Actually, benchmarks DO have some real-world meaning - but only for comparison.
If your specific needs happen to be similar to the things benchmarks stress, then you can expect the results to be relevant. If your needs differ wildly from benchmark methods, then you can expect the results to be irrelevant - but most likely they will be equally irrelevant.
Benchmark performance is, at the very least, a better indication of relative performance than clock speed of cache size.
Fact is, few end users actually NEED the kind of power modern processors provide. How often does your typical web surfing, middle class consumer see a CPU usage above even 10%? Most of that power goes into running heavier and heavier GUIs and OSs instead of actual work anyway. Anyone who would actually use a machine for all it's worth will probably know enouh about computer systems to know if a benchmark rating is useful for them or not. =Smidge=
This problem has nothing to do with the "Wiki style" of editing. As you (indirectly) said: The more people that are involved, the harder it is to maintain consistency. This is true for *anything* Despite all the bellyaching, Wiki software is a very useful tool. It is not the tool's fault if it is used for the wrong job or is not used properly.
That said, I think Wiki software *is* the right tool for this job, but it must be used correctly. Put proper restrictions on who can edit the pages. Draft standards for layout and format and *enforce them*. And, of course, a framework of some sort (ToC as you suggested) would go a long way towards an organized and usable documentation archive. =Smidge=
Yeah, they just don't build 'em like they used to. I remember when I got my first Pentium system back in the late 1990s, the cache pipeline burst and I spent that whole evening picking bits out of the carpet.
I suppose one way to look at it is: If you make the average consumer liable, they will be that much less inclined to not buy the pirated software to begin with. No customers = no pirates.
Not that I completely agree with that theory, but it's certainly a valid take on it. =Smidge=
Music is one of those things that you just don't need a brick-and-mortar shop to sell, or even a physical item. I'm sure the established industry will do everything it can to blame illegal file sharing for this trend, but that is only a vain attempt to prop up a dead business and keep a whole lot of useless people employed collecting big paychecks.
The simple fact: Their business model is obsolete. I would even go so far to say that the recording industry as a whole is obsolete now that the people who actually make the music have to power to self-publish and self-promote to the entire world.
Trees are farmed, as opposed to cutting natural forests (although that still occurs, it's usually part of the process of expanding tree farming) That means trees are replanted. Moreover, they are usually replanted faster than they are cut down because they take years to grow, and they need to be prepared for future demand.
The net result is that North America is actually getting greener. 0.12% annually through the 90s and 0.05% annually since 2000. =Smidge=
It may look like a bunch of piles of paper, but it's actually a distributed, chronologically ordered, stack-based filing system. Statistically, the most recently viewed/changed file will need to be accessed the most frequently in the short term, so those files are kept near the top of the file stack for quicker access.
Files further down on the stack are, of course, compressed. =Smidge=
I don't disagree with anything you said. However, you did illustrate my point perfectly: That the relative merits of a technology has little bearing on it's overall success.
Betamax - Higher quality, more and better features, lost out because Sony suffocated it with licensing issues. There was nothing particularly exotic about the Betamax format that made it more expensive - that was all Sony's fault.
Mac vs. PC: Same as Betamax. Macs could have swept the business world if they made it easier for third party hardware and software developers.
Diesel vs. Gasoline: Overzealous legislation prevents adoption.
Dreamcast vs. PS2: "Playstation" brand had more market power, thanks to the last few hardware screwups by SEGA and the success of the original Playstation.
Government sucks at picking the winning technologies whereas markets are quite good at it.
The "winning" technology is not always the best technology. Marketing (eg: feeding bullshit to consumers) plays a much more significant role than technical superiority. A few examples off the top of my head...
- Betamax was a better technology than VHS. - The Macintosh was a better computer than the (early) IBM PCs. - Diesel engines are a better technology that gasoline engines (compare US and Europe adoptation) - The SEGA Dreamcast console had better hardware than the Playstation 2.
Funny thing is, solar and wind power are actually feasible energy sources in this case.
I have a 40 gallon air compressor in my garage (and a set of pneumatic tools to go with them). I could install some solar panels on my roof and a small air compressor in my garage, attaching it to the 40 gallon tank.
It wouldn't recover pressure like the 1.5 HP electric motor, but who cares? I'm gone most of the day, so the solar panels can do a "trickle charge" on the air tank. If the car's range is 200km (~124 miles) that's actually a week's worth of mileage for me! It can take all week to build up the required pressure, and I can fall back on the electric motor for a quick recharge or if I'm using the pneumatic tools.
I refer you to items 1b and 1c. It's not about a "healthy marketplace", it's about modeling your product offerings based on what the vast majority of the public wants to buy. The 1%-2% of consumers that don't want those options can either suck it down or roll their own.
I'm sure you're the kind of person who can and does build his own PC from store bought components. (To be fair, that probably describes the vast majority of/. readers...) But I can't help but wonder; do you make your own cases out of tin foil?
Let's look at this from a business point of view.
1) Offer Windows as the de-facto OS.
1a) Easy-as-pie mass cloning of software to all machines: one size fits all. (Also simplifies inventory)
1b) Virtually no support required. OS problems get differred to Microsoft.
1c) Huge volume discount from Microsoft = profit margin on resold licenses. (Self evident? No conspiracy here)
1d) Single source for software minimizes problems with hardware revisions
2) Offer multiple "flavors" of operating systems
2a) Reduced efficiency of inventory control, stocking more types of preconfigured machines and/or extra handling for each machine sold
2b) Support will be required for anything the vendor doesn't support themselves. (How many non-Enterprise Linux distribution offer official end-user support?)
2c) Reduced profit margins
2d) Offering N operating systems requires N times more testing and tweaking with each hardware revision (And we all know how awesome Linux hardware support is, right?)
So when it boils down, is there enough end-user demand to warrant offering non-Windows computers? The answer, it seems, is "No." As a business person, I'd have a hard time justifying the costs of offering product options when so few of my sales would actually use them. =Smidge=
It matters because soon as a major PC manufacturer starts shipping machines without the Windows tax, we can finally get some real competition in the OS world (how ironic that if I want to try free Linux, I usually have to buy Windows - which comes with my PC - and I can't get a discount if I don't want Windows).
Maybe nobody wants to mass market them because they're *gasp* not in demand! Shame on them for not basing their business decisions on your personal ideology. I mean, really... =Smidge=
Structural engineers tend to have more sane timescales and unlike software folk never have to hear the dreaded words "that's too long we'll just buy a package".
I'm sure you'd like to think that, but the fact is everyone gets those dreaded phone calls about how the deadline has been pushed up or the design changed the week (sometimes the day) before it's due.
Personal anecdote (I'm a Mechanical engineer who designs HVAC system installations in commercial buildings): Project was originally slated for September, suddenly due in March. We lost six months of design time, with only 3 months to actually do the work (nobody told us until December the year before!). On top of that, the architect also lost that design time - so we're trying to draw up our MEP work when the building design itself isn't even drafted yet.
Not that this particular architectural firm ever gives up time to do our stuff after they've completed their design anyway, always working up to the deadline themselves, but that time they didn't even know where they were going...
A common phrase around our office: "We never have time to do it right, but we have time to do it twice." =Smidge=
10 minute drive to the gym (at an average fo 30MPH, 5 miles)
1 or 2 hours in the gym.
10 minute drive back.
So 80 - 140 minutes total. At a brisk 5MPH jog, you can get to the gym and back on foot in 120 minutes and on bike (~8MPH) in 75 minutes. You get a better quality workout, pay no gym fees, and it doesn't cost you anything in gas for your car.
And this doesn't count the 10 minutes or so most people spend driving aroung the lot, looking for a parking space that's closest to the door so that don't have to walk before they get to the gym.
Now if you're into serious strength training or something, a trip to the gym might be justified. If all you want is basic energy-burning exercise it's actually more of a waste. =Smidge=
The article clearly states that they were volunteers, so there is a good chance they did it on their own time.
I wouldn't think the wok/dish is not the expensive part, the transceiver is. Unless the $80 for the "small dish" doesn't include the cost of the electronics I'm not sure how much was actually saved in that respect. Kudos regardless!
The article mentions that there's a how-to on the 'net somewhere. Anyone got a link? It should be added to the summary... =Smidge=
Bush's administration f&@ked up in Iraq, and now he's certainly not coming back next time.
I should hope not, because there's supposed to be a two-term limit on the Presidential office. There isn't supposed to be a "next time" for him.
Otherwise I agree. The government is supposed to be a servant of the people, not the other way around, and the closing and dismissal of the petition should itself be a focus of public action. What we (both in the US and the UK) really need is a mechanism to have recall elections at the federal level.
Elected officials need to be held accountable to their constituents, and that just doesn't happen. =Smidge=
In the ideal situation you would have some sort of nonchemical energy storage mechanism embedded inside of you, like perhaps a pair of counterrotating flywheels or something (but imagine what happens if the bearings fail) and you'd charge your system through the port.
I'd prefer a fuel cell that runs off of the glucose and oxygen already present in the bloodstream... =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
Mostly Harmless.
=Smidge=
Actually, benchmarks DO have some real-world meaning - but only for comparison.
If your specific needs happen to be similar to the things benchmarks stress, then you can expect the results to be relevant. If your needs differ wildly from benchmark methods, then you can expect the results to be irrelevant - but most likely they will be equally irrelevant.
Benchmark performance is, at the very least, a better indication of relative performance than clock speed of cache size.
Fact is, few end users actually NEED the kind of power modern processors provide. How often does your typical web surfing, middle class consumer see a CPU usage above even 10%? Most of that power goes into running heavier and heavier GUIs and OSs instead of actual work anyway. Anyone who would actually use a machine for all it's worth will probably know enouh about computer systems to know if a benchmark rating is useful for them or not.
=Smidge=
This problem has nothing to do with the "Wiki style" of editing. As you (indirectly) said: The more people that are involved, the harder it is to maintain consistency. This is true for *anything* Despite all the bellyaching, Wiki software is a very useful tool. It is not the tool's fault if it is used for the wrong job or is not used properly.
That said, I think Wiki software *is* the right tool for this job, but it must be used correctly. Put proper restrictions on who can edit the pages. Draft standards for layout and format and *enforce them*. And, of course, a framework of some sort (ToC as you suggested) would go a long way towards an organized and usable documentation archive.
=Smidge=
I trademarked the phrase "So pay up(TM)" - you'll be hearing from my lawyers.
=Smidge=
I thought it was more like a warning label of sorts.
"Poison" - Do not eat or drink
"Flammable" - Keep away from flames and hot surfaces
"Windows" - Do not waste your money on this item
=Smidge=
Yeah, they just don't build 'em like they used to. I remember when I got my first Pentium system back in the late 1990s, the cache pipeline burst and I spent that whole evening picking bits out of the carpet.
=Smidge=
I suppose one way to look at it is: If you make the average consumer liable, they will be that much less inclined to not buy the pirated software to begin with. No customers = no pirates.
Not that I completely agree with that theory, but it's certainly a valid take on it.
=Smidge=
Music is one of those things that you just don't need a brick-and-mortar shop to sell, or even a physical item. I'm sure the established industry will do everything it can to blame illegal file sharing for this trend, but that is only a vain attempt to prop up a dead business and keep a whole lot of useless people employed collecting big paychecks.
The simple fact: Their business model is obsolete. I would even go so far to say that the recording industry as a whole is obsolete now that the people who actually make the music have to power to self-publish and self-promote to the entire world.
=Smidge=
Trees are farmed, as opposed to cutting natural forests (although that still occurs, it's usually part of the process of expanding tree farming) That means trees are replanted. Moreover, they are usually replanted faster than they are cut down because they take years to grow, and they need to be prepared for future demand.
The net result is that North America is actually getting greener. 0.12% annually through the 90s and 0.05% annually since 2000.
=Smidge=
It may look like a bunch of piles of paper, but it's actually a distributed, chronologically ordered, stack-based filing system. Statistically, the most recently viewed/changed file will need to be accessed the most frequently in the short term, so those files are kept near the top of the file stack for quicker access.
Files further down on the stack are, of course, compressed.
=Smidge=
I don't disagree with anything you said. However, you did illustrate my point perfectly: That the relative merits of a technology has little bearing on it's overall success.
Betamax - Higher quality, more and better features, lost out because Sony suffocated it with licensing issues. There was nothing particularly exotic about the Betamax format that made it more expensive - that was all Sony's fault.
Mac vs. PC: Same as Betamax. Macs could have swept the business world if they made it easier for third party hardware and software developers.
Diesel vs. Gasoline: Overzealous legislation prevents adoption.
Dreamcast vs. PS2: "Playstation" brand had more market power, thanks to the last few hardware screwups by SEGA and the success of the original Playstation.
=Smidge=
Government sucks at picking the winning technologies whereas markets are quite good at it.
The "winning" technology is not always the best technology. Marketing (eg: feeding bullshit to consumers) plays a much more significant role than technical superiority. A few examples off the top of my head...
- Betamax was a better technology than VHS.
- The Macintosh was a better computer than the (early) IBM PCs.
- Diesel engines are a better technology that gasoline engines (compare US and Europe adoptation)
- The SEGA Dreamcast console had better hardware than the Playstation 2.
=Smidge=
Funny thing is, solar and wind power are actually feasible energy sources in this case.
I have a 40 gallon air compressor in my garage (and a set of pneumatic tools to go with them). I could install some solar panels on my roof and a small air compressor in my garage, attaching it to the 40 gallon tank.
It wouldn't recover pressure like the 1.5 HP electric motor, but who cares? I'm gone most of the day, so the solar panels can do a "trickle charge" on the air tank. If the car's range is 200km (~124 miles) that's actually a week's worth of mileage for me! It can take all week to build up the required pressure, and I can fall back on the electric motor for a quick recharge or if I'm using the pneumatic tools.
=Smidge=
Good call not linking it, that 825KB jpg for a header graphic would be sure to kill her bandwidth in mere seconds if it were linked from /.
(Not that I advocate the slashdotting of a website owned by someone who, after reading said website, clearly deserves it IMHO...)
=Smidge=
I refer you to items 1b and 1c. It's not about a "healthy marketplace", it's about modeling your product offerings based on what the vast majority of the public wants to buy. The 1%-2% of consumers that don't want those options can either suck it down or roll their own.
=Smidge=
I'm sure you're the kind of person who can and does build his own PC from store bought components. (To be fair, that probably describes the vast majority of /. readers...) But I can't help but wonder; do you make your own cases out of tin foil?
Let's look at this from a business point of view.
1) Offer Windows as the de-facto OS.
1a) Easy-as-pie mass cloning of software to all machines: one size fits all. (Also simplifies inventory)
1b) Virtually no support required. OS problems get differred to Microsoft.
1c) Huge volume discount from Microsoft = profit margin on resold licenses. (Self evident? No conspiracy here)
1d) Single source for software minimizes problems with hardware revisions
2) Offer multiple "flavors" of operating systems
2a) Reduced efficiency of inventory control, stocking more types of preconfigured machines and/or extra handling for each machine sold
2b) Support will be required for anything the vendor doesn't support themselves. (How many non-Enterprise Linux distribution offer official end-user support?)
2c) Reduced profit margins
2d) Offering N operating systems requires N times more testing and tweaking with each hardware revision (And we all know how awesome Linux hardware support is, right?)
So when it boils down, is there enough end-user demand to warrant offering non-Windows computers? The answer, it seems, is "No." As a business person, I'd have a hard time justifying the costs of offering product options when so few of my sales would actually use them.
=Smidge=
You're right, because it's absolutely impossible to acquire a PC without Windows these days.
Maybe nobody wants to mass market them because they're *gasp* not in demand! Shame on them for not basing their business decisions on your personal ideology. I mean, really...
=Smidge=
I'm sure you'd like to think that, but the fact is everyone gets those dreaded phone calls about how the deadline has been pushed up or the design changed the week (sometimes the day) before it's due.
Personal anecdote (I'm a Mechanical engineer who designs HVAC system installations in commercial buildings): Project was originally slated for September, suddenly due in March. We lost six months of design time, with only 3 months to actually do the work (nobody told us until December the year before!). On top of that, the architect also lost that design time - so we're trying to draw up our MEP work when the building design itself isn't even drafted yet.
Not that this particular architectural firm ever gives up time to do our stuff after they've completed their design anyway, always working up to the deadline themselves, but that time they didn't even know where they were going...
A common phrase around our office: "We never have time to do it right, but we have time to do it twice."
=Smidge=
also, by that logic, linux is a trap
At least you get the satisfaction of spending a whole day (or more) putting the elaborate, Rube Goldberg-esque trap together yourself first.
=Smidge=
Seems you didn't manage to get to the end of my post before replying. Do you make a habit out of finishing too early?
=Smidge=
Let's check the math on that...
10 minute drive to the gym (at an average fo 30MPH, 5 miles)
1 or 2 hours in the gym.
10 minute drive back.
So 80 - 140 minutes total. At a brisk 5MPH jog, you can get to the gym and back on foot in 120 minutes and on bike (~8MPH) in 75 minutes. You get a better quality workout, pay no gym fees, and it doesn't cost you anything in gas for your car.
And this doesn't count the 10 minutes or so most people spend driving aroung the lot, looking for a parking space that's closest to the door so that don't have to walk before they get to the gym.
Now if you're into serious strength training or something, a trip to the gym might be justified. If all you want is basic energy-burning exercise it's actually more of a waste.
=Smidge=
The article clearly states that they were volunteers, so there is a good chance they did it on their own time.
I wouldn't think the wok/dish is not the expensive part, the transceiver is. Unless the $80 for the "small dish" doesn't include the cost of the electronics I'm not sure how much was actually saved in that respect. Kudos regardless!
The article mentions that there's a how-to on the 'net somewhere. Anyone got a link? It should be added to the summary...
=Smidge=
I should hope not, because there's supposed to be a two-term limit on the Presidential office. There isn't supposed to be a "next time" for him.
Otherwise I agree. The government is supposed to be a servant of the people, not the other way around, and the closing and dismissal of the petition should itself be a focus of public action. What we (both in the US and the UK) really need is a mechanism to have recall elections at the federal level.
Elected officials need to be held accountable to their constituents, and that just doesn't happen.
=Smidge=
I'd prefer a fuel cell that runs off of the glucose and oxygen already present in the bloodstream...
=Smidge=
At least he's not offering $1000 per site hacked, unlike the shmuck who offered a $1,200 bounty on every unsold PS3.
=Smidge=