The thought just occurred to me the RIAA would like the IP address and every school attendee simply to selectively enforce it. The last thing the RIAA wants to do is go after someone from a family of rich lawyers.... they want the ones that can't afford to fight. Or perhaps daddy might pass a law...
Socialised health care delivers better value for money because of the enormous purchasing power of the government.
Quite true in some peoples eyes, you get to not pay into the system and let others do it for you. Guess what, it does not work that way.
But what you will find at the end of the line on socialized medicine is this:
Your taxes are going to go up 20% on your gross income
You need a 6-9% goods and sales taxes nationally in addition
You think gas prices are high, double it - government needs more tax money
Sin taxes, well raise the price of your favorite beverage at the liqueur store by 3-5 times what you pay today. About 2-3 times for cigarettes.
Politicians will use health care addiction to raise taxes even further...but spend it on something else. Then come back for more later.
With government running it, there is only one provider, don't like there service levels oh well.
Coverage outside of your country is next to zero
Coverage will eventually be rationed, older retired have to wait 14-16 months for the same treatment as a working person gets in 20 days or less.
A government council or board will decide if you get that operation. (Not always bad though, someone need $10,000/day into perpetuity to stay alive, an unpopular decision but their has to be a limit).
Lineups as it isn't in the government budget this year.
Use abuse, house wife is needs a diversion, kid has the snivels, see the doctor 4 times a month raising the systems costs.
state of the art medicine is slow to come into the system. Imagine you have to wait 6 months for an MRI because they don't have enough equipment.
My last point is US specific, can one imagine the liability payouts the government would have in the US? Lawyers would look at it like a drooling wolf in heat.
So before you go leap down the socialistic path of government supplied health care, take a real look at what it will cost you. Pundits of government run medical will always skirt and lie about this issue. In reality, it is just another way for the government to control you more.
Look at the above list, this describes Canada and the UK nicely. A rare bird I am having lived under all three, Canada, US and the UK. And if you don't believe me, move there for 5 years....ad then tell me the above isn't so.
Why the fuck are fishermen and roads and a cruiseship dock there in the first place? Here's a real easy way to save it. GO AWAY.
I am not a green-gecho. But I do see your point. But what are we going to do? Give then a $5000 fine? That isn't even $2 per passenger!!!
If your serious about parks, and special ecological places, you would put a bounty on the human heads that show up there unofficially and not prepared to be correct about it. Yes, let someone shot, sink kill the people who destroy it. Then it will mean something. Otherwise it will be destroyed.
There is a city in a national heritage park nearby, always asking for more land. Sooner or later they will win, re-applying each and every other year. Lets put a bounty on those that try so there is no chance. Lets make the predator, man extinct in these area. As at some point, man has to put an absolute limit on the damage caused. And so far, we can't even control our population count...which is a real severe issue. More humans is more methane and carbon -- the rest is BS, Kyoto is a perfect example of this. We all agree there is a problem but we will tax everyone and not address the real issue.
(And no, I'm not arguing that Canada has a perfect system, either)
Then we agree. Both systems are foobar just that there are not that many "objective" people that can admit it. I have lived 10 years in the US, and about near triple that in in Canadian system and can honestly say they BOTH have serious problems. I am going to get the revenge of the mod down but what the heck...
Canada's claim to fame is that it is "perceived" to be universal. And it is sort of if you overlook the regional approvals that go on. Often based on age and are you paying taxes. Case in point, I had a career/lifestyle threatening condition, as did my mother, about the same time. I wait 30 days, she waits 1 year and 4 months. Tehy occured about the same time, same issue, same doctors, just that I am working any paying taxes. The difference, I could say disability insurance if they didn't fix it, my mother is already on CPP/retirement (Social Security for the US readers).
Next Canadian point, my father in law has been waiting 4 months to see a specialist about dizziness due to what is suspected to be an inner ear issue. There are also numerous cases where hospitals out west ran out of the ability to deliver babies so they went to Montana (lucky kids, hope they get their dual citizenship).
So for Canada you have a backlogged, often rationed and "tax" expensive system and no options as there is only one service provider and they know it.
In the US, subscription is option so coverage is not universal. It's biggest weakness. While I don't agree with government doing it, the US should have a law that says if you work you or your employer must pay and subscribe including your dependents. Also the nickel and dime paper work, a service charge to could Kleenex used? Come now? Hasn't the autocracy costs been added up? But never had to wait in line...
The best thing would be for Canada and the US to sit down together and figure out what is best of both systems and how to eliminate the was and BS in both. But I suspect such insight in our politicians isn't there.
Just because we USED petrol doesn't mean that the petrol was the HERO in the equation. There are many other fuels that will make a vehicle go.
What else are you going to use, hot air? We generally grossly underestimate our quality of life improvements due to cheap energy sources. And even with recent increases in petrol prices, it is still relatively inexpensive for what it does. Lets take a recent 1 week trip to BC. Expensive gas in BC too.
$360 fuel (F150 V8), 1200Km one way, $100 night lodging, $120 day food and entertainment, $250 to BC ferries. Gifts, booze and relative entertainment extra. Want to talk about pricey, BC booze is 85% tax!
At $2150 Canadian, the cost of fuel was $360, of 16.7% of the cost which I got to see 2400Km of real nice scenery. And you need a truck for the TransCanada, what a mess of a road. I wish they would spend some of the gas tax on the roads.
I estimate I spent more on taxes than fuel all things being added up.
Try doing that with a horse or running shoes. While petrol may not be a hero, sure makes life easier.
As I said IT ISN"T THAT EASY TO JUST MOVE TO LINUX. Even for a software development firm like the one I work for. Even then a good 50% of the people here are none technical and probably 90% have no Linux experience yet.
Your right, it isn't easy. First you have to have to deal with closed mindsets. Number one reason Linux fails in deployment in business is because some Microsoft bigot has a list of excuses 1 mile long that have absolutely nothing to do with the business operations (FUD). While triping over the power cords of course.
Yep, in Linux we don't need as many people as fewer strange things happen to the PC. Users can't load software (100% more secure). No AV costs (CPU or $$), secure shell terminal services are not extra. Comes with PGP crypto and integrated with email further reducing costs in getting secure communications. Includes all world class standard setting programing tools at no extra charge. Looks like Windows too, click on the top right it works the same. Let IT blame as they run longer without issues. IPSec included for secure remote access, really works correctly and not just with Linux. Users adapt quickly to the center button in Firefox. And I don't have to deal with purchasing from 25 different vendors on mutti-tiered licensing.
Be it Linux isn't as popular, or perhaps it doesn't work as well. Linux does not employ more people to support it (when done right). It does not load all the porn viewers, stock charting clients and spyware slackers like. Nope, if you want the key-logging fancy toy to pass your day away, it probably does not work on Linux, thus you should not go Linux.
8 hyperthreading cores running 8 threads each, with each core having 2 ALUs and 1 FPU.
Processing power over cost makes this expensive. Besides, notice how they say "hyperthreading" and threads... this isn't the same as "real" cores. Try loading up those threads and you will watch single thread performance drop like a rock on the T2000. We have this Java app, opens up 1GB RAM and 96 threads of execution. A E240 was more than 1.5 times as fast with 4 cores than the loaded T2000.
I am looking forward to AMDs 4 core...hyper threading is a joke.
I think you might be a little wrong on this. I work for a healthcare facility. 99% of our vendors only support Windows desktops and servers. The rest only support AIX backend with a Windows front end.
Here is a hint. Tell the sales person if it runs on Linux, bring over an eval copy. If it does not, we are not interested. Wait 3 months. Then they will be back.
The big problem is some business type often gets fixated on "must have" at any cost. For example, AIX backend means you have to be a big company to purchase and support it. Tell the sales person this is no longer acceptable, we want it to run on Linux with COT hardware.
And one health care facility I know a little about, it looks like it is web/java based, which means it is FUD that you need Windows. At least in their environment.
Myth: Must have Windows in Business
Truth: Must have Windows to run the toys that don't lend to security nor our business productivity. (Entertainment)
I would wager if you talked to the Small Business sales rep again you could still purchase an nSeries system with FreeDOS on it or you can purchase a Precision Workstation with Red Hat Linux. Simply go to www.dell.com/nseries.
Why bother? Dell has never supported Linux in North America, and isn't going to change any time soon. Plus, their business PCs are over priced. Why spend $3000 when you can buy the consumer model for $1000? If the consumer model dies every 2 years, and you recycle them ever 3 years, if 6 years you save $3000 and you get a more current PC every 2 years instead of 3. These are now commodity tools and OSes.
And for Dell support, we are having a hard time near the end of the contract to get them fixed. The techs keep bringing recycled parts and many don't work.
Me, I would just go down to Best Buy, with the company/charity card, pick up an inexpensive "consumer" model, toss the Vista license and load Ubuntu on it. Works quite well on my sub $650 AMD X2. As for the unused XP and free upgrade to Vista, coasters... While I don't like paying M$ tax, it is hard not too but economics is more important here.
For a science fiction writer, he certainly seems to have limited his vision. In 1870, people would say we could not get to the moon because horses would not survive in the vacuum of space. Yet a short hundred years later, man was walking on the moon.
While true, he did accurately cover the issues. Going to the moon is a very small proposition in scale that even the nearest star. And I thought realistically so, the introduction of biology into it, something 99.999% of sci-fi total skirts. When you get there your not just going to go into a field and pick some crops for food... the local bugs will kill you. Not from their sting or bite, but from the micro-organisms mankind has never seen before. It works the other way too. Taking just a 1 cc mix of earth diseases, sending them to another planet would wreak havoc for years in the local environment. Even if most died, just one introduces a whole new disease not including mutations. In fact, "Aliens invading earth..." is a farce. They would be suit bound for their entire visit.
If man were to populate a planet, assuming we solve a lot of the logistical problems, we would need to setup a hermetically sealed station for many years of operation, likely the lifetime of it's initial occupants. Those occupants would have to work for the rest of their lives to adapt, genetically alter and sculpt a human that could live with the local biological hazards. A non-trivial task.
Which makes me wonder, what we have sent already out there, is it biologically safe inside and out? Maybe 20 cells of skin inside a battery casing? Would not take much. Most native North American Indians were not shot or killed, they died of European diseases....and many European ships never made it home for the same reason. And we live on the same planet.
Now what if some species has sent us a container of bios mass...and it just hasn't arrived yet? Or perhaps they did some 750,000 years ago...
My money is on Hawking. Our species would stagnate if left on earth for eternity. And even eternity, things will change. Eventually the sun itself will change, and we need to get out there. But right now, we are a immature war like animal to realize this.
Or at least I hope mankind survives...it is still a big question if we will get socially evolved enough that we will not just destroy ourselves first. Entry into the galactic club will mean we have to evolve some more.
It is now, likely by some US based cyber-squatter via GO DADDY, which is a prime example of what is wrong with the domain name system. But that is a different topic. But it adds fuel to the fire on US based companies like GO Daddy and Verisign for accepting its obviously fraudulent registration.
The US might be more competitive at electronics assembly if we could convince the world not to use Chinese slave labor, but we can't so that market has gone.
Might also have something to do with $12++ million dollar salaries for CEO. My bet is a Chinese CEO makes less than the cleaning staff at your US office and actually works for the company full time. The $12M US salary could hire 120 R&D people in the US. But the problem with the US is you have 10 chiefs managing 1 worker, I suspect the Chinese plant has one chief for 10 workers. Mix this taxes, cost of living...volume manufacturing is going to China to stay, including electronics and soon automobiles.
Ah, forget about making any decent use of the pictured webcam in Linux. Drivers, video4linux, skype, nothing works. This is a good excuse to preload lots of pirated copies of Windows while not paying Microsoft for OEM Windows, though.
I am sure Microsoft will make it easy to pirate it to keep market share, also to maintain and keep North American prices artificially high. Maybe our next web cam (with Linux drivers) will come from them as they will not fear the M$ FUD.
it will be till somebody pokes around the prepackage and finds it able to only load approved state software, calls home, etc.
And just like copy protection, it will be removed when some kid with one figures it out. Since it is Linux and not the other OS, he has sources and can replace and learn whatever is needed to do this.
Although I hate dictators, once an awhile you actually might get a good one. Chavez might be a good one if he educates his people and boot straps his people into this century. At which point, with education, they may become a thriving democracy. Remember, you need to be literate and educated to some minimal level to understand the need for democracy and liberty. While your just trying to survive, neither concept means a damn.
And the border thing would go both ways too: you guys could probably lure over 25% of our populace just by opening the borders and spreading the word.
Then let us open the borders, none of the weak kneed NAFTA stuff either. I want a green card. (although I think they are reputed to now be pink). Me, I am all for it. I have relatives on both sides of the border as well as friends, and find the border a pain in the ar$e. And the political strife between our countries is due to grand standing politicians for their own deficiencies. Canada actually being more guilty. And some Americans thing Toronto is a state. Mind you, many Canadians couldn't drive to Florida in the daylight without or with a map. Lets concede we both need to know more about each other.
But lets also concede, a US nuclear state of the art sub could wipe out the entire Canadian navy in a 20 day turkey shoot all on it's own. And 6-8 aging F18's against the USAF -- come, Canada a threat? Someone is smoking some serious crack.
Even if Canada were to try something, the best we could hope for is a sneak attack like Pearl Harbor, but we would be sorry asses there after for doing so.... better to be kissing friends.
Bruce said it right, "Born in the USA...." (Yes, I know what the song means and is referring to). But better to be a shaker and mover than a... never mind.... too strong for even slashdot.
2. We want it expandable, no dangerous restriping or filesystem expansion. There can be NO BACKUPS!
There isn't a RAID technology available that I am aware of that negates the need for a backup. In fact, if the importance of your data retention is at all important, it is often MORE important than RAID anything. For most "home" users I say forget RAID. Take the old PC, load it up with new 500GB drives and use rdist/rsync or Samba and back it up before you consider RAID.
A good backup copy be it to anotehr system or to DVD protects not only from disk failure, but also intrustion, virus, works and general OS corruption in writing to the disk. How many home systems have parity checked memory these days?
Because if a virus/worm does the equivalent of "rm -rf/*" you still have a copy on the other computer. For RAID anything, it is in essence gone. Undelete can be defeated by filling your drive with new data...
Or just use a DVD once a week/month. Backups, by some means usually supersedes the need for RAID.
But I agree with re-striping, it is also why I haven't used RAID 5 for 6 years. A real pain.
If you are going to do this, do it right. It will cost you some up front, however, in the long run, doing it right will be cheaper. Get a real raid card, as in hardware RAID...
So last century. Problem with hardware RAID is unless you keep a spare card on the shelf, how do you know you can get a replacement when it dies? If you do get a replacement, is the differing version of firmware going to work with your existing configuration? A user is more likely to have the OS compatible CD/DVD handy with the RAID drivers. Plus, with standard hardware, COTS stuff, you could just move to another PC if the mobo fried cooking the I/O card...just move the drives.
But I could agree with you if it was RAID 1, mirroring as mirrors does not have algorithms in parity etc - it is a 1:1 mirror. Options exist to place a standard controller in to replace the failed one. Not so with RAID 5 and some others. One manufacturers RAID 5 is only going to work with another's by some luck of coincidence, surely not by design.
One more important note - if you're using more than about 8 drives (I personally recommend 6), I would use raid 6 instead of 5. You often get read errors from one of your "good" drives during a rebuild after a single drive failure. Having a 2nd parity drive (that's what raid 6 gives you) solves this problem.
So for 2 drives savings, say 6 instead of 8 you would RAID 5 when you could RAID 0+1? Heck, if you need 2TB of storage or protected storage, the $240 isn't much for the performance and reliability of RAID 0+1 over RAID 5. It is even more simple and less to go wrong. Even if one RAID 0+1 drive craps, RAID 0+1 will outperform a 100% working RAID 5. If a RAID 5 drive craps, it crawls compared to RAID 0+1 with 2 non-opposing drive failures. RAID 0+1 is undersold.
Mind you, above equation changes if you are using that expensive E?? disk and micro managing.
But if you are into massive quantities of disk, and you can live with RAID 5's performance hit under a one disk failure mode and rebuild, RAID 50 makes the impact much less. Once did this, worked well. RAID 5 in groups of 5. Striped 8 groups of 5... 40 disk in all. It was nice to watch the lights dance in unison and swap a bad drive and no one noticed.
For the love of God and all that's holy will someone mod this 'Funny' instead of Informative? I get the joke, but there's always somebody who won't!
While you are right, someone will misinterpret it, how many I/T people today test their configurations BEFORE going live? How many would know RAID 5 performance deteriorates when missing a disk, and do you get the warning messages when it happens?
Me, I am a RAID 0+1 bigot. The loss of a disk does not impact performance that much when compared to RAID 5 on a disk intensive app. And in larger systems, you can loose more than one drive so long as it isn't the same failed opposing drive. I do use RAID 5, but where disk access is light and the additional disk is more important than a slow down or performance.
But in this case, the user has 3 drives, they can still do RAID 1 (mirroring). You DO NOT need to have to have an even number of disks. Make 6 slices/partitions on the 3 drives and mirror each slice to another slice/partition on a different drive.
I.e. 3 500 GB drives in a RAID 5 doesn't give you 1.5 TB. (RAID 0 dose that). With RAID 5 you only get 1 TB.
An slow like molasses in the middle of winter when one dies in RAID 5.
I wonder how many know how to mirror 1:1 with 3 disks. A little less space, down to 750GB but if one dies the performance is still good. In fact, you want to make sure your warning mechanisms are working as with a mirror, you might not notice one gone.
We pre-allocate pools of objects at startup and then re-use them....
I knew when I read that I was reading an intelligent post. Your application probably even runs faster too, not having to do all the new/delete or malloc/free or that real slow system choking GC stuff.
I first did this with embedded systems that had to be up for a very long time and memory leaks were just not an option. Pre-allocation stopped it. Always use this method of design when practical. When not, I am careful with memory management and create a special object class to track it.
But looking at the posts in this thread, I guess there is a shortage of seasoned and skilled C/C++ programmers with regards to memory management. I have yet to see a 100% capable tool for this issue. Either it misses it, takes too long, or more often gives so many false positives it is useless.
Those regions already exist. Any of over half a dozen European powers, Australia, and even our neighbor Canada have the military resources, technology and skill to smack down a carrier battlegroup that threatened its territory with near impunity.
Your kidding about the Canada part are you not? One of our more advanced weapons are subs, old diesel kind. (A CBC story on the subs) Not a match for the nuclear kind with lots of electronics. Heck, those subs of ours probably still use tubes and CRTs.
The US has 9 times the population, invade Canada it is all over. Our asses would be kicked so hard... and our own government doesn't let us have guns to defend ourselves. We might be able to throw wild beavers and river rocks at invaders. Your worst enemy would the mosquitoes in the bush areas.
If you opened up your borders for lawful Canadians born in Canada to freely immigrate to the US on a whim, you could take 20-25% of the population out without even firing one shot.
I submit, Canada is a Zero threat to the US. If the Canadian Armed forces put everything they had against one carrier it would be turkey shoot for the US carrier.
Slashdot Mirror
The thought just occurred to me the RIAA would like the IP address and every school attendee simply to selectively enforce it. The last thing the RIAA wants to do is go after someone from a family of rich lawyers.... they want the ones that can't afford to fight. Or perhaps daddy might pass a law...
RIAA paracites.
Socialised health care delivers better value for money because of the enormous purchasing power of the government.
Quite true in some peoples eyes, you get to not pay into the system and let others do it for you. Guess what, it does not work that way.
But what you will find at the end of the line on socialized medicine is this:
So before you go leap down the socialistic path of government supplied health care, take a real look at what it will cost you. Pundits of government run medical will always skirt and lie about this issue. In reality, it is just another way for the government to control you more.
Look at the above list, this describes Canada and the UK nicely. A rare bird I am having lived under all three, Canada, US and the UK. And if you don't believe me, move there for 5 years....ad then tell me the above isn't so.
Why the fuck are fishermen and roads and a cruiseship dock there in the first place? Here's a real easy way to save it. GO AWAY.
I am not a green-gecho. But I do see your point. But what are we going to do? Give then a $5000 fine? That isn't even $2 per passenger!!!
If your serious about parks, and special ecological places, you would put a bounty on the human heads that show up there unofficially and not prepared to be correct about it. Yes, let someone shot, sink kill the people who destroy it. Then it will mean something. Otherwise it will be destroyed.
There is a city in a national heritage park nearby, always asking for more land. Sooner or later they will win, re-applying each and every other year. Lets put a bounty on those that try so there is no chance. Lets make the predator, man extinct in these area. As at some point, man has to put an absolute limit on the damage caused. And so far, we can't even control our population count...which is a real severe issue. More humans is more methane and carbon -- the rest is BS, Kyoto is a perfect example of this. We all agree there is a problem but we will tax everyone and not address the real issue.
(And no, I'm not arguing that Canada has a perfect system, either)
Then we agree. Both systems are foobar just that there are not that many "objective" people that can admit it. I have lived 10 years in the US, and about near triple that in in Canadian system and can honestly say they BOTH have serious problems. I am going to get the revenge of the mod down but what the heck...
Canada's claim to fame is that it is "perceived" to be universal. And it is sort of if you overlook the regional approvals that go on. Often based on age and are you paying taxes. Case in point, I had a career/lifestyle threatening condition, as did my mother, about the same time. I wait 30 days, she waits 1 year and 4 months. Tehy occured about the same time, same issue, same doctors, just that I am working any paying taxes. The difference, I could say disability insurance if they didn't fix it, my mother is already on CPP/retirement (Social Security for the US readers).
Next Canadian point, my father in law has been waiting 4 months to see a specialist about dizziness due to what is suspected to be an inner ear issue. There are also numerous cases where hospitals out west ran out of the ability to deliver babies so they went to Montana (lucky kids, hope they get their dual citizenship).
So for Canada you have a backlogged, often rationed and "tax" expensive system and no options as there is only one service provider and they know it.
In the US, subscription is option so coverage is not universal. It's biggest weakness. While I don't agree with government doing it, the US should have a law that says if you work you or your employer must pay and subscribe including your dependents. Also the nickel and dime paper work, a service charge to could Kleenex used? Come now? Hasn't the autocracy costs been added up? But never had to wait in line...
The best thing would be for Canada and the US to sit down together and figure out what is best of both systems and how to eliminate the was and BS in both. But I suspect such insight in our politicians isn't there.
Just because we USED petrol doesn't mean that the petrol was the HERO in the equation. There are many other fuels that will make a vehicle go.
What else are you going to use, hot air? We generally grossly underestimate our quality of life improvements due to cheap energy sources. And even with recent increases in petrol prices, it is still relatively inexpensive for what it does. Lets take a recent 1 week trip to BC. Expensive gas in BC too.
$360 fuel (F150 V8), 1200Km one way, $100 night lodging, $120 day food and entertainment, $250 to BC ferries. Gifts, booze and relative entertainment extra. Want to talk about pricey, BC booze is 85% tax!
At $2150 Canadian, the cost of fuel was $360, of 16.7% of the cost which I got to see 2400Km of real nice scenery. And you need a truck for the TransCanada, what a mess of a road. I wish they would spend some of the gas tax on the roads.
I estimate I spent more on taxes than fuel all things being added up.
Try doing that with a horse or running shoes. While petrol may not be a hero, sure makes life easier.
Also if you are worried about the 150.000 deaths, don't use oil, except it's used in everything, even lubricant for windmills...
And how many lives have been saved by oil, might I suggest many of millions each year that rely on the fuel to transport food and drugs...
Your right, it isn't easy. First you have to have to deal with closed mindsets. Number one reason Linux fails in deployment in business is because some Microsoft bigot has a list of excuses 1 mile long that have absolutely nothing to do with the business operations (FUD). While triping over the power cords of course.
Yep, in Linux we don't need as many people as fewer strange things happen to the PC. Users can't load software (100% more secure). No AV costs (CPU or $$), secure shell terminal services are not extra. Comes with PGP crypto and integrated with email further reducing costs in getting secure communications. Includes all world class standard setting programing tools at no extra charge. Looks like Windows too, click on the top right it works the same. Let IT blame as they run longer without issues. IPSec included for secure remote access, really works correctly and not just with Linux. Users adapt quickly to the center button in Firefox. And I don't have to deal with purchasing from 25 different vendors on mutti-tiered licensing.
Be it Linux isn't as popular, or perhaps it doesn't work as well. Linux does not employ more people to support it (when done right). It does not load all the porn viewers, stock charting clients and spyware slackers like. Nope, if you want the key-logging fancy toy to pass your day away, it probably does not work on Linux, thus you should not go Linux.
8 hyperthreading cores running 8 threads each, with each core having 2 ALUs and 1 FPU.
Processing power over cost makes this expensive. Besides, notice how they say "hyperthreading" and threads... this isn't the same as "real" cores. Try loading up those threads and you will watch single thread performance drop like a rock on the T2000. We have this Java app, opens up 1GB RAM and 96 threads of execution. A E240 was more than 1.5 times as fast with 4 cores than the loaded T2000.
I am looking forward to AMDs 4 core...hyper threading is a joke.
The perfect time to start buying up stock.
Or a long term short on it.
As it reminds me of like when NorTel divested it's manufacturing, it was not long after they got into big trouble.
If AMD was smart, they would get a "true" quad core out there, then price it at $60. Go out in the true competitive spirit and give Intel a licking.
I think you might be a little wrong on this. I work for a healthcare facility. 99% of our vendors only support Windows desktops and servers. The rest only support AIX backend with a Windows front end.
Here is a hint. Tell the sales person if it runs on Linux, bring over an eval copy. If it does not, we are not interested. Wait 3 months. Then they will be back.
The big problem is some business type often gets fixated on "must have" at any cost. For example, AIX backend means you have to be a big company to purchase and support it. Tell the sales person this is no longer acceptable, we want it to run on Linux with COT hardware.
And one health care facility I know a little about, it looks like it is web/java based, which means it is FUD that you need Windows. At least in their environment.
Myth: Must have Windows in Business
Truth: Must have Windows to run the toys that don't lend to security nor our business productivity. (Entertainment)
I would wager if you talked to the Small Business sales rep again you could still purchase an nSeries system with FreeDOS on it or you can purchase a Precision Workstation with Red Hat Linux. Simply go to www.dell.com/nseries.
Why bother? Dell has never supported Linux in North America, and isn't going to change any time soon. Plus, their business PCs are over priced. Why spend $3000 when you can buy the consumer model for $1000? If the consumer model dies every 2 years, and you recycle them ever 3 years, if 6 years you save $3000 and you get a more current PC every 2 years instead of 3. These are now commodity tools and OSes.
And for Dell support, we are having a hard time near the end of the contract to get them fixed. The techs keep bringing recycled parts and many don't work.
Me, I would just go down to Best Buy, with the company/charity card, pick up an inexpensive "consumer" model, toss the Vista license and load Ubuntu on it. Works quite well on my sub $650 AMD X2. As for the unused XP and free upgrade to Vista, coasters... While I don't like paying M$ tax, it is hard not too but economics is more important here.
For a science fiction writer, he certainly seems to have limited his vision. In 1870, people would say we could not get to the moon because horses would not survive in the vacuum of space. Yet a short hundred years later, man was walking on the moon.
While true, he did accurately cover the issues. Going to the moon is a very small proposition in scale that even the nearest star. And I thought realistically so, the introduction of biology into it, something 99.999% of sci-fi total skirts. When you get there your not just going to go into a field and pick some crops for food... the local bugs will kill you. Not from their sting or bite, but from the micro-organisms mankind has never seen before. It works the other way too. Taking just a 1 cc mix of earth diseases, sending them to another planet would wreak havoc for years in the local environment. Even if most died, just one introduces a whole new disease not including mutations. In fact, "Aliens invading earth..." is a farce. They would be suit bound for their entire visit.
If man were to populate a planet, assuming we solve a lot of the logistical problems, we would need to setup a hermetically sealed station for many years of operation, likely the lifetime of it's initial occupants. Those occupants would have to work for the rest of their lives to adapt, genetically alter and sculpt a human that could live with the local biological hazards. A non-trivial task.
Which makes me wonder, what we have sent already out there, is it biologically safe inside and out? Maybe 20 cells of skin inside a battery casing? Would not take much. Most native North American Indians were not shot or killed, they died of European diseases....and many European ships never made it home for the same reason. And we live on the same planet.
Now what if some species has sent us a container of bios mass...and it just hasn't arrived yet? Or perhaps they did some 750,000 years ago...
My money is on Hawking. Our species would stagnate if left on earth for eternity. And even eternity, things will change. Eventually the sun itself will change, and we need to get out there. But right now, we are a immature war like animal to realize this.
Or at least I hope mankind survives...it is still a big question if we will get socially evolved enough that we will not just destroy ourselves first. Entry into the galactic club will mean we have to evolve some more.
It may change quickly, but so far http://www.bolivariancomputers.com/ is not even registered.
It is now, likely by some US based cyber-squatter via GO DADDY, which is a prime example of what is wrong with the domain name system. But that is a different topic. But it adds fuel to the fire on US based companies like GO Daddy and Verisign for accepting its obviously fraudulent registration.
The US might be more competitive at electronics assembly if we could convince the world not to use Chinese slave labor, but we can't so that market has gone.
Might also have something to do with $12++ million dollar salaries for CEO. My bet is a Chinese CEO makes less than the cleaning staff at your US office and actually works for the company full time. The $12M US salary could hire 120 R&D people in the US. But the problem with the US is you have 10 chiefs managing 1 worker, I suspect the Chinese plant has one chief for 10 workers. Mix this taxes, cost of living...volume manufacturing is going to China to stay, including electronics and soon automobiles.
Ah, forget about making any decent use of the pictured webcam in Linux. Drivers, video4linux, skype, nothing works. This is a good excuse to preload lots of pirated copies of Windows while not paying Microsoft for OEM Windows, though.
I am sure Microsoft will make it easy to pirate it to keep market share, also to maintain and keep North American prices artificially high. Maybe our next web cam (with Linux drivers) will come from them as they will not fear the M$ FUD.
it will be till somebody pokes around the prepackage and finds it able to only load approved state software, calls home, etc.
And just like copy protection, it will be removed when some kid with one figures it out. Since it is Linux and not the other OS, he has sources and can replace and learn whatever is needed to do this.
Although I hate dictators, once an awhile you actually might get a good one. Chavez might be a good one if he educates his people and boot straps his people into this century. At which point, with education, they may become a thriving democracy. Remember, you need to be literate and educated to some minimal level to understand the need for democracy and liberty. While your just trying to survive, neither concept means a damn.
And the border thing would go both ways too: you guys could probably lure over 25% of our populace just by opening the borders and spreading the word.
Then let us open the borders, none of the weak kneed NAFTA stuff either. I want a green card. (although I think they are reputed to now be pink). Me, I am all for it. I have relatives on both sides of the border as well as friends, and find the border a pain in the ar$e. And the political strife between our countries is due to grand standing politicians for their own deficiencies. Canada actually being more guilty. And some Americans thing Toronto is a state. Mind you, many Canadians couldn't drive to Florida in the daylight without or with a map. Lets concede we both need to know more about each other.
But lets also concede, a US nuclear state of the art sub could wipe out the entire Canadian navy in a 20 day turkey shoot all on it's own. And 6-8 aging F18's against the USAF -- come, Canada a threat? Someone is smoking some serious crack.
Even if Canada were to try something, the best we could hope for is a sneak attack like Pearl Harbor, but we would be sorry asses there after for doing so.... better to be kissing friends.
Bruce said it right, "Born in the USA...." (Yes, I know what the song means and is referring to). But better to be a shaker and mover than a ... never mind.... too strong for even slashdot.
There isn't a RAID technology available that I am aware of that negates the need for a backup. In fact, if the importance of your data retention is at all important, it is often MORE important than RAID anything. For most "home" users I say forget RAID. Take the old PC, load it up with new 500GB drives and use rdist/rsync or Samba and back it up before you consider RAID.
A good backup copy be it to anotehr system or to DVD protects not only from disk failure, but also intrustion, virus, works and general OS corruption in writing to the disk. How many home systems have parity checked memory these days?
Because if a virus/worm does the equivalent of "rm -rf /*" you still have a copy on the other computer. For RAID anything, it is in essence gone. Undelete can be defeated by filling your drive with new data...
Or just use a DVD once a week/month. Backups, by some means usually supersedes the need for RAID.
But I agree with re-striping, it is also why I haven't used RAID 5 for 6 years. A real pain.
If you are going to do this, do it right. It will cost you some up front, however, in the long run, doing it right will be cheaper. Get a real raid card, as in hardware RAID...
So last century. Problem with hardware RAID is unless you keep a spare card on the shelf, how do you know you can get a replacement when it dies? If you do get a replacement, is the differing version of firmware going to work with your existing configuration? A user is more likely to have the OS compatible CD/DVD handy with the RAID drivers. Plus, with standard hardware, COTS stuff, you could just move to another PC if the mobo fried cooking the I/O card...just move the drives.
But I could agree with you if it was RAID 1, mirroring as mirrors does not have algorithms in parity etc - it is a 1:1 mirror. Options exist to place a standard controller in to replace the failed one. Not so with RAID 5 and some others. One manufacturers RAID 5 is only going to work with another's by some luck of coincidence, surely not by design.
So for 2 drives savings, say 6 instead of 8 you would RAID 5 when you could RAID 0+1? Heck, if you need 2TB of storage or protected storage, the $240 isn't much for the performance and reliability of RAID 0+1 over RAID 5. It is even more simple and less to go wrong. Even if one RAID 0+1 drive craps, RAID 0+1 will outperform a 100% working RAID 5. If a RAID 5 drive craps, it crawls compared to RAID 0+1 with 2 non-opposing drive failures. RAID 0+1 is undersold.
Mind you, above equation changes if you are using that expensive E?? disk and micro managing.
But if you are into massive quantities of disk, and you can live with RAID 5's performance hit under a one disk failure mode and rebuild, RAID 50 makes the impact much less. Once did this, worked well. RAID 5 in groups of 5. Striped 8 groups of 5... 40 disk in all. It was nice to watch the lights dance in unison and swap a bad drive and no one noticed.
While you are right, someone will misinterpret it, how many I/T people today test their configurations BEFORE going live? How many would know RAID 5 performance deteriorates when missing a disk, and do you get the warning messages when it happens?
Me, I am a RAID 0+1 bigot. The loss of a disk does not impact performance that much when compared to RAID 5 on a disk intensive app. And in larger systems, you can loose more than one drive so long as it isn't the same failed opposing drive. I do use RAID 5, but where disk access is light and the additional disk is more important than a slow down or performance.
But in this case, the user has 3 drives, they can still do RAID 1 (mirroring). You DO NOT need to have to have an even number of disks. Make 6 slices/partitions on the 3 drives and mirror each slice to another slice/partition on a different drive.
And then TEST it. BTW, I thought it was funny.
I.e. 3 500 GB drives in a RAID 5 doesn't give you 1.5 TB. (RAID 0 dose that). With RAID 5 you only get 1 TB.
An slow like molasses in the middle of winter when one dies in RAID 5.
I wonder how many know how to mirror 1:1 with 3 disks. A little less space, down to 750GB but if one dies the performance is still good. In fact, you want to make sure your warning mechanisms are working as with a mirror, you might not notice one gone.
We pre-allocate pools of objects at startup and then re-use them. ...
I knew when I read that I was reading an intelligent post. Your application probably even runs faster too, not having to do all the new/delete or malloc/free or that real slow system choking GC stuff.
I first did this with embedded systems that had to be up for a very long time and memory leaks were just not an option. Pre-allocation stopped it. Always use this method of design when practical. When not, I am careful with memory management and create a special object class to track it.
But looking at the posts in this thread, I guess there is a shortage of seasoned and skilled C/C++ programmers with regards to memory management. I have yet to see a 100% capable tool for this issue. Either it misses it, takes too long, or more often gives so many false positives it is useless.
Those regions already exist. Any of over half a dozen European powers, Australia, and even our neighbor Canada have the military resources, technology and skill to smack down a carrier battlegroup that threatened its territory with near impunity.
Your kidding about the Canada part are you not? One of our more advanced weapons are subs, old diesel kind. (A CBC story on the subs) Not a match for the nuclear kind with lots of electronics. Heck, those subs of ours probably still use tubes and CRTs.
The US has 9 times the population, invade Canada it is all over. Our asses would be kicked so hard... and our own government doesn't let us have guns to defend ourselves. We might be able to throw wild beavers and river rocks at invaders. Your worst enemy would the mosquitoes in the bush areas.
If you opened up your borders for lawful Canadians born in Canada to freely immigrate to the US on a whim, you could take 20-25% of the population out without even firing one shot.
I submit, Canada is a Zero threat to the US. If the Canadian Armed forces put everything they had against one carrier it would be turkey shoot for the US carrier.