It's not a bad article and covers all the relevant points of DDR3. Well worth reading by people not familiar with DDR3. It's not an unreserved sales-pitch for DD3 as it does detail the disadvantages of the technology as well. The only thing the article seems to gloss over in terms of negatives is the ratio of performance to cost. Right now, I'm seeing DDR3 chips starting at around double their DDR2 equivalents and then rising substantially for the very fastest. For most people, I would say that this is not a good use of their cash, unless they just don't care about paying more for the best. What is interesting is that DDR3 has greater potential in terms of capacity. A 16GB memory sounds fine to me. But then I put a bit more strain on my system than most users. We've reached a point where customers have maxed out their computing power needs. Only gamers are still asking for more from the hardware manufacturers. Everyone else just wants progress to be in the direction of 'cheap.' Well, you get the odd programmer like me that wants to compile fat code, but I can be sure I'm not going to support the DDR3 market on my own.;)
I would like to see DDR3 do well, but its timing is really bad.
Re:More Annoying Money Wasters for Rich People
on
Zeppelins Over California
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Zeppelins are great. We should really be using them for more than simple tourism. Their lifting capacity is much greater than an aeroplane and their cost much lower. Slower of course, but faster than a ship, I think. Next time I come to the US, I'd be more than happy to take two or three days on the journey in the comfortable, ship-like capacity of a zeppelin.
I disagree with your statement that demonstrating and striking are not part of the system - both are protected by the legal framework of the system and both allow people to express their views,
They are not part of the system they are trying to change. You are talking about some all encompassing System that spans everything from democratic process to a company's internal organisation. Strikes may not be against the government system, but they are clearly not within the system that is a company's hierarchy and pay system. A company is a system - a strike is people within that system either leaving or threatening to leave that system. The american revolution was not people working within the British system of rule to change conditions, but people opting out of that system and founding their own. You change a system by not accepting it. It's naive to think that Google will change the Chinese government by doing what it tells them to do. Now you may argue that Google will not achieve anything by leaving. That is a separate point - the main thing I am saying is that the Google board trying to justify doing business with a regime that violates human rights is bollocks. On that I think we agree by the sound of it.Now the question of whether it would be positive for Google to withdraw on moral grounds is something we clearly do disagree with if you think it would achieve nothing. It is wrong to profit from human rights violations which is what Google is doing when they accept money for suppressing people's voices. Profit does not simply appear ex nihilo, and in this case it comes from doing a certain harm (censorship). If it doesn't come from that, then you must tell me where it comes from. And the argument that "if I didn't do it someone else would" is a tired one that has never been a morale escape clause - because the attitude itself is one that enables harm through justifying tolerance of others inflicting harm and through the denial of responsibility for one's actions (the root of much suffering in this world). It is an argument that means nothing more than "my morality is set according to the standard of the least moral of those around me."
And finally, none of this stuff happens in isolation. If Google censors information to please a government in China, why should they not do so here to please Western government or corporation interests? This is not a rhetorical question - it is serious. Don't oppose someone doing something wrong to your neighbour, don't be surprised when they do it to you. After all, Google is a Western corporation - the profits of compliance and the risks of disobedience are even larger here than in China, I would guess. Principles are not something you apply as convenient - once you do that, they vanish very, very quickly.
No, there really isn't a difference. You are a supplier for what Google sells. Your hands are only a slightly lighter shade of gray than Google's
In this sense, my hands are a considerably lighter shade of grey than Googles (not that being imperfect oneself would be a moral justification for others to be so), because what I write I write and I haven't suppressed people's voices when I do so. Google is (a) establishing itself as the de facto means of finding information and then (b) accepting orders from a regime to suppress the voices of those the regime doesn't approve of. There's a big difference there - I do not suppress anyone's voices. What you are saying is that because I contribute content to the Web which Google then indexes, I am part of the same system as Google. That is where we diverge. I may be part of the ecosystem of the Internet which Google grazes on, but I'm no more a part of the Google entity by that, than water in the sea is part of the shipping industry. There's a conflation of terms, there. I don't accept constraints on my activity from the Chinese government - therefore I am not part of their system. My operations are independent. I think you'd agree that someone's activities being entirely independent of system means they are not part of that system. Google however, does accept constraints from another system, has their activities informed by it, and does so in exchange for profit. They work within that system therefore, whereas I do not.
If the Chinese government pays us money to not post something and we do so, then yes, we have sold our support to China. That hasn't happened yet, so I'm thinking my hands are clean. Google has taken money under such terms, however. So I'm thinking they ain't. There is the difference.
I'm not going to agree or disagree with what you say about me, until I understand your point. Could you please clarify? Are you saying that I contribute to the value of Google, and thus by proxy to China's government through posting here and increasing the value of the material that Google indexes?
Really? I take it you're not counting lobbying, campaigning, running for office, demonstrating or striking
Lobbying doesn't change the system it's a part of - it reinforces that system through participation. What it may do is direct the efforts of that system, in the same way that taking turns at the wheel of a boat can change where it's going but not the boat itself. Nobody ever reduced the amount of corruption in government through lobbying for less of it. Demonstrating and striking are not working within the system but opting out or threatening to opt out of that system whilst campaigning and running for office are similarly treating what should properly be defined as different systems as one, when you say that they can change the system of government. Does getting elected offer you the power to change some of the aims of the system? Yes. Does it let you change the system itself? No, not in itself. Likewise, Google is kidding itself if it thinks working for the Chinese government allows it to tell the Chinese government how to rewrite their policies.
If Google pull out now they'll be replaced by Chinese competitors in seconds, the move will be reported as being Western foolishness and the Chinese Government will control another link in the chain between content and users. How can that be a good thing?
Well the first question is if Google are doing any good by staying? After all, if they're censoring everything they're told to censor (and I understand that they're doing so satisfactorily) then I see no advantage of them fulfilling this function instead of anyone else. And I grow very tired of the "if I didn't do it, somebody else would" argument when applied to justifying morally bad actions. It's an argument used to justify fear or greed time and again. If Google withdrew on the grounds of human rights violations then like it or not, it would be a strong message to some in China that they couldn't demand Western companies comply with human rights violations. It would be a strong message to the Western public that not all corporations set profit above ethics (and we sorely need that). It would even be a message to other Western corporations. Google is an enormously wealthy corporation. They are rolling in money. For them to set profit above morality is contemptible. Society benefits enormously from right behaviour in its leaders and most powerful. And society suffers badly from the example of corruption and greed from the same. A Chinese man (Lao Tsu) wrote eloquently on that subject thousands of years ago and it's just as true today.
Do you think China really cares all that much about Google? Seriously?
Well if they don't need Google then that utterly undermines the proposition that Google will somehow change the system from withing by exerting any kind of pressure. And without that, all that remains is profiting from a system that violates human rights. In either case, you're damned by being part of this.
If you're part of a system, then you're in some way supporting it. Examples of successfully changing a system from within are few and far between and are usually where someone couldn't voluntarily leave the system anyway. Systems are more usually replaced by a competing system. If Google want to change things, they should not submit to China's demands and walk away if need be. That would be a far stronger message and powerful effect than simply agreeing to their terms. I fail to see how they expect to change things through obedience.
But what they really did was destroy users access records to protect their visitors. That may make them guilty as far as the judge thinks, but it was actually their only means of protecting the identity of visitors. It was a very brave act on their part, if that's the case.
Oh you'll like it a lot if you're familiar with the source material - less so if you're not. But don't go into it with super-high expectations. It starts off pretty ropey, but it gets a Hell of a lot better. I think that's because it was filmed sequentially over a long period and their expertise and resources grew with time.
This is massively significant.There are rivals to MS Office products that would take market share away from them very quickly and the only thing really preventing that is if they can keep the standard file formats something that only they control. If OOXML doesn't get approved as a standard, it's really going to hurt MS. That's why the enormous pressure and attempted corruption. The stakes are actually pretty high for MS.
SI prefixes are there to make things simpler. They don't do that in the case of KB, MB, etc. because it has different needs. Only people who lack understanding of what the numbers mean find it confusing, whilst using base 10 is more awkward for those who do know what they mean. Why should technical terms be biased toward those who know less? A very long history of usage determines the meaning of the word and the re-definition came solely from marketing departments deliberately trying to cause confusion to profit from it. Thank about it: if everyone used the same terms, there are no preferential terms you can exploit to make your product sound better than it is, but when there is confusion over terms, you can use the preferential one and rely on people's expectation that it is another meaning. The only profit is in confusion. And then once the hard drive marketing departments had instigated this confusion, it was sustained by people who liked to be able to correct others.
That may be true (who knows?). But if you do have something encrypted you have to ask yourself it is vital enough that they would willingly admit they have the keys to get it? Similar to cracking the Enigma code - the enemy not knowing you've cracked their code is important in itself.
Not applicable to all situations, but cases where you would be prosecuted under the law it might save you from snooping. They wont hand out that technology to the police (probably).
It is a good article. But we might be seeing early stages of a conflict between friendliness and elegance. For example, I was annoyed when I upgraded to Hairy Hardon that it had decided I needed folders called Documents, Music, Pictures etc. in my home directory. A couple of the things suggested had less to do with usability than they did to do with familiarity to someone brought up on Windows. I don't think Linux environments should be so keen to emulate the Windows environment. It's a short term benefit with long term consequences. And even the short term benefit is a small one - look at the later iterations of Office: built around the concept that you don't need to read instructions, that everything should immediately be self-explanatory. A noble goal, but not one possible to reconcile with utility. I think I would rather a short, well written Introduction to Ubuntu than try to make everything look like Windows.
Heh! I already have the HPLHS' Call of Cthulhu. It's short, but a lot of fun. The making of is actually quite interesting, too. I saw a trailer they did for "The Whisperer in Darkness" and it was indeed a talkie. However, it doesn't seem to be available to buy yet. They may be waiting for some convention or something? Who knows... Anyway, their site is a gold mine of things to download and things to buy. My favourite simply has to be the Elder Sign Thong. Tagline: "Cause you don't want Shoggoths in your panties."
Run by very nice people, too. Definitely worth a look for anyone who "gets" Lovecraft.
Hellboy was an excellent piece of work considering that it was a daft comic book adventure. Ron Perlman was great (as usual) and little details such as the rooftop conversation with the little boy changed the movie utterly from being a simplistic series of fights to something that genuinely made you laugh and get involved with the characters.
The problem with Guillermo doing The Hobbit is not that he would do a bad film - I'm sure that he will do as good an adaptation as he is allowed to do by producers and budget (though he will inevitably get slated by people who think the film should be just like the LotR films). No, the problem with Guillermo doing The Hobbit is that he wont be doing something else more unusual or unlikely. He is supposed to be getting on with an adaptation of H.P.Lovecraft's "At the Mountain's of Madness" and I personally would really like to see that. It's going to take someone of Guillermo's ability and heft to get this done properly. I'll be dissapointed if the Hobbit took its place.
I'm really sorry to hear about your house. I'm not sure what you mean by it getting picked up by Slashdot. You mean they ran a story on it or there were lots of posters commenting on it or something? At any rate, people wearing the old anal ear warmers is frustrating - no argument there, but please don't let it shut you up.:)
Please continue things like this on Slashdot. Many of us come here mainly so we can read the debates that go on and it's a shame if an interesting one retires to private email discussion. That was a fascinating post.
This whole mebibyte thing seems like an April Fool's prank that's been carried on for too many years. I can't believe people are actually using it now.
There is a trait amongst some people that derives enjoyment from being able to correct people. The invention of the 1KB = 1000B definition by hard drive marketing departments appeals greatly to those with this trait as it allows them to pretend to correct a large community of people on something they take for granted (you get bonus points the more people you correct and the more fundamental the thing you say they have wrong). Never mind that there is a practical need for a unit based on powers of 2, no practical need for one based on multiples of 10 (unless you are trying to flog hard drives) and that the entire justification for moving to a 1,000 based system is to make things less confusing for the ignorant (who don't care) at the cost of making things more complex for the knowledgeable.
Ah, but you see when hard drive marketeers realised that they could make their drives seem bigger for less cost by re-defining the term, it was just too tempting to pass up, despite the confusion it would inevitably cause. Hopefully, the odd people who insist there is some sort of authority to their redefined terms despite the long established and uncontested history of a different meaning, will go away again with time. To use 1,000B is not merely different to the normal meaning, but for practical purposes less useful.
Hardly. I keep coming across people (who are definitely not Slashdot readers) who have heard that Vista sucks and the fact that numerous suppliers are charging extra for XP "upgrades" suggests that it's significant. Besides - the analogy is limited because who is going to be deciding what document formats are used? Is it going to be a general vote or will it be a select few in charge of policy at their company or institution? If it's the latter then explaining the OOXML problem to these people will be very productive. And every extra person who knows and cares about this helps with that.
I've already sent around a brief, non-techy readable email that tells people "a new file format is incompatible with a lot of software out there and if you want to be sure that people can read the Word document you send them, you should set Office 2007 to use a different one. Do this in these three simple steps (insert simple change default save type instructions).
If you let the balance of power fall too far to the state, it's grossly naive to think it wont lead to use of that power over you, your friends and your children. History supports that as do numerous social studies.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a bad article and covers all the relevant points of DDR3. Well worth reading by people not familiar with DDR3. It's not an unreserved sales-pitch for DD3 as it does detail the disadvantages of the technology as well. The only thing the article seems to gloss over in terms of negatives is the ratio of performance to cost. Right now, I'm seeing DDR3 chips starting at around double their DDR2 equivalents and then rising substantially for the very fastest. For most people, I would say that this is not a good use of their cash, unless they just don't care about paying more for the best. What is interesting is that DDR3 has greater potential in terms of capacity. A 16GB memory sounds fine to me. But then I put a bit more strain on my system than most users. We've reached a point where customers have maxed out their computing power needs. Only gamers are still asking for more from the hardware manufacturers. Everyone else just wants progress to be in the direction of 'cheap.' Well, you get the odd programmer like me that wants to compile fat code, but I can be sure I'm not going to support the DDR3 market on my own.
I would like to see DDR3 do well, but its timing is really bad.
Zeppelins are great. We should really be using them for more than simple tourism. Their lifting capacity is much greater than an aeroplane and their cost much lower. Slower of course, but faster than a ship, I think. Next time I come to the US, I'd be more than happy to take two or three days on the journey in the comfortable, ship-like capacity of a zeppelin.
"Passengers will PLEASE observe the no smoking sign"
They are not part of the system they are trying to change. You are talking about some all encompassing System that spans everything from democratic process to a company's internal organisation. Strikes may not be against the government system, but they are clearly not within the system that is a company's hierarchy and pay system. A company is a system - a strike is people within that system either leaving or threatening to leave that system. The american revolution was not people working within the British system of rule to change conditions, but people opting out of that system and founding their own. You change a system by not accepting it. It's naive to think that Google will change the Chinese government by doing what it tells them to do. Now you may argue that Google will not achieve anything by leaving. That is a separate point - the main thing I am saying is that the Google board trying to justify doing business with a regime that violates human rights is bollocks. On that I think we agree by the sound of it.Now the question of whether it would be positive for Google to withdraw on moral grounds is something we clearly do disagree with if you think it would achieve nothing. It is wrong to profit from human rights violations which is what Google is doing when they accept money for suppressing people's voices. Profit does not simply appear ex nihilo, and in this case it comes from doing a certain harm (censorship). If it doesn't come from that, then you must tell me where it comes from. And the argument that "if I didn't do it someone else would" is a tired one that has never been a morale escape clause - because the attitude itself is one that enables harm through justifying tolerance of others inflicting harm and through the denial of responsibility for one's actions (the root of much suffering in this world). It is an argument that means nothing more than "my morality is set according to the standard of the least moral of those around me."
And finally, none of this stuff happens in isolation. If Google censors information to please a government in China, why should they not do so here to please Western government or corporation interests? This is not a rhetorical question - it is serious. Don't oppose someone doing something wrong to your neighbour, don't be surprised when they do it to you. After all, Google is a Western corporation - the profits of compliance and the risks of disobedience are even larger here than in China, I would guess. Principles are not something you apply as convenient - once you do that, they vanish very, very quickly.
In this sense, my hands are a considerably lighter shade of grey than Googles (not that being imperfect oneself would be a moral justification for others to be so), because what I write I write and I haven't suppressed people's voices when I do so. Google is (a) establishing itself as the de facto means of finding information and then (b) accepting orders from a regime to suppress the voices of those the regime doesn't approve of. There's a big difference there - I do not suppress anyone's voices. What you are saying is that because I contribute content to the Web which Google then indexes, I am part of the same system as Google. That is where we diverge. I may be part of the ecosystem of the Internet which Google grazes on, but I'm no more a part of the Google entity by that, than water in the sea is part of the shipping industry. There's a conflation of terms, there. I don't accept constraints on my activity from the Chinese government - therefore I am not part of their system. My operations are independent. I think you'd agree that someone's activities being entirely independent of system means they are not part of that system. Google however, does accept constraints from another system, has their activities informed by it, and does so in exchange for profit. They work within that system therefore, whereas I do not.
If the Chinese government pays us money to not post something and we do so, then yes, we have sold our support to China. That hasn't happened yet, so I'm thinking my hands are clean. Google has taken money under such terms, however. So I'm thinking they ain't. There is the difference.
I'm not going to agree or disagree with what you say about me, until I understand your point. Could you please clarify? Are you saying that I contribute to the value of Google, and thus by proxy to China's government through posting here and increasing the value of the material that Google indexes?
Well the first question is if Google are doing any good by staying? After all, if they're censoring everything they're told to censor (and I understand that they're doing so satisfactorily) then I see no advantage of them fulfilling this function instead of anyone else. And I grow very tired of the "if I didn't do it, somebody else would" argument when applied to justifying morally bad actions. It's an argument used to justify fear or greed time and again. If Google withdrew on the grounds of human rights violations then like it or not, it would be a strong message to some in China that they couldn't demand Western companies comply with human rights violations. It would be a strong message to the Western public that not all corporations set profit above ethics (and we sorely need that). It would even be a message to other Western corporations. Google is an enormously wealthy corporation. They are rolling in money. For them to set profit above morality is contemptible. Society benefits enormously from right behaviour in its leaders and most powerful. And society suffers badly from the example of corruption and greed from the same. A Chinese man (Lao Tsu) wrote eloquently on that subject thousands of years ago and it's just as true today.
Well if they don't need Google then that utterly undermines the proposition that Google will somehow change the system from withing by exerting any kind of pressure. And without that, all that remains is profiting from a system that violates human rights. In either case, you're damned by being part of this.
If you're part of a system, then you're in some way supporting it. Examples of successfully changing a system from within are few and far between and are usually where someone couldn't voluntarily leave the system anyway. Systems are more usually replaced by a competing system. If Google want to change things, they should not submit to China's demands and walk away if need be. That would be a far stronger message and powerful effect than simply agreeing to their terms. I fail to see how they expect to change things through obedience.
But what they really did was destroy users access records to protect their visitors. That may make them guilty as far as the judge thinks, but it was actually their only means of protecting the identity of visitors. It was a very brave act on their part, if that's the case.
Oh you'll like it a lot if you're familiar with the source material - less so if you're not. But don't go into it with super-high expectations. It starts off pretty ropey, but it gets a Hell of a lot better. I think that's because it was filmed sequentially over a long period and their expertise and resources grew with time.
Not necessarily. Possibly China wants to demonstrate its power.
This is massively significant.There are rivals to MS Office products that would take market share away from them very quickly and the only thing really preventing that is if they can keep the standard file formats something that only they control. If OOXML doesn't get approved as a standard, it's really going to hurt MS. That's why the enormous pressure and attempted corruption. The stakes are actually pretty high for MS.
SI prefixes are there to make things simpler. They don't do that in the case of KB, MB, etc. because it has different needs. Only people who lack understanding of what the numbers mean find it confusing, whilst using base 10 is more awkward for those who do know what they mean. Why should technical terms be biased toward those who know less? A very long history of usage determines the meaning of the word and the re-definition came solely from marketing departments deliberately trying to cause confusion to profit from it. Thank about it: if everyone used the same terms, there are no preferential terms you can exploit to make your product sound better than it is, but when there is confusion over terms, you can use the preferential one and rely on people's expectation that it is another meaning. The only profit is in confusion. And then once the hard drive marketing departments had instigated this confusion, it was sustained by people who liked to be able to correct others.
That may be true (who knows?). But if you do have something encrypted you have to ask yourself it is vital enough that they would willingly admit they have the keys to get it? Similar to cracking the Enigma code - the enemy not knowing you've cracked their code is important in itself.
Not applicable to all situations, but cases where you would be prosecuted under the law it might save you from snooping. They wont hand out that technology to the police (probably).
It is a good article. But we might be seeing early stages of a conflict between friendliness and elegance. For example, I was annoyed when I upgraded to Hairy Hardon that it had decided I needed folders called Documents, Music, Pictures etc. in my home directory. A couple of the things suggested had less to do with usability than they did to do with familiarity to someone brought up on Windows. I don't think Linux environments should be so keen to emulate the Windows environment. It's a short term benefit with long term consequences. And even the short term benefit is a small one - look at the later iterations of Office: built around the concept that you don't need to read instructions, that everything should immediately be self-explanatory. A noble goal, but not one possible to reconcile with utility. I think I would rather a short, well written Introduction to Ubuntu than try to make everything look like Windows.
Heh! I already have the HPLHS' Call of Cthulhu. It's short, but a lot of fun. The making of is actually quite interesting, too. I saw a trailer they did for "The Whisperer in Darkness" and it was indeed a talkie. However, it doesn't seem to be available to buy yet. They may be waiting for some convention or something? Who knows... Anyway, their site is a gold mine of things to download and things to buy. My favourite simply has to be the Elder Sign Thong. Tagline: "Cause you don't want Shoggoths in your panties."
Run by very nice people, too. Definitely worth a look for anyone who "gets" Lovecraft.
Hellboy was an excellent piece of work considering that it was a daft comic book adventure. Ron Perlman was great (as usual) and little details such as the rooftop conversation with the little boy changed the movie utterly from being a simplistic series of fights to something that genuinely made you laugh and get involved with the characters.
The problem with Guillermo doing The Hobbit is not that he would do a bad film - I'm sure that he will do as good an adaptation as he is allowed to do by producers and budget (though he will inevitably get slated by people who think the film should be just like the LotR films). No, the problem with Guillermo doing The Hobbit is that he wont be doing something else more unusual or unlikely. He is supposed to be getting on with an adaptation of H.P.Lovecraft's "At the Mountain's of Madness" and I personally would really like to see that. It's going to take someone of Guillermo's ability and heft to get this done properly. I'll be dissapointed if the Hobbit took its place.
I'm really sorry to hear about your house. I'm not sure what you mean by it getting picked up by Slashdot. You mean they ran a story on it or there were lots of posters commenting on it or something? At any rate, people wearing the old anal ear warmers is frustrating - no argument there, but please don't let it shut you up.
Regards,
H.
Please continue things like this on Slashdot. Many of us come here mainly so we can read the debates that go on and it's a shame if an interesting one retires to private email discussion. That was a fascinating post.
There is a trait amongst some people that derives enjoyment from being able to correct people. The invention of the 1KB = 1000B definition by hard drive marketing departments appeals greatly to those with this trait as it allows them to pretend to correct a large community of people on something they take for granted (you get bonus points the more people you correct and the more fundamental the thing you say they have wrong). Never mind that there is a practical need for a unit based on powers of 2, no practical need for one based on multiples of 10 (unless you are trying to flog hard drives) and that the entire justification for moving to a 1,000 based system is to make things less confusing for the ignorant (who don't care) at the cost of making things more complex for the knowledgeable.
Ah, but you see when hard drive marketeers realised that they could make their drives seem bigger for less cost by re-defining the term, it was just too tempting to pass up, despite the confusion it would inevitably cause. Hopefully, the odd people who insist there is some sort of authority to their redefined terms despite the long established and uncontested history of a different meaning, will go away again with time. To use 1,000B is not merely different to the normal meaning, but for practical purposes less useful.
Hardly. I keep coming across people (who are definitely not Slashdot readers) who have heard that Vista sucks and the fact that numerous suppliers are charging extra for XP "upgrades" suggests that it's significant. Besides - the analogy is limited because who is going to be deciding what document formats are used? Is it going to be a general vote or will it be a select few in charge of policy at their company or institution? If it's the latter then explaining the OOXML problem to these people will be very productive. And every extra person who knows and cares about this helps with that.
I've already sent around a brief, non-techy readable email that tells people "a new file format is incompatible with a lot of software out there and if you want to be sure that people can read the Word document you send them, you should set Office 2007 to use a different one. Do this in these three simple steps (insert simple change default save type instructions).
If you let the balance of power fall too far to the state, it's grossly naive to think it wont lead to use of that power over you, your friends and your children. History supports that as do numerous social studies.