Well, yes. I think we're forgeting one of the main drivers for RISC, and that was making the hardware more compatible with what the then current compilers could actually fruitfully use. Compilers couldn't (and typically didn't) actually use all the hideously complex instructions that did "a lot" and were instead hampered by lack of registers, lack of orthogonality etc. So there was a concerted effort to develop hardware that fit the compilers, instead of the other way around, which had been the dominating paradigm up to that point.

Take for example the MIPS without interlocked pipe-line stages. That was difficult for a human assembly coder to keep track of, but easy for a compiler, and it made the hardware design simpler and faster, so that's the way they went. (In fact, the assembler put in no-ops for you to fix inject pipeline stalls in order for your code to make sense when you programmed it in assembly. That made the object dump show stuff you didn't put there which was a bit disconcerting... :-))

I know you say "current", but one of the original ideas behind RISC was also to make each instruction "short", i.e. make each instruction take one cycle, and reduce cycle times as much as possible so that you could have really deep pipelines (MIPS), or increase clock speed. Now, while most "RISCs" today, sort-of follow this idea, by virtue of the ISA having been made with that in mind in the old days, i.e. load-store etc. they're typically not as strict about it (if they in fact ever where). I guess the CISC situation is even more complicated, as they're "internally" RISC, and you can kind-a-sort-a treat them that way by staying away from the "heavy" instructions. That is if you can reason about what kind of time you're going to see from your micro-opped+out-of-order core anyway. The internals, and specifically the timing models have gotten even more complex than they already were. I don't know what your take on that would be?

I remember reading research back in the day, that showed that register windows were orthogonal to any RISC/CISC considerations, i.e. they were about as easy/costly to implement in either architecture and they gave the same boost/or not, in either case. As you point out, in practice it turned out to not be really worth the trouble, and they died out rather quickly.

Sure, I'm one of those. I raised hell, on a Swedish electrical/electronics forum... Didn't even bother to call HP. I assumed it was a one off, and what are they going to do anyway? Tell me to send the cable to them? (That's too much of a hassle) and give me a new one? (I could just grab a new one from one of the conveniently situated piles at work).

In fact, the usual rule, born out by science, when it comes to customer satisfaction here in Sweden (originally talking about large enterprises like TV/Radio) is that for every complaint you have 4000 people who are dissatisfied but don't bother to make contact.

Now, of course, a recall could still be warranted even if there were only 20 out of 6 million, since there shouldn't be any at all. Compare the Challenger disaster. That the O-rings had only been eroded through a third of the way, didn't really mean that they had a safety factor of three, since they weren't supposed to erode at all! Likewise, these cables weren't supposed to melt either, and by a substantial safety margin at that. If as many as 20 do, that means that there is a systematic error somewhere.

I have one of these cables and after having analysed it, we (the guys on the forum and I :-)) think its more an issue of "dirty" plastics. If they get, e.g. carbon in the plastics used for injection molding the plug, it will conduct a small current, which will lead to heat, which will lead to charring, which will lead to more conduction, and you have a vicious circle going. So just to be clear, it's the "Mickey Mouse" plug that plugs in to the PSU that's faulty, not the PSU as such.

In my own case, the cable finally conducted enough to trip the RDC on my house, and that's when I started investigating. Having confirmed the problem, I then remembered the time on the airplane across the Atlantic when my socket wouldn't stay on, or the time on the train when the whole side of my car kept switching off... I had inadvertently travelled the world, leaving darkness and despair in my wake...

Pictures of my measurements (and discussion, in Swedish I'm afraid). At 20mA, the cable developed 4.6W and my measured 80C (176F) is reasonable. I didn't really notice it before, since the powersupply gets quite warm as it is.

No, frequency and other conditions are different. It's not an accident that you can bring your friends with you in your small aircraft with just an ordinary (sport) pilot license. If you want to take a paying passenger then you need a transport pilot license.

Same with boats.

Why are taxis different?

And that's (drum roll) one of the conditions of a taxi (i.e. commerical) license in my country. Having sufficient experience that is. The license is there to (among other things) show that you have that experience.

Well, the customers are not the only ones with skin in the game. The rest of us have to share the roads with these "taxis" as well. The major reason that other commercial drivers (or air line pilots for that reason) isn't that they'll necessarily will kill their passengers, but that they will kill a bystander or other motorists. The rules for getting a bus driving license and a heavy truck driving license are the virtually the same, here in Sweden at least, and in one of those cases we're clearly not worried by the safety of the passengers.

It's the same at sea and in the air, if you want to transport paying passengers you have to show a higher level of competence. One reason mentioned in those cases is that you for example have to have the wherewithal to be able to stand up to a pissed off customer when you deem conditions to be unsafe, something that's more difficult (legally/financially) than when you have another passenger.

To be fair, that was a smaller problem in telecoms. We never change anything, in any way, if we can help it. :-)

But I hear ya, and in the general case of course you're as right as can be.

And also something I came to value when working in industry and developing both cli and GUI admin tools for telecoms equipment:

You can easily document, email and (to a lesser extent) talk about a cli. A GUI not so much. When you've tried to walk someone through finding the hidden option in a GUI over the phone for the tenth time you're ready to tear your hair out. With a cli you can just email some commands and that's that. Documenting a GUI invariably devolved to a lot of screenshots which makes any workflow tens of pages long, instead of ten lines of commands which you then have ample space to explain and comment on. It's also much easier to read and follow along as you're e.g. installing, than leafing through screenshot after screenshot.

And that's largely still true as a matter of fact. HOWEVER, Germany relies less on Putin's gas than Putin relies on Germany's money for that gas. (I.e. the value of Germany's gas imports as a part of their energy expenditure is small compared to the overall hard currency income that Putin receives from selling gas to Europe). Hence we're witnessing the situation with gas used as a weapon against the Ukraine and Belarus, but not against Germany.

That's not to say that it won't happen. Just that it takes more will on the Russian side than what they've been able to muster so far. Don't for a minute think that it doesn't factor in the decisions of Frau Merkel when it comes to sanctions against Russia for their part in the Ukraine debacle though. We would probably be tougher from the European side if it weren't for that gas...

OTOH, the largest hydro electric dam failures have killed thousands (tens of thousands for the very largest) and you know what: They largest dams are typically insured "by the government" in the same way that nuclear is.

Now, you can actually buy hydro dam insurance on the open market, while that is generally impossible for nuclear, but they don't typically pay without bounds for incidental damage which is the major cost we're facing. Instead relying on government for that part, so while there is some difference, the scenarios are quite similar.

Range is one thing, and probably the easiest to fix (compare the failed WiMax attempt). However, there are other requirements that we make of the cellular system that WiFi also ignores, such as (off the top of my head): Hand over between cells in an orderly manner, service guarantees for voice calls, emergency service guarantees (even kicking out already ongoing call of lower priority), keeping track of where the mobile is in case of incoming calls, being able to do all this with mobiles that travel at high speed etc. etc.

When WiMax tried to solve the same problems, lo and behold, it didn't turn out any cheaper and simpler than the mobile systems and hence (as many of us predicted) it failed pretty miserably. Moving into the field dominated by telecoms it turned out that they already knew about how to do that well, and the WiMax people couldn't catch up (at least not cost effectively). The evolved 3G and 4G standards that were already in place, turned out to be much more successful.

Just give it a rest already. You're spouting misinformation that's not helping anybody. But here we go again:

1. Never said flu shots had lots of egg in them, only that it's a risk factor, a well known one, with several allergic reactions to its name, though many/most people with an egg allergy can well tolerate a flu shot. The allergy is one of the reasons that there are now "egg free" flu vaccines available. Furthermore didn't say that most iatrogenically induced cases of anaphylaxis wasn't from something else. They are.

2. Re celiac disease. That's not the definition of an allergy. Your definition also fits other intolerances such as a bog standard lactose intolerance. But OK. If you won't believe me:

To reitterate. NOT AN ALLERGY! And if you can't get the basics right, why would anyone listen to you for any other advice when it comes to this area?

3. Wrong as well. But I'll let you do the googling.

4. The fact that RASTs are in general the most reliable are why they're used as a complement to all diagnoses of allergies. If you get a high response on a drug mediated allergy on a RAST test then it's very probable that you will respond negatively to that drug. But if you don't that's doesn't really clear you. There are relatively speaking fewer false positives, so they do have diagnostic value depending on the outcome. Now, since most people aren't allergic to anything, pure maths mean that doctors avoid them as they wouldn't make a very good screening tool. Once you get to an allergist though, you'll see them used a lot more. In general practice not so much.

5. Yeah, right...

OK, with you so far. Most of these aren't of course allergies against the vaccine as such, but to all the other components. (Flu vaccine being produced using chicken eggs being the most well known problem. They're often quite good at removing any traces of egg protein, but the process is by no means perfect, and for many sufferers getting the shot in a setting with emergency medical services to hand, as in "sitting on the chair right next to you" is often indicated. It's not for nothing that roughly 3/4 of all cases of anaphylaxis is iatrogenous.

No. Celiac disease is not an allergy per se. It is a specific autoimmune disease. One major difference between the two is that in autoimmune diseases the body's immune system attacks the body's own tissues, which is not a part of an allergy response. Allergies will not destroy your own tissues (though prolonged inflammation is of course no sinecure). Auto immune disease, (such as Celiac disease) will in many cases destroy tissue. In severe cases surgical intervention/removal of the tissue is indicated, and indeed loosing your intestine to the surgeons knife is a known complication of untreated Celiac disease. That's never the case with allergic reactions. (That's one difference, there are others).

Never said it did. Read was I wrote again. What I did say is that allergic reactions in certain tissue has a hereditary component, i.e. respiratory vs. gastro intestinal. This connection is weaker though. In this case, the family had a supposed history of gastro intestinal involvement, so that's a point in favour of that hypothesis then.

Yes, and in this case the patient complained of symptoms after having taken the drug, which is an exposure. So what's your point? The main problem with these test are actually the opposite one. Just because you have been exposed and developed anti bodies that doesn't necessarily mean you'll have enough symptoms to qualify as "allergic" to that substance, especially when your counts of antibodies are low. Though, avoidance is currently thought to be indicated though there is currently a small but growing number of researchers that question this course of action. Time will tell.

Ah! "There's your problem". We've moved quite a bit from what would be covered in basic biology. If that's what you're basing your understanding of allergies and allergic reactions on, you need to read up.

I'm not convinced it was "wrong". I haven't made up my mind one way or the other (it's not that big a deal for me). But, from what I gather, he stepped down himself as his position became untenable within the company, not really because of outside pressure. And when it comes to political speech, that wasn't really the issue as such as I understand it, but rather his opinions on the matter and that he hasn't changed them.

Now, if you're saying that it was all because of the purported/planned consumer boycott then I'd like to know more about that as that's not what I've gathered at all.

In either case, we don't agree on the definition of "retaliation". But I'm not sure what the "spade a spade" would add to that, as surely we're not hung up on the word as such?