For these comparisons to really be valid they should base them on price : i.e. "We have $2000 to spend on each platform", and if the Athlon gets to use an 8MB cache HD because of the money saved on the RAM, well then so be it. Most people do vary their options based upon the price, so it does seem to be the most pertinent factor.
Re:I thought this idiocy was over...
on
VeriSign Buys .tv
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You know the implosion after the Internet explosion has fooled a lot of people in thinking that there is NO money on the net: In reality there are billions. If CBS figures that Joe Sixpack will have a easier time remembering survivor.tv, then they'll poney up the money for it. There are billions of dollars circling the globe daily for generally trivial things, so a logical URL doesn't seem that bizarre.
The list of symptoms is like a hypochondriacs grab bag: Such vague, common symptoms like "sleep problems", or "tiredness". To be honest it sounds more like depression than anything else.
Until such a time as they can put someone in a radio isolated room, and test how they feel with and without a transmitter turned on, with a positive correlation, I find this absolutely ridiculous. The symptom list is exactly the same as the sympton list used for dirty vents, bad office air, extended computer use, drinking unfiltered water, having bad feng sheu, etc.
Slashdot is run by Linux users and a large part of the reader base uses Linux.
And an ENORMOUS percentage of the user based DOESN'T use Linux, but rather uses *BSD, or egads, Windows. Some people who've done link tracking from links referenced on Slashdot have noticed >75% of referred users running IE on Windows.
Lots of Linux users use it because they don't like what microsoft has to offer. It's always been this way. If you don't like it, find another source for your news.
Funny to see this after another story not long ago about how the Internet brings people of all types together so that we can debate and share knowledge, when the reality is, as you pointed out, that people usually want to get together with people with the same extremist views and perspective to bitch about how dumb everyone else is and how they need to be enlightened, and how the USPO is evil for letting Microsoft pay them money to advertise. Blah.
As a sidenote: Here in Ontario certain branches of the government DO abuse their position in just such a manner. For example the government setup a deal with a private company to build and run a toll road (the 407 ETR), and this company (which is fighting in the courts to keep the deal private. Rather disconcerting given that it's a deal with MY government using MY tax dollars) mails you a bill. Well if you fail to pay your toll bill in time you cannot get a new sticker for your car, so basically if you don't pay this third party company (for instance maybe they billed in error, etc. There have been many instances of the license reading cameras getting the wrong number) suddenly you can't drive on any road. That sort of strong handing PISSES ME OFF: These assholes have every right to utilize the small-claims court, credit bureaus, etc, just like every other Joe who is owed money, but because they have the power of the government. Anyways that's why I'm irritated seeing someone calling for the government to basically do what Microsoft is accused/convicted of (which is abusing a monopoly position).
So you would rather that the government act as a giant monopoly enforcing its vision? Maybe we can rig it such that if you have a problem with your taxes the mail person puts a lump of dogshit in your mailbox every day, and police and fire refuse to come to your aid! Genius!
The US government is a very, very large organization, and there is no fathomable reason why they all need to be a borg collective. So the DOJ thinks MS abused its power: Go ahead and punish them, break them up, whatever, but that doesn't even say that the DOJ lawyers can't be busy typing the legal brief against MS on a Windows XP equipped laptop: Big frickin' deal. Just because they think MS busted a law doesn't mean they need to impose "punishment" outside of that through due process.
But the general way society operates is HEAVILY weighed towards the criminal being responsible, and rightly so (the classic is the "blame the rape victim for wearing a dress" belief. If a woman is raped should all woman start wearing chastity belts?) Should Western society grind to a halt right now while we build protective shields around all of our buildings and put patriot systems around our nuclear power plants, because we're somehow responsible if someone targets them? Remember that the original message that I replied to was that the attacker should go scot free (and should somehow be thanked for pointing out a vulnerability), and the victim should be somehow blamed.
Re:The lack of localization of the net
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
but if people were just sitting around, waiting for some local content to gobble up, then there would be thousands of mycommunity.com's out there
If only it were that simple. Almost everyone I talk to has mentioned the fact that they wish, for instance, that there was a good local auction site (because they want to buy and sell stuff minus the shipping and customs hassles, and because they want to deal with large stuff like fridges, stoves, furniture, etc), yet the few who tried found that the classic inertia/network effect came into play: No one is selling because there are no buyers, and no one is buying because there's no sellers. There is CLEARLY a need for this, but it doesn't mean it is filled. Well let me put it another way: Many people have tried to fill it to discover the problem in getting the inertia started, which generally requires the big $ to advertise. This is where big worldwide sites are well known and pull in the users, but the local content gets missed.
As far as geographical HTTP tags, of course it would be a feature that would be able to be disabled, just as right now I can set my Accept language to Chinese if I really wanted (for all of those who claim that discrimination will be used [I'd love to know what sites people visit that makes them think that], please realize that your browser is already telling plenty about you, including your preferred language ordering, etc, and AS IT IS someone can do a tracerouting and determine to a fair degree where you are on the planet. See http://visualroute.visualware.com).
Pass a law? All residents must log into "mycommunity.com" once a week or be fined?
Did I somehow insinuate that? This whole discussion is about lack of community and why it happened, and most anyone who knew the online community that existed in the days of BBS' understand that. So no, I suppose you're right: we should all accept that MSN and Yahoo represents community to the general internet population nowadays.
It just seems like a lot of work (both software/standard implementation, and content formatting), for almost no benefit.
It's much too big of a topic to be covered in a reply hidden deep in an obscure thread, but there are considerable benefits to it, but I don't expect it to fly among the paranoid, anti-commercial, anti-capitalism Slashdot crowd (Yup advertising is one huge benefit of it: Imagine if every tiny little retailer could target only people within 3 KM of their location...of course advertising is evil so let's pretend I didn't say that). As far as the work involved it is absolutely trivial and several people have taken stabs at it.
Re:The lack of localization of the net
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 1
There is no doubt, whatsoever, that the global aspect of the net is absolutely stunningly amazing, and has revolutionized the world. Having said that, my problem is that the net appeared (well first it was Fido email on BBS', and then actual newsgroups) and everyone presumed it would solve all of the worlds needs, and the predecessor to the net (local BBS) largely disappeared (the ones that are still around or try to get going suffer from the intertia effect and can't get on their legs), but the reality is that the local sense of community largely dissolved. I'm in no way saying that the net is a bad thing, but rather that we went so far in "globalizing" that we forgot a very important part of our lives (i.e. the world directly around us): I have a feeling that a lot of local computer users groups disappeared because it was hard for them to justify their mandate, when the reality is that such groups were 80% socializing and networking and only 20% technical, but because of the net people presume they aren't needed, etc.
Re:The lack of localization of the net
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That is one of the exact things that got me interested in the Internet way back when. The fact that it doesn't matter where you are located
That is a neat factor, and I'm not advocating that we get RID of the global aspects of the net, but rather that there is a large void in local content. People like looking at the "big picture" when what affects them most is the "little picture" : In your country I'll bet you're most aware of National politics, despite the fact that 90% of the services that government gives you is actually local.
But if you want localization you can seek it out... For example there was a large issue around here awhile back with some bus drivers, and sure enough browse to the local news channel and they have a public forum up where people are discussing their views on the subject.
This is like the prototypical anti-socialization "Search Google!" response (and I've found that it's the anti-socials that will always rant about how great the grand worldwide net is). Debating in hit-inducing "discuss the topics we want with our censoring" on the Toronto Star website doesn't quite fill my community needs. My point is that there is something missing, and anyone who was involved with the BBS world (when long distance kept it local) can likely empathize with that. Yeah I know how to use Google.
So don't complain about it on slashdot, do something about it.
Hehe, this is almost ironically funny in a discussion about socialization and conversation. In any case, it isn't a "complaint", it's an observation: Back in the day I was a member of several BBS' and met quite a few friends who I still know today.
Re:The lack of localization of the net
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 1
I remember back several years ago there was a big initiative to localize the net (Microsoft invested millions in some Citywalk or something initiative), but like most of the.COM bubble overenthusiasm and too much overhead caused a massive collapse. As mentioned in another post: It's a classic chicken-egg where people don't use the local content because other people aren't, and the other people are doing the same.
Re:This site will help you find local websites
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I presume that was a humorous reference to an earlier message in this thread. Anyways, it's a classic chicken-egg inertia issue: Any localized content I've found has no one visiting it (despite living in a town of hundreds of thousands, in a metropolitan area of several million) because people come and see no one there, etc. It's the same reason why alternatives to Ebay can't get off the ground.
The lack of localization of the net
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
As is evident in my sig, I have a problem with the lack of localization of the net: Basically, despite the fact that about 95% of our lives are still local, and always will be (whether it's entertainment, restaurants, grocery stores, etc, or it's issues like potholed roads, a new park going up, etc.), there is exceedingly little localization on the net: There was more of a sense of community when I was on a small town BBS->We all shared common issues and could discuss things that affected our lives locally.
Of course not. AMD's processor benchmarks represent one _system_ configuration. They are meaningless (and misleading) across different systems.
By this logic then Intel should start branding their chips "Fast", "Really Fast", "Super Fast", because the same reality holds true: You can get a P4 in a million different combinations. Having said that if 100 people made a P4 and 100 people made a Athlon, the differences in each sample group will be minor and probably will fall within 5%: It's hardly these wide swings that you seem to believe.
Furthermore, how does AMD recalibrate when their 'standard' changes? On some apps, Northwood is more than 50% faster _per_clock_ than Willamette, so does that mean AMD has to change their rating system? They haven't.
Obviously if the XP rating system was based upon one instruction there would be a problem, but the reality is that the Northwood is only marginally faster in composite, real-world benchmark. Even still though the buffer that AMD built in (they have been conservative) still keeps them honest: On the Sysmark 2001 Office Performance a standard Athlon XP 2000+ system gets 203, versus 201 for a Pentium 4/2200. Hardly seems like AMD is tricking anyone. For compiling Linux the XP 2000+ does it in 202 seconds versus 229 seconds on the P4/2200.
Can't speak for the rest of the slashdotters, but I don't want them to be prosecuted... I want the insecurity to be repaired, which is what we've always wanted.
Taking this to an absurdly inappopriate analogy: If some pranksters fire bombed an old age home killing all inside, is the solution to call for old age homes to be built with fireproof walls and armed guards out front? Where does the responsibility of the criminal end and the responsibility of the victim begin?
Often I think perceptions of speed are very different than the reality of the speed (which is why the oft stated claim that processors are "faster than anyone needs" is false: Use a faster processor for a while and suddenly your P3 1.1Ghz seems "slow"): I think fondly back to my Atari ST running at a blistering 8Mhz (0.86Mhz faster than the Amiga which ran at a lowly 7.14Mhz) and I recall it being easily fast enough, but then I remember running command line utilities to uncompress JPEGs (and you actually sat there watching the progress bar move for a massive 20KB JPEG)...
But I'm not a fan of their megahertz-doesn't-equal-performance marketing, because it just seems designed to mislead consumers
Yet as everyone even remotely technical knows, MEGAHERTZ-DOESN'T-EQUAL-PERFORMANCE! Whether it's a G4, a Athlon, a P3, or a PIV, there is largely no comparison between Ghz unless you put a scaling factor on all of them. This has been discussed on Slashdot countless times. I find it interesting that you say that AMD does this because they're "behind": I guess if someone took a 6502 core and built it on a 0.13 micron process and ran it at 4Ghz then they'd be "ahead"?
AMD has been incredibly honest with their benchmarks. Indeed as has been recounted many times, they're actually very conservative: A 2000+ can match and beat a P4 2.2Ghz in many tests.
And as an enthusiast, I like knowing the actual MHz. It's not like the MHz information isn't widespread on the Internet anyway
Isn't this totally contradictory? If you want a AMD 1900+ and you REALLY care about the frequency of it, then check what it is, but for Joe average it seems to be an entirely reasonable approach.
Hopefully this is a sign that AMD realizes the 1600+ crap was a mistake
Hardly. AMD is positioning the Duron so as not to compete with themselves (if there is an Athlon 1500+ and a Duron 1500+ then it evens them out too much), so they don't use the XP nomenclature.
For all the yapping on here about AMD "conning" consumers, the reality is that using Mhz/Ghz as the metric is the con: Techs know that the P4 sacrifies cycles for future expandability (though that means nothing that your core can one day run at 8Ghz if today it's running at 1.6Ghz), but to Joe Average that's a "1.6Ghz processor! Super fast!". It's a largely meaningless metric. Maybe Intel should 1/2 clock the core and then they can put an outer bus running at 4.4Ghz! It'll be super fast!
By simply purchasing RedHat they're not just buying the offices, staff and work, they're also buying reputation...
Sounds like they should get a discount if basing it on the reputation. I don't know what you've heard, but it seems to me that Redhat is largely the ostracized brother in the Linux community. Redhat is viewed, and I suppose this is correct in this case, as the AOL of the Linux distribution camp.
The point is that QNX is showing users how much functionality they can fit in a tiny amount of space: Basically they're repositioning themselves as an IA backend company (and I think they'll be very successful at it in the near future).
Agreed, and the beauty of QNX Neutrino is that the core of it is so incredibly, beautifully tiny, and having a GUI is completely optional (and the stability of the system is not compromised by a GUI, etc). Having said that technically there is nothing constraining QNX from being a full fledged OS, apart from perhaps the overhead of being "real-time" (though with modern PCs that isn't a big deal and is worth it) and the stability overhead, except for a lack of apps, and that is something that QNX has been working on through 3rd party partnerships: i.e. Opera, etc. With more of that I can see it being a real winner operating system for fat-thin-clients (:-)) that eventually do all that Aunt Martha wants in her day to day living. Hell I'd say it is at that state right now if Aunt Martha uses Hotmail and is a casual computer user.
Do you recall when Amiga was in talks with QNX to see about basing the new Amiga PC on QNX? Funny thing, but QNX was a very willing participant in those talks. QNX has also coupled with quite a few vendors making full-featured IAs (IAs are just "non-Microsoft desktop PCs": There's nothing super duper special about them), and quite a few are based on it. QNX is _VERY_MUCH_ about "eye candy" because that's one important facet of computing.
Sure it's aimed at the MS market! Just like BeOS would love to replace your desktop, QNX would love for you to use their OS as your desktop. The reality is that the world is such that that is almost possible: With more and more apps being web based, the reality is that QNX with Opera or some other reasonably full featured browser can be satisfactory for most users. Of course QNX is a full OS (it just happens to put stability in front of everything else), meaning that technically there is nothing that can't be done, and of course right now you can do most anything you'd want on QNX.
You're totally wrong. QNX Neutrino is a bottom to top OS from tiny machines to clusters of high power hardware. QNX has pushed their OS on thin-cients, Internet Appliances, etc, it isn't just for embedded monitoring hardware. Indeed the big QNX push is "QNX on a floppy" that basically turns a PC into an IA.
Slashdot Mirror
For these comparisons to really be valid they should base them on price : i.e. "We have $2000 to spend on each platform", and if the Athlon gets to use an 8MB cache HD because of the money saved on the RAM, well then so be it. Most people do vary their options based upon the price, so it does seem to be the most pertinent factor.
You know the implosion after the Internet explosion has fooled a lot of people in thinking that there is NO money on the net: In reality there are billions. If CBS figures that Joe Sixpack will have a easier time remembering survivor.tv, then they'll poney up the money for it. There are billions of dollars circling the globe daily for generally trivial things, so a logical URL doesn't seem that bizarre.
The list of symptoms is like a hypochondriacs grab bag: Such vague, common symptoms like "sleep problems", or "tiredness". To be honest it sounds more like depression than anything else.
Until such a time as they can put someone in a radio isolated room, and test how they feel with and without a transmitter turned on, with a positive correlation, I find this absolutely ridiculous. The symptom list is exactly the same as the sympton list used for dirty vents, bad office air, extended computer use, drinking unfiltered water, having bad feng sheu, etc.
Slashdot is run by Linux users and a large part of the reader base uses Linux.
And an ENORMOUS percentage of the user based DOESN'T use Linux, but rather uses *BSD, or egads, Windows. Some people who've done link tracking from links referenced on Slashdot have noticed >75% of referred users running IE on Windows.
Lots of Linux users use it because they don't like what microsoft has to offer. It's always been this way. If you don't like it, find another source for your news.
Funny to see this after another story not long ago about how the Internet brings people of all types together so that we can debate and share knowledge, when the reality is, as you pointed out, that people usually want to get together with people with the same extremist views and perspective to bitch about how dumb everyone else is and how they need to be enlightened, and how the USPO is evil for letting Microsoft pay them money to advertise. Blah.
As a sidenote: Here in Ontario certain branches of the government DO abuse their position in just such a manner. For example the government setup a deal with a private company to build and run a toll road (the 407 ETR), and this company (which is fighting in the courts to keep the deal private. Rather disconcerting given that it's a deal with MY government using MY tax dollars) mails you a bill. Well if you fail to pay your toll bill in time you cannot get a new sticker for your car, so basically if you don't pay this third party company (for instance maybe they billed in error, etc. There have been many instances of the license reading cameras getting the wrong number) suddenly you can't drive on any road. That sort of strong handing PISSES ME OFF: These assholes have every right to utilize the small-claims court, credit bureaus, etc, just like every other Joe who is owed money, but because they have the power of the government. Anyways that's why I'm irritated seeing someone calling for the government to basically do what Microsoft is accused/convicted of (which is abusing a monopoly position).
So you would rather that the government act as a giant monopoly enforcing its vision? Maybe we can rig it such that if you have a problem with your taxes the mail person puts a lump of dogshit in your mailbox every day, and police and fire refuse to come to your aid! Genius!
The US government is a very, very large organization, and there is no fathomable reason why they all need to be a borg collective. So the DOJ thinks MS abused its power: Go ahead and punish them, break them up, whatever, but that doesn't even say that the DOJ lawyers can't be busy typing the legal brief against MS on a Windows XP equipped laptop: Big frickin' deal. Just because they think MS busted a law doesn't mean they need to impose "punishment" outside of that through due process.
Leave the extremism to the facists.
But the general way society operates is HEAVILY weighed towards the criminal being responsible, and rightly so (the classic is the "blame the rape victim for wearing a dress" belief. If a woman is raped should all woman start wearing chastity belts?) Should Western society grind to a halt right now while we build protective shields around all of our buildings and put patriot systems around our nuclear power plants, because we're somehow responsible if someone targets them? Remember that the original message that I replied to was that the attacker should go scot free (and should somehow be thanked for pointing out a vulnerability), and the victim should be somehow blamed.
but if people were just sitting around, waiting for some local content to gobble up, then there would be thousands of mycommunity.com's out there
If only it were that simple. Almost everyone I talk to has mentioned the fact that they wish, for instance, that there was a good local auction site (because they want to buy and sell stuff minus the shipping and customs hassles, and because they want to deal with large stuff like fridges, stoves, furniture, etc), yet the few who tried found that the classic inertia/network effect came into play: No one is selling because there are no buyers, and no one is buying because there's no sellers. There is CLEARLY a need for this, but it doesn't mean it is filled. Well let me put it another way: Many people have tried to fill it to discover the problem in getting the inertia started, which generally requires the big $ to advertise. This is where big worldwide sites are well known and pull in the users, but the local content gets missed.
As far as geographical HTTP tags, of course it would be a feature that would be able to be disabled, just as right now I can set my Accept language to Chinese if I really wanted (for all of those who claim that discrimination will be used [I'd love to know what sites people visit that makes them think that], please realize that your browser is already telling plenty about you, including your preferred language ordering, etc, and AS IT IS someone can do a tracerouting and determine to a fair degree where you are on the planet. See http://visualroute.visualware.com).
Pass a law? All residents must log into "mycommunity.com" once a week or be fined?
Did I somehow insinuate that? This whole discussion is about lack of community and why it happened, and most anyone who knew the online community that existed in the days of BBS' understand that. So no, I suppose you're right: we should all accept that MSN and Yahoo represents community to the general internet population nowadays.
It just seems like a lot of work (both software/standard implementation, and content formatting), for almost no benefit.
It's much too big of a topic to be covered in a reply hidden deep in an obscure thread, but there are considerable benefits to it, but I don't expect it to fly among the paranoid, anti-commercial, anti-capitalism Slashdot crowd (Yup advertising is one huge benefit of it: Imagine if every tiny little retailer could target only people within 3 KM of their location...of course advertising is evil so let's pretend I didn't say that). As far as the work involved it is absolutely trivial and several people have taken stabs at it.
There is no doubt, whatsoever, that the global aspect of the net is absolutely stunningly amazing, and has revolutionized the world. Having said that, my problem is that the net appeared (well first it was Fido email on BBS', and then actual newsgroups) and everyone presumed it would solve all of the worlds needs, and the predecessor to the net (local BBS) largely disappeared (the ones that are still around or try to get going suffer from the intertia effect and can't get on their legs), but the reality is that the local sense of community largely dissolved. I'm in no way saying that the net is a bad thing, but rather that we went so far in "globalizing" that we forgot a very important part of our lives (i.e. the world directly around us): I have a feeling that a lot of local computer users groups disappeared because it was hard for them to justify their mandate, when the reality is that such groups were 80% socializing and networking and only 20% technical, but because of the net people presume they aren't needed, etc.
That is one of the exact things that got me interested in the Internet way back when. The fact that it doesn't matter where you are located
That is a neat factor, and I'm not advocating that we get RID of the global aspects of the net, but rather that there is a large void in local content. People like looking at the "big picture" when what affects them most is the "little picture" : In your country I'll bet you're most aware of National politics, despite the fact that 90% of the services that government gives you is actually local.
But if you want localization you can seek it out... For example there was a large issue around here awhile back with some bus drivers, and sure enough browse to the local news channel and they have a public forum up where people are discussing their views on the subject.
This is like the prototypical anti-socialization "Search Google!" response (and I've found that it's the anti-socials that will always rant about how great the grand worldwide net is). Debating in hit-inducing "discuss the topics we want with our censoring" on the Toronto Star website doesn't quite fill my community needs. My point is that there is something missing, and anyone who was involved with the BBS world (when long distance kept it local) can likely empathize with that. Yeah I know how to use Google.
So don't complain about it on slashdot, do something about it.
Hehe, this is almost ironically funny in a discussion about socialization and conversation. In any case, it isn't a "complaint", it's an observation: Back in the day I was a member of several BBS' and met quite a few friends who I still know today.
I remember back several years ago there was a big initiative to localize the net (Microsoft invested millions in some Citywalk or something initiative), but like most of the .COM bubble overenthusiasm and too much overhead caused a massive collapse. As mentioned in another post: It's a classic chicken-egg where people don't use the local content because other people aren't, and the other people are doing the same.
I presume that was a humorous reference to an earlier message in this thread. Anyways, it's a classic chicken-egg inertia issue: Any localized content I've found has no one visiting it (despite living in a town of hundreds of thousands, in a metropolitan area of several million) because people come and see no one there, etc. It's the same reason why alternatives to Ebay can't get off the ground.
As is evident in my sig, I have a problem with the lack of localization of the net: Basically, despite the fact that about 95% of our lives are still local, and always will be (whether it's entertainment, restaurants, grocery stores, etc, or it's issues like potholed roads, a new park going up, etc.), there is exceedingly little localization on the net: There was more of a sense of community when I was on a small town BBS->We all shared common issues and could discuss things that affected our lives locally.
Of course not. AMD's processor benchmarks represent one _system_ configuration. They are meaningless (and misleading) across different systems.
By this logic then Intel should start branding their chips "Fast", "Really Fast", "Super Fast", because the same reality holds true: You can get a P4 in a million different combinations. Having said that if 100 people made a P4 and 100 people made a Athlon, the differences in each sample group will be minor and probably will fall within 5%: It's hardly these wide swings that you seem to believe.
Furthermore, how does AMD recalibrate when their 'standard' changes? On some apps, Northwood is more than 50% faster _per_clock_ than Willamette, so does that mean AMD has to change their rating system? They haven't.
Obviously if the XP rating system was based upon one instruction there would be a problem, but the reality is that the Northwood is only marginally faster in composite, real-world benchmark. Even still though the buffer that AMD built in (they have been conservative) still keeps them honest: On the Sysmark 2001 Office Performance a standard Athlon XP 2000+ system gets 203, versus 201 for a Pentium 4/2200. Hardly seems like AMD is tricking anyone. For compiling Linux the XP 2000+ does it in 202 seconds versus 229 seconds on the P4/2200.
Can't speak for the rest of the slashdotters, but I don't want them to be prosecuted... I want the insecurity to be repaired, which is what we've always wanted.
Taking this to an absurdly inappopriate analogy: If some pranksters fire bombed an old age home killing all inside, is the solution to call for old age homes to be built with fireproof walls and armed guards out front? Where does the responsibility of the criminal end and the responsibility of the victim begin?
I presume it's http://www.cowcomics.com, though it does seem to be transitional.
Often I think perceptions of speed are very different than the reality of the speed (which is why the oft stated claim that processors are "faster than anyone needs" is false: Use a faster processor for a while and suddenly your P3 1.1Ghz seems "slow"): I think fondly back to my Atari ST running at a blistering 8Mhz (0.86Mhz faster than the Amiga which ran at a lowly 7.14Mhz) and I recall it being easily fast enough, but then I remember running command line utilities to uncompress JPEGs (and you actually sat there watching the progress bar move for a massive 20KB JPEG)...
But I'm not a fan of their megahertz-doesn't-equal-performance marketing, because it just seems designed to mislead consumers
Yet as everyone even remotely technical knows, MEGAHERTZ-DOESN'T-EQUAL-PERFORMANCE! Whether it's a G4, a Athlon, a P3, or a PIV, there is largely no comparison between Ghz unless you put a scaling factor on all of them. This has been discussed on Slashdot countless times. I find it interesting that you say that AMD does this because they're "behind": I guess if someone took a 6502 core and built it on a 0.13 micron process and ran it at 4Ghz then they'd be "ahead"?
AMD has been incredibly honest with their benchmarks. Indeed as has been recounted many times, they're actually very conservative: A 2000+ can match and beat a P4 2.2Ghz in many tests.
And as an enthusiast, I like knowing the actual MHz. It's not like the MHz information isn't widespread on the Internet anyway
Isn't this totally contradictory? If you want a AMD 1900+ and you REALLY care about the frequency of it, then check what it is, but for Joe average it seems to be an entirely reasonable approach.
Hopefully this is a sign that AMD realizes the 1600+ crap was a mistake
Hardly. AMD is positioning the Duron so as not to compete with themselves (if there is an Athlon 1500+ and a Duron 1500+ then it evens them out too much), so they don't use the XP nomenclature.
For all the yapping on here about AMD "conning" consumers, the reality is that using Mhz/Ghz as the metric is the con: Techs know that the P4 sacrifies cycles for future expandability (though that means nothing that your core can one day run at 8Ghz if today it's running at 1.6Ghz), but to Joe Average that's a "1.6Ghz processor! Super fast!". It's a largely meaningless metric. Maybe Intel should 1/2 clock the core and then they can put an outer bus running at 4.4Ghz! It'll be super fast!
By simply purchasing RedHat they're not just buying the offices, staff and work, they're also buying reputation...
Sounds like they should get a discount if basing it on the reputation. I don't know what you've heard, but it seems to me that Redhat is largely the ostracized brother in the Linux community. Redhat is viewed, and I suppose this is correct in this case, as the AOL of the Linux distribution camp.
The point is that QNX is showing users how much functionality they can fit in a tiny amount of space: Basically they're repositioning themselves as an IA backend company (and I think they'll be very successful at it in the near future).
Agreed, and the beauty of QNX Neutrino is that the core of it is so incredibly, beautifully tiny, and having a GUI is completely optional (and the stability of the system is not compromised by a GUI, etc). Having said that technically there is nothing constraining QNX from being a full fledged OS, apart from perhaps the overhead of being "real-time" (though with modern PCs that isn't a big deal and is worth it) and the stability overhead, except for a lack of apps, and that is something that QNX has been working on through 3rd party partnerships: i.e. Opera, etc. With more of that I can see it being a real winner operating system for fat-thin-clients (:-)) that eventually do all that Aunt Martha wants in her day to day living. Hell I'd say it is at that state right now if Aunt Martha uses Hotmail and is a casual computer user.
Do you recall when Amiga was in talks with QNX to see about basing the new Amiga PC on QNX? Funny thing, but QNX was a very willing participant in those talks. QNX has also coupled with quite a few vendors making full-featured IAs (IAs are just "non-Microsoft desktop PCs": There's nothing super duper special about them), and quite a few are based on it. QNX is _VERY_MUCH_ about "eye candy" because that's one important facet of computing.
Sure it's aimed at the MS market! Just like BeOS would love to replace your desktop, QNX would love for you to use their OS as your desktop. The reality is that the world is such that that is almost possible: With more and more apps being web based, the reality is that QNX with Opera or some other reasonably full featured browser can be satisfactory for most users. Of course QNX is a full OS (it just happens to put stability in front of everything else), meaning that technically there is nothing that can't be done, and of course right now you can do most anything you'd want on QNX.
You're totally wrong. QNX Neutrino is a bottom to top OS from tiny machines to clusters of high power hardware. QNX has pushed their OS on thin-cients, Internet Appliances, etc, it isn't just for embedded monitoring hardware. Indeed the big QNX push is "QNX on a floppy" that basically turns a PC into an IA.