No, it should be 40% faster due to dual processor, plus 100% faster from having a doubled clock speed, for maths intensive tasks like filtering in RAM.
That assumes the bus is twice as fast, and the RAM is fast enough.
"What essential commercial software out there is completely unavailable for and has no open-source alternatives for the Mac? "
Let me see, just in the area I work,
Working Model 3D, aka Nastran 4D ADAMS MathCAD Automotive Signal collection and analysis suites
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on engineering 3D solid modelling (IDEAS, Unigraphics, Catia et al), but note that Rhino doesn't count.
To put that into perspective, I could use the Mac OS as a text editor, web browser, Excel, and email. My AMD 400 MHz can and does manage that quite comfortably.
Hmm, wrong crowd getting defensive, I think. On all the real tasks he gave it a twin processor 2 GHz machine was roughly twice as fast as a 1 GHz single cpu machine.
""I do have RH9 installed on another machine but it always comes back to the same thing. Some program I need/want doesn't exist for Linux or some hardware that I use won't work, or at best works very poorly.:("
Would you mind naming these software and hardware?"
Easy
Excel. Real Excel users have far too much legacy stuff that they cannot use reliably with OO. OO won't even import charts properly a lot of the time, and all my VBA would need to be rewritten, and all calculations would have to be revalidated.
MathCad - I am most impressed by Octave, Scilab and R. I'll probably use Scilab instead of Matlab for my next big number crunching project. But, those programs do not produce a human-readable report-ready document.
Is there a pre and post processor available for Nastran ? I haven't seen anything to match FEMAP, but haven't looked, since I don't use FE much.
Working Model 3D
etc etc
Sorry, Linux is only 10% of the way to replacing Windows, just from the applications side, for this mechanical engineer.
From NT4/W2k onwards the MS product has proved to be sufficiently stable to run big engineering programs, so on average we are migrating off Unix workstations onto Dells running W2k. Our CAD package runs on either, obviously all my engineering stuff does as well.
I'd point out that this is hardly surprising to me, after all these programs have a fairly limited market, but in my opinion Excel is probably the show stopper. No, I haven't tried running it under WINE. OK, I will try it out.
Most of my analysis programs and add-ins are written in Fortran. I've just had to buy an up to date compiler so that we can incorporate some new code into the models. I'm intrigued by the Fortran to C converters, but can't imagine trying to debug the code that would be produced.
Let's face it, for well structured problems like engineering analysis, the basic number crunching is best done in a simple language that is easy to read and somewhat resistant to programming tricks.
The basic task is several enormous matrices->crunch-> more enormous matrices.
Depending on your local laws it may be that your 3 year warranty has not been extinguished by HP. The original warranty on the HD may still be valid, if you can get the manufacturer to listen to you. I have definitely read of this working in the UK, at least.
My Libretto has a 120 MHz pentium. It runs W95, and has an acceptable performance for most tasks using Office 97 and IE5.
Given an optimised software suite I see no reason why a "100 MHz Pentium" would be overloaded in the context of a handheld. I don't know about handwriting recognition, admittedly, if they have that.
"They get hit by every virus that comes along because patching servers and maintaining AV software lags."
No they don't. Guess what impact msblaster etc had on the network over the last month or two? Two reboots at the start of the working day. That's it. I have never had a virus at Ford since 1996.
Because, ya maroon, the concept of getting a sensible IP environment in place is more important than putting MS down at every opportunity. Hard to understand?
Although, I don't really agree that in order to comment on a field you have to be a practitioner in it. I feel qualified to comment on SF, I've never written any. I just don't expect people to take my comments very seriously.
Nice response, and far more sensible than the whine that sparked it off.
However, he is describing hard science fiction, ie technology extrapolation and the use and abuse of physical laws, SF is much bigger than that. There are also all the other parts of the science fiction field- for instance PKD is still completely out there. A Scanner Darkly is a technology proof novel.
I like his point that we are living in the future. I've always extended it to "We are living in the future and it is slightly crap". My cell phone is often out of range. My whizzy looking car has a 30 year old chassis. Passenger aircraft got bigger, and less comfortable, not faster. 'We' fly to the moon. But not often. (Damn these anti-curmudgeon pills are wearing off).
Well, if they are 180 degrees out of phase they could be said to be in antiphase. Personally I think dictionary.com is wrong really.
For instance, if one signal is exactly 90 degrees behind another it is out of phase, but could still be perfectly synchronized, or correlated, or (technically) coherent with the first signal.
Perhaps it depends on the field of use.
IANAABIAANAVE
A=aerodynamicist,B=But, NAVE = noise and vibration engineer
I've/used/ magnetohydrodynamics, have you? (Cambridge University Engineering Labs, 1980)
At some point, whatever magical properties the plasma has (not much) it has to move air out of the way of the vehicle+plasma field. At some point, typically directly in front of the plasma bubble the air has to move faster than it can react, so (crudely) it creates a sonic boom.
Even if there were no friction between the air and the bubble it would stll have to move out of the way.
It takes the megacorporation I work for 3 years to roll out a new version of office or windows. So for 3 years all our suppliers, vendors etc etc will have all DRM docments returned to them, or ignored.
By the time we are ready to use it everyone else will have abandoned it.
The problem with getting the government to do it is that you end up with NASA.
The capitalist argument is that business is the best way of generating actual prosperity, and at some point enough people (or one person) will donate disposable income in the direction of space travel.
Their chosen instrument might be government, but it might not. The chances are the individuals concerned will own large chunks of a company and will use that or another company to do the job.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it should be 40% faster due to dual processor, plus 100% faster from having a doubled clock speed, for maths intensive tasks like filtering in RAM.
That assumes the bus is twice as fast, and the RAM is fast enough.
"What essential commercial software out there is completely unavailable for and has no open-source alternatives for the Mac? "
Let me see, just in the area I work,
Working Model 3D, aka Nastran 4D
ADAMS
MathCAD
Automotive Signal collection and analysis suites
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on engineering 3D solid modelling (IDEAS, Unigraphics, Catia et al), but note that Rhino doesn't count.
To put that into perspective, I could use the Mac OS as a text editor, web browser, Excel, and email. My AMD 400 MHz can and does manage that quite comfortably.
Hmm, wrong crowd getting defensive, I think. On all the real tasks he gave it a twin processor 2 GHz machine was roughly twice as fast as a 1 GHz single cpu machine.
Wow. Not.
Funny.
Do you think we really give a monkey's about 'slurs' like that?
""I do have RH9 installed on another machine but it always comes back to the same thing. Some program I need/want doesn't exist for Linux or some hardware that I use won't work, or at best works very poorly. :("
Would you mind naming these software and hardware?"
Easy
Excel. Real Excel users have far too much legacy stuff that they cannot use reliably with OO. OO won't even import charts properly a lot of the time, and all my VBA would need to be rewritten, and all calculations would have to be revalidated.
MathCad - I am most impressed by Octave, Scilab and R. I'll probably use Scilab instead of Matlab for my next big number crunching project. But, those programs do not produce a human-readable report-ready document.
Is there a pre and post processor available for Nastran ? I haven't seen anything to match FEMAP, but haven't looked, since I don't use FE much.
Working Model 3D
etc etc
Sorry, Linux is only 10% of the way to replacing Windows, just from the applications side, for this mechanical engineer.
From NT4/W2k onwards the MS product has proved to be sufficiently stable to run big engineering programs, so on average we are migrating off Unix workstations onto Dells running W2k. Our CAD package runs on either, obviously all my engineering stuff does as well.
I'd point out that this is hardly surprising to me, after all these programs have a fairly limited market, but in my opinion Excel is probably the show stopper. No, I haven't tried running it under WINE. OK, I will try it out.
Most of my analysis programs and add-ins are written in Fortran. I've just had to buy an up to date compiler so that we can incorporate some new code into the models. I'm intrigued by the Fortran to C converters, but can't imagine trying to debug the code that would be produced.
Let's face it, for well structured problems like engineering analysis, the basic number crunching is best done in a simple language that is easy to read and somewhat resistant to programming tricks.
The basic task is
several enormous matrices->crunch-> more enormous matrices.
Sounds like Fortran to me.
Depending on your local laws it may be that your 3 year warranty has not been extinguished by HP. The original warranty on the HD may still be valid, if you can get the manufacturer to listen to you. I have definitely read of this working in the UK, at least.
Given that MS spend tens of millions on usability it is hardly surprising that for their target market their interface is a good guide to the optimum.
What makes you think that a user interface written BY geeks (mostly) FOR geeks would be more acceptable to the MS/Sun TARGET MARKET?
eg
why the f- do I have to launch a package from the command line to dial my ISP, as a default with KDE?
My Libretto has a 120 MHz pentium. It runs W95, and has an acceptable performance for most tasks using Office 97 and IE5.
Given an optimised software suite I see no reason why a "100 MHz Pentium" would be overloaded in the context of a handheld. I don't know about handwriting recognition, admittedly, if they have that.
Remind me again which significant airline has the best safety record in the world?
Actually troll-face we do already enforce both those regs.
Nah, Microsoft's been using Linux for ages.
"They get hit by every virus that comes along because patching servers and maintaining AV software lags."
No they don't. Guess what impact msblaster etc had on the network over the last month or two? Two reboots at the start of the working day. That's it. I have never had a virus at Ford since 1996.
Why are you telling lies?
Because, ya maroon, the concept of getting a sensible IP environment in place is more important than putting MS down at every opportunity. Hard to understand?
Hope that helps
Cheers
Ish
Although, I don't really agree that in order to comment on a field you have to be a practitioner in it. I feel qualified to comment on SF, I've never written any. I just don't expect people to take my comments very seriously.
Nice response, and far more sensible than the whine that sparked it off.
However, he is describing hard science fiction, ie technology extrapolation and the use and abuse of physical laws, SF is much bigger than that. There are also all the other parts of the science fiction field- for instance PKD is still completely out there. A Scanner Darkly is a technology proof novel.
I like his point that we are living in the future. I've always extended it to "We are living in the future and it is slightly crap". My cell phone is often out of range. My whizzy looking car has a 30 year old chassis. Passenger aircraft got bigger, and less comfortable, not faster. 'We' fly to the moon. But not often. (Damn these anti-curmudgeon pills are wearing off).
Fair comment.
>>in pencil, all caps, about 0.7 mm high
>If I could write that small with a pencil i'd be showing it off too
If I could READ that small I'd be showing off too
Well, if they are 180 degrees out of phase they could be said to be in antiphase. Personally I think dictionary.com is wrong really.
For instance, if one signal is exactly 90 degrees behind another it is out of phase, but could still be perfectly synchronized, or correlated, or (technically) coherent with the first signal.
Perhaps it depends on the field of use.
IANAABIAANAVE
A=aerodynamicist,B=But, NAVE = noise and vibration engineer
Well, the first couple of operational deployments saved a few hundred thousand lives, so I think you could argue that it wasn't all bad.
And the nuclear power industry has killed fewer people than the coal mines it replaced.
I've /used/ magnetohydrodynamics, have you? (Cambridge University Engineering Labs, 1980)
At some point, whatever magical properties the plasma has (not much) it has to move air out of the way of the vehicle+plasma field. At some point, typically directly in front of the plasma bubble the air has to move faster than it can react, so (crudely) it creates a sonic boom.
Even if there were no friction between the air and the bubble it would stll have to move out of the way.
Hah, that's exactly right. I was even thinking about orthogonality as I wrote the previous post.
Now all I need is a 4 dimensional filing cabinet.
It takes the megacorporation I work for 3 years to roll out a new version of office or windows.
So for 3 years all our suppliers, vendors etc etc will have all DRM docments returned to them, or ignored.
By the time we are ready to use it everyone else will have abandoned it.
Have always baffled me. Do I put my dividend statements in Shares, or current FY tax return?
Do I file a report on tyres under tyres, or the project I wrote it for?
Answer, in practice: whichever I feel like.
The problem with getting the government to do it is that you end up with NASA.
The capitalist argument is that business is the best way of generating actual prosperity, and at some point enough people (or one person) will donate disposable income in the direction of space travel.
Their chosen instrument might be government, but it might not. The chances are the individuals concerned will own large chunks of a company and will use that or another company to do the job.