Underlying Shifts in the Natural Gas Market
Somehow important: Utah Considers Return to Gold, Silver Coins
A revolution against neoliberalism?, "We know the way to Tahrir Square"
T-shirts and tat mark Egypt’s revolution. First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win and they offer you the latest Tahrir Square celebrity tour.
Muhammad Yunus disputes Grameen sacking
Hong Kong’s Tsang Gives Cash, Tax Rebates in Budget U-Turn
Godson: China shuns US silicon with faux x86 superchip. I'm curious about your opinion on this, Rock.
Facebook Investor Peter Thiel: Palantir Is The Next Facebook Or Google
Supreme Court finds AT&T isn't a person
How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam
You’re ooonly cheating yourself, The Robbers Cave Experiment
Great link fest Emmie - Thank you!
ReplyDelete@Emmanuel,
ReplyDeleteRe, "Muhammad Yuus dispute":
"Prof. Yunus fell out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2007 when he was trying to set up a new party".
Nobody dare take away POWER!
Bangladesh, like most "democratic" countries has two dominant political parties and it's exteremly difficult for a third major party to succeed.
ICan
From the Guardian site:
ReplyDelete"Prince Andrew hosted Tunisian dictator's son-in-law at palace". www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/04/prince-andrew-tunisian-sakher-el-materi
"LSE head quits over university links to Gaddafi". http://www.guardian.co.uk/
"London School of Economics and Political Science director Howard Davies resigns after fresh allegations over links to libyan regime".
"The LSE has separtely confirmed it was investigating claims that Saif (al-Islam Gaddafi) had plagiarised parts of his doctoral thesis, allegations that have caused futher embarrassment ...LSE has come under pressure from its students to return the Gaddafi donation".
Money talks!
ICan
Manny, how's that snow storm? It's warm here today!
ReplyDeleteI commented this week about why I thought Microsoft's Windows Desktop OS leadership was nearing an end, and thus the company's status as one of the world's biggest IT players. My main assumption to support that scenario was that its reputation was broken beyond repair (in techies and non techies minds alike).
ReplyDeleteWell, this year's Fortune's "World's most admired companies" results suggests otherwise, with Microsoft making in to the 9th position...
But the relevance of this poll is easily dismissed just by looking further down the list: we've got JPM coming at 23th and GS right behind at 25th. lol.
ReplyDeleteThey'd better rename the poll to "World's most feared companies", or "most wanted companies" to make it representative of anything.
Looking at the making of of this report has me definitely classify this stuff as useless:
ReplyDeleteHow we pick them
To arrive at the top 50 Most Admired Companies overall, the Hay Group asked 4,100 executives, directors, and securities analysts who had responded to the industry surveys to select the 10 companies they admired most.
To be fair, maybe that's relevant information. In the parallel world of "experts" that is.
As for the majority of people, my opinion still is that they'd rather stay clear of anything Microsoft, if the transition to an alternative was easy enough for them.
Wolfie - absolutely useless. Fortune Magazine? Owned by a huge conglomerate, I can't think of a better reason for a company to be classified as biased when it comes to rating the worlds most admired companies.
ReplyDeleteRock - you seem to be in the know with technology. How far away do you think we are from either clear, or clear and bendable displays? I wonder if they'll end up combining something like that with the newest no-glasses 3D technology to make a functional hologram.
ReplyDelete@ICan
ReplyDeleteAh, good point!
Libya's battle for Brega: 'I've not had any training, but I've seen plenty of action films'
I can't believe I'm losing to these guys.
ReplyDeleteNice outfit Muamar, Penny's?
ReplyDeleteIdiots: Libyan rebels seize British SAS troops-Sunday Times
ReplyDeleteThey want you to use the front door to talk to them!
Emmie - Such a clusterf***. I wonder what this is doing to discourage these kinds of protests in the near future. Are we learning anything about what the circumstances are supposed to be for a successful revolution?
ReplyDeleteWe haven't heard a peep out of Syria have we? I've been wondering what's going on there.
This is so surreal
ReplyDeleteGaddafi seeks UN probe into unrest
Libyan leader says UN or AU should launch an investigation into unrest rocking his country.
@Emmanuel117
ReplyDeleteSome really great links there. Man, don't we have the news this week? And Man oh Man didn't we have some great comments and posts with tools, articles, proprietary insight, and links? This was a week to remember for sure! This Linkfest is the perfect cap!
I read those links and could only say *Yes*!!!.
@Emmanuel117:
ReplyDeleteRE: MIPS
I can't remember if I posted or commented about the MIPS development projects that I ran. The products were a failure because:
1. There was a 30% or more performance hit
2. They weren't much (if any) cheaper to manufacture and market
3. Nobody recompiled their apps to run native MIPS mode so we had to run everything in emulation mode (hence the 30% hit in performance)
4. Along with a 30% hit in performance, you have a 30% hit in power, so your power consumption goes up by 30%. It means a lot in blades.
5. Intel won't fail. They can make their chips cost whatever they want. When we brought out the MIPS servers, they decided to make the XEON processor, directly competitive with MIPS in surface area (the ultimate chip cost is by weight of the silicon, the bits of metal on the top are free) and lowered the cost because they had the volume. The MIPS was doomed.
6. All 5 of the above doesn't matter to China, where the government can simply decree "thou shalt use MIPS", and it will be done. But that will be the only market. Silicon Graphics got smart and replaced their processor with a socket that would plug Intel or their processor, and guess which one sold?
7. There are ways of using timing routines in software to make sure the software runs on "Genuine Intel". And smart developers can use self-modifying code so you can't defeat it. It may come to pass where the US Government lets Intel buy AMD, and we will modify the OSes so they run "genuine Intel" only, and China is toast because they simply steal all the software.
There are lots and lots of ways around this one.
The only reason to use MIPS is to do embedded design. I believe Qualcomm and NEC both have MIPS embedded in superchips with built-in I/O used for controller apps. I believe Qualcomm also uses ARM.
@Rock
ReplyDeleteGreat comment.
@Thor
ReplyDeleteRE: Displays
I only pretend to know a little about display technology. Someone I worked with was a display expert, his title was "chief scientist", and he taught me a little.
It's a lot like the old masters using paint on canvas, all done in layers. First, they put down bones, then layer on muscle, then layer on skin.
Today's display technology is a lot like that, with a factor of transparancy as well. Each layer is not necessarily opaque, like the old masters' paint.
Now, if you take those layers, and bend them, there will be a parallax error from the layer closest to the observer, to the most background layer. That error can be calculated, but for high-resolution multilayer images, I'm thinking the calculations would be huge.
A holographic image would have to be bent from every different observable angle. That's why when you look at today's "3D" images, you look at them from only the front, you cannot view them from the sides or from the rear.
I know the guy from 3D Labs that created the hologram you can see at the Boston Computer Museum. It is only a grey-scale single layer image, and only viewable from about a 180 degree perspective. But it shows what can be done, and when I first saw it in the lab, I was impressed. I think it will take mathematical processors beyond what we have today to create these images. Perhaps when IBM perfects the multi-layer silicon, we could have such capability.
No, I think 3-D images of Yoda viewable from around the conference table are tens of years away. Take a flexible output medium, and you may be 20s of years away.
But doable.
Rock - make sense! I haven't seen any of the newer 3D displays that don't require glasses, but I know that the imagine is only viewable from a couple of different (and limited) angles. I've read, much as you just stated, that as time goes on, and computing power increases, that the angle in which viewers can see a realistic 3D imagine will increase.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering when we might see things like wall mounted displays that act as somewhat of a "window". Either as an advertising, say, at a mall, or eventually in a home, with a display that acts much like a window.
Imagine being in Sing, with one of these high end displays acting as a window that show the same view you might have from your office window in the bay area. Or maybe even hotels who use the technology to give people in shitty rooms better views.
@Thor
ReplyDeleteI am praying that what you describe will happen by Skype in my lifetime. I would so dearly love to see my kids, one on each wall, in my living room, each able to talk and hear to/from the other!
Skype now has I think 3-image conferencing. I only need 1 more, and me as the center. Then I need a video controller to split the display into the 4 distinct sectors, one for each display.
That is coming in my lifetime. Maybe by Christmas.
Right now, I have 3 50" displays on 3 walls in my LR. I would buy a 4th. And a video controller.
@Thor
ReplyDeleteSee
http://web.mit.edu/museum/exhibitions/luminouswindows/
Nakamura-san. He was an NEC Labs fellow.
In what could potentially be a huge win for Android, Swedish automaker Saab has selected the operating system as the basis of its IQon in-vehicle infotainment system.
ReplyDeleteAndroid Calls Shotgun in Upcoming Saabs"
A serious OS for a critical application.;)
Rock - I think they're supposed to be including that technology with the next version of FaceTime ;-) Kidding.
ReplyDeleteChristmas might be too soon, but I'll bet we see something close within the next 5 years or so. I know they're working on, and are getting closer, with displays that can be painted on. Fascinating time to be alive, technology is advancing faster and faster all the time.
Cool link! I like the medicine cabinet the best.
Are we going to see oil at 110 this week?
ReplyDelete