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35.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 11, 2011, 09:44
35.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 11, 2011, 09:44
Oct 11, 2011, 09:44
 
Verno wrote on Oct 11, 2011, 09:30:
Indeed, Moore's law works. That's why we would have the possibility to make a much more powerful machine. Two years ago Intel demonstrated a 48 core CPU.

Yep, idiots like to spout doomsday scenarios for entire platforms but ignore the fact that a lot of mobile chip research is applicable to other platforms as well. The concept of the PC being a monolithic desktop only appliance is what's dying more than anything else, the platform itself is evolving and is thriving right now.

I don't understand anything you're saying.
Yes, mobile chip development is applicable to other platforms, but why put the technology in a large case if it fits in a small case? And even if it's applicable it's still slowing down PC tech growth.

And you claim that the platform is "thriving." No it isn't. Desktop sales drop every single year. First laptops were eating into their sales. Then desktops. Now tablets. Apple barely even makes desktops anymore. Desktop sales fell from 45% of computer sales in 2008 to an estimated 27% in 2011.

Consumers don't want big, giant boxes under their desks. Retailers and tech companies are reacting to this by focusing development away from them.


edit - I mean, if you can have the exact same power in something the bar of soap instead of something 3x2x1, why wouldn't you want it? Because you can't swap out parts? You upgrade the whole thing, not parts. Because you can't do SCSI? The entire thing runs on flash memory. Because it's not as powerful as what you can theoretically put into a giant box? Sure, but people are pulling money from developing giant box hardware and putting it into mobile hardware so it's increasing exponentially faster. It won't be long until it catches up.

This comment was edited on Oct 11, 2011, 09:52.
34.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 11, 2011, 09:30
34.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 11, 2011, 09:30
Oct 11, 2011, 09:30
 
Indeed, Moore's law works. That's why we would have the possibility to make a much more powerful machine. Two years ago Intel demonstrated a 48 core CPU.

Yep, idiots like to spout doomsday scenarios for entire platforms but ignore the fact that a lot of mobile chip research is applicable to other platforms as well. The concept of the PC being a monolithic desktop only appliance is what's dying more than anything else, the platform itself is evolving and is thriving right now.
Avatar 51617
33.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 11, 2011, 07:43
33.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 11, 2011, 07:43
Oct 11, 2011, 07:43
 
yuastnav wrote on Oct 11, 2011, 04:30:
Indeed, Moore's law works. That's why we would have the possibility to make a much more powerful machine. Two years ago Intel demonstrated a 48 core CPU.

If you haven't noticed, Moore's law is dying for PCs as research moves away from them.

But hey, you guys are also apparently ignoring that no one even buys PCs anymore. I have one, my boss has one, my parents have one, and that's it. Every other person I know has a laptop exclusively. In school I lived in an apartment complex with over 100 other students. Not a single one had a desktop. And now I have a coworker replacing his fried laptop with a Tablet and bluetooth keyboard (he'll still have a work laptop for when he needs more productivity, but he'll leave it at work most days.)

PCs are dead. Just accept it. The worst case scenario is that you end up 5 years behind where you would be in power otherwise, but thanks to this console generation we're probably 2 years behind right now as it is. I don't see PCs in their current form making it far out of this decade, other than legacy devices.
32.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 11, 2011, 06:17
32.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 11, 2011, 06:17
Oct 11, 2011, 06:17
 
Stallman explicitly said that he is not glad that Jobs is dead but he's glad that he is gone i.e. that he has no influence on Apple anymore - those are two different things.
And yes, if the head of your company is responsible for such things as workers committing suicide because of the working conditions or closed, draconian systems like virtually all the Apple products then yes - as a vanguard of free software and thus someone who stands against everything Apple does you will be glad.
The catch is that Jobs is probably not the only one who enforced that draconian nature of the Apple products and that his successors will want the same, that's where Stallman may be wrong.

I really don't understand the outrage about Stallman's comment. Again, he never said that he's glad Steve Jobs is dead.
But even if he did: who cares?
Well, a lot of people will care but that can be explained by either their moral views on someone saying "they're glad someone else is gone" or their strong emotional attachment to either Jobs, Apple or their products and you can believe me that if Stallman would die all of a sudden they will gladly say the same about him that he said about Jobs (if I recall correctly some already did, in fact, do that in the comment section of the linked site).

Glorifying someone and not pointing out their errors only because that person is dead is just utterly stupid and counterproductive.
Now we donce.
31.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 11, 2011, 06:02
31.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 11, 2011, 06:02
Oct 11, 2011, 06:02
 
yuastnav wrote on Oct 11, 2011, 04:30:
To be fair, though, that's both a childish and a stupid saying.

Maybe so. But does it not apply here?

yuastnav wrote on Oct 11, 2011, 04:30:
And if we resort to just parroting platitudes without any form of real discussion think about that one: "To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."

Well, that's one platitude I certainly don't agree with.
If Stallman wanted to make his point properly, he shouldn't have connected Steve Jobs' death to him being glad about anything. It sounds like an implicit admission that FOSS would have never been able to compete while someone as formidable as SJ was at the helm of Apple.
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30.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 11, 2011, 04:30
30.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 11, 2011, 04:30
Oct 11, 2011, 04:30
 
apeman wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 20:05:
Stallman once more demonstrates his complete lack of social skills, and in my opinion is doing the free/open source community a big disservice by being such a childish prick about this. Like the old saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say... don't say anything at all.

To be fair, though, that's both a childish and a stupid saying.
And if we resort to just parroting platitudes without any form of real discussion think about that one: "To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."

^Drag0n^ wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:51:
Moore's law works. The A5 chip in the iPhone4S is running games equivalent to UT2004 in complexity right now.

My 35w Ion2 powered netbook runs Doom 3 faster than the rig I ran it on originally; and, in it's day, the video card alone cost almost twice as much as the entire netbook.

Indeed, Moore's law works. That's why we would have the possibility to make a much more powerful machine. Two years ago Intel demonstrated a 48 core CPU.
Now we donce.
29.
 
Re: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone.
Oct 10, 2011, 23:15
29.
Re: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone. Oct 10, 2011, 23:15
Oct 10, 2011, 23:15
 
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 13:17:
Steve Jobs once said Bill Gates would be a better person if he dropped acid and expanded his mind.

Now that's a goddamn hippie!

Jobs almost had it right apparently, but not LSD, Psilocybin - http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/GeneralPsychiatry/28788
Avatar 13987
28.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 21:01
28.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 21:01
Oct 10, 2011, 21:01
 
^Drag0n^ wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:51:
Moore's law works. The A5 chip in the iPhone4S is running games equivalent to UT2004 in complexity right now.

My 35w Ion2 powered netbook runs Doom 3 faster than the rig I ran it on originally; and, in it's day, the video card alone cost almost twice as much as the entire netbook.

indeed. Phone power is skyrocketing while pc power growth is slowing. With resources being shifted to phone/mobile power it won't be long before it catches up.

27.
 
Re: how many Ds does it take to get to the dark matter center of a universe?
Oct 10, 2011, 20:39
Dev
27.
Re: how many Ds does it take to get to the dark matter center of a universe? Oct 10, 2011, 20:39
Oct 10, 2011, 20:39
Dev
 
space captain wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:57:
Dev wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:50:
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:02:
A giant box has more processing power for how much longer?
How much longer? Always. A larger box will ALWAYS be able to have more processing power than a smaller one.

you forgot the Tardis...
Well I did mention (before I saw your comment):
The only case I can imagine that physical space wouldn't matter in the potential processing power, is if someone figured out how to invent a bag of holding and store everything in a alternate universe/dimension.

Wouldn't that cover the Tardis?
26.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 10, 2011, 20:33
26.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 10, 2011, 20:33
Oct 10, 2011, 20:33
 
apeman wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 20:05:
Stallman once more demonstrates his complete lack of social skills, and in my opinion is doing the free/open source community a big disservice by being such a childish prick about this. Like the old saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say... don't say anything at all.

I love irony.
25.
 
Re: Morning Tech Bits
Oct 10, 2011, 20:05
25.
Re: Morning Tech Bits Oct 10, 2011, 20:05
Oct 10, 2011, 20:05
 
Stallman once more demonstrates his complete lack of social skills, and in my opinion is doing the free/open source community a big disservice by being such a childish prick about this. Like the old saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say... don't say anything at all.
Avatar 4021
24.
 
how many Ds does it take to get to the dark matter center of a universe?
Oct 10, 2011, 19:57
24.
how many Ds does it take to get to the dark matter center of a universe? Oct 10, 2011, 19:57
Oct 10, 2011, 19:57
 
Dev wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:50:
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:02:
A giant box has more processing power for how much longer?
Why do you need swappable hardware? The entire device will be swappable. Why do you need scsi or a soundcard?

You're thinking about a PC still. You're holding on to that concept rather than letting it evolve.
How much longer? Always. A larger box will ALWAYS be able to have more processing power than a smaller one.

you forgot the Tardis...
23.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 19:51
23.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 19:51
Oct 10, 2011, 19:51
 
Moore's law works. The A5 chip in the iPhone4S is running games equivalent to UT2004 in complexity right now.

My 35w Ion2 powered netbook runs Doom 3 faster than the rig I ran it on originally; and, in it's day, the video card alone cost almost twice as much as the entire netbook.
"Never start a fight, but always finish it."
Avatar 55075
22.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 19:50
Dev
22.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 19:50
Oct 10, 2011, 19:50
Dev
 
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:02:
A giant box has more processing power for how much longer?
How much longer? Always. A larger box will ALWAYS be able to have more processing power than a smaller one. There's more room for power, more for cooling, more room for more CPU's (or better ones). Lets say that smartphones or tablets will get the processing power of our current mid range PC's in 3 years. Well in 3 years the current mid range PCs will ALSO be that much more powerful as well. PCs may not be as popular, they may die out more as next gen consoles hit and other devices grow in power, but PCs will still have potential to be more powerful.

Even when we hit quantum computing, more physical space will equal more potentially powerful quantum computers.

The only case I can imagine that physical space wouldn't matter in the potential processing power, is if someone figured out how to invent a bag of holding and store everything in a alternate universe/dimension. Or make some weird massless self organizing type computer made entirely out of electromagnetic waves.

This comment was edited on Oct 10, 2011, 19:57.
21.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 19:36
21.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 19:36
Oct 10, 2011, 19:36
 
^Drag0n^ wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:28:
I'd gladly give up my 1200w space heater of a PC for something with the same computing power that draws 4watts and is the size of half a brick of soap.

I mean, seriously?

I dunno, I don't think that any modern CPU would get by with so little power. The more computational power you have the more power is needed by the power supply. Which also requires a larger battery.
Now we donce.
20.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 19:28
20.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 19:28
Oct 10, 2011, 19:28
 
I'd gladly give up my 1200w space heater of a PC for something with the same computing power that draws 4watts and is the size of half a brick of soap.

I mean, seriously?
"Never start a fight, but always finish it."
Avatar 55075
19.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 19:22
19.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 19:22
Oct 10, 2011, 19:22
 
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 19:02:
yuastnav wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:59:
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:33:
UConnBBall wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:31:
PCs will always be around and are the work horses. The non-PC are the ease of mobile devices.

Hardly. Why have a giant box if you can have a tiny one?

Just because the PC will go away doesn't mean the monitor and keyboard will, so I don't know why your fear of writing a paper matters.

Because a giant box has more processing power. If you can have huge processing power in something small that means that you will get more if you just make that small box bigger.
If something were to replace the PC it would need to replace the PC's functions and that's not only swappable hardware but the mere ability to install a soundcard, a scsi controller, a dvb-s card and a bunch of other stuff.

A giant box has more processing power for how much longer?
Why do you need swappable hardware? The entire device will be swappable. Why do you need scsi or a soundcard?

You're thinking about a PC still. You're holding on to that concept rather than letting it evolve.

So basically what you're saying is that you can have a device that you can connect to a monitor, a mouse, a power sound system, a tv etc. at will while the device itself is portable?
And even if the processing power evolves to a point where a portable device is as powerful as a PC that would only mean that you could have more of THAT to build a PC that's more powerful than that tablet.
Now we donce.
18.
 
Re: Apple's 1000 engineers
Oct 10, 2011, 19:05
18.
Re: Apple's 1000 engineers Oct 10, 2011, 19:05
Oct 10, 2011, 19:05
 
Creston: You joke, man, but I'd be first in line for a house with real time digital monitoring of power, water, gas, and sewer.

For once you could see just how much it truly costs to give a shit

As for the whole Jobs thing (not aimed at you Cres; just a general comment): I still find it lowbrow to crap on a guy after death. Lots of people got into PCs because of him (Apple //e for me), and like or hate him, he did make technology accessible to people that normally would (should?) never be near a computer . I'm willing to bet a lot of our parents are on Macs because of the same reason mine are: I just can't handle running over to their house every time they get a trojan, infected jpeg, or some new phishing-deployed POS.

This comment was edited on Oct 10, 2011, 19:15.
"Never start a fight, but always finish it."
Avatar 55075
17.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 19:02
17.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 19:02
Oct 10, 2011, 19:02
 
yuastnav wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:59:
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:33:
UConnBBall wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:31:
PCs will always be around and are the work horses. The non-PC are the ease of mobile devices.

Hardly. Why have a giant box if you can have a tiny one?

Just because the PC will go away doesn't mean the monitor and keyboard will, so I don't know why your fear of writing a paper matters.

Because a giant box has more processing power. If you can have huge processing power in something small that means that you will get more if you just make that small box bigger.
If something were to replace the PC it would need to replace the PC's functions and that's not only swappable hardware but the mere ability to install a soundcard, a scsi controller, a dvb-s card and a bunch of other stuff.

A giant box has more processing power for how much longer?
Why do you need swappable hardware? The entire device will be swappable. Why do you need scsi or a soundcard?

You're thinking about a PC still. You're holding on to that concept rather than letting it evolve.
16.
 
Re: RE: Follow up
Oct 10, 2011, 18:59
16.
Re: RE: Follow up Oct 10, 2011, 18:59
Oct 10, 2011, 18:59
 
Beamer wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:33:
UConnBBall wrote on Oct 10, 2011, 18:31:
PCs will always be around and are the work horses. The non-PC are the ease of mobile devices.

Hardly. Why have a giant box if you can have a tiny one?

Just because the PC will go away doesn't mean the monitor and keyboard will, so I don't know why your fear of writing a paper matters.

Because a giant box has more processing power. If you can have huge processing power in something small that means that you will get more if you just make that small box bigger.
If something were to replace the PC it would need to replace the PC's functions and that's not only swappable hardware but the mere ability to install a soundcard, a scsi controller, a dvb-s card and a bunch of other stuff.
Now we donce.
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