Why blame the Satan of Silicon for everything?

This is probably a good idea, since PowerVR is a graphics core focued on Performance/Watt. But it's so different from the both ATI and NVIDIA that I prepare for a huge pile of marketing bullshit form Intel.

V.

Subject: Intel Kentsfield certain to bore you to tears

Huh...bored to tears. Quad core, boring.... are you on drugs. Or is this simply more anti-Intel / pro-AMD progpoganda this site is famous for.

POS.

Subject: AMD APM

Charlie wrote, regarding AMD APM:
=========
This continuous small scale improvement program allows AMD to keep things moving and improving. AMD claims it aims to get the process down from five wafers to one, allowing for more and cheaper tests. Contrast this to Intel's seemingly much more rigid approach of copy exact. There are upsides and downsides to both, but AMD's approach is more fun to watch from the outside.
===========
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, do you really think Intel can crunch out industry leading yields on industry leading process without having an ability to test and tweak the stuff on the fly? This is really a bizzarre hypothesis. All that Copy Exact means is when some change goes into *volume* production, it is copied exactly across all the fabs. No one said that individual fabs could not do their own little experimentation. But with Copy Exact, you cannot change the volume manufacturing process without coordinating with others--makes sense, doesn't it? I bet, when AMD has more than one fab online, they will do exactly the same stuff. Do they want chips coming out of different fabs to have different quality? It is really funny how AMD has been barking about their APM, and still not able to ship a single 65nm die.

grbrain

Subject: Vista security

If the security companies go out of business, then who will monitor Windows security? We will have no way at all of knowing whether things are in fact secure, unless you believe that large corporations are transparent, honest and quick to respond to customer needs.

mbacon

Subject: HP

Responses to David's letter,

David, firstly; I don't, and never have, worked for HP or any related company. But I have and do purchase both consumer and enterprise products from HP.

Secondly, small shareholders do not own the company [ok they own a little tiny piece] and individual shareholders have almost no influence over the company's directors or the direction of the company. Could you show me where it says in the charter that an individual shareholder (owner) has a legal right to tell the board what to do? I can't see it.

Shareholders power comes from deciding to sell their shares (in very large groups) or voting for mergers (in very large groups) so where were the shareholders when HP decided to merge with Compaq?

Where were the shareholders when HP decided to lay off staff when HP was famous for refusing to do so? Why does the stock go up at that point?

The answer is that realisically, the majority of shareholders, the so-called owners of the company, are only trying to make the quick buck.

Companies are now so focused on making shareholders happy that some directors are preferring lies to truth - Enron? Really shareholders have only themselves to blame for such acts.

David, your assertion that "do as your employees" say is an non-suggestion is incorrect. I've worked in companies where clueless morons run the company and the employees stand powerless watch the company collapse. HP are in the same situation. All I say is that _sometimes_ management should listen to their employees. Is that so hard?

David, I am not saying that having leaders is bad. I am saying that having stupid leaders and paying them more ( or increasing the stock price ) only encourages them to do more stupid things. Shareholders are responsible here and should put their money where their mouth is.

David, why didn't HP's stock price budge a picometer when it was revealed that the board had invaded the privacy of others. The apple is rotton at the core - the employees know it and the shareholders don't care (unless the shareprice will go down).

Did you know that HP used to Invent?

Vap

p.s. all questions are rhetorical.

Subject: Further point

If Intel CPUs are causing so much damage, why is it that the batteries are being recalled, and further, why aren't we seeing cases of them exploding outside of Sony batteries? Obviously there are some (though rare, however that is the nature of lithium ion packs), but why is it then, that when the batteries are replaced by 'non-defective' ones, they don't explode?

OMG! COULD IT BE THAT IT'S A DEFECTIVE BATTERY AND WE DON'T HAVE TO BLAME THE SATAN OF SILICON FOR EVERYTHING?

This is like a 9/11 conspiracy, you find a small point and cling onto it, missing the bigger picture.

Why haven't we seen tons of Alienware, Gateway, Monarch, etc. notebooks exploding, they all use Intel CPUs as well, hmm?

djkryp

Subject: HP sets a culture of dishonesty

Greetings! I suspected for a long time that some people at HP OpenVMS (also known as VMS) would leave the company, because they started to create their own websites and used different mail addresses or stopped posting at comp.os.vms. Therefore it did not come totally to my surprise to find this article (after reading yours an hour before).

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.vms/browse_thread/thread/1ef4472ffd75 7bc2
"More on the transitions at OpenVMS Engineering"

But these folks are not just leaving a disordered company. HP is actually firing experienced engineers, the core of their VMS development team. I am using VMS for more than 15 years. I have seen a lot of other stuff, and nothing beats VMS. But for the past decade or so I found that a lot of VMS components went south (Unix). VMS was designed _NOT_ to be a Unix clone.

Now I am reading that experienced engineers are being replaced with fresh graduates, who most likely have never seen VMS before in their life, thanks to the lack of VMS promotion by Digital, then Compaq and now HP. Add this to the ethics problems at HP. You are 100% right. Customers should be very concerned. No spin doctor will be able to cure this sickness.

Name, addy supplied

Subject: pap

What crap journalism, no wonder The Inquirer is known as the gutter trash of the internet!

Grow up and write some non-biased readable news items!

Me

Subject: Great article on Win4Lin Pro

Your article about debugging Win4LinPro is extremely helpful because of your short excerpt about Adobe Acrobat 4.05.

I am so happy that someone finally has mentioned which version of Acrobat we can download that doesn't contain all the CRAP they are bundling today.

I hate that Acrobat prompts you to update itself every time I open a PDF. And the yahoo toolbar installer prompts? How annoying.

It's shocking how annoying, malicious, and intrusive software has become in the last few years. The Inquirer and its writers are an oasis of pro-consumer information in a desert of crap we are forced to work with each day.

...i also find it funny that after the last few months, MS still considers WGA a "critical security update." I can't believe how deceptive even MS has become.

Nick Liveris

Subject: Sunshine and States

Sorry, Nick, but while there is plenty of sunshine here in California - all day, every day, for 6 months of the year - it's Florida that calls itself the "Sunshine State", not us. They need the reminder, after all.

I realize that the two states must look similar from across the pond, so here's the way you tell the difference, based on living 7 years in Miami and 15 years in Silicon Valley:

Long state - both
Large Republican governor - both
Place called Hollywood - both
Orange trees - both
Palm trees - both
Great beaches - both
Sharks - both
Retirees - both
Publicity seeking celebrities - both
Lousy public education system - both
Lousy public transportation system - both
Many people speak Spanish - both
Guberner speaks mit an Austrian accent California
Guv'nr tries hard to speak with a Southern accent but doesn't quite make it - Florida
Rains every day in June at 4 PM - Florida (South)
Rains most days in February, all day - California (Northern)
Has mountains - California
Flat, flat, flat - Florida
Has desert - California
Wet, wet, wet - Florida
Disneyland - California
Disneyworld - Florida
Rose Bowl - California
Orange Bowl - Florida
Has mountain lions, bears, and rattlesnakes -
California
Has coral snakes, alligators and manatees - Florida
Hurricanes - Florida
Earthquakes - California
Redwoods - California
Scrub pine - Florida
Has cliffs -California
Has swamps - Florida
Wine - California
Orange juice - Florida
Seasons are hot+wet and dry+cool - Florida
Seasons are hot+dry and wet+cool - California
Demo sport that only tourists watch - alligator wrestling - Florida
Demo sport that only tourists watch - mud wrestling - California
Vacant buildings are turned into drug money banks - Florida (South)
Vacant buildings are turned into tech offices - California (Northern)
Has spiders the size of dinner plates - Florida
Has spiders the size of gnats - California
Skiing on snow - California
Skiing on water - Florida
Desert is physical - California
Desert is intellectual - Florida (some would agrue for "both" on this, but they haven't lived in Florida).
Can't find a decent won ton soup - Florida
Can't find a decent matzo ball soup - California (Northern)
Hated nearby tyrant - Castro
Hated nearby tyrant - Bush (distances are relative in California)
Is called the "Sunshine State" (see license plate) - Florida
Is NOT called the "Sunshine State (See license plate) - California.

Yours in Inquiry,

Phil Spiro
Mountain View
California

Subject: AMD Roadmappery

"How is it that a 2.8ghz 90nm 2mb L2 part is an x2 5200+ part and the new 2.8ghz 1mb L2 part is a 5400+?"

I'm guessing because a 5200 is actually a 2.6Ghz 2x1024MB part ... At least, according to www.sandpile.org (Who i've always found to be very accurate on such matters) it is :)

Oscar

Subject: Anand and the Bunny

Hey, what's that pink stuff in Anand's right hand? Is that bunny fur yanked out of Bunny's arse or something a bit more painful yanked out of Bunny's elsewheres?

Hugs,
Dave µ