I am not a rocket scientist

You realise, that since ATi is now AMD, theyre new card will be in fact two x2800XT packed in one box and sold as one product.

But u'll still need two X16 pci express slots to run them....

they'll call them the "quad-fathers mum"

Brendan

Subject: AMD joins Microsoft to spin rocket up its Vanishing Point

I think I'd probably decline a trip in this aircraft. The V-tail configuration is pretty irrelevant but the change of wing planiform is going greatly change it's sub-sonic characteristics.

It'll be less efficient resulting in higher take-off and landing speeds and it will also increase the approach aoa (the nose-up pitch of the aircraft as it comes in to land) making it difficult to see where they're going. I'd guess it'll take a fair bit longer to get up to 25,000 ft as well.

Once the rocket kicks in I hope the fairings over the turbo-jets work properly because I wouldn't like to think about the amount of drag and the possible damage that could be caused by super-sonic airflow through a sub-sonic engine and it's fairing.

IIRC Spaceship One used a drag-inducing configuration to keep re-entry speeds down but the sts, with a similar configuration, relies upon those dodgy heat-resistant tiles to deal with heating effects.

I am not a rocket scientist.

LeeE

Subject: prune valley

Mourn not for the orchards. They had no more right to be here than what supplanted them. They were all planted in (I'm told) the first half of the 1900's, and as a nasty consequence, Sunnyvale sank 10-12 feet in that time, since the intensive farming removed water from the ground. Alviso went clean under water! - which explains why modern day Alviso has a dike. For a good laugh, visit the "South Bay Yacht Club" in Alviso: nary a yacht in sight. At some point they decided it was embarrassing to have a yacht club that wasn't in sight of the water (well, swamp) and it was dragged from the base of the dike to the top. Gack.

Don

Subject: Vole?

What the heck is a vole? You use that word a lot and I have no idea what it is. If oyu make up lingo then please have some kind of a page that explains all of your codewords. Or at least Please tell me what a Vole is.

Grabass

Subject: Kilobabble

A kilowatt or watt is not a measure of energy - it's a measure of power

So "SERVERS IN THE US burned up around five million kilowatts of energy in 2005" doesn't make sense - is this the average power?

. this would give an annual enery usage of ~45 billion kWh

Phil

Subject: Computing energy bill goes through the roof

I'm just as thankful for AMD as the next geek, but after seeing the power envelope for the new R600 I'm not sure the terms "green" or "power efficient" are what comes to mind...

matt

Subject: semi-clad dancing girls

Where is fernando when you need him. He's got to be the inq pimp, or pinq as I say we call him.

He gets more ass than a toilet seat.

Glen

Subject: Google vs European newspapers

"Why, he wants to know, would any publisher not want to be linked by Google News? The answer is pretty simple - there's a heck of a lot of publishers - and not just in Europe - who feel that Google is a wee bit too powerful and to some extent is undermining their own core advertising efforts."

That doesn't make sense to me. Google News is the same powerful competitor for advertising whether they point to their sites or not. AFAIK, "winning" advertising revenue is based on having the most traffic one can to see the ads on one's site. If a newspaper in Europe isn't pointed to by Google, then Google's total number of users isn't changed much to speak of. But Google's pointing to that newspaper's site likely would increase it's number of visitors significantly, both initially and in the long term by having people discover the site. I can only see it in the newspaper's financial favor to have Google point at them (probably 80% of the traffic on my personal website is Google driven, I REALLY want them to point to me and rank me high on their listings!). However if you're just saying that the newspaper is jealous of Google's success at doing what they do VERY well for it's users, then perhaps I understand. Google does a really great job. But it may have been more useful for your article to have just said that outright.

P.S. - Would also make sense of those companies think of themselves as Google "equivalents", direct competitors. IOW they expect people to not use Google at all, and to use their services as a total replacement.

I really don't know their services, but somehow I think that to be unlikely. Google has tremendous scale in everything they do and have unbelievable network bandwidth available to deliver (and the point of their news is the super wide variety of sources that are linked to, not the single source that a newspaper site would likely be). Seems to be like a local museum not liking to have tour buses drop mass numbers of potential customers off to visit their business because they have their own mini-van.

Michaelk

Subject: Reply to David Love's rant on TV's, MS, and monopolies

Comparing an operating system and the standard for TV broadcasts is like comparing apples and oranges. You could compare the standard for TV broadcasts and the standard PC architecture.

Let me try to explain it better:

Windows, Linux, Mac OS, etc. have to follow standards in order to run on a PC; just as broadcasters have to follow standards in order to have their programming show up on your TV. In the USA, computer standards are often set by the IEEE, whereas broadcasting standards are set by the FCC.

Summary: no offense, but you have an invalid argument

Joe H

Subject: Hmm...

"Information must be gathered from Europe rather than the USA, or it is considered USELESS! Even if it IS the same information, DAMN multi-billion dollar American corporations! Damn them all to hell!"

I forgot to add, "YOU VOLE, BLOKE, BOFFIN BASTAGES!"

mataroo

Subject: EU vs Google

I agree to most of the article and must add that actually the EU finally found the means to aggree on standards. First the EU comprised of a populace of about 400 Million people has become a market to recon with.

First of all corporate rules are much more geared towards the consumer unlike in the US regulation are relaxed or not enforced at all. It is not only the IT market, the EU added the RoHs standard for toxic chemicals, set tougher standards of cosmetics, pushes anti trust and monopoly rules, that Microsoft got to feel. The commission is leveling the playing field. What corporation in the US get away with, the EU wont allow at all and enforces the rule of law. Maybe they are incompetant, but surely they are making rules that the US governmet can't steamroll away. BTW the standards are not any more set by the US either. Example: ANSI SQL is dead because of inactivity, ISO SQL in Switzerland has taken over.

Claus Koenig

Subject: Dvorak

You wrote:

"WE DO LIKE John Dvorak, but think he's > perhaps paddling up the wrong canoe with > his suggestion that the EU is behind a > conspiracy to kill Google".

John Dvorak is an attention-seeking whackjob with little sense and less knowledge. He writes the most atrocious, controversial drivel in attempt to drum up as many page views as he can, with absolutely no regard for whether there's any fact behind his assertions or not.

He's proved himself wrong, time after time, for at least the last five years. Anyone who actually understands technology gave up reading him at least that long ago, when he decided to stop writing about actual technology issues and start generating page views.

So why are you still reading him? You're better than that. Dvorak's worse than Gartner, for God's sake, and you don't take *them* seriously.

Thanks,
Charles