And given that this Alpha machine has been loaded >1.0 since time began - it's unbelievably rock solid: ecmnet@megaspaz:/etc/apache$ uptime
21:26:25 up 507 days, 8:41, 20 users, load average: 1.00, 0.96, 0.92
Which you'll never see on an x86 linux machine.
That's right. There's a bug in the Linux uptime counter that makes it roll over after about 400 days.
Recently, someone broke into a number of ad servers, and uploaded malicious content to them. As a result, any web site showing banner ads from the companies could be considered a "malicious website".
Switching to GAIM wouldn't help here. All the worm is using MSN Messenger for is as a carrier for the file; there's no particular security hole involved. It's no different from sending a virus attached to an email.
If you don't need enough disk space to where you need drives in an external enclosure, there is basically no reason to use SCSI. IDE RAID is much cheaper and just as fast, if you get a good enough controller. These days the primary benefit to having SCSI is the ability to use external devices, or dual-attach RAIDs which cannot be accomplished using IDE.
One word: Reliability. SCSI disks are typically warrented for five years of 24/7 use. IDE disks are typically warrented for one year of light (8 hours/day, 5 days/week) use.
These are the people that sue McDonalds for not warning them that the coffee is hot
You might want to remove this one from your rant. The lawsuit was not about coffee being "oh shit!" hot, it was about coffee being "third-degree burns and a week in the hospital" hot.
Yes, I am aware that these records will be destroyed eventually but it has survived more than 500 years of storing without any intervention. I seriously doubt that in 500 years someone will pick up a CDROM and go "Wow, let's see how they lived around year 2000". I doubt that will be possible in 50.
Washington State's doing just that experiment. Back in 1992, they created a time capsule using the latest and greatest storage technology: CD-ROMs. The plan is to add new material every 25 years, and in 2492, to open the archive. The CDs are stored in a sealed vault filled with dry nitrogen, so the physical medium should still be viable. It is significant to note that they did not include any CD-reading devices.
The point of the one-year cycle is, at least right now, to give the rest of the X-Prize teams something to aim for. DaVinci and Canadian Arrow are both less than a year from their first flight, and most of the serious teams will be able to make it in two years.
In the longer run, it shouldn't be that hard to, say, scale SpaceShipOne up to where it can carry ten passengers, or to give it enough crossrange capability to reach New York.
An ignition usually has four settings: 1) Lock: This locks the steering and lets you remove the key 2) Accessory: Unlocks the steering wheel and provides power to things like the radio, but not the engine 3) On: Provides power to the spark plugs 4) Start: Provides power to the spark plugs and starter motor.
You can safely turn the key from "on" to "accessory" if you need to stop the engine while driving. Normally, turning the key further into the "lock" position requires extra effort, such as pushing a button.
Actually, making antimatter *can* be a net plus in energy. Synthesizing the antimatter out of thin air takes MC^2 energy, but reacting it with matter releases 2*MC^2 -- you don't need to synthesize the regular matter, but you still get the energy from reacting it!
it's not in the hardware vendors interest to scam the benchmark.
It isn't? Let's say Doom 3 lists a level 10 graphics card as a requirement, and the best card my company can build is a level 9. Doom 3 will run on my hardware, just slightly slower than on a level 10 card. If I do nothing, I lose a lot of business to someone who can make a level 10 card. If I game the benchmark and make a slightly sub-par level 10 card, I can compete with the other manufacturers -- and odds are, they're also gaming the benchmark to lower their production costs.
I repeat: Pretend I have a "Level 8_2006" computer. Doom 3 came out in 2004 and says it needs a "Level 10_2005 or Level 10_2004" computer. Can I run it?
I thought you meant "detailed watching". I've been keeping a casual eye on computer development since the 486 came out.
I don't see multi-core having a major impact, as many tasks don't parallelize well. The same objection applies to multi-threaded cores.
Faster clock speeds may not materialize: in the past year, Intel, IBM, and AMD all had trouble with the switch to the 90nm process -- they can't get the resulting chips to run much faster than their 130nm equivalents -- and they all have serious heat problems.
Wider busses are nice, but they aren't everything. Neither are faster bus speeds. As a rule of thumb, doubling the bus bandwidth yields an overall performance increase of 5%.
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IIRC, the Matrox cards have the best 2D quality. I don't know how the speed or Linux support is.
Not always. ATI missed a round with the 8x00 series, and Nvidia dropped the ball with the FX series.
And given that this Alpha machine has been loaded >1.0 since time began - it's unbelievably rock solid:
ecmnet@megaspaz:/etc/apache$ uptime
21:26:25 up 507 days, 8:41, 20 users, load average: 1.00, 0.96, 0.92
Which you'll never see on an x86 linux machine.
That's right. There's a bug in the Linux uptime counter that makes it roll over after about 400 days.
Since this vehicle has solid rubber tires, dragons' teeth and antitank mines seem more appropriate.
Recently, someone broke into a number of ad servers, and uploaded malicious content to them. As a result, any web site showing banner ads from the companies could be considered a "malicious website".
Runescape, SecondLife, and A Tale in the Desert all seem to be succeeding with the "no up-front cost" model.
This one seems to be targeted at the off-road crowd. I'm sure they'll make the neccessary changes to hiking trails in short order.
12:20 PM the next day, and it's more of the same problems.
Switching to GAIM wouldn't help here. All the worm is using MSN Messenger for is as a carrier for the file; there's no particular security hole involved. It's no different from sending a virus attached to an email.
The summary is misleading. The worm actually hides about 900 asian porn sites, redirecting them to the worm's homepage.
If you don't need enough disk space to where you need drives in an external enclosure, there is basically no reason to use SCSI. IDE RAID is much cheaper and just as fast, if you get a good enough controller. These days the primary benefit to having SCSI is the ability to use external devices, or dual-attach RAIDs which cannot be accomplished using IDE.
One word: Reliability. SCSI disks are typically warrented for five years of 24/7 use. IDE disks are typically warrented for one year of light (8 hours/day, 5 days/week) use.
Five sheep? Ten?
Please! I've got to get rid of some of these sheep!
Actually, it's an interesting measure of how much cleaner cars are these days that the the rate of "suicide by car exhaust" is just about zero.
These are the people that sue McDonalds for not warning them that the coffee is hot
You might want to remove this one from your rant. The lawsuit was not about coffee being "oh shit!" hot, it was about coffee being "third-degree burns and a week in the hospital" hot.
Yes, I am aware that these records will be destroyed eventually but it has survived more than 500 years of storing without any intervention. I seriously doubt that in 500 years someone will pick up a CDROM and go "Wow, let's see how they lived around year 2000". I doubt that will be possible in 50.
Washington State's doing just that experiment. Back in 1992, they created a time capsule using the latest and greatest storage technology: CD-ROMs. The plan is to add new material every 25 years, and in 2492, to open the archive. The CDs are stored in a sealed vault filled with dry nitrogen, so the physical medium should still be viable. It is significant to note that they did not include any CD-reading devices.
The point of the one-year cycle is, at least right now, to give the rest of the X-Prize teams something to aim for. DaVinci and Canadian Arrow are both less than a year from their first flight, and most of the serious teams will be able to make it in two years.
In the longer run, it shouldn't be that hard to, say, scale SpaceShipOne up to where it can carry ten passengers, or to give it enough crossrange capability to reach New York.
If a car were subject to the same QA and maintainence procedures an airplane is, you could count on it to run for millions of miles without trouble.
The few stop signs left to my home were done, as we say here american style...
Here in America, it's called a "California stop"
An ignition usually has four settings:
1) Lock: This locks the steering and lets you remove the key
2) Accessory: Unlocks the steering wheel and provides power to things like the radio, but not the engine
3) On: Provides power to the spark plugs
4) Start: Provides power to the spark plugs and starter motor.
You can safely turn the key from "on" to "accessory" if you need to stop the engine while driving. Normally, turning the key further into the "lock" position requires extra effort, such as pushing a button.
Actually, making antimatter *can* be a net plus in energy. Synthesizing the antimatter out of thin air takes MC^2 energy, but reacting it with matter releases 2*MC^2 -- you don't need to synthesize the regular matter, but you still get the energy from reacting it!
Because the only way an armadillo is likely to fly is by application of a large slingshot?
Since it's just as likely as not that a Canadian team won't win, what's to encourage these teams to carry on developing their space programs?
Well, the Canadian Arrow team is planning on developing an Extreme Skydiving industry.
it's not in the hardware vendors interest to scam the benchmark.
It isn't? Let's say Doom 3 lists a level 10 graphics card as a requirement, and the best card my company can build is a level 9. Doom 3 will run on my hardware, just slightly slower than on a level 10 card. If I do nothing, I lose a lot of business to someone who can make a level 10 card. If I game the benchmark and make a slightly sub-par level 10 card, I can compete with the other manufacturers -- and odds are, they're also gaming the benchmark to lower their production costs.
I repeat: Pretend I have a "Level 8_2006" computer. Doom 3 came out in 2004 and says it needs a "Level 10_2005 or Level 10_2004" computer. Can I run it?
I thought you meant "detailed watching". I've been keeping a casual eye on computer development since the 486 came out.
I don't see multi-core having a major impact, as many tasks don't parallelize well. The same objection applies to multi-threaded cores.
Faster clock speeds may not materialize: in the past year, Intel, IBM, and AMD all had trouble with the switch to the 90nm process -- they can't get the resulting chips to run much faster than their 130nm equivalents -- and they all have serious heat problems.
Wider busses are nice, but they aren't everything. Neither are faster bus speeds. As a rule of thumb, doubling the bus bandwidth yields an overall performance increase of 5%.