I wasn't that impressed with the whole thing. Yes, the way it handles external storage devices placed on the surface is slick and a few of the UI features use the interface well but overall it doesn't seem very interesting. At least not nearly interesting enough to live up to the hype I've heard over the last two days.
I've heard claims about how this will revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Someone explain what new things I'll be able to do with this. Some explain how I'll be able to do old things better. (What, am I supposed to send all of my emails as finger-paint jpegs?)
I wasn't that impressed with the whole thing. Yes, the way it handles external storage devices placed on the surface is slick and a few of the UI features use the interface well but overall it doesn't seem very interesting. At least not nearly interesting enough to live up to the hype I've heard over the last two days.
I've heard claims about how this will revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Someone explain what new things I'll be able to do with this. Some explain how I'll be able to do old things better. (What, am I supposed to send all of my emails as finger-paint jpegs?)
Don't fall into the trap of "Don't bother with math, you don't want to be a teacher." There are definitely very good, high-paid jobs for skilled people with Math backgrounds.
As someone pointed out in another comment, Economics is a big field for Math majors. Lots of large businesses and investment firms want people with strong Math backgrounds for all kinds of work. Some directly related to what you might think a "Math guy" might do, some more general such as investing, etc.
Any engineering field will need a few individuals with exceedingly strong math backgrounds and there's a lot of "regular" engineers out there that you wouldn't want doing formal proofs (think Intel FDIV bug).
The primary reason we need law enforcement is because people don't always follow laws. If people always followed the law there wouldn't be any need for law enforcement. If bad people weren't allowed out of childhood no one would bother buying guns or even locks on their doors. If everyone was generally nice we wouldn't have to spend billions every year enforcing the law.
You'd have to be crazy to want to get into that business. Any piece of hardware that a third party has access to can be modified as long as someone is willing to put in enough effort. There's enough zealots on both sides of an election that you can guarantee someone would figure it out no matter what you do to the hardware.
There will never be truly "secure" electronic voting without a complete rework of every aspect of the process and even then it probably would never be truly secure.
Actually, the phrase "rife with claims and counter-claims" is making more of the counter-claims then they are; the vast body of the evidence indicates climate change is real; Lomborg is the only serious counter-claimaint that I am aware of.
Did anyone else find this hilarious after reading about an article discussing bias and counter-claims?
... but its dual-core Opteron and Athlon 64 processors contain two processing cores integrated onto a single piece of silicon, or a die. This design has given AMD great performance during the past few years...
That incorrectly implies Intel's designs aren't two cores on a single die. They've been putting two cores on a single die for quite a while now.
For a couple minutes of code-search fun try searching some of your favorite TLAs & explitives. For example, search for "wtf" and feel the pain of a few devs.
...
Attacking a SPY satellite that views your country's movements from orbit is akin to kicking a SPY out of the country. It has absolutely no comparison to attacking a random ship on the open seas. ...
Except the satellite isn't in the country. The satellite falls under the same principles that allow international airspace and international waters. It's "international space".
Countries (both the US and others) have flown airplanes and parked boats in these international areas and gathered intelligence for a good part of the last century.
Also, consider the effect this could have on civilian satellites. Unless the satellite is in geosynchronous orbit there's a good chance it crosses over some country that may not like the owner during its orbit. Does that make it acceptable for the country to start attacking it? Should people start shooting down weather satellites? (No, it isn't likely but if you allow one you allow the other.)
Well, that jamming station must not have worked well and I highly doubt it was put there by the Russians. I cannot think of a clear motive for it. Probably sold as surplus or exchanged for payment by a disgruntled soldier and found its way to Iraq.
Hey! That's quality Russian craftsmanship for you! (Yes, that was a joke for those of you lacking a sense of humor. Maybe not a good joke but at least we all know why I don't do stand-up.)
You want a clear motive? Money. Possibly also the chance to throw a cog in the works for a few other nations. There's been quite a lot of talk for the past several years about China and Russian selling and setting up weapon systems for just about anyone.
1) I never wanted to believe Gates when he said "Hardware will be free" (or something to that effect) but apparently he was right. Yes, I know it's not really "free" but to the end user it might as well be - it's now something that is just bundled with a service.
2) I remembered seeing part of a Bob Colwell (PentiumPro Cheif Architect) talk at Stanford sometime around '02 where he made a few comments about the PC & CPU industries turning into a commodity market where everyone competes on price instead of performance.
It would be interesting to look at the long-range strategic plans from Intel and AMD side-by-side and see how they're adapting to this shift.
Democrats are opposed to this, because they recognize that the only reason why Republicans are pushing for it is to disenfranchise groups of voters and keep them from the polls.
What people still haven't been able to sufficiently explain is exactly how having a picture ID will disenfranchise voters. Especially when the majority of these efforts have gone hand-in-hand with offers to provide free ID's to anyone who didn't have one.
What's so wrong with making sure that someone only votes once?
Between this and the immigration issue I'm starting to think the US should just adopt a few laws from Mexico. Those laws allow less BS than their US counterparts:(
I'm just waiting to loose karma for this one but here it goes...
Have you ever thought of the possibility that you lost a fair election (well, as fair as any other)? Have you ever thought that perhaps you weren't right? That the majority of the country doesn't agree with you?
Its shocking, I know. But in between self righteous rants about how no one in their right mind would vote for the other side try thinking - just once - is your side right? Does your side really represent the majority of the population?
(Now that you're all riled up ---> This post is directed at both parties)
1) These chips won't be in PCs. They're a PowerPC derivitive and won't be running your x86 PC code. That being said its already possible to pickup sub-$100 CPUs if you aren't fixated on getting the fastest core out there. (Just like Nintendo didn't want the fastest possible core. They wanted good performance for low-cost)
2) I'd be surprised if someone didn't get Linux up and running on it but I doubt it'll be a common practice.
3) Yeah, Cell is definitely interesting to program since its parallelism is thrown right in your face. There's some compiler work that's been going on for a while to automate the process a little but I don't track it so I have no clue what its current status is (the last white paper I read seemed promising though). It will definitely be used by more than just game consoles & cgi graphics. Its already being applied to some medical imaging, radar and there was just an IBM announcement about an upcoming system for one of the government labs that will be using 16,000 Cells and 16,000 Opterons. It'll be the world's fastest computer when it's finished.
4) While the Xbox core can run general purpose code just fine it is definitely geared towards graphics much more than your standard PC. I don't have a link laying around but there are a few diagrams floating around online that show how the system is architected. The GPU is really the heart of the system with the CPU hanging off to the side - reversed from current PC architectures. Could the Xbox core be used as a desktop part? Sure. Will it? Not likely. The momentum that would be required to completely rearchitect PCs is enormous (software & hardware would all have to change). This pretty much goes back to point #1.
Anyway. These views in no way represent IBM and I may be completely off-base.
1. Get with direct link interconnects, FSB is teh stupid
1) Google "Intel CSI"
2) Point-to-point links are not always better than a shared bus. Its a tradeoff. Some factors swing one way. Some swing the other way. (Power is a big one. HT was a power-hog for a while and caused a problem in the notbook sector.)
2. Stop making a new core every other Tuesday, m'kay?
1) Google "Intel converged core" or "Intel converged chip"
3. 4MB of cache is nice, but it has to be hella expensive right? [*]
1) They have a huge transistor budget.
2) Cache is reletively easy and provides real gains.
3) Parts can be (and are) sold even if they have a few bad cachelines.
4. Merge with Nvidia, totally mess up the PC scene, it'll be fun:-)
Don't worry. Intel is going to bring back its own graphics buisness (Well, it was never really gone. It was just hiding). It will be a lot better for Intel than trying to buy NVIDIA and all the baggage that would go along with that purchase.
This rumor has been out there for over a month. There was even a reference to it on./ when they posted they story about Intel laying off 1000 managers. Everyone expects further cuts but until they actually tell the employees what's happening these posts are just rehashing the same old rumors.
I was a little surprised it made it onto./ today but then I remembered this was./ - land of the double posts.
You're kidding right? Intel has great employees (I worked there for a bit before taking an offer somewhere else). If they want work they'll find it.
The question isn't where will the good paying jobs come from. The question is where will we find the people to fill them. There is already a shortage of good engineers in certain fields and hardware design is one of those fields.
Tuesday evening, Intel lays off 10,000 employees. Wednesday 7:00am, AMD gains 10,000 new employees
Maybe. If it wasn't for the fact that this is nearly equal to the total number of employees AMD already has (AMD has about 11,000 employees - not counting ATI's 4,000). They don't need that many people. They'll probably grab a few choice people.
And don't be so sure about the standard cliches regarding who is faster/cheaper. It varies a lot in this industry. Now that Intel has finally turned away from Netburst (it takes a long time to turn 100,000 person ship) you'll be seeing a much better showing. Core was just the beginning - the really interesting parts are still coming.
If you have =/> 2GB RAM, disable swap, unless you are running server, in which case 4GB is the magic number. The 2 drive swap method just doesn't seem to work as well on Win2k as it did on WinNT; no clue why, but i've tested it repeatedly.
Turn off swap on a server? Are you SURE you want to do that? That sounds like a very bad idea unless you know for a fact that you're seriously under utilizing the machine.
Some of the jobs I've started at work use over 4G just for a single process. (Thankfully it was running on a 32 processor Regatta with 256GB of RAM)
Slashdot Mirror
I must be missing something.
I wasn't that impressed with the whole thing. Yes, the way it handles external storage devices placed on the surface is slick and a few of the UI features use the interface well but overall it doesn't seem very interesting. At least not nearly interesting enough to live up to the hype I've heard over the last two days.
I've heard claims about how this will revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Someone explain what new things I'll be able to do with this. Some explain how I'll be able to do old things better. (What, am I supposed to send all of my emails as finger-paint jpegs?)
I must be missing something.
I wasn't that impressed with the whole thing. Yes, the way it handles external storage devices placed on the surface is slick and a few of the UI features use the interface well but overall it doesn't seem very interesting. At least not nearly interesting enough to live up to the hype I've heard over the last two days.
I've heard claims about how this will revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Someone explain what new things I'll be able to do with this. Some explain how I'll be able to do old things better. (What, am I supposed to send all of my emails as finger-paint jpegs?)
... Far from it actually.
Don't fall into the trap of "Don't bother with math, you don't want to be a teacher." There are definitely very good, high-paid jobs for skilled people with Math backgrounds.
As someone pointed out in another comment, Economics is a big field for Math majors. Lots of large businesses and investment firms want people with strong Math backgrounds for all kinds of work. Some directly related to what you might think a "Math guy" might do, some more general such as investing, etc.
Any engineering field will need a few individuals with exceedingly strong math backgrounds and there's a lot of "regular" engineers out there that you wouldn't want doing formal proofs (think Intel FDIV bug).
The primary reason we need law enforcement is because people don't always follow laws. If people always followed the law there wouldn't be any need for law enforcement. If bad people weren't allowed out of childhood no one would bother buying guns or even locks on their doors. If everyone was generally nice we wouldn't have to spend billions every year enforcing the law.
You'd have to be crazy to want to get into that business. Any piece of hardware that a third party has access to can be modified as long as someone is willing to put in enough effort. There's enough zealots on both sides of an election that you can guarantee someone would figure it out no matter what you do to the hardware.
There will never be truly "secure" electronic voting without a complete rework of every aspect of the process and even then it probably would never be truly secure.
For a couple minutes of code-search fun try searching some of your favorite TLAs & explitives. For example, search for "wtf" and feel the pain of a few devs.
Countries (both the US and others) have flown airplanes and parked boats in these international areas and gathered intelligence for a good part of the last century.
Also, consider the effect this could have on civilian satellites. Unless the satellite is in geosynchronous orbit there's a good chance it crosses over some country that may not like the owner during its orbit. Does that make it acceptable for the country to start attacking it? Should people start shooting down weather satellites? (No, it isn't likely but if you allow one you allow the other.)
You want a clear motive? Money. Possibly also the chance to throw a cog in the works for a few other nations. There's been quite a lot of talk for the past several years about China and Russian selling and setting up weapon systems for just about anyone.
1) I never wanted to believe Gates when he said "Hardware will be free" (or something to that effect) but apparently he was right. Yes, I know it's not really "free" but to the end user it might as well be - it's now something that is just bundled with a service.
2) I remembered seeing part of a Bob Colwell (PentiumPro Cheif Architect) talk at Stanford sometime around '02 where he made a few comments about the PC & CPU industries turning into a commodity market where everyone competes on price instead of performance.
It would be interesting to look at the long-range strategic plans from Intel and AMD side-by-side and see how they're adapting to this shift.
What's so wrong with making sure that someone only votes once?
Between this and the immigration issue I'm starting to think the US should just adopt a few laws from Mexico. Those laws allow less BS than their US counterparts
I wish I had mod points today.
For what its worth I would have tossed a +1 your way.
I'm just waiting to loose karma for this one but here it goes... Have you ever thought of the possibility that you lost a fair election (well, as fair as any other)? Have you ever thought that perhaps you weren't right? That the majority of the country doesn't agree with you? Its shocking, I know. But in between self righteous rants about how no one in their right mind would vote for the other side try thinking - just once - is your side right? Does your side really represent the majority of the population? (Now that you're all riled up ---> This post is directed at both parties)
Cell BE availability won't be the cause of any PS3 shortages. IBM's been pumping chips out for quite a while.
Look to blueray as the source of PS3 delays.
(You're probably referencing the interview that was on tech sites a few months ago. The write-ups completely misunderstood what was being said.)
1) These chips won't be in PCs. They're a PowerPC derivitive and won't be running your x86 PC code. That being said its already possible to pickup sub-$100 CPUs if you aren't fixated on getting the fastest core out there. (Just like Nintendo didn't want the fastest possible core. They wanted good performance for low-cost)
2) I'd be surprised if someone didn't get Linux up and running on it but I doubt it'll be a common practice.
3) Yeah, Cell is definitely interesting to program since its parallelism is thrown right in your face. There's some compiler work that's been going on for a while to automate the process a little but I don't track it so I have no clue what its current status is (the last white paper I read seemed promising though). It will definitely be used by more than just game consoles & cgi graphics. Its already being applied to some medical imaging, radar and there was just an IBM announcement about an upcoming system for one of the government labs that will be using 16,000 Cells and 16,000 Opterons. It'll be the world's fastest computer when it's finished.
4) While the Xbox core can run general purpose code just fine it is definitely geared towards graphics much more than your standard PC. I don't have a link laying around but there are a few diagrams floating around online that show how the system is architected. The GPU is really the heart of the system with the CPU hanging off to the side - reversed from current PC architectures.
Could the Xbox core be used as a desktop part? Sure. Will it? Not likely. The momentum that would be required to completely rearchitect PCs is enormous (software & hardware would all have to change). This pretty much goes back to point #1.
Anyway. These views in no way represent IBM and I may be completely off-base.
2) Point-to-point links are not always better than a shared bus. Its a tradeoff. Some factors swing one way. Some swing the other way. (Power is a big one. HT was a power-hog for a while and caused a problem in the notbook sector.)
1) Google "Intel converged core" or "Intel converged chip"
1) They have a huge transistor budget.
2) Cache is reletively easy and provides real gains.
3) Parts can be (and are) sold even if they have a few bad cachelines.
Don't worry. Intel is going to bring back its own graphics buisness (Well, it was never really gone. It was just hiding). It will be a lot better for Intel than trying to buy NVIDIA and all the baggage that would go along with that purchase.
This rumor has been out there for over a month. There was even a reference to it on ./ when they posted they story about Intel laying off 1000 managers. Everyone expects further cuts but until they actually tell the employees what's happening these posts are just rehashing the same old rumors.
./ today but then I remembered this was ./ - land of the double posts.
I was a little surprised it made it onto
You're kidding right? Intel has great employees (I worked there for a bit before taking an offer somewhere else). If they want work they'll find it.
The question isn't where will the good paying jobs come from. The question is where will we find the people to fill them. There is already a shortage of good engineers in certain fields and hardware design is one of those fields.
And don't be so sure about the standard cliches regarding who is faster/cheaper. It varies a lot in this industry. Now that Intel has finally turned away from Netburst (it takes a long time to turn 100,000 person ship) you'll be seeing a much better showing. Core was just the beginning - the really interesting parts are still coming.
Some of the jobs I've started at work use over 4G just for a single process. (Thankfully it was running on a 32 processor Regatta with 256GB of RAM)
Having a laptop in bed w/ your wife might not be a bad thing. What else are you going to use to power that latest USB "accessory"
No. Most of the recent Intel chips provide x86-64 support just like most of the recent AMD chips.