What is the difference between this stuff and what Cray & SGI did in the mid '90s? Same speeds, point to point (~ 6GB/s). I think the MSS on HPPI was large, but what are the other differences?
The main difference? It won't cost $8 million dollars.
That's exactly the sort of attitude that has caused the sort of spectactular failures of software projects to be accepted as the norm. Software Engineering is *not* "hacking" or "coding" or "programming", it's *engineering*, like building a bridge or a skyscraper. Yes, those projects go over time and budget too sometimes, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
But, are engineers asked to build a 100-foot span out of popsicle sticks and rubber cement in 3 weeks within a budget of $2000?
No? Why not? Developers are put in that position every day.
Give me a budget of $20 million and I'll build you a piece of software that does ONE thing very well, is completely tested, portable, well documented.
I have my doubts about this 'invention'. This is a company that makes wristwatch devices that include GPS and some kind of satellite communication. And this new battery is supposed to power this device.
Well, first, this is a publicly traded company with a market cap of $30 million and a trading price of 22 cents (up 5 cents from yesterday). And as far as I can tell, the GPS wristwatch is purely vaporware right now. I think they are just trying to get publicity.
Think of it. Provided they can be built cheaply, if this thing could do anything close to what they say it can do, we could litter the ground with these things and collect free electricity from heat.
First, I'm not sure if we're talking about code compatibility or user compatibility but I'll talk about code compatibility (who cares about users anyhow?:).
I've found that Java is a great lanaguage for making backwards compatibility easier. The main reason is that dynamic linking doesn't use cardinals or offsets. This means that I can fundamentally reprogram and entire class (even without using an interface) and still have a dependent program work fine with recompiling it. (Note: the only gotcha is finals, which are copied at compiliation to the dependent program - bah!).
Along with a couple of other things, such as using lots of interfaces and factories throughout the library, backward compatibility is hardly an issue at the code level.
In addition, if we ever mine the asteroids (many of which are virtually pure precious metal and are thus incredibly valuable), it's much easier to supply the miners with food and supplies from Mars than from the Earth or Moon.
If we have access to an asteroid that consists of more metals than we could possible use, don't you think that would eliminate its status as 'precious' or 'valuable'? Gold would be worth less than plastic.
Bah, you call that rugged? Where's the waterproof keyboard and G-force ratings? Besides, a case doesn't protect hard-drives if they're not shock mounted.
Ballmer used the word 'innovate' no less than 6 times in the article. How about 'innovating' your vocabulary?
The MS Word 2000 thesaurus lists the following alternatives to the word 'innovation': novelty, modernism, modernization, improvement, advance and originality.
Yeah, I've read those results before. Those compare web servers on different OSes. I'm talking about the base operating system.
Not to mention that the Linux results are based on TUX, a web server embedded in the kernel. You can always get a performance boost by moving something from user-space to kernel-space. Apples to oranges.
Jason.
It's amazing how ignorant some Linux users are. Try Windows 2000 out, you'll find that it's incredibly stable and fast. In fact, it'll smoke Linux at just about any operation. And IE 5.5 is the most stable browser I've ever used.
Jason.
If I'd known that an IM software package would be worth $42 million, I would have started on it a long time ago.
Let's see, we have a messaging protocol, a peer-to-peer client, a simple directory service and hooks to/from external IM services. Very conservatively, 3-6 months work there.
Maybe I'm missing something but I'm thinking that France Telecom must be run by a bunch of idiots.
Jason.
If you're developing a commercial JSP application the go with Allaire JRun. It's damn fast, easy to setup, reliable to the extreme, scalable and the EJB bloat doesn't get in the way like application servers from BEA, IBM et al.
Jason.
Umm, doesn't that same argument apply to just about everything that can be duplicated, including software?
Are you arguing for the legitimacy of warez sites? After all, nobody can prove that I don't already own the software, chose not to register it and that I lost or destroyed the media.
But nobody is fighting for the right to pirate books or software or videos.
What makes music so different?
Jason.
I wonder if PS2 were being designed today if they would still use RDRAM? Probably not. It was fashionable when it was designed, but now its an evolutionary dead-end.
Well, Nintendo has already dropped RDRAM from the designs for their next gen game box.
If you want a really big high-resolution screen then go with an LCD projector. Something usable in a well-lit room will cost about ~$9000 USD + the cost of bulbs.
If you want a resolution higher than 1280x1024 native then buy two of them with a dual-head video card and align the images to make a seamless display. This would be very cool.
Mozilla: Let's take a web page written in a meta-presentation language and translate it into a meta-data language and feed that to a renderer running in a browser itself rendered using a meta-data language and expect that the user will sacrifice 50meg of RAM and a good deal of CPU cycles for all this *kewl* technology.
Apple: Let's take an excellent microkernel and OS and heap on loads of fancy graphics that will impress the user for a grand total of about 30 seconds causing every application to operate slower than if they were running on a Commodore-64. Gosh, everyone knows it worked for NeXT!
This is what happens when geeks run a project...sad but true.
Westion Union is owned by First Data Corporation, one of the largest credit card issuers in the US. Assuming the networks of the two corporations were somehow linked (or have systems shared between the two), if the hackers were able to get into FDC's systems, this could be disasterous.
It may be wise to invest in some put options on FDC...hmm
Doesn't AMD have a responsibility to limit overclocking in order to eliminate the fraudulent sale of overclocked systems?
Most retail PC buyers couldn't tell if a system has been overclocked or not. And if John Smith's home PC eventually burns out, doesn't it negatively effect AMD's reputation?
Slashdot Mirror
What is the difference between this stuff and what Cray & SGI did in the mid '90s? Same speeds, point to point (~ 6GB/s). I think the MSS on HPPI was large, but what are the other differences?
The main difference? It won't cost $8 million dollars.
But, are engineers asked to build a 100-foot span out of popsicle sticks and rubber cement in 3 weeks within a budget of $2000?
No? Why not? Developers are put in that position every day.
Give me a budget of $20 million and I'll build you a piece of software that does ONE thing very well, is completely tested, portable, well documented.
I'm really tired of this argument...
Jason.
Well, first, this is a publicly traded company with a market cap of $30 million and a trading price of 22 cents (up 5 cents from yesterday). And as far as I can tell, the GPS wristwatch is purely vaporware right now. I think they are just trying to get publicity.
Think of it. Provided they can be built cheaply, if this thing could do anything close to what they say it can do, we could litter the ground with these things and collect free electricity from heat.
Jason.
Homer: "What are you going to do. Release the dogs or the bees or the dogs with bees in their mouth so when they bark they shoot bees at you!!"
First, I'm not sure if we're talking about code compatibility or user compatibility but I'll talk about code compatibility (who cares about users anyhow? :).
I've found that Java is a great lanaguage for making backwards compatibility easier. The main reason is that dynamic linking doesn't use cardinals or offsets. This means that I can fundamentally reprogram and entire class (even without using an interface) and still have a dependent program work fine with recompiling it. (Note: the only gotcha is finals, which are copied at compiliation to the dependent program - bah!).
Along with a couple of other things, such as using lots of interfaces and factories throughout the library, backward compatibility is hardly an issue at the code level.
Jason.
In addition, if we ever mine the asteroids (many of which are virtually pure precious metal and are thus incredibly valuable), it's much easier to supply the miners with food and supplies from Mars than from the Earth or Moon.
If we have access to an asteroid that consists of more metals than we could possible use, don't you think that would eliminate its status as 'precious' or 'valuable'? Gold would be worth less than plastic.
Jason.
Bah, you call that rugged? Where's the waterproof keyboard and G-force ratings? Besides, a case doesn't protect hard-drives if they're not shock mounted.
Check out the Panasonic Toughbook.
Ballmer used the word 'innovate' no less than 6 times in the article. How about 'innovating' your vocabulary? The MS Word 2000 thesaurus lists the following alternatives to the word 'innovation': novelty, modernism, modernization, improvement, advance and originality.
Remember that some people said the same thing about word processing in colour. Jason.
Yeah, I've read those results before. Those compare web servers on different OSes. I'm talking about the base operating system. Not to mention that the Linux results are based on TUX, a web server embedded in the kernel. You can always get a performance boost by moving something from user-space to kernel-space. Apples to oranges. Jason.
It's amazing how ignorant some Linux users are. Try Windows 2000 out, you'll find that it's incredibly stable and fast. In fact, it'll smoke Linux at just about any operation. And IE 5.5 is the most stable browser I've ever used. Jason.
Want to control your intellectual property, write it in Perl. That way, nobody else will be able to understand your code. Jason.
If I'd known that an IM software package would be worth $42 million, I would have started on it a long time ago. Let's see, we have a messaging protocol, a peer-to-peer client, a simple directory service and hooks to/from external IM services. Very conservatively, 3-6 months work there. Maybe I'm missing something but I'm thinking that France Telecom must be run by a bunch of idiots. Jason.
If you're developing a commercial JSP application the go with Allaire JRun. It's damn fast, easy to setup, reliable to the extreme, scalable and the EJB bloat doesn't get in the way like application servers from BEA, IBM et al. Jason.
A few mentions of Linux but not one bash of Windows CE. Is it possible that slashdotters actually like WinCE? Whoa...
Umm, doesn't that same argument apply to just about everything that can be duplicated, including software? Are you arguing for the legitimacy of warez sites? After all, nobody can prove that I don't already own the software, chose not to register it and that I lost or destroyed the media. But nobody is fighting for the right to pirate books or software or videos. What makes music so different? Jason.
ROT13 should keep em guessing for a few hours :)
I wonder if PS2 were being designed today if they would still use RDRAM? Probably not. It was fashionable when it was designed, but now its an evolutionary dead-end. Well, Nintendo has already dropped RDRAM from the designs for their next gen game box.
rubbing vaseline all over the screen. Jaggies BEGONE!
If you want a really big high-resolution screen then go with an LCD projector. Something usable in a well-lit room will cost about ~$9000 USD + the cost of bulbs.
If you want a resolution higher than 1280x1024 native then buy two of them with a dual-head video card and align the images to make a seamless display. This would be very cool.
Jason.
Apple may have the Mozilla team beat.
Mozilla: Let's take a web page written in a meta-presentation language and translate it into a meta-data language and feed that to a renderer running in a browser itself rendered using a meta-data language and expect that the user will sacrifice 50meg of RAM and a good deal of CPU cycles for all this *kewl* technology.
Apple: Let's take an excellent microkernel and OS and heap on loads of fancy graphics that will impress the user for a grand total of about 30 seconds causing every application to operate slower than if they were running on a Commodore-64. Gosh, everyone knows it worked for NeXT!
This is what happens when geeks run a project...sad but true.
Jason.
Is there any indication how far the hackers went?
Westion Union is owned by First Data Corporation, one of the largest credit card issuers in the US. Assuming the networks of the two corporations were somehow linked (or have systems shared between the two), if the hackers were able to get into FDC's systems, this could be disasterous.
It may be wise to invest in some put options on FDC...hmm
Jason.
Doesn't AMD have a responsibility to limit overclocking in order to eliminate the fraudulent sale of overclocked systems?
Most retail PC buyers couldn't tell if a system has been overclocked or not. And if John Smith's home PC eventually burns out, doesn't it negatively effect AMD's reputation?
Isn't the primary issue here that the MPAA is trying to copyright a randomly generated key?
Should a random sequence of bytes really be copyrightable?
I'm basing this question on the assumpation the DeCSS code using a standard encryption method not owned by the MPAA. Correct me if I'm wrong...
Look at the properties of the document in Word and you'll find the following:
Feature Cool
Even though Microsoft has officially denied it, this product _is_ their previously announced but then cancelled 'Java-killer' 'Cool'.
Whoops.