While I quite agree that abandoning MHz as a way of expressing cpu performance is causing confusion (Opterons are already a case in point), what other choice is there? Dothans and future chips from AMD and Intel will be clocking slower than P4s for some time to come, whilst clearly outperforming them. How are the illiterate masses to know what is the 'best' chip for them?
Using something other than MHz is necessary, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to get silly, as you say. The temptation for Intel or AMD to use daft naming schemes to make their chips seem new and exciting (and better than the competition, natch) will be overwhelming.
(p.s. It is fairly reasonable for the first of a new generation of cpu to perform worse than the older ones at the same clock speed. Changes such as longer pipelines harm performance at a given speed, but are essential to allow the new chip to clock higher in the future.)
It astonishes me (as something of a non-gamer*) that the PC games market can survive. How can anything like enough people be prepared to fork out $1000 for the PC they need to play the latest games, compared to the market for a $100-$200 console? Especially given the games are roughly the same price. The spec you need to play recent games bears little resemblance to the kind of machine you need for almost any other task, so it must be less and less the case that PC gamers are making use of PCs they'd own anyway.
I understand the modding scene is fantastic, but can anyone offer an insight into how PC games find a market worth developing for?
Imagine discovering that you've gotten a speeding ticket and your insurance rates went up before you even finished driving home.
You've never driven the UK, I take it?
(In case it isn't obvious, this is precisely what can happen here with our world-beating network of speed cameras, give or take a few days' processing delay.)
It's really much less to do with how much electricity is flowing through the circuit, and more about the potential at a given point. Of course currents flow, both leakage and when a gate changes state, but you will never understand the logic if you think in terms of currents rather than voltages.
EEPROM == Electronically Eraseable Programmable Read Only Memory
Standard EPROMs tend to be erased with a good dose of ultraviolet light through a little window in the package. EEPROMs can be rewritten electronically, "in circuit", even, but flash memory is cleverer still.
I wondered if anyone would bring that up. I agree 100%. A similar point has been made about things like SETI@home - all those "free" cpu cycles aren't really free, if you take the extra power consumption into account.
Of course if you're running OS X or anticipating Longhorn then your whole desktop will be 3d-accelerated. Daft some might say, but why waste all that powerful hardware if it's there? And OS X does look extremely pretty.
I really think that the latest LCD screens are OK for game playing now. At 30ms response time everything felt soupy, but my Hitachi 17"s claim 16ms and look a whole lot better. It might not sound like much of a difference, but I think somewhere below 20ms really is the magic number where it ceases to be painful.
It's interesting to see LCD manufacturers making a bigger deal of their response times, seemingly in response to the demands of gamers.
I would be thrilled to see such a widely accepted theory overturned! It needn't be dark matter, it could be anything. It would be great to witness a moment where pursuit of the best explanation triumphs over all the ego, dogmatism and self-interest rife the academic world. If those who are "wrong" can brush off their dented self-esteem and carry on then it will be a great day.
The crackpots who claim that "the establishment" never listens to new ideas will be left with several fewer legs to stand on.
(Incidentally, I don't blame scientists who have strong feelings in favour of the theories they have developed or are familiar with. It's perfectly natural, and there's not a lot we can do about it other then try to be as grown-up as possible.)
It's scary to think - I tend to trust and respect the BBC's coverage of world events. A lot of people do, worldwide. But every time they cover a tech issue they make hideous oversimplifications and mis-report horribly. I only know this becuase I have a background in those kinds of areas. They could be just as specious in their coverage of just about anything else and I would never know.
There's no point talking about "The Problem with Open Source" unless you agree what open source is trying to achieve. This guy has implicitly decided that OSS should be a coherent attempt to produce software that is usable by the masses and eventually to replace Windows. Not everyone here agrees with that.
In reality, different people involved in OSS have completely different motivations and objectives. In that light, how can their success be judged as a whole? It seems obvious that such a disparate bunch of folks will march toward any given goal slower than if they were a single organisation with a common aim.
But that's not the point, is it? It might be interesting to establish what most OSS developers think they are trying to achieve. For my part, when I contribute to GPL'd projects, all I want to do is fix my current problem - make X talk to Y, for instance, because my boss wants X to talk to Y by yesterday, on no budget.
If the adaptor had pins on one end and holes on the other, it wouldn't be an adaptor at all! It either wants to have two sets of holes (M-to-F), or two sets of pins (F-to-M). Think about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop! Don't! You can't just go around creating monopoles like that. The physicists will be baying for blood!
While I quite agree that abandoning MHz as a way of expressing cpu performance is causing confusion (Opterons are already a case in point), what other choice is there? Dothans and future chips from AMD and Intel will be clocking slower than P4s for some time to come, whilst clearly outperforming them. How are the illiterate masses to know what is the 'best' chip for them?
Using something other than MHz is necessary, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to get silly, as you say. The temptation for Intel or AMD to use daft naming schemes to make their chips seem new and exciting (and better than the competition, natch) will be overwhelming.
(p.s. It is fairly reasonable for the first of a new generation of cpu to perform worse than the older ones at the same clock speed. Changes such as longer pipelines harm performance at a given speed, but are essential to allow the new chip to clock higher in the future.)
I understand the modding scene is fantastic, but can anyone offer an insight into how PC games find a market worth developing for?
(*)I take it nethack doesn't count?
no, not really
Remember SARS? In East Asia (and maybe Canada - I don't know) they used infrared imagers to scan passengers boarding planes for symptoms of fever.
...to get modded +5, Informative, I simply have to make two factual statements, one of which is wrong, and the other monumentally obvious.
Fantastic
You've never driven the UK, I take it?
(In case it isn't obvious, this is precisely what can happen here with our world-beating network of speed cameras, give or take a few days' processing delay.)
It's really much less to do with how much electricity is flowing through the circuit, and more about the potential at a given point. Of course currents flow, both leakage and when a gate changes state, but you will never understand the logic if you think in terms of currents rather than voltages.
EEPROM == Electronically Eraseable Programmable Read Only Memory
Standard EPROMs tend to be erased with a good dose of ultraviolet light through a little window in the package. EEPROMs can be rewritten electronically, "in circuit", even, but flash memory is cleverer still.
I wondered if anyone would bring that up. I agree 100%. A similar point has been made about things like SETI@home - all those "free" cpu cycles aren't really free, if you take the extra power consumption into account.
Of course if you're running OS X or anticipating Longhorn then your whole desktop will be 3d-accelerated. Daft some might say, but why waste all that powerful hardware if it's there? And OS X does look extremely pretty.
I really think that the latest LCD screens are OK for game playing now. At 30ms response time everything felt soupy, but my Hitachi 17"s claim 16ms and look a whole lot better. It might not sound like much of a difference, but I think somewhere below 20ms really is the magic number where it ceases to be painful.
It's interesting to see LCD manufacturers making a bigger deal of their response times, seemingly in response to the demands of gamers.
Now if they could only fix the dead pixels...
I would be thrilled to see such a widely accepted theory overturned! It needn't be dark matter, it could be anything. It would be great to witness a moment where pursuit of the best explanation triumphs over all the ego, dogmatism and self-interest rife the academic world. If those who are "wrong" can brush off their dented self-esteem and carry on then it will be a great day.
The crackpots who claim that "the establishment" never listens to new ideas will be left with several fewer legs to stand on.
(Incidentally, I don't blame scientists who have strong feelings in favour of the theories they have developed or are familiar with. It's perfectly natural, and there's not a lot we can do about it other then try to be as grown-up as possible.)
...then how bad are they about everything else?
It's scary to think - I tend to trust and respect the BBC's coverage of world events. A lot of people do, worldwide. But every time they cover a tech issue they make hideous oversimplifications and mis-report horribly. I only know this becuase I have a background in those kinds of areas. They could be just as specious in their coverage of just about anything else and I would never know.
Strikes me this is a cheap way of countering accusations of linux bias. "Look!" the editors can say, "at how many bsd headlines we have!"
Posted as AC => Not Karma whoring.
(copyright and pointlessness issues notwithstanding)
You're obviously too addicted to your GUI. For me it sounds more like (*tappity-tap*).
There's no point talking about "The Problem with Open Source" unless you agree what open source is trying to achieve. This guy has implicitly decided that OSS should be a coherent attempt to produce software that is usable by the masses and eventually to replace Windows. Not everyone here agrees with that.
In reality, different people involved in OSS have completely different motivations and objectives. In that light, how can their success be judged as a whole? It seems obvious that such a disparate bunch of folks will march toward any given goal slower than if they were a single organisation with a common aim.
But that's not the point, is it? It might be interesting to establish what most OSS developers think they are trying to achieve. For my part, when I contribute to GPL'd projects, all I want to do is fix my current problem - make X talk to Y, for instance, because my boss wants X to talk to Y by yesterday, on no budget.
If the adaptor had pins on one end and holes on the other, it wouldn't be an adaptor at all! It either wants to have two sets of holes (M-to-F), or two sets of pins (F-to-M). Think about it.