wrap boards for mass-produced electronics. If N is the number of interconnections, then printing is cheaper than routing fiber for some value of N.
There's more reason to shun wire-wrapping than simply cost of manufacturing/labor intensiveness. Wrapped wires are inductors, and any signal rate above a few MHz is going to go to crap immediately in a wire-wrapped circuit. I get the impression that you think fiber connections are manually made, like wire wrap. This is not the case. It's as automatic as mounting integrated circuits.
Perhaps you and I have different expectations for both the cross-over value of N (where printing makes sense) and the likely future value of N for intensively optical motherboards.
Well, yeah, since the crossover you're seeking doesn't exist for fiber vs. PCB trace. Excepting transimitter/receiver cost, fiber is always cheaper than PCB (and faster and more noise immune) for any N.
That was all very interesting lay speculation, and I do wish I could take you up on your bet.
See, no one is going to "print" optical traces. Unless you consider gluing fiber to a board "printing." Fiber optic cables are cheaper than PCB by a long shot, which is why they are used for optical interconnect now, and will be in the forseeable future.
You might want to factor in the power cost, especially if you run the monitor 8 hours per day or more. My 21" CRT pulled 350W+. My 30" LCD is rated at 100W max. A 21" LCD can get down around 50W. That means, at $0.15/kWH, the 21" CRT cost $0.0525/hour to run while the LCD costs $0.0075/hour.
At 8 hours/day 5 days/week for 52 weeks that's $109.20 for the CRT versus $15.60 for the LCD. It doesn't take too many years at a savings of $93/year for the LCD to pay for the additional up-front cost.
We don't forgive all debt for everyone. As much as it rankles, the introduction of credit has allowed the development of the middle class, so it has done some good. Rather, we look on a case by case basis at our debtors and decide when it makes more financial sense to forgive a debt. All I am arguing is that in the case of Africa and other third world countries, it makes sense for the creditors like the World Bank and the IMF to look at the option of debt relief.
I'm not rankled by the concept of credit. I think it's good. It's debt forgiveness that I think is bad. Why does it make sense for creditors to consider forgiving Africa's debt? It benefits only Africa.
Creditors don't get to divvy up all the assets. At least, they didn't used to be able to. With the laws having been changed recently, I'm not so sure they don't get everything. And yes bankruptcy screws up your credit. So it should be for countries as well, I guess. But it may make financial sense for us to forgive the debt without linmiting future borrowing.
Yes they do, in the US at least. Except for primary residence, all assets are on the table. It's always been that way. Why would it make financial sense for us to forgive Africa's debt without limiting future borrowing? Again, it benefits only Africa.
Africa is part of your society. Not your immediate society, but instability in Africa will negatively affect you. A stable, prosperous Africa will benefit you directly.
How? Unless we provide them with the means to affect us, they'll sit on their continent and starve/kill each other without harming anyone else. Or we could just wipe them out and colonize. Just like the good old days.
Socialism is practiced in one form or another by every government on earth. It all depends on who gets the direct benefits. There are selfish arguments as to why it might be a good idea to have a social safety net, it's not at all about some abstract concept of doing good.
Yes, and in some cases the "safety net" is a good thing -- when it helps get people back on track without teaching irresponsibility. Debt forgiveness with no strings teaches irresponsibility.
Private property itself is a form of socialism. Fencing off public property and holding it privately requires the initiation of force. There hasn't been much land that wasn't being used by someone anywhere on the earth for thousands of years, so anyone taking private property did so at the expense of others.
There is a difference between government entities serving roles that individuls couldn't do as efficiently (corts, police, military) and outright socialism.
You have no natural right to property, any more or less than I have a natural right to kill you and take it. Rights only exist in relation to society, without other human beings around there would be no need for the concept of rights, only power. In a society, private property is a right granted by the group to the individual. In exchange for giving you a monopoly and giving up it's right to use the resource, the group expects certain things from you, at the very least that you will uphold the right to property in others.
Yes!
Socialism is really just a codification of the golden rule found in so many religions around the world: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But I suppose you think that is just hippy hogwash.
No! This would only be true if Africa were forgiving our debt too. But that's impossible.
Actually, I haven't argued for or against forgiving any debts to anyone. I have simply stated that using personal responsibility as an argument against forgiving the debts of someone who didn't accumulate that debt is absurd.
Your allegation that that is absurd is, well, absurd. If one sees that debts are generally forgiven, one is more likely to expect such forgiveness for themselves. This breeds a lack of personal responsibility. It's OK for you to disagree with this argument, but it's absurd to call it absurd. It's actually quite rational.
I concluded that you are against welfare because of your own statement: "With that lesson firmly ingrained, they'll fit right into many 1st world welfare states rather nicely."
Are there not first-world welfare states? Which derogatory adjective led you to your conclusion?
As for self-sufficiency, that's all nice and good - but if you're unemployed and can't find work, then you can't become self-sufficient, no matter what motivators you might have. And if you are physically unable to do work, due to illness or old age or injury or whatever, then you won't become any healthier no matter how the system tries to motivate you.
Right. Africa -- all of it -- "can't find work?" Or is all of Africa "physically unable to do work, due to illness or old age or injury or whatever?"
It doesn't. It relates to your comment about welfare.
Which comment about welfare? That someone taught a lack of personal responsibility would fit well in a welfare state? Is this not true?
Did you mean Katul Hayek? Katul Hayak gives me nothing. And Katul Hayek gives me nothing in google even remotely related to archaeology. I'm really curious!
I don't think we've yet established that "the outward signs of human behavior changed so drastically." Maybe with it all in context I will agree with your interpretation, or have alternate ideas, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.
No I do not assert that human nature is unchangeable. I have no evidence to the contrary at the point, however.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? I've bought several DS (some for gifts) and none had dead pixels. I've not heard any reports of problems with DS dead pixels. I do know that Nintendo will exchange a DS for a new one if there's even one dead pixel. So what are you talking about?
BTW, it's fewer since pixels are countable.
There is a difference between Stock, and Stock Options.
Yes indeed! But please note that one of the similarities between the two is that neither is capitalized in proper written English. Moreover, neither poses a special grammatical case where a comma is required after it for no apparent reason.
Please don't take this as a flame or troll; it's just that your post was very smart, but your presentation could stand some improvement. If nothing else, just leave out all commas and you'll be grammatically correct more often than you were.
That costs me $500. A GeForce 6800 GT costs the same amount.
No it doesn't. In fact, it never cost $500 (we're talking US$, right?) -- it was released at $350 retail.
Please start over with your point using reality as a basis. Thanks.
You're wrong on both counts.
First, sure, he can file bankruptcy, but that doesn't affect legal judgements (or student loans, the only other type of debt bankruptcy can't get out out of.)
The second point is just silly, pessimistic, unfounded speculation basd in nothing.
Yeah -- they're embedded -- not implemented in FPGA in the normal method.
Then again, www.opencores.org, www.fpga4fun.com, etc., already have quite a number of CPU cores available
OK, well -- you got me there -- four (4) is a number. Even "quite" a number, I guess. Of course, the available free verilog and/or VHDL CPU cores only adds up to four if you're very generous with your definition of CPU core, and if you specifically avoid requiring it to be in the same league as a sparc. But if you don't insist on that criteria, you could include all of them and call it 20. But you'd be including a bunch of old, slow, 8- and 16-bit cores that aren't very well tested, don't include consttaints, and are a bitch to implement (I've tried.)
Seriously, the open-source hardware arena is still quite the slim pickins. Of course there are many reasons for that, not the least of which is the fact that you need more than a free copy of gcc and a $300 computer to compile and make it work. What Sun is doing here is good -- near meningless in and of itself, but still good in the long run. They're raising the bar for open source CPU (and other) cores -- and that's sorely needed.
Oh my, aren't you full of yourself! But please do tell us about the spanking that Walmart got?
If a "handfull" can be as large as 40 structured ASIC (ISSP) may work for you. But if it always and forever will need to be completely reprogrammed, then you're stuck with FPGAs. ISSPs can support considerably on-the-fly reprogrammability via configurable processor blocks (sorta like mini, custom-instruction CPUs) but not 100% logic changes.
:)
Or, possibly, one or two big ASICs loaded with Tensilica Extensa CPU cores. Before you say a CPU is too slow or too big, check out Extensa -- it allows custom instructions that easily trounce any FPGA on performance for any applciaton. Volumes may still be a problem, but the NRE on older (>130nm) technologies is getting really low.
Sorry for the derail and sales pitch -- I'll stop now, but I was just trying to help out
A bit OT, but if you've got a dozen multi-million gate FPGAs and 3Gbps signals on your board, you need to talk to an ASIC designer -- stat! Whether it's a custom SoC or a set of structured ASICs, you can save a lot of money, hassle, and headache. Please consider contacting NEC Electronics America and talking to an engineer. They (well, we) run the show there, too.
Too bad.
Good luck with your new "non-usa" "internet" lol.
You must be not.
Fordiman suitably chastised you for your failure to read the article and your misinformed post. I'd like to go one step further and humbly ask that you at least read the summary before posting FUD and falsehoods.
...
You say: These things spin *quickly*. Far faster than the windspeed.
The summary says: Because it spins at wind speed, it doesn't kill birds,
And, believe it or not, reading the article would seem to support that you're wrong and the summary is correct.
You didn't really look. He's right you know.
What about bloggers? Can someone make a successful "peer" reviewed and validated online blog-based news source with micropayments for stories and photos, with some kind of social rating/filtering system? I bet someone does.
if the Slantinel goes away, who is going to report any local news at all? Do you think Reuters will hire a full-time Orlando reporter? The Associated Press?
Well, I like to think it will be hordes of bloggers reaping micropayments and publishing their stories to cooperative social-filtering and validation systems online.
But who knows? Nature (and the market) abhors a vacuum.
Malaria causes more deaths
And that baffles me, since it's so readily cured with cheap tree bark or even a few hundred gin and tonics.
Why are we, and the kind Mr. Gates worried about a disease that's easily and cheaply cured (and even prevented?) And why are people still dying from malaria?
Couldn't find a printable link, so to save you from 8 clicks on "next->" and more ads than I could count (they went over budget by $16.49):
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $146
Motherboard: ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 $69
Memory: Corsair Value Select 512 MB (2x 256 MB) $52
VGA: eVGA 256-A8-N340-TX Geforce 6600 256 MB $113
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80 GB $57.50
Optical Drive LITE-ON Black 16X DVD-ROM $19.99
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-330 ATX12V 330W $59.00
Total: $516.49
Yes, fiber is cheap for point-to-point routings, but I doubt it scales well. What happens when a motherboard becomes 100% optical interconnect -- with virtually every chip and attached device using optics to communicate? Optical connections would run from the CPU (maybe each core of the CPU) to memory controller, cache, main memory banks (perhaps one fiber per optically connected RAM card), I/O controllers, mass storage devices, I/O ports, expansion bus slots (again, one fiber per slot), etc. A single motherboard might have easily have dozens of optical interconnections.
Your doubts are unfounded. Fiber scales better than PCB traces because it has a higher bandwidth density (more bandwidth for a given amount of space occupied) and it's easy to cluster tighly without fear of crosstalk and signal integrity issues that plague PCBs. If it can be done on a PCB, it can be done with fiber, more easily and less expensively (from an interconnect standpoint -- the optical drivers are still way expensive compared to simple electrical drivers, but this article is about how that might be changing with on-chip optical drivers.)
I'm suggesting that printing the channels becomes cheaper than mechanically laying dozens of fibers.
And I'm telling you that you're wrong.
With discrete fibers, doubling the number of interconnections doubles the cost because each added fiber must be laid into place during the manufacturing phase.
Have you ever done any PCB design? Because "Just another trace" is kinda funny to someone who has. See, there are design rules and signal integrity issues that must be considered in PCB design. You can't just cram in as many wires as you want -- traces need a minimum spacing that depends on their width and frequency of operation. Adding more traces eventually requires more PCB layers so they can all be routed, and every new layer adds a lot of expense.
With printed optical traces, the cost is nearly independent of the number of interconnections -- just add another trace in the mask during the design phase.
First, there is no such thing as a "printed optical trace". You're making it up without even realizing what a huge hassle such a thing would be to work with (do you think light likes to travel down the 90-degree and 45-degree angles common on PCB layouts, or were you going to add a mirror at every corner? Maybe use some circular design rules and bezier all the routes? lol!) Second, even in the case of traditional traces on PCBs, the cost is directly related to the number of layers and design rule flexibility of the PCB, which are both dictated by the number of interconnections required. So, the idea that "the cost is nearly independent of the number of interconnections" is pretty naieve.
It's the same logic that means that people use PCBs and not wire-wrap boards for mass-produced electronics. If N is the number of interconnections, then printing is cheaper than routing fiber for some value of N.
There's more reason to shun wire-wrapping than simply cost of manufacturing/labor intensiveness. Wrapped wires are inductors, and any signal rate above a few MHz is going to go to crap immediately in a wire-wrapped circuit. I get the impression that you think fiber connections are manually made, like wire wrap. This is not the case. It's as automatic as mounting integrated circuits.
Perhaps you and I have different expectations for both the cross-over value of N (where printing makes sense) and the likely future value of N for intensively optical motherboards.
Well, yeah, since the crossover you're seeking doesn't exist for fiber vs. PCB trace. Excepting transimitter/receiver cost, fiber is always cheaper than PCB (and faster and more noise immune) for any N.
That was all very interesting lay speculation, and I do wish I could take you up on your bet.
See, no one is going to "print" optical traces. Unless you consider gluing fiber to a board "printing." Fiber optic cables are cheaper than PCB by a long shot, which is why they are used for optical interconnect now, and will be in the forseeable future.
You might want to factor in the power cost, especially if you run the monitor 8 hours per day or more. My 21" CRT pulled 350W+. My 30" LCD is rated at 100W max. A 21" LCD can get down around 50W. That means, at $0.15/kWH, the 21" CRT cost $0.0525/hour to run while the LCD costs $0.0075/hour.
At 8 hours/day 5 days/week for 52 weeks that's $109.20 for the CRT versus $15.60 for the LCD. It doesn't take too many years at a savings of $93/year for the LCD to pay for the additional up-front cost.
I was with you right up to the end:
p = (15 nCr 12) * 0.5^12 * 0.5^3
= 0.014
A statistically significant (p>0.05) result, so . .
p = 0.014
p > 0.05
0.014 > 0.05 ?
We don't forgive all debt for everyone. As much as it rankles, the introduction of credit has allowed the development of the middle class, so it has done some good. Rather, we look on a case by case basis at our debtors and decide when it makes more financial sense to forgive a debt. All I am arguing is that in the case of Africa and other third world countries, it makes sense for the creditors like the World Bank and the IMF to look at the option of debt relief.
I'm not rankled by the concept of credit. I think it's good. It's debt forgiveness that I think is bad. Why does it make sense for creditors to consider forgiving Africa's debt? It benefits only Africa.
Creditors don't get to divvy up all the assets. At least, they didn't used to be able to. With the laws having been changed recently, I'm not so sure they don't get everything. And yes bankruptcy screws up your credit. So it should be for countries as well, I guess. But it may make financial sense for us to forgive the debt without linmiting future borrowing.
Yes they do, in the US at least. Except for primary residence, all assets are on the table. It's always been that way. Why would it make financial sense for us to forgive Africa's debt without limiting future borrowing? Again, it benefits only Africa.
Africa is part of your society. Not your immediate society, but instability in Africa will negatively affect you. A stable, prosperous Africa will benefit you directly.
How? Unless we provide them with the means to affect us, they'll sit on their continent and starve/kill each other without harming anyone else. Or we could just wipe them out and colonize. Just like the good old days.
Socialism is practiced in one form or another by every government on earth. It all depends on who gets the direct benefits. There are selfish arguments as to why it might be a good idea to have a social safety net, it's not at all about some abstract concept of doing good.
Yes, and in some cases the "safety net" is a good thing -- when it helps get people back on track without teaching irresponsibility. Debt forgiveness with no strings teaches irresponsibility.
Private property itself is a form of socialism. Fencing off public property and holding it privately requires the initiation of force. There hasn't been much land that wasn't being used by someone anywhere on the earth for thousands of years, so anyone taking private property did so at the expense of others.
There is a difference between government entities serving roles that individuls couldn't do as efficiently (corts, police, military) and outright socialism.
You have no natural right to property, any more or less than I have a natural right to kill you and take it. Rights only exist in relation to society, without other human beings around there would be no need for the concept of rights, only power. In a society, private property is a right granted by the group to the individual. In exchange for giving you a monopoly and giving up it's right to use the resource, the group expects certain things from you, at the very least that you will uphold the right to property in others.
Yes!
Socialism is really just a codification of the golden rule found in so many religions around the world: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But I suppose you think that is just hippy hogwash.
No! This would only be true if Africa were forgiving our debt too. But that's impossible.
Oh, you were full of shit then. My bad for expecting you to follow up on those claims.
Actually, I haven't argued for or against forgiving any debts to anyone. I have simply stated that using personal responsibility as an argument against forgiving the debts of someone who didn't accumulate that debt is absurd.
Your allegation that that is absurd is, well, absurd. If one sees that debts are generally forgiven, one is more likely to expect such forgiveness for themselves. This breeds a lack of personal responsibility. It's OK for you to disagree with this argument, but it's absurd to call it absurd. It's actually quite rational.
I concluded that you are against welfare because of your own statement: "With that lesson firmly ingrained, they'll fit right into many 1st world welfare states rather nicely."
Are there not first-world welfare states? Which derogatory adjective led you to your conclusion?
As for self-sufficiency, that's all nice and good - but if you're unemployed and can't find work, then you can't become self-sufficient, no matter what motivators you might have. And if you are physically unable to do work, due to illness or old age or injury or whatever, then you won't become any healthier no matter how the system tries to motivate you.
Right. Africa -- all of it -- "can't find work?" Or is all of Africa "physically unable to do work, due to illness or old age or injury or whatever?"
It doesn't. It relates to your comment about welfare.
Which comment about welfare? That someone taught a lack of personal responsibility would fit well in a welfare state? Is this not true?
Did you mean Katul Hayek? Katul Hayak gives me nothing. And Katul Hayek gives me nothing in google even remotely related to archaeology. I'm really curious!
I don't think we've yet established that "the outward signs of human behavior changed so drastically." Maybe with it all in context I will agree with your interpretation, or have alternate ideas, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.
No I do not assert that human nature is unchangeable. I have no evidence to the contrary at the point, however.