I can argue of a future where the emphasis is on the Mobo that can house up to 32 CPUs. and the new AMD Thunderfolts that are so small you can actually fit 32 of them in a mini ATX case... With very low power consumption, and low heat emissions. And big hdd capacity, and loads of RAM, and high bandwidth, and this and that...
People will have many gimicks to market before they run out of ideas and turn back to the speed issue of a CPU.
I don't know how fast Quantum computers are going to make it into the mainstream. I find there is a lack of demand for such powerful computers at this point.
Sure, biochemists might need the massively paralell processing power to do molecular folding analysis, but regular joe bloes will, IMHO, be very comfortable with quad 2GHz HT Pentium 4s... for a decade at least.
I feel there will be a rift like there was in the old days when mainframe systems were few and expensive, and the rest were smaller systems.
Frankly, Quantum doesn't titillate me as much as a nice new nVidida chip at this point.
The other thing is that massively powerfull paralel processing isn't always a Good Thing. It's just A Thing. Take for example early Pentium Pros which had 16 stage pipelines. Nice in concept, but unless you use it properly, it's not really usefull. Many problems aren't massively parallel... The brain for example, is massively parallel, but not in the sense that many mean: all of your brain isn't adding two million 4 bit integers at the same time. It's doing millions of different tasks...
I don't know about that. If you look at current trends, major chip makers (AMD - there was a article on./ but I'm too lazy to look it up) aren't going to be putting that much R&D into consumer end computers anymore...
I'm actually using a computer that's 4 years old now, and all I've *needed* up till now were RAM, hdd, and vid card upgrades, I wouldn't be surprised if the next system I buy lasts me 10 years.
(btw, for the sceptics: I have a dual PIII 500, w/ 1 Gb of ram)
all have either (effectively) dictatorships or incredibly bad human rights records
Dude, I'm by no way defending anyone, but please spare your anti-non-US-country-FUD.
If anything, it's probably *thanks* to the CIA (because the US has so much interest in the oil in those countries) that those countries will remain the way they are now forever more (until oil depletes).
Human rights? It's a fad. Human rights is a tool politicians use to appease the pavlovian masses. Human rights are broken everywhere on this planet...
I actually went and check out their list of partners, and this thing is just Microsoft plus a list of roughly a hundred small shops (probably moft shops)... No other big names (like Sun, which I was expecting to find mind you).
Anyways, a funny highlight, one of their members is: "Open Solutions" =)
While the first idea that comes to our minds might be getting a face transplant becuase we want to be more beautiful... The real application of this thing is probably stuff like burn victims etc... in which case the risk doesn't sound so bad after all.
so you think that communism or a pure socialist democracy will be better..
Not really.
just so you know, Communists thought the great depresion was a signal of the end of capitolism
Just so you know: Marx thought that true communism would only come from a capitalist regime... The Bolsheviks (as opposed to the Mensheviks) were for an installation of communism by force/revolution... they won that dispute by silencing the menshies...
In effect, the states are much closer to the ideal communist government than many people realize.
Also, they're (US) just as corrupt as any of the 'communist' countries of current.
Regardless, no, I don't think that's the solution. I think global exploitation is the problem - not local governmental issues.
I think cell phone manufacturers have a distinct advantage in this area because they have been working for years at making a product that is both user friendly, extremely small, and runs in real-time with no crashes.
Believe it or not, my sanyo would crash (freeze) quite often when I was using the crippled-ass web browser it had in it...
I wouldn't bet on cell phone companies having that big of an advantage: they are the ones going towards more complex OSs on phones, where as software companies are trying to 'dumb' down if anything software they already have some know-how in...
face it, the economic aspects in the US, EU et al are trivial, seasonal lulls
My personal opinion on this is that we've finally reached the end of an era, and that this is not a lull, but an indication of something greater (that 99% of the world being poor doesn't work as a business model).
Thing is, there's lots of thing which we learn of 'up there' that tell us how things are 'down here' and help us fix them
I agree with that, but the ISS isn't really necessary for those kinds of things. There are plenty of satelites who can do that kind of work, for much less.
The bottom line is the novelty of having men up there is quite small compared to the price tag accompanied.
Sure, anyone can argue that we would have never discovered that plant seeds don't grow 'up' out of the earth in outter space if it weren't for tests done on the shuttles... but really, apart from the invention of penicilin, there hasn't been drugs that cured the whole world of anything -- much less space age revolutionary drugs: all those do is make old CEOs not age as fast, and suck fat out of their wives asses.
Dang, I forgot to mention you would have to give the root to your aunt. It's not like the ISS has security zones, with anti-tamper locks, and face recognition to allow access to secure areas...
Everyone seems to talk about leasing and renting, and letting unqualified people live on the ISS.
Think of it this way: would you ever leave your workstation, your baby, to be used by your computer illiterate aunt while you were going on a summer vacation?
I'm personally happy they don't lease it out.
As for mothballing, moth ball away... given the current economic trend of the world, the space program makes little sense anyways. Things have to be fixed down here before they can be sent up, IMHO.
Don't confuse "technique" with "state of the art"... Or theory and practice for the matter...
Academics are good at coming up with applicable theories. There's a world of difference between a theory (and what is necessary to create one), and its application...
Id has know-how... The same know-how that the
ironworker gets from handling iron and knowing small things like how it behaves under certain conditions... This know-how, the scientific doesn't have - or need.
Id is a software artisan.
If you find what I just said theoretical, take this simple example: Id probably spent weeks just optimizing the asm routine to draw a line.
The scientific wouldn't be interested in that... all they would care about is to prove that it can be drawn, but is left to the reader as an exercise to make it render fast...
To modern graphics hardware, a dot may as well be a polygon, so we haven't gained much in practical terms.
Actually, modern hardware can be made to render dots only (ie vertices of polygons/triangles) as opposed to rendering the whole shaded surfaces. It's not a hack by making a small enough surface that looks like a dot, it's just actually rendered as dots. For those interested to see, there's a demo for nVidia cards where you can tell it to render dots only...
I haven't read too much detail about this, but if IEEE says it's the best paper, they must be doing something different than normal cards are doing, ie probably bypassing normal rendering methods which use matrix multiplications heavily, and instead making some small assumptions - like maybe no perspective correction - and going with faster smaller transform equations...
A fleck of paint can cause serious damage when it's moving fast enough
Have you heard of this thing called the asteroid belt? It's full of 'paint flecks'.
I'm not advocating people leaving nuclear powered satelites to crash over on populated areas, but the parents post about not seeing stars is just ludicrous. A satelite at most shines like a small star. We need to put up WAAAAY more satelites before we're not able to see the real stars anymore. Like billions of satelites.
Re:hopefully they did it right..
on
The Wireless City
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Aw come on... you are naive.
'With some clever engineering and hardware from Cisco Systems and Intel, the wireless park was born.
Do you not think they made a system that allows triangulation of where you are, and also sends your content through Echelon-Ex v4.2?
I'm sure if you were to hack into a gov system, they'd have you pinned to the ground before you could leave the park.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, look at them, they're all smiling.
Agreed. :)
I can argue of a future where the emphasis is on the Mobo that can house up to 32 CPUs. and the new AMD Thunderfolts that are so small you can actually fit 32 of them in a mini ATX case... With very low power consumption, and low heat emissions. And big hdd capacity, and loads of RAM, and high bandwidth, and this and that...
People will have many gimicks to market before they run out of ideas and turn back to the speed issue of a CPU.
Once again, IMHO.
Sure, biochemists might need the massively paralell processing power to do molecular folding analysis, but regular joe bloes will, IMHO, be very comfortable with quad 2GHz HT Pentium 4s... for a decade at least.
I feel there will be a rift like there was in the old days when mainframe systems were few and expensive, and the rest were smaller systems.
Frankly, Quantum doesn't titillate me as much as a nice new nVidida chip at this point.
The other thing is that massively powerfull paralel processing isn't always a Good Thing. It's just A Thing. Take for example early Pentium Pros which had 16 stage pipelines. Nice in concept, but unless you use it properly, it's not really usefull. Many problems aren't massively parallel... The brain for example, is massively parallel, but not in the sense that many mean: all of your brain isn't adding two million 4 bit integers at the same time. It's doing millions of different tasks...
Sunday night... must sleep... must shadap.
I don't know about that. If you look at current trends, major chip makers (AMD - there was a article on ./ but I'm too lazy to look it up) aren't going to be putting that much R&D into consumer end computers anymore...
I'm actually using a computer that's 4 years old now, and all I've *needed* up till now were RAM, hdd, and vid card upgrades, I wouldn't be surprised if the next system I buy lasts me 10 years.
(btw, for the sceptics: I have a dual PIII 500, w/ 1 Gb of ram)
Are you telling me I can't hold a logical conversation?!
<voice value="Home">Why you little...</voice>
Dude, I'm by no way defending anyone, but please spare your anti-non-US-country-FUD.
If anything, it's probably *thanks* to the CIA (because the US has so much interest in the oil in those countries) that those countries will remain the way they are now forever more (until oil depletes).
Human rights? It's a fad. Human rights is a tool politicians use to appease the pavlovian masses. Human rights are broken everywhere on this planet...
Sorry I'm so grim. =)
Anyways, a funny highlight, one of their members is: "Open Solutions" =)
Do you feel stupid now?
While the first idea that comes to our minds might be getting a face transplant becuase we want to be more beautiful... The real application of this thing is probably stuff like burn victims etc... in which case the risk doesn't sound so bad after all.
So how do you all feel about the new ones coming out? all hype or the real deal?
Amen! I agree with you and the previous post completely.
Not really.
just so you know, Communists thought the great depresion was a signal of the end of capitolism
Just so you know: Marx thought that true communism would only come from a capitalist regime... The Bolsheviks (as opposed to the Mensheviks) were for an installation of communism by force/revolution... they won that dispute by silencing the menshies...
In effect, the states are much closer to the ideal communist government than many people realize.
Also, they're (US) just as corrupt as any of the 'communist' countries of current.
Regardless, no, I don't think that's the solution. I think global exploitation is the problem - not local governmental issues.
You forget one end of this diabolical apparatus you are talking about is a handheld device.
Believe it or not, my sanyo would crash (freeze) quite often when I was using the crippled-ass web browser it had in it...
I wouldn't bet on cell phone companies having that big of an advantage: they are the ones going towards more complex OSs on phones, where as software companies are trying to 'dumb' down if anything software they already have some know-how in...
But moft is entering a market it wasn't in before. What monopoly are they leveraging?
But you have to realize that we are both in cushy industries (space tech, and IT) as opposed to kids doing labour for Nike at 5 cents a day.
My personal opinion on this is that we've finally reached the end of an era, and that this is not a lull, but an indication of something greater (that 99% of the world being poor doesn't work as a business model).
Thing is, there's lots of thing which we learn of 'up there' that tell us how things are 'down here' and help us fix them
I agree with that, but the ISS isn't really necessary for those kinds of things. There are plenty of satelites who can do that kind of work, for much less.
The bottom line is the novelty of having men up there is quite small compared to the price tag accompanied.
Sure, anyone can argue that we would have never discovered that plant seeds don't grow 'up' out of the earth in outter space if it weren't for tests done on the shuttles... but really, apart from the invention of penicilin, there hasn't been drugs that cured the whole world of anything -- much less space age revolutionary drugs: all those do is make old CEOs not age as fast, and suck fat out of their wives asses.
Think of it this way: would you ever leave your workstation, your baby, to be used by your computer illiterate aunt while you were going on a summer vacation?
I'm personally happy they don't lease it out.
As for mothballing, moth ball away... given the current economic trend of the world, the space program makes little sense anyways. Things have to be fixed down here before they can be sent up, IMHO.
Academics are good at coming up with applicable theories. There's a world of difference between a theory (and what is necessary to create one), and its application...
Id has know-how... The same know-how that the ironworker gets from handling iron and knowing small things like how it behaves under certain conditions... This know-how, the scientific doesn't have - or need.
Id is a software artisan.
If you find what I just said theoretical, take this simple example: Id probably spent weeks just optimizing the asm routine to draw a line.
The scientific wouldn't be interested in that... all they would care about is to prove that it can be drawn, but is left to the reader as an exercise to make it render fast...
Actually, modern hardware can be made to render dots only (ie vertices of polygons/triangles) as opposed to rendering the whole shaded surfaces. It's not a hack by making a small enough surface that looks like a dot, it's just actually rendered as dots. For those interested to see, there's a demo for nVidia cards where you can tell it to render dots only...
I haven't read too much detail about this, but if IEEE says it's the best paper, they must be doing something different than normal cards are doing, ie probably bypassing normal rendering methods which use matrix multiplications heavily, and instead making some small assumptions - like maybe no perspective correction - and going with faster smaller transform equations...
If that's not the case, I give them a *yawn*.
Have you heard of this thing called the asteroid belt? It's full of 'paint flecks'.
I'm not advocating people leaving nuclear powered satelites to crash over on populated areas, but the parents post about not seeing stars is just ludicrous. A satelite at most shines like a small star. We need to put up WAAAAY more satelites before we're not able to see the real stars anymore. Like billions of satelites.
'With some clever engineering and hardware from Cisco Systems and Intel, the wireless park was born.
Do you not think they made a system that allows triangulation of where you are, and also sends your content through Echelon-Ex v4.2?
I'm sure if you were to hack into a gov system, they'd have you pinned to the ground before you could leave the park.