Bad marketing practices (eg, convincing consumers that Mhz==horsepower) have created a topheavy PC architecture in terms of processors being so much faster than RAM its getting ridiculous fast (at least that's what I hear).
With chipsets surpassing the Ghz, RAM is becoming pathetically slow. Intel thinks RDRAM is the answer, but its ridiculously expensive, and I hear conflicting views as to whether it's even worth the sky high price. Is *DRAM getting so old that it might fall out of the picture? Maybe some mobo mfgr will offer a mobo that accept up to 128 megs of off die L2? or something equally silly sounding today, but neccesary tommorrow? What I'm really the most scared of is that AMD will miss the fast *DRAM boat entirely, and Intel will clutch the high end market for another ten years, pulling in ridiculous prices because there's no viable alternative...
And anyway, WTF are the x86 manufacturers doing in the god damn high end server market??? Isn't that reserved for risc machines? I mean, if I was going to spend 10 big ones on a high end server I'd buy something that was designed to rip up the job, not play f'ing Doom. Seriously. Shouldn't anyone with delusions of building a server put their money into a machine designed to do work not play games? And dont remind me that x86's are "universal computers" too, you know what I mean.
If you need to run windows so you can manage the sucker, tack on an extra $300 and get a damn k6-2.
Ok rant's almost over...
What really pisses me off is that it seems like the whole IT world is losing IQ through a hole that could admit a sperm whale. x86's are for Personal Computers. RISC's are for serving data, compile farms, and real work in general. An x86 might be a viable stand in if you're strapped for cash in the short term, but if you're talking about spending huge sums of money, its just a waste to buy a 600mhz quad Xeon with a zillion bells and whistles.
I was wrong about Athlons not supporting SMP; as the other poster pointed out it's the kx133 and 750 which lack SMP capability.
According to Toms Hardware, the 770 glue chipset will have support for 2 4 and 8 way SMP. Cool! I'd still rather spend the extra cash to pack that sucker with RAM and a fast scsi system though.... but then, I don't do anything extraordinary with my computer, just UT. Maybe if I ever got hardcore into rendering, but not today. thank you drive through.
Unfortunately no-one can make a "dual" (read, smp) system with today's athlons, because the CHIP ITSELF does not have the capability to support smp yet. I guess theoretically you could build a board with two athlons on it, but they would each need their own seperate memories. I've heard of boards that let you run dual pentiums/celerys on a single chip board, but that's only possible because the chips already have the ability to do smp... the adapter makes up for the mobo's deficiency, I'm pretty sure it's nigh impossible to make a real SMP system with non-SMP chips.
SMP stands for Symmetric-Multi-Processing, which is different from uniprocessing because there is more than one chip which needs to have access to the main memory. Because PC memories were designed for uniprocessing you need the SMP pseudo workaround, which comes down to the chips having a system for telling each other when NOT to access memory, because proc #N is currently using it. That's why you haven't seen any dual athlon boards yet, and why AMD is busting their collective butts to make an SMP *capable* chip.
Btw, the symmetric part of SMP means that you're using exactly 2^n procs; It's possible to build a non symmetric system (i forget the term for it) but this is less efficient because the code to manage it gets really complex. Anyway can you think of a reason why you'd want exactly 3 or 5 chips on a board instead of 2 or 4 or 8? furthermore, when you get up there (over 4) procs in a box, performance goes south fast unless you invest massively in the bus, which means you're not even in personal computer territory anymore, and should start thinking about some kind of Alpha or Sun system....
And as soon as they offer dual gigahertz athlons, I WON't buy it, unless they package it with some fancy new SuperDuper High Speed kind of RAM, because otherwise those suckers are gonna spend most of their time idling while they wait their turn to get data from RAM to cache.
No siree, I'd buy a single sub-gigahertz Athlon, and slap a sick ultra160 scsi system in there instead.
America is a democracy, where decisions are made by the majority.
Well, its more like, because americans want to believe they have democracy, their leaders twist the issues toward the majoritys' preference.
In either case, the problem is that Most People Are Dumb! At least about something. I'm dumb about cars, because I think my time is better spent learning about computers, so I can pay someone to fix my car for me and still have more money left than I would have if I pursued both venues. But then, I don't vote on design issues at Ford, either.
The majority of people are idiots about most issues. And no-one can stay fully informed about every issue, social, technical, moral, foreign, domestic, etc.
But americans are taught to vote vote vote, or else the COMMIES could take over! Meanwhile anyone with anything relevant to say about a current, high profile issue is drowned out by a sea of morons, and the politicians play to the crowds unless there are hugely negative ramifications imminent.
Should online anonymity be allowed? Is "one-click patent worthy?" Your neighbors may or may not have reasons but if asked they would most likely have opinions.
Ok wiseguy (you may say), what then should we do to correct the situation, hmmmmm? What's the fix?
Well in my opinion, the situation is far too phuct to fix, which is why I study foreign languages;) America is going to hell in a hand basket and rather than invest my future in it, I'll go somewhere sane so my kids won't have to worry as much about stray bullets and terrorists' bombs.
The original patriots (G Washington, B Franklin, T Jefferson etc) I believe wrote something into one of those now historic documents saying
"This is the best government we can think of. But remember, things change, and someday the government which now exists may no longer be appropriate; when/if that happens, people may have to give their effort or their lives to fix the situation, even replace the existing government."
Every social studies teacher I've ever said that too has pointed out that that particular document is not enshrined in law, rather it was just a public statement. What difference would it make if it was a law? It couldn't possibly make it any more true.
The current government was created in response to a very specific set of political(and other) conditions. It was made well, built to scale and change while still holding true to some ideals the makers felt were fundamental, much like a good OS. And though nothing lasts forever, many people feel that it is the Government, the Law itself, which must be preserved at all costs, not the well being of the citizenry.
I think america got too diverse. NOT RACIALLY!! Racial diversity ain't even a thang. Too diverse morally, and too diverse religiously. And now the majority can't help but stomp on the minority every living day. And sooner than later it will end, kicking and screaming or making a smooth transition, but it will end.
I wish I could remember who I'm paraphrasing here: "Governments are like garments; and over time they wear to rags. To worship rags, to cry out for rags, to live and die for rags, is madness." The real quote is nicer. I think it was said by a brit. I forget. peace out.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Why I *hate* AOL/Public schools [slightly OT,rant]
on
AOLization of America
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Everyone comes in as a newbie. Even the original designers of DARPANET said that they expected to be taken off the project and replaced by "the experts" at any moment.
Newbies are inevitable. Even when the whole world is wired to the hilt, there will be children getting online for the first time. The evil of AOL is not in the volume of newbies they bring in, nor the caliber of newbies they bring in.
The true evil of AOL is that they encourage people to be AOL dependant. And in AOL's mind that means keeping them iiiignoooooraaaant as a steaming pile. How many AOL users think that the WHOLE Internet is a commercial product? How many realize that 'netiquette even exists, let alone what it might be? These people can't be fully faulted for not knowing; at the same time they are a nuisance or worse, and most have NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of getting a clue.
Those AOL user effectively value stupidity as something to be protected. How can anyone surf porn 90 hours a week and then say they don't have time to learn about the tool they've been using?
Anyone who uses AOL should get on the clue train and go to a free ISP. People who don't understand the concept of a traffic network shouldn't be allowed to drive cars. People who think the internet comes on a CD will add to the stupidity level and be a time sink for the less stupid.
If I EVER have a chance to bitch slap the people who built AOL, I'll use that chance to put my foot through their face.
there've been alternatives to violence to solve disputes since there've been disputes.When I was 10 I wondered, "why don't leaders just run a footrace? then no one would have to kill each other."The naivete involved here should be obvious to anyone over 12. We run the race, but someone's still unhappy about who ended up with the needed food/land/information/what have you. Hmm, what's the next step here? another footrace? obviously not. Even if everyone agreed to lay down their arms, how long do you think it would be before some starving hobo in some back alley decided to rob your house for a loaf of bread? How long before one nation notices how easily it could just *take* some desperately needed resource from a neighbor? Violence is here to stay. Maybe not forever, but for a long, long, looooooong (hella long!) time.
Sorry then, my error. Good on you for responding to my soi-flame with level headed clarity. Uh err, just because nations *can* agree, doesn't mean that's a good option though. Case in point: Nazi aggression in Europe. Can anyone give me a nonviolent solution that wouldn't have led to Hitler raping the continent silly before going after the rest of the world? Nonviolent as in, not killing anyone, nor threatening to if they don't comply. And as for your question, Why can't they agree to settle the differences in a nondestructive way? The answer is that they do often settle their differences nonviolently, or at least without all out war; However I get the feeling that maybe you want to know why they sometimes resort to violence, when a nonviolent solution is possible?I'd have to say it's because most people would rather die than suffer some injustices, and would often rather fight than die; this is true on national and personal levels.Until there's enough for everyone, and it's distributed "fairly", AND people stop lusting for more just because more seems attainable, there will be violence in some form. Hell, everyone is suing their neighbor and coworker over inane bullshit these days... thats a form of violence too!My (possibly totally foolish, possibly totally correct) conclusion is that we are violent because those ancestors of ours who were violent, were more prosperous and fruitful than those who chose nonviolence over greed. Might makes right. Not because some 'god' wrote it on a stone tablet, rather because the strong dominate the weak. Whoever's dominating, whoever gets their way, makes the rules. If they decide there will be no rules, the decision was still set by the dominant one. Life's not fair or pretty. Morals are situational. Facts are less than absolute. Wheee!!!!a
>> this has nothing to do with security, they aren't running a web server where anyone can push and pull at it all they want!
Well you're right, it isn't a web server (unless the DoD went with another poorly chosen off the shelf solution) that anyone who wants to can attack. On the other, much more important hand, this system has to stand up to a determined intruder who will die or worse if unsuccessful. An intruder who is likely probing military targets every day, every hour, silently looking for a weakness to exploit at just the wrong moment. Everyone doesn't have easy access to the system; that doesn't mean that it is a priori impregnable.
>>if you want to get into them you either have to hold them in your hand or be able to crack the sat. system.
Oh, i get it now. The satellites talk to the soldiers, and vice versa. The data never goes anywhere else? like say, command HQ? Are satellites invulnerable to cracking? (hint: no). We're not talking about security against 14 year old script kids. This is a military system, which will come under attack by military opponents. You and I may not be able to crack a sat whenever we get the urge, but do you want to gamble that China/Iraq/wherever CANNOT buy/rent/coerce the skills needed to do that? Would you bet the lives of hundreds or thousands of your countrymen on that gamble? Security is not a one step, one shot, fire and forget issue.
>>plus when these things we(re) being designed, mobile linux/BSD most likely didn't even exist.
[Sarcasm] Oh really! Wasn't BSD released before winCE?[/Sarcasm] BSD was probably ported to the Palm roughly 2 femtoseconds after the first commercial offering. And, this article is about a current initiative, not a historical one. Further, your use of the word 'plus' is grammatically incorrect:) It means "with the addition of", not "also".
>>The palmtops are just dumb clients,
No the article clearly states: The palmtop is "the brain of the system," Eubank said.
>> This is not insightful, its just windows bashing.
No, I actually meant what I wrote. I didn't just bullshit two pages for the opportunity to put down Windows and Microsoft. It MAY NOT be insightful, but neither is it "just windows bashing".
First, let me admit that building something from scratch isn't always the best route. BUT!!!:)
There's a big difference between the example you gave and what I wrote: Nasa probably doesn't need those cameras in bulk. At least not the way the military needs soldiers in bulk; Of course it's going to be cheaper and tons faster to go out and buy X amount of parts, while X is relatively small. Even if you pay 100 times what a scratch-built part would have cost, you skip the design costs entirely.On the other hand, when you intend to outfit a large number of units with this part, the constant design cost will fade into the background if you design a cheaper unit which does everything you need and nothing you don't.In all fairness I should have said
When you're as big an outfit as the US military, and you're building a lot of units you don't need to build a new system from consumer products; you can do it better and cheaper (and hella secreter) if you spec and build it yourself.You're again right when you say that consumer products are many times the best there are: however, what's "best" in the consumer market can vary wildly with what's "best" in the military market. And since these devices are likely going to serve a few VERY specific purposes, IMHO the military could've probably saved some money, and gotten a more field-appropriate tool by designing it themselves. Like I said in the article its my opinion.[Flame shield on]
>>Anyone with a decent IQ understands that war and physical violence are unnecessary. Thats the most dumb-as-shit thing I've heard in at least a week. People have disputes. They also have tempers. While it is in everyone's power to control their own temper, it is in no-one's power to control the other person's temper, barring VIOLENCE. Nonviolence works sometimes. And sometimes it gets you killed. Just because the teletubbies or whatever you've been watching have told you the world is happy and shiny doesnt mean there's not a killer living in your town.Grow up, while you have the chance.
First things first. Your entire post ranted at me as if I had advocated violence as *the* one and only way to resolve disputes. Clearly you're a peace nazi. Shut up, or at least try to remember what the post you reply to said.Second, I never said that violent offenders aren't responsible because violence is genetic, I only said that because violence is genetically part of us, it isn't going away real soon.As for the rest of your post, you obviously just needed a good rant, which everyone does once in a while. After all it's a form of violence:)peace, asshole
Basically you're saying that we should settle our disputes nonviolently.
Okay wise guy, what happens when Iraq Virtually beats the USA, thereby claiming kuwait's oil resources?
do you think we aren't going to bomb Iraq off the face of the earth? Get real. The whole point of fighting is that it's what happens when someone gets pissed off enough. Aggression is built into our ape-descended brains. It isn't going away. And IF it ever does, I'll be there with a shotgun:)
#1: microsoft product. security holes. chinese hackers. 'nuff said.
#2: When you're as big an outfit as the US military, you don't need to build a new system from consumer products; you can do it better and cheaper (and hella secreter) if you spec and build it yourself. Do you think the NSA does they're decrypting on a giant beowulf of x86's running NT or TurboLinux somewhere? 0f f**king course not. Even the frogs (i'm part French so can the flames) have enough clue to build a custom system, albeit from high-grade (read Alpha) consumer processors; I'm under the impression that the NSA has custom DES-cracking chips in their crypto supercomputers (I don't have any proof, but if i did i'd prolly be dead in 10 minutes anyways;)
#3: The name JEDI is a dead giveaway that something's fishy here. Ever heard of Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative? The project was impossible from the start because in the day, creating the estimated minimum 2 million lines of code, cleanly enough to direct something as precise and dangerous as a satellite anti-missile system, was NOT POSSIBLE. Reagan was informed of this, apparently he didn't care. This falls in the same category, not because the names come from the same fictional work but rather because they are both obviously foolish tasks to anyone who has a working concept of what's involved in making it work.
So why is the DOD doing this? I have a couple guesses, listed in increasing likeliness IMHO:
a) It's a big PR stunt. The DOD is trying to impress either US citizens, or scare foreign militaries. Since the latter are probably laughing their asses off right now, I'd say the former is a little more likely. Maybe they are just trying to drum up some semicomputer literates, who are just gung-ho (or dumb) enough to run through a battlefield with $30K in useless equipment (or worse than useless, since it isn't weightless).
b)Our government wants to see how effective a force a smaller government could field with off the shelf mobile computers. Still unlikely because any smart government (read, any other government) would have enough sense to run OpenBSD at the very least, if not build their own in house solution from *BSD linux scratch whatever. Do you think the Viet Cong would have chosen winCE? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
c) Advanced research. The D0D really thinks winCE is great, and that microsoft can and will provide military-grade security in the first place and support in the second place. The article is true, not misinformation; I find this unlikely but possible. hey, stranger things have happened and even the military may still be lagging the way the FBI did in the 80's when they started trying to catch phreakerz. Unlikely but possible.
d) Our government actually Doesn't have its head up its ass, they're only outfitting like 2 guys with the lamed out CE vests, but last year they finally perfected their BSD based vests, and now they need a cover story. As a bonus, enemy crackerz will think they are hacking a lame win system, and if they are just script kidz they won't get past the decoy defenses. Meanwhile the BSD JEDI ('s?) will already have kicked Saddam's sorry ass for the 90th time.
e) Bill Gates is fronting the entire operation, hardware, software, even hired ex-US military mercernaries, just to showcase winCE. The troops will never see combat, and assignment to the JEDI corps will replace KP and using your toothbrush to make those latrines shine like a drill seargents' boots. Honestly possible, however silly it may seem; Bill has tons of money that may not be worth anything soon (ms stock) so why not spend it on silly things that might make some slight difference?
I honestly don't know which is more likely d) or e), but this is/. so the order was inevitable. However dumb the military may be, their purpose remains to fight and die to protect the sovereignty (sp?) of the US and it's colonies err i mean strategic third world partners. I really don't think that this is for real because when it comes down to it, they don't enjoy throwing american lives away frivolously. Obvious PR/coverup or both. thank you drive through.
I'm sure they know hella more about linux than I do, but this raises a little fud flag in my head; Of Course SuSe says linux isn't ready for the desktop: They're not in RedHat's position of dominant branding.
This statement does 2 things for them: it gets them free advertising (wow, some linux company is dissing linux. that's worth a read..) AND it lets them "save the day" later on, witha version of linux that "is" ready for the desktop.
I agree that much of linux could be changed to make it easier for the average newbie; However, it's perfectly ready for the desktop. Just not the average computer illiterati or windoze luser.
I think the best ads of the next generation will be more like those ones that look like windows errors... you know, the ones only windoze users think are real errors?:) (as opposed the that punch the monkey crap.)
[Error! Your connection to the net is not optimized!]
You know the ones. The purpose of any advertisement is to draw you one step closer to buying the product. In the future, ads will continue to evolve; I think we can predict a day when ads will trick you into thinking they are not ads, but rather something else (the something else is where the ad companies get creative... OS errors, browser windows, java progs..). More amazingly though, perhaps ads will someday resort to ACTUALLY TELLING YOU SOMETHING F**K**G USEFUL, as an enticement to click.
As for bonding a computer to my brain, you'd better believe anything hooked directly into *my* brain is gonna automatically ignore ads, and place a muuuch higher priority on doing what *I* tell it to than what the page I just browsed told it to do. Plus the security on that thing is gonna be as good as I can make it, and not based on anything so widely used as to be the target of major cracking attempts by the underground. Hell, by the time I can afford something like that I'll probably be able to write the drivers for it myself anyway....;-{>
It's not Capitalism I hate, it's Commercialism, Capitalism's child. And Usury pisses me off in general.
Or, only the easily annoyed people will notice. Which means that guy yesterday, who cut you off in his beamer, with the phone glued to his ear, lips flapping wildly, will probably go psycho and run you off the road instead tomorrow.
Take me for instance.
Paris in the the springtime
I didn't notice it the first time I read it, but my eyes instantly jumped back to the double "the" after reading it once... 'cause I'm anal about grammar. Imagine some right wing freak flipping out because his/her phone displays ads for night-life spots, bars, dance halls, gambling, pr0n...
At least, that's what I'm imagining, because I hate right wing dorx.
Lastly, just wanna say what I think will come of all this "ads everywhere" crap: eventually a portion of the population will get sick of it, band together, and build strong walls against all the bullshit that prevails on us daily. You think you've got e-spam problems today... imagine when the average link isn't a phone line, but a coax cable... ewww. When a ten year old can leave his/her 2.7Ghz pc on all night, sending chain letters and requests for hax0ring scripts, and all manner of garbage and virii.
be afraid, be very afraid... and hide behind a firewall and anonymous email addresses.
I read somewhere recently that it's not much effort to remove banner ads on the fly without downloading them. I didn't read how to do it because I surf from a 10-eth connection at school and I don't care (plus the school would get pissed if I started modifying their computers;-)<P> Anyway, If you're on a lowband (or pay per bit) connection, just don't download anything animated! And if that strategy blocks something you want to see, download it explicitly and view it already.<P> Maybe this is a bigger dealt than I'm seeing here... But the second that phone is in my possession, away from employees of Ericson, it becomes MY tool, not theirs, and I can physically do anything to it that I think I can pull off (and so can anyone else).<P> I'm less worried about stupid banner ads than I am about 100 windows opening every time I back out of the pr0n site I mean, vendor site I was surfing. How much of a pain will those windows be when your screen is the size of a matchbook?! C'mon, you know what I'm talking about... look! you're not even typing with two hands! Oh, sure, hunt and peck, I believe that... *snicker*
Think of it: what result do commercials have on a media (besides rendering it inane causing it to be marketed to the dumbest)? They make it cheaper of course.
In the future, maybe these banner ads will make it affordable to Joe Slashdotter to have a satphone a few years ahead of time; And of course, Joe S. will immediately turn off the banner ads, thus removing the annoyance, while John Windozer calls tech support about the "premium no-advert" service for an additional $99.95 a month.
Anyways, so what? I personally avoid commercials and "news" (as in tv "news" shows); If I couldn't figure out how to shut off the ads or get a friend to do it free, I'd put a piece of duct tape over the banner. Problem solved.
Professor, today we work at pushing back the limits of knowledge of how the universe works. Considering that (accd to some) as the universe formed, the physical constants/laws changed, do you think we may ever harness the ability to/change/ the nature of space to our liking? ie, alter the gravitational constant, put extra quarks in nucleons, bend space without mass, change the speed of light, time travel?
2)
Heat Death of the universe/black&white holes: My (undergrad layperson's) understanding of black holes is that they may 'fall' out of 'our' space, and then undergo their own Big Bang; do you think that it is possible to use these holes and otherverses as cosmic power plugs, to syphon in/out energy, thus prolonging or even immortalizing our own universe?
3)
On the physicality of information: I have often heard of info inside of a computer as being called "pure" or "just" information; considering that this information is embodied by electrons, do you think that information can exist apart from matter/energy? On its own? As in, do provable mathematical 'facts' exist before someone sits down and proves them?
4)
I have heard that some physicists think of physics more as a model of how we humans percieve our environment, than as a model of REALITY; what do you think about this? And what do you think of Zen?
5)
Has a woman ever expressed interest in you based mostly on the fact that you have a PhD in physics? (sorry, but I'm a young guy, and i really want to know!)
6)
Do you believe in a non-subjective, exceptionless Truth?
Slashdot Mirror
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
With chipsets surpassing the Ghz, RAM is becoming pathetically slow. Intel thinks RDRAM is the answer, but its ridiculously expensive, and I hear conflicting views as to whether it's even worth the sky high price. Is *DRAM getting so old that it might fall out of the picture? Maybe some mobo mfgr will offer a mobo that accept up to 128 megs of off die L2? or something equally silly sounding today, but neccesary tommorrow? What I'm really the most scared of is that AMD will miss the fast *DRAM boat entirely, and Intel will clutch the high end market for another ten years, pulling in ridiculous prices because there's no viable alternative...
And anyway, WTF are the x86 manufacturers doing in the god damn high end server market??? Isn't that reserved for risc machines? I mean, if I was going to spend 10 big ones on a high end server I'd buy something that was designed to rip up the job, not play f'ing Doom. Seriously. Shouldn't anyone with delusions of building a server put their money into a machine designed to do work not play games? And dont remind me that x86's are "universal computers" too, you know what I mean.
If you need to run windows so you can manage the sucker, tack on an extra $300 and get a damn k6-2.
Ok rant's almost over...
What really pisses me off is that it seems like the whole IT world is losing IQ through a hole that could admit a sperm whale. x86's are for Personal Computers. RISC's are for serving data, compile farms, and real work in general. An x86 might be a viable stand in if you're strapped for cash in the short term, but if you're talking about spending huge sums of money, its just a waste to buy a 600mhz quad Xeon with a zillion bells and whistles.
Isn't it?
Am I wrong? or has the whole world gone mad?
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
According to Toms Hardware, the 770 glue chipset will have support for 2 4 and 8 way SMP. Cool! I'd still rather spend the extra cash to pack that sucker with RAM and a fast scsi system though.... but then, I don't do anything extraordinary with my computer, just UT. Maybe if I ever got hardcore into rendering, but not today. thank you drive through.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
SMP stands for Symmetric-Multi-Processing, which is different from uniprocessing because there is more than one chip which needs to have access to the main memory. Because PC memories were designed for uniprocessing you need the SMP pseudo workaround, which comes down to the chips having a system for telling each other when NOT to access memory, because proc #N is currently using it. That's why you haven't seen any dual athlon boards yet, and why AMD is busting their collective butts to make an SMP *capable* chip.
Btw, the symmetric part of SMP means that you're using exactly 2^n procs; It's possible to build a non symmetric system (i forget the term for it) but this is less efficient because the code to manage it gets really complex. Anyway can you think of a reason why you'd want exactly 3 or 5 chips on a board instead of 2 or 4 or 8? furthermore, when you get up there (over 4) procs in a box, performance goes south fast unless you invest massively in the bus, which means you're not even in personal computer territory anymore, and should start thinking about some kind of Alpha or Sun system....
And as soon as they offer dual gigahertz athlons, I WON't buy it, unless they package it with some fancy new SuperDuper High Speed kind of RAM, because otherwise those suckers are gonna spend most of their time idling while they wait their turn to get data from RAM to cache.
No siree, I'd buy a single sub-gigahertz Athlon, and slap a sick ultra160 scsi system in there instead.
It's all about the I/O people.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Well, its more like, because americans want to believe they have democracy, their leaders twist the issues toward the majoritys' preference.
In either case, the problem is that Most People Are Dumb! At least about something. I'm dumb about cars, because I think my time is better spent learning about computers, so I can pay someone to fix my car for me and still have more money left than I would have if I pursued both venues. But then, I don't vote on design issues at Ford, either.
The majority of people are idiots about most issues. And no-one can stay fully informed about every issue, social, technical, moral, foreign, domestic, etc.
But americans are taught to vote vote vote, or else the COMMIES could take over! Meanwhile anyone with anything relevant to say about a current, high profile issue is drowned out by a sea of morons, and the politicians play to the crowds unless there are hugely negative ramifications imminent.
Should online anonymity be allowed? Is "one-click patent worthy?" Your neighbors may or may not have reasons but if asked they would most likely have opinions.
Ok wiseguy (you may say), what then should we do to correct the situation, hmmmmm? What's the fix?
Well in my opinion, the situation is far too phuct to fix, which is why I study foreign languages ;) America is going to hell in a hand basket and rather than invest my future in it, I'll go somewhere sane so my kids won't have to worry as much about stray bullets and terrorists' bombs.
The original patriots (G Washington, B Franklin, T Jefferson etc) I believe wrote something into one of those now historic documents saying
"This is the best government we can think of. But remember, things change, and someday the government which now exists may no longer be appropriate; when/if that happens, people may have to give their effort or their lives to fix the situation, even replace the existing government."
Every social studies teacher I've ever said that too has pointed out that that particular document is not enshrined in law, rather it was just a public statement. What difference would it make if it was a law? It couldn't possibly make it any more true.
The current government was created in response to a very specific set of political(and other) conditions. It was made well, built to scale and change while still holding true to some ideals the makers felt were fundamental, much like a good OS. And though nothing lasts forever, many people feel that it is the Government, the Law itself, which must be preserved at all costs, not the well being of the citizenry.
I think america got too diverse. NOT RACIALLY!! Racial diversity ain't even a thang. Too diverse morally, and too diverse religiously. And now the majority can't help but stomp on the minority every living day. And sooner than later it will end, kicking and screaming or making a smooth transition, but it will end.
I wish I could remember who I'm paraphrasing here: "Governments are like garments; and over time they wear to rags. To worship rags, to cry out for rags, to live and die for rags, is madness." The real quote is nicer. I think it was said by a brit. I forget. peace out.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Newbies are inevitable. Even when the whole world is wired to the hilt, there will be children getting online for the first time. The evil of AOL is not in the volume of newbies they bring in, nor the caliber of newbies they bring in.
The true evil of AOL is that they encourage people to be AOL dependant. And in AOL's mind that means keeping them iiiignoooooraaaant as a steaming pile. How many AOL users think that the WHOLE Internet is a commercial product? How many realize that 'netiquette even exists, let alone what it might be? These people can't be fully faulted for not knowing; at the same time they are a nuisance or worse, and most have NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of getting a clue.
Those AOL user effectively value stupidity as something to be protected. How can anyone surf porn 90 hours a week and then say they don't have time to learn about the tool they've been using?
Anyone who uses AOL should get on the clue train and go to a free ISP. People who don't understand the concept of a traffic network shouldn't be allowed to drive cars. People who think the internet comes on a CD will add to the stupidity level and be a time sink for the less stupid.
If I EVER have a chance to bitch slap the people who built AOL, I'll use that chance to put my foot through their face.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Even if everyone agreed to lay down their arms, how long do you think it would be before some starving hobo in some back alley decided to rob your house for a loaf of bread? How long before one nation notices how easily it could just *take* some desperately needed resource from a neighbor?
Violence is here to stay. Maybe not forever, but for a long, long, looooooong (hella long!) time.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Uh err, just because nations *can* agree, doesn't mean that's a good option though. Case in point: Nazi aggression in Europe. Can anyone give me a nonviolent solution that wouldn't have led to Hitler raping the continent silly before going after the rest of the world? Nonviolent as in, not killing anyone, nor threatening to if they don't comply.
And as for your question,
Why can't they agree to settle the differences in a nondestructive way?
The answer is that they do often settle their differences nonviolently, or at least without all out war; However I get the feeling that maybe you want to know why they sometimes resort to violence, when a nonviolent solution is possible?I'd have to say it's because most people would rather die than suffer some injustices, and would often rather fight than die; this is true on national and personal levels.Until there's enough for everyone, and it's distributed "fairly", AND people stop lusting for more just because more seems attainable, there will be violence in some form. Hell, everyone is suing their neighbor and coworker over inane bullshit these days... thats a form of violence too!My (possibly totally foolish, possibly totally correct) conclusion is that we are violent because those ancestors of ours who were violent, were more prosperous and fruitful than those who chose nonviolence over greed.
Might makes right. Not because some 'god' wrote it on a stone tablet, rather because the strong dominate the weak. Whoever's dominating, whoever gets their way, makes the rules. If they decide there will be no rules, the decision was still set by the dominant one. Life's not fair or pretty. Morals are situational. Facts are less than absolute. Wheee!!!!a
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Well you're right, it isn't a web server (unless the DoD went with another poorly chosen off the shelf solution) that anyone who wants to can attack. On the other, much more important hand, this system has to stand up to a determined intruder who will die or worse if unsuccessful. An intruder who is likely probing military targets every day, every hour, silently looking for a weakness to exploit at just the wrong moment. Everyone doesn't have easy access to the system; that doesn't mean that it is a priori impregnable.
>>if you want to get into them you either have to hold them in your hand or be able to crack the sat. system.
Oh, i get it now. The satellites talk to the soldiers, and vice versa. The data never goes anywhere else? like say, command HQ? Are satellites invulnerable to cracking? (hint: no). We're not talking about security against 14 year old script kids. This is a military system, which will come under attack by military opponents. You and I may not be able to crack a sat whenever we get the urge, but do you want to gamble that China/Iraq/wherever CANNOT buy/rent/coerce the skills needed to do that? Would you bet the lives of hundreds or thousands of your countrymen on that gamble? Security is not a one step, one shot, fire and forget issue.
>>plus when these things we(re) being designed, mobile linux/BSD most likely didn't even exist.
[Sarcasm] Oh really! Wasn't BSD released before winCE?[/Sarcasm] BSD was probably ported to the Palm roughly 2 femtoseconds after the first commercial offering. And, this article is about a current initiative, not a historical one. Further, your use of the word 'plus' is grammatically incorrect :) It means "with the addition of", not "also".
>>The palmtops are just dumb clients,
No the article clearly states: The palmtop is "the brain of the system," Eubank said.
>> This is not insightful, its just windows bashing.
No, I actually meant what I wrote. I didn't just bullshit two pages for the opportunity to put down Windows and Microsoft. It MAY NOT be insightful, but neither is it "just windows bashing".
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
There's a big difference between the example you gave and what I wrote: Nasa probably doesn't need those cameras in bulk. At least not the way the military needs soldiers in bulk; Of course it's going to be cheaper and tons faster to go out and buy X amount of parts, while X is relatively small. Even if you pay 100 times what a scratch-built part would have cost, you skip the design costs entirely.On the other hand, when you intend to outfit a large number of units with this part, the constant design cost will fade into the background if you design a cheaper unit which does everything you need and nothing you don't.In all fairness I should have said
When you're as big an outfit as the US military, and you're building a lot of units you don't need to build a new system from consumer products; you can do it better and cheaper (and hella secreter) if you spec and build it yourself.You're again right when you say that consumer products are many times the best there are: however, what's "best" in the consumer market can vary wildly with what's "best" in the military market. And since these devices are likely going to serve a few VERY specific purposes, IMHO the military could've probably saved some money, and gotten a more field-appropriate tool by designing it themselves. Like I said in the article its my opinion.[Flame shield on]
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Thats the most dumb-as-shit thing I've heard in at least a week. People have disputes. They also have tempers. While it is in everyone's power to control their own temper, it is in no-one's power to control the other person's temper, barring VIOLENCE. Nonviolence works sometimes. And sometimes it gets you killed. Just because the teletubbies or whatever you've been watching have told you the world is happy and shiny doesnt mean there's not a killer living in your town.Grow up, while you have the chance.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Okay wise guy, what happens when Iraq Virtually beats the USA, thereby claiming kuwait's oil resources?
do you think we aren't going to bomb Iraq off the face of the earth? Get real. The whole point of fighting is that it's what happens when someone gets pissed off enough. Aggression is built into our ape-descended brains. It isn't going away. And IF it ever does, I'll be there with a shotgun :)
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
#2: When you're as big an outfit as the US military, you don't need to build a new system from consumer products; you can do it better and cheaper (and hella secreter) if you spec and build it yourself. Do you think the NSA does they're decrypting on a giant beowulf of x86's running NT or TurboLinux somewhere? 0f f**king course not. Even the frogs (i'm part French so can the flames) have enough clue to build a custom system, albeit from high-grade (read Alpha) consumer processors; I'm under the impression that the NSA has custom DES-cracking chips in their crypto supercomputers (I don't have any proof, but if i did i'd prolly be dead in 10 minutes anyways ;)
#3: The name JEDI is a dead giveaway that something's fishy here. Ever heard of Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative? The project was impossible from the start because in the day, creating the estimated minimum 2 million lines of code, cleanly enough to direct something as precise and dangerous as a satellite anti-missile system, was NOT POSSIBLE. Reagan was informed of this, apparently he didn't care. This falls in the same category, not because the names come from the same fictional work but rather because they are both obviously foolish tasks to anyone who has a working concept of what's involved in making it work.
So why is the DOD doing this? I have a couple guesses, listed in increasing likeliness IMHO:
a) It's a big PR stunt. The DOD is trying to impress either US citizens, or scare foreign militaries. Since the latter are probably laughing their asses off right now, I'd say the former is a little more likely. Maybe they are just trying to drum up some semicomputer literates, who are just gung-ho (or dumb) enough to run through a battlefield with $30K in useless equipment (or worse than useless, since it isn't weightless).
b)Our government wants to see how effective a force a smaller government could field with off the shelf mobile computers. Still unlikely because any smart government (read, any other government) would have enough sense to run OpenBSD at the very least, if not build their own in house solution from *BSD linux scratch whatever. Do you think the Viet Cong would have chosen winCE? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
c) Advanced research. The D0D really thinks winCE is great, and that microsoft can and will provide military-grade security in the first place and support in the second place. The article is true, not misinformation; I find this unlikely but possible. hey, stranger things have happened and even the military may still be lagging the way the FBI did in the 80's when they started trying to catch phreakerz. Unlikely but possible.
d) Our government actually Doesn't have its head up its ass, they're only outfitting like 2 guys with the lamed out CE vests, but last year they finally perfected their BSD based vests, and now they need a cover story. As a bonus, enemy crackerz will think they are hacking a lame win system, and if they are just script kidz they won't get past the decoy defenses. Meanwhile the BSD JEDI ('s?) will already have kicked Saddam's sorry ass for the 90th time.
e) Bill Gates is fronting the entire operation, hardware, software, even hired ex-US military mercernaries, just to showcase winCE. The troops will never see combat, and assignment to the JEDI corps will replace KP and using your toothbrush to make those latrines shine like a drill seargents' boots. Honestly possible, however silly it may seem; Bill has tons of money that may not be worth anything soon (ms stock) so why not spend it on silly things that might make some slight difference?
I honestly don't know which is more likely d) or e), but this is /. so the order was inevitable. However dumb the military may be, their purpose remains to fight and die to protect the sovereignty (sp?) of the US and it's colonies err i mean strategic third world partners. I really don't think that this is for real because when it comes down to it, they don't enjoy throwing american lives away frivolously. Obvious PR/coverup or both. thank you drive through.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
This statement does 2 things for them: it gets them free advertising (wow, some linux company is dissing linux. that's worth a read..) AND it lets them "save the day" later on, witha version of linux that "is" ready for the desktop.
I agree that much of linux could be changed to make it easier for the average newbie; However, it's perfectly ready for the desktop. Just not the average computer illiterati or windoze luser.
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You know the ones. The purpose of any advertisement is to draw you one step closer to buying the product. In the future, ads will continue to evolve; I think we can predict a day when ads will trick you into thinking they are not ads, but rather something else (the something else is where the ad companies get creative... OS errors, browser windows, java progs..). More amazingly though, perhaps ads will someday resort to ACTUALLY TELLING YOU SOMETHING F**K**G USEFUL, as an enticement to click.
As for bonding a computer to my brain, you'd better believe anything hooked directly into *my* brain is gonna automatically ignore ads, and place a muuuch higher priority on doing what *I* tell it to than what the page I just browsed told it to do. Plus the security on that thing is gonna be as good as I can make it, and not based on anything so widely used as to be the target of major cracking attempts by the underground. Hell, by the time I can afford something like that I'll probably be able to write the drivers for it myself anyway.... ;-{>
It's not Capitalism I hate, it's Commercialism, Capitalism's child. And Usury pisses me off in general.
Take me for instance.
Paris in the the springtime
I didn't notice it the first time I read it, but my eyes instantly jumped back to the double "the" after reading it once... 'cause I'm anal about grammar. Imagine some right wing freak flipping out because his/her phone displays ads for night-life spots, bars, dance halls, gambling, pr0n...
At least, that's what I'm imagining, because I hate right wing dorx.
Lastly, just wanna say what I think will come of all this "ads everywhere" crap: eventually a portion of the population will get sick of it, band together, and build strong walls against all the bullshit that prevails on us daily. You think you've got e-spam problems today... imagine when the average link isn't a phone line, but a coax cable... ewww. When a ten year old can leave his/her 2.7Ghz pc on all night, sending chain letters and requests for hax0ring scripts, and all manner of garbage and virii.
be afraid, be very afraid... and hide behind a firewall and anonymous email addresses.
I read somewhere recently that it's not much effort to remove banner ads on the fly without downloading them. I didn't read how to do it because I surf from a 10-eth connection at school and I don't care (plus the school would get pissed if I started modifying their computers ;-)<P>
Anyway, If you're on a lowband (or pay per bit) connection, just don't download anything animated! And if that strategy blocks something you want to see, download it explicitly and view it already.<P>
Maybe this is a bigger dealt than I'm seeing here... But the second that phone is in my possession, away from employees of Ericson, it becomes MY tool, not theirs, and I can physically do anything to it that I think I can pull off (and so can anyone else).<P>
I'm less worried about stupid banner ads than I am about 100 windows opening every time I back out of the pr0n site I mean, vendor site I was surfing. How much of a pain will those windows be when your screen is the size of a matchbook?! C'mon, you know what I'm talking about... look! you're not even typing with two hands! Oh, sure, hunt and peck, I believe that... *snicker*
In the future, maybe these banner ads will make it affordable to Joe Slashdotter to have a satphone a few years ahead of time; And of course, Joe S. will immediately turn off the banner ads, thus removing the annoyance, while John Windozer calls tech support about the "premium no-advert" service for an additional $99.95 a month.
Anyways, so what? I personally avoid commercials and "news" (as in tv "news" shows); If I couldn't figure out how to shut off the ads or get a friend to do it free, I'd put a piece of duct tape over the banner. Problem solved.
Professor, today we work at pushing back the limits of knowledge of how the universe works. Considering that (accd to some) as the universe formed, the physical constants/laws changed, do you think we may ever harness the ability to /change/ the nature of space to our liking? ie, alter the gravitational constant, put extra quarks in nucleons, bend space without mass, change the speed of light, time travel?
2)
Heat Death of the universe/black&white holes: My (undergrad layperson's) understanding of black holes is that they may 'fall' out of 'our' space, and then undergo their own Big Bang; do you think that it is possible to use these holes and otherverses as cosmic power plugs, to syphon in/out energy, thus prolonging or even immortalizing our own universe?
3)
On the physicality of information: I have often heard of info inside of a computer as being called "pure" or "just" information; considering that this information is embodied by electrons, do you think that information can exist apart from matter/energy? On its own? As in, do provable mathematical 'facts' exist before someone sits down and proves them?
4)
I have heard that some physicists think of physics more as a model of how we humans percieve our environment, than as a model of REALITY; what do you think about this? And what do you think of Zen?
5)
Has a woman ever expressed interest in you based mostly on the fact that you have a PhD in physics? (sorry, but I'm a young guy, and i really want to know!)
6)
Do you believe in a non-subjective, exceptionless Truth?
What do my fellow /.ers think?