The problem is that here we get down to a case "who can afford better lawyers." If some huge multinational is dumping toxic sludge in backyard, and it ends up being me (or even me and my neighbors) against them, I'm probably going to lose (Erin Brokovitch notwithstanding.) I'm no fan of the present bureaucracy, but if we can agree that the point of the federal government is to protect the lives and rights of its citizens, well, then I think we need to recognize that certain regulating administrations (like the EPA) can not be done away with.
The point is not that LaRouche is or ever has been a Libertarian. The point is that he's insane. FWIW, I tend to agree with a fair number of Libertarian positions, but I could never vote for Libertarian, let alone join the party, because of nutcases like that.
I've often thought that IBM and Apple have some sort of agreement (possibly informal) to split up the POWER/PPC world. Apple gets desktops, workstations, and low-end servers; IBM gets high-end workstations and servers. (This would also explain why you don't see quad-proc hot-swappable G5 XServes, and why Apple hasn't really been pushing the G5 desktop as a technical/scientific workstation as much as they probably should.) But anyway, if you want 64-bit POWER, you should probably just buy a G5, and if you really want Linux, you could run Yellow Dog or Suse on it....
"Why not make a PCI version? Well, the PCI bus can't handle 64 16bit/48Khz audio streams, that's more bandwitdth than PCI has. It worked fine on soundstorm, thanks to the fast north-southbridge link. You could produce a PCIe 1x card version, but nvidia would have to re-engineer a good deal of the chip to do so, and then we are back to licensing anyway."
Ummm.... There are pro audio PCI cards which can do this. RME cards will do 24 96kHz 24-bit streams (which I guess would be equivalent to 40 or so 16-bit 48 kHz). Digi makes hardware to do up to 128 24-bit 192 kHz streams, but of course that's using custom DSPs. Anyway, the problem isn't the PCI bus, it's that gamers don't really need that much audio bandwidth.
The sad part is that most people just aren't as sensitive to sound quality. Witness the enormous numbers of people who honestly believe that MP3 (and Ogg, for that matter) sound as good as CD (and 16-bit 44.1 kHz still isn't great IMHO.) I'm a music teacher and audio engineer by profession. The other day, a student of mine was trying to convince me that his SB Audigy was a "pro" card. Seriously... Granted, my M-Audio (for the Linux box) and Digidesign (for the Mac) converters would be inappropriate for gaming, but you know audio is not a high priority for the average geek when they try to tell you that Creative makes professional-grade gear. (Disclaimer: I am an admitted audio snob, and I don't particularly care that much about graphics. My gaming takes place on an Athlon with an old S3 card [I removed the GeForce2 that was in it because it was introducing latency on the sound card], a Powerbook [yep] and a PS1).
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The problem is that here we get down to a case "who can afford better lawyers." If some huge multinational is dumping toxic sludge in backyard, and it ends up being me (or even me and my neighbors) against them, I'm probably going to lose (Erin Brokovitch notwithstanding.) I'm no fan of the present bureaucracy, but if we can agree that the point of the federal government is to protect the lives and rights of its citizens, well, then I think we need to recognize that certain regulating administrations (like the EPA) can not be done away with.
The point is not that LaRouche is or ever has been a Libertarian. The point is that he's insane. FWIW, I tend to agree with a fair number of Libertarian positions, but I could never vote for Libertarian, let alone join the party, because of nutcases like that.
I've often thought that IBM and Apple have some sort of agreement (possibly informal) to split up the POWER/PPC world. Apple gets desktops, workstations, and low-end servers; IBM gets high-end workstations and servers. (This would also explain why you don't see quad-proc hot-swappable G5 XServes, and why Apple hasn't really been pushing the G5 desktop as a technical/scientific workstation as much as they probably should.) But anyway, if you want 64-bit POWER, you should probably just buy a G5, and if you really want Linux, you could run Yellow Dog or Suse on it....
Ah, yeah, you forgot a few more: 9. I, for one, welcome our new miniature Pepper-Pad overlords! 10. All your web pad are belong to us.
"Why not make a PCI version? Well, the PCI bus can't handle 64 16bit/48Khz audio streams, that's more bandwitdth than PCI has. It worked fine on soundstorm, thanks to the fast north-southbridge link. You could produce a PCIe 1x card version, but nvidia would have to re-engineer a good deal of the chip to do so, and then we are back to licensing anyway." Ummm.... There are pro audio PCI cards which can do this. RME cards will do 24 96kHz 24-bit streams (which I guess would be equivalent to 40 or so 16-bit 48 kHz). Digi makes hardware to do up to 128 24-bit 192 kHz streams, but of course that's using custom DSPs. Anyway, the problem isn't the PCI bus, it's that gamers don't really need that much audio bandwidth.
Blind, all the way.....
The sad part is that most people just aren't as sensitive to sound quality. Witness the enormous numbers of people who honestly believe that MP3 (and Ogg, for that matter) sound as good as CD (and 16-bit 44.1 kHz still isn't great IMHO.) I'm a music teacher and audio engineer by profession. The other day, a student of mine was trying to convince me that his SB Audigy was a "pro" card. Seriously... Granted, my M-Audio (for the Linux box) and Digidesign (for the Mac) converters would be inappropriate for gaming, but you know audio is not a high priority for the average geek when they try to tell you that Creative makes professional-grade gear. (Disclaimer: I am an admitted audio snob, and I don't particularly care that much about graphics. My gaming takes place on an Athlon with an old S3 card [I removed the GeForce2 that was in it because it was introducing latency on the sound card], a Powerbook [yep] and a PS1).