Posts by CurtisB 16 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Nov 2008
-70 year old Lancaster - Max load 14,000lb (or a 22,000lb Grand Slam with modifications), up to 3000 miles with a minimal bomb load.
-30 year old B-1 Lancer - Max load 125,000lb (using 75,000lb in bomb bays and 50,000lb on hardpoints), up to 7400 miles (but not with that load out!)
-18 year old suicide bomber - max load 30lb (depends on how big he/she is), max range depends on his bus fare.
Pro's - It's a secure device (just shake to erase). It's battery life is amazing and you can take notes and draw with it. It's also light weight and cheap.
Con's - It's mono screen is somewhat old fashioned, and it's UI is cumbersome and somewhat basic. Like the iPad, it won't handle flash or Java content and is very much a locked down device in terms of applications. The iPad has a better web browser (just).
Mainframes are usually obscenely expensive to buy and support compared to x86 tin, not to mention the vendor lock-in issue as well. However, I'm surprised IBM don't push Mainframes more - after all, these points are surely a blessing for IBM, once they get their foot in the door (big discounts etc at first).
Don't forget NT came out in the same period (3.1, 3.51 and then 4.0). This provides the evolutionary basis for Win7 technology. Under the hood this was a big improvement over the Windows Elastoplast stuck on top of DOS provided by Windows up to the pain of Millenium Edition.
Regardless of opinions, NTFS, the bootloader and the driver/services model spring from the NT side. Only the gloss comes from the not-so-bright siblings (such as DirectX).
So it starts with the iPhone and the Touch. Here's a scary thought - I wonder if some evil Jobs clone within Apple will eventually lock down the Mac in the same way - I can see the 'reasoning' now. 'To ensure the stability and security of your Mac, and stopping the Internet from being destroyed in a fiery cataclysm.'
He's quite right, though perhaps 300-400 is more reasonable. This builds in an equivalent performance to a reasonable petrol car and mitigates against:
*Poor access to charging points.
*Human error - forgeting to plug in after any substantial journey.
*Deterioration of battery life over time (not to mention cold conditions).
*Useful distance for high mileage drivers. 25k is easy to do - it's less than 500 per week, many engineers and sales reps do crash through this easily, not that 9-5 office workers in the south east can see this.
Still doesn't account for the poor environmental record for bloody great battery supplies with exotic toxic metals scraped up across the earth, made into batteries, shipped to factories for cars so a little treehugger can feel good.
Give me the nuclear option. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
Don't be such a champagne socialist. They made a decision on a particular product range that is a well known and tested quantity and then went and bought it.
If I were a Swiss tax payer, I'd be impressed that a government organisation can make a decision without wasting time and money on needless bureaucracy - did you stop to think it might have been a decision driven by the technical staff themselves?
But, oh no. Not good enough for the freetards who view government contracts as something they deserve. We don't need a benefit state support system for uncompetitive software houses.
In answer to your question, it's because people like things to look human - not to mention it is technically challenging (balance etc).
Of course, when our cybernetic overlord, Skynet, takes over, it'll be controlling the designs for future robots, so more varied designs would follow. With phased plasma rifles in the 40MW range.
And it's the smug, self righteous attitude (e.g. 'I'm right, look at these statistics, you're wrong and being duped by/or in the pocket of Big Oil Inc.') of the pro-global warming lobby that continues to feed the anti-global warming lobby.
Neither side has proven their respective arguments conclusively, but both sides have made some pretty good cash out of it (I'm looking at you Mr. Gore) - hell, a whole, unproductive industry has sprung up around it. I wonder how much hot air, wasted electricity and paper goes into the mountains of poor science, rigged statiestics and flawed models used by both the Oil/energy etc industry on one side, and single interest fanatics on the other.
In addition, assuming global warming is happening leads to the even more petty bickering over whether it's man made or not - yet further 'jobs for the boys'. Moving further, is the government cash-cow of how to 'stop global warming'. Perhaps a more rational line should be, 'if global warming is happening, what can we do to mitigate and live with global warming'.
This is where the need for R&D money is, both in the glamorous (Fusion research) and not so glamorous (hot rocks etc.).
To conclude, both sides have devalued the argument so much that the man on the street (largely due to poor basic education and the dumming down of society - Paris Hilton being more important than, say, war in Afghanistan), no longer gives a flying **ck so long as he can get wasted on a Friday night and play PS3 on a saturday.
As Christophe points out, Fusion is most definitely not ESX. It's closer to Ye Olde Virtual PC.
As for Apple servers, I doubt there's enough mark up on the hardware to justify doing it off their own hook. Remember, IT buyers are more tech savvy and won't pay a premium for relatively cheap intel or AMD tin (particularly at the workgroup end) just because it has an Apple logo. Perhaps a licensing deal with one of the big players would work - they do the tin, Apple bring in OSX.
At the high end, I can't see they'd make enough Market penetration to cover the development of high end tin.
Additionally, as for OSX as a server OS. Sure it'll be secure etc, but what justifies it's premium over Linux? Also, there aren't any proven security benefits over Windows 2008 (contrary to the authors bias view). Maybe a small business server with an OSX flavoured mail/Sql/proxy/web server bundle might work, but Linux and Windows are established here also.
Apple should consider allowing OSX to be licensed seperately and virtualized. This would allow Virtual desktops as well as servers. How cool would that be?
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