Well, given what those computers cost new, it's kind of hard to throw them away. Especially if they still work. I don't have any Macs, but I have enough stashed away PCs so I know the feeling.
I don't get the gun analogy though. Properly taken care of they'll last forever, and something like a 99-year-old 1911 pistol isn't that much different than a brand new one.
I advise clients to decommission their P4-based systems ASAP
Why? Unless it's a Prescott, they don't use that more power than many Core 2 chips or a Core i5. And even if it is a Prescott it's not worse than a Core i7.
You'd have to try pretty hard to get a PIII that high (hint: A server doesn't need that Voodoo 5). I have a PIII-600E running as a router. At 14W peak for the chip and about 35W average for the entire system it's not bad at all, as full-blown PCs go.
Probably the real problem wasn't Windows NT4 (which from my experience is an incredibly stable operating system). My guess is that they were still running it on some common off-the-shelf standard PC hardware from the NT4-era which was no longer trustworthy. It always amazes me to see some multi-million dollar computer-controlled piece of equipment that comes with a bog-standard Dell PC or similar that you know is only designed for a 3-5 year lifespan. You'd think for that kind of money they could spring for an industrial PC with ECC memory, RAID or even SSD, long-life power supply and fans, solid-state capacitors, etc., but nope. It even amazes me more when the equipment is designed to go into an extreme environment like a factory or an oil rig.
It's a good bet. My Grandpa shot Kodachrome in the 40's and early 50's. Then he got cheap and started shooting Ektachrome. The 50-60 year Kodachrome slides look perfect. The Ektrachrome slides from the late 50's to early 70's are all magenta, with the ones from the mid 70's to 80's (when he switched to C-41 print film) still have some green and blue but rapidly fading.
A few battleships survive as curiosities, or as comparatively cheap ways of bombarding basically supine near-shore targets; but they are basically all scrap, now.
Actually, there are currently no battleships in active service in any navy. The US Navy removed the last two battleships out of the mothball fleet in 2006. The last time any battleship saw any action was the Gulf War. Several are still preserved as museum ships and in theory could still be pressed into service but that's pretty unlikely. The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in WW2.
You couldn't make a matte CRT because the image is located behind a good quarter inch or more of glass that you can't do anything about. If you tried a matte finish on the glass, you wouldn't be able to see the image. Since with an LCD, you can put the matte finish directly on top of image-producing panel, a matte finish screen is possible.
What I find funny is that while most CRTs had an anti-glare coating, many of the new crop of glossy LCDs seem to omit it. It's almost as if the people who design LCDs are going to have to relearn everything the hard way.
Take a water bottle. Put the ends of the bottle in the palms of your hand and push together as hard as you can. The water bottle will deform, and I can guarantee you can't generate thousands of pounds of force with your bare hands. Thus, it is demonstratively false that a plastic water bottle must be able to hold up thousands of pounds of force.
The most damning part to me is the admission that they measure dropped calls in # per 100. By their own admission, the iPhone 4 drops at least 1 in 100 calls, and that's the best case scenario (where the 3GS drops no calls). Now I don't have a smart phone, but my experience with cheap, basic phones is that none of ones I've owned are that terrible.
Well, given that he wanted to see his thinking process, having the problem be an unlikely problem would allow him to see how the interviewee thinks as he tries several things - including "Does he try the easy stuff first?".
Like your car example, say you asked a mechanic you were interviewing to diagnose a hypothetical car that wouldn't start. I'd want him to check the gas gauge, but I wouldn't stop him there.
My thoughts too. The first generation SSDs were pretty terrible, with the exception of Intel's offerings. It wouldn't surprise me if the JMicron SSD's had a high failure rate, but how are the Intel drives doing?
Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the people using Compact Flash cards with an adapter as a system drive also saw a high failure rate, as most CF cards aren't going to be able to withstand that kind of usage.
It's terrible, I'll agree. And that's why having open primaries isn't going to help make candidates more moderate (note: I'd still much rather have open primaries than closed primaries).
Well, if you're going to vote strategically in the other party's primary, typically what you would do is vote for the most radical candidate, with the hope they win the primary and scare all the moderates over to your side in the general election.
You also have to keep in mind that the goal of the concert promoter (and/or the band) may not be to make the most money. In many cases, they would rather fill the venue instead. It's a big thing to be "sold out" at a large venue, and I'm sure many bands would prefer more of their fans have the opportunity to see them in concert rather than a few more dollars (there are exceptions, of course). Hence, there may be a very good reason they picked the spot on the supply-demand curve that they did, and all that the scalpers do is sweep in and change the market so that they can make money acting as a middleman, often at the expense of the band, their promoters, and the fans.
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Sounds like you speak from experience.
Well, given what those computers cost new, it's kind of hard to throw them away. Especially if they still work. I don't have any Macs, but I have enough stashed away PCs so I know the feeling.
I don't get the gun analogy though. Properly taken care of they'll last forever, and something like a 99-year-old 1911 pistol isn't that much different than a brand new one.
Why? Unless it's a Prescott, they don't use that more power than many Core 2 chips or a Core i5. And even if it is a Prescott it's not worse than a Core i7.
You'd have to try pretty hard to get a PIII that high (hint: A server doesn't need that Voodoo 5). I have a PIII-600E running as a router. At 14W peak for the chip and about 35W average for the entire system it's not bad at all, as full-blown PCs go.
Why not use it if it works?
Probably the real problem wasn't Windows NT4 (which from my experience is an incredibly stable operating system). My guess is that they were still running it on some common off-the-shelf standard PC hardware from the NT4-era which was no longer trustworthy. It always amazes me to see some multi-million dollar computer-controlled piece of equipment that comes with a bog-standard Dell PC or similar that you know is only designed for a 3-5 year lifespan. You'd think for that kind of money they could spring for an industrial PC with ECC memory, RAID or even SSD, long-life power supply and fans, solid-state capacitors, etc., but nope. It even amazes me more when the equipment is designed to go into an extreme environment like a factory or an oil rig.
It's a good bet. My Grandpa shot Kodachrome in the 40's and early 50's. Then he got cheap and started shooting Ektachrome. The 50-60 year Kodachrome slides look perfect. The Ektrachrome slides from the late 50's to early 70's are all magenta, with the ones from the mid 70's to 80's (when he switched to C-41 print film) still have some green and blue but rapidly fading.
If you don't care about the colors, there are several ways to get a B&W image out of Kodachrome film.
I don't know who put this animated gif together:
http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj210/RUPERT_THE_MAYOR_OF_CRAZYTOWN/?action=view¤t=wjyvqw.gif&newest=1
But it helps with trying to visualize just how large some of these stars are.
Actually, there are currently no battleships in active service in any navy. The US Navy removed the last two battleships out of the mothball fleet in 2006. The last time any battleship saw any action was the Gulf War. Several are still preserved as museum ships and in theory could still be pressed into service but that's pretty unlikely. The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in WW2.
You couldn't make a matte CRT because the image is located behind a good quarter inch or more of glass that you can't do anything about. If you tried a matte finish on the glass, you wouldn't be able to see the image. Since with an LCD, you can put the matte finish directly on top of image-producing panel, a matte finish screen is possible.
What I find funny is that while most CRTs had an anti-glare coating, many of the new crop of glossy LCDs seem to omit it. It's almost as if the people who design LCDs are going to have to relearn everything the hard way.
Many boards now come with digital outputs, so I really don't care how bad the analog outputs might be.
Probably something like running a null loop as fast as possible, where the Netburst chips can use the raw clockspeed advantage they have.
I thought the Pentium chips they sell now are basically Core 2's with some of the L2 cache removed?
Take a water bottle. Put the ends of the bottle in the palms of your hand and push together as hard as you can. The water bottle will deform, and I can guarantee you can't generate thousands of pounds of force with your bare hands. Thus, it is demonstratively false that a plastic water bottle must be able to hold up thousands of pounds of force.
The most damning part to me is the admission that they measure dropped calls in # per 100. By their own admission, the iPhone 4 drops at least 1 in 100 calls, and that's the best case scenario (where the 3GS drops no calls). Now I don't have a smart phone, but my experience with cheap, basic phones is that none of ones I've owned are that terrible.
Well, given that he wanted to see his thinking process, having the problem be an unlikely problem would allow him to see how the interviewee thinks as he tries several things - including "Does he try the easy stuff first?".
Like your car example, say you asked a mechanic you were interviewing to diagnose a hypothetical car that wouldn't start. I'd want him to check the gas gauge, but I wouldn't stop him there.
Are you referring to the SUVs they made 20+ years ago, or the ugly grocery getter they make today?
Is the Core i7-920 a 32bit processor? (hint: no)
If you have a license to run XP SP2 then you have a license to run XP SP3. If you don't have a license to run XP SP2 then what do you care?
Probably the high resolution screen, as there are other uses for high resolution screens right now if they only existed.
Maybe it was designed to look like Graflex Flash Gun?
My thoughts too. The first generation SSDs were pretty terrible, with the exception of Intel's offerings. It wouldn't surprise me if the JMicron SSD's had a high failure rate, but how are the Intel drives doing?
Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the people using Compact Flash cards with an adapter as a system drive also saw a high failure rate, as most CF cards aren't going to be able to withstand that kind of usage.
It's terrible, I'll agree. And that's why having open primaries isn't going to help make candidates more moderate (note: I'd still much rather have open primaries than closed primaries).
Well, if you're going to vote strategically in the other party's primary, typically what you would do is vote for the most radical candidate, with the hope they win the primary and scare all the moderates over to your side in the general election.
You also have to keep in mind that the goal of the concert promoter (and/or the band) may not be to make the most money. In many cases, they would rather fill the venue instead. It's a big thing to be "sold out" at a large venue, and I'm sure many bands would prefer more of their fans have the opportunity to see them in concert rather than a few more dollars (there are exceptions, of course). Hence, there may be a very good reason they picked the spot on the supply-demand curve that they did, and all that the scalpers do is sweep in and change the market so that they can make money acting as a middleman, often at the expense of the band, their promoters, and the fans.