The answer is pretty straightforward to some of us. It has to do with hardware support. All the hardware on any mac machine I buy is supported under OSX. Sure there's less third party hardware, but it depends what you need.
I have an ibook that I've been using since October and I love the thing. After using Linux for 3 or 4 years its nice to have a machine (especially a laptop) that just works.
Anyone who has ever tried to get wireless working under linux knows what I mean. Its just a hack. If you have this card you need this driver package, this card uses this, this one is built into the kernel, this one requires ndis wrappers etc. Not to mention that if you want something besides basic wireless you're in trouble. WEP wasn't too hard to do, but after countless hours trying to get 802.1x working I gave up on wireless under Linux (my school requires 802.1x authentication on its APs).
... Actually I'm pretty sure the defendent could come to some sort of agreement that any files found to be illegal for other reasons (such as shady business deals etc) can not be used as evidence in future trials. He might have to outline exact stuff thats hypothetically there, but I'm pretty sure such a plea for privacy would be respected to the extent allowable. I'm pretty sure such tactics have been used before in other types of cases, but I don't really know for sure.
have you read the article? In this case their is testimony from the girl. There is also likely countless other testimony. The usage of the PGP program was an accessory. It has not been used as primary evidence, but could possibly be used to explain why the photos allegedly taken were not found on his computer (as could simply deleting the photos and writing over the drive).
Its just like in a case of convicting someone of a stealing a car because they have video tape of the man stealing the car, eyewitnesses etc, but at the end of the day no one can find the car. The car could have been hidden or destroyed or chopped up etc. If none of these things were possible the fact that the defendent didn't have the car would likely mean he couldn't have stolen it.
Such a true quote. I personally like Ronald Reagans quote when the idea of national id's came up at a cabinet meeting "Why not brand all babies at birth?" Of course such a remark was made out of sarcasm back then, but would saddly be considerered today.
Soviet Russia taught people how to share too. . . The concept is called communism, and it only works on a large scale when someone points a gun at your head.
Sure the big corporations may have more than moeny than they need in your eyes, but I'm sure in someone elses eyes you have more money than you need. This trickles down all the way to the bottom. If we all gave what we didn't need, everyone would be living at the poorest level. We wouldn't bring the poor up to the level of the middle class. Its just the way humanity works.
Actually I don't think its possible to have more than one active AGP bus. Thats one of the reasons PCI express is a much nicer solution than AGP.
So the onboard video on boards does in fact tend to be useless. However onboard video is not standard and normally adds $5-$15 to the cost of the motherboard (unlike onboard sound and LAN which tend to be in the chipset).
phil
First there's a difference between heat pipes and water cooling. Water cooling means active cooling whereas heat pipes are passive. Heat pipes are, and will become more common in a system, particularly in smaller systems where size is constrained and we wish to minimize weight (large copper heat sinks are anything but light).
And while big name retailers are introducing water cooled systems, they aren't exactly cheap machines. The economies of scale might help them lower the cost of water cooling, but I doubt they will that that much. They require extra space in the case (more shipping costs), a larger power supply or a separate powersupply for the pump. A pump that works reliably, a radiator as well as hoses that won't deteriorate, etc. These things aren't that cheap.
Also even if these only added a little (say $50) to the cost, the hardware that would benefit from water cooling is not exactly cheap. Most users are using integrated video, so we don't have to worry about that, as for processors, only a 3GHz or above P4 is really going to gain from it. And the dual cores, while producing more heat are only for enthusiasts.
On top of that add that fact that most users want a machine thats easy to maintain, not necessarily blazing fast. Also the extra noise made by a water cooled system isn't going to be something people want.
The current trend in processor design has been for lower power cpus (i.e. the new 90nm Athlon 64's, and the Bania's core or whatever it is for the Pentium-M). The idea of water cooling will likely stay for the enthusiasts market.
Phil
Sealed water cooling systems will become widespread within the next couple of years but for now liquid metal is just a gimmick for the overclocking crowd.
I'm not quite sure what world you're living in if you think this is the case. Liquid cooling will become more common for the enthusiasts, however it will not become "widespread". First laptop sales make up over half of pc sales today, and they're not going to go water-cooling.
On top of that the average consumer is buying the cheaper computers. Most people use their computer to browse the web, check email, write/read office docs and possibly watch videos. Maybe even organize pictures taken. These are fine on todays low end pcs (actually many of todays lowend pcs are as fast as the fastest pc I own).
Going the water cooling route will easily add another $100 to the cost of a computer, and the market isn't really there. Plus all the computers purchased by schools and companies, how many of them will be watercooled. Not to mention the fact that servers can't be producing that much heat or the rooms will melt (a water cooled system will create more heat then an air cooled system).
Phil
Honestly are the computer skills really that different. Most companies hiring kids out of high school aren't expecting the kids to be masters of MS Office. Most schools teach kids the basics of office. Such as writing letters, changing fonts, making a presentation, etc. If the school teaches it properly, switching from using Open Office to MS Office is about as difficult as transforming from using office 2000 to xp. Its just not a big deal, the concepts are the exact same.
Now of course there are exceptions to this general rule. There are some advanced features in MS Excel that I have yet to be able to do within open office. However I doubt the high schools are coverning those things in the first place.
A company hiring kids out of high school is not generally expecting the best and the brightest (as those students are generally going to college at least in the USA). They may expect computer skills, but to the extent that they know how to check things on the web, use a mouse, type documents etc. Hell for the most part I think schools should scrap half the computer stuff they teach kids. Do they really learn anything when they play with putting a million clip arts in a document? They'd be far better off just teaching them to type as well as business skills. they'll go much further than knowing how to make hideous word documents with flashy graphics, or worthless powerpoint presentations with a million sounds and transitional effects. Stick to the basics.
Phil
Re:Exclusive supplier agreements?
on
Dell Still Intel Only
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Its definately true that Dell gets cpus from Intel for cheap. Really cheap. Some of the systems listed on Dells page you look at and think "I couldn't build a system for this price myself". They just have a major discount. They also tend to get certain products first, and have them guaranteed.
This is also coupled with the fact that AMD doesn't have the customer recognition that Intel does. Dude I'm getting a Dell is followed by a man in a bunny suit. thats the way things are. On top of it one of AMDs strengths is the enthusiast market (which much of slashdot is). This market runs counter to dells market.
However where this decision doesn't make sense is in their server line. I doubt Intel gives dell a massive price break on Xeon chips (like they tend to with p4's), and I doubt Dell having Opteron chips would lose dell too much of the costs dealing with Intel, but I could be wrong. Basically with the performance of the Xeon relative to the opteron for servers the Opteron looks highly attrractive. From speed, memory performance, heat, and price standpoints. Not selling those chips seems crazy, but who knows. Maybe dell has something up their sleeves.
I don't know about that, I don't have statistics to back me up at all, but I don't think the housing laborers are mostly migrant workers. Most migrant workers are only here for certain seasons of the year and work doing farm labor doing unskilled labor.
While certain jobs in building houses allow unskilled labor, many jobs in construction pay decently. They do this because construction is hard work, and many people are too lazy to do it. Also you have many concerns with the quality of construction, insurance companies etc.
I think generalizing that most contractors use cheap migrant labor just doesn't hold.
Phil
I know that the federal government has the right to tax the rich for all they want. However the government does not have the right to redistribute this wealth in any manner they see fit. The constitution laid out a groundwork for what the federal government could spend money on.
Section. 8.
Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Clause 2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Clause 4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
Clause 5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
Clause 6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Clause 9: To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
Clause 10: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
Clause 11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
Clause 12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
Clause 13: To provide and maintain a Navy;
Clause 14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Clause 17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, byCession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And
Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Nowhere in this list does it say that the federal government has the right to support social security systems, medicare, welfare etc etc. These were allowed during the great deppression, and even then people talked of needing a constitutional ammendment to get away with them. Back then of course the programs were small time and allowed but over the years they've been continuously expanded to the monstrosity we have today.
Nowhere in the constitution do i see the rights you discuss given to the federal government.
Because not wanting to be forced to give money to the government is evil? What? The government laid out laws and they're following them. Some of the laws follow natural arguments (do not kill do not steal etc) and some of them follow artificial arguments.
Then the government goes and points a gun to your head and makes you follow all of these laws. If they don't there's anarchy.
However, I personally feel it is absurd the amount the government steals from people. While taxes are needed to run the government, build roads and arguably schools (although I wonder if the private sector could do a better job there... couldn't do much worse) as well as the securing the defense of our nation.
However the constitution did not give the right for the government to take money from the rich for the sole purpose of giving it to the poor (at least not in the US, some revisionist judges have however allowed it). People who declare that the rich owe it to the poor sicken me. Someone works harder or smarter and ends up with more money than those who didnt does not owe money to those who didn't work as hard or were not as smart. Often they more than rewarded the others through the jobs they created or the services and/or products they created that make everyones lives better.
Arguing that someone who wants to save some of their own money from the government is morally wrong is a morally bankrupt argument. While I believe in some of slashdot's philosophies, the socialist rhetoric passed around gets old fast.
I agree, although with stipulations. Linux is not ready for laptops. I have an ibook for that very reason.
However Linux is mostly ready for desktop replacement style laptops. When battery life is not an issue (so the importance of APCI/APM support is minimal), many problems go away. The real problem comes with the state of wireless support.
People claim that well obviously things won't work right with cheap wireless cards like those built into most laptops, but thats a load. Look at regular ethernet cards. I tend to buy loads of realtek 83159 cards because they're cheap and work fine under Linux. Why can't the same be done with wireless. Besides every wireless card has different types of drivers, and even if you get your card to work, there are issues. Try using 802.1x authentication under Linux (which my school requires). I fighted with xsupplicant for over a month of my old thinkpad before giving up and deciding I need an ibook.
Now that I have an ibook I have the best of both worlds. I have a unix friendly enviornment that easily interoperates with my linux workstations, and I still have working wireless, accelerated video, 5 hours of battery life, most linux apps run under it, MS Office runs on it (I know its the darkside, but its needed) and everything is plug and play compatible. Most of all things just work. I don't worry about anything.
In this day and age when laptops are becoming permanantly network attached devices whats the need for a fancy hardware support. Let the laptop be a graphical terminal and everyone will be happy.
Phil
Last I looked you couldn't use wireless in linux on an ibook or powerbook, and it doesn't look like there will be anytime soon. Also how is the battery life under Linux? I haven't tried it but was wondering if its comparable to the 5 hours I get when using it (with wireless) under OSX.
I also have an ibook, and find it much easier to use OSX over a linux on it. While I haven't installed a full distro on it (I don't want to reformat) I really don't know why I would want to mess with it. Most importantly not having wireless is a major turnoff to a lapotp. Also, if I want to run Linux apps I log into one of many linux/solaris machines I have access to. Why should I run something computationally intensive on my 1.3GHz G4 when I have Athlon64's and dual P4 Xeon workstations that can run them for me.
Too many geeks a laptop is merely a glorified terminal. But a terminal that can also run Office apps and other commercial software is a double advantage. No amount of talking about the virtues of Linux will make up for the fact that certain applications just arent available, and some of us either can't use the oss alternatives (such as Office suites) or don't have the time to learn to use them.
While its not fully supported there are ways to make life easier concerning the middle click addiction.
I'm also addicted to middle click pasting from my linux days and the transition to my ibook was made a bit rough because of it. While some friends of mine who also use macs make fun of me for de-macing my mac (or further unixifying it) it makes life easier.
Here are some options for you. First get yourself a mouse thats nicely supported... such as an intellimouse. These allow you to configure actions to the middle click button. This works as paste for me (although I disable its paste functionality in webbrowsers for obvious reasons). Theres also a firefox extension that automagically copies the selected text to the clipboard. Get that. Third, you need a new terminal app. I reccomend iterm. it supports tabbed terminals (a must) and can be configured to automatically copy selected text to the clipboard.... If only the aqua version of xchat supported that life would be much easier.
There might be a few other tricks to help ease into the mac way of life, but overall I find things are generally easier to use on a mac then linux.
""The iPod, PowerBooks and mini Macs are cool products," Turner said. "The by-product is that people are buying these products for form over function. They say it looks pretty and then buy it but don't secure it. As Apple increases its market share, it will be a legitimate target"."
Maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but am I the only one concerned with this statement? Are they trying to imply that ipods are going to get rooted? I just can't take any article seriously when it implies that an ipod will be directly attacked. Sure your pc might get a virus that attacks an ipod if its attached, but thats a different scenario then a virus that spreads between ipods (thank god they don't have bluetooth).
The real question here is would the current music industry survive a complete and total move to a subscription based service. This becomes questionable. They're doing it now because theres money involved. . . Quite a bit of money.
However a total transition would mean that no single band is making the money. Possibly leading to one of two extremes. One, the record labels continue only pouring their money into a couple of bands (and their own wallets). To an extreme not seen today. These are the reason people sign up for service. Music becomes completely manufactured etc. Why bother supporting these smaller bands.
Then you have independent labels who if they're not getting money from the subscription services (or aren't involved or getting enough) cut back musicians etc. They fall off the wayside. On top of this we have no easy distinction of who to pay for what unless we base sales purely on downloads. This works great for major labels, unless people don't go for it.
Under a second extreme we have the record labels stop spending money to produce hit making acts. Afterall they are locked into deals with napster, and itunes or whoever to distribute their content forever. 90% of their income is now made off these deals. Theres only 2 music companies (or maybe only one major monopoly by this point). Music turns into a cash cow and its you're either on their train or not, no point in spending money on expensive videos etc because everyone pays the same. The labels won't like this (unless they have more and more premium content). The industry starts to collapse on itself.
The industry doesn't like that and if a subscription service couldn't stand in parallel with their current model they won't allow for it, and people who have spent $15/month for 5 years because they thought it was cheaper all of a sudden own zero music to listen to. Sounds wonderful as well.
Of course their are other extremes in between, or the possibility that bands end up taking control of the industry by refusing to go along with their tactics. By not needing these record labels to distribute their music (thank you internet) and the production can be done much cheaper thanks to rapidly advancing computer technology, they can make it on their own.
The futures likely to be a combination of all of these (with the added thought of a pay-per-listen strategy that I could imagine the industry come up with. ..remember divx). Ah the future is wide open.
You miss one of the major points in the article, and that is that CMT is not really about the Ultra IV being a fully CMT processor. This is about the Niagra chip. The Niagra chip is truely a CMT processor.
The reason this is so is because it functions as both a chip multi-processor and as a multi-threaded core (although I think I'd consider their multi-threaded cores to be fine-grained multi-threading rather then SMT but thats a different story altogether). While IBM's power5 offers these same advantages (dual core, 2 way SMT cores) this is 4 threads per processor and not overly impressive.
The Niagra chip in comparison to IBM (and upcoming Intel dualcore/SMT designs) is based on the assumption that at higher clock speeds the cpu is rarely fully utitlized (while the P4 can retire up to 3 instructions per cycle many apps, particularly data-intensive apps have an IPC of less than 1). The chip contains 8 cores with 4 threads being executed on each core. This means 32 threads can run concurrently. Sure no single thread will run as fast as it would on a NetBurst, athlon64, or power chip, but the combined throughput is enormous. Assuming each runs at ~ 1/4 the speed of their counterpart, that still gives us 8 threads on a single chip. This is enormous, and will have a major impact on database design (I'm currently doing research on SMT's effect on database algorithms) and the payoffs can be great (as can standard prefetching).
I wouldn't reccomend writing off CMT as a marketing buzzword etc. The era of throughput computing is upon us, lets just hope Oracle and the other per-processor vendors change their liscencing to something that correlates with TPC performance or some other metric that still has meaning, otherwise companies are better off with a couple massively parallel single core chips that cost a whole lot more and generate a whole lot more power for the performance they produce.
If you haven't found music that you like from the past 5-10 years you must not be looking hard enough. There are so many bands out there I discover everyday.
Granted I normally discover bands that have been out for 10 years and then go pick up their back catalob but they're there. And ten years from now I'll be picking up cds (or whatever) from bands that just started today etc.
The problem is tracking down these bands. What I've found that works great is track down the origins of your favorite bands. Find what bands they enjoy playing with, find what bands they influenced and what bands influenced them. follows roots and follow branches (not to be confused with a jethro tull album by a similar name). I am a big fan of the minneapolis music scene (past and present) and have found it highly rewarding finding out about these bands. I also found links to completely unrelated bands that are a completley diffent style of music and from another part of the country.
this method works great. Its especially fun playing 7 degrees of seperation between bands in your collection.
Anyhow, finding new bands is where your napsters and kazaa come into play. I read on band X's message board that band Y is great. I won't go buy band Y's cd because of that. However I do go download some of band Y's song. If I like it within a year or so I'll purchase one or more of their cds. Its the way I work.
I tend to enjoy buying the physical product. its good to own something. Also buying used (normally off of ebay) I generally pay ~$10 for a cd after shipping. This is less than what itunes charges assuming the cd is more than 10 tracks (or does itunes still offer 9.99 albums) and I also geet the artwork and no restrictions.
The idea of using a second core to prefetch is not really a new idea, and actually (at least for Intel chips) is not really a smart idea.
A more useful practice is the use of speculative prefetching on SMT (i.e. Hyper-Threading) cpus, where one thread runs the code, and the other thread speculates ahead issuing prefetch instructions. Of course to really support this well you need to have a compiler optimized for generating a speculative thread to run ahead of the primary thread.
All this makes programming much more difficult. My approach to software prefetching (Im currently involved in research in using SMT and software prefetching in databases) follows a different model, and shows that using a software-pipelining approach works remarkably well to hiding main memory latency due to cache misses.
Of course this is in a database world where things are ordered... . However this approach could also be applied to a game where instead of iterating over objects running every detail for the object you do work on object 1, prefetch object 1's next memory reference, do the second stage of object 2 etc etc. It needs special consideration to be done properly, but if its the core of your algorithm, it can have dramatic effects on performance (particularly if your objects do not fit entirely within L2 cache, and require different parts of them to be loaded each iteration).
While a speculative thread can prefetch these objects the performance benefits of this thread yield roughly the same performance boost as simply using software-pipelining techniques, and leave the resources for a second thread to run simultaneously with the first. Although if a sufficient speculative prefetch thread compiler is created then that approach is much easier to use for everyday applications.
Doesn't the MPAA's anti-privacy program do just that? Lets say I own a cd. The day I buy it I rip it to my computer to protect it from damage as I normally do.
Now lets say my cd gets damaged so that I can no longer get the data off of it (but I still own the rights to listen to it), or in a somewhat more likely situation I'm a college student who keeps all their cds in a box somewhere because I have them all ripped. Lets say I leave that box at home because I don't want to worry about having a couple thousand dollars worth of cds with me and have no need to waste the space occupied by the cds as I don't listen to the actual cd.
Now lets say a few years back my roommate installed napster on my computer to download some songs during a party. Now I wanted to remove those songs, and not realizing what I was doing I installed the MPAA's antipiracy program thinking it would find the pirated mp3s and not touch my own (granted you'd have to be an idiot to do this).
I then go ahead and let it delete all my "pirated music" and lo and behold the MPAA has taken my mp3s and deleted the original. That seems to account for theft then (or maybe just a really stupid user).
I just don't think this sort of power input is feasible for most portable applications. I think of a quick example as my laptop. I have an ibook who's power adapter tends to get warm while under normal usage, but gets almost uncomfortably warm while recharging my battery. To the point where I don't think you could safely operate it much hotter.
Thinking about charging over a 5 minute time versus a 2 hour time (while it takes longer to charge then 2 hours the first 2 hours are so are the most intense portion of the charge and give the battery the majority of its charge) is scary. This gives us a factor of at least 30 times (assuming that only half the current used by the charger is for running the laptop and the other half goes for charging) more power needed by the invertor.
This technology is just simply not feasible for a laptop scale. The cables would be too thick, and the power supply would be entirely too hot. I don't want my powersupply to weigh more than my laptop (something apple has done a great job keeping small btw). Also the idea of a charger that size becomes quite expensive, especially considering how little it would be used to its full capacity. Unless houses come with DC invertors built in this doesn't make sense for most consumer electronics.
Cars are a different story. . . with one exception. I'd assume these batteries will cost a bit more then conventional Lithium Ion batteries... and conventional Lithium ion batteries already cost more per watt of stored energy then lead acid batteries. Assuming lead acid batteries cost about $80 (im underestimating for a reason), and a laptop battery costs at least that much. . . even if half of it is pure profit to the laptop manufacturer, thats probably at least $40 in battery costs. Well I'll tell you what I'm not going to start my car with a laptop battery.. . . Im not going to start one with 20 of them I don't think.
Seems the feasability of this technology may be more of a limiting factor afterall.
Phil
what could be interesting is the rise of a legal napsteresque service for TV shows. I guess it will be coming as fatter pipes arrive, but why can't we have a method of paying say $30-$50/month to watch unlimited amounts of shows on demand. Hell the networks could even throw commercials in there. You could have the ability to stop and rewind but the server could refuse to let you fastforward the commercials. This could work great. Go get popcorn in the commercial, come back 10 seconds too late and rewind. Sure its not as good as the free stuff on torrents, but its the only option that would keep shows being made. It would outdate cable instantaneously and be highly convenient to those of us who want to watch tv whenver we want and what we want.
Sure we'll never get rid of cable/broadcast tv completely as theirs local news, and other realtime stuff, but for entertainment purposes such a system would be amazing.
Slashdot Mirror
The answer is pretty straightforward to some of us. It has to do with hardware support. All the hardware on any mac machine I buy is supported under OSX. Sure there's less third party hardware, but it depends what you need.
I have an ibook that I've been using since October and I love the thing. After using Linux for 3 or 4 years its nice to have a machine (especially a laptop) that just works.
Anyone who has ever tried to get wireless working under linux knows what I mean. Its just a hack. If you have this card you need this driver package, this card uses this, this one is built into the kernel, this one requires ndis wrappers etc. Not to mention that if you want something besides basic wireless you're in trouble. WEP wasn't too hard to do, but after countless hours trying to get 802.1x working I gave up on wireless under Linux (my school requires 802.1x authentication on its APs).
Phil
... Actually I'm pretty sure the defendent could come to some sort of agreement that any files found to be illegal for other reasons (such as shady business deals etc) can not be used as evidence in future trials. He might have to outline exact stuff thats hypothetically there, but I'm pretty sure such a plea for privacy would be respected to the extent allowable. I'm pretty sure such tactics have been used before in other types of cases, but I don't really know for sure.
Phil
have you read the article? In this case their is testimony from the girl. There is also likely countless other testimony. The usage of the PGP program was an accessory. It has not been used as primary evidence, but could possibly be used to explain why the photos allegedly taken were not found on his computer (as could simply deleting the photos and writing over the drive).
Its just like in a case of convicting someone of a stealing a car because they have video tape of the man stealing the car, eyewitnesses etc, but at the end of the day no one can find the car. The car could have been hidden or destroyed or chopped up etc. If none of these things were possible the fact that the defendent didn't have the car would likely mean he couldn't have stolen it.
phil
This case could be more analagous with the following added components:
.
FBI: You Tried to launder money to the Soviets, didn't you?
Person: No. I didn't.
FBI: We caught you exchanging money with operatives in soviet russia.
Person: Uh . .
FBI: We also found this encryption software on your computer. You are likely to have something to hide.
Person: No. And if I did, that would be none of your business
FBI to jury: Yup. He's guilty.
Such a true quote. I personally like Ronald Reagans quote when the idea of national id's came up at a cabinet meeting "Why not brand all babies at birth?" Of course such a remark was made out of sarcasm back then, but would saddly be considerered today.
Phil
Soviet Russia taught people how to share too. . . The concept is called communism, and it only works on a large scale when someone points a gun at your head.
Sure the big corporations may have more than moeny than they need in your eyes, but I'm sure in someone elses eyes you have more money than you need. This trickles down all the way to the bottom. If we all gave what we didn't need, everyone would be living at the poorest level. We wouldn't bring the poor up to the level of the middle class. Its just the way humanity works.
Phil
Actually I don't think its possible to have more than one active AGP bus. Thats one of the reasons PCI express is a much nicer solution than AGP. So the onboard video on boards does in fact tend to be useless. However onboard video is not standard and normally adds $5-$15 to the cost of the motherboard (unlike onboard sound and LAN which tend to be in the chipset). phil
First there's a difference between heat pipes and water cooling. Water cooling means active cooling whereas heat pipes are passive. Heat pipes are, and will become more common in a system, particularly in smaller systems where size is constrained and we wish to minimize weight (large copper heat sinks are anything but light). And while big name retailers are introducing water cooled systems, they aren't exactly cheap machines. The economies of scale might help them lower the cost of water cooling, but I doubt they will that that much. They require extra space in the case (more shipping costs), a larger power supply or a separate powersupply for the pump. A pump that works reliably, a radiator as well as hoses that won't deteriorate, etc. These things aren't that cheap. Also even if these only added a little (say $50) to the cost, the hardware that would benefit from water cooling is not exactly cheap. Most users are using integrated video, so we don't have to worry about that, as for processors, only a 3GHz or above P4 is really going to gain from it. And the dual cores, while producing more heat are only for enthusiasts. On top of that add that fact that most users want a machine thats easy to maintain, not necessarily blazing fast. Also the extra noise made by a water cooled system isn't going to be something people want. The current trend in processor design has been for lower power cpus (i.e. the new 90nm Athlon 64's, and the Bania's core or whatever it is for the Pentium-M). The idea of water cooling will likely stay for the enthusiasts market. Phil
I'm not quite sure what world you're living in if you think this is the case. Liquid cooling will become more common for the enthusiasts, however it will not become "widespread". First laptop sales make up over half of pc sales today, and they're not going to go water-cooling.
On top of that the average consumer is buying the cheaper computers. Most people use their computer to browse the web, check email, write/read office docs and possibly watch videos. Maybe even organize pictures taken. These are fine on todays low end pcs (actually many of todays lowend pcs are as fast as the fastest pc I own).
Going the water cooling route will easily add another $100 to the cost of a computer, and the market isn't really there. Plus all the computers purchased by schools and companies, how many of them will be watercooled. Not to mention the fact that servers can't be producing that much heat or the rooms will melt (a water cooled system will create more heat then an air cooled system).
Phil
Honestly are the computer skills really that different. Most companies hiring kids out of high school aren't expecting the kids to be masters of MS Office. Most schools teach kids the basics of office. Such as writing letters, changing fonts, making a presentation, etc. If the school teaches it properly, switching from using Open Office to MS Office is about as difficult as transforming from using office 2000 to xp. Its just not a big deal, the concepts are the exact same.
Now of course there are exceptions to this general rule. There are some advanced features in MS Excel that I have yet to be able to do within open office. However I doubt the high schools are coverning those things in the first place.
A company hiring kids out of high school is not generally expecting the best and the brightest (as those students are generally going to college at least in the USA). They may expect computer skills, but to the extent that they know how to check things on the web, use a mouse, type documents etc. Hell for the most part I think schools should scrap half the computer stuff they teach kids. Do they really learn anything when they play with putting a million clip arts in a document? They'd be far better off just teaching them to type as well as business skills. they'll go much further than knowing how to make hideous word documents with flashy graphics, or worthless powerpoint presentations with a million sounds and transitional effects. Stick to the basics.
Phil
Its definately true that Dell gets cpus from Intel for cheap. Really cheap. Some of the systems listed on Dells page you look at and think "I couldn't build a system for this price myself". They just have a major discount. They also tend to get certain products first, and have them guaranteed.
This is also coupled with the fact that AMD doesn't have the customer recognition that Intel does. Dude I'm getting a Dell is followed by a man in a bunny suit. thats the way things are. On top of it one of AMDs strengths is the enthusiast market (which much of slashdot is). This market runs counter to dells market.
However where this decision doesn't make sense is in their server line. I doubt Intel gives dell a massive price break on Xeon chips (like they tend to with p4's), and I doubt Dell having Opteron chips would lose dell too much of the costs dealing with Intel, but I could be wrong. Basically with the performance of the Xeon relative to the opteron for servers the Opteron looks highly attrractive. From speed, memory performance, heat, and price standpoints. Not selling those chips seems crazy, but who knows. Maybe dell has something up their sleeves.
Phil
I don't know about that, I don't have statistics to back me up at all, but I don't think the housing laborers are mostly migrant workers. Most migrant workers are only here for certain seasons of the year and work doing farm labor doing unskilled labor. While certain jobs in building houses allow unskilled labor, many jobs in construction pay decently. They do this because construction is hard work, and many people are too lazy to do it. Also you have many concerns with the quality of construction, insurance companies etc. I think generalizing that most contractors use cheap migrant labor just doesn't hold. Phil
I know that the federal government has the right to tax the rich for all they want. However the government does not have the right to redistribute this wealth in any manner they see fit. The constitution laid out a groundwork for what the federal government could spend money on.
Section. 8.
Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Clause 2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Clause 4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
Clause 5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
Clause 6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Clause 9: To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
Clause 10: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
Clause 11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
Clause 12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
Clause 13: To provide and maintain a Navy;
Clause 14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Clause 17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, byCession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And
Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Nowhere in this list does it say that the federal government has the right to support social security systems, medicare, welfare etc etc. These were allowed during the great deppression, and even then people talked of needing a constitutional ammendment to get away with them. Back then of course the programs were small time and allowed but over the years they've been continuously expanded to the monstrosity we have today.
Nowhere in the constitution do i see the rights you discuss given to the federal government.
Phil
Because not wanting to be forced to give money to the government is evil? What? The government laid out laws and they're following them. Some of the laws follow natural arguments (do not kill do not steal etc) and some of them follow artificial arguments.
Then the government goes and points a gun to your head and makes you follow all of these laws. If they don't there's anarchy.
However, I personally feel it is absurd the amount the government steals from people. While taxes are needed to run the government, build roads and arguably schools (although I wonder if the private sector could do a better job there... couldn't do much worse) as well as the securing the defense of our nation.
However the constitution did not give the right for the government to take money from the rich for the sole purpose of giving it to the poor (at least not in the US, some revisionist judges have however allowed it). People who declare that the rich owe it to the poor sicken me. Someone works harder or smarter and ends up with more money than those who didnt does not owe money to those who didn't work as hard or were not as smart. Often they more than rewarded the others through the jobs they created or the services and/or products they created that make everyones lives better.
Arguing that someone who wants to save some of their own money from the government is morally wrong is a morally bankrupt argument. While I believe in some of slashdot's philosophies, the socialist rhetoric passed around gets old fast.
Phil
I agree, although with stipulations. Linux is not ready for laptops. I have an ibook for that very reason. However Linux is mostly ready for desktop replacement style laptops. When battery life is not an issue (so the importance of APCI/APM support is minimal), many problems go away. The real problem comes with the state of wireless support. People claim that well obviously things won't work right with cheap wireless cards like those built into most laptops, but thats a load. Look at regular ethernet cards. I tend to buy loads of realtek 83159 cards because they're cheap and work fine under Linux. Why can't the same be done with wireless. Besides every wireless card has different types of drivers, and even if you get your card to work, there are issues. Try using 802.1x authentication under Linux (which my school requires). I fighted with xsupplicant for over a month of my old thinkpad before giving up and deciding I need an ibook. Now that I have an ibook I have the best of both worlds. I have a unix friendly enviornment that easily interoperates with my linux workstations, and I still have working wireless, accelerated video, 5 hours of battery life, most linux apps run under it, MS Office runs on it (I know its the darkside, but its needed) and everything is plug and play compatible. Most of all things just work. I don't worry about anything. In this day and age when laptops are becoming permanantly network attached devices whats the need for a fancy hardware support. Let the laptop be a graphical terminal and everyone will be happy. Phil
all functions are supported???
Last I looked you couldn't use wireless in linux on an ibook or powerbook, and it doesn't look like there will be anytime soon. Also how is the battery life under Linux? I haven't tried it but was wondering if its comparable to the 5 hours I get when using it (with wireless) under OSX.
I also have an ibook, and find it much easier to use OSX over a linux on it. While I haven't installed a full distro on it (I don't want to reformat) I really don't know why I would want to mess with it. Most importantly not having wireless is a major turnoff to a lapotp. Also, if I want to run Linux apps I log into one of many linux/solaris machines I have access to. Why should I run something computationally intensive on my 1.3GHz G4 when I have Athlon64's and dual P4 Xeon workstations that can run them for me.
Too many geeks a laptop is merely a glorified terminal. But a terminal that can also run Office apps and other commercial software is a double advantage. No amount of talking about the virtues of Linux will make up for the fact that certain applications just arent available, and some of us either can't use the oss alternatives (such as Office suites) or don't have the time to learn to use them.
Phil
While its not fully supported there are ways to make life easier concerning the middle click addiction.
... If only the aqua version of xchat supported that life would be much easier.
I'm also addicted to middle click pasting from my linux days and the transition to my ibook was made a bit rough because of it. While some friends of mine who also use macs make fun of me for de-macing my mac (or further unixifying it) it makes life easier.
Here are some options for you. First get yourself a mouse thats nicely supported... such as an intellimouse. These allow you to configure actions to the middle click button. This works as paste for me (although I disable its paste functionality in webbrowsers for obvious reasons). Theres also a firefox extension that automagically copies the selected text to the clipboard. Get that. Third, you need a new terminal app. I reccomend iterm. it supports tabbed terminals (a must) and can be configured to automatically copy selected text to the clipboard.
There might be a few other tricks to help ease into the mac way of life, but overall I find things are generally easier to use on a mac then linux.
Phil
""The iPod, PowerBooks and mini Macs are cool products," Turner said. "The by-product is that people are buying these products for form over function. They say it looks pretty and then buy it but don't secure it. As Apple increases its market share, it will be a legitimate target"."
Maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but am I the only one concerned with this statement? Are they trying to imply that ipods are going to get rooted? I just can't take any article seriously when it implies that an ipod will be directly attacked. Sure your pc might get a virus that attacks an ipod if its attached, but thats a different scenario then a virus that spreads between ipods (thank god they don't have bluetooth).
Phil
The real question here is would the current music industry survive a complete and total move to a subscription based service. This becomes questionable. They're doing it now because theres money involved. . . Quite a bit of money.
.remember divx). Ah the future is wide open.
However a total transition would mean that no single band is making the money. Possibly leading to one of two extremes. One, the record labels continue only pouring their money into a couple of bands (and their own wallets). To an extreme not seen today. These are the reason people sign up for service. Music becomes completely manufactured etc. Why bother supporting these smaller bands.
Then you have independent labels who if they're not getting money from the subscription services (or aren't involved or getting enough) cut back musicians etc. They fall off the wayside. On top of this we have no easy distinction of who to pay for what unless we base sales purely on downloads. This works great for major labels, unless people don't go for it.
Under a second extreme we have the record labels stop spending money to produce hit making acts. Afterall they are locked into deals with napster, and itunes or whoever to distribute their content forever. 90% of their income is now made off these deals. Theres only 2 music companies (or maybe only one major monopoly by this point). Music turns into a cash cow and its you're either on their train or not, no point in spending money on expensive videos etc because everyone pays the same. The labels won't like this (unless they have more and more premium content). The industry starts to collapse on itself.
The industry doesn't like that and if a subscription service couldn't stand in parallel with their current model they won't allow for it, and people who have spent $15/month for 5 years because they thought it was cheaper all of a sudden own zero music to listen to. Sounds wonderful as well.
Of course their are other extremes in between, or the possibility that bands end up taking control of the industry by refusing to go along with their tactics. By not needing these record labels to distribute their music (thank you internet) and the production can be done much cheaper thanks to rapidly advancing computer technology, they can make it on their own.
The futures likely to be a combination of all of these (with the added thought of a pay-per-listen strategy that I could imagine the industry come up with. .
Phil
You miss one of the major points in the article, and that is that CMT is not really about the Ultra IV being a fully CMT processor. This is about the Niagra chip. The Niagra chip is truely a CMT processor.
The reason this is so is because it functions as both a chip multi-processor and as a multi-threaded core (although I think I'd consider their multi-threaded cores to be fine-grained multi-threading rather then SMT but thats a different story altogether). While IBM's power5 offers these same advantages (dual core, 2 way SMT cores) this is 4 threads per processor and not overly impressive.
The Niagra chip in comparison to IBM (and upcoming Intel dualcore/SMT designs) is based on the assumption that at higher clock speeds the cpu is rarely fully utitlized (while the P4 can retire up to 3 instructions per cycle many apps, particularly data-intensive apps have an IPC of less than 1). The chip contains 8 cores with 4 threads being executed on each core. This means 32 threads can run concurrently. Sure no single thread will run as fast as it would on a NetBurst, athlon64, or power chip, but the combined throughput is enormous. Assuming each runs at ~ 1/4 the speed of their counterpart, that still gives us 8 threads on a single chip. This is enormous, and will have a major impact on database design (I'm currently doing research on SMT's effect on database algorithms) and the payoffs can be great (as can standard prefetching).
I wouldn't reccomend writing off CMT as a marketing buzzword etc. The era of throughput computing is upon us, lets just hope Oracle and the other per-processor vendors change their liscencing to something that correlates with TPC performance or some other metric that still has meaning, otherwise companies are better off with a couple massively parallel single core chips that cost a whole lot more and generate a whole lot more power for the performance they produce.
Phil
If you haven't found music that you like from the past 5-10 years you must not be looking hard enough. There are so many bands out there I discover everyday.
Granted I normally discover bands that have been out for 10 years and then go pick up their back catalob but they're there. And ten years from now I'll be picking up cds (or whatever) from bands that just started today etc.
The problem is tracking down these bands. What I've found that works great is track down the origins of your favorite bands. Find what bands they enjoy playing with, find what bands they influenced and what bands influenced them. follows roots and follow branches (not to be confused with a jethro tull album by a similar name). I am a big fan of the minneapolis music scene (past and present) and have found it highly rewarding finding out about these bands. I also found links to completely unrelated bands that are a completley diffent style of music and from another part of the country.
this method works great. Its especially fun playing 7 degrees of seperation between bands in your collection.
Anyhow, finding new bands is where your napsters and kazaa come into play. I read on band X's message board that band Y is great. I won't go buy band Y's cd because of that. However I do go download some of band Y's song. If I like it within a year or so I'll purchase one or more of their cds. Its the way I work.
I tend to enjoy buying the physical product. its good to own something. Also buying used (normally off of ebay) I generally pay ~$10 for a cd after shipping. This is less than what itunes charges assuming the cd is more than 10 tracks (or does itunes still offer 9.99 albums) and I also geet the artwork and no restrictions.
Phil
The idea of using a second core to prefetch is not really a new idea, and actually (at least for Intel chips) is not really a smart idea.
.. . However this approach could also be applied to a game where instead of iterating over objects running every detail for the object you do work on object 1, prefetch object 1's next memory reference, do the second stage of object 2 etc etc. It needs special consideration to be done properly, but if its the core of your algorithm, it can have dramatic effects on performance (particularly if your objects do not fit entirely within L2 cache, and require different parts of them to be loaded each iteration).
A more useful practice is the use of speculative prefetching on SMT (i.e. Hyper-Threading) cpus, where one thread runs the code, and the other thread speculates ahead issuing prefetch instructions. Of course to really support this well you need to have a compiler optimized for generating a speculative thread to run ahead of the primary thread.
All this makes programming much more difficult. My approach to software prefetching (Im currently involved in research in using SMT and software prefetching in databases) follows a different model, and shows that using a software-pipelining approach works remarkably well to hiding main memory latency due to cache misses.
Of course this is in a database world where things are ordered.
While a speculative thread can prefetch these objects the performance benefits of this thread yield roughly the same performance boost as simply using software-pipelining techniques, and leave the resources for a second thread to run simultaneously with the first. Although if a sufficient speculative prefetch thread compiler is created then that approach is much easier to use for everyday applications.
Phil
Doesn't the MPAA's anti-privacy program do just that? Lets say I own a cd. The day I buy it I rip it to my computer to protect it from damage as I normally do.
Now lets say my cd gets damaged so that I can no longer get the data off of it (but I still own the rights to listen to it), or in a somewhat more likely situation I'm a college student who keeps all their cds in a box somewhere because I have them all ripped. Lets say I leave that box at home because I don't want to worry about having a couple thousand dollars worth of cds with me and have no need to waste the space occupied by the cds as I don't listen to the actual cd.
Now lets say a few years back my roommate installed napster on my computer to download some songs during a party. Now I wanted to remove those songs, and not realizing what I was doing I installed the MPAA's antipiracy program thinking it would find the pirated mp3s and not touch my own (granted you'd have to be an idiot to do this).
I then go ahead and let it delete all my "pirated music" and lo and behold the MPAA has taken my mp3s and deleted the original. That seems to account for theft then (or maybe just a really stupid user).
Phil
I just don't think this sort of power input is feasible for most portable applications. I think of a quick example as my laptop. I have an ibook who's power adapter tends to get warm while under normal usage, but gets almost uncomfortably warm while recharging my battery. To the point where I don't think you could safely operate it much hotter. Thinking about charging over a 5 minute time versus a 2 hour time (while it takes longer to charge then 2 hours the first 2 hours are so are the most intense portion of the charge and give the battery the majority of its charge) is scary. This gives us a factor of at least 30 times (assuming that only half the current used by the charger is for running the laptop and the other half goes for charging) more power needed by the invertor. This technology is just simply not feasible for a laptop scale. The cables would be too thick, and the power supply would be entirely too hot. I don't want my powersupply to weigh more than my laptop (something apple has done a great job keeping small btw). Also the idea of a charger that size becomes quite expensive, especially considering how little it would be used to its full capacity. Unless houses come with DC invertors built in this doesn't make sense for most consumer electronics. Cars are a different story. . . with one exception. I'd assume these batteries will cost a bit more then conventional Lithium Ion batteries... and conventional Lithium ion batteries already cost more per watt of stored energy then lead acid batteries. Assuming lead acid batteries cost about $80 (im underestimating for a reason), and a laptop battery costs at least that much. . . even if half of it is pure profit to the laptop manufacturer, thats probably at least $40 in battery costs. Well I'll tell you what I'm not going to start my car with a laptop battery.. . . Im not going to start one with 20 of them I don't think. Seems the feasability of this technology may be more of a limiting factor afterall. Phil
what could be interesting is the rise of a legal napsteresque service for TV shows. I guess it will be coming as fatter pipes arrive, but why can't we have a method of paying say $30-$50/month to watch unlimited amounts of shows on demand. Hell the networks could even throw commercials in there. You could have the ability to stop and rewind but the server could refuse to let you fastforward the commercials. This could work great. Go get popcorn in the commercial, come back 10 seconds too late and rewind. Sure its not as good as the free stuff on torrents, but its the only option that would keep shows being made. It would outdate cable instantaneously and be highly convenient to those of us who want to watch tv whenver we want and what we want.
Sure we'll never get rid of cable/broadcast tv completely as theirs local news, and other realtime stuff, but for entertainment purposes such a system would be amazing.
Phil