Babel Athlon 64 convolutions do enjoy

Akika Price Watch and Babelfish
I always the convolutions of babble of babelfish enjoy. Good was it the 'First Athlon 64 corresponding mother' to see, although 'it appeared with special care as a single unit as a single unit for a while to use also "K8T Neo-FIS2R", the way it is not.' convey a lot of meaning to me did not.

I guess you had to be there.

John

Why oh why oh why
Please please please stop going on about the XBOX, unless its a game review etc, its a toy intended for kids granted adults aswell but it's still a toy . I'm sick to death of reading articles about running linux on the XBOX, hacking the XBOX, subverting the security on the XBOX. If people want to use Linux bloody run it on a PC/MAC/SUN Box etc. Instead of wasting hours trying get it to run on a childs toy. Granted it might have PC type technolgy in it, but then again so does my son's Vtec Handy Andy but you don't report on that.

If people don't like the Idea of secure computing etc then simply don't buy products that support it, simple.

Lyndon Bulmer

Mystery of Mac OSX for X86
Dear Mike Magee

I am a student of Warsaw University of Technology on faculty of electronics (8th semester) and I love reading Your page since its early beginning ( and even earlier at THE REG.....).

Anyway this Chinese site http://www.3lsoft.net/download/soft/1855.htm claims to be holding Mac OS X for x86 ( unfortunately a login and password are required but it is not my major point )

What really bothers me is the question.

Is it what Chinese claim to have there a true copy of Mac OS X FOR x86 from Apple labs , or they have a strange size DARWIN LINUX FOR x86 install?

This file "Apple MacOS X x86 ?0B96FB0B26D9BD79F7??.rar" is 489 Mb large and Darwin Linux should have around 300 Mb.

If You could solve this mystery of Mac OS X for x86 dancing there in the wild I would be very thankful.

Your reader
Bartlomiej Marczynski

Republican National Committee.... votes
As per the article at: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11474 Ilike pres bush but this joker can stuff it..frnakly i would like to see the rnc try to hold a british website liable for something printed in india in the us. This is rich. Keep us informned..if hte RNC decides to try to take you to court it will be the last time i vote for a candidate backed by the rnc. you can quote me on that one..:)

AMD is clearly facing problems with manufacturing cost and yields on the Athlon 64. This is not surprising, because die size is more than twice that of the XP, and many extra pins are also required by the on die memory controller.

What AMD should do for the forthcoming 9 nm XP die shrink, is integrate the Athlon 64 improved branch prediction unit. That should give a 2-5 % performance gain. Then integrate the 64 bit extensions and SSE2, which should only increase the die size by a few per cent. 400 Mhz should be made the default bus speed for all XP processors. And then add any other minor core tweaks they can think of.

You get the impression AMD are holding back on clock speeds for the XP now, so as not to tarnish the launch of the Athlon 64. HP are shipping an over clocked 3200 +, and the 2400 + chip I just bought, scaled to a 2800 + rating without any hint of trouble, and can probably go higher.

You have to salute what AMD has tried to do with the Athlon 64, but it is time Jerry Sanders et al got real, and focused on shipping something with 64 bits that works. Once the AMD 64 launch has happened and been ‘managed' in line with their media plan, the XP chip should be properly optimized and updated, so they can deliver 64 bits to the mainstream in 2004.

AMD worked on the assumption they needed something special to stay competitive with Intel. Given the awful heat problems Intel's next gen chip is reportedly experiencing, I'm not sure this is the case any longer. The confused hints we've had from AMD in the last 3 months, indicate something like this may be in planning.

Name supplied

Stalin didn't fire people, he fired at them
Please - If Peter Stern thinks it's 'Stalinesque' to fire people, he better read a lot more history. Uncle Joe didn't fire people. Uncle Joe directed a system which organized the murder of tens of millions of innocents and put an even greater number in a gulag in which they were tortured before possibly being murdered.

This is another example of the pathetic exaggerations that have become all too frequent in discourse these days. Police enforcing the laws are Nazis, politicians two steps to the right of the author are 'Hitlers' and people two steps to the left are 'Lenins'. Now people who advocate firing incompetents are 'Stalinesque'. Pfui!

Raspberries to Peter Stern

John

Hi Mike,

The "Fire your IT director now" article seems a bit harsh - I suspect a number of networks were infected when external individuals connected laptops inside the firewall, a case which was omitted from that article, in which case the people who Jon has asked to be fired probably weren't actually guilty. Short of firewalling everyone and everything (not such a bad idea now that I think about it) it's very hard to prevent that sort of thing from getting into a network.

Sure there's blame to be spread around, but firing people probably isn't very constructive - unless I get their job of course ;-)

Cheers,

Adrian

Republican National Committee - votes notes
Hang in there Mike. I just whipped out the following to the RNC. Expect either an apology or a subpoena in the next day or so.

Please reference

First, let me say that I am a registered Republican who voted for the President. I live in Florida and, for all I know, it was my vote that put George Bush over the top. With that out of the way I want to tell you of my amazement that an attorney--evidently from your organization--saw fit to threaten an Internet news provider for commenting on a story found on a completely different web site.

There's a lot going on now, guys. Poll numbers are dropping. Hillary and Al Gore smell fresh blood and are circling like the shark and vulture (respectively) they are. The god damned economy is going no where fast, and politicians are selling out the country to illegal immigrants.

And what is important to the RNC? A geek web site that running a lame story about outsourcing some phone work? Give me a break! You guys better get your priorities together or the next First Husband is going to be named Bill.

Jesus! This kind of thing could drive me to vote libertarian.

sincerely,

MP

Joe Stalin was no kindly uncle
Mike

I'm all for a little hyperbole to spice up an article, but Mr. Stern's recent letter, likening Jon Honeyball's recommendation to the *execution of millions of people*, is just a tad over the top.

Mr. Stern may be able to say "unlawful dismissal lawsuits", but I would respond with "terminated with cause" - and certainly be able to make it stick in any developed country. It all comes down to ensuring that somebody, somewhere in an organization is held accountable for actions that can reasonably be expected to be performed by them - can you say "due diligence", or "duty of care", Mr. Stern? If someone is willing to accept the responsiblity (and the paycheque) that accrues to an "Information Technology Director", then they can reasonably be expected to understand that:

- operating systems are complex software artifacts; and - market forces (and a lot of marketing hype), and *clueless customers* ensure that buggy code is shipped by most vendors; and - buggy operating systems need to be patched; and - non-patched, buggy operating systems will get hacked as quick as one can say "out-of-touch managment".

Ergo, to be duly diligent, one must ensure that all network-connected machines are patched in a timely manner.

There is nothing wrong with asking responsible management to accept, er, responsibility. This is even more the case when, as has happened to me and to my colleagues over the years, the resources necessary to effect patch management were designated as "non-essential", or "not a priority" by some pointy-headed boss. This was done despite repeated, and frantic, exhortations to consider the consequences of losing the entire organizational network for as long as a few days.

If companies were to periodically fire some incompetent manager, who has the gall to talk-the-talk into the job, but lacks the insight to walk-the-walk that is today's computer security environment, I am certain that it would *boost* morale among those who have a clue.

Mark Anderson
Toronto, Canada