Yeah but some companies like to have 'defensive' patents, used like currency... ie, say that companies can't use yours unless you can use theirs, or pull out patents to counter sue those who attack you for using theirs... etc
"they are responsible to the shareholders now and can be sued for such behaivor"
They're responsible for certain things, such as losing the shareholders money due to neglect or illegal activities, but there's nothing that says they have to make as much money as possible doing anything humanly possible, moving into any markets that might just take them. This whole "corps can be sued for not being responsible to their shareholders" thing gets taken so out of context
"but to be honest I'd much rather discuss why I think the OP was wrong"
rational discussion doesn't seem to happen here on slashdot much, always gotta grab the opportunity when it arises:-) but you can understand why I spoke out, even my original post has now been modded troll, when I was actually tring to bring some fairness and unbias into the discussion. It makes it difficult to take 'troll' mods to any post that goes against the ingrained-slashdot-opinion seriously, as it seems to be abused far too often.
Think I'm gonna have to go start my own slashdot, with blackjack, and hookers... in fact, forget the slashdot and the blackjack:-p
I don't think so... it doesn't matter how intelligent something is, it can only work through it's "body" (or whatever interface it's given). The most intelligent system ever is no threat if it can only roll forwards, backwards, detect dust, and suck it up (yeah, I need to vac my room!).
As for moral issues, it would be a problem if they were created with the ability to feel pain/unhappiness/etc and forced into being slaves, but if they were only programmed to want to do those things... no problem.
The "so many people out of work" issue... well I think we wanna be a productive race, that means using the best tools for each job... if that's a person, so be it, if not, we can't slow ourselves down to allow those at the back to keep up. It's anti-evolutionary and anti-progression. Even if it does feel bad to move on forwards without everyone... but I don't wanna get too much into this:-p it's too touchy and difficult to say what you mean, I can see it starting a flamewar!
"compares windows 2000 to latest linux distros (5-6 year difference depending on distro)"
I think this is fair... with all the changes to library loading (that gave KDE a big app-load-time boost), with X, right down to the kernel (CFQ disk schedular, changes to caching etc), linux is getting much faster.
Windows peaked at 2000. Since then, it's been filled with crap that more than outweighs any improvements in it. In short, Windows is getting slower.
I don't use anything but the latest from the linux world (all self compiled LFS style)... but there's no way I'd do the same with windows.
Anyway thanks for your reply, as long as it wasn't a kneejerk reaction to someone saying "windows ain't slow" I'll take back what I said, I guess we just read it in different ways:-)
"Is this not the reason why cpu's are also slow and expensive (compared to gpu's)"
They're not - they do completely different things in completely different ways. A GPU does a TINY amount of what a CPU can do, but the whole thing is designed being able to specifically do those things.
But yes, the x86 line of CPU's are (generally) fully backwards compatible back to the 8088/8086. This is done more thru an emulation type layer, which converts the CISC instructions into it's own internal RISC micro-ops. I think they've become quite good at this, so there's probably not too much of a performance hit, but I'm guessing... there may well be.
Well it pretty much already is, they're called 'subsystems'... one for Win16 support, one for OS/2 support etc. But it's not so much emulation, as providing different API's through different libraries, loaded and shared when they're needed... just as WINE is (as we know, Wine Is Not an Emulator).
Re:This isn't why Windows is slow...
on
Why Windows is Slow
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Legacy support could include being able to run DOS, Win16, OS2 applications, switch to realmode to perform some BIOS functions should the need occur, etc.
There's also code in place to check for old pieces of software which wouldn't otherwise work with newer versions of windows, eg:
I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.
Come on mods, you can't mod something as 'troll' just because you disagree with it, that's not what 'troll' is for!
I use Win2K on my laptop (servers run linux - keeping windows away from them!) and I have absolutely no problem with it's speed.
Yes, I'm using 2K not XP. XP, I do find slow. Not in it's actual "doing stuff" speed, but the fact that you get so many "are you sure?" warnings and "yes, really / um, maybe not" dialog boxes, that it slows things right down.
And most of the time, on equal hardware, windows DOES feel more responsive than a linux desktop. Of cause, IRQ/threading issues can mean that a windows machine may seem to be slowed down greater when using slower devices (eg, getting something from CD/network/USB etc in an explorer window can mean you lose responsiveness of the whole taskbar/start menu), but at the same time, windows seems to handle losing a mounted network share much better than linux (in mine and by the sounds of it, many others experience).
The gap's certainly closing from both sides performance wise... if you want to have a go at how slow Windows is, let's all point at it's development/release time. Lagacy support, it's huge codebase etc, all play a role here.
flamebait *lol* so there's actually ppl out there who'd disagree? Well if could mod the moderation, I'd mod it +1 informative, cuz I really didn't know!
Re:Manned exploration is a stupid vanity project
on
US Plans Lunar Motel
·
· Score: 1
"You can't convince me-especially with the way they are going about it- this isn't a pie in the pie sky venture for the forseeable future"
They're talking about 2020, that's some 14years of R&D time. 14 years is the unforseeable future, as far as the technical advances we can make over that period of time are concerned.
"Next your gonna tell me you want to replace nature and billions of years of evolution, employ terraforming and colonize mars."
Terraforming is a lil more out of reach than this going to the moon, but no I probably wouldn't bother, I can guess the type of response I'd get.
You could skip the atom layer, and just code the neurons... properties of neurons could possibly eveen be easier to code than atomic simulation ('tho couldn't say for sure). You could probably learn a fair amount by doing that too, not so much about intelligence, but in the way that information passes around the brain.
NUMA code does something similar, but that's generally more to do with when memory has different latancies due to being connected via other CPU's (eg, in clusters).
Vista sounds like it's going to [attempt to] do something similar to what you say, where it can use solid state storing (eg, thru usb2) as almost a level-1 swap (then l2 swap would be on the slower harddrive).
This is pretty much just the low end of the stack of what l1 cache - l2 cache - main memory is.
I was more answering the question than directing it at you... ie, at all the people who seriously do ask the question. I am glad that you didn't mean it tho;-)
Yes I know this goes somewhat against the grain, but try shrinking your swap right down (max 128meg or something)... then, you get OOM messages, at which point you can close/reopen apps, rather than losing control of the system as it grinds to a halt trying to swap constantly.
This might not be so important in your (and possible, in most) case[s]. The server's I run I admin remotely. A runaway script can eat through the swap, slowing things to such a halt that logging in, finding the process, and killing it, can become next to impossible.
The smaller the swap, the less time there is before a runaway script (or memory leaking app) will run before the OOM killer gets it.
(I know this isn't really relevant stuff... I'm avoiding doing work:-/)
how does you asking your question help our lives "at all"?
Re:Manned exploration is a stupid vanity project
on
US Plans Lunar Motel
·
· Score: 1
"As for the money not going into space..AYAFI? where is the money going then, in my account?"
You're absolutely correct, all money that doesn't go into your account must be going into space. There's no way it could be going into people's accounts who are working on the project or anything like that, for them to then spend here, on earth. They load up the rockets with $5 bills and BLAST them into space, where they can never be spent on anything. Oh yes, how stupid I am.
"but I'm not impressed that they were suprised by the thermometer melting"
It was in liquid water at the time, which changes things somewhat. Also, whilst drilling into the "volcano", they're only drilling into rock, not into the magma, so the danger isn't what you imagine.
Slashdot Mirror
I was on about different patents, a patent-exchange type thing.
Yeah but some companies like to have 'defensive' patents, used like currency ... ie, say that companies can't use yours unless you can use theirs, or pull out patents to counter sue those who attack you for using theirs... etc
"they are responsible to the shareholders now and can be sued for such behaivor"
They're responsible for certain things, such as losing the shareholders money due to neglect or illegal activities, but there's nothing that says they have to make as much money as possible doing anything humanly possible, moving into any markets that might just take them. This whole "corps can be sued for not being responsible to their shareholders" thing gets taken so out of context
"but to be honest I'd much rather discuss why I think the OP was wrong"
:-) but you can understand why I spoke out, even my original post has now been modded troll, when I was actually tring to bring some fairness and unbias into the discussion. It makes it difficult to take 'troll' mods to any post that goes against the ingrained-slashdot-opinion seriously, as it seems to be abused far too often.
:-p
;-)
rational discussion doesn't seem to happen here on slashdot much, always gotta grab the opportunity when it arises
Think I'm gonna have to go start my own slashdot, with blackjack, and hookers... in fact, forget the slashdot and the blackjack
take it easy dude
I don't think so... it doesn't matter how intelligent something is, it can only work through it's "body" (or whatever interface it's given). The most intelligent system ever is no threat if it can only roll forwards, backwards, detect dust, and suck it up (yeah, I need to vac my room!).
:-p it's too touchy and difficult to say what you mean, I can see it starting a flamewar!
As for moral issues, it would be a problem if they were created with the ability to feel pain/unhappiness/etc and forced into being slaves, but if they were only programmed to want to do those things... no problem.
The "so many people out of work" issue... well I think we wanna be a productive race, that means using the best tools for each job... if that's a person, so be it, if not, we can't slow ourselves down to allow those at the back to keep up. It's anti-evolutionary and anti-progression. Even if it does feel bad to move on forwards without everyone... but I don't wanna get too much into this
"compares windows 2000 to latest linux distros (5-6 year difference depending on distro)"
:-)
I think this is fair... with all the changes to library loading (that gave KDE a big app-load-time boost), with X, right down to the kernel (CFQ disk schedular, changes to caching etc), linux is getting much faster.
Windows peaked at 2000. Since then, it's been filled with crap that more than outweighs any improvements in it. In short, Windows is getting slower.
I don't use anything but the latest from the linux world (all self compiled LFS style)... but there's no way I'd do the same with windows.
Anyway thanks for your reply, as long as it wasn't a kneejerk reaction to someone saying "windows ain't slow" I'll take back what I said, I guess we just read it in different ways
"Is this not the reason why cpu's are also slow and expensive (compared to gpu's)"
They're not - they do completely different things in completely different ways. A GPU does a TINY amount of what a CPU can do, but the whole thing is designed being able to specifically do those things.
But yes, the x86 line of CPU's are (generally) fully backwards compatible back to the 8088/8086. This is done more thru an emulation type layer, which converts the CISC instructions into it's own internal RISC micro-ops. I think they've become quite good at this, so there's probably not too much of a performance hit, but I'm guessing... there may well be.
"They fail to mention that their use of the word "software" only applies to M$ products"
1 2246
Absolutely not true - as to not repeat my last post:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/28/09
Well it pretty much already is, they're called 'subsystems'... one for Win16 support, one for OS/2 support etc. But it's not so much emulation, as providing different API's through different libraries, loaded and shared when they're needed... just as WINE is (as we know, Wine Is Not an Emulator).
Legacy support could include being able to run DOS, Win16, OS2 applications, switch to realmode to perform some BIOS functions should the need occur, etc.
l )
There's also code in place to check for old pieces of software which wouldn't otherwise work with newer versions of windows, eg:
I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.
(taken from http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.htm
These kinds of things are going to have an effect on performance, and an even greater effect on development time (windows, late again?)
Come on mods, you can't mod something as 'troll' just because you disagree with it, that's not what 'troll' is for!
I use Win2K on my laptop (servers run linux - keeping windows away from them!) and I have absolutely no problem with it's speed.
Yes, I'm using 2K not XP. XP, I do find slow. Not in it's actual "doing stuff" speed, but the fact that you get so many "are you sure?" warnings and "yes, really / um, maybe not" dialog boxes, that it slows things right down.
And most of the time, on equal hardware, windows DOES feel more responsive than a linux desktop. Of cause, IRQ/threading issues can mean that a windows machine may seem to be slowed down greater when using slower devices (eg, getting something from CD/network/USB etc in an explorer window can mean you lose responsiveness of the whole taskbar/start menu), but at the same time, windows seems to handle losing a mounted network share much better than linux (in mine and by the sounds of it, many others experience).
The gap's certainly closing from both sides performance wise... if you want to have a go at how slow Windows is, let's all point at it's development/release time. Lagacy support, it's huge codebase etc, all play a role here.
flamebait *lol* so there's actually ppl out there who'd disagree? Well if could mod the moderation, I'd mod it +1 informative, cuz I really didn't know!
"You can't convince me-especially with the way they are going about it- this isn't a pie in the pie sky venture for the forseeable future"
They're talking about 2020, that's some 14years of R&D time. 14 years is the unforseeable future, as far as the technical advances we can make over that period of time are concerned.
"Next your gonna tell me you want to replace nature and billions of years of evolution, employ terraforming and colonize mars."
Terraforming is a lil more out of reach than this going to the moon, but no I probably wouldn't bother, I can guess the type of response I'd get.
You could skip the atom layer, and just code the neurons... properties of neurons could possibly eveen be easier to code than atomic simulation ('tho couldn't say for sure). You could probably learn a fair amount by doing that too, not so much about intelligence, but in the way that information passes around the brain.
"but you can't use a fraction of the word"
;-)
you've obviously never heard one of bush's speeches
That's cuz they've not cared about building loads of industrious polluting stuff because they know it all ends in 2050
NUMA code does something similar, but that's generally more to do with when memory has different latancies due to being connected via other CPU's (eg, in clusters).
Vista sounds like it's going to [attempt to] do something similar to what you say, where it can use solid state storing (eg, thru usb2) as almost a level-1 swap (then l2 swap would be on the slower harddrive).
This is pretty much just the low end of the stack of what l1 cache - l2 cache - main memory is.
I find a good halfway point is to have a small swap, and fiddle with the swappiness setting in /proc (i forget which way... 0 or 60?)
I was more answering the question than directing it at you... ie, at all the people who seriously do ask the question. I am glad that you didn't mean it tho ;-)
"but I wouldn't point out something in KDE as a problem with OS X as it's not the primary UI"
:-p
not the primary, KDE it's the ONLY UI!
Yes I know this goes somewhat against the grain, but try shrinking your swap right down (max 128meg or something)... then, you get OOM messages, at which point you can close/reopen apps, rather than losing control of the system as it grinds to a halt trying to swap constantly.
:-/)
This might not be so important in your (and possible, in most) case[s]. The server's I run I admin remotely. A runaway script can eat through the swap, slowing things to such a halt that logging in, finding the process, and killing it, can become next to impossible.
The smaller the swap, the less time there is before a runaway script (or memory leaking app) will run before the OOM killer gets it.
(I know this isn't really relevant stuff... I'm avoiding doing work
how does you asking your question help our lives "at all"?
"As for the money not going into space..AYAFI? where is the money going then, in my account?"
You're absolutely correct, all money that doesn't go into your account must be going into space. There's no way it could be going into people's accounts who are working on the project or anything like that, for them to then spend here, on earth. They load up the rockets with $5 bills and BLAST them into space, where they can never be spent on anything. Oh yes, how stupid I am.
ugh.
"Sigh. How much longer am I going to have to put up with this?"
:-p
42! hahahaha, you so asked for it
"but I'm not impressed that they were suprised by the thermometer melting"
It was in liquid water at the time, which changes things somewhat. Also, whilst drilling into the "volcano", they're only drilling into rock, not into the magma, so the danger isn't what you imagine.