As a side note, I've seen some GPU's with 512kB of RAM, and slots for another 512kB (two chips soldered and two sockets). The newest thing I've seen (still have it) is a Matrox G200 AGP card with 8MB of VRAM and a SODIMM-like connector for added memory.
Won't happen again, as it's not in the best interest of card manufacturers, and there are performance penalties and some difficulties.
Intel always was the biggest graphic chips provider - and I don't think was ever below 40% of the total market (by numbers at least). With all their expensive and cheap graphic chips, ATI and NVidia were unable to dethrone Intel's integrated graphic division.
AMD already has CrossFire, and no desire to help NVidia sell more video cards, when AMD has to sell video cards of its own.
This would be great for Intel, but they might want to get the SLI technology so that they would be able to use it on their own (maybe) future video cards.
You could connect memory to be used ONLY by the video card on a special slot - it was used for laptops, I think. Also, if I remember correctly, Intel had an option to add a special card with RAM in the AGP port, and the chipset would use it as video memory.
This was used as the video part of the chipset can use more memory bandwidth than the main RAM allows it, and using integrated graphics with main memory lowers the available bandwidth to the processor.
We have both kinds.
There are ex-sand lands where forests were planted during the communism - and were cleared, and are now reverting to desserts.
Also, we have the other kind:p
As for the "future" oil contracts, this has nothing to do with production of oil.
It is just that some companies (big oil) will buy crude oil on the current market to cover small current variations of demand, on near future market to normalize inventory/stockpile, and on far future market for normal trends and "usual use".
Let's say I buy crude from the producers, crude that will be extracted/refined 4 years from now. This way, the producers have time to optimise their production schedule, and the price reflects demand/supply for that period.
Now, let's say a big financial entity starts buying the oil production 4 years away.
The big oil are forced to mantain "4 years future stocks" as their modus operandi (just like you have a stock of flour for a week at least). This is what drives the price of those 4 years futures up. Hopefully, in 4 years from now that oil will be produced and sold, and will fill the marketplace - yet, due to the higher future cost of oil (higher price for the guarantee of future oil), the big oil companies are forced to increase the current price, and the higher price in the future drives the current price even though stockpiling is not possible (one can't say "Oh, I'll buy and stockpile 10 millions gallons of gas now, to prepare for when it will cost twice as much" - but he'll say "oh, oil will cost twice as much in 4 years, let's sell it now at one and a quarter of the price")
If I see that everyone in a city eats bread, they pay someone to buy it all up so I can sell it back at a large profit. What stops me from doing this is that the bread makers will just make more bread causing me to lose money. "the bread makers will just make more bread causing me to lose money." and people will start eating potatoes instead of bread.
Unfortunately, there is nothing to replace the oil - alternatives (like electric cars) are on their way, bio diesel is on its way, ethanol is on its way, hydrogen is on its way - all could replace the oil with bigger or lower initial costs, but they're far away.
You can say that the hypothetical value of crude oil should be $35 per barrel, or $60 per barrel. This does not make it fact.
Also, while the oil producing countries might have excess extraction and refining capacity, and keep those unused, is their own choice.
Also, keep in mind that the market for oil is not elastic (a small deficit leads to a large increase in price). If 10% of consumers would say: "The gas used to be $3 a gallon, if it goes over $3.2 I'm not buying" than a 10% decrease in availability would bring the price to $3.3. However, it has been proven again and again that people would buy almost the same amount of gas at $5 per gallon as at $3 per gallon.
The price of gas will normalize only when enough customers will be able to say: "I'm not buying gas at more than $x per gallon". Until then, you'll go to your job with gas at $6 per gallon as you were going at $3.
As for "near the reality"... The refining capacity of refineries in the U S of A is fully used (remember when a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexic damaged one refinery? gasoline prices went up). Also, there is no new refinery being built in U S of A, so this capacity is all you've got (imports of gasoline are still possible). So, some of the problem is in your own backyard.
Windows 2000 still has one update or another from time to time. It's totally off the update map, but my Win2000 workstation still announce me of some update or another once a month or so (true, they are critical security updates and might only be for IE, Media Player, and other Microsoft applications, not to the operating system proper)
This "grossly overcooling" business is done for several reasons:
There are 18 Celsius just out from the cooling units, but there might be pockets of warmer air in the data warehouse (based on rack position and use).
This "grossly overcooling" allows the servers to have a long duration of functionality when the air conditioning breaks.
The PSUs are working better at lower temperatures (even if they are perfectly fine otherwise). Also, the cooling fans (plenty of them in thin servers) work easier at lower temperatures.
What you say is shutting off computers, and then starting them with network starts. My own PSU (450W unit) uses more than 15W when connected to mains - so I switch it off from the mains when not in use.
Now, 15W loss in a 500W PSU when off is a drop in a bucket - yet it might help a bit
This cooling thing is a thermal machine - and the best efficiency depends on both the current temperature (inside or outside) and the temperature difference. That is, if you have outside 25 Celsius, you need twice the power to cool at 15 Celsius as opposed to cooling at 20 Celsius
Or as I've heard an opinion about the Sun's "container server farm", only 90% of the servers are working, and every one that breaks is replaced by one unused before - and when there are not enough spares, the entire container is replaced at the customer
The extensions are by design - it might have been the reverse (Opera with extensions, even GPL extensions, and Firefox without them) and this won't make Firefox without extensions less open than Opera with open source extensions.
It's like Windows being less open than Solaris, even though you can run the same "extensions" (in this case programs) in both
Freeness and open sourceness indeed is not a measure of quality. On the other hand, cost and closed sourceness is not a measure of quality either.
This is a personal choice - like buying american cars over imports (if you are an american), or buying from one shop instead of another. While you might pay more for less (all the time, sometime or never), it's a choice you're making above a pure cost/efficiency analysis.
Every time you hear the term "free software" you should think at GPL, BSD or similar licenses - under which you have access to the source code. That is, "free software" comes with source code, while freeware is fully functional software for which you don't have to pay money.
I guess you might want to use the Firebird browser - I use the 0.6.3 version for things where I don't want to use Firefox (now on version 3.0 both at work and at home)
The CD standard is still available after almost 20 years - I can't say anything about the quality of the medium.
I have (crappy, no name) DVD drives that are not readable/partially not readable after less than a couple of years.
Samsung will have Multi Level Cells, which are slower (and cheaper). The Single Level cells are faster (up to twice as fast I think), but more expensive.
You can go either way with it, but I think faster (and smaller) drives are more attractive than bigger and slower.
You need to compete against the sequential speed of a 15,000 rpm SCSI drive too (SSD will beat them dead on access speed, but not all workloads are small random reads)
Flamebait, but it seems people will pay $400 for an OS so they can run a $40 game (next year, or maybe two years from now) - as DirectX 10 is not available in Windows XP
Microsoft would have liked Vista on all new retail computers (which is happening), but they would also have wanted it adopted in corporate world (which is not really happening) and purchased as upgrade (also, not a big sell).
So, Vista had brought them money on the low estimate, and probably costed them quite a bit more than the initial estimates.
I'm not sure Microsoft will develop a version of Windows non compatible with Windows XP. Those new mini computers are fast enough for Windows XP, and they will be even faster in the future. And nobody seems to want Windows Mobile on their new mini laptops.
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As a side note, I've seen some GPU's with 512kB of RAM, and slots for another 512kB (two chips soldered and two sockets). The newest thing I've seen (still have it) is a Matrox G200 AGP card with 8MB of VRAM and a SODIMM-like connector for added memory.
Won't happen again, as it's not in the best interest of card manufacturers, and there are performance penalties and some difficulties.
Intel always was the biggest graphic chips provider - and I don't think was ever below 40% of the total market (by numbers at least). With all their expensive and cheap graphic chips, ATI and NVidia were unable to dethrone Intel's integrated graphic division.
AMD already has CrossFire, and no desire to help NVidia sell more video cards, when AMD has to sell video cards of its own.
This would be great for Intel, but they might want to get the SLI technology so that they would be able to use it on their own (maybe) future video cards.
You could connect memory to be used ONLY by the video card on a special slot - it was used for laptops, I think. Also, if I remember correctly, Intel had an option to add a special card with RAM in the AGP port, and the chipset would use it as video memory.
This was used as the video part of the chipset can use more memory bandwidth than the main RAM allows it, and using integrated graphics with main memory lowers the available bandwidth to the processor.
We have both kinds. :p
There are ex-sand lands where forests were planted during the communism - and were cleared, and are now reverting to desserts.
Also, we have the other kind
As for the "future" oil contracts, this has nothing to do with production of oil.
It is just that some companies (big oil) will buy crude oil on the current market to cover small current variations of demand, on near future market to normalize inventory/stockpile, and on far future market for normal trends and "usual use".
Let's say I buy crude from the producers, crude that will be extracted/refined 4 years from now. This way, the producers have time to optimise their production schedule, and the price reflects demand/supply for that period.
Now, let's say a big financial entity starts buying the oil production 4 years away.
The big oil are forced to mantain "4 years future stocks" as their modus operandi (just like you have a stock of flour for a week at least). This is what drives the price of those 4 years futures up. Hopefully, in 4 years from now that oil will be produced and sold, and will fill the marketplace - yet, due to the higher future cost of oil (higher price for the guarantee of future oil), the big oil companies are forced to increase the current price, and the higher price in the future drives the current price even though stockpiling is not possible (one can't say "Oh, I'll buy and stockpile 10 millions gallons of gas now, to prepare for when it will cost twice as much" - but he'll say "oh, oil will cost twice as much in 4 years, let's sell it now at one and a quarter of the price")
and people will start eating potatoes instead of bread.
Unfortunately, there is nothing to replace the oil - alternatives (like electric cars) are on their way, bio diesel is on its way, ethanol is on its way, hydrogen is on its way - all could replace the oil with bigger or lower initial costs, but they're far away.
Gas prices are exactly at reality.
You can say that the hypothetical value of crude oil should be $35 per barrel, or $60 per barrel. This does not make it fact.
Also, while the oil producing countries might have excess extraction and refining capacity, and keep those unused, is their own choice.
Also, keep in mind that the market for oil is not elastic (a small deficit leads to a large increase in price). If 10% of consumers would say: "The gas used to be $3 a gallon, if it goes over $3.2 I'm not buying" than a 10% decrease in availability would bring the price to $3.3. However, it has been proven again and again that people would buy almost the same amount of gas at $5 per gallon as at $3 per gallon.
The price of gas will normalize only when enough customers will be able to say: "I'm not buying gas at more than $x per gallon". Until then, you'll go to your job with gas at $6 per gallon as you were going at $3.
As for "near the reality"...
The refining capacity of refineries in the U S of A is fully used (remember when a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexic damaged one refinery? gasoline prices went up). Also, there is no new refinery being built in U S of A, so this capacity is all you've got (imports of gasoline are still possible). So, some of the problem is in your own backyard.
Windows 2000 still has one update or another from time to time. It's totally off the update map, but my Win2000 workstation still announce me of some update or another once a month or so (true, they are critical security updates and might only be for IE, Media Player, and other Microsoft applications, not to the operating system proper)
Mouse, monitor, and I think this would be all - I've measured the power on the socket, not specifically the PSU
This "grossly overcooling" business is done for several reasons:
There are 18 Celsius just out from the cooling units, but there might be pockets of warmer air in the data warehouse (based on rack position and use).
This "grossly overcooling" allows the servers to have a long duration of functionality when the air conditioning breaks.
The PSUs are working better at lower temperatures (even if they are perfectly fine otherwise). Also, the cooling fans (plenty of them in thin servers) work easier at lower temperatures.
What you say is shutting off computers, and then starting them with network starts. My own PSU (450W unit) uses more than 15W when connected to mains - so I switch it off from the mains when not in use.
Now, 15W loss in a 500W PSU when off is a drop in a bucket - yet it might help a bit
This cooling thing is a thermal machine - and the best efficiency depends on both the current temperature (inside or outside) and the temperature difference. That is, if you have outside 25 Celsius, you need twice the power to cool at 15 Celsius as opposed to cooling at 20 Celsius
Or as I've heard an opinion about the Sun's "container server farm", only 90% of the servers are working, and every one that breaks is replaced by one unused before - and when there are not enough spares, the entire container is replaced at the customer
The extensions are by design - it might have been the reverse (Opera with extensions, even GPL extensions, and Firefox without them) and this won't make Firefox without extensions less open than Opera with open source extensions.
It's like Windows being less open than Solaris, even though you can run the same "extensions" (in this case programs) in both
Freeness and open sourceness indeed is not a measure of quality. On the other hand, cost and closed sourceness is not a measure of quality either.
This is a personal choice - like buying american cars over imports (if you are an american), or buying from one shop instead of another. While you might pay more for less (all the time, sometime or never), it's a choice you're making above a pure cost/efficiency analysis.
Every time you hear the term "free software" you should think at GPL, BSD or similar licenses - under which you have access to the source code. That is, "free software" comes with source code, while freeware is fully functional software for which you don't have to pay money.
Send an anonymous email to their overlords claiming you are an visually impaired person using web browser Opera and you can't access their site.
I guess you might want to use the Firebird browser - I use the 0.6.3 version for things where I don't want to use Firefox (now on version 3.0 both at work and at home)
The CD standard is still available after almost 20 years - I can't say anything about the quality of the medium.
I have (crappy, no name) DVD drives that are not readable/partially not readable after less than a couple of years.
CDs are still readable, after almost 20 years
Samsung will have Multi Level Cells, which are slower (and cheaper). The Single Level cells are faster (up to twice as fast I think), but more expensive.
You can go either way with it, but I think faster (and smaller) drives are more attractive than bigger and slower.
You need to compete against the sequential speed of a 15,000 rpm SCSI drive too (SSD will beat them dead on access speed, but not all workloads are small random reads)
Flamebait, but it seems people will pay $400 for an OS so they can run a $40 game (next year, or maybe two years from now) - as DirectX 10 is not available in Windows XP
Microsoft would have liked Vista on all new retail computers (which is happening), but they would also have wanted it adopted in corporate world (which is not really happening) and purchased as upgrade (also, not a big sell).
So, Vista had brought them money on the low estimate, and probably costed them quite a bit more than the initial estimates.
I'm not sure Microsoft will develop a version of Windows non compatible with Windows XP. Those new mini computers are fast enough for Windows XP, and they will be even faster in the future. And nobody seems to want Windows Mobile on their new mini laptops.