All that expensive hardware just being thrown out as trash, what a shame.
I'd be happy to give it a home! Can someone give me a ride to go pick it up?
Now they just need to make ambidexterous people
on
Two-Fisted Computing
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't know about you guys, but I can't move my left hand anywhere near as quickly and precisely as my right.
On a digital device like a keyboard, where I either do, or do not, hit a target I can get away with this, but an analogue pointing device like a mouse is another question. And I expect using two similar pointing devices in different hands will add some disorientating effects on top of that.
The device is an interesting idea, now they just need to engineer the people who can use it efficiently.
Actually that price you quote for the Sun doesn't include the operation system.
It's also worth noting that the Opteron 242 is the 1.6Ghz version.
Sun doesn't sell the Opteron 246 (the 2ghz chips that apple compares it's XServe to on it's site), but either the 244 (1.8Ghz) or 248 (2.2Ghz) would probably make a more fair comparison.
The base prices for Sun's dual 244 and 248 1U servers are $4,445.00 and $6,995.00 respectively.
Googling for "Mark Maughan accountant" gives the following as the 2nd result, I'm going to assume this is the search result in question since noone seems to have linked to it.
Disciplinary Actions List - Bi-Bz... Respondent was also alleged to have continued to practice as a certified public accountant after his permit to practice public... MAUGHAN, MARK G. (CPA 38184)... www.dca.ca.gov/cba/discipline/bi-bz.htm - 47k - Cached - Similar pages
I suppose it does look misleading, but anyone familiar with google should know better than to not actually read the pages in the results.
search terms like 'Linux', 'AOL' and 'Macintosh' are allowed, so at least MSN hasn't simply blacklisted all competitors' keywords as 'porn', but why would they be blocking 'XFree86'?"
Like the short man said, "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence".
Of course the fact that such mistakes can be made, and left undiscovered for so long, speaks against closed blicklists like MSN's.
DeBeers, inspired by NEC's recent move, pattents the diamond latice crystal structure.
They have announced they intend to sue all companies who profit from their crystal, starting with synthetic diamond makers who use their crystal shape in carbon, then moving on into the semiconductor industry (where their pattented crystal structure is widely used in silicon).
Well, for instance, unsigned Java applets don't let you save any data on a client, but with javascript you can save cookies, so you can use this to make persistent prefrences for a java applet across sessions on the same machine via cookies.
I have an applet I was looking at writing something along those lines for, but alot of my target users were on macs, where liveconnect support is somewhat lacking (mozilla and camino theoretically have it but it was broken on mac last time I checked, safari didn't have it 'til now, etc).
Now that safari supports liveconnect I may actually bother adding that cookie-prefs feature. This is a nifty step forward.
So they wanted people to do possibly the most tedious and unpleasant task in software engineering, over and over, for free, outside of the established (and frankly much more interesting, because they usually involve something besides solitary code reviewing) channels, and they're supprised they didn't get a flood of volunteers?
Not to mention the job is thankless, it's an infinite loop of paranoia and nit-picking.
I'm all for musicians getting a decent cut of the profit their music generates, but this doesn't do that at all.
This gives big chunks of money to a few specific bands chosen by downhillbattle, and gives the consumer no music in return.
Hell, this actually discurages perople from listening to these indie bands' music, by taking a potential listener's free song and essentially throwing it away. That sounds alot more like what a corporate money grubing weasel would do than an honest musician who actually wants to be heard.
Actually, what you refer to under "Graphics MMUs" has been done for a while under OSX with Quartz and Quartz Extreme. Windows are drawn on OpenGL surfaces and their layering is handled entirely by the GPU in Quartz Extreme, and plain old Quartz does basically the same thing in software buffers. In either case, an app never has to do any redreawing when one of it's windows is revealed, it's all handled by Quartz. And supposedly, whenever it eventually comes out, Longhorn will do more or less the same thing.
Channelized I/O is probably a good idea, but it's either going to cost you some bandwidth (route all IO through a expanded version of current MMUs), or be expensive (a seperate MMU for IO). I'm not saying it might not be worth it in the long run, but it will take a bite out of price/performance in the short term for questionable immeadiate stability gains (one would hope that most people writing kernel space drivers have the sense to KISS).
High speed copy sounds really interesting, but I'm not sure how practical it is to add to current systems.
You don't need any different flags in applications to make them scriptable via other languages.
Applescript talks with applications via OSA, the Open Scripting Architecture. You can just add OSA compliance to any language you like, and you get all the same scripting access as Applescript. People have allready done this for mac versions of Perl, javascript Tcl/tk, Python, etc...
TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay adds: 'Our aim here is not to litigate everybody... but to further advance and seek commercial relationships so that people recognize the value of our intellectual property, and give us fair compensation.'"
Exectuive -> Human translation: 'Our aim here is not to litigate everybody, just the people who don't pay us liscencing fees'
Being a "micro" drive actually makes the things less fragile, not more.
The acceleration needed to bend a head down to impact with a platter increases with the shrinking length of the arm the head is mounted on, and increases again with the decrease in mass of the head and arm. It's a simple matter of scale. So a smaller mechanisim could be much more resistant to crashing.
Anyway, I've never heard any actual complaints about iPod drives, just speculation by pundits that *maybe* there *might* eventually be problems with some constantly abused units. And I have heard plenty of stories of people bouncing them off the concrete multiple times with no ill effects. Therefore I question your sources.
Seriously, people are going to get cold feet after a visit or two to the doctor when they're starting to really feel the pull of addiction, and realize that they are permanently destroying their ability to get a fix.
They need to get this vaccine down to something that can be administered in one visit, so people don't have a chance to get cold feet after the begining.
If they can make this something joe six-pack-a-day can just do one afternoon on an impulse, then I'll be really impressed.
Of course, then how long will it be until cigarette companies come out with anti-vacine cigs?
I'd be willing to bet that the power savings from getting a laptop, as opposed to a desktop with a LCD, will be sufficient that you will more than make up the price difference by being able to buy slightly fewer solar panels and batteries.
I know IBM has been publically working with this, at least in research, for a long time, and it's a fair bet other firms were too. IIRC they've even used SSoI (Strained Silicon on Insulator) for some production ASICs...
In all seriousness, there seems to be some misconception that windows-iTunes can't play ogg files. Well, I'm not sure about the parrent, but I know that there is an open source plugin for windows-Quicktime that plays ogg files just fine.
What's big about BlueGene/L is that it's small. That 512 processor prototype they mention in this article is the Dishwasher-sized computer you heard about.
BlueGene/L is about driving down the cost of supercomputing, not only in terms of money spent on hardware, but in terms of space, cooling, and maintanance, while at the same time improving scalability.
BlueGene/L is going to put 65,000+ processors in less space, using less power, and costing less, than many of todays >10,000 processor systems. They do this with a minimalist approach, each processor is a SoaC (System on a Chip), with everything from the memory controller to internode networking to two cores and 4FPUs on the die, and the only other thing in a node besides the processors is a bit of RAM. This allows them to use much less power per node and gives them less heat per node to dissipate, which lets them pack the nodes much closer, which cuts down on internode latency, which increases scalability.
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All that expensive hardware just being thrown out as trash, what a shame.
I'd be happy to give it a home!
Can someone give me a ride to go pick it up?
I don't know about you guys, but I can't move my left hand anywhere near as quickly and precisely as my right.
On a digital device like a keyboard, where I either do, or do not, hit a target I can get away with this, but an analogue pointing device like a mouse is another question. And I expect using two similar pointing devices in different hands will add some disorientating effects on top of that.
The device is an interesting idea, now they just need to engineer the people who can use it efficiently.
Actually that price you quote for the Sun doesn't include the operation system.
It's also worth noting that the Opteron 242 is the 1.6Ghz version.
Sun doesn't sell the Opteron 246 (the 2ghz chips that apple compares it's XServe to on it's site), but either the 244 (1.8Ghz) or 248 (2.2Ghz) would probably make a more fair comparison.
The base prices for Sun's dual 244 and 248 1U servers are $4,445.00 and $6,995.00 respectively.
Googling for "Mark Maughan accountant" gives the following as the 2nd result, I'm going to assume this is the search result in question since noone seems to have linked to it.
... Respondent was also alleged to have continued to practice as a certified public ... MAUGHAN, MARK G. (CPA 38184) ...
Disciplinary Actions List - Bi-Bz
accountant after his permit to practice public
www.dca.ca.gov/cba/discipline/bi-bz.htm - 47k - Cached - Similar pages
I suppose it does look misleading, but anyone familiar with google should know better than to not actually read the pages in the results.
Of course the fact that such mistakes can be made, and left undiscovered for so long, speaks against closed blicklists like MSN's.
DeBeers, inspired by NEC's recent move, pattents the diamond latice crystal structure.
They have announced they intend to sue all companies who profit from their crystal, starting with synthetic diamond makers who use their crystal shape in carbon, then moving on into the semiconductor industry (where their pattented crystal structure is widely used in silicon).
You do all realize there's nothing stoping anyone who feels like it from putting a DRM wrapper arround an ogg file, right?
Just because some people sell music in a DRMed/encrypted version of some open format like MP3 or AAC doesn't automatically make that format evil.
You might try LanBox's LCedit on the mac side.
Well, for instance, unsigned Java applets don't let you save any data on a client, but with javascript you can save cookies, so you can use this to make persistent prefrences for a java applet across sessions on the same machine via cookies.
I have an applet I was looking at writing something along those lines for, but alot of my target users were on macs, where liveconnect support is somewhat lacking (mozilla and camino theoretically have it but it was broken on mac last time I checked, safari didn't have it 'til now, etc).
Now that safari supports liveconnect I may actually bother adding that cookie-prefs feature.
This is a nifty step forward.
Perhaps the person who submitted the article did so from inside Bochs.
/. article.
Gotta love that blazing static instruction translation speed! Only a month or so to fire up a web browser and post a
So they wanted people to do possibly the most tedious and unpleasant task in software engineering, over and over, for free, outside of the established (and frankly much more interesting, because they usually involve something besides solitary code reviewing) channels, and they're supprised they didn't get a flood of volunteers?
Not to mention the job is thankless, it's an infinite loop of paranoia and nit-picking.
code.insecure = true;
While(code.insecure) {
geek.paranoia++;
geek.review(code);
}
Damn right!
I'm all for musicians getting a decent cut of the profit their music generates, but this doesn't do that at all.
This gives big chunks of money to a few specific bands chosen by downhillbattle, and gives the consumer no music in return.
Hell, this actually discurages perople from listening to these indie bands' music, by taking a potential listener's free song and essentially throwing it away. That sounds alot more like what a corporate money grubing weasel would do than an honest musician who actually wants to be heard.
Actually, what you refer to under "Graphics MMUs" has been done for a while under OSX with Quartz and Quartz Extreme.
Windows are drawn on OpenGL surfaces and their layering is handled entirely by the GPU in Quartz Extreme, and plain old Quartz does basically the same thing in software buffers. In either case, an app never has to do any redreawing when one of it's windows is revealed, it's all handled by Quartz.
And supposedly, whenever it eventually comes out, Longhorn will do more or less the same thing.
Channelized I/O is probably a good idea, but it's either going to cost you some bandwidth (route all IO through a expanded version of current MMUs), or be expensive (a seperate MMU for IO). I'm not saying it might not be worth it in the long run, but it will take a bite out of price/performance in the short term for questionable immeadiate stability gains (one would hope that most people writing kernel space drivers have the sense to KISS).
High speed copy sounds really interesting, but I'm not sure how practical it is to add to current systems.
I don't know of an AAC encoder available in source form
Well, now you do, it's called FAAC.
You don't need any different flags in applications to make them scriptable via other languages.
Applescript talks with applications via OSA, the Open Scripting Architecture. You can just add OSA compliance to any language you like, and you get all the same scripting access as Applescript. People have allready done this for mac versions of Perl, javascript Tcl/tk, Python, etc...
Exectuive -> Human translation:
'Our aim here is not to litigate everybody, just the people who don't pay us liscencing fees'
Being a "micro" drive actually makes the things less fragile, not more.
The acceleration needed to bend a head down to impact with a platter increases with the shrinking length of the arm the head is mounted on, and increases again with the decrease in mass of the head and arm. It's a simple matter of scale. So a smaller mechanisim could be much more resistant to crashing.
Anyway, I've never heard any actual complaints about iPod drives, just speculation by pundits that *maybe* there *might* eventually be problems with some constantly abused units. And I have heard plenty of stories of people bouncing them off the concrete multiple times with no ill effects. Therefore I question your sources.
Seriously, people are going to get cold feet after a visit or two to the doctor when they're starting to really feel the pull of addiction, and realize that they are permanently destroying their ability to get a fix.
They need to get this vaccine down to something that can be administered in one visit, so people don't have a chance to get cold feet after the begining.
If they can make this something joe six-pack-a-day can just do one afternoon on an impulse, then I'll be really impressed.
Of course, then how long will it be until cigarette companies come out with anti-vacine cigs?
I'd be willing to bet that the power savings from getting a laptop, as opposed to a desktop with a LCD, will be sufficient that you will more than make up the price difference by being able to buy slightly fewer solar panels and batteries.
Solar power is not cheap.
I know IBM has been publically working with this, at least in research, for a long time, and it's a fair bet other firms were too.
IIRC they've even used SSoI (Strained Silicon on Insulator) for some production ASICs...
In all seriousness, there seems to be some misconception that windows-iTunes can't play ogg files. Well, I'm not sure about the parrent, but I know that there is an open source plugin for windows-Quicktime that plays ogg files just fine.
Why just the buyers? Hardware sellers are getting screwed here two.
Levy -> higher prices for consumers -> less sales -> less profits
are going to need multi-km particle accelerator/colliders now?
Why do I get the feeling I can't afford to have cancer...
Dammit, my less than symbol should be pointing the other way.
What's big about BlueGene/L is that it's small. That 512 processor prototype they mention in this article is the Dishwasher-sized computer you heard about.
BlueGene/L is about driving down the cost of supercomputing, not only in terms of money spent on hardware, but in terms of space, cooling, and maintanance, while at the same time improving scalability.
BlueGene/L is going to put 65,000+ processors in less space, using less power, and costing less, than many of todays >10,000 processor systems.
They do this with a minimalist approach, each processor is a SoaC (System on a Chip), with everything from the memory controller to internode networking to two cores and 4FPUs on the die, and the only other thing in a node besides the processors is a bit of RAM. This allows them to use much less power per node and gives them less heat per node to dissipate, which lets them pack the nodes much closer, which cuts down on internode latency, which increases scalability.