Ultimately, the likes of Dell, although they might have, of their own volition, used AMD, were always going to be Intel shops.
So, Intel was paying Dell essentially up to $1 Billion a year to not carry AMD just for fun? They were not going to go AMD anyway, even though they were so much faster, cooler and even cheaper? Back in 2003-2004 we wanted to buy a few dozen servers for our lab at my University. My professor who had gotten the grant had gotten offers from various companies, Dell offering Xeon-based ones and others (HP and Sun I think?) offering Opteron-based. I was given remote access to a sample Dell server and a sample Opteron server (sorry I forget exactly what it was), and was asked to benchmark them. So, I benchmarked with the actual software we were using. The fact that the Xeons back then were 32bit while the Opterons were 64bit added to the speed difference and made a devastating difference. Sure, our natural language processing suite written in Perl was not getting much of the 64bit benefit, so it was "only" about 40% faster on the AMD server, but any of the computational-biology C code was over 2x faster. I gave my report and the Professor was going to go with an AMD server, when Dell came back and gave him a quote at less than half the price. They were actually selling each server less than what just the CPU was supposed to cost. I could not understand how they could do that. Well, now we know how. Oh, to finish the story, the Professor told me he would go with Dell and buy more since they were so cheap and we would end up with more processing power. I warned him about the fact that the Dells were producing more heat and having even more of them would be a problem. It was hard to say no to such a good deal though, so the school bought the Dells. Then they had to wait for an upgraded electrical and air-conditioning system to be installed since the head/power requirements went up. It was a State University so it took almost a year. Also, the Dell file servers had a bunch of disks too close together and a dual Xeon throwing hot air over them, so a second disk would probably fail before the RAID array could restore from the previous disk failure. But most of those 100+ Dell servers are still running. Sure they are about as fast as a P4 that your knowledge-able friends made fun of even back then, but at least there is a LOT of them... To return from the digression, my point when I started replying was that if the market was free, Intel would not have all that money and all those years (eternity for CPU manufacturing) to surpass AMD. AMD would have been the one selling and making money in the meantime, which would have meant more R&D for themselves to maintain a lead. Anyway, let's hope we will never return to the thousand-dollar prices for desktop CPUs we were enjoying back in the good ol' Intel-only days.
If the SLS had only one slip-up like that there would be a bloodbath of firings, senate hearings, press conferences with the President, and maybe the entire program might be scrubbed.
I don't get your point. Isn't *THIS* a slip-up that is much worse than the SpaceX designed-to-be-expendable barges?
They were even outright leaders for a while, but failed to capitalise on that.
Wow, that is the understatement of the century. AMD at one point did decide not to be a "mini Intel" and become a technology leader. Do you realize that while AMD had a far superior product for several years, Intel threw money (and threats - as was proved) to every retailer/integrator/etc out there to not carry AMD (and did other "interesting" things such as rig their industry standard compilers etc). Intel was allowed to use strong-arm tactics that "scream" anti-trust and after many years an almost bankrupt AMD was allowed to accept a small payment and Intel went scot-free. If you have a product that is far ahead of the competition, you should be allowed to capitalize on that. If you are illegally not allowed by thepowerful players, there should be some sort of protection for that, before it is too late. But I guess the DoJ was sleeping at the wheel... You have to remember, the Athlon was getting a firm lead on the P3 and Intel got out the P4 as a "response". The P4, the processor now universally known as the biggest "dog" by virtually everyone (even in its final and much, much improved incarnations), eventually abandoned even by intel to go back to a saner P3-derived architecture, was actually welcomed with laurels, both by (most of) the press and the integrators. AMD put all this R&D effort and they got nothing out of it, instead the were bleeding money for years, while Intel was making money with the current situation being a very weak AMD next to a behemoth. It is too bad for us, because the sole reason Intel CPUs are affordable is AMD - I won't remind you how much Intel charged per-CPU before there was competition. The sole reason Intel CPUs are this fast (or even that their consumer products are 64bit) is AMD. I only hope in some miracle for AMD to survive and get some competition going, otherwise there will be no-one left to keep Intel in check and consumers will pay for it... So, yeah, the greatest industrial robbery of all time has been largely forgotten. AMD just "failed to capitalize", they were "obsessed with being a mini Intel"...
Pearson was Apple's subcontractor. Apple was supposed to get $780 out of every ipad (yep, you heard right, retail+ price) and Pearson $200. I haven't seen the contract, but if the various news sources is correct, it is Apple who is basically making the offer by bundling software of their choice...
The name of the company that made these, was Shoup. I guess they would have changed that password to "AVS", but their (ridiculously easy) passwords are actually hardcoded, so it was too much work I guess...
We are not giving the state authority to destroy religions it disagrees with. But to gain a tax exempt status you have to be an organization that does some sort of charity or at least some sort of public good. As far as I know other tax-exempt churches do try to make at least a show of "giving to the people" and of being inclusive. The Church of Scientology does not. Why should it be tax-exempt?
I pride myself in the fact that I have never watched even a single episode of the show.
I can understand things like "I pride myself in the fact that I have not watched more than one episode of the show" or "more than half an episode of the show", but you are basically telling us that you are an idiot. Judging things as bad by how popular they are is not in any way better than judging things as good by how popular they are. Are you at least consistent? I mean maybe the "idiot" comment was harsh, I could perhaps call you a person of "strange principles", if you have also never watched things like LOTR, Avengers, Toy Story and you actually liked/. beta.
I don't think the problem is software patents. The problem is stupid patents. Like, I patent exactly the same thing everyone does, *but on a bicycle!*. The examiners seem to have completely forgotten the basic premise, which is that you cannot grant a patent to something that a person with an ordinary skill in the art could come up with based on prior art. Of course to completely solve the problems a general patent reform would be required, which could address the software issue better among others, but even within the current framework things would be so much better if the USPTO applied some sanity.
Yes, it seems to me that instead of paying for hundred of lawsuits on ridiculous patents perhaps somebody should start going after the USPTO instead? No idea if there is any legal way to do it, but since all problems start from the USPTO itself, that's where any effort should be concentrated...
Is TFA like the summary? What does ISP-level net neutrality have to do with promotions and product placement? The whole REASON (yeah, feeble attempt at a pun) there is a discussion about net neutrality is that ISPs should ONLY do the transferring of packets, regardless of what they are, since that is what we are paying them for. Should they be allowed to inject promotions and ads somehow? WHY? HOW? The summary then goes on mentioning something about rock and roll that is even more irrelevant... Unless the summary is completely wrong of course and TFA is an insightful diatribe...
Ok, if you give essential patents for free, won't you also have to give insignificant patents (e.g. slide to unlock) for free? I know Apple is not much related to this regardless the summary, but they, for example wanted to charge others something like $20 for insignificant design patents, when at the same time they wanted to get basic communications ones almost free...
I mean, for centuries there has been a movement to reform the spelling of English itself, to make it sort of consistent and thus easier to learn. Even though the movement was backed by important people and it was certainly not nearly a "departure" as a whole new language would be, it never gained any traction. So, even forgetting about the unfeasibility and just starting to tackle your questions we do come to some moot points. E.g. "what characteristics would a new language need?" The main one is usefulness - what you will gain by learning it. So, a brand new language is the least useful. Then, other questions like "How could the language be made as easy as possible to learn coming from any linguistic background?" have no real answer, unless you optimize at least for some linguistic background. Do you want to make it a bit easier to East Asians, or you'd rather aim westerners better?
The Airborne Laser, envisioned as a fleet of converted Boeing 747s that would fire laser beams to destroy enemy missiles soon after launch, before they could release decoys.
It turned out that the lasers could not be fired over sufficient distances, so the planes would have to fly within or near an enemy’s borders continuously. That would leave the 747s all but defenseless against antiaircraft missiles. The program was canceled in 2012, after a decade of testing.
The problem would have gone smoothly if they had used tried technology. For example, instead of 747s they should have gone with DC-10s, as they have successfully been converted in the past even for interstellar travel. And you could always go with sharks of course... No missile deployment stands any chance against a sharknado... with lasers...
People think I sit relatively close to my main 27" screen and I just measured and I am at a distance of about 58 cm (almost 23 inches for the metric-impaired people). If I went any closer and tried to watch something full-screen, I would have to turn my head right and left to track things. Don't get me wrong, I love monitor real-estate, so I have a second monitor (portrait mode) next to the main one, but I do indeed turn my head to see it. So 20 inches for a 30" monitor is a bit pushing it, therefore I really doubt whether you could actually put that 40" monitor at that same 20 inches distance and call it a usable desktop. Sure, it would be nice for the "Imax" experience, but I think that if you want your display to cover that sort of angle of vision where you have to turn around, you might as well just get separate monitors and become more productive since they will allow you to group things together / better organize...
Or just check where the call originated from? AFAIK all legitimate 911 calls have a location that is provided by the cell phone network to the 911 center. If the call is some sort of anonymous VOIP call that you can't verify where it originated from, DO NOT send the SWAT without figuring out what's going on...
Assuming a jury that is against the ban (which is not that certain anyway), the jury traditionally gets specific instructions from the judge. The judge will of course explain them it is not a matter of what they believe, only a matter of whether they think the defendant violated the law. There is little chance a jury would "revolt". A federal law is needed to stop this ridiculous protectionism. Car salesmen do not add value, they only add cost and woe.
The ponies were GREAT! OMG, bring back the ponies! I bet even these lame attempts at humor (because I can't actually call them attempts at April Fools) would look much better under a ponies theme!
comparing something to one of the most dangerous modes of transportation (1+ fatality in 100k hours of flight is dismal compared even to cars that are thought dangerous) is in generally not a good thing. Hey, guys, don't worry, we don't crash more often than Windows ME!
They say it is larger than the 747, but the comparison is meaningless, since they should be comparing the cabin of the airship to an airplane - otherwise we might as well add the length of the jet fumes to the length of a plane. In fact, the lift capacity of the huge airship is quite disappointing, it can only carry 10 tons of cargo. For comparison a 747-8 can carry over 150 tons... I like the idea of airships in general, but I can't say they would be a game changer, weather, lift capacity, speed, cost, all being factors. The huge advertising space I guess is the one advantage I can see. Coming from a country with many islands, the one mode of air transportation I thought would make a comeback someday is seaplanes. They seem to me like the best way to transport a few people from one small island to the next (I would pay a premium for that service over the hassle of an airport), however nobody seems to think about seaplanes anymore. Oh, well, maybe I'm biased from growing up with "Tales of the Gold Monkey"?
I thought the ISS was modular and not all modules are the same age. Can't they just start decommissioning and replacing the oldest ones first? I would assume when they were touting a "modular design" this would be the idea...
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Ultimately, the likes of Dell, although they might have, of their own volition, used AMD, were always going to be Intel shops.
So, Intel was paying Dell essentially up to $1 Billion a year to not carry AMD just for fun? They were not going to go AMD anyway, even though they were so much faster, cooler and even cheaper?
Back in 2003-2004 we wanted to buy a few dozen servers for our lab at my University. My professor who had gotten the grant had gotten offers from various companies, Dell offering Xeon-based ones and others (HP and Sun I think?) offering Opteron-based. I was given remote access to a sample Dell server and a sample Opteron server (sorry I forget exactly what it was), and was asked to benchmark them. So, I benchmarked with the actual software we were using. The fact that the Xeons back then were 32bit while the Opterons were 64bit added to the speed difference and made a devastating difference. Sure, our natural language processing suite written in Perl was not getting much of the 64bit benefit, so it was "only" about 40% faster on the AMD server, but any of the computational-biology C code was over 2x faster. I gave my report and the Professor was going to go with an AMD server, when Dell came back and gave him a quote at less than half the price. They were actually selling each server less than what just the CPU was supposed to cost. I could not understand how they could do that. Well, now we know how.
Oh, to finish the story, the Professor told me he would go with Dell and buy more since they were so cheap and we would end up with more processing power. I warned him about the fact that the Dells were producing more heat and having even more of them would be a problem. It was hard to say no to such a good deal though, so the school bought the Dells. Then they had to wait for an upgraded electrical and air-conditioning system to be installed since the head/power requirements went up. It was a State University so it took almost a year. Also, the Dell file servers had a bunch of disks too close together and a dual Xeon throwing hot air over them, so a second disk would probably fail before the RAID array could restore from the previous disk failure. But most of those 100+ Dell servers are still running. Sure they are about as fast as a P4 that your knowledge-able friends made fun of even back then, but at least there is a LOT of them...
To return from the digression, my point when I started replying was that if the market was free, Intel would not have all that money and all those years (eternity for CPU manufacturing) to surpass AMD. AMD would have been the one selling and making money in the meantime, which would have meant more R&D for themselves to maintain a lead.
Anyway, let's hope we will never return to the thousand-dollar prices for desktop CPUs we were enjoying back in the good ol' Intel-only days.
If the SLS had only one slip-up like that there would be a bloodbath of firings, senate hearings, press conferences with the President, and maybe the entire program might be scrubbed.
I don't get your point. Isn't *THIS* a slip-up that is much worse than the SpaceX designed-to-be-expendable barges?
They were even outright leaders for a while, but failed to capitalise on that.
Wow, that is the understatement of the century. AMD at one point did decide not to be a "mini Intel" and become a technology leader. Do you realize that while AMD had a far superior product for several years, Intel threw money (and threats - as was proved) to every retailer/integrator/etc out there to not carry AMD (and did other "interesting" things such as rig their industry standard compilers etc). Intel was allowed to use strong-arm tactics that "scream" anti-trust and after many years an almost bankrupt AMD was allowed to accept a small payment and Intel went scot-free.
If you have a product that is far ahead of the competition, you should be allowed to capitalize on that. If you are illegally not allowed by thepowerful players, there should be some sort of protection for that, before it is too late. But I guess the DoJ was sleeping at the wheel...
You have to remember, the Athlon was getting a firm lead on the P3 and Intel got out the P4 as a "response". The P4, the processor now universally known as the biggest "dog" by virtually everyone (even in its final and much, much improved incarnations), eventually abandoned even by intel to go back to a saner P3-derived architecture, was actually welcomed with laurels, both by (most of) the press and the integrators. AMD put all this R&D effort and they got nothing out of it, instead the were bleeding money for years, while Intel was making money with the current situation being a very weak AMD next to a behemoth. It is too bad for us, because the sole reason Intel CPUs are affordable is AMD - I won't remind you how much Intel charged per-CPU before there was competition. The sole reason Intel CPUs are this fast (or even that their consumer products are 64bit) is AMD. I only hope in some miracle for AMD to survive and get some competition going, otherwise there will be no-one left to keep Intel in check and consumers will pay for it...
So, yeah, the greatest industrial robbery of all time has been largely forgotten. AMD just "failed to capitalize", they were "obsessed with being a mini Intel"...
Pearson was Apple's subcontractor. Apple was supposed to get $780 out of every ipad (yep, you heard right, retail+ price) and Pearson $200. I haven't seen the contract, but if the various news sources is correct, it is Apple who is basically making the offer by bundling software of their choice...
The name of the company that made these, was Shoup. I guess they would have changed that password to "AVS", but their (ridiculously easy) passwords are actually hardcoded, so it was too much work I guess...
We are not giving the state authority to destroy religions it disagrees with. But to gain a tax exempt status you have to be an organization that does some sort of charity or at least some sort of public good. As far as I know other tax-exempt churches do try to make at least a show of "giving to the people" and of being inclusive. The Church of Scientology does not. Why should it be tax-exempt?
I mean, how can you tell rock flakes from 3.3 million year old corn flakes...
I pride myself in the fact that I have never watched even a single episode of the show.
I can understand things like "I pride myself in the fact that I have not watched more than one episode of the show" or "more than half an episode of the show", but you are basically telling us that you are an idiot. Judging things as bad by how popular they are is not in any way better than judging things as good by how popular they are. /. beta.
Are you at least consistent? I mean maybe the "idiot" comment was harsh, I could perhaps call you a person of "strange principles", if you have also never watched things like LOTR, Avengers, Toy Story and you actually liked
I don't think the problem is software patents. The problem is stupid patents. Like, I patent exactly the same thing everyone does, *but on a bicycle!*. The examiners seem to have completely forgotten the basic premise, which is that you cannot grant a patent to something that a person with an ordinary skill in the art could come up with based on prior art.
Of course to completely solve the problems a general patent reform would be required, which could address the software issue better among others, but even within the current framework things would be so much better if the USPTO applied some sanity.
Yes, it seems to me that instead of paying for hundred of lawsuits on ridiculous patents perhaps somebody should start going after the USPTO instead? No idea if there is any legal way to do it, but since all problems start from the USPTO itself, that's where any effort should be concentrated...
Is TFA like the summary? What does ISP-level net neutrality have to do with promotions and product placement? The whole REASON (yeah, feeble attempt at a pun) there is a discussion about net neutrality is that ISPs should ONLY do the transferring of packets, regardless of what they are, since that is what we are paying them for. Should they be allowed to inject promotions and ads somehow? WHY? HOW?
The summary then goes on mentioning something about rock and roll that is even more irrelevant... Unless the summary is completely wrong of course and TFA is an insightful diatribe...
Ok, if you give essential patents for free, won't you also have to give insignificant patents (e.g. slide to unlock) for free? I know Apple is not much related to this regardless the summary, but they, for example wanted to charge others something like $20 for insignificant design patents, when at the same time they wanted to get basic communications ones almost free...
I mean, for centuries there has been a movement to reform the spelling of English itself, to make it sort of consistent and thus easier to learn. Even though the movement was backed by important people and it was certainly not nearly a "departure" as a whole new language would be, it never gained any traction.
So, even forgetting about the unfeasibility and just starting to tackle your questions we do come to some moot points. E.g. "what characteristics would a new language need?" The main one is usefulness - what you will gain by learning it. So, a brand new language is the least useful. Then, other questions like "How could the language be made as easy as possible to learn coming from any linguistic background?" have no real answer, unless you optimize at least for some linguistic background. Do you want to make it a bit easier to East Asians, or you'd rather aim westerners better?
The Airborne Laser, envisioned as a fleet of converted Boeing 747s that would fire laser beams to destroy enemy missiles soon after launch, before they could release decoys.
It turned out that the lasers could not be fired over sufficient distances, so the planes would have to fly within or near an enemy’s borders continuously. That would leave the 747s all but defenseless against antiaircraft missiles. The program was canceled in 2012, after a decade of testing.
The problem would have gone smoothly if they had used tried technology. For example, instead of 747s they should have gone with DC-10s, as they have successfully been converted in the past even for interstellar travel. And you could always go with sharks of course... No missile deployment stands any chance against a sharknado... with lasers...
People think I sit relatively close to my main 27" screen and I just measured and I am at a distance of about 58 cm (almost 23 inches for the metric-impaired people). If I went any closer and tried to watch something full-screen, I would have to turn my head right and left to track things. Don't get me wrong, I love monitor real-estate, so I have a second monitor (portrait mode) next to the main one, but I do indeed turn my head to see it. So 20 inches for a 30" monitor is a bit pushing it, therefore I really doubt whether you could actually put that 40" monitor at that same 20 inches distance and call it a usable desktop. Sure, it would be nice for the "Imax" experience, but I think that if you want your display to cover that sort of angle of vision where you have to turn around, you might as well just get separate monitors and become more productive since they will allow you to group things together / better organize...
Or just check where the call originated from? AFAIK all legitimate 911 calls have a location that is provided by the cell phone network to the 911 center. If the call is some sort of anonymous VOIP call that you can't verify where it originated from, DO NOT send the SWAT without figuring out what's going on...
Assuming a jury that is against the ban (which is not that certain anyway), the jury traditionally gets specific instructions from the judge. The judge will of course explain them it is not a matter of what they believe, only a matter of whether they think the defendant violated the law. There is little chance a jury would "revolt". A federal law is needed to stop this ridiculous protectionism. Car salesmen do not add value, they only add cost and woe.
Bring back the ponies...
The ponies were GREAT! OMG, bring back the ponies! I bet even these lame attempts at humor (because I can't actually call them attempts at April Fools) would look much better under a ponies theme!
comparing something to one of the most dangerous modes of transportation (1+ fatality in 100k hours of flight is dismal compared even to cars that are thought dangerous) is in generally not a good thing.
Hey, guys, don't worry, we don't crash more often than Windows ME!
They say it is larger than the 747, but the comparison is meaningless, since they should be comparing the cabin of the airship to an airplane - otherwise we might as well add the length of the jet fumes to the length of a plane. In fact, the lift capacity of the huge airship is quite disappointing, it can only carry 10 tons of cargo. For comparison a 747-8 can carry over 150 tons...
I like the idea of airships in general, but I can't say they would be a game changer, weather, lift capacity, speed, cost, all being factors. The huge advertising space I guess is the one advantage I can see.
Coming from a country with many islands, the one mode of air transportation I thought would make a comeback someday is seaplanes. They seem to me like the best way to transport a few people from one small island to the next (I would pay a premium for that service over the hassle of an airport), however nobody seems to think about seaplanes anymore. Oh, well, maybe I'm biased from growing up with "Tales of the Gold Monkey"?
According to Sergeant Detritus there are chicken stories at human parties...
Perhaps they are afraid the general public will find out why it is called a "cockpit"?
I thought the ISS was modular and not all modules are the same age. Can't they just start decommissioning and replacing the oldest ones first? I would assume when they were touting a "modular design" this would be the idea...
Holy crap, I didn't realize they had seals up there! I would assume that at most there would be some otters...