The USPS wouldnt actually be in the red if it werent for the stupid rules congress imposed on them a few years back where they are the only federal entity that has to have 100% retirement funds paid for (my understyanding is the industry standards are 10-15% funded)
Last I looked, they would only have lost a few billion dollars last year without that rule, rather than a few billion plus a few billion more. I forget the precise numbers, but I believe that rule resulted in about one third of their losses.
The simple fact is that you can't sustain a low-cost paper mail delivery system with universal coverage in an era where 90% of the paper mail has moved online.
You mean reprogram them with something better and slap a different label on them? Cause thats what actually happened with ET according to people who worked at atari.
Surely they wouldn't have used EPROMs for games that were expected to sell millions of copies? The cost difference between those and mass-produced PROMs would presumably have been millions of dollars.
And Microsoft? They are now the proud owners of a giant, giant cloud, and all the business they hope it will bring. And this is about the smartest bet they could make, because they really are out of options.
That would have been true if we hadn't discovered that 'The Cloud' has an open back door for the NSA.
If Microsoft can't compete and build a monopoly without already having a monopoly, then how did Microsoft get its first monopoly?
1. They got the original DOS contract for the IBM PC. Without that, they'd be a tiny company building BASIC interpreters. 2. For years, anyone could copy DOS or Windows, so there was no need to even think about buying a competing product.
And because people on/. seem to "forget" their history, ARM isn't even close to the first non-x86 architecture that Windows has been available for; it's previously supported Alpha (NT 3.1-4.0), MIPS (NT 3.1-4.0), Power (3.51-4.0), and Itanium (XP, Server 2003, and Server 2008).
And they all flopped and were discontinued. Largely because of lack of compatibility with x86 Windows; you could run some x86 programs (slowly) on the non-x86 builds, but then why not just buy an x86 machine in the first place?
Can you name some compatibility problems that a typical user (emphasis on typical) might face?
Lots of old games are 16-bit apps or have 16-bit installers. Lots of old hardware doesn't have 64-bit drivers.
The funny part is that I have a 64-bit OS on my Windows gaming PC, but I only have about half a dozen actual 64-bit apps because most developers stick to 32-bit unless they really need more than 2GB of RAM. Almost all the apps on my 64-bit Linux machines are actually 64-bit, even if they're just the equivalent of Notepad.
It's not that hard to write low level emulation for this is it? Come on!
Running programs designed for a 3GHz quad-core x86 on a 1.3GHz ARM? That'll work.
Yes, I'm sure it can be done, but probably not in a form most people would want to use. If your program is idle 99% of the time and spends most of the other 1% inside the OS it's probably OK, but anything at all CPU-intensive (e.g. software video players) is probably toast.
There isn't a technical reason why they couldn't have made.net applications work on arm, or Surface RT.
Except they'll fail horribly if they call native code that isn't part of the OS. If you need.zip compression, for example, you're probably calling zlib.dll, which isn't part of the OS and won't run on ARM unless you specifically install the ARM version.
As I understand it, a non-firing replica Uzi is illegal here, but you can buy a full-auto metal Uzi air-gun from a store over the counter and fire BBs to your heart's content.
thats exactly right. a server with 2 octa-core xeons, 32 to 64 gigs of ram 2 mechanical HDDs, plus other hardware might pull around a 1000W. imagine a microwave oven working 24/7.
You're pretty much describing a typical server we use, and they weren't even close to 1000W last I looked at the power monitoring. Admittedly they don't run at 100% CPU all the time, but the official TDP of two CPUs is only around 250W.
Where do you shop? For $1500 I can buy a pretty fantastic computer with Windows on it.
Yeah, I paid about $1500 for my new game machine. Even including the extortionate cost of Windows, that bought an i7, mid-range gaming GPU, tons of RAM, an SSD and terabytes of hard drive space.
Welcome to New York City, where it's somebody else's problem.
Exactly. It is someone else's problem.
People in a small town can do something useful. People in a big city are probably miles away from where they could do something useful. Sending out this kind of stupid message just encourages them to ignore all messages in future.
Except the models claim that arctic zones should warm more than the equatorial zones, so that should reduce the amount of energy available to power storms.
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The USPS wouldnt actually be in the red if it werent for the stupid rules congress imposed on them a few years back where they are the only federal entity that has to have 100% retirement funds paid for (my understyanding is the industry standards are 10-15% funded)
Last I looked, they would only have lost a few billion dollars last year without that rule, rather than a few billion plus a few billion more. I forget the precise numbers, but I believe that rule resulted in about one third of their losses.
The simple fact is that you can't sustain a low-cost paper mail delivery system with universal coverage in an era where 90% of the paper mail has moved online.
You mean reprogram them with something better and slap a different label on them? Cause thats what actually happened with ET according to people who worked at atari.
Surely they wouldn't have used EPROMs for games that were expected to sell millions of copies? The cost difference between those and mass-produced PROMs would presumably have been millions of dollars.
which the NSA can get by taping Google's ISP without Google's consent....Try paying attention.
How exactly are they going to tap my printing if it goes over my local LAN to a CUPS printer?
Try paying attention to the discusion.
You're 1 of 2 people who can get CUPS a) setup and b) working well enough to not just spew ink with a real printer.
Says the person who apparently hasn't used Linux since 1993.
Back on topic, presumably Google won't support CUPS, because the NSA wants a copy of everything we print as well as everything we email.
And Microsoft? They are now the proud owners of a giant, giant cloud, and all the business they hope it will bring. And this is about the smartest bet they could make, because they really are out of options.
That would have been true if we hadn't discovered that 'The Cloud' has an open back door for the NSA.
If Microsoft can't compete and build a monopoly without already having a monopoly, then how did Microsoft get its first monopoly?
1. They got the original DOS contract for the IBM PC. Without that, they'd be a tiny company building BASIC interpreters.
2. For years, anyone could copy DOS or Windows, so there was no need to even think about buying a competing product.
Yeah, because it's not like Microsoft will require Secure Boot with Windows 9 or anything. Slippery slopes are a logical fallacy, and all.
iPad uses an os that can not run any of the applications of a mac yet the iPad has been a succes since day one.
Most people don't have thousands of dollars worth of crusty old Mac software that they expect to run on an iPad.
And because people on /. seem to "forget" their history, ARM isn't even close to the first non-x86 architecture that Windows has been available for; it's previously supported Alpha (NT 3.1-4.0), MIPS (NT 3.1-4.0), Power (3.51-4.0), and Itanium (XP, Server 2003, and Server 2008).
And they all flopped and were discontinued. Largely because of lack of compatibility with x86 Windows; you could run some x86 programs (slowly) on the non-x86 builds, but then why not just buy an x86 machine in the first place?
To be fair, Metro apps will run on desktop Window 8 as well as ARM tablets.
It's just no-one wants to run Metro apps on a 24" desktop monitor.
Can you name some compatibility problems that a typical user (emphasis on typical) might face?
Lots of old games are 16-bit apps or have 16-bit installers. Lots of old hardware doesn't have 64-bit drivers.
The funny part is that I have a 64-bit OS on my Windows gaming PC, but I only have about half a dozen actual 64-bit apps because most developers stick to 32-bit unless they really need more than 2GB of RAM. Almost all the apps on my 64-bit Linux machines are actually 64-bit, even if they're just the equivalent of Notepad.
It would probably be a pretty good tablet if it wasn't running Window.
It's not that hard to write low level emulation for this is it? Come on!
Running programs designed for a 3GHz quad-core x86 on a 1.3GHz ARM? That'll work.
Yes, I'm sure it can be done, but probably not in a form most people would want to use. If your program is idle 99% of the time and spends most of the other 1% inside the OS it's probably OK, but anything at all CPU-intensive (e.g. software video players) is probably toast.
To be fair, Microsoft mice have always been pretty good.
There isn't a technical reason why they couldn't have made .net applications work on arm, or Surface RT.
Except they'll fail horribly if they call native code that isn't part of the OS. If you need .zip compression, for example, you're probably calling zlib.dll, which isn't part of the OS and won't run on ARM unless you specifically install the ARM version.
Huh? Can you explain this??
Politicians.
What else do you need to know?
As I understand it, a non-firing replica Uzi is illegal here, but you can buy a full-auto metal Uzi air-gun from a store over the counter and fire BBs to your heart's content.
thats exactly right. a server with 2 octa-core xeons, 32 to 64 gigs of ram 2 mechanical HDDs, plus other hardware might pull around a 1000W. imagine a microwave oven working 24/7.
You're pretty much describing a typical server we use, and they weren't even close to 1000W last I looked at the power monitoring. Admittedly they don't run at 100% CPU all the time, but the official TDP of two CPUs is only around 250W.
Where do you shop? For $1500 I can buy a pretty fantastic computer with Windows on it.
Yeah, I paid about $1500 for my new game machine. Even including the extortionate cost of Windows, that bought an i7, mid-range gaming GPU, tons of RAM, an SSD and terabytes of hard drive space.
I know this may be difficult to wrap your head around, but a significant number of people are up and starting their day between 4 and 5 am.
Then they can see it on the TV news before they go to work.
Not really. Unintended consequences are the norm with Nanny State legislation.
They are not asking you to look out the window at 4 am or go looking for a missing child.
Then what's the point?
They are putting the information out there so you will know a child is missing.
So why are they doing it at 4am? The breakfast news would be more effective.
Welcome to New York City, where it's somebody else's problem.
Exactly. It is someone else's problem.
People in a small town can do something useful. People in a big city are probably miles away from where they could do something useful. Sending out this kind of stupid message just encourages them to ignore all messages in future.
STOP TRYING TO RECREATE THE HELL KNOWN AS MICROSOFT WINDOWS.
Those who don't understand Windows are doomed to reinvent it, even worse.
DX9 needs to stop being used and everyone needs to switch to DX11 or even better, OpenGL4.
If Microsoft had ported DX10 and DX11 to XP, rather than using them as a club to beat XP users into switching to Vista, everyone already would have.
Except the models claim that arctic zones should warm more than the equatorial zones, so that should reduce the amount of energy available to power storms.