I read a story once about how some terrorists had assassinated a soviet dignitary, thinking they would react the same way as the other "westerners". Instead, the soviets captured the suspected terrorists friends and families, tortured them until they told where the terrorists were, then got the terrorists, tortured them to find where others were, etc. They didn't try that sort of attack again on the USSR. The problem is that the most effective way of fighting terrorism is unacceptable to americans.
"What I'd really like to see is co-operation on reducing arms sales globally."
I know you're a little off topic, buuuut,
It all comes down to money. We get money selling weapons. There is nothing in the world that will stop the US and EU from selling weapons so long as they're making profits. That's actually what confuses me about the current move to make the galeleo sats. Unless they'll be able to sell missiles etc that use the galeleo protocol to compete with american versions. That's the only thing that makes sense. And if you spend some time to think about who they will sell to and why the people they are selling to might not want the united states to be able to screw up the guidance... it all seems pretty far from altruistic.
You are missing the big problem with backwards compatibility. The problem isn't that they can't run old programs. Who cares. The problem is that programs written after SP2 will have difficulty running on older operating systems. I'm not saying it'll be impossible, but the dev will have to be careful. Many simply won't develop for the older systems anymore. Then everyone who has been hanging on to win2k will have to upgrade to get new software - in other words an artificial product death. Planned obsolescence. If they ever make windows anywhere near as stable and secure as it should be, then I won't mind an upgrade. But that won't happen until there are some major changes.
But then again, who knows, it might "accidentally" break Office 97 so people think they need to upgrade to Office 2003.
Exactly. Microsoft's big problem is that their users stop upgrading and stop paying them money for each new operating system. If they can make the old ones less usable _now_ instead of when they are shipped then they don't have to innovate at all to get people to upgrade. They've pulled this kind of stunt before, and they will again.
I remember that story too, and the parallels are pretty strong. The fictional astronauts ended up making the first commercial spaceport in Wyoming, whereas the real ones are using the mojave desert as you all know:-). Wyoming has the lowest population per square mile for a state I believe (or almost the lowest) and the desert is obviously devoid of human habitation.
I loved the end of the story, after crashing the space ship back to Earth and ruining it in the process, some investor comes to get a peice of the action, but when they ask for 100k$ (I think) she gives them several million instead. "This time don't cut corners." I'm sure SSO's team isn't cutting corners, but it illustrates the power that commercial interest could bring to bear to improve space travel.
Thanks, I'll probably download it somehow so i can listen to it on the drive to work. The bbc's tv series of HHG left a little to be desired... I'm not sure that it can be properly appreciated in film. So much of the books was writing style and that just doesn't come across through visuals.
Here's hoping the radio show is better!
In high school senior year brit lit, I wrote my thesis paper on the HHGttG series. In the course of my study, I (re)read the entire series in about a week and a half. The concentration of DA's work in such a short time made me a very strange person to be around for awhile... I can't think of any sort of parallel for the experience. I'll be sure to get a copy of the radio broadcast if i can though;-) DA was a genius.
I disagree. I have been running win2k for a long time and I'm happy with its performance. Hell, I'm writing this post on another machine (linux) that is connected to the internet through the win2k machine using internet connection sharing. I have to reboot every couple of weeks, but the windows machine, through very regular virus scans, adware scans, malware scans, and by changing what services are running to the minimum instead of a bizzare collection of things I would never use, is in good shape I think. Also its behind a router which adds a small amount of protection. I keep it anal retentively up to date, and I have a lot of internet explorer functionality turned off so I don't run into too much flak when surfing. I do wish the operating system didn't take up too many resources, but it is a small price to pay for the benefits of broader software support, and free wireless support. Linux didn't support the wireless card that the computer uses unless I shelled out some money to linuxant so my choice was pretty easy. Also, how else can I play some of my favorite games? Yes the operating system goes through big upheavals, but since everyone uses it, it pays to keep current with the system. That might seem like hypocracy since I'm running win2k but at my work that's what we use, and being more familiar with it helps put bread on the table. If they change to XP or 2k3 I'll do the same upgrade.
all the techies we hear from complain that their salaries are still below 'average'.
First off, who is going to complain because they are making too much? Sometimes the minority is much more vocal than the majority *cough* christian fundamentalists *cough*.
It is human nature to complain.
I was looking around to see if they used open source software to do the simulations mentioned in the article, this sourceforge page seems to be a likely candidate for the control software. I haven't fully explored the site yet, but it looks like they are still in the alpha stage and only have a cvs repository running. I'd like to know if there is any simulation software out there so I could explore it. (or for other people to explore it) Anyone have an idea where I could find some?
Nothing to see here. Move along. We're not invading from the moon to take over your pathetic 3 dimensional world.
I am an excellent speller. Challenge me!
There is always a benefit to getting a bigger cache. The only problem is that there are diminishing returns for how much you increase the cache by. The first time you increase your cache by 2x you might experience a 60% performance increase... then do another 2x and you would probably only get another 40% increase out of it.
However they can just use the same scheme as your RAM / virtual memory's lookup table. In fact, I'm sure they did just that so they didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Your computer has been handling memory sizes of over 1 GB probably. 16 MB isn't going to be hard for current methods to handle.
If you think that the majority of your hd writes are you changing conf files or UI tweaks then you are sorely mistaken. Your computer writes to the hard drive a lot on its own as well, and for things like compiling software you're going to notice a difference with a bigger cache.
When you own a dog you have to be consistent. We told him to wait (a command a lot like stay) in the room. He didn't wait. So he was scolded. If you do otherwise then your pet will begin to listen to you less, and that eventually leads to an uncontrolled animal. When you see a dog that doesn't listen to its owner, it is almost always the owner's fault.
One good thing to do is to be passionate about something. Anything that really grabs you, go out and grab it back. First off, it'll make your life much less blah because you have something that excites you. For me it's a lot of things, and I imagine that's the same for many people. Pick up a musical instrument. Learn how to cook Indian food. Take up rock climbing. Practice ju jitstu. Whatever. It'll serve several purposes - first as an outlet for your stress. Second it'll make you interesting, whether with the opposite (or same) sex or when you're looking for a job.
Thanks if you've read this far down in the comments;-)
My own dog, which we recently put to sleep due to cushing's disease, was incredibly smart. Probably not as smart as this dog, but he would learn people's names after the first time he met them. Even more impressive was that we taught him how to play hide and seek - we'd put him in a room out of line of sight in the house, tell him to wait, then go hide and say "ok" so he would come find us. Then one time he decided to sneak up to the corner to watch us hide... I always used to tell people that my dog was smart enough to know how to cheat at hide and seek:-D. Of course we scolded him, and he knew what he had done wrong, but still it was impressive.
Having taken several courses in chip design (one taught by one of the designers of the i586) I'm going to go ahead and say this is a load of crap. When you say it "does more" you're talking about some combination of how many instructions are executed vs how "effective" they are. Now lets examine the architectures. PowerPC is a RISC architecture, meaning that it has much fewer possible instructions. This means that it has to perform more instructions to do the same operations as a CISC processor, like the i686 line. The advantage of a RISC over a CISC is that the hardware can be small and compiler writing is easier (especially when compared to the abortion that is the x86 family architecture). The disadvantage is that you have to "do more" to get to the same place. This is fine because you can have a big pipeline and a superscalar processor (more than one instruction executed at the same time) and multiple chips on a die and be about the same hardware size as a CISC processor with some fixins thrown in. The simpler compiler design makes it easier to improve software speed on the same architecture - but x86 compilers havs had a LOT more money thrown at it so their development has come much further. Add that to the recent (pentium) move toward the same superscalar / superpipelined implementation and you have a faster end environment. Apple actually "does less" per instruction, does more instructions per clock, but does less clocks per second. It is useless to make a definite comparison between their performances, because it varies per application and using a few simple numbers will not adequately describe how each processor does. But intel / amd is cheaper so that's where my money goes;-).
What exactly does a "Web cache and DNS server" need with an FPU? Which of those functions is floating point unit intensive? As far as I can tell, FP is only used for graphics and scientific applications, neither of which are part of the design goals. Also, with the disclaimer that I have never done it, it seems that hardware modding a laptop is a tricky business at best. Not to mention more expensive (if they didn't just use an "extra" one)
Personally I busted out an old 450 pentium 2 to play around with fedora core 2 (it wasn't in use at the time) and the install process went incredibly smoothly. The only thing I had any problems with was getting it to use windows internet connection sharing with my normal desktop (which uses a wireless card that isn't supported for free, speech or beer, in linux) but I figure that was just from my own inexperience with internet connection sharing under windows. I have had no other problems, and the computer's desktop response is better than my windows box (which is a 2 ghz p4) If I can get some free drivers for my linksys 802.11g card I might switch my desktop over to it as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I read a story once about how some terrorists had assassinated a soviet dignitary, thinking they would react the same way as the other "westerners". Instead, the soviets captured the suspected terrorists friends and families, tortured them until they told where the terrorists were, then got the terrorists, tortured them to find where others were, etc. They didn't try that sort of attack again on the USSR. The problem is that the most effective way of fighting terrorism is unacceptable to americans.
"What I'd really like to see is co-operation on reducing arms sales globally."
I know you're a little off topic, buuuut,
It all comes down to money. We get money selling weapons. There is nothing in the world that will stop the US and EU from selling weapons so long as they're making profits. That's actually what confuses me about the current move to make the galeleo sats. Unless they'll be able to sell missiles etc that use the galeleo protocol to compete with american versions. That's the only thing that makes sense. And if you spend some time to think about who they will sell to and why the people they are selling to might not want the united states to be able to screw up the guidance... it all seems pretty far from altruistic.
If by literally, you mean not literally.
You are missing the big problem with backwards compatibility. The problem isn't that they can't run old programs. Who cares. The problem is that programs written after SP2 will have difficulty running on older operating systems. I'm not saying it'll be impossible, but the dev will have to be careful. Many simply won't develop for the older systems anymore. Then everyone who has been hanging on to win2k will have to upgrade to get new software - in other words an artificial product death. Planned obsolescence. If they ever make windows anywhere near as stable and secure as it should be, then I won't mind an upgrade. But that won't happen until there are some major changes.
But then again, who knows, it might "accidentally" break Office 97 so people think they need to upgrade to Office 2003. Exactly. Microsoft's big problem is that their users stop upgrading and stop paying them money for each new operating system. If they can make the old ones less usable _now_ instead of when they are shipped then they don't have to innovate at all to get people to upgrade. They've pulled this kind of stunt before, and they will again.
I remember that story too, and the parallels are pretty strong. The fictional astronauts ended up making the first commercial spaceport in Wyoming, whereas the real ones are using the mojave desert as you all know :-). Wyoming has the lowest population per square mile for a state I believe (or almost the lowest) and the desert is obviously devoid of human habitation.
I loved the end of the story, after crashing the space ship back to Earth and ruining it in the process, some investor comes to get a peice of the action, but when they ask for 100k$ (I think) she gives them several million instead. "This time don't cut corners." I'm sure SSO's team isn't cutting corners, but it illustrates the power that commercial interest could bring to bear to improve space travel.
Thanks, I'll probably download it somehow so i can listen to it on the drive to work. The bbc's tv series of HHG left a little to be desired... I'm not sure that it can be properly appreciated in film. So much of the books was writing style and that just doesn't come across through visuals. Here's hoping the radio show is better!
In high school senior year brit lit, I wrote my thesis paper on the HHGttG series. In the course of my study, I (re)read the entire series in about a week and a half. The concentration of DA's work in such a short time made me a very strange person to be around for awhile... I can't think of any sort of parallel for the experience. I'll be sure to get a copy of the radio broadcast if i can though ;-) DA was a genius.
I disagree. I have been running win2k for a long time and I'm happy with its performance. Hell, I'm writing this post on another machine (linux) that is connected to the internet through the win2k machine using internet connection sharing. I have to reboot every couple of weeks, but the windows machine, through very regular virus scans, adware scans, malware scans, and by changing what services are running to the minimum instead of a bizzare collection of things I would never use, is in good shape I think. Also its behind a router which adds a small amount of protection. I keep it anal retentively up to date, and I have a lot of internet explorer functionality turned off so I don't run into too much flak when surfing. I do wish the operating system didn't take up too many resources, but it is a small price to pay for the benefits of broader software support, and free wireless support. Linux didn't support the wireless card that the computer uses unless I shelled out some money to linuxant so my choice was pretty easy. Also, how else can I play some of my favorite games? Yes the operating system goes through big upheavals, but since everyone uses it, it pays to keep current with the system. That might seem like hypocracy since I'm running win2k but at my work that's what we use, and being more familiar with it helps put bread on the table. If they change to XP or 2k3 I'll do the same upgrade.
all the techies we hear from complain that their salaries are still below 'average'. First off, who is going to complain because they are making too much? Sometimes the minority is much more vocal than the majority *cough* christian fundamentalists *cough*. It is human nature to complain.
I was looking around to see if they used open source software to do the simulations mentioned in the article, this sourceforge page seems to be a likely candidate for the control software. I haven't fully explored the site yet, but it looks like they are still in the alpha stage and only have a cvs repository running. I'd like to know if there is any simulation software out there so I could explore it. (or for other people to explore it) Anyone have an idea where I could find some?
Clearly you don't stalk... er... research Carmack as well as an average id geek - He's married!
Nothing to see here. Move along. We're not invading from the moon to take over your pathetic 3 dimensional world. I am an excellent speller. Challenge me!
Man, you put wayyy too much work into decyphering a typo. ;-) Slow day at work?
There is always a benefit to getting a bigger cache. The only problem is that there are diminishing returns for how much you increase the cache by. The first time you increase your cache by 2x you might experience a 60% performance increase... then do another 2x and you would probably only get another 40% increase out of it. However they can just use the same scheme as your RAM / virtual memory's lookup table. In fact, I'm sure they did just that so they didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Your computer has been handling memory sizes of over 1 GB probably. 16 MB isn't going to be hard for current methods to handle.
If you think that the majority of your hd writes are you changing conf files or UI tweaks then you are sorely mistaken. Your computer writes to the hard drive a lot on its own as well, and for things like compiling software you're going to notice a difference with a bigger cache.
I've always found written work more interesting / inspiring than audio. If you are able to, and like scifi like many slashdotters, check out Baen Free Library and Their not-free subscription service
When you own a dog you have to be consistent. We told him to wait (a command a lot like stay) in the room. He didn't wait. So he was scolded. If you do otherwise then your pet will begin to listen to you less, and that eventually leads to an uncontrolled animal. When you see a dog that doesn't listen to its owner, it is almost always the owner's fault.
One good thing to do is to be passionate about something. Anything that really grabs you, go out and grab it back. First off, it'll make your life much less blah because you have something that excites you. For me it's a lot of things, and I imagine that's the same for many people. Pick up a musical instrument. Learn how to cook Indian food. Take up rock climbing. Practice ju jitstu. Whatever. It'll serve several purposes - first as an outlet for your stress. Second it'll make you interesting, whether with the opposite (or same) sex or when you're looking for a job. Thanks if you've read this far down in the comments ;-)
My own dog, which we recently put to sleep due to cushing's disease, was incredibly smart. Probably not as smart as this dog, but he would learn people's names after the first time he met them. Even more impressive was that we taught him how to play hide and seek - we'd put him in a room out of line of sight in the house, tell him to wait, then go hide and say "ok" so he would come find us. Then one time he decided to sneak up to the corner to watch us hide... I always used to tell people that my dog was smart enough to know how to cheat at hide and seek :-D. Of course we scolded him, and he knew what he had done wrong, but still it was impressive.
Get real! The editors would have to be absolute _morons_ for that to happen!...
Having taken several courses in chip design (one taught by one of the designers of the i586) I'm going to go ahead and say this is a load of crap. When you say it "does more" you're talking about some combination of how many instructions are executed vs how "effective" they are. Now lets examine the architectures. PowerPC is a RISC architecture, meaning that it has much fewer possible instructions. This means that it has to perform more instructions to do the same operations as a CISC processor, like the i686 line. The advantage of a RISC over a CISC is that the hardware can be small and compiler writing is easier (especially when compared to the abortion that is the x86 family architecture). The disadvantage is that you have to "do more" to get to the same place. This is fine because you can have a big pipeline and a superscalar processor (more than one instruction executed at the same time) and multiple chips on a die and be about the same hardware size as a CISC processor with some fixins thrown in. The simpler compiler design makes it easier to improve software speed on the same architecture - but x86 compilers havs had a LOT more money thrown at it so their development has come much further. Add that to the recent (pentium) move toward the same superscalar / superpipelined implementation and you have a faster end environment. Apple actually "does less" per instruction, does more instructions per clock, but does less clocks per second. It is useless to make a definite comparison between their performances, because it varies per application and using a few simple numbers will not adequately describe how each processor does. But intel / amd is cheaper so that's where my money goes ;-).
What exactly does a "Web cache and DNS server" need with an FPU? Which of those functions is floating point unit intensive? As far as I can tell, FP is only used for graphics and scientific applications, neither of which are part of the design goals. Also, with the disclaimer that I have never done it, it seems that hardware modding a laptop is a tricky business at best. Not to mention more expensive (if they didn't just use an "extra" one)
I was sick of this post too, so i skipped to the end... ;-)
This post is so off topic it is amazing.
Personally I busted out an old 450 pentium 2 to play around with fedora core 2 (it wasn't in use at the time) and the install process went incredibly smoothly. The only thing I had any problems with was getting it to use windows internet connection sharing with my normal desktop (which uses a wireless card that isn't supported for free, speech or beer, in linux) but I figure that was just from my own inexperience with internet connection sharing under windows. I have had no other problems, and the computer's desktop response is better than my windows box (which is a 2 ghz p4) If I can get some free drivers for my linksys 802.11g card I might switch my desktop over to it as well.