The reference to mediocre technologies was in the general sense. I didn't even say Intel in that paragraph.
If you want to have an argument about the IA-64 architecture-- and it seems you really really do, given that this is your second try to start one-- you'll have to get someone else to bite, or at least support your assertions. I already said in my last post that the Itanium sounds neat and cool, but I don't buy servers. I don't pretend to know what's the best. I do know that just because the Itanium has an innovative ISA doesn't necessarily mean it's better than any other RISC chip.
Is it so inconceivable that Intel's products sell well because they provide things that people, of their own free will, desire to buy?
No, of course not. I believe x86 microprocessors are commodities beholden to market forces. Intel is better at agressive pricing, for sure. Lower prices imply more sales with the same demand curve. They give folks what they want cheaper, and in volume.
On the other hand, Itanium is selling poorly. Given Intel's Q3 results, they're doing damn well selling just about everything else. Perhaps Intel will cut the prices and sales will increase... I have to think, though, that there must be very low Itanium demand for Intel to have trouble selling it. Maybe Itanium isn't a commodity yet? Maybe technology and not price is factoring into purchasing decisions?
What slashdotters frown upon are huge market behemoths forcing adoption of mediocre technologies by leveraging their market leadership and pricing advantages. This kills innovation in the long run. Just say "forced upgrade cycle" and your average slashdotter shudders. So, yeah, the behemoths take a drubbing here.
I think calling AMD's chips "incremental" and then fawning over the P4 in the same paragraph is a bit hypocritical. At least AMD is increasing speed in ways other than increasing on-die cache size, a tactic which only Intel and it's enormous production capabilities can make cost effective.
On the other hand, I agree that the Itanic is neat. EPIC is cool. But Intel and HP assuming it will dominate the 64-bit server market just because it is from Intel is not cool.
He's probably thinking of the fact that the Alpha processor group was sold off to Intel. It must have been fun for those engineers to see paychecks come from DEC, Compaq, HP, and Intel in quick succession. Those that kept their jobs.
The stones at Stonehenge were put up in about 2,300 BC. The axes are of types made around 1,800 BC, so the carvings are likely to be five centuries younger than the stones. Their purpose is a mystery.
The stones at Stonehenge were put up in about 2,300 BC. The axes are of types made around 1,800 BC, so the carvings are likely to be five centuries younger than the stones. Their purpose is a mystery.
Axe carvings on other monuments from this time are associated with burials, such as the seven axes found on a stone burial cist (a box shaped stone structure) in Argyll, Scotland. This could indicate that Stonehenge was a place where the dead were commemorated, a theory backed by the many burial mounds found near the monument.
This is tremendous advertising for apple, but what about clusters of Power4's and 5's? why wouldnt they out-perform this cluster?
See this list? See all the IBM p690 server systems? They're all running Power4 or Power4+.
However, I don't know why they're slower. The PPC970 isn't quite the same as the Power4. Plus all those Power systems are running at 1.3Ghz.
The whole concept of scientifically testing prayer is ridiculous, anyway. Prayer is -- at the end of the day -- a request to suspend the concept of cause and effect.
I agree that prayer isn't a scientific phenomenon, but your second point doesn't make any logical sense. Prayer-- in this case-- is a request for intercession from a higher being. Someone or something that can effect a change in the health of a sick person. The cause being that intercession.
A scientific test of a hypothesis has no concept of what "should happen" if the hypothesis is wrong -- on the contrary anything could happen that doesn't fit the hypothesis. Your definition of what should happen is based upon your competing hypothesis.
The real problem is that many religious assertions are scientifically untestable. Carl Sagan likened it to having an invisible incorporeal dragon in his garage. Any test could be refuted by changing the nature of the dragon(God)... just like this test of prayer is being refuted by saying, "oh well, prayer doesn't work that way." Bullshit. Logically, it should.
then why do doctors sometimes come to the conclusion that something beyond medicine was the cure in a case where a family prayed to some saint-to-be, allowing that person to be promoted to sainthood?
I was about to respond that it wasn't doctors, but the Vatican that made this determination, but a little digging provided these steps to sainthood. News to me about the process were these steps:
9) This completes the investigation of the candidate's earthly life. Now, the Congregation undertakes the investigation of the two posthumous miracles, if they have occurred. If not, they wait. The first miracle earns the candidate beatification, the second assures sainthood.
10) Miracles are intensively scrutinized by both religious and scientific authorities. Medical miracles are examined by a board of five doctors who must unequivocally determine that no other possible explanation for a cure exists.
11) All cures must be instantaneous and complete (One potential candidate's miracle - restoring the sight of a blind man - was rejected because the sight was only 90% restored). In the case of cancer, a ten year waiting period must assure that the patient doesn't come out of remission
Of course, I'd still wager that they're devout Catholic doctors...
In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of our invention may be applied, it should be recognized that the detailed embodiments are illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of our invention. Rather, we claim as our invention all such embodiments as may come within the scope and spirit of the following claims and equivalents thereto.
assigning to the HTML document customization information a unique user identifier corresponding to the user and storing the HTML document customization information on a server computer on the network in association with the unique user identifier.
during a first accessing of the network by the user client computer, obtaining HTML document customization information from the user of the client computer, the HTML document customization information indicating user preferences for an HTML document available to the user over the network;
storing the HTML document customization information on a server computer on the computer network; and
during a subsequent accessing of the network by the user client computer, retrieving the HTML document customization information stored on the server computer and providing to the client computer an HTML document customized according to the HTML document customization information.
Sounds to me like they patent any process that involves a new user being assigned a unique ID and providing customization information to be stored on a server. The only narrowing of this broad claim seems to be the stipulation that each user get a unique identifier, and that the documents customized be in HTML.
But seriously, this is like telling a bunch of unemployed NASCAR mechanics that if they'd just work as a Datsun Tractor Mechanic, they'd have a job for sure.
And the NRC is okay with this given the age of their control systems??
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Why hook something up to a nuclear reactor just because it's new? Steam turbines don't care about the advances made in user interfaces, color monitors, and office software made in the past 25 years.
It's so common to hear that the Space Shuttle uses 1970s era computers for flight control. Yeah, but those computers are extremely fault tolerant, tested to the hilt, triple-redundant, rad-hardened, and coded in assembly language. The have to deal with flight data at like 60 Hertz, not run photoshop. New and fast is not high on the specification list.
You have to get your mindset away from free/cheap = better. You have to realize that in the business world the costs for platforms that are tried and true is expected and also minimal compared to the costs to keep it running.
Google agrees, but I'm pretty sure their solution is far different than "Buy Big Iron."
What we really need to see are google, yahoo, ebay, amazon and other large websites suggesting that visitors change to modern web browsers. This would be just desserts for MS, which forced Opera in to pretending it was MSIE by default, so that hotmail and MSN would work...
Slashdot Mirror
If you want to have an argument about the IA-64 architecture-- and it seems you really really do, given that this is your second try to start one-- you'll have to get someone else to bite, or at least support your assertions. I already said in my last post that the Itanium sounds neat and cool, but I don't buy servers. I don't pretend to know what's the best. I do know that just because the Itanium has an innovative ISA doesn't necessarily mean it's better than any other RISC chip.
No, of course not. I believe x86 microprocessors are commodities beholden to market forces. Intel is better at agressive pricing, for sure. Lower prices imply more sales with the same demand curve. They give folks what they want cheaper, and in volume.On the other hand, Itanium is selling poorly. Given Intel's Q3 results, they're doing damn well selling just about everything else. Perhaps Intel will cut the prices and sales will increase... I have to think, though, that there must be very low Itanium demand for Intel to have trouble selling it. Maybe Itanium isn't a commodity yet? Maybe technology and not price is factoring into purchasing decisions?
A link for the unclued.
I think calling AMD's chips "incremental" and then fawning over the P4 in the same paragraph is a bit hypocritical. At least AMD is increasing speed in ways other than increasing on-die cache size, a tactic which only Intel and it's enormous production capabilities can make cost effective.
On the other hand, I agree that the Itanic is neat. EPIC is cool. But Intel and HP assuming it will dominate the 64-bit server market just because it is from Intel is not cool.
He's probably thinking of the fact that the Alpha processor group was sold off to Intel. It must have been fun for those engineers to see paychecks come from DEC, Compaq, HP, and Intel in quick succession. Those that kept their jobs.
A scientific test of a hypothesis has no concept of what "should happen" if the hypothesis is wrong -- on the contrary anything could happen that doesn't fit the hypothesis. Your definition of what should happen is based upon your competing hypothesis.
The real problem is that many religious assertions are scientifically untestable. Carl Sagan likened it to having an invisible incorporeal dragon in his garage. Any test could be refuted by changing the nature of the dragon(God)... just like this test of prayer is being refuted by saying, "oh well, prayer doesn't work that way." Bullshit. Logically, it should.
- 9) This completes the investigation of the candidate's earthly life. Now, the Congregation undertakes the investigation of the two posthumous miracles, if they have occurred. If not, they wait. The first miracle earns the candidate beatification, the second assures sainthood.
- 10) Miracles are intensively scrutinized by both religious and scientific authorities. Medical miracles are examined by a board of five doctors who must unequivocally determine that no other possible explanation for a cure exists.
- 11) All cures must be instantaneous and complete (One potential candidate's miracle - restoring the sight of a blind man - was rejected because the sight was only 90% restored). In the case of cancer, a ten year waiting period must assure that the patient doesn't come out of remission
Of course, I'd still wager that they're devout Catholic doctors...Your voice of reason isn't about to make me remove my tinfoil hat!! I think you're one of "them."
But seriously, this is like telling a bunch of unemployed NASCAR mechanics that if they'd just work as a Datsun Tractor Mechanic, they'd have a job for sure.
The photo there made me realize I've got one in my basement, but it's not PS/2 unfortunately.
A friend of mine just purchased a functional Sega Master System at a flea market for $2, and it came with a few games. Everyone's got an NES.
The only place I have seen OS/2 Warp in action was connected to a tensile test stand at my engineering school, circa 2000.
It's so common to hear that the Space Shuttle uses 1970s era computers for flight control. Yeah, but those computers are extremely fault tolerant, tested to the hilt, triple-redundant, rad-hardened, and coded in assembly language. The have to deal with flight data at like 60 Hertz, not run photoshop. New and fast is not high on the specification list.
(Someone had to say it.)
They've decided the industry needs a new SQL-like filesystem, but maybe not.
Hence the title of this article submission.
I didn't see any of the really interesting data referred to in the article on the website... anyone care to share a link?
What we really need to see are google, yahoo, ebay, amazon and other large websites suggesting that visitors change to modern web browsers. This would be just desserts for MS, which forced Opera in to pretending it was MSIE by default, so that hotmail and MSN would work...