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Comment Re:Test of Time (Score 1) 181

I don't think Swift is ready for prime time just yet.

Given that Swift doesn't really let out any of Apple's Magic, I think we might see a source release for Swift someday. It's not like opening CocoaTouch or CoreVideo or CoreStorage.

I just want a platform independent release so I can build web apps on it rather than Python or PHP. It works through libcgi so.

Comment Re:ISTR hearing something about that... (Score 1) 162

I think the problem here isn't that games aren't IO bound but the testing methodology is flawed. On a PC environment when you've got multiple browser windows open, IRC, email client, etc. getting constrained for IOPS is easier than expected.

When you're just running one task in the background with nothing else competing for IOPS, sure, it's easy to show that there's no performance gained with PCIe vs SATA.

Do it in a real world environment, and I'm willing to bet PCIe will show it's worth. I don't think that games will run any faster than the baseline results of no load, but I'm willing to guess it'll do better than the SATA equivalents.

Also I find it laughable that they tested load of a Visual Studio project but not the actual build performance.

Comment Re:Time to stop considering individual components. (Score 1) 85

I said sometimes and also referenced everyday tasks. Are you transcoding video on a daily basis?

If you're a person who's transcoding video, then sure, one core i7 with less cores but higher frequency will do the job better than another core i7 with more cores and lower frequency.

But if you're looking for a machine to do office suite docs, browse the web, email, etc. then comparing machines based on does this machine have a Core M vs Core M becomes irrelevant. You have to think about things like build quality and overall design.

For a lot of things a computer gets used for these days by common users, looking at spec sheets isn't enough. It's been that way for a long time and now we've reached an interesting place where this point is coming down to how the boards and chips are layed out.

Comment Re:Time to stop considering individual components. (Score 1) 85

I don't think they do actually. When techies are screaming about how Apple products are overpriced, then start suggesting things that should have higher specs but the usability on them is shit because they built the device based on a checklist and not actually thinking about how anyone's going to use it...

Comment Re:Time to stop considering individual components. (Score 1) 85

That's why I compared it to modern cards which generally range from about 130 to 200 HP, with most ranging near 150 HP.

Simply put, we've got "sufficient" memory bandwidth and latency times that for most use cases, it doesn't matter.

My point was that we need to start evaluating machines based on the whole gestalt of the build and not just, "oh this has X, Y, and Z parts therefore it will perform in some certain way."

Comment Time to stop considering individual components. (Score 5, Insightful) 85

It's something some of us Apple fans have long figured out is that individual specs sometimes are completely meaningless.

Having a Core i7 will not actually feel more responsive in everyday tasks compared to a Core M if the i7 is paired with a spinning rust disk and the Core M has a PCI E SSD.

Similarly, just looking at the chip in the machine might not tell us everything if we don't know anything about how it's handling cooling or what specific design choices were made.

We're on the verge of reaching the 150HP car of computing. Don't really need much more for most tasks unless you're doing heavy lifting or looking to have fun, and even a lot of good clean fun can be had at 150HP.

Comment Re:OH NO! (Score 1) 304

You could always choose another insurer, you could choose to pay out of pocket

Even if we went with the libertarian ideal of deregulation and lowered the bar to entry, no. That doesn't solve the problem of restricted access to care. What happens is that people who can't pay *still* get less care because no one will cover them.

Paying out of pocket is right out because of how fucking expensive it is in the US to get health care.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a Canadian style system. Mostly because the issues of waiting lists and such are largely bullshit.

Comment Re:Define "Threatened" and "Unwelcome" (Score 1) 765

If you knew your computing sciences history, you'd know that Grace Hopper isn't a cherry picked example. Systems programming was considered women's work for decades.

Lots of women were ignored for their contributions to STEM.

Lots of women are, not surprisingly, leaving STEM because of attitudes like yours.

Who should I believe, you or my lying eyes?

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