MicroSofts NEW Plan to Rip You Off
Blackwater
computing.
Under a Microsoft proposal, consumers would receive heavily discounted
PCs, then pay fees for usage.
U.S. patent application number 20080319910, published on Christmas
Day, details Microsoft's vision of a situation where a "standard
model" of PC is given away or heavily subsidized by someone in the
supply chain. The end user then pays to use the computer, with charges
based on both the length of usage time and the performance levels
utilized, along with a "one-time charge."
Microsoft notes in the application that the end user could end up
paying more for the computer, compared with the one-off cost entailed
in the existing PC business model, but argues the user would benefit
by having a PC with an extended "useful life."
"A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable
software and service options has a user interface that allows
individual performance levels to be selected," reads the patent
application's abstract. The patent application was filed June 21,
2007.
"The scalable performance level components may include a processor,
memory, graphics controller, etc. Software and services may include
word processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a
pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost
associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually
selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being
performed," the abstract continues.
Integral to Microsoft's vision is a security module, embedded in the
PC, that would effectively lock the PC to a certain supplier.
- - - - - -
Geez ... now you wouldn't even OWN the PC or OS, you'd
just be RENTING it - and losing a variety of legal rights
in the process ... like to any 'personal' info perhaps or
the right to object to MS snooping on your net usage as
if it were Homeland-S .......
Of course MS could then SELL that info - even to Homeland ...
PCs are dirt cheap. Buy one. Buy a slightly USED one from
a forclosure sale or something. Then put LINIX on it ...
Ubuntu/Kubuntu is good, so is Fedora and Suse - they've
finally reached a level of ease and slickness comparable
with Winders ... and they're FREE.
nys999
@news.east.earthlink.net:
Or M/S telling you what other apps they'll allow you to
use with their software, cuz they'll still own the O/S.
Those old DRM issues again.
>
> Of course MS could then SELL that info - even to Homeland ...
They'd probably require logging onto their site every time
you boot up to tell them you aren't authorizing them to
sell information about what you're about to do that session.
>
> PCs are dirt cheap. Buy one. Buy a slightly USED one from
> a forclosure sale or something. Then put LINIX on it ...
> Ubuntu/Kubuntu is good, so is Fedora and Suse - they've
> finally reached a level of ease and slickness comparable
> with Winders ... and they're FREE.
Darn, this must be a really awful idea if yer against it...
Actually, a company I worked for was thinking about using
shared s/w via a file server (some kind of Office-like s/w).
I warned not to go that route, they never did, but it was
the late '80s so it was more the case that the technology
wasn't there yet.
Blackwater
Well, "thin clients" were in ... for awhile anyway ... in
cheap-ass corporate circles. Save money by giving the proles
a closed-up wimp-box that was naught but a terminal for an
expensive, annually-licenced, MicroSoft ultraserver.
Sounded great ... except that the MicroSoft servers were, well,
MicroSoft - and screwed-up all the time at great expense and
lost productivity. More than a few companies noticed that their
bacon was saved, in part at least, by those despised heathen
Linux boxes their IT guys maintained as a sort of hobby ....
Linux wasn't ready for prime-time on the Ma & Pa desktop in
the 80s or 90s ... but it WAS something caffeine-saturated
geeks could turn into really relaible servers for relative
pocket-change.
The "thin client" is OUT now ... but M$ has a way to make
money off their replacements - in the form of "cloud
computing". You'd love it, very "communistic" ... your
expensive PC gets dragged down to the level of everyone
elses by becoming a cog in a distributed-processing
environment (yea, 'Cloud' had a real name before M$
pretended it invented the idea).
The idea is to turn the whole corporate intranet (at the
very least) into one giant supercomputer - everyones jobs
carefully split-up, coordinated, spied-upon and re-assembled
by, you guessed it, anually-licenced MicroSoft software :-)
Oops ! "Network Bandwidth" ... that nasty term ! Unless
everybody goes fiber-optic (which M$ will probably sell)
the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
But the pointy-haired bosses WILL buy the hype. Count
on it - Bill is.
Lou Ravi
[snip: a good post]
It's hard to disagree with anything you said. I'm see that the old
saying 'business is business' still holds good at MS. "It's not what the
client wants? What do we care?"
I'm not a kneejerk anti-Microsoftian, far from it, but their relative
hegemony, while good for standardisation, always leaves itself open to
this sort of rip off. I hope, if ithappens, that the public disdain it
as they have done with Vista.
nys999
@news.east.earthlink.net:
No doubt you hope so, given your rethug demand for
"Total Information Awareness" you aren't fooling me.
> expensive PC gets dragged down to the level of everyone
> elses by becoming a cog in a distributed-processing
> environment (yea, 'Cloud' had a real name before M$
> pretended it invented the idea).
Heh, one interesting scenerio might be a virus designed
to mutate, running in that cloud...mutating, Imagine if
Heinlein's idea of a large enough computer system
that evolved consciousness were prescient...
>
> The idea is to turn the whole corporate intranet (at the
> very least) into one giant supercomputer - everyones jobs
> carefully split-up, coordinated, spied-upon and re-assembled
> by, you guessed it, anually-licenced MicroSoft software :-)
Ingenious I sez...demanding to be paid for spying on
everyone. Use ta'be freelance spy got paid when they
sold what they knew. M/S wants money on both sides
of the event.
>
> Oops ! "Network Bandwidth" ... that nasty term ! Unless
> everybody goes fiber-optic (which M$ will probably sell)
Even f/o has a practical limit
> the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
> job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
> ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
Reminds me of some powerpoint presentations, more time is
spent on choosing fonts and colors than on optimizing
data presentation.
Also an old scifi story of the guy who figured out a
way to not need a gaint computer (well, it was the
fifties). He figured out how to add and subtract in
his head.
>
> But the pointy-haired bosses WILL buy the hype. Count
> on it - Bill is.
>
What shape is your hair??????
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
Blackwater wrote:
> Well ...
>
> Note that instead of fixing Vista (or fixing the bugs in XP)
> they instead spent megabucks on huge ad campaigns to try and
> convince everybody that Vista is great. Reminds me of the
> big automakers who just made more SUV ads instead of
> re-tooling for efficient vehicles.
>
What is wrong with Vista, that's it's a pig? Just buy a bigger
boat.
--
"Oh, I'm broke."
"Take another mortgage, don't give in."
"I thought you were broke. Where did you get all that money from?"
"Don't question me."
"Where did you get it?"
"I borrowed it from the bank."
"Well, you can't do that, that's cheating."
"Listen you little stoat, I own Park Lane, I can borrow as much
bloody money as I like."
~Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha, "Absolutely Fabulous"
nys999
<tributy...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
news:495C73AC...@yahoo.co.uk:
>
>
> Blackwater wrote:
>>
>> "Lou Ravi" <j.mu...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>>
>> >Blackwater wrote:
>> >
>> >[snip: a good post]
>> >
>> >It's hard to disagree with anything you said. I'm see that the old
>> >saying 'business is business' still holds good at MS. "It's not what
>> >the client wants? What do we care?"
>> >
>> >I'm not a kneejerk anti-Microsoftian, far from it, but their
>> >relative hegemony, while good for standardisation, always leaves
>> >itself open to this sort of rip off. I hope, if ithappens, that the
>> >public disdain it as they have done with Vista.
>>
>> Well ...
>>
>> Note that instead of fixing Vista (or fixing the bugs in XP)
>> they instead spent megabucks on huge ad campaigns to try and
>> convince everybody that Vista is great. Reminds me of the
>> big automakers who just made more SUV ads instead of
>> re-tooling for efficient vehicles.
>>
> What is wrong with Vista, that's it's a pig? Just buy a bigger
> boat.
Duh. What logic. Lemme give give you one small example.
XP came with a fax application built in. Vista,not only
dropped the fax module, but third party fax s/w either
does not work or works poorly. Vista is not 3rd party
friendly. Is it a flaw or a feature?
So I compose on my Vista machine and use a.......um...er
floppy drive to move a fax message to my laptop. Why don't
I compose on my laptop? Cuz the damn USB subsystem on
goddamned Gateway laptop crashes the system randomly.
So I bough a replacement...with Vista...If it ain't
Gateway screwing the customer, it's Megacrap. Ya freaking
can't win. (Hint: don't touch Gateway products, the
components are too damn cheap and begin failing right
after the warrantee expires. My first machine was a
1991 era Gateway, when Gateways were rock solid hardware.)
I once did use Linux, late '90s version. But rolling
over to Linux today is, for me, a hassle right now not
worth the effort.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
Linux is so unfriendly with software that you are supposed to
recompile it from source if you get a new version. Windows doesn't
usually make that happen.
> So I compose on my Vista machine and use a.......um...er
> floppy drive to move a fax message to my laptop. Why don't
> I compose on my laptop? Cuz the damn USB subsystem on
> goddamned Gateway laptop crashes the system randomly.
>
Compose? You mean fax messages or are we talking about music or
usenet posts? Shouldn't your notebook be networked to your main
machine? What does that have to do with USB?
> So I bough a replacement...with Vista...If it ain't
> Gateway screwing the customer, it's Megacrap. Ya freaking
> can't win. (Hint: don't touch Gateway products, the
> components are too damn cheap and begin failing right
> after the warrantee expires.
>
I think that E-machines is part of Gateway. They at least use them
in some way for support. So I've always hated Gateway 2000.
> My first machine was a
> 1991 era Gateway, when Gateways were rock solid hardware.)
>
> I once did use Linux, late '90s version. But rolling
> over to Linux today is, for me, a hassle right now not
> worth the effort.
>
I think you'd likely find that a live disk would just boot up and
flat out work. There are problems, but remarkably often not with
the install, assuming you aren't required to make a soft modem
work.
nys999
Right. You have to wait for the vendor to sell you a Vista
version of their XP-compatible software.
>
>
>
>> So I compose on my Vista machine and use a.......um...er
>> floppy drive to move a fax message to my laptop. Why don't
>> I compose on my laptop? Cuz the damn USB subsystem on
>> goddamned Gateway laptop crashes the system randomly.
>>
> Compose? You mean fax messages or are we talking about music or
Duh? You don't "compose" when you write (ie., Composition:
....5 : an intellectual creation: as a : a piece of
writing; especially : a school exercise in
the form of a brief essay....)?
Judging by your posts, ya gotta point thar, bunky...
> usenet posts? Shouldn't your notebook be networked to your main
> machine?
Mighty free with other people's money, aren't you?
> What does that have to do with USB?
>
>
>
>> So I bough a replacement...with Vista...If it ain't
>> Gateway screwing the customer, it's Megacrap. Ya freaking
>> can't win. (Hint: don't touch Gateway products, the
>> components are too damn cheap and begin failing right
>> after the warrantee expires.
>>
> I think that E-machines is part of Gateway. They at least use them
> in some way for support. So I've always hated Gateway 2000.
>
>
>> My first machine was a
>> 1991 era Gateway, when Gateways were rock solid hardware.)
>>
>> I once did use Linux, late '90s version. But rolling
>> over to Linux today is, for me, a hassle right now not
>> worth the effort.
>>
> I think you'd likely find that a live disk would just boot up and
> flat out work. There are problems, but remarkably often not with
> the install, assuming you aren't required to make a soft modem
> work.
>
>
Right, the install is easy...all the problems surface when ya
try to do something. Now, what did I say?
My laptop has an 80GB hard drive, so I was adding 250GB externals
via USB. But the subsystem went bad. So I moved my 200GB of music
to a 500GB HD I added to my tower. So things have settled down to
an acceptable level of frustration. I don't need to network my
laptop for a once or twice a month fax. Nor buy a external fax/modem
whose s/w is Vista compatible. See, I don't believe in buying stuff
just to have the shiniest toys on the block, YMMV.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
Perhaps. But the reality is that Windows has done a pretty good job
of allowing the reuse of old binaries.
> >> So I compose on my Vista machine and use a.......um...er
> >> floppy drive to move a fax message to my laptop. Why don't
> >> I compose on my laptop? Cuz the damn USB subsystem on
> >> goddamned Gateway laptop crashes the system randomly.
> >>
> > Compose? You mean fax messages or are we talking about music or
>
> Duh? You don't "compose" when you write (ie., Composition:
> ....5 : an intellectual creation: as a : a piece of
> writing; especially : a school exercise in
> the form of a brief essay....)?
>
I didn't know what sort of composition you were referring to.
> Judging by your posts, ya gotta point thar, bunky...
>
My posts kick your posts straight to the Moon, Alice.
> > usenet posts? Shouldn't your notebook be networked to your main
> > machine?
>
> Mighty free with other people's money, aren't you?
>
Did we mention money? No, we didn't mention money at all. Mighty
odd to bring up money in a recession, porc chop.
> > What does that have to do with USB?
> >
> >
> >
> >> So I bough a replacement...with Vista...If it ain't
> >> Gateway screwing the customer, it's Megacrap. Ya freaking
> >> can't win. (Hint: don't touch Gateway products, the
> >> components are too damn cheap and begin failing right
> >> after the warrantee expires.
> >>
> > I think that E-machines is part of Gateway. They at least use them
> > in some way for support. So I've always hated Gateway 2000.
> >
> >
> >> My first machine was a
> >> 1991 era Gateway, when Gateways were rock solid hardware.)
> >>
> >> I once did use Linux, late '90s version. But rolling
> >> over to Linux today is, for me, a hassle right now not
> >> worth the effort.
> >>
> > I think you'd likely find that a live disk would just boot up and
> > flat out work. There are problems, but remarkably often not with
> > the install, assuming you aren't required to make a soft modem
> > work.
> >
> >
> Right, the install is easy...all the problems surface when ya
> try to do something. Now, what did I say?
>
Problems like what?
> My laptop has an 80GB hard drive, so I was adding 250GB externals
> via USB. But the subsystem went bad. So I moved my 200GB of music
> to a 500GB HD I added to my tower. So things have settled down to
> an acceptable level of frustration. I don't need to network my
> laptop for a once or twice a month fax. Nor buy a external fax/modem
> whose s/w is Vista compatible. See, I don't believe in buying stuff
> just to have the shiniest toys on the block, YMMV.
>
I'm not advocating buying things. Most of this stuff people will
just give away because they can't figure out how to make it work or
something. I haven't figured that out. It would seem like you'd
want your laptop to commuincate with the tower so you could listen
to your music files.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
Blackwater wrote:
>
> "Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )"
> <tributy...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Blackwater wrote:
> >>
> >> "Lou Ravi" <j.mu...@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Blackwater wrote:
> >> >
> >> >[snip: a good post]
> >> >
> >> >It's hard to disagree with anything you said. I'm see that the old
> >> >saying 'business is business' still holds good at MS. "It's not what the
> >> >client wants? What do we care?"
> >> >
> >> >I'm not a kneejerk anti-Microsoftian, far from it, but their relative
> >> >hegemony, while good for standardisation, always leaves itself open to
> >> >this sort of rip off. I hope, if ithappens, that the public disdain it
> >> >as they have done with Vista.
> >>
> >> Well ...
> >>
> >> Note that instead of fixing Vista (or fixing the bugs in XP)
> >> they instead spent megabucks on huge ad campaigns to try and
> >> convince everybody that Vista is great. Reminds me of the
> >> big automakers who just made more SUV ads instead of
> >> re-tooling for efficient vehicles.
> >>
> >What is wrong with Vista, that's it's a pig? Just buy a bigger
> >boat.
>
> Heh .... I wonder who gets kickbacks from the sales of
> bigger boats ?
>
I don't know. There seems to be an adversarial relationship between
some of the hardware companies and Microsoft. That might not be
true with the ones that Microsoft chooses to give better secret
deals to. One thing I wouldn't do today is buy a machine that
couldn't take 20gig of RAM or something like that. This 4gig and
yer out crap is worthless.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
Blackwater wrote:
>
> nys999 <nys...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> Oops ! "Network Bandwidth" ... that nasty term ! Unless
> >> everybody goes fiber-optic (which M$ will probably sell)
> >
> > Even f/o has a practical limit
>
> A serious limit if there's only one plug in the back of
> your PC. But they aren't gonna mention that ...
>
Ubuntu boots fine over the network I have. There's a slight
hesitation. And I suspect the amount of RAM you give yourself
locally can matter. But it's not impractical. There's also no hard
drive sound so that can matter. I'm only at 100 meg too. You can
get gig ethernet.
> >> the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
> >> job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
> >> ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
> >
> > Reminds me of some powerpoint presentations, more time is
> > spent on choosing fonts and colors than on optimizing
> > data presentation.
>
> Image over substance ... the mantra of our age.
>
What would you need to distribute as a home user? I guess you could
do colour correction on your 10,000 pictures from your recent trip
to Cuba.
Blackwater
Yet note that when you go purchase your 'bigger boat', it's
gonna come with OEM Vista ON it already ... which Dell or
whomever has PAID Microsoft for. Degrading performance =
new PC = more sales for Microsoft.
Blackwater
>
>
>Blackwater wrote:
>>
>> nys999 <nys...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>
>> >> Oops ! "Network Bandwidth" ... that nasty term ! Unless
>> >> everybody goes fiber-optic (which M$ will probably sell)
>> >
>> > Even f/o has a practical limit
>>
>> A serious limit if there's only one plug in the back of
>> your PC. But they aren't gonna mention that ...
>>
>Ubuntu boots fine over the network I have. There's a slight
>hesitation. And I suspect the amount of RAM you give yourself
>locally can matter. But it's not impractical. There's also no hard
>drive sound so that can matter. I'm only at 100 meg too. You can
>get gig ethernet.
Booting a PC from a local server - ie creating a run-time
image of the OS in your RAM - is one thing. Bona-fide
distributed processing is something else entirely. The
volume of traffic increases faster than the number of
connected computers. The finer the jobs are sliced up,
the worse it becomes ... indeed you may wind up in a
situation where packet routing overhead is using up
more time and bandwidth than the actual good info
you're trying to pass around.
It's why parallel processing is only a kludge, not
a solution. With modern chip-fab technology, it would
be possible to squeeze dozens, maybe a hundred, old
8086/186/286-equivalent processors onto a single die.
You'd think a hundred processors could get a job done
much faster than a single processor - but with the
exception of a few very special cases, it doesn't work
that way. Overhead and limits on how fine-'grained'
you can make a program make one uber-processor better
than a hundred little ones (99.9% of the time).
In practice in the real world, the advantages of
parallel processing pretty much run out at eight
processors. Not even much dif between four and eight.
Things like 3-D video games CAN sometimes be sliced
up into hundreds of parallel, simple, mathematical
operations - and there are specialized processors
made to facilitate video games - but MOST computing,
especially business computing, won't benifit from
parallelization - much less low-bandwitch 'cloud'
approaches.
>> >> the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
>> >> job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
>> >> ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
>> >
>> > Reminds me of some powerpoint presentations, more time is
>> > spent on choosing fonts and colors than on optimizing
>> > data presentation.
>>
>> Image over substance ... the mantra of our age.
>>
>What would you need to distribute as a home user? I guess you could
>do colour correction on your 10,000 pictures from your recent trip
>to Cuba.
That's it, there's rarely ANY advantage - for YOU. However
there IS advantage for anyone who wants a piece of what
you're doing ... and plans to make money from what they get.
The lord of the cloud is powerful ....
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
That's a reasonable point. Many people don't need a new computer
and really just need their current one reinstalled.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
Certainly if you are trying to do that with your word processor.
But if you have video you are compressing, something like that, I
suspect you'll see improvement.
> It's why parallel processing is only a kludge, not
> a solution. With modern chip-fab technology, it would
> be possible to squeeze dozens, maybe a hundred, old
> 8086/186/286-equivalent processors onto a single die.
>
> You'd think a hundred processors could get a job done
> much faster than a single processor - but with the
> exception of a few very special cases, it doesn't work
> that way. Overhead and limits on how fine-'grained'
> you can make a program make one uber-processor better
> than a hundred little ones (99.9% of the time).
>
I've been advocating multi-proc-on-die computing since the early
Pentiums. I said I'd prefer four 486DX-100s instead of 1 P5-75. As
I recall, the die would be about the same size. Regarding cutting
things up, I think you are wrong in some sense because a current
day OS is already cut up with many slices doing many things. It's
silly to attempt to combine that into one processor which then, if
you can believe this, tries to divide things back up again to
pipeline everything to allow out of sequence or speculative
execution. There might be a limit to the number of procs on a die
but we aren't anywhere near that limit today. If you look at your
OS, you might have a hundred processes and giving each one of them
a 2GHz computer can only speed things up overall. Of course this
assumes massive amounts of on die cache. If many processes, for
example the anti-virus suite, are simply loaded once and then
operated with hardware protection on the side, this means your
overall performance might not take much of a hit at all.
> In practice in the real world, the advantages of
> parallel processing pretty much run out at eight
> processors. Not even much dif between four and eight.
> Things like 3-D video games CAN sometimes be sliced
> up into hundreds of parallel, simple, mathematical
> operations - and there are specialized processors
> made to facilitate video games - but MOST computing,
> especially business computing, won't benifit from
> parallelization - much less low-bandwitch 'cloud'
> approaches.
>
Most people are trying on a word processor. That doesn't need much
of anything. Long ago they ran out of things to add to Word. Now
they just change the interface to confuse people and change the
file format so you have to upgrade or your version of Word won't
work with everyone else's.
> >> >> the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
> >> >> job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
> >> >> ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
> >> >
> >> > Reminds me of some powerpoint presentations, more time is
> >> > spent on choosing fonts and colors than on optimizing
> >> > data presentation.
> >>
> >> Image over substance ... the mantra of our age.
> >>
> >What would you need to distribute as a home user? I guess you could
> >do colour correction on your 10,000 pictures from your recent trip
> >to Cuba.
>
> That's it, there's rarely ANY advantage - for YOU. However
> there IS advantage for anyone who wants a piece of what
> you're doing ... and plans to make money from what they get.
> The lord of the cloud is powerful ....
>
Not if we refuse to believe.
nys999
>
>
> Blackwater wrote:
>>
>> nys999 <nys...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>
>> >> Oops ! "Network Bandwidth" ... that nasty term ! Unless
>> >> everybody goes fiber-optic (which M$ will probably sell)
>> >
>> > Even f/o has a practical limit
>>
>> A serious limit if there's only one plug in the back of
>> your PC. But they aren't gonna mention that ...
>>
> Ubuntu boots fine over the network I have. There's a slight
> hesitation. And I suspect the amount of RAM you give yourself
> locally can matter. But it's not impractical. There's also no hard
> drive sound so that can matter. I'm only at 100 meg too. You can
> get gig ethernet.
>
>
>
>
>
>> >> the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
>> >> job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
>> >> ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
>> >
>> > Reminds me of some powerpoint presentations, more time is
>> > spent on choosing fonts and colors than on optimizing
>> > data presentation.
>>
>> Image over substance ... the mantra of our age.
>>
> What would you need to distribute as a home user? I guess you could
> do colour correction on your 10,000 pictures from your recent trip
> to Cuba.
I have no idea what your rationale was for that statement, I was
referring to presentations that had to be reworked because my
manager (defense contractor) didn't think the division VP would
be suitably impressed. I was once amused by a department head
who spent a morning developing an "impressive" spreadsheet,
juggling fonts, size, colors.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
nys999 wrote:
>
> "Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )"
> > What would you need to distribute as a home user? I guess you could
> > do colour correction on your 10,000 pictures from your recent trip
> > to Cuba.
>
> I have no idea what your rationale was for that statement, I was
> referring to presentations that had to be reworked because my
> manager (defense contractor) didn't think the division VP would
> be suitably impressed. I was once amused by a department head
> who spent a morning developing an "impressive" spreadsheet,
> juggling fonts, size, colors.
>
I was referring to the material posted by B1ackwater: "Image over
substance ... the mantra of our age." We are discussing "cloud
computing" which he defined partly as being able to distribute your
computer requirements across many systems, which wouldn't need to
be local. I wondered what the average home user would use that for.
I could only think of the 10K pics you recently took on your Reise
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
> Um ... no.
>
> Too much info in video.
>
> That means too much data passed around = bandwidth issues.
>
It might take some hours to compress a DVD. A meg a second is
3.6gig an hour so you are looking at that rate as being enough to
send around a DVD in about an hour or two.
> >> It's why parallel processing is only a kludge, not
> >> a solution. With modern chip-fab technology, it would
> >> be possible to squeeze dozens, maybe a hundred, old
> >> 8086/186/286-equivalent processors onto a single die.
> >>
> >> You'd think a hundred processors could get a job done
> >> much faster than a single processor - but with the
> >> exception of a few very special cases, it doesn't work
> >> that way. Overhead and limits on how fine-'grained'
> >> you can make a program make one uber-processor better
> >> than a hundred little ones (99.9% of the time).
> >>
> >I've been advocating multi-proc-on-die computing since the early
> >Pentiums. I said I'd prefer four 486DX-100s instead of 1 P5-75. As
>
> Indeed possible ... but the advantage of many soon disappears.
>
Of four? I think clearly that it was better than, so it's better
now. And finally they are doing this.
> >I recall, the die would be about the same size. Regarding cutting
> >things up, I think you are wrong in some sense because a current
> >day OS is already cut up with many slices doing many things.
>
> But it's all "internal" ... hardware registers, hardware
> pipelines, fast onboard cache, shared memory spaces ....
>
> Very different from spewing it all out over even
> gigabit, or terabit, network through one port.
>
That's true but we are talking about two things, your "cloud
computing" and the idea of multi-proc-on-die computing. Clearly the
latter is ready for prime time.
> >It's
> >silly to attempt to combine that into one processor which then, if
> >you can believe this, tries to divide things back up again to
> >pipeline everything to allow out of sequence or speculative
> >execution. There might be a limit to the number of procs on a die
> >but we aren't anywhere near that limit today. If you look at your
> >OS, you might have a hundred processes and giving each one of them
> >a 2GHz computer can only speed things up overall. Of course this
> >assumes massive amounts of on die cache. If many processes, for
> >example the anti-virus suite, are simply loaded once and then
> >operated with hardware protection on the side, this means your
> >overall performance might not take much of a hit at all.
>
> It all SEEMS that way ... but, in practice, it generally fails.
> Google the literature.
>
Explain why I can't run Norton Antivirus on a core entirely in
cache.
> REAL-life ... eight processors on a die are roughly the best
> you'll get unless you're doing tons of weird math - molecular
> simulations and such.
>
The best compared to what, compared to taking time sliced
processes, putting them together and sending them to a processor
that then cuts them up to parallelize them? They are naturally
parallel.
> >> In practice in the real world, the advantages of
> >> parallel processing pretty much run out at eight
> >> processors. Not even much dif between four and eight.
> >> Things like 3-D video games CAN sometimes be sliced
> >> up into hundreds of parallel, simple, mathematical
> >> operations - and there are specialized processors
> >> made to facilitate video games - but MOST computing,
> >> especially business computing, won't benifit from
> >> parallelization - much less low-bandwitch 'cloud'
> >> approaches.
> >>
> >Most people are typing on a word processor. That doesn't need much
> >of anything.
>
> Almost nothing. I wrote a fair one in x86 assembler back
> in the mid 80s just for the hell of it - similar capabilities
> to 'WordStar'. Suprisingly little code ... and no point in
> parallelization.
>
I don't disagree. I was just looking at what I think is a 386
laptop with 24meg of ram. I don't get it but the battery still
seems to hold a charge, I think. I might set it up with a word
processor. It would be fine.
> I suppose the issue is "What IS 'business computing' ?".
>
> Not molecular dynamics, that's for sure ...
>
> Yet the MONEY is in 'business computing'.
>
> And 'video games' for the home user.
>
> Different requirements.
>
> >Long ago they ran out of things to add to Word.
>
> Crappy program. Use WordPerfect instead. Makes Word look
> like a grade-school project ...
>
The standard is Word. If you need to create complicated nonsense
and view it on Word, better use Word. Of course there are different
versions of Word.
> >Now
> >they just change the interface to confuse people and change the
> >file format so you have to upgrade or your version of Word won't
> >work with everyone else's.
>
> On to their tricks, I see ... :-)
>
Of course. I can't stand Microsoft. I'm viewing this message on a
network boot of Ubuntu which is VNCed to a machine running XP.
> >> >> >> the machine-machine chatter will be SO slow that whatever
> >> >> >> job you were doing could be done much faster if it just
> >> >> >> ran on your own PC instead of 500 other PCs.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Reminds me of some powerpoint presentations, more time is
> >> >> > spent on choosing fonts and colors than on optimizing
> >> >> > data presentation.
> >> >>
> >> >> Image over substance ... the mantra of our age.
> >> >>
> >> >What would you need to distribute as a home user? I guess you could
> >> >do colour correction on your 10,000 pictures from your recent trip
> >> >to Cuba.
> >>
> >> That's it, there's rarely ANY advantage - for YOU. However
> >> there IS advantage for anyone who wants a piece of what
> >> you're doing ... and plans to make money from what they get.
> >> The lord of the cloud is powerful ....
> >>
> >Not if we refuse to believe.
>
> Belief is irrelevant - for you.
>
> It's what they make your pointy-haired BOSS believe.
>
I hope that Jim Jones isn't running things.
Bill Bonde { No matter what happens, it's caused by global warming )
> Yea, with Win-2k, XP, SUSE or Kubuntu ....
>
> Not Vista.
>
Vista is a pig. That's what provoked my "Jaws" reference. But I'm
not convinced that it doesn't work as well as XP. The question is
does it do anything better enough to warrant wasting that much RAM
when you could be using it for virtulizing something less bloated?
I'm so not convinced that I'd look back at Win98SE to get a tight
fit. For processes that didn't require Windows, something light in
Linux is far better since it might be supported. I don't know the
answer there though. But Vista isn't so much evil as it is boring.
The main reason it's worth bothering with is so that you won't look
too confused looking for the many things they moved yet again from
XP. Doesn't this remind you of the nonsense with Word?
zzbu...@netscape.net
> (CNET) -- Microsoft has applied for a patent on metered, pay-as-you-go
> computing.
>
> Under a Microsoft proposal, consumers would receive heavily discounted
> PCs, then pay fees for usage.
Well, for the recursively uneducable in science looneytune-ville.
that's mostly because invented Microsoft invented neo-AT&T, not neo-
Computers.
The people with progessive computational brains and minds invented
GPS,
Fiber Optics, CD+rw, CD-rom, CD-ram, DVD-cr, DVD-rom, DVD-ram, HDTV
and Flatscreens.
Adaptive Pv Cell Arrays, Laser-Guided Phasors, On-Line Publishing,
USB, XML, Post Ford Batteries, All-In-One Printers, Post GM
Holograms,
Digital-Terrain-Mapping, and Autonomous Vehicles.