I still prefer a good old missile! It feels more destructive to fire a rocket at your enemies instead of just flashing (a really *big*) light at 'em.:-)
Isn't it then better to allow the users to get a smooth transition. It is more likely that a Linux user will try free alternatives than a Windows user, isn't it?
I'd say that it is for most users. Not many users want to have to fiddle with the OS, install extra packages etc. just to get it working properly. I'd say that the vast majority wants computers to be easier and force less choices (thus reducing complexity). I'm not saying that the choice should be removed, simply intelligently set from the start and easy to modify and well documented.
It is sad, but this is probably the best way to get into the desktop business. The ability to run Office is often a requirement when companies aquire OSs.
It seems that they have realized that the transition has to be smooth "SuSE Linux Office Desktop combines the technology and user-friendliness of SuSE Linux 8.1 with proven tools that facilitate the migration from Windows operating systems and applications".
And the biggest advantage of this solution is also brought up the the press release: "SuSE Linux Office Desktop seamlessly enables the continued use of existing data".
The Linux distros must realize (and seems to have realized) that the average desktop user does not care for open source or extra choices. The average user simply wants a productive desktop that is easy to use and works they way they expect it to.
The poor key employees will soon be out of work, so they will need some cash to live off when looking for a new company to run into the ground... (IMHO)
If you have many CPU cores, you don't need to have deep pipelines, as you will gain performance though parallel execution, instead of high clock frequency. A set of classic 5 stage RISC would probably do. I know that my ideas are far from mature yet, but I want to point out that there would be benefits from a complete restructuring of todays CPUs.
The 8086 (and thus the P4) was never intended for running multithreaded OSs, and todays caches have huge problems coping with multimedia (i.e. no temporal locality). The CS are must change into a more modern field, because with what we know today we could make so much more.
Hyperthreading is when you take instructions from two threads and share the execution units between these threads to avoid idle parts of the CPU.
EPIC is an ISA that tells the CPU which instructions that are independent or not. EPIC may perhaps also allow solutions like the one you show.
As you probably wouldn't split an if-statement over several CPUs, I think that your example is irrelevant to this discussion. This kind of code would just add complexity and overhead.
As for fooling an OS into having two processors, I suggest actually using two processors, not faking them like in Hyperthreading.
As long as there are enough processes both solutions will work well. If you run only one thread the multiple CPUs solution will have idle CPUs, while the hyperthreading solution will have bubbles.
Still, the multiple CPU solution will be vastly more scaleable and far less complex.
By changing the ISA of the CPUs, one can avoid lots of the bubbles (all if one is mean to the compiler). Just introduce branch delay slots and you lose a whole lot of bubbles and complexity. Just imagine how simple a CPU without branch prediction would be...
Hyperthreading is a complex proof of the limitations of todays CPU architectures. I belive in a CPU architecture containing many small CPU cores on one chip, instead of just multiplying the issue and commit parts and sharing the execution units.
It would be more scaleable and easier to implement to use several complete CPUs. The biggest drawback (compared to hyperthreading) would of course be that in special situations some CPU cores would be idle, but this simply corresponds to pipe-line bubbles in the hyperthreaded case. This is easily compensated by two facts: 1) multiple CPUs can be made very scalable and 2) most computer systems today always runs multiple threads (i.e. utilization will be good).
Of course, for Intel to maintain their market lead, everything has to be compatible, so they'll have to pay, time after time, for the errors they made in the eighties (the 286 paging + the CISC ISA). By breaking Amdahl's law time after time (SSE, MMX, etc.) they have made an even more complex beast. The only area where they really excel is in the production processing. They can squeeze out high frequencies and pack the transistors tight. For that, I'll give 'em cred. For their CPU ISAs, I'll just laugh...
After having looked at cosmogames.com I'd have to say that I'm disapointed. They do look cool, but I imagined them to be covered in some sort of manga-style drawings, and from an ergonomic point of view I think that they are a true disaster (but I don't know, since I haven't tried any).
Quotes are from Intentia's press release concerning the investigation.
"Reuters News Agency Broke into Intentia's IT Systems"
I would not call it breaking in to surf on someones homesite.
"there was an unauthorized entry via an IP-address belonging to Reuters"
What do they mean, do I have to call them and ask for permission before accessing files publically available on their homesite?
As Reuters didn't steal anything, but simply pointed at on open window (that they found) I would have to say that their act was not illegal. What they should investigate is their internal safety policies, because they need a revision or two (IMHO).
As I understand it, even electronic paper needs power to change apperance. However, you can probably integrate some sort of solar cells into the cover of the book by the time that you can make electronic paper.
"older technologies should be treated with respect as we seek to supplement or replace them"
This is something that most launches of new and amazing gadgets fail to see. An ebook is not better if it cannot offer more that an ordinary book. An ordinary book is usually the best book there is.
In the why section: "Be protected from sending or receiving information that you don't want "
Like "bug reports" to M$ with so much irrelevant info in 'em that they aught to pay the poor sucker's [who send them in] internet bill.
In the last section it looks like he is trying to get more funding: "By getting industry to pay the bills for targeted, practical research, using the Media Lab model TTT"
Isn't this a violation to the DMCA... By playing back a DVD in a player encoded for one region and burning it down in another I break the copyright! Go out and arrest some engineers, see if you can get a CEO too...
This makes me wounder when TV broadcasts will come with a signal saying that the show can only be seen once, then the recording will be deleted.
Except from my fears of stupid politicians, I think that this is great progress. If I wait for half an hour before watching the movies on TV, I can fast forward past all the ads... hmm, I like that!
Does this mean that part of the heat from the CPU will be light in the future? No more "monitor glow", more like "computer glow"... perhaps if different parts had different colours, e.g. floating point = green, integer = blue, cachemiss = red. Then you would know what part of your code to optimize without running a profiler: "It's all green and f**king slow, make your inner loops fixed point, dumbass!":)
In the good old days, everyone had an account on the central company server. (I had 250kB on an old winchester drive!) Nowdays we all have an account (or several) accesable over the internet. Over the years the internet has become mobile and I want to reach my files etc. even when I travel. This is probably one reason to why the PDA market has exploded in such a way as it has. Another important factor is the price and size of electronics; one can actually make a palm sized useful computer today to a price that some of us can afford.
This move by DELL shows that the PDA market has grown, and become more mature. That is, PDAs are not only geek toys, but today they can be quite useful (even though I still use mine for vrally!).
In the future I imagine almost everyone carrying PDAs that can be wirelessly conneced to a screen (or a projector) to show stuff, or terminals with proper kbds and mice to do real work. The PDA will be the phone, computer, wallet and calendar of today, and hopefully not running Palladium!
Here in Sweden the dresscode has never been too strict, nor is it going to be, in the engineering sector. Of cource I wear a suite and tie when I'm on a customer meeting (but on-one forces me into doing that, I just want to make a good impression), but except from that I go with what ever I feel like. Naturally, one can't look/smell like a bozo, but a t-shirt and jeans (or shorts) is OK.
But still you miss their greatest point: to defend and preserve the freedom of expression and the ability to express oneself anonymously.
I'm not critisizing you for copying stuff from the site, I'm trying to point out to the moderators that that info isn't very interesting as it is available on the site. If the site went down, then they could have modded you up, or perhaps you could have waited for it to come down, then posted a quote from your local cache. I feel that some sort of netiquette (not necessarily mine) needs to be added to the FAQ. The job of the moderators should be to enforce such rules and promote good replies. (Ok, sorry, I'm going off-topic...)
Anyhow, nothing personal towards the original poster!.
It is nice to see that one can get +5 Informative by simply copying the What is Freenet? page and saying that it is a bit like Kazza.
It is not like Kazza! This is because it is not spyware and has/will never be accused of being. It is an open source (GPLed) reaction to the growing restrictions of the on-line rights of expression. The point is not that you can copy your warez and p0rn, the point is that you can express yourself anonymously.
Dear moderators, if you haven't read the article and followed at least some of the link, do not moderate! Does "...some kind of a cross between Kazza..." and "...provide efficient service and minimal bandwidth..." sound like something written by the same author in the same message?
Yes, probably. The FreeNet site says "Uncensorable dissemination of controversial information". At least we living in the free world (not the USA, China, etc.) will be able to enjoy it! 8^P
Slashdot Mirror
I do not know of any OSS 'symbolic' maths program out there, but there is a very competent matlab close called Octave (www.octave.org).
It uses the good old Fortran kick-ass linalg libraries for counting and gnuplot for the graphics.
Just use MOSIX to get it working. To quote the about "Just fork and forget..."
I still prefer a good old missile! It feels more destructive to fire a rocket at your enemies instead of just flashing (a really *big*) light at 'em. :-)
But we don't have that yet.
Isn't it then better to allow the users to get a smooth transition. It is more likely that a Linux user will try free alternatives than a Windows user, isn't it?
I'd say that it is for most users. Not many users want to have to fiddle with the OS, install extra packages etc. just to get it working properly. I'd say that the vast majority wants computers to be easier and force less choices (thus reducing complexity). I'm not saying that the choice should be removed, simply intelligently set from the start and easy to modify and well documented.
Modelsim is already available in a Unix version, I suppose that you can get it for Linux. I have, however, only used it on Solaris.
It is sad, but this is probably the best way to get into the desktop business. The ability to run Office is often a requirement when companies aquire OSs.
It seems that they have realized that the transition has to be smooth "SuSE Linux Office Desktop combines the technology and user-friendliness of SuSE Linux 8.1 with proven tools that facilitate the migration from Windows operating systems and applications".
And the biggest advantage of this solution is also brought up the the press release: "SuSE Linux Office Desktop seamlessly enables the continued use of existing data".
The Linux distros must realize (and seems to have realized) that the average desktop user does not care for open source or extra choices. The average user simply wants a productive desktop that is easy to use and works they way they expect it to.
The poor key employees will soon be out of work, so they will need some cash to live off when looking for a new company to run into the ground... (IMHO)
If you have many CPU cores, you don't need to have deep pipelines, as you will gain performance though parallel execution, instead of high clock frequency. A set of classic 5 stage RISC would probably do. I know that my ideas are far from mature yet, but I want to point out that there would be benefits from a complete restructuring of todays CPUs.
The 8086 (and thus the P4) was never intended for running multithreaded OSs, and todays caches have huge problems coping with multimedia (i.e. no temporal locality). The CS are must change into a more modern field, because with what we know today we could make so much more.
Ok, lets sort things out here.
Hyperthreading is when you take instructions from two threads and share the execution units between these threads to avoid idle parts of the CPU.
EPIC is an ISA that tells the CPU which instructions that are independent or not. EPIC may perhaps also allow solutions like the one you show.
As you probably wouldn't split an if-statement over several CPUs, I think that your example is irrelevant to this discussion. This kind of code would just add complexity and overhead.
As for fooling an OS into having two processors, I suggest actually using two processors, not faking them like in Hyperthreading.
As long as there are enough processes both solutions will work well. If you run only one thread the multiple CPUs solution will have idle CPUs, while the hyperthreading solution will have bubbles.
Still, the multiple CPU solution will be vastly more scaleable and far less complex.
By changing the ISA of the CPUs, one can avoid lots of the bubbles (all if one is mean to the compiler). Just introduce branch delay slots and you lose a whole lot of bubbles and complexity. Just imagine how simple a CPU without branch prediction would be...
Hyperthreading is a complex proof of the limitations of todays CPU architectures. I belive in a CPU architecture containing many small CPU cores on one chip, instead of just multiplying the issue and commit parts and sharing the execution units.
It would be more scaleable and easier to implement to use several complete CPUs. The biggest drawback (compared to hyperthreading) would of course be that in special situations some CPU cores would be idle, but this simply corresponds to pipe-line bubbles in the hyperthreaded case. This is easily compensated by two facts: 1) multiple CPUs can be made very scalable and 2) most computer systems today always runs multiple threads (i.e. utilization will be good).
Of course, for Intel to maintain their market lead, everything has to be compatible, so they'll have to pay, time after time, for the errors they made in the eighties (the 286 paging + the CISC ISA). By breaking Amdahl's law time after time (SSE, MMX, etc.) they have made an even more complex beast. The only area where they really excel is in the production processing. They can squeeze out high frequencies and pack the transistors tight. For that, I'll give 'em cred. For their CPU ISAs, I'll just laugh...
After having looked at cosmogames.com I'd have to say that I'm disapointed. They do look cool, but I imagined them to be covered in some sort of manga-style drawings, and from an ergonomic point of view I think that they are a true disaster (but I don't know, since I haven't tried any).
Quotes are from Intentia's press release concerning the investigation.
"Reuters News Agency Broke into Intentia's IT Systems"
I would not call it breaking in to surf on someones homesite.
"there was an unauthorized entry via an IP-address belonging to Reuters"
What do they mean, do I have to call them and ask for permission before accessing files publically available on their homesite?
As Reuters didn't steal anything, but simply pointed at on open window (that they found) I would have to say that their act was not illegal. What they should investigate is their internal safety policies, because they need a revision or two (IMHO).
As I understand it, even electronic paper needs power to change apperance. However, you can probably integrate some sort of solar cells into the cover of the book by the time that you can make electronic paper.
"...industry-standard content specifications, such as ...Palladium..."
This cannot be good. Should Linux-based set-top boxes be used to limit the freedom of the users. I can see the irony, but I do *not* find it funny!
Sounds like he makes a point or two:
"older technologies should be treated with respect as we seek to supplement or replace them"
This is something that most launches of new and amazing gadgets fail to see. An ebook is not better if it cannot offer more that an ordinary book. An ordinary book is usually the best book there is.
In the why section: "Be protected from sending or receiving information that you don't want "
Like "bug reports" to M$ with so much irrelevant info in 'em that they aught to pay the poor sucker's [who send them in] internet bill.
In the last section it looks like he is trying to get more funding: "By getting industry to pay the bills for targeted, practical research, using the Media Lab model TTT"
Isn't this a violation to the DMCA... By playing back a DVD in a player encoded for one region and burning it down in another I break the copyright! Go out and arrest some engineers, see if you can get a CEO too...
This makes me wounder when TV broadcasts will come with a signal saying that the show can only be seen once, then the recording will be deleted.
Except from my fears of stupid politicians, I think that this is great progress. If I wait for half an hour before watching the movies on TV, I can fast forward past all the ads... hmm, I like that!
Does this mean that part of the heat from the CPU will be light in the future? No more "monitor glow", more like "computer glow"... perhaps if different parts had different colours, e.g. floating point = green, integer = blue, cachemiss = red. Then you would know what part of your code to optimize without running a profiler: "It's all green and f**king slow, make your inner loops fixed point, dumbass!" :)
In the good old days, everyone had an account on the central company server. (I had 250kB on an old winchester drive!) Nowdays we all have an account (or several) accesable over the internet. Over the years the internet has become mobile and I want to reach my files etc. even when I travel. This is probably one reason to why the PDA market has exploded in such a way as it has. Another important factor is the price and size of electronics; one can actually make a palm sized useful computer today to a price that some of us can afford.
This move by DELL shows that the PDA market has grown, and become more mature. That is, PDAs are not only geek toys, but today they can be quite useful (even though I still use mine for vrally!).
In the future I imagine almost everyone carrying PDAs that can be wirelessly conneced to a screen (or a projector) to show stuff, or terminals with proper kbds and mice to do real work. The PDA will be the phone, computer, wallet and calendar of today, and hopefully not running Palladium!
Here in Sweden the dresscode has never been too strict, nor is it going to be, in the engineering sector. Of cource I wear a suite and tie when I'm on a customer meeting (but on-one forces me into doing that, I just want to make a good impression), but except from that I go with what ever I feel like. Naturally, one can't look/smell like a bozo, but a t-shirt and jeans (or shorts) is OK.
But still you miss their greatest point: to defend and preserve the freedom of expression and the ability to express oneself anonymously.
I'm not critisizing you for copying stuff from the site, I'm trying to point out to the moderators that that info isn't very interesting as it is available on the site. If the site went down, then they could have modded you up, or perhaps you could have waited for it to come down, then posted a quote from your local cache. I feel that some sort of netiquette (not necessarily mine) needs to be added to the FAQ. The job of the moderators should be to enforce such rules and promote good replies. (Ok, sorry, I'm going off-topic...)
Anyhow, nothing personal towards the original poster!.
Yes, just look at the donations page (liked from the article):
Alternatively you can make donations by mail. Checks should be made payable to "Freenet Project Inc". The address for donations is:
Freenet Project Inc.
2554 Lincoln Blvd #712
Venice, CA 90291
Just fill in a nice figure (lots of zeroes), sign it and post it!
It is nice to see that one can get +5 Informative by simply copying the What is Freenet? page and saying that it is a bit like Kazza.
It is not like Kazza! This is because it is not spyware and has/will never be accused of being. It is an open source (GPLed) reaction to the growing restrictions of the on-line rights of expression. The point is not that you can copy your warez and p0rn, the point is that you can express yourself anonymously.
Dear moderators, if you haven't read the article and followed at least some of the link, do not moderate! Does "...some kind of a cross between Kazza..." and "...provide efficient service and minimal bandwidth..." sound like something written by the same author in the same message?
"But maybe you're just a pessimist?"
Yes, probably. The FreeNet site says "Uncensorable dissemination of controversial information". At least we living in the free world (not the USA, China, etc.) will be able to enjoy it! 8^P