Because we don't have the fabrication technology to expose a whole wafer at once. Since we're essentially shining light on the surface, the wider we make the beam, the softer the features get, specially towards the edges (because the light hits the edge at a different angle).
There's a sweet spot of size-vs-yields. Trying to make bigger chips requires multiple exposures for the same die, and getting the exposures to line up properly is extremely tedious.
That's why it's easier to make lots of small chips on a wafer than several big ones, and why people are trying to find better ways to communicate between chips...
Probably because CPUs are devices that are meticulously planned and designed over the course of years by a team of humans (i.e. nice looking dies) whereas GPUs have a tendency to be computer-generated in months (i.e. messier, bigger, less efficient) and most likely not pretty to look at...
Only when GPU manufacturers start to worry about efficiency do I figure we'll start seeing prettier dies... And graphics cards that don't consume hundreds of watts.
Mm. Funny. I just loaded Dell's site. (dell.ca; don't forget the canadian prices there!)
What I came up with was:
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo T7100 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB), English Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Business Edition, English Alpine White Color with Gloss Finish glossy widescreen 14.1 inch display (1280 x 800) Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm 80G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate) 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery Integrated High Definition Audio Dell Travel Remote Control, IR Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Price: 1349$
Let's compare to the base white MacBook, clocking in at 2.0GHz Everything is similar except that the dell has a DVD burner, better graphics and an additional inch of screen size (same rez), and the macbook has gigabit ethernet. MacBook, 123 cu.in. 5.1lbs. (vs. Dell, 152cu.in. 5.4lbs)
Price: 1249$
So. The dell is 100$ more expensive. With the MacBook, you get a smaller/lighter laptop, awesome bundled software, no need to invest (and waste RAM and CPU resources) in antivirus/spyware software. If you're going to compage base prices, sure, the Dell wins. If you add all that's included in even the base MacBook (bluetooth, 802.11n, etc) your preconceptions no longer add up. The Dell is almost always more expensive.
Hm. The parent most likely saw episodes out-of-sequence, or is confusing Moya with Elack. Elack is the ship that rescued a stranded Crichton at the beginning of season 4. She had retreated to her sacred burial ground to die. Fast-forward a few episodes. Elack crashes on a planet (incidently, on a set of landed peacekeeper marauders) to help our heroes escape.
Microwaves: I wish someone had the sense to build one with just a big knob to set the time, a small knob to set the power level (clicking to an off position if you just want to use the timer), and a big start/stop button. Put the timer on a logarithmic scale up to whatever the maximum sane length of time you might run a microwave for is (or use a continuous encoder with some acceleration programmed in the software), and read the value out on the display as you spin it. Funny. My microwave works almost exactly as you specify. One know for power, and one knob for minutes (I believe the minutes count up to 25. I've never needed anything longer than that). It starts as soon as you turn the time dial, and stops if you open the door or move the dial back to zero.
It's 20 years old. Why did things get so complicated?
The one application that struck me is the holographic implications. If you can get light to move to a precise spot in mid-air through an invisible tunnel, you can make objects appear anywhere. No smoke or mirrors required.
I've got an Clamshell iBook G3 here dating back to september 2000. Still running fine, OSX 10.3. If it had more RAM, I would happily install 10.4 on it (because every new version of OSX actually gets faster). While it's been retired, I still use it when I need a child-proof surfing machine, or a heavy-duty terminal.
Amen to that. For my final year project at university, we were three groups working on robots to map obstacles in a room. The other teams went all out with FPGA boards and fancy high-tech hardware and bluetooth communications. One team had spent in excess of 1500$ on their hardware.
My team went with a swarm robotics approach, and we built several cheap drones. They were powered by ATMega8's, using cheap RF modules. Total cost? Less than 400$ total for four drones. Now, guess which team had something moving and working?
Simplicity goes a long way in getting things done. You get to know the ins and outs of your hardware and firmware. If something goes wrong, it's a lot easier to debug. The other teams spent countless hours just figuring out how to send data via bluetooth.
Sorry for the nitpicking, and being slightly-OT, but here goes nothing;)
Back in 1997, you could buy a 0.3 megapixel (640x480) camera for around 600USD (which back then was roughly 900CDN, which is my reference because of the varying exchange rate).
Jump to 2002, a 1.3MP camera cost roughly 300CDN, so in 5 years (3.3 x 18 months) we've seen two doublings of the megapixel count, and 1.5 "halvings" of the price, for a total factor of 3.5
Early 2007 (another 4-5 years), we have 5 megapixel cameras for 180CDN, so again, nearly two doublings in megapixels, and almost one "halving" of the cost. (Factor = 2.7)
I think that makes the "doubling every 18 months" rule still valid in this case. In theory, we should see the current crop of 10-megapixel cameras drop in price to around 300$ by this time next year. Next summer we should have them at 200$;)
Mind you, I'd rather see better cameras with better optics and low-light senstivity than cameras with high-megapixel counts. Check out Fuji's F31 to see what I mean about the sensitivity.
Strip MS of its copyright in the EU. Let people copy XP Pro & Office, hacked to work without keys & registration, as much as they like, with no legal ramifications, until an alternative platform is practical.
And how is this a good thing ? I believe then call this dumping, when a company does it intentionally: You're basically alienating ALL software competition in the EU. That would be a MAJOR win for Microsoft: get pretty much a whole continent running your software for a mere 2.5 million a day. Then, two or three years down the road, when everybody is dependant, become compliant to the EU regulations, and release Vista.
How do you think they became a monopoly? by selling every copy of windows?
Problem is, you get to wear two batteries down equally and simultaneously. So when comes time to replace the battery, you've got twice the cost associated with it. Swapping the batteries, to me, makes more sense... remove the purely temporary storage. Or use something that doesn't wear out... Flywheels?
I recall briefly doing the calculations (when I was younger, and had more time on my hands). Buying the pasta and any canned sauce came out less expensive per meal than KD. However, you _do_ need, preferably, two pots to cook in...
AFAIK, macaroni and cheese is generically refered to as Kraft Dinner there.
I wouldn't generalize so much. We call "Macaroni and Cheese" Macaroni and Cheese. It's only when one is excessively lazy and doesn't want to spend more than a buck and 2 minutes cooking a meal that he'll open a box of Kraft dinner. When people refer to Kraft dinners, they truly mean the Kraft brand, not some generic product.
On a side note, Kraft dinners have many attributes, but tasting good isn't one of them. Mind you, they can serve as great thermal insulator for your garage.
335.89 vs 160.2 cubic inches
8.1 vs 6.8 lbs
3.5 vs 5.5 hours of runtime on a charge
No DVI?
Just a few off the top of my head... These things may mean nothing to you, but it does to a lot of people. Some of the laptops I see these days are barely luggable. How useful is a laptop, if in the morning you decide not to pack it because you want to travel light?
They're most likely more reliable than the crappy connectors on those other laptops. And as a bonus, they don't even go up to 400$ in price. Apple doesn't have to do _everything_, you know;)
Sure, you get a faster GPU and a higher-res screen, but that's an extra $600! For a Dell!
You forgot to mention that the MBP has an iSight, gigabit (vs 100megabit) ethernet, firewire 800, is 1" thin, and weighs several pounds less. Plus, it comes with great software like iLife.
Hey I don't mean to start a flame war here, but none of these apps are worth dual-booting for. They're mostly apps to "fix" windows, and small utilities. There are awesome equivalents for OSX. So what's the point?
Oh christ, and finally, I work on a Mac. When will I see support? ( lol. this is me falling off my chair, crying and laughing, crying... sobbing. Because I know the answer ).
You do know that a lots of the Core* APIs on OSX do this by default as we speak, right? Not necessarily physics yet, but image and video processing in real-time through the GPU. Physics and math libraries will only be a matter of time; they will need to compensate for the lack of Altivec.
I use a Creative Micro; I've refused to use an ipod of any kind since i knew what an mp3 player was.
I don't get what you're trying to say here... I've been using an iPod as an MP3 player exclusively for two years, never having bought music from any online store, but rather ripping my CD collection. To me, that's exactly what an mp3 player is all about. What do you mean?
Heh. I got a rev A03. I'll let you imagine how much fun I had with tech support on that one. It took MONTHS to get the damn thing working. That, and the video drivers were broken so I couldn't use the VGA connector for months either. Should companies even be allowed to ship machines with specified features, when said features don't work out of the box ?! My experience will Dell simply reinforced my appreciation of Apple hardware, even their rev A models.
Never mind that... I've always wondered what someone from the fifties would think when seeing "special-effects" movies like LoTR;)
Back then people seemed to be much more sensitive to these things than we are now...
Now people in this thread have mentioned that electronic viewfinders suck, there's also a technical reason: Large sensors, like CPUs, suffer from transistor leakage. The longer they operate, the hotter they get, and the worse they perform. By only activating the sensor when needed, you get a much cleaner image.
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Because we don't have the fabrication technology to expose a whole wafer at once. Since we're essentially shining light on the surface, the wider we make the beam, the softer the features get, specially towards the edges (because the light hits the edge at a different angle).
There's a sweet spot of size-vs-yields. Trying to make bigger chips requires multiple exposures for the same die, and getting the exposures to line up properly is extremely tedious.
That's why it's easier to make lots of small chips on a wafer than several big ones, and why people are trying to find better ways to communicate between chips...
Probably because CPUs are devices that are meticulously planned and designed over the course of years by a team of humans (i.e. nice looking dies) whereas GPUs have a tendency to be computer-generated in months (i.e. messier, bigger, less efficient) and most likely not pretty to look at...
Only when GPU manufacturers start to worry about efficiency do I figure we'll start seeing prettier dies... And graphics cards that don't consume hundreds of watts.
Mm. Funny. I just loaded Dell's site. (dell.ca; don't forget the canadian prices there!)
What I came up with was:
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo T7100 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB), English
Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Business Edition, English
Alpine White Color with Gloss Finish
glossy widescreen 14.1 inch display (1280 x 800)
Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm
80G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)
56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Integrated High Definition Audio
Dell Travel Remote Control, IR
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Price: 1349$
Let's compare to the base white MacBook, clocking in at 2.0GHz
Everything is similar except that the dell has a DVD burner, better graphics and an additional inch of screen size (same rez), and the macbook has gigabit ethernet.
MacBook, 123 cu.in. 5.1lbs. (vs. Dell, 152cu.in. 5.4lbs)
Price: 1249$
So. The dell is 100$ more expensive. With the MacBook, you get a smaller/lighter laptop, awesome bundled software, no need to invest (and waste RAM and CPU resources) in antivirus/spyware software.
If you're going to compage base prices, sure, the Dell wins. If you add all that's included in even the base MacBook (bluetooth, 802.11n, etc) your preconceptions no longer add up. The Dell is almost always more expensive.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Hm. The parent most likely saw episodes out-of-sequence, or is confusing Moya with Elack.
;)
Elack is the ship that rescued a stranded Crichton at the beginning of season 4. She had retreated to her sacred burial ground to die. Fast-forward a few episodes. Elack crashes on a planet (incidently, on a set of landed peacekeeper marauders) to help our heroes escape.
Hope this makes sense
Funny. My microwave works almost exactly as you specify. One know for power, and one knob for minutes (I believe the minutes count up to 25. I've never needed anything longer than that). It starts as soon as you turn the time dial, and stops if you open the door or move the dial back to zero.
It's 20 years old.
Why did things get so complicated?
The one application that struck me is the holographic implications. If you can get light to move to a precise spot in mid-air through an invisible tunnel, you can make objects appear anywhere. No smoke or mirrors required.
I've got an Clamshell iBook G3 here dating back to september 2000. Still running fine, OSX 10.3. If it had more RAM, I would happily install 10.4 on it (because every new version of OSX actually gets faster).
While it's been retired, I still use it when I need a child-proof surfing machine, or a heavy-duty terminal.
Amen to that.
For my final year project at university, we were three groups working on robots to map obstacles in a room. The other teams went all out with FPGA boards and fancy high-tech hardware and bluetooth communications. One team had spent in excess of 1500$ on their hardware.
My team went with a swarm robotics approach, and we built several cheap drones. They were powered by ATMega8's, using cheap RF modules. Total cost? Less than 400$ total for four drones. Now, guess which team had something moving and working?
Simplicity goes a long way in getting things done. You get to know the ins and outs of your hardware and firmware. If something goes wrong, it's a lot easier to debug. The other teams spent countless hours just figuring out how to send data via bluetooth.
Sorry for the nitpicking, and being slightly-OT, but here goes nothing ;)
;)
Back in 1997, you could buy a 0.3 megapixel (640x480) camera for around 600USD (which back then was roughly 900CDN, which is my reference because of the varying exchange rate).
Jump to 2002, a 1.3MP camera cost roughly 300CDN, so in 5 years (3.3 x 18 months) we've seen two doublings of the megapixel count, and 1.5 "halvings" of the price, for a total factor of 3.5
Early 2007 (another 4-5 years), we have 5 megapixel cameras for 180CDN, so again, nearly two doublings in megapixels, and almost one "halving" of the cost. (Factor = 2.7)
I think that makes the "doubling every 18 months" rule still valid in this case. In theory, we should see the current crop of 10-megapixel cameras drop in price to around 300$ by this time next year. Next summer we should have them at 200$
Mind you, I'd rather see better cameras with better optics and low-light senstivity than cameras with high-megapixel counts. Check out Fuji's F31 to see what I mean about the sensitivity.
Disclaimer: I work in a photography shop.
Last time I tried, I could burn it to a CD, and play it in my non-Apple CD player...
How do you think they became a monopoly? by selling every copy of windows?
Problem is, you get to wear two batteries down equally and simultaneously. So when comes time to replace the battery, you've got twice the cost associated with it. Swapping the batteries, to me, makes more sense... remove the purely temporary storage. Or use something that doesn't wear out... Flywheels?
Problem with the solar panel idea is getting 4.5 hours of sunshine _after_ work.
However, this may be feasible by using a spare battery charging during the day and swapping (in smaller-than-500lbs increments).
I recall briefly doing the calculations (when I was younger, and had more time on my hands). Buying the pasta and any canned sauce came out less expensive per meal than KD. However, you _do_ need, preferably, two pots to cook in...
On a side note, Kraft dinners have many attributes, but tasting good isn't one of them. Mind you, they can serve as great thermal insulator for your garage.
335.89 vs 160.2 cubic inches
8.1 vs 6.8 lbs
3.5 vs 5.5 hours of runtime on a charge
No DVI?
Just a few off the top of my head... These things may mean nothing to you, but it does to a lot of people. Some of the laptops I see these days are barely luggable. How useful is a laptop, if in the morning you decide not to pack it because you want to travel light?
What's wrong with this? BookEndz docks
;)
They're most likely more reliable than the crappy connectors on those other laptops. And as a bonus, they don't even go up to 400$ in price.
Apple doesn't have to do _everything_, you know
You forgot to mention that the MBP has an iSight, gigabit (vs 100megabit) ethernet, firewire 800, is 1" thin, and weighs several pounds less. Plus, it comes with great software like iLife.
Hey
I don't mean to start a flame war here, but none of these apps are worth dual-booting for. They're mostly apps to "fix" windows, and small utilities. There are awesome equivalents for OSX. So what's the point?
You do know that a lots of the Core* APIs on OSX do this by default as we speak, right? Not necessarily physics yet, but image and video processing in real-time through the GPU. Physics and math libraries will only be a matter of time; they will need to compensate for the lack of Altivec.
Holy shit! Mice eat dogs in about half of the world ?! How big are they? or do they work in numbers?
I don't get what you're trying to say here... I've been using an iPod as an MP3 player exclusively for two years, never having bought music from any online store, but rather ripping my CD collection. To me, that's exactly what an mp3 player is all about. What do you mean?
Heh. I got a rev A03. I'll let you imagine how much fun I had with tech support on that one. It took MONTHS to get the damn thing working.
That, and the video drivers were broken so I couldn't use the VGA connector for months either.
Should companies even be allowed to ship machines with specified features, when said features don't work out of the box ?! My experience will Dell simply reinforced my appreciation of Apple hardware, even their rev A models.
Never mind that... I've always wondered what someone from the fifties would think when seeing "special-effects" movies like LoTR ;)
Back then people seemed to be much more sensitive to these things than we are now...
Now people in this thread have mentioned that electronic viewfinders suck, there's also a technical reason: Large sensors, like CPUs, suffer from transistor leakage. The longer they operate, the hotter they get, and the worse they perform. By only activating the sensor when needed, you get a much cleaner image.