"Runaway" was a near-future movie about a police division that dealt with hacked robots that starred Tom Selleck and was written and directed by Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park fame). The thrust of the main plot was about a terrorist that devised a hack that turned service robots into killing machines...
So, is the point here that infrastructure costs are far cheaper in the United States because average population per unit of surface area is much less, thus imposing far lighter demand on infrastructure (since cable throughput will reach its saturation point per node much quicker with far more people per unit of surface area)?
1. The author implies that by matching sales roughly by the XBox 360 at the same point in it's lifecycle, even though at the same point the 360 was "supply-constrained" and the PS3 is not, the console can be considered "semi-successful" because it is $200 more. First, I don't want to throw in with the "semi-successful" brand when dropping a couple hundred on a new system. Second, that's great for Sony's bottom line, but poison for third-party support. They don't care how much more Sony makes per unit shifted. They're only concerned about their own sales volume. The author implies that because consumers are willing to drop $200 more on the PS3 that the "supply-constrained" sales figures of the 360 at the same point, the "supply-constrained" aspect is somehow nullified. That's reaching, but ultimately none of this matters. If the PS3 can't achieve an installed user base greater than the 360, developers aren't going to focus on the PS3 platform since it won't make as much money.
2. Sony's figures represent units sold to retail, not sold through to consumers. So, included in their figures are all the PS3's that are sitting on store shelves, not installed units. Other platforms quote actual sale-through figures and represent installed units.
... in the 80's when it was viewed as a sinner's disease, and prevented any research from happening and blocked any possible treatment that infringed on "their" patent. Patents used for political purposes scare the piss out of me, even as a defensive countermeasure against lawsuits (the corporate equivalent of Mutually-Assured Destruction: If you sue me for A, I'll sue you for B, C, and D...)
If I recall, the shuttle computers were originally based on the IBM 360 (or maybe 370) mainframe architecture standard. The 360 series was the first real effort at standardization of components and instruction set so that upgrading your machine does not mean upgrading your software or peripheral equipment. And like the IBM PC after it, this bit IBM on the ass by allowing an open market to emerge where clones (Amdahl Computers, Hitachi) and third party peripheral manufactures to compete against IBM. (This is where the term FUD originates... Amdahl, one of the original 360 architects who left to found a clone manufacturer, created the term FUD to describe aggressive IBM sales tactics to discredit third parties and intimidate customers into staying with IBM.)
I have no idea if the flight computers are still the same or not, but NASA long ago ditched their 360 complex for flight operations. (I think it was in use roughly until the mid 80s? Maybe early 90s?)
At least, I have access to my files. But, I'm using the old 2.0 app... not the beta web front end. Not to pick nits, but thought I'd mention it since everyone is jumping down their throat on the web service availability issue...
Re:They ignored the Bonnie MacBird/Alan Kay bit!
on
The Story of Tron
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· Score: 1
I guess probably those of us who'd found Tron interesting to begin with... (I.e. Those of us predisposed to computer nerd hero worship.) Who would've thought that I'd be outed on Slashdot for that? Oh, well...
They ignored the Bonnie MacBird/Alan Kay bit!
on
The Story of Tron
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· Score: 1
An interesting side note: Bonnie MacBird wrote a couple of the drafts of the Tron script, calling on Alan Kay (then hailing from PARC) for technical consulting and inspiration. (One of the characters is named after him.) She seldom gets any recognition for her work on the project (I've only ever heard Lisberger acknowledge that Alan Kay was an "inspiring force" for the film, while totally ignoring her). But, at least she got something out of the deal... she and Kay got hitched some time thereafter. Anyway, just an iteresting aside...
Does Blue Gene account for more than 1% of IBM's server sales? Otherwise I don't see how your post relates to the AC's at all.
I think the intention was to counter the original AC's assertion that IBM is just using Linux for hype by pointing out that Blue Gene, a very high-profile and important project for IBM, is tied to Linux. (The implication being that for a projet that is clearly important to IBM, they're not just talking the talk, so to speak.) I'm actually more curious about where the "less than 1%" figure comes from...
That could be true, too. I suppose it would make implementing a number of the WinAPIs easier, not to mention faster.:)
I haven't looked at the Wine source (and probably can't), and didn't mean to imply one way or another the correctness of the Wine implementation of the mentioned APIs... I have some familiarity with Win32 underpinnings, and had only intended on commenting on the validity of the tests (memory/CPU) themselves as having a quantifiable performance component, as there is actually measurable work being done in Windows for those related APIs.
Re:These tests don't really put Wine in a good lig
on
Wine vs Windows Benchmarks
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· Score: 2, Informative
Presumably, the memory tests deal with the various OS-level Alloc's (HeapAlloc, GlobalAlloc, LocalAlloc, VirtualAlloc, etc...), which include fault protection checking, SACL checking, and other safety features. The reason that Wine performs better is that either they have implemented a faster version of the WinXX memory management APIs, or that the underlying Linux memory management is faster and the cost of the Wine wrapping calls is negligible. Same for the CPU-related tests... Just as memory is a managed resource in the WinAPI world, so is the CPU (also having SACLs/DACLs to check, and threading/fiber management, etc...)
I know this is repeat info for most people, but for the newbies...
There's actually an online application database where people have submitted their experiences/successes in getting Windows apps to run under Wine. If you want to see how well Office 2k3 works under Wine, this'd be the first place to look. Conversely, if you have success running a given Windows app, be sure to submit your experiences. Feedback to the App DB not only helps other Wine users, but is helpful feedback for Wine developers on outstanding compatibility issues.
It's not just manufacturing... Development jobs have been slashed. I don't buy that the IBM VP's claim that they're trying to get more skilled workers and not just pay less in wages. Almost everyone that I know that have been laid off have had to train their replacements or forefit their separation package. So, at least some knowledge transfer needs to happen from these supposedly unskilled workers...
This probably won't get seen since this subject is near post starvation, plus I hate the kneejerk "Just Open-Source" it reaction to sunsetting technology. But... Why not follow the AMSAT model, and allow the public to do the work of data collection? The AMSAT community follows this model: Access to control functions are considered priviledged (to prevent some jackass from causing a bird to go silent), but homebrew stations around the world collect telemetry and send it to a centralized repository for aggregation. I know that building a homebrew radio telescope that is capable of picking up such a weak signal (all of the AMSAT satellites are local). But, I'm sure there are more than a few folks on Slashdot alone with the resources, inclination, and land to try! To be honest, I've always wondered why NASA doesn't release the downlink information for some of the mothballed birds up there... (Pioneer 6, for instance... I think it's 6... The one that's in the La Garagne region between Earth and Venus, and is supposed to be the oldest functioning satellite currently out there...) If I'm not mistaken, NASA *does* actually publish the encoding scheme for it's satellites, as well as provide access to the raw tapes for some of the older satellites. I seem to remember that someone had implemented a decoder app for one of the Mariner probes that sucessfully decodes (and error corrects) the raw signal from NASA's archives. Anyway, wondering back to the original point... IF some of our fellow nerds can build a homebrew radio telescope capable of picking up the distant signal, and IF NASA would provide the downlink information, and IF a centralized repository for data aggregation can be established, they could effectively cut back or eliminate listening time from their budget. They'd just have to invest in uplink time when transmitting control commands.
If you're reading the live commentary, there's an interesting quote:
* Jobs says "Maybe some of you noticed something on the Net... funny thing happened on our Web site. Premature specification. It was a mistake, and it is true."
Since Rhapsody had the benefit of inheriting the IA-32 OpenSTEP drivers, it wasn't all that bad... I had DR2 running on three test machines of various configurations without any hardware issues. Of course, maybe that's because I never req'd hardware from "unreputable" vendors.;)
Can't speak for Darwin, though. It's current incarnation is a looong way from DR2 and even the first OS X Server in '99...
Actually, at one point in time it did run on ia-32 machines... Back when it was called Rhapsody. After developer release 2, Jobs made the call to reign in the intel version. Oh, and Darwin currently runs in intel, too...
BTW, when I messed around with the last Rhapsody release on Intel, it wasn't slow. (It was much more pleasant to develop WebObjects code in Rhapsody DR2 than using yellow box on NT...)
Not explicitly OS independant...
on
What is .NET?
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· Score: 1
If you look at the MS documentation, they pretty readily mention the language agnostic aspects of.NET, but I've *never* seen them mention the OS independant thing... Since they're essentially using bytecode, everyone assumes that.NET is platform agnostic, as well. But... so was Microsoft's implementation of Java. Which was not 100% cross-platform compliant. Now that the spec is in the hands of an organization that can't legally enforce 100% compliance, my question is, how does this help me as a developer? There's just as much opportunity for divergence as if I were using language-centric approach.
Mac users have been able to support a few different game porting companies. Loki should shift it's focus to Mac porting, with Linux porting as a secondary priority. Maybe this would keep them profitable enough to support Linux porting efforts... This is really sad, though. I bought several of their games from EB when the prices were lowered to $10, and found them all to be top notch ports.
Many of the comments here summarize all that I hate about the software development field. First, never, ever, ever, *ever* beat anyone over the head for being honest about delays. Always let developers be upfront. Second, the "point-oh" thing used to mean that "this software meets the functionality specified in the RCS for this version." The "build number" let's-give-them-a-compile-drop mentality that Microsoft has pushed on us has put software engineering standards a few generations, and I find it funny that Slashdot is officially sanctioning it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Runaway" was a near-future movie about a police division that dealt with hacked robots that starred Tom Selleck and was written and directed by Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park fame). The thrust of the main plot was about a terrorist that devised a hack that turned service robots into killing machines...
So, is the point here that infrastructure costs are far cheaper in the United States because average population per unit of surface area is much less, thus imposing far lighter demand on infrastructure (since cable throughput will reach its saturation point per node much quicker with far more people per unit of surface area)?
You can't crash the car if you don't turn the key and back out of the driveway... so to speak.
1. The author implies that by matching sales roughly by the XBox 360 at the same point in it's lifecycle, even though at the same point the 360 was "supply-constrained" and the PS3 is not, the console can be considered "semi-successful" because it is $200 more. First, I don't want to throw in with the "semi-successful" brand when dropping a couple hundred on a new system. Second, that's great for Sony's bottom line, but poison for third-party support. They don't care how much more Sony makes per unit shifted. They're only concerned about their own sales volume. The author implies that because consumers are willing to drop $200 more on the PS3 that the "supply-constrained" sales figures of the 360 at the same point, the "supply-constrained" aspect is somehow nullified. That's reaching, but ultimately none of this matters. If the PS3 can't achieve an installed user base greater than the 360, developers aren't going to focus on the PS3 platform since it won't make as much money.
2. Sony's figures represent units sold to retail, not sold through to consumers. So, included in their figures are all the PS3's that are sitting on store shelves, not installed units. Other platforms quote actual sale-through figures and represent installed units.
... in the 80's when it was viewed as a sinner's disease, and prevented any research from happening and blocked any possible treatment that infringed on "their" patent. Patents used for political purposes scare the piss out of me, even as a defensive countermeasure against lawsuits (the corporate equivalent of Mutually-Assured Destruction: If you sue me for A, I'll sue you for B, C, and D...)
If I recall, the shuttle computers were originally based on the IBM 360 (or maybe 370) mainframe architecture standard. The 360 series was the first real effort at standardization of components and instruction set so that upgrading your machine does not mean upgrading your software or peripheral equipment. And like the IBM PC after it, this bit IBM on the ass by allowing an open market to emerge where clones (Amdahl Computers, Hitachi) and third party peripheral manufactures to compete against IBM. (This is where the term FUD originates... Amdahl, one of the original 360 architects who left to found a clone manufacturer, created the term FUD to describe aggressive IBM sales tactics to discredit third parties and intimidate customers into staying with IBM.)
I have no idea if the flight computers are still the same or not, but NASA long ago ditched their 360 complex for flight operations. (I think it was in use roughly until the mid 80s? Maybe early 90s?)
At least, I have access to my files. But, I'm using the old 2.0 app... not the beta web front end. Not to pick nits, but thought I'd mention it since everyone is jumping down their throat on the web service availability issue...
I guess probably those of us who'd found Tron interesting to begin with... (I.e. Those of us predisposed to computer nerd hero worship.) Who would've thought that I'd be outed on Slashdot for that? Oh, well...
An interesting side note: Bonnie MacBird wrote a couple of the drafts of the Tron script, calling on Alan Kay (then hailing from PARC) for technical consulting and inspiration. (One of the characters is named after him.) She seldom gets any recognition for her work on the project (I've only ever heard Lisberger acknowledge that Alan Kay was an "inspiring force" for the film, while totally ignoring her). But, at least she got something out of the deal... she and Kay got hitched some time thereafter. Anyway, just an iteresting aside...
I think the intention was to counter the original AC's assertion that IBM is just using Linux for hype by pointing out that Blue Gene, a very high-profile and important project for IBM, is tied to Linux. (The implication being that for a projet that is clearly important to IBM, they're not just talking the talk, so to speak.) I'm actually more curious about where the "less than 1%" figure comes from...
That could be true, too. I suppose it would make implementing a number of the WinAPIs easier, not to mention faster. :)
I haven't looked at the Wine source (and probably can't), and didn't mean to imply one way or another the correctness of the Wine implementation of the mentioned APIs... I have some familiarity with Win32 underpinnings, and had only intended on commenting on the validity of the tests (memory/CPU) themselves as having a quantifiable performance component, as there is actually measurable work being done in Windows for those related APIs.
Presumably, the memory tests deal with the various OS-level Alloc's (HeapAlloc, GlobalAlloc, LocalAlloc, VirtualAlloc, etc...), which include fault protection checking, SACL checking, and other safety features. The reason that Wine performs better is that either they have implemented a faster version of the WinXX memory management APIs, or that the underlying Linux memory management is faster and the cost of the Wine wrapping calls is negligible. Same for the CPU-related tests... Just as memory is a managed resource in the WinAPI world, so is the CPU (also having SACLs/DACLs to check, and threading/fiber management, etc...)
I know this is repeat info for most people, but for the newbies...
There's actually an online application database where people have submitted their experiences/successes in getting Windows apps to run under Wine. If you want to see how well Office 2k3 works under Wine, this'd be the first place to look. Conversely, if you have success running a given Windows app, be sure to submit your experiences. Feedback to the App DB not only helps other Wine users, but is helpful feedback for Wine developers on outstanding compatibility issues.
The URL is: http://appdb.winehq.org/
It's not just manufacturing... Development jobs have been slashed. I don't buy that the IBM VP's claim that they're trying to get more skilled workers and not just pay less in wages. Almost everyone that I know that have been laid off have had to train their replacements or forefit their separation package. So, at least some knowledge transfer needs to happen from these supposedly unskilled workers...
The spacecraft is missing... It's kind of poetic that the article reporting that fact would be missing, too.
This probably won't get seen since this subject is near post starvation, plus I hate the kneejerk "Just Open-Source" it reaction to sunsetting technology. But...
Why not follow the AMSAT model, and allow the public to do the work of data collection? The AMSAT community follows this model: Access to control functions are considered priviledged (to prevent some jackass from causing a bird to go silent), but homebrew stations around the world collect telemetry and send it to a centralized repository for aggregation.
I know that building a homebrew radio telescope that is capable of picking up such a weak signal (all of the AMSAT satellites are local). But, I'm sure there are more than a few folks on Slashdot alone with the resources, inclination, and land to try!
To be honest, I've always wondered why NASA doesn't release the downlink information for some of the mothballed birds up there... (Pioneer 6, for instance... I think it's 6... The one that's in the La Garagne region between Earth and Venus, and is supposed to be the oldest functioning satellite currently out there...)
If I'm not mistaken, NASA *does* actually publish the encoding scheme for it's satellites, as well as provide access to the raw tapes for some of the older satellites. I seem to remember that someone had implemented a decoder app for one of the Mariner probes that sucessfully decodes (and error corrects) the raw signal from NASA's archives.
Anyway, wondering back to the original point... IF some of our fellow nerds can build a homebrew radio telescope capable of picking up the distant signal, and IF NASA would provide the downlink information, and IF a centralized repository for data aggregation can be established, they could effectively cut back or eliminate listening time from their budget. They'd just have to invest in uplink time when transmitting control commands.
The beta comes with instructions to integrate with both XCode and Project Builder. Just check in: /opt/ibmcmp/vac/6.0/samples/macide.pdf
If you're reading the live commentary, there's an interesting quote:
... funny thing happened on our Web site. Premature specification. It was a mistake, and it is true."
* Jobs says "Maybe some of you noticed something on the Net
Since Rhapsody had the benefit of inheriting the IA-32 OpenSTEP drivers, it wasn't all that bad... I had DR2 running on three test machines of various configurations without any hardware issues. Of course, maybe that's because I never req'd hardware from "unreputable" vendors. ;)
Can't speak for Darwin, though. It's current incarnation is a looong way from DR2 and even the first OS X Server in '99...
Actually, at one point in time it did run on ia-32 machines... Back when it was called Rhapsody. After developer release 2, Jobs made the call to reign in the intel version. Oh, and Darwin currently runs in intel, too...
BTW, when I messed around with the last Rhapsody release on Intel, it wasn't slow. (It was much more pleasant to develop WebObjects code in Rhapsody DR2 than using yellow box on NT...)
If you look at the MS documentation, they pretty readily mention the language agnostic aspects of .NET, but I've *never* seen them mention the OS independant thing... Since they're essentially using bytecode, everyone assumes that .NET is platform agnostic, as well. But... so was Microsoft's implementation of Java. Which was not 100% cross-platform compliant. Now that the spec is in the hands of an organization that can't legally enforce 100% compliance, my question is, how does this help me as a developer? There's just as much opportunity for divergence as if I were using language-centric approach.
Yes, it comes with the developer tools CD that ships with Mac OS X.
Mac users have been able to support a few different game porting companies. Loki should shift it's focus to Mac porting, with Linux porting as a secondary priority. Maybe this would keep them profitable enough to support Linux porting efforts... This is really sad, though. I bought several of their games from EB when the prices were lowered to $10, and found them all to be top notch ports.
"Must've hit pretty close to the mark to get Taco riled up like that..."
;)
Many of the comments here summarize all that I hate about the software development field. First, never, ever, ever, *ever* beat anyone over the head for being honest about delays. Always let developers be upfront. Second, the "point-oh" thing used to mean that "this software meets the functionality specified in the RCS for this version." The "build number" let's-give-them-a-compile-drop mentality that Microsoft has pushed on us has put software engineering standards a few generations, and I find it funny that Slashdot is officially sanctioning it.
Aargh!!!!