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WLD, here's the one I like a lot:
http://tinyurl.com/69pqo
neye
haha @ mmoy - good story...
... I was making a mut fund purchase once of TMCGX and only after having done so, realized that I had typed in TWCGX (I had owned that previously), and had to correct the mistake the next day
neye
rlweitz - same here, nForce only (eom)
lango - thermodynamic laws...
Indeed. At least not until the First law of Thermodynamics is repealed, LOL. Energy is not "created", it is released and transferred from one form to another. Hydrogen is not a source of energy, it is merely a storage vessel.
thermodynamic laws, at least the first, ... only practically apply in closed systems as long as we're talking about us on earth, by virtue of the fact that the sun supplies us with mega (giga? terra?) joules of energy each day, "impossible" things according to a closed system thermodynamic model are suddenly possible
neye
bobs, about apple
a couple things have really helped out. Yes, iPod revenue has been important, and to a lesser extent iTunes. Call iTunes a wash for now though. Another huge difference is their income from interest/dividends. I forget what the number is currently, but I think they're sitting on $4B to $5B in cash and have no real debt to speak of. That's a very nice chunk of "free money" they have coming to them every month.
The important thing though is that, however they do it, even losing marketshare in their key market (powermac sales, as opposed to iMac/iBook), their prices are high enough so that the ones that they do sell, along with the non-core business income, makes for a real nice profit.
If it had just been for a quarter or two, you could call it a fluke, but with so many quarters coming in rosy, I call it systematic,
neye
mmoy - Win2k3 Server (eom)
we're getting a dual opteron system at work
We looked at the costs, vendor support, and performance dimensions, and we're getting a low end DL 585. I don't anticipate it being hugely noticable performance-wise than our current offerings (file, print, intranet-webserving), but we need to swap out machines, and this lets us consolidate 2 servers in that process. Less server maintenance, newer machine, better performance, less power/heat.
When our company set the parameters for our purchase, our vendor/partner decided that the opteron machine was the best fit. Oh, and our support vendor happens to be Microsoft's national "partner-of-the-year" so it's nice to see that a company on that level is comfortable recommending an opteron machine as the best option (for our particular situation, at least).
neye
AMD/INTC pricing
bobs, Duke, Keith, etc...
I currently wouldn't mind at all as investor in AMD if they were able to *successfully* follow Apple's tactic of achieving profits (and the commensurate share price increase) via good pricing, even in the periods where marketshare is stagnant, or even down a bit. Anyone looked at apple's price over the last 2 years, in which they've kept about the same marketshare?
Two years ago share price was $18. Now currently $52. Not bad against the microsoft and linux machines, eh? Granted, they can charge a premium because they supply non-fungible products to compete with the competition, whereas INTC and AMD provide much more similar products as the consumer sees it, but my point stands - I really really really wouldn't mind that kind of share price growth. Hopefully AMD can make the best of a capacity-constrained situation.
neye
lango - camera storage
I got a $29 converter for my ex gf so that she can use her Archos 320 (20 GB hd) as storage space for her flash cards as she fills them up. I really like the archos for the pictures and video files, as the display is pretty good (but of course not good at all in direct sunlgiht). I don't think we ever had an mp3 on it, just divx movies and pictures.
neye
nice stats JJ,
slight side-track... I just did a completely painless install of suse 9.1 personal edition (because they have the iso available! - a first for SuSE?) for a friend last night. She's a mac user, but doesn't have a computer, and a mac tax was too much. So... since my g/f took off, I had a spare computer sitting around, pretty nice one too - AXP 2400, nForce2 mobo. She said she didn't care if it was linux or MS as long as it would work, so to stay legal and have a bit of fun, I went the SuSE route.
It will be interesting to see how she deals with it. I know the modem/browsing works fine (I installed firefox so she doesn't have to use Konquerer), as does open office, CD player (yay for sound), gimp, and a few other nifty utilities.
I was impressed enough that I might make my own personal machine dual-boot again, or maybe go all the way linux. The main thing I worry about is that when I get a digital camera (g/f took hers when she split), I want to make sure it plays nice with linux.
So far, SuSE has impressed me greatly. When I get back to work I'm doing the next part of the PearPC MacOS X install on my windows box. I like the OS alternatives available these days, just wish PearPC ran faster, or that Orange still made the mobo's that held both a 68040 and a 486 (ok, so the modern equivalent, that is).
neye
"Ipods and TVs"
I don't know what that means, but I know I want them for free!
hmmm... I guess I have some looking to do.
one person says line in (how is this different from mic in), and another says 2nd line out (would that be the same as just having a splitter out of the standard headphones/speaker jack)?
Also, aren't the nForce2 boards different in this respect. I should know, since I have one, but I don't. I still just use the little green speaker out for my audio.
thanks both,
neye
anyone - what's that blue circle for?
heh, I've used the red audio jack for microphones, and the green audio jack for speakers/headphones, but what's the blue jack for? I know it's on pretty much every mobo and audio pci card out there... but is it really commonly used?
I know, I should just google it, but y'all are smarter than google
neye
dacaw - thanks much - could anyone...
... is anyone able to rip the stream to HD, or at least summarize what is said? I'm going to be out of town, but would love to hear about the contents of the webcast. Or, if anyone's "attended" one of these before, is it known if these are archived for later viewing?
TIA!
neye
apple is doing horrendously with their desktop line of machines, ESPECIALLY the powermacs. Apple is kind enough to break out the sales by lines in their quarterly reports, so verifying the quarterly and annual trend in sales is pretty easy.
neye
hey avatar - good to see you. thx for the link (eom)
thanks Mike! (eom)
mas, I agree
You would have to say that, businesswise, AMD have not really capitalised on K8's technical advantages 12-18 months after its release and it now has only a year before its, 32bit at least, architectural advantages are cancelled out.
before it was chipsets, now MS's 64 bit OS. Ashame that the external factors play so heavily into AMD's success, but that's the reality of the situation.
spit - I agree to a point
I probably did overstate the case. Snobbery (not intended insultingly) due to limited editions probably does figure in, and , as you posit, is at least partially controllable via supply.
For the instance in question, however, I disagree - I don't see how IBM not making enough chips now *pushes* demand to a future date. If you can get the machine now and its worth it to you, then you'd buy it now. You wouldn't wait, if the machine were available, to a later date just because of a supply problem that doesn't affect you currently.
there are some second or third order effects, perhaps, such as people not actively looking for machines if they assume they'd be scarce so that the time invested in looking is less, but I don't see that as a primary demand curve driver.
This assumes that demand is related to the ability to purchase and have something in a single transaction. If you include demand for "machines to be shipped in 6 weeks", then this obviously has a larger effect.
thanks for the post,
neye
by what magic...?
UBS out raising their tgt to $50 from $42 noting that while Mac unit sales of 836k fell short of firm's raised estimate, it seems demand was pushed into 1Q05 due to constraints, which should actually help earnings momentum from here... see 06:50 comment for JP Morgan upgrade
to pick a nit... supply issues don't affect "demand". Supply and demand are pretty independent, with the intersection of the two at a certain point being the happy equilibrium.
I think the idea you were trying to get across is that sales will be deferred to a future time because supply was too tight for the price apple chose, creating a shortage (gap between supply and demand). The almighty demand curve will move a little this way or that by the time more machines are available, but the lifting of constraints won't be what pushes the demand curve anywhere
If anything, the more proper phrase would be it seems supply was pushed into 1Q05 due to constraints, which will alleviate the shortage, and thus generate more sales, etc...
Tiger, a quick substitution...
AMD has not really delivered on earnings upswing for 04...I think 05 will be much better...
replace "think" with "hope" and you have my position on the matter I've been with AMD long enough to know that it seems that "just wait for next year" is a very common philosophy.
neye
xm online update...
ok, so I just tried it (they have a 3 day free trial). it's not an xm reciever to computer, which in retrospect is obvious, as you could do that anyway. But, the problem is that they don't have all the channels. they have 75 of their channels available. I don't care about the music stations, but since the talk stations aren't all there, I'm not pleased. If they had cnbc and fox available for streaming, that would clinch the deal for me, no question about it.
As it stands, they have 4 or 5 talk stations, 3 of which are comedy I think. Not that I wouldn't like the comedy channels, but would like the news channels much more.
neye
lango - excellent news!
I've been wanting to get radio through my computer (esp at work) for a while, but traditional AM (and to a lesser extent FM) doesn't get to either my home or office very well, whereas friends and coworkers have shown that XM receivers work fine in both places. I hate subscription services compared to pay-for-use services, but if I could get XM for $8 per month... I think I'd do it.
thanks for the link,
neye
Yuri, thank you...
any empirical studies on how well that approximation fairs compared to what you get with the die/wafer calculators found floating around on the net?
neye
Yuri, sorry to be dumb, but...
(628/sqrt(79))*0.5 = about 35 bad die to subtract: 363 die.
what's the basis for this formula...? I see familiar numbers, such as wafer circumference and length/height of chip assuming a square die, but why does this formula work.
I'm feeling dumb for not "getting it", so perhaps you can help...
is it just saying that assume 1/2 of all "edge" dies are assumed to be "bad", that each die on an edge takes up it's lenght/height worth of circumference, and that's good enough approximation for our purposes?
neye
DDB et all, .net
I understand what .Net is and what it does, but I'm not sure of how specifically it helps automate a fab facility I know the specifics are proprietary, but I'm curious what .Net allows in this specific situation that custom programs before .Net couldn't handle.
neye
WLD - iMac/iPod reaction
iPadding to match the iPod, i guess
well, maybe you'd be happier because of better space useage if they built an iPod thumbwheel in the middle of the "droop" of the new imacs, which would navigate through iTunes and webpages in an iPodOS type fashion
neye
how does .net fit in with AMD production?
from the article kpf kindly posted about amd switching to a new manufacturing/management software platform:
http://www.camstar.com/news_center/press_releases/releases/amd.asp
heh, I think they should change the window-bar title though... gee, I wonder if it was a copy/paste job then again, most people won't be opening the story outside of the frame it was designed to be in:
http://www.camstar.com
anyway... here's the interesting part to me:
"AMD's standardization on Microsoft .NET for its next-generation manufacturing factories is another endorsement of Microsoft as a provider of proven technology for high-volume, 24x7 operational environments," said Don Richardson, director of the Manufacturing Industry Solutions Group at Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). "AMD's selection of Camstar, one of our .NET Connected Premium Service partners, further illustrates how a solution based on this technology can deliver considerable value to large companies."
anyone know exactly what this .net stuff is that supposedly helping them out? I'd be very interested to hear thoughts on this,
neye
@the helpful people on this board...
Thanks so much for the SP2 advice. I guess I'll bite the bullet, do a backup, and give it a go. the wireless fix part is what pushes me over the edge to the "do it" side.
thanks again so much!
neye
Q: should I upgrade to SP2 on my A64?
My computer is running fine. I have a lot of programs installed on it that I'd rather not have to reinstall. This is one of the emachines A64 laptops.
I'm really not that interested in having to redo my machine if SP2 would mess it up, but if I know it will be safe, I'd prefer to upgrade. Last I saw, it was hit or miss in terms of A64 machines having problems with SP2.
Would anyone be willing to summarize the current conventional wisdom on this issue?
Thanks!
neye
sgolds - good luck!!!!!
be sure to drop in from time to time while the sauce simmers, eh?
neye
re: security flaws found in xp
from the linked article
Neither security hole could be exploited by a remote attacker, and both require Windows users to take actions, such as opening the Windows command shell, or renaming files to overwrite other files on Windows, he says.
However, a flaw such as the failure to update cached ZoneID information could cause problems as third-party software programs try to take advantage of XP SP2, he says.
I'll bet if someone or some application got you to open a terminal shell and type some commands in, or rename some files, or if you install some dodgy software, you just might be able to get something to go wrong with just about any computer. but Hey, it's Windows - it must be worse and worth some giggles.
baldrick, my unfortunate name...
if done as a measure of my investment skills would have to be Percy But, I'm sure I could create a lump of purest green... that oughta be worth something
neye
So it's all a cunning plan....
How appropo! Is that how you chose the name?
neye
lango - amen
But the one most of us frustrated with Word's random override of preferences and aggravating auto-numbering and outline "features" will appreciate most (if it actually works) is the new "easy off" feature to shut that crap off!
I sometimes talk to people that like word, who say it's great. And then I'll ask them about line spacing and why can't I get the indents or space between lines to go away. [hears crickets while the person thinks hard]. Conversation usually ends there.
for It's not surprising that Excel offers no dramatic changes -- it's the best of the apps in the bundle and a pretty fine product.
the only thing the newer versions are doing for me that the old ones aren't is breaking some macros because the save-as features are handled by VB scripts differently. yay, how nice, now I get to build in Excel version sensing and branch the code. grrrr....
neye
I_banker, thank you
then the statement says that sales of pc's would follow a normal distribution (which happens to look like a bell).
if this indeed was the intended meaning of the claim, then I'd personally believe in a distribution skewed to the left (more cheap than average, leading to a low mode, slightly higher median, and a slightly-higher-than-median mean.
In short, I agree with sgold's distribution hypothesis. But, I have no data whatsoever to back up my guess.
I guess a variant theory would be a bimodal distribution in which you have one "lump" where budget buyers and businesses find their own normal-ish distribution near the left, and another "lump" to the right where the gamers, once-every-four-years-buy-a-good-machine-for-the-long-haul buyers, and mac users would have their own normal-ish distribution.
neye
Be serious. At the same clock rate the I2 outperforms
K8 as well as wide issue OOO RISCs like EV7 and
POWER4+ on SPECint_base2k by a significant amount.
At 90 nm the Montecito CPU picks up important micro-
architectural improvements as well as likely greatly
closing the gap in frequency vs a 90 nm K8 or 90 nm
POWERx.
I see, so all Intel needs to do in order to be in a winning situation is:
1) keep a large cache advantage
2) improve the core significantly
3) ramp frequency faster than the competitor does
You know, I'm thinking that you might have described a winning solution for just about any performance-oriented chip company...
neye
YB, the amazing (non)corellary...
... is that it costs less than half of the celeron o_0
<em>Athlon XP 1900 (the slowest one) is trashing Celeron 2.8 Ghz (the fastest one).</em>
XP 1900: $43
Celeron 2.8: $99
http://www.pricewatch.com/menus/m3.htm
in combos, it gets even worse:
xp1900 + mobo: $63
Cele2.8 + mobo: $145
http://www.pricewatch.com/menus/m306.htm
btw, I personally wouldn't call a 3% performance advantage a thrashing, but I think the point is still a valid one to exam qualitatively, if not necessarily quantitatively.
neye
pcs selling along a bell curve
PC's just happen to sell along a bell curve.
without taking one side or the other in this discussion, would either one of you please tell me what the itallicized statement above means? are you talking in price? performance? across architectures? across vendors? within single product families?
It's very hard to know how to consider the statement without understanding its intended meaning.
Thanks in advance,
neye
blue - very cool stats!
Who in blazes is still trying to surf the web at 640x480???
well... If I were building a (windows) computer from scratch and the install got my network card (pretty much a given these days), but I knew that there were updated video drivers, I might install the OS, go to ATI.com or nvidia.com, maybe do a little other surfing while the driver was downloading, and then install the driver which would activate other resolutions.
or, what if I had a virus or problem which made me boot into safe mode, but I needed to download a patch? I could boot into "safe mode with networking", which would drop me to 640 x 480.
But, both of the above cases would probably be odd in that you're purposefully getting onto the web to download something so that you can fix a problem. Why would random surfers use it?
Well, a couple options:
1) the person is old or just has bad vision, where 640 x 480 gives them an ability to see clearly on their old 15" monitor (without having to know about increasing font sizes through browser options)
2) you're surfing via remote-desktop-type app in which the host computer gets set to 640x480 for speed of remote-transmition issues.
heh, I don't really believe any of these, but it's fun to speculate. thanks again for the stats,
neye