This is exactly right. Ziff-Davis has a long history (going back to the 80's) of destroying good technical and informational magazines with Byte probably being the most prominent. Most were turned into "yet another of the same old ZD PC magazine" where "technical information" was re-aimed at the lowest common denominator and informative 10 page product reviews were turned into 4 page manufacturers advertisements. When CS was sold, the previous owner said there would be few changes but I knew the end of a good magazine was not far away. About a year later I dropped my subscription.
I use to work for a company that supplied Motorola with small 911 telephone systems until they dropped ups about four years ago. We were nearly all layed off just over three years ago. I'm still trying to get back into the electronics buisness so Motorola doesn't exacly rate high on my list of companies. Pass me that spoon when you get through.
It also allowed other companies to connect to AT&T telephone networks which AT&T did not allow them to do before. This allowed much of the innovation in telecom that we now take for granted to take place.
Perhaps not being allowed to get into the computer buisness wasn't so bad. After AT&T was allowed to get into the computer buisness they bought one of the largest and most respected PC buisnesses (I believe it was NCR's), and within a few years, managed to completely destroy it at a hugh financial loss to AT&T.
I'll believe in the benifits of outsoucing as soon as they start outsourcing CEO's. Currently some of them make over 400 times what the average worker makes. Think of all the money a company could save! Think of how much this would benifit the US economy! All of the arguments made about how IT workers make too much and if they deserve the jobs they spent years learning how to do, and years keeping up with all the advances apply equally to ALL workers, management included. Let's let blind adherence to capitalism is all good turn us ALL into poor burger flippers. Then capitalism, globalization, and free trade will have achieved what communism couldn't and turn the US into a third world country.
Linux does not have to release "fixes" that are this big. Because of the way it is designed and implemented, it can get almost anything fixed by issuing small patch files.
What if you hit F6 and nothing happens? I'm attempting to load XP onto a Soyo Dragon MB (Athlon 2600+) using the onboard RAID controller. Also, my RAID drivers (if there are any) are on CD that came with the MB so I can't use the floppy disk drive (hello Microsoft, does anybody distribute drivers on floppy anymore).
Yes, profit. That is what is left over after the company pays all the expenses you list (assuming of course that there is money left over). Also at least one company which shall remain nameless (Microsoft) has rarely if ever payed shareholders dividends. Which is a big reason they are sitting on an incredable pile of cash (profits). In just the last couple of days they have announced plans to do so.
Except something like 40% or more of corporations pay little or NO income tax at all. The largest pay the least (good corporate tax lawyers are worth their weight in gold). Little guys, you know, the ones that tend to inovate most get screwed. About four years ago (give or take a year), Microsoft posted huge profits for the year and payed NO income tax at all. So while they LOVE to complain of high tax rates, big companies don't even come close to acually PAYING them.
Which "real world" are you talking about? The real world sitting on a desktop or the real world in a modern fighter jet that can't be flown unless computer software is used to keep it stable? Where time concerns are critical and every last machine cycle counts. Welcome to the "real world" of hard real-time computing. Where a slip in time costs lives. Profilers can't be used here because they increase execution time.
Or how about in the embedded "real world" with 64K (that's 65,536) bytes (or less) of program code space and 512 bytes (or less) of RAM? Believe it or not, there are literally thousands of these computers for every desktop computer on earth. Where not ony time efficency but cost and power consumption (lower speed processors), code and data efficency are critical. Profilers aren't much use here.
It may also suprise you to know that some compiled programs do run time CPU type checking and use different code paths depending on the results for exactly the reasonds you give. A profiler can't always help produce code that is efficent enough on all the variations of the x86 CPU architecture. Few programs need this level of efficency, but when they do, there are few alternatives.
And, last. No compiler can produce realy good optimized code without a programmer with an intimate knowledge of the instruction set and hardware architecture of the processor the compiler is producing machine instructions for.
Maybe you need to learn more about "other" types of "real world" computer software uses before you shoot your foot off talking about subjects you clearly do not know enough about.
The last couple of generations of T-Birds and all XPs have a temperature sensor diode on the chip that can be read if the motherboard supports it.
There is a web article at overclockers.com that shows you how to build a circuit to read this sensor if the motherboard does not support it.
I have been waiting for over three YEARS for SBC to deliver DSL to my residence. I live in the digital backwater of Dallas, TX (in the city limits) just a few miles from the once mighty telecom corridor. My SLOW dialup service has been OK as long as there are no probllems. When there are problems, the "service representitives" are useless, clueless, troubleshooting diagram followers with no backup from anyone who actually knows anything remotely related to ISP operations. There is no customer service number in case the problems encountered are not solved ! Even my SLOW dialup connection is rate limited ! They cut off my dial up connection after several hours even when I'm actively browsing. They cut off my dialup connection after several hours when I'm attempting long downloads. Contrary to what they say on their stupid commercials they have spent millions on lawyers fees (and political contributions) to keep the most powerfull lock they have on their customers, the pair of copper wires running to the houses, out of the reach of their competitors.
Ma Bell LIVES, she just changed her name to SBC.
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly right. Ziff-Davis has a long history (going back to the 80's) of destroying good technical and informational magazines with Byte probably being the most prominent. Most were turned into "yet another of the same old ZD PC magazine" where "technical information" was re-aimed at the lowest common denominator and informative 10 page product reviews were turned into 4 page manufacturers advertisements. When CS was sold, the previous owner said there would be few changes but I knew the end of a good magazine was not far away. About a year later I dropped my subscription.
I use to work for a company that supplied Motorola with small 911 telephone systems until they dropped ups about four years ago. We were nearly all layed off just over three years ago. I'm still trying to get back into the electronics buisness so Motorola doesn't exacly rate high on my list of companies. Pass me that spoon when you get through.
It also allowed other companies to connect to AT&T telephone networks which AT&T did not allow them to do before. This allowed much of the innovation in telecom that we now take for granted to take place. Perhaps not being allowed to get into the computer buisness wasn't so bad. After AT&T was allowed to get into the computer buisness they bought one of the largest and most respected PC buisnesses (I believe it was NCR's), and within a few years, managed to completely destroy it at a hugh financial loss to AT&T.
I'll believe in the benifits of outsoucing as soon as they start outsourcing CEO's. Currently some of them make over 400 times what the average worker makes. Think of all the money a company could save! Think of how much this would benifit the US economy! All of the arguments made about how IT workers make too much and if they deserve the jobs they spent years learning how to do, and years keeping up with all the advances apply equally to ALL workers, management included. Let's let blind adherence to capitalism is all good turn us ALL into poor burger flippers. Then capitalism, globalization, and free trade will have achieved what communism couldn't and turn the US into a third world country.
Linux does not have to release "fixes" that are this big. Because of the way it is designed and implemented, it can get almost anything fixed by issuing small patch files.
What if you hit F6 and nothing happens? I'm attempting to load XP onto a Soyo Dragon MB (Athlon 2600+) using the onboard RAID controller. Also, my RAID drivers (if there are any) are on CD that came with the MB so I can't use the floppy disk drive (hello Microsoft, does anybody distribute drivers on floppy anymore).
Yes, profit. That is what is left over after the company pays all the expenses you list (assuming of course that there is money left over). Also at least one company which shall remain nameless (Microsoft) has rarely if ever payed shareholders dividends. Which is a big reason they are sitting on an incredable pile of cash (profits). In just the last couple of days they have announced plans to do so.
Except something like 40% or more of corporations pay little or NO income tax at all. The largest pay the least (good corporate tax lawyers are worth their weight in gold). Little guys, you know, the ones that tend to inovate most get screwed. About four years ago (give or take a year), Microsoft posted huge profits for the year and payed NO income tax at all. So while they LOVE to complain of high tax rates, big companies don't even come close to acually PAYING them.
Which "real world" are you talking about? The real world sitting on a desktop or the real world in a modern fighter jet that can't be flown unless computer software is used to keep it stable? Where time concerns are critical and every last machine cycle counts. Welcome to the "real world" of hard real-time computing. Where a slip in time costs lives. Profilers can't be used here because they increase execution time.
Or how about in the embedded "real world" with 64K (that's 65,536) bytes (or less) of program code space and 512 bytes (or less) of RAM? Believe it or not, there are literally thousands of these computers for every desktop computer on earth. Where not ony time efficency but cost and power consumption (lower speed processors), code and data efficency are critical. Profilers aren't much use here.
It may also suprise you to know that some compiled programs do run time CPU type checking and use different code paths depending on the results for exactly the reasonds you give. A profiler can't always help produce code that is efficent enough on all the variations of the x86 CPU architecture. Few programs need this level of efficency, but when they do, there are few alternatives.
And, last. No compiler can produce realy good optimized code without a programmer with an intimate knowledge of the instruction set and hardware architecture of the processor the compiler is producing machine instructions for.
Maybe you need to learn more about "other" types of "real world" computer software uses before you shoot your foot off talking about subjects you clearly do not know enough about.
The last couple of generations of T-Birds and all XPs have a temperature sensor diode on the chip that can be read if the motherboard supports it. There is a web article at overclockers.com that shows you how to build a circuit to read this sensor if the motherboard does not support it.
I have been waiting for over three YEARS for SBC to deliver DSL to my residence. I live in the digital backwater of Dallas, TX (in the city limits) just a few miles from the once mighty telecom corridor. My SLOW dialup service has been OK as long as there are no probllems. When there are problems, the "service representitives" are useless, clueless, troubleshooting diagram followers with no backup from anyone who actually knows anything remotely related to ISP operations. There is no customer service number in case the problems encountered are not solved ! Even my SLOW dialup connection is rate limited ! They cut off my dial up connection after several hours even when I'm actively browsing. They cut off my dialup connection after several hours when I'm attempting long downloads. Contrary to what they say on their stupid commercials they have spent millions on lawyers fees (and political contributions) to keep the most powerfull lock they have on their customers, the pair of copper wires running to the houses, out of the reach of their competitors. Ma Bell LIVES, she just changed her name to SBC.