You present more or less truth in that the assertion is indeed ironic, but your portrayal of x86-64 is shortsighted at best. It is not a bolt on to the 32bit instruction set. AMD went in and cleaned out as much legacy crap as they could and then proceeded to scale it out.
Yes the IA64 route was all new but it presented adopters with no options. The Alpha processors are still the best but they aren't successful because there's no interest in rewriting the billions of lines of code that is out there to fit the platform.
That said, x86-64 is not a short term solution, it will work in the long term evolving much like i386 did. The world moved from 8088 to 80286 without a problem for a reason. This method is proven successful and why Intel abandoned it is beyond me. It doesn't help when you design a brand new incompatible instruction set that isn't any faster either.
What world you been living in? Athlon XPM uses the same amount of power as the Pentium M and the Opteron was low power to begin with. I've seen some passively cooled Opteron racks. You'd be seriously hard pressed to do that with any of Intel's server class CPUs.
As for compilers. AMD released an X86-64 GCC a few years ago. The 32 bit compiler is available on their website as well. Free of charge, always has been. AMD has made it very easy to develop for which is why the x86-64 platform on Linux is so strong right now.
Intel has lost its leadership role, I'd be hard pressed to say AMD takes all of it away. Intel has been gutting itself for a while. Their motherboards were always top notch, but now you have new ones which are getting recalled and every last one needs firmware updates to keep the raid arrays working properly. In our server room whenever we had a problem with a server we'd go to Intel's site and find new firmware. Almost always fixed the problem. Of course I wonder why they'd release a board that wasn't fully functional.
Now you get to their networking division. You've got Centrino on the mobile side which is a solid product. Props to Intel for putting it together. Now their gigabit and 10 gigabit nics. They are pure crap, companies like Qlogic have taken over that area.
I'd say Intel has been focusing on marketing it current portfolio diverting funds from R&D to accomplish it. They have been hurting themselves for a very long time and it doesn't look like they haven anything to turn it around just yet. I had heard they were developing a new sort of Itanium chip based on x86-64 which they own side by side with AMD so they may come back soon and change the current environment.
Fact is, AMD has changed the landscape and Intel is still adjusting.
Unfortunately we don't have control over the way it is configured. We get some interesting issues with echos and the likes despite the pipe not being near capacity.
As for the 911 stuff, our phones allow for callerid so 911 can just call us right back if there is a problem. I'm not sure but presumably if they have the phone number then they have a physical address. Of course another poster mentioned the ability to call offsite, such as at my boss's house. In such a situation that idea would not work.
All that said, the Cisco phone in and of themselves aren't too special. The menuing system is awful. A lot of it is how its configured but it appears like a lot of it is also several giant UI design flaws.
A basic ups would keep your standard cable connection up during a power outage. I will admit I had not considered the ability to take the VOIP kit offsite. That would definitely make it more difficult. In that case I have no idea how to approach that without requiring every ISP to maintain a current database of ip/address matching. That could be trouble.
This is really what's slowing down adoption of VOIP in the home. Here at the office we currently use Cisco VOIP but we're switching to Televantage because Cisco's sucks so bad. Amazing how many features weren't well thought out. I mean, it takes 5 steps to transfer a call to voicemail.
At any rate, I wouldn't think it would be a problem for VOIP providers to integrate with 911. They have the address of all their customers, seems like it would be trivial to have a 911 operator send out the request and an automated response would reply with the address. That would solve the problem of not being able to find the person trying to call.
As for a power outage, we had one recently and our cisco poe switches kept all the phones up so most of the building had no idea the servers were no longer receiving power.
The distribution is skewed but even if you leave off the $5bil the Gates foundation put towards AIDS in Africa I start to ask myself why? Having most of the worlds richest people inherently gives us the ability to be more charitable. That said, very large quantities of money come from that dollar many millions of people pay every sunday to their church.
As for figures, I'd charge you to prove it wrong, but since that is no way to start a debate. here is an old article. I was actually having a hard time finding facts. This interview might also provide some insight.
This place actually has some numbers. I'll leave it at this for now and see if you can counter my statements with numbers as well.
You are confusing foreign aid with charity. There is a very large difference between what the american people donate and what the government hands out.
You words on contradictory, are you saying because we make more is the only reason we donate more? If that is the case then why is the percent of average income and american donates to charity also higher?
As for the recipients, Bill and Melinda Gates alone have contributed $5billion to combat AIDS in Africa. So to that, I say shove your cynicism elsewhere.
As for what qualifies as the center of the world. What would be the center? Would it be where the most number of ideas are exchanged? Would it be who makes the most money per capita? Would it be a technological super power? Sorry, but if the U.S. is not the center of the world then what would be? We have people from every country on the planet. That speaks to the center to me. Maybe you have a different definition of center?
Pearl Harbor was a declaration of war against the U.S.
Until that time we did not fire a single shot at Japan even though we did withhold oil. Of course we did hold the oil for a reason and it was in response to Japan's actions elsewhere.
Might also add that even if I ignored the above facts the U.S. did not get involved in the pacific in any meaningful way. We were expanding west and had no intention of fighting a war for land considering it was seen as a quest, not a mandate.
If you want to play statistics then look at the composition of that 4.6%. It contains people from every country on the planet. Not one or two people either. The U.S. really is a melting pot. Ideas from every culture have constributed to become the society that currently exists. That does not say that certain aspects have more influence right now but the pieces are all there and the level of influence varies greatly.
As for Britain, they dramatically underestimated the power of the rest of the world which is indeed a contributing factor. I don't believe the U.S. does that even though I do believe the current administration does.
That was not how I read it but you may be right and in fact, I would hope you're right in your interpretation. It sounded a lot like drivel I see in parts of the country. I grew around it so I assumed. I know its wrong to assume things but it sure sounded like it. Don't like referring to an entire country based on the current administration. I think its terribly short sighted to assume that everybody thinks like Bush. Although considering his approval ratings it seems like many do.
I was stating that the fact that the average american donates more money than the average citizen of any other country suggests that we are inherently not bullies. It has been this way since the 50's and continues to be the trend.
You might notice all of my references are dated in WW2 because the current Bush administration is indeed what I would call a bully.
You can't possibly be serious. First of all, the reason the U.S. grew up so fast was because we cooperated, we put protections in place and built off of them. Now for France, what was D-Day all about? The reason the U.S. has always been a technological super power is because everyone from all those other countries immigrated here and contribute both to our culture and the technology base. We have all the same advantages of people from other countries because we have those very same people.
No the U.S. is not the center of the universe but we are certainly the center of the population that inhabits this earth. Our diversity is our strength and you dramatically and astoundingly underestimate it.
Also, where do you get off saying the country always bullies everyone? Last I checked we waited until Pearl Harbor to get involved with WW2. Yes there are examples that support your conclusion but the fact that in the average American donates more to charity than the average citizen of any other country.
Also, by definition the United States is worldly. Our citizens come from every country on this earth.
I don't understand this stuff. Wasn't it last week they were saying the number of people in the U.S. with broadband outnumber the people with dialup?
The problem is not broadband penetration, it is what the FCC says we can and cannot do. DSL has been available throughout Vermont which is a one of the most rural parts of the U.S. since the middle of 1997 which is when I got my first taste.
Here in Arizona I moved from one part of the valley 20 miles north and I still can get cable without a problem. DSL isn't a problem either, nor is a T1 or faster. The entire Phoenix metro area has wireless T1 service and MTI is developing BPL in the area which is rated at 300megabit today.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that all the states and the FCC need to either lift or ease regulations which prevent this kind of development. In VT they didn't create a government owned monopoly. They merely gave Adelphia and Verizon massive tax incentives to build in areas that would otherwise be less profitable. Of course the state of VT connects cities such as NY/Boston/Montreal. So Verizon probably had a few other motivations to build as well.
How so very shortsighted. Saying that a company should treat people as people by no means requires that you are against technology. Look at Ben and Jerry's before it was bought out. The company put research into bleaching paper and came with a more environmentally sound and here's the important part, less expensive process.
Coming from VT I can say Ben and Jerry's did a lot for the community of which it is a part. Saying that a corporation has no responsibility for anything it does is downright stupid. That happened at the beginning of the 20th century with factory workers being treated like slaves. Technology should benefit everyone and not just those with all the money.
This is not accurate, Novell had complete control over servers yes, but Microsoft was always the client. End users would not notice any change to their environment. Therefore it became easy for management to justify the switch to windows to simplify onsite expertise. You only needed one Windows admin to do both the servers and workstations where as with Novell you needed one Netware Admin and one Windows Admin. Granted they were often the same people but the skillset was higher.
Naturally this is a bad idea as thought processes are completely different on servers versus workstations. A Netware guy knew server services, they knew how to configure them securely whereas a Windows admin would just click next next next, check drive mapping, yep, it worked okay I'm going home for the day. Workstation skillsets were sufficient to install and operate the server and so became the security nightmare that is today Windows as a Server.
You cannot patent an idea. That is the law, it is not how the law is enforced but it is not the law. No one can claim ownership of an idea until an attempt has been made to implement the idea and the properties that make it unique.
You also cannot sign your child over to your employer. Its not just criminal law you cannot sign away.
Ideas inherently cannot be stolen, at least not yet. When you make an attempt to implement the idea the story changes which is why so much research is done in secrecy.
You seem to be stuck on two manufacturers which is probably why you are having difficulty finding others. HP sells the Omnibook and Pavilion which both have options you state including the Geforce.
In addition to this you also have the Toshiba Tecra's and the Satellites. The Tecra's will easily match the battery life with capabilities. The Omnibook will as well for that matter. The Pavilion and Satellites are the lower end models so naturally they won't have the same battery life.
Dell is Intel only so what do you expect?
As for DVI well, get a laptop with a Geforce, geez, you don't think a company with 2% of the market is the only one Nvidia is making that for do you?
There are certain things of which you cannot sign over. No matter what my employers contract states they do not have the right to kill me. Certain rights cannot be signed away and ideas are supposed to be one of them.
I'd say that a good number of none economy laptops are similar to this. You're right, you'll get sucky battery life out of the latest Pentium M laptop you paid $500 for.
Of course, I paid about a grand for my HP pavilion laptop about 4 years ago, as of current my same battery will still give me 3 hours doing the same activities. In its prime it could have given me 4-5 depending on my AMD PowerNow settings.
I'm afraid that the Powerbook isn't unique. There was a rough stretch over the last two years but AMD and Intel woke up and created Athlon64 and Centrino since. Both CPUs require considerably less power and considering the price tag on an Athlon 64 laptop these days I'd say it makes for a better deal.
FreeBSD is the same way, my BSD boxes generally don't ever have upgrade issues.
Might be something the linux community could copy, but I doubt it. Its too segmented to be able to organize efforts. It is a tradeoff though since new features take a lot longer to be introduced into BSDs
I had mentioned my problems were with servers, more specificially the megaraid driver. It just plain doesn't work. It won't load with 2.6 at all. Might be a querk but it is a Dell PowerEdge 2300 so I'm pretty sure it is a problem that effects a lot of people trying to upgrade their older equipment.
Quite obviously there are always exceptions to the rule, if I screwed around with my kernel compile options I could probably make the driver functional but it does require a lot of work considering it was something that was automatic with kernel 2.4.
I'd say about half the older machines I come across will not work with 2.6, That is a significant number considering I'm involved in a site with 600 computers, 100 of them linux and the number growing. It is the linux platform though, there is always a way to get it working if you are willing to put the time in. I however, am not just yet.
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Might add the fact that kernel 2.6 is incompatible with a lot of older hardware. My servers are still running 2.4 because my raid controller can't initialize with it. Works great for newer equipment but its a safe bet that if anyone were ready to switch they would be running older hardware. This used to be a strength of the linux platform. Not sure when, how, or why it changed.
I seem to recall an exact model of this at MIT. It was the water based transistor. Neat stuff and a great way to explain something that is actually pretty simple.
IT staff never has as much access to proprietary data as management. Yes I have complete access to the database but that does not give me the right o listen in on emails the CEO of my company is writing with the CEO of another company.
Spying is a part of any sys admin's job but you have to respect that people above you are above you for a reason. Your job description does not apply to them. Perhaps you've never had a CEO require administrative access to the network? Yeah it sucks and leave a wide hole but there isn't a whole lot you can do about it.
Of course this is a government position, the rules are a bit different but only really in that they are more restrictive. Some managers will require full access to the network. If they ever run into an access denied screen they will more than likely call you into their office for you to explain yourself.
There are a lot of people out there that enjoy power trips and are in a position to do so everyday. They set policy and you are not allowed to step out of bounds.
Actually, its a business-oriented operating system. It should never have been installed to begin with. It is not required to install Windows so what was it doing there in the first place?
That said its still pretty easy to remove. Especially considering I have options to do it in the group policy. I guess that would be assuming the admins on the network know the environment in which they work which may or may not be a bad assumption.
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Yes the IA64 route was all new but it presented adopters with no options. The Alpha processors are still the best but they aren't successful because there's no interest in rewriting the billions of lines of code that is out there to fit the platform.
That said, x86-64 is not a short term solution, it will work in the long term evolving much like i386 did. The world moved from 8088 to 80286 without a problem for a reason. This method is proven successful and why Intel abandoned it is beyond me. It doesn't help when you design a brand new incompatible instruction set that isn't any faster either.As for compilers. AMD released an X86-64 GCC a few years ago. The 32 bit compiler is available on their website as well. Free of charge, always has been. AMD has made it very easy to develop for which is why the x86-64 platform on Linux is so strong right now.
Intel has lost its leadership role, I'd be hard pressed to say AMD takes all of it away. Intel has been gutting itself for a while. Their motherboards were always top notch, but now you have new ones which are getting recalled and every last one needs firmware updates to keep the raid arrays working properly. In our server room whenever we had a problem with a server we'd go to Intel's site and find new firmware. Almost always fixed the problem. Of course I wonder why they'd release a board that wasn't fully functional.Now you get to their networking division. You've got Centrino on the mobile side which is a solid product. Props to Intel for putting it together. Now their gigabit and 10 gigabit nics. They are pure crap, companies like Qlogic have taken over that area.
I'd say Intel has been focusing on marketing it current portfolio diverting funds from R&D to accomplish it. They have been hurting themselves for a very long time and it doesn't look like they haven anything to turn it around just yet. I had heard they were developing a new sort of Itanium chip based on x86-64 which they own side by side with AMD so they may come back soon and change the current environment.Fact is, AMD has changed the landscape and Intel is still adjusting.
As for the 911 stuff, our phones allow for callerid so 911 can just call us right back if there is a problem. I'm not sure but presumably if they have the phone number then they have a physical address. Of course another poster mentioned the ability to call offsite, such as at my boss's house. In such a situation that idea would not work.
All that said, the Cisco phone in and of themselves aren't too special. The menuing system is awful. A lot of it is how its configured but it appears like a lot of it is also several giant UI design flaws.A basic ups would keep your standard cable connection up during a power outage. I will admit I had not considered the ability to take the VOIP kit offsite. That would definitely make it more difficult. In that case I have no idea how to approach that without requiring every ISP to maintain a current database of ip/address matching. That could be trouble.
At any rate, I wouldn't think it would be a problem for VOIP providers to integrate with 911. They have the address of all their customers, seems like it would be trivial to have a 911 operator send out the request and an automated response would reply with the address. That would solve the problem of not being able to find the person trying to call.
As for a power outage, we had one recently and our cisco poe switches kept all the phones up so most of the building had no idea the servers were no longer receiving power.As for figures, I'd charge you to prove it wrong, but since that is no way to start a debate. here is an old article. I was actually having a hard time finding facts. This interview might also provide some insight. This place actually has some numbers. I'll leave it at this for now and see if you can counter my statements with numbers as well.
You words on contradictory, are you saying because we make more is the only reason we donate more? If that is the case then why is the percent of average income and american donates to charity also higher?
As for the recipients, Bill and Melinda Gates alone have contributed $5billion to combat AIDS in Africa. So to that, I say shove your cynicism elsewhere.As for what qualifies as the center of the world. What would be the center? Would it be where the most number of ideas are exchanged? Would it be who makes the most money per capita? Would it be a technological super power? Sorry, but if the U.S. is not the center of the world then what would be? We have people from every country on the planet. That speaks to the center to me. Maybe you have a different definition of center?
Until that time we did not fire a single shot at Japan even though we did withhold oil. Of course we did hold the oil for a reason and it was in response to Japan's actions elsewhere.
Might also add that even if I ignored the above facts the U.S. did not get involved in the pacific in any meaningful way. We were expanding west and had no intention of fighting a war for land considering it was seen as a quest, not a mandate.As for Britain, they dramatically underestimated the power of the rest of the world which is indeed a contributing factor. I don't believe the U.S. does that even though I do believe the current administration does.
That was not how I read it but you may be right and in fact, I would hope you're right in your interpretation. It sounded a lot like drivel I see in parts of the country. I grew around it so I assumed. I know its wrong to assume things but it sure sounded like it. Don't like referring to an entire country based on the current administration. I think its terribly short sighted to assume that everybody thinks like Bush. Although considering his approval ratings it seems like many do.
I was stating that the fact that the average american donates more money than the average citizen of any other country suggests that we are inherently not bullies. It has been this way since the 50's and continues to be the trend.
You might notice all of my references are dated in WW2 because the current Bush administration is indeed what I would call a bully.No the U.S. is not the center of the universe but we are certainly the center of the population that inhabits this earth. Our diversity is our strength and you dramatically and astoundingly underestimate it.
Also, where do you get off saying the country always bullies everyone? Last I checked we waited until Pearl Harbor to get involved with WW2. Yes there are examples that support your conclusion but the fact that in the average American donates more to charity than the average citizen of any other country.Also, by definition the United States is worldly. Our citizens come from every country on this earth.
The problem is not broadband penetration, it is what the FCC says we can and cannot do. DSL has been available throughout Vermont which is a one of the most rural parts of the U.S. since the middle of 1997 which is when I got my first taste.
Here in Arizona I moved from one part of the valley 20 miles north and I still can get cable without a problem. DSL isn't a problem either, nor is a T1 or faster. The entire Phoenix metro area has wireless T1 service and MTI is developing BPL in the area which is rated at 300megabit today.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that all the states and the FCC need to either lift or ease regulations which prevent this kind of development. In VT they didn't create a government owned monopoly. They merely gave Adelphia and Verizon massive tax incentives to build in areas that would otherwise be less profitable. Of course the state of VT connects cities such as NY/Boston/Montreal. So Verizon probably had a few other motivations to build as well.
Coming from VT I can say Ben and Jerry's did a lot for the community of which it is a part. Saying that a corporation has no responsibility for anything it does is downright stupid. That happened at the beginning of the 20th century with factory workers being treated like slaves. Technology should benefit everyone and not just those with all the money.
Naturally this is a bad idea as thought processes are completely different on servers versus workstations. A Netware guy knew server services, they knew how to configure them securely whereas a Windows admin would just click next next next, check drive mapping, yep, it worked okay I'm going home for the day. Workstation skillsets were sufficient to install and operate the server and so became the security nightmare that is today Windows as a Server.
You also cannot sign your child over to your employer. Its not just criminal law you cannot sign away.
Ideas inherently cannot be stolen, at least not yet. When you make an attempt to implement the idea the story changes which is why so much research is done in secrecy.As for DVI well, get a laptop with a Geforce, geez, you don't think a company with 2% of the market is the only one Nvidia is making that for do you?
There are certain things of which you cannot sign over. No matter what my employers contract states they do not have the right to kill me. Certain rights cannot be signed away and ideas are supposed to be one of them.
Of course, I paid about a grand for my HP pavilion laptop about 4 years ago, as of current my same battery will still give me 3 hours doing the same activities. In its prime it could have given me 4-5 depending on my AMD PowerNow settings.
I'm afraid that the Powerbook isn't unique. There was a rough stretch over the last two years but AMD and Intel woke up and created Athlon64 and Centrino since. Both CPUs require considerably less power and considering the price tag on an Athlon 64 laptop these days I'd say it makes for a better deal.Might be something the linux community could copy, but I doubt it. Its too segmented to be able to organize efforts. It is a tradeoff though since new features take a lot longer to be introduced into BSDs
Quite obviously there are always exceptions to the rule, if I screwed around with my kernel compile options I could probably make the driver functional but it does require a lot of work considering it was something that was automatic with kernel 2.4.
I'd say about half the older machines I come across will not work with 2.6, That is a significant number considering I'm involved in a site with 600 computers, 100 of them linux and the number growing. It is the linux platform though, there is always a way to get it working if you are willing to put the time in. I however, am not just yet.Might add the fact that kernel 2.6 is incompatible with a lot of older hardware. My servers are still running 2.4 because my raid controller can't initialize with it. Works great for newer equipment but its a safe bet that if anyone were ready to switch they would be running older hardware. This used to be a strength of the linux platform. Not sure when, how, or why it changed.
I seem to recall an exact model of this at MIT. It was the water based transistor. Neat stuff and a great way to explain something that is actually pretty simple.
Spying is a part of any sys admin's job but you have to respect that people above you are above you for a reason. Your job description does not apply to them. Perhaps you've never had a CEO require administrative access to the network? Yeah it sucks and leave a wide hole but there isn't a whole lot you can do about it.
Of course this is a government position, the rules are a bit different but only really in that they are more restrictive. Some managers will require full access to the network. If they ever run into an access denied screen they will more than likely call you into their office for you to explain yourself.There are a lot of people out there that enjoy power trips and are in a position to do so everyday. They set policy and you are not allowed to step out of bounds.
That said its still pretty easy to remove. Especially considering I have options to do it in the group policy. I guess that would be assuming the admins on the network know the environment in which they work which may or may not be a bad assumption.