“Helping Dolphins Fly” and Other IT Items
“Helping Dolphins Fly” hit my del.icio.us links last January. And my comment made then still stands firm today: Perhaps MySQL will show up (more) in OpenOffice?
Cringely on the Less Glamorous Reason Why We Have Multi-core Processors
In “Repeal Denied: MST will help extend Moore’s Law for another 15 years,” Robert X. Cringely schools me on a less glamorous reason why we have multi-core processors: “Today’s move to dual- and multi-core processors is in direct response to nothing more than the need to effectively increase die size to keep temperatures down. Multi-core chips can also be run at lower clock speeds to keep down heat while relying on more than one core to recover from this apparent performance disadvantage.”
“Shape-shifting magnetic bots”
engadget.com: “Research is still in the early stages, but the concept renders are straight out of science fiction. Some friendly folks at Carnegie Mellon University are working towards electromagnetic microscopic bots that cling together and can assume virtually any shape.”
“…lead-free solder…”
From Cringley’s “Leadfoot: Sometimes going green hurts more than it helps”: “I have been told that just the cost of changing to lead-free solder stands right now at $280 BILLION and climbing.”
“Alienware Area-51 m15x owners outraged by overheating, cracking issues”
engadget.com: “We’ve been inundated with e-mails from Alienware m15x owners who have shelled out thousands of bucks in order to take home a serious piece of gaming hardware, only to find that their machine is overheating and / or developing cracks in the frame for no apparent reason.” Wow. I almost bought into Alienware back when I decided to go for Dell, the parent company.
For some reason I associated Alienware with raw, maniacal, technical supremacy. But they are just another American company trying to get something for nothing—and then apologizing for their greed for imperial tribute when they get caught in the vapor.