By this reasoning we'd all be using Windows NT right now. Linux/FreeBSD wouldn't even be a blib on the radar. 48 out of the top 50 companies will do anything to cover their asses -- actually, I'm sure 50 out of 50 will.
Use your brain, decide for yourself what the best solution is. Make mistakes. Learn.
You do this so you don't have to actually set off a nuclear device to predict how it will perform. You must do a number of real nuclear tests to get baseline information. After that, you can do computer simulations of similar explosions. These simulations are VERY processor-intensive (like weather prediction) and require these large parallel systems to compute.
The U.S. does the same thing with massively parallel systems at Sandia National Labs and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Check out the list of the top 500 supercomuter sites in the world -- http://www.top500.org/ -- to see who's doing this kind of thing.
A lot of hoopla seems to made of the (impressive seeming) tiny size of these dies. As I undersatnd it, these 1x1cm dies are the silicon hearts of the Crusoe chips, but a complete, socketed processor assembly can be much larger.
I wonder how big the corresponding part is on a 486, Pentium, PII, UltraSPARC, Alpha, etc... That would give me a better framework to be impressed.
The author seems to have tripped over his reasnoning. He starts with the car:carriage metaphor (cars are not like carriages), then follows it up by saying PDAs are like (underpowered) PCs. I don't get the connection.
I'd follow through with the car:carriage line of reasoning. PDAs are not like PCs. Don't try to make them so. They are qualitatively different and have different strengths, weaknesses and futures.
A PC is not the best way to interface with every type of information. The PDA will likewise flop if people try to make it just a tiny PC. We'll see examples of this as people try to port websites to WAP. Not all content that's appropriate for a web interface will make the migration to WAP successfully. We'll see some UGLY WAP implementations as people learn this the hard way.
Careful work will need to be done to figure out what information can make it to PDAs and how to make it accessable. What we may find is that it makes us reevaluate what info we put on the web, as well.
If powerful, Crusoe-powered, handheld devices are a reality, they may ignite the next wave of Internet distribution (email -> gopher -> www -> WAP). The challenges of these truly different devices may help us become better information technologists in general.
I think this *is* a valid question. While it's true that any one of us can pack up the VW Microbus and move the the middle of nowhere to do our programming, that's not what this post addressed. One programmer with a laptop and a modem can make a reasonable living anywhere.
But, if that person wanted to found an Internet start-up company with a dozen employees that might grow to 50 or 100 employees in a year or two, it's a different story. Infrastructural issues, accessability to bandwidth, power, etc... all come into play. There are a lot of places that just can't cut it.
About 5-6 years ago there was a Scientific American cover story on the permanence of data, from Egyptian payrii and Gutenburg Bibles to CD-ROMS (I've checked their site, but their archives don't go back that far -- sorry!). The thrust of the article was that magnetically stored data decays (albeit very slowly) and the hardware and software required to access much of it is unavailable. Sure, we could always build new Commodore 64 tape drive and CPM machines to access the files, but what if the specs on how to build *those* becomes unretrievable in a few centuries? The article commented on the good luck had by Gutenburg in selecting the materials to make the materials for his books. By chance, no strong acids or alkalis were used in the paper and ink, and as a result there are still a few well preserved 500-year-old books around. Had he magically has access to industrial papers and inks from the first half of this century, his books would not have lasted 100 years! Don't be so sure that digital information is all that retrievable.
I've found it to be just the opposite: I've found excellent documentation to get me through FreeBSD kernel compiles (and excellent documentation overall). I've done it a few times to get just the right support for my (very) old 486 motherboard (no PnP, no PCI, just 1 IDE channel, etc...).
I've not found anything nearly so helpful to get me through a Linux kernel compile, though I'm getting ready to give it a try soon. I guess I'll have to actually read that chapter in my SuSE manual;^)
SuSE is now my favorite Linux install from CD-ROM. Yast (the SuSE installer) has come a long way. Though few purists would keep using it to do routine sysadmins tasks (adding users, ifconfig, etc...) it is quick and effective.
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By this reasoning we'd all be using Windows NT right now. Linux/FreeBSD wouldn't even be a blib on the radar. 48 out of the top 50 companies will do anything to cover their asses -- actually, I'm sure 50 out of 50 will.
Use your brain, decide for yourself what the best solution is. Make mistakes. Learn.
You do this so you don't have to actually set off a nuclear device to predict how it will perform. You must do a number of real nuclear tests to get baseline information. After that, you can do computer simulations of similar explosions. These simulations are VERY processor-intensive (like weather prediction) and require these large parallel systems to compute.
The U.S. does the same thing with massively parallel systems at Sandia National Labs and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Check out the list of the top 500 supercomuter sites in the world -- http://www.top500.org/ -- to see who's doing this kind of thing.
ASP also stands for Application Service Provider -- a popular buzz-phrase meaning remotely hosted, rentable applications.
A lot of hoopla seems to made of the (impressive seeming) tiny size of these dies. As I undersatnd it, these 1x1cm dies are the silicon hearts of the Crusoe chips, but a complete, socketed processor assembly can be much larger.
I wonder how big the corresponding part is on a 486, Pentium, PII, UltraSPARC, Alpha, etc... That would give me a better framework to be impressed.
The author seems to have tripped over his reasnoning. He starts with the car:carriage metaphor (cars are not like carriages), then follows it up by saying PDAs are like (underpowered) PCs. I don't get the connection.
I'd follow through with the car:carriage line of reasoning. PDAs are not like PCs. Don't try to make them so. They are qualitatively different and have different strengths, weaknesses and futures.
A PC is not the best way to interface with every type of information. The PDA will likewise flop if people try to make it just a tiny PC. We'll see examples of this as people try to port websites to WAP. Not all content that's appropriate for a web interface will make the migration to WAP successfully. We'll see some UGLY WAP implementations as people learn this the hard way.
Careful work will need to be done to figure out what information can make it to PDAs and how to make it accessable. What we may find is that it makes us reevaluate what info we put on the web, as well.
If powerful, Crusoe-powered, handheld devices are a reality, they may ignite the next wave of Internet distribution (email -> gopher -> www -> WAP). The challenges of these truly different devices may help us become better information technologists in general.
I think this *is* a valid question. While it's true that any one of us can pack up the VW Microbus and move the the middle of nowhere to do our programming, that's not what this post addressed. One programmer with a laptop and a modem can make a reasonable living anywhere.
But, if that person wanted to found an Internet start-up company with a dozen employees that might grow to 50 or 100 employees in a year or two, it's a different story. Infrastructural issues, accessability to bandwidth, power, etc... all come into play. There are a lot of places that just can't cut it.
About 5-6 years ago there was a Scientific American cover story on the permanence of data, from Egyptian payrii and Gutenburg Bibles to CD-ROMS (I've checked their site, but their archives don't go back that far -- sorry!). The thrust of the article was that magnetically stored data decays (albeit very slowly) and the hardware and software required to access much of it is unavailable. Sure, we could always build new Commodore 64 tape drive and CPM machines to access the files, but what if the specs on how to build *those* becomes unretrievable in a few centuries? The article commented on the good luck had by Gutenburg in selecting the materials to make the materials for his books. By chance, no strong acids or alkalis were used in the paper and ink, and as a result there are still a few well preserved 500-year-old books around. Had he magically has access to industrial papers and inks from the first half of this century, his books would not have lasted 100 years! Don't be so sure that digital information is all that retrievable.
I've found it to be just the opposite: I've found excellent documentation to get me through FreeBSD kernel compiles (and excellent documentation overall). I've done it a few times to get just the right support for my (very) old 486 motherboard (no PnP, no PCI, just 1 IDE channel, etc...).
;^)
I've not found anything nearly so helpful to get me through a Linux kernel compile, though I'm getting ready to give it a try soon. I guess I'll have to actually read that chapter in my SuSE manual
SuSE is now my favorite Linux install from CD-ROM. Yast (the SuSE installer) has come a long way. Though few purists would keep using it to do routine sysadmins tasks (adding users, ifconfig, etc...) it is quick and effective.
I agree with DrZaius on this one -- FreeBSD is a painless install. On the Linices, I like SuSE.