Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Intel confirms existence of X86-64 Yamhill chip

Link: "The report quotes Intel representative Robert Manetta as saying it has 'a working prototype of a 64-bit X86 design "

Intel's failure to communicate | CNET News.com

##: "Many of these acquisitions have since been folded or spun out at a loss, according to sources"

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Check Check

Hmm, how to make RSS feeder from Blogger...
Somehow my tags don't work right..

Linux gets heart transplant with 2.6.0 | CNET News.com

Linux gets heart transplant with 2.6.0 | CNET News.com: "However, commercial use of the 2.6.0 kernel is still months off for most customers.
Red Hat, the top seller of the Linux OS, plans to incorporate 2.6.0 in its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 product, due in 2005, said Brian Stevens, vice president of operating system development for Red Hat. SuSE Linux, the No. 2 seller, has a more aggressive schedule but doesn't expect 2.6.0 until it releases SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 in the summer of 2004,"

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

www.washme.com - Join the Unwashed Masses ??
Bravenet Web Services: "-10 is not a negative number. It is mathematically MINUS as in the operation, but that it exists shows that it is positive. There is only positive, into infinity and then lack of a number. " Hmm, please step away from the keyboard now...

Friday, December 12, 2003

Ghost Radio, Who's behind Arizona's nonstop oddball rock time capsule?

Time to talk about 2003 and music. First regular radio. Nothing better than KCDX 103.1 in Florence AZ.

Ok, so you can't get that if you not here? Ok, then become a Boot Liquour at the streaming Internet Station /

From this latter reference, you should be able to tell that 2003 was the year of ALT-Country for me. Yep, Cracker, , John Hiatt , William's Cars Wheels on a Gravel Road, Warren Zevon's last album, The Wind, etc.

Ok, so Zevon isn't normally listed as Alt-Country...but you get the idea...

3.1. Better Performance with Bigger Integers

- Long strings of bits and bytes [i.e., using 64-bit integers for data movement, zeroing, or logical operations on bit strings.]
(This turned out to happen via long long in C, which let people write code easily portable between 32- and 64-bit CPUs.)
- Graphics
- Integer arithmetic
"Most chips make addition and subtraction of multiprecision integers
(i.e., 64-bit, 96-bit, 128-bit, etc.) reasonably fast, but multiplication
and division are often quite slow. Cryptography is a heavy user of
multiple-precision multiplies and divides. Financial calculations could
use integer arithmetic; 32-bit integers are far too small, but 64-bit
integers are easily big enough to represent objects like the US national
debt or Microsoft's annual revenue to the penny." [still true!]

Note that for all of these, hardware support of 64-bits is a SPEED
difference, not a major structural difference, with use of long long
between 32- and 64-bit CPUs similar to use of long between PDP-11 and
VAX -the same code is used, but the smaller system needs to do more
operations.

3.2 Big Time-Addressing
"Perhaps more important than using 64-bit integers for performance is
the extension of memory addressing above 32-bits, enabling applications
that are otherwise difficult to program."

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

American Scientist Online - Through a Glass, Darkly: "Modern physics teaches us that there is more to truth than meets the eye; or than meets the all too limited human mind, evolved as it was to cope with medium-sized objects moving at medium speeds through medium distances in Africa. "

Monday, December 08, 2003

What can you do for the flu?: "In a typical year, 36,000 Americans die from the virus, and researchers worry the toll will be even higher this year." Yearly deaths from flu in the US

Saturday, December 06, 2003

West Hawaii Today: News: "Seal moving to Johnston Atoll"
Hawaii Tribune-Herald: News: "But earlier this week RM34 showed up at a beach near Kihei, Maui, where he was playing with up to 40 people in the water at a time, officials from the National Marine Fisheries Service said."
My Monk Seal RM34 moved again.. This time probably to Johnson Atoll..
Moon Phases


moon phases
 

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Twice as many Opterons as Itanics sold: "Twice as many Opterons as Itanics sold

The 64-bit battle rages on... but are all these chips sold, or given away?"
Sun screws itself again....
Sun drops bid to join Eclipse | CNET News.com
: "The failure of Sun and Eclipse to reach a collaborative arrangement effectively creates a split between two of the largest open-source tools projects in the industry.
Green said that ultimately the two groups will provide developers with more choice. He said Sun is still willing to reopen discussions with Eclipse in the future.
One analyst said that having two dueling open-source Java tools efforts is not helpful in Java companies' ongoing competition against Microsoft and its .Net line of development tools. Independent software providers can create a single add-on product for Microsoft's tools but are required to write plug-ins for two different systems for Java tools, noted Stephen O'Grady, analyst at RedMonk.
'Microsoft is still setting the pace from a usability and productivity perspective, but the Java vendors are continuing to support two competing platforms/communities for plug-in development,' O'Grady said. 'That just seems counterproductive, if the real goal is to threaten Microsoft.'"

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Making An RSS Feed: "Making An RSS Feed"
The Largest Known prime by Year: A Brief History: "The Largest Known Prime by Year
A Brief History"
Cooperative computing finds top prime number | CNET News.com: "A computer run by Michael Shafer, a 26-year-old at Michigan State University found the number"