Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (
More info?)
On Sun, 30 May 2004 15:48:28 GMT, Robert Myers <rmyers1400@comcast.net>
wrote:
>George Macdonald wrote:
>> On Fri, 28 May 2004 15:34:29 GMT, Robert Myers <rmyers1400@comcast.net>
>
><snip>
>
>>
>> In the auto industry there is plenty of expert opinion BS of course but the
>> consumer is generally in a good position to see it as opinion. The
>> "experts" cannot, however, get away with the kind of incompetence we see in
>> many computer industry articles where, either the analyst being quoted is
>> clueless or the author so unqualified that it all turns out as umm, tripe.
>> The prognostications on 64-bit x86 are a prime example of this - take a
>> look at the 64-bit Support section of
>>
http://enterprise-windows-it.newsfactor.com/perl/story/24055.html where it
>> looks like the author is just so inadequate to the task that he shouldn't
>> be writing about the computer industry. Add in the "analyst" bias/misread
>> and what comes out is gobbledygook.
>>
>
>Apologies in advance to the author, James Maguire, who is probably a
>decent, hardworking person, but my suggested title for the entire
>article would be "Bart Simpson Reports on Windows."
>
>What had been two of my favorite _New_Yorker_ columnists both quit
>contributing regularly with plenty of mileage left in them, because, as
>I remember them both pleading, they liked to write, and they liked to
>write for _The_New_Yorker_, but they didn't like to write on a deadline.
>
>Even leaving aside the challenge of churning out copy on demand, just
>imagine trying to do a better job of trying to inform readers what might
>happen that really matters as a result of 64-bit support in Windows.
>Time to talk about the usefulness of more named registers, right?
🙂.
>Just imagine it: a 20-page pullout in industry rags that talks about
>memory latency, out of order execution, register renaming, register
>starvation and spilling, L1 latency, L2 latency, and pipeline stalls,
>complete with slick color graphics and an interactive web page you can
>go to for more information. Advertising should sell like half-time
>spots for the Super Bowl. I feel faint just thinking about it.
Well yeah the "more named registers" is a big part of it but for the usual
shallow press coverage, there are other ways to get the message across.
like: finally we have a desktop PC which is worthy of the term computer;
internally it's just like a *real* computer; we can finally leave behind
the legacy of a hand calculator ISA; software can be made more efficient;
compilers can produce better code... etc. etc.
>Super! Don't know what it is, but everybody will have it. They'll have
> the hardware, they'll have the software, and it must be important
>because Unix and Linux have had it for a long time, whatever it is.
>Maybe you can find the real substance by paying for the relevant Gartner
>report. Not that anything that was quoted in the article would
>encourage a reader who was paying attention to do that, but, marketing
>being the way that it is, it's probably more important to Gartner to be
>quoted than to be quoted saying anything that bears examination.
Hmm, probably better for Gartner to be quoted than some other analyst
"house"?
🙂 Have you been quoted by such writers? Apparently there are
journos who read Usenet - one of them contacted me recently by e-mail for
my "opinion". What I said/wrote got lifted out of context, mangled and
didn't really say what I wanted at all.<shrug>
>>>I give Intel considerable credit for having successfully cultivated a
>>>market by persuading so many people that they needed all that muscle to
>>>begin with. I don't think things like that just happen. I have to be
>>>careful with this line of thinking, though, because it would eventually
>>>lead to my expression very grudging admiration for Microsoft, and we
>>>wouldn't want that.
>>
>>
>> You need to start worrying about your favorite topic though, now that M$
>> has declared its intention to enter the HPC market.<chuckle>
>>
>
>You barely know me. I already made a post to the Beowulf mailing list
>suggesting that the HPC community should seize this opportunity to get
>as much Microsoft money as possible. HPC is, like racing cars, a
>money-losing proposition. How much would Microsoft sink into a grand
>challenge problem to say that a grand challenge problem was solved using
>Windows? The cost of the actual scientific enterprise to Microsoft? A
>day's earnings if it went hog wild. Cost to hype it to the press?
>Several times that. Value to Microsoft in getting people to stop
>thinking of them as a predatory monopolist? Priceless. Time for
>science to get on the gravy train.
If you can find yourself a niche there, good luck to you. I assume you are
aware of the dangers of dealing with them - sewing up your pockets won't do
it.;-)
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
, but based on my
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