If I'm not ever going to play the game again, why have it cluttering up my shelf?
I realize that I only got $3.50 for trading in a football game from last year, but I have the game from this year
When I beat FFX, I'd already completed just about all the goals, and knew the storyline - what's the point of the disc sitting on my shelf for 2-3 years
combine that with the fact that I always buy used games, and rarely pay more than $25 for one, as well as the fact that gamestop gives you a $10 credit if you trade in 3 games, trading in games when I buy new ones typically lowers my cost to stay entertained with older games (that I know don't suck) by 20%
before you knock golf course management, it's a lot more difficult than you might think - every golf course needs a manager, and the revenues of a golf club can swing millions depending on the quality of a manager
things like livestock management involve large amounts of statistics, and the process of maximizing livestock yields is very similar to that of maximizing semiconductor yields
if you want a major to pick on, there's always underwater basketweaving:P
ever had to make a change to every line in a test vector (up to several million lines long), but didn't have the half hour it would take to retranslate the whole thing? - has saved my ass more than anything I can think of also fun to do something like
For the residents:
Shoes, clothes, books, tools - should be enough to get you started
For you: Here's a short list of what I'd consider essential for demolition and cleanup work (I did this kind of work for ~5 years, but don't assume that this is comprehensive)
Comfortable clothes that you don't mind being ruined, large selection of tools (at a minimum, I'd recommend hammers (30oz framing hammer), drill, circular saw, chainsaw, reciprocating saw with lots of exta blades, wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes (not a leaf rake, the more sturdy kind), sledgehammers, crowbar, prybar, pitchfork, good pair of work gloves, large trash bags, cooler/thermos for water and face masks (surgical kind - good for keeping dust off) Past the basics, I'd recommend a generator (only if there is no power), air compressor, nail gun, jackhammer, and any other heavy demolition/cleanup type equipment you can get together
Even though this is slashdot, I'd probably recommend against taking any tech gadgets with the desire to any work with them
I'd also make sure that officials know you are coming and can direct you to areas where you can assist in the cleanup
FYI, there is an incredible amount of strategy that goes into racing these cars - (and they don't actually run until the batteries are dead) - the chase van has teams monitoring weather forecasts, road conditions, etc that are constantly deciding what the best speed to try to maintain is (IIRC, all the cars are capable of ~90mph, but average speeds are ~60mph)
So intel is going to build low power dsp and microcontroller type devices on a more efficient version of their current process node
Big Deal
Everyone does this
It would be RETARDED to build a chip designed for a cell phone on the same process node as a chip designed for a server - you tailor your process to help your chips perform their job better, not build chips that were designed with opposite goals in mind all on the same process
When you want ultra-high performance, you will lose some efficiency - the opposite is also true - this is a perfect example of how everything in engineering esp. semiconductors is a trade-off
Currently the company I work for has 3-4 different process flavors per process node, ranging from ultra high performance to ultra high efficiency, and even within the larger process flavor, tweaks are always performed to ensure chips are getting maximum speed/yield possible out of that specific process
Once you get to 65nm, if you don't have some pretty novel ways of reducing leakage, your leakage power alone can easily eat up 75+% of your power budget.
40kV isn't that high a static potential to have on your skin, though - IIRC, average potential on someone's skin is in the 1kV range, and you can easily increase the potential to the 250kV range with no ill effects (van de graff generator or something similar) - also, the man wouldn't leave "a trail of scorched carpet and melted plastic" - the first time he got within 1-2cm of a path to ground (doorknob, car door, just about anything would probably work) he would get small shock and all the charge that had been on his body would be discharged.
(just got ESD re-certified at work a couple of weeks ago, didn't expect it to come in handy)
Actually, it's pretty unlikely that they can ship any chips that fail their test flow - there are a few things that cause this:
1. redundant resources in RAMs - ensure you can fix any simple r/c type fails, if you have a block fail, disable half the cache and sell it
2. ECC on all the RAMs with any amount of size so you can ignore a few SBF (if you can't repair them out)
3. setting speed bins intelligently so that you don't hae fallout for slow units
Once you get through all this, all you really have left is logic fallout, which I have read limits Intel to 70-80% total yield on most of their products (although 20% is not bad for prototyping, and there are some extremely large chips that are designed with even lower yields in mind). For comparison, a DSP/microcontroller/analog chip that has an extremely small die size can yield >99%
BTW, the substrates that Intel uses on the LGA775 parts (the piece of ceramic that the die is attached to) costs $30-40, plus the lid on the part is $5-10 - that by itself puts the price of the part in the $50 range, even before you add in manufacturing costs
I have accidentally printed out straightline test vectors for a 2 meg cache - it's something like 20M operations, each operation takes a line, each line stretches across about 10 pages...
I printed out ~1000 pages over half an hour or so...
On a more practical note, who set up the print room so that anyone can print on them?
FYI, google is a fairly poor technical reference if you want more than a few sentences, that are usable in any kind of serious research.
I completed writing a thesis about a year ago, and had ~25 references - about 10 were books, another 10 were from journals (some looked up online, some dug out of actual paper copies), and the remaining handful were references found online. I wrote my thesis sitting in the library on campus, 1-2 rows over from several shelves that had a huge number of references on my subject (semiconductor reliability) - before I did this, I had spent several weeks searching for the exact material that I found (using the Dewey Decimal System no less) on the web.
so... Intel is going to make an x86 version of Niagara, or is supposed to be more like Rock [also a next gen SPARC, but much higher single core performance]?
Although these should be excellent architectures, they would both be massively overpowered for any kind of desktop [or even most workstation] applications - if designed correctly, a system with the kind of processor you're proposing should provide a huge performance increase in overall throughput at the expense of single thread performance - this kind of processor is probably NOT that appealing to the general public, who will just notice that this new computer that cost 2x their old one doesn't launch internet explorer any faster, or let them run games any faster.
Additionally, since standard versions of XP/Longhorn only provide SMP/CMT/CMP/whatever the hell the acronym support of up to 2 processors, you wouldn't be able to use windows on the processor you're proposing, making this even less of a viable replacement for the pentium.
While this could be a great processor, it doesn't make much sense as a desktop processor, only in servers or HPC type applications.
if you go to consumerreports.com, you can get access to all their ratings - you do have to purchase a membership, but at $4.95/month, it's not a bad premium at all if you just want to do a little quick research...
The only real problem with this is that people are most likely to post feedback only when the person is pissing them off, so almost everyone's ratings would be skewed, due to this negative bias...
Phone companies are required to patch through 911 calls, regardless of whether the line is active or not.
Since the 911 phone is only for the power is out/house is on fire/someone has a heart attack/whatever, have a phone (non cordless, so it's not dependent on whether the power is on) connected to the land-line, and use it for the emergency calls.
Considering the fact you shouldn't be calling 911 all that often (hopefully - I think I've dialed it twice in the last 10 years), this should be a fairly workable solution...
FYI, average costs of a new engineering text are~ $160-180
I think I had 1 semester in college where I managed to stay under $500 on books alone...
Oh, and to doubly fuck you over, there is a new edition every 2-3 semesters (whenever the used market gets saturated) that doesn't fix any of the errors, just changes all the problems at the end of the chapter so if you manage to find a previous edition, you also have to borrow someone else's book to do any homework
Not true, solar panels should have a break-even point of about 2 years. Couple this with an expected lifetime of >20 years (If you're in an area where you don't get much severe weather, this could be easily double).
In addition, semiconductor manufacturing processes do not create nearly the amount of pollutants as in years past, and most manufacturers have very aggressive recycling policies (the company I work for recycles 85-90% of all our waste)
That said, a hybrid/electric vehicle, more efficient appliances, even better insulation would probably provide a quicker ROI.
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm not ever going to play the game again, why have it cluttering up my shelf?
I realize that I only got $3.50 for trading in a football game from last year, but I have the game from this year
When I beat FFX, I'd already completed just about all the goals, and knew the storyline - what's the point of the disc sitting on my shelf for 2-3 years
combine that with the fact that I always buy used games, and rarely pay more than $25 for one, as well as the fact that gamestop gives you a $10 credit if you trade in 3 games, trading in games when I buy new ones typically lowers my cost to stay entertained with older games (that I know don't suck) by 20%
before you knock golf course management, it's a lot more difficult than you might think - every golf course needs a manager, and the revenues of a golf club can swing millions depending on the quality of a manager
:P
things like livestock management involve large amounts of statistics, and the process of maximizing livestock yields is very similar to that of maximizing semiconductor yields
if you want a major to pick on, there's always underwater basketweaving
perl -pi -e "s/x/y"
ever had to make a change to every line in a test vector (up to several million lines long), but didn't have the half hour it would take to retranslate the whole thing? - has saved my ass more than anything I can think of
also fun to do something like
perl -pi -e "s/(alias \w) \'.+\'/$1 \'echo \"DFU DFU DFU\"/g ~user/.aliases
For the residents:
Shoes, clothes, books, tools - should be enough to get you started
For you:
Here's a short list of what I'd consider essential for demolition and cleanup work (I did this kind of work for ~5 years, but don't assume that this is comprehensive)
Comfortable clothes that you don't mind being ruined, large selection of tools (at a minimum, I'd recommend hammers (30oz framing hammer), drill, circular saw, chainsaw, reciprocating saw with lots of exta blades, wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes (not a leaf rake, the more sturdy kind), sledgehammers, crowbar, prybar, pitchfork, good pair of work gloves, large trash bags, cooler/thermos for water and face masks (surgical kind - good for keeping dust off)
Past the basics, I'd recommend a generator (only if there is no power), air compressor, nail gun, jackhammer, and any other heavy demolition/cleanup type equipment you can get together
Even though this is slashdot, I'd probably recommend against taking any tech gadgets with the desire to any work with them
I'd also make sure that officials know you are coming and can direct you to areas where you can assist in the cleanup
FYI, there is an incredible amount of strategy that goes into racing these cars - (and they don't actually run until the batteries are dead) - the chase van has teams monitoring weather forecasts, road conditions, etc that are constantly deciding what the best speed to try to maintain is (IIRC, all the cars are capable of ~90mph, but average speeds are ~60mph)
So intel is going to build low power dsp and microcontroller type devices on a more efficient version of their current process node
Big Deal
Everyone does this
It would be RETARDED to build a chip designed for a cell phone on the same process node as a chip designed for a server - you tailor your process to help your chips perform their job better, not build chips that were designed with opposite goals in mind all on the same process
When you want ultra-high performance, you will lose some efficiency - the opposite is also true - this is a perfect example of how everything in engineering esp. semiconductors is a trade-off
Currently the company I work for has 3-4 different process flavors per process node, ranging from ultra high performance to ultra high efficiency, and even within the larger process flavor, tweaks are always performed to ensure chips are getting maximum speed/yield possible out of that specific process
Once you get to 65nm, if you don't have some pretty novel ways of reducing leakage, your leakage power alone can easily eat up 75+% of your power budget.
40kV isn't that high a static potential to have on your skin, though - IIRC, average potential on someone's skin is in the 1kV range, and you can easily increase the potential to the 250kV range with no ill effects (van de graff generator or something similar) - also, the man wouldn't leave "a trail of scorched carpet and melted plastic" - the first time he got within 1-2cm of a path to ground (doorknob, car door, just about anything would probably work) he would get small shock and all the charge that had been on his body would be discharged.
(just got ESD re-certified at work a couple of weeks ago, didn't expect it to come in handy)
except that there's no way a P-IV costs $40 to make, when the substrate + lid is in the $35 range...
use mouse gestures - only closes the active tab...
The best extension I've used on mozilla/firefox/opera, and the main reason I switched
http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures
Actually, it's pretty unlikely that they can ship any chips that fail their test flow - there are a few things that cause this:
1. redundant resources in RAMs - ensure you can fix any simple r/c type fails, if you have a block fail, disable half the cache and sell it
2. ECC on all the RAMs with any amount of size so you can ignore a few SBF (if you can't repair them out)
3. setting speed bins intelligently so that you don't hae fallout for slow units
Once you get through all this, all you really have left is logic fallout, which I have read limits Intel to 70-80% total yield on most of their products (although 20% is not bad for prototyping, and there are some extremely large chips that are designed with even lower yields in mind). For comparison, a DSP/microcontroller/analog chip that has an extremely small die size can yield >99%
BTW, the substrates that Intel uses on the LGA775 parts (the piece of ceramic that the die is attached to) costs $30-40, plus the lid on the part is $5-10 - that by itself puts the price of the part in the $50 range, even before you add in manufacturing costs
besides, have you ever tried to get coins out of it when you're standing in line?
Good God! I have pretty small fingers and still can't manage it without looking like a clown...
I have accidentally printed out straightline test vectors for a 2 meg cache - it's something like 20M operations, each operation takes a line, each line stretches across about 10 pages...
I printed out ~1000 pages over half an hour or so...
On a more practical note, who set up the print room so that anyone can print on them?
FYI, google is a fairly poor technical reference if you want more than a few sentences, that are usable in any kind of serious research.
I completed writing a thesis about a year ago, and had ~25 references - about 10 were books, another 10 were from journals (some looked up online, some dug out of actual paper copies), and the remaining handful were references found online. I wrote my thesis sitting in the library on campus, 1-2 rows over from several shelves that had a huge number of references on my subject (semiconductor reliability) - before I did this, I had spent several weeks searching for the exact material that I found (using the Dewey Decimal System no less) on the web.
hope the government doesn't decide all those virtual murders and animal cruelty cases aren't wrong...
so... Intel is going to make an x86 version of Niagara, or is supposed to be more like Rock [also a next gen SPARC, but much higher single core performance]?
Although these should be excellent architectures, they would both be massively overpowered for any kind of desktop [or even most workstation] applications - if designed correctly, a system with the kind of processor you're proposing should provide a huge performance increase in overall throughput at the expense of single thread performance - this kind of processor is probably NOT that appealing to the general public, who will just notice that this new computer that cost 2x their old one doesn't launch internet explorer any faster, or let them run games any faster.
Additionally, since standard versions of XP/Longhorn only provide SMP/CMT/CMP/whatever the hell the acronym support of up to 2 processors, you wouldn't be able to use windows on the processor you're proposing, making this even less of a viable replacement for the pentium.
While this could be a great processor, it doesn't make much sense as a desktop processor, only in servers or HPC type applications.
if you go to consumerreports.com, you can get access to all their ratings - you do have to purchase a membership, but at $4.95/month, it's not a bad premium at all if you just want to do a little quick research...
The only real problem with this is that people are most likely to post feedback only when the person is pissing them off, so almost everyone's ratings would be skewed, due to this negative bias...
Yet the senator who proposed the bill is a Democrat, who Christian groups rated as voting 16% pro-family...
The problem is that is illegal, per the federal "payola laws"
http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm
The laws are there to give independent labels, that aren't flush with cash, a chance vs. the large labels
Phone companies are required to patch through 911 calls, regardless of whether the line is active or not.
Since the 911 phone is only for the power is out/house is on fire/someone has a heart attack/whatever, have a phone (non cordless, so it's not dependent on whether the power is on) connected to the land-line, and use it for the emergency calls.
Considering the fact you shouldn't be calling 911 all that often (hopefully - I think I've dialed it twice in the last 10 years), this should be a fairly workable solution...
I can think of a lot better reasons to not shop at walmart, other than the fact they don't carry non-kid approved stuff...
Same reason walmart won't stock music with a parental advisory sticker, doesn't sell Playboy at the magazine rack, doesn't carry NC-17 movies, etc.
Their corporate policy is to not stock things of poor moral value, and for the most part, it is pretty much limited to the previously mentioned items.
FYI, average costs of a new engineering text are~ $160-180
I think I had 1 semester in college where I managed to stay under $500 on books alone...
Oh, and to doubly fuck you over, there is a new edition every 2-3 semesters (whenever the used market gets saturated) that doesn't fix any of the errors, just changes all the problems at the end of the chapter so if you manage to find a previous edition, you also have to borrow someone else's book to do any homework
Hell, I live in Houston, and if I go to Blockbuster, it's a minimum of half an hour (5 minutes there/back, 10 to pick, 10 to stand inline)
Not true, solar panels should have a break-even point of about 2 years. Couple this with an expected lifetime of >20 years (If you're in an area where you don't get much severe weather, this could be easily double).
http://www.solarbus.org/documents/pvpayback.pdf
In addition, semiconductor manufacturing processes do not create nearly the amount of pollutants as in years past, and most manufacturers have very aggressive recycling policies (the company I work for recycles 85-90% of all our waste)
That said, a hybrid/electric vehicle, more efficient appliances, even better insulation would probably provide a quicker ROI.
Good Luck!