If you have a working set that is larger than 2GB, then the Duron may, in fact, do better on this hypothetical bench mark. Because, if your working set is larger than 2GB, then the i7 machine will be swapping to disk and if the disk is a HDD, then the access time is orders of magnitude slower than the RAM access on the Duron.

Me either

You surely did not read the paper that was submitted. It does not contain any advanced math. It contains a reference to the relevant regulations. It uses simple math, data from the city, and simple street diagrams/pictures to make an argument for the installation of traffic lights. It does not claim to be any sort of engineering.

You also fail to understand what the words "practice" and "offer to practice" mean in the context. So, the Merriam-Webster dictionary provides us with some help. Definition 1.c : to be professionally engaged in .

I think it is clear that he did not claim to be and engineer, did not practice engineering in any professional manner, and thus the law does not apply.

If this law would apply, that would mean any well thought out and researched petition of the government would be unlawful, if done by anyone accept a qualified engineer.

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/sites/drupalblogs.newsobserver.com/files/docs/dcoxAnalysis%20of%20Traffic%20Signal%20Warrants%20for%20Selected%20Intersections%20of%20Falls%20of%20Neuse%20Road.pdf

You can find this on the site http://www.ncbels.org/rulesandlaws.html . Reading this, I believe it is only illegal, if you claim to be an engineer is some way. You have to offer engineering services or directly claim to be an engineer for this law to apply.

  89C23. Unlawful to practice engineering or land surveying without licensure; unlawful use of title or terms; penalties; Attorney General to be legal adviser.

Any person who shall practice, or offer to practice, engineering or land surveying in this State without first being licensed in accordance with the provisions of this Chapter, or any person, firm, partnership, organization, association, corporation, or other entity using or employing the words "engineer" or "engineering" or "professional engineer" or "professional engineering" or "land surveyor" or "land surveying," or any modification or derivative of those words in its name or form of business or activity except as licensed under this Chapter or in pursuit of activities exempted by this Chapter, or any person presenting or attempting to use the certificate of licensure or the seal of another, or any person who shall give any false or forged evidence of any kind to the Board or to any member of the Board in obtaining or attempting to obtain a certificate of licensure, or any person who shall falsely impersonate any other licensee of like or different name, or any person who shall attempt to use an expired or revoked or nonexistent certificate of licensure, or who shall practice or offer to practice when not qualified, or any person who falsely claims that the person is registered under this Chapter, or any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this Chapter, in addition to injunctive procedures set out hereinbefore, shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. In no event shall there be representation of or holding out to the public of any engineering expertise by unlicensed persons. It shall be the duty of all duly constituted officers of the State and all political subdivisions of the State to enforce the provisions of this Chapter and to prosecute any persons violating them.

The Attorney General of the State or an assistant shall act as legal adviser to the Board and render any legal assistance necessary to carry out the provisions of this Chapter. The Board may employ counsel and necessary assistance to aid in the enforcement of this Chapter, and the compensation and expenses for the assistance shall be paid from funds of the Board. (1921, c. 1, s. 12; C.S., s. 6055(n); 1951, c. 1084, s. 1; 1975, c. 681, s. 1; 1993, c. 539, s. 612; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c); 1998118, s. 21.)

Hmmm... I see you have no experience with early Fords. I happen to own a 1929 Ford model A Sedan and it is a wonderful car. It is extremely reliable and easy to work on.

1. Yes, having choice can be confusing. However, I, for one, would rather have choice than not.
2. I have no idea where you are finding the documentation for windows. It is horrible. The documentation on linux may not be perfect, but I think it competes with windows rather well.
3. Specialty software from a hardware vendor will always have this issue. I wonder if your mom's sewing machine has software for a Mac.
4. I have always found plenty of support for Linux on the web. The same place I have to find support for windows, unless I want to pay large sums of money to Microsoft for support
5. I admit that adding a new repository or installing from a deb or rpm might be a little more difficult. However, if you are installing software the is available in the repository, it is much easier than windows. Further, if you are using appropriate repositories, you will have very few or no instances where one software package breaks another. I have had this happen many times on windows, because of incompatible DLLs.
6. Again, I wonder what windows you have been using. Windows has a command interpreter, actually two, Command.com and PowerShell. There are many things like resetting DHCP values that are easier on the command line than in a GUI on windows.

The page I linked to in the GP says the device is the size of a C battery, which sounds very close to the description in the article. The other thing is that the article is using the image from the Jarvik 2000 web site.

http://www.jarvikheart.com/basic.asp?section=Jarvik+2000

5,579,517 "Common Name Space for Long and Short File Names"
5,758,352 "Common Name Space for Long and Short File Names"

So, these two are the the infamous FAT patents.

6,621,746 "Monitoring Entropic Conditions of a Flash Memory Device as an Indicator for Invoking Erasure Operations"

Defrag applied to flash, really that deserve a patent?

6,826,762 "Radio Interface Layer in a Cell Phone with a Set of APIs Having a Hardware-Independent Proxy Layer and a Hardware-Specific Driver Layer"

Hmmm layering an API so that you have an invariant user space API and hardware driver portion. Seems like the kind of thing every OS does.

6,909,910 "Method and System for Managing Changes to a Contact Database"

Really!?!? I wonder how if my first year CS course work violates this patent.

7,644,376 "Flexible Architecture for Notifying Applications of State Changes"

Hmmmm... a publish/subscriber notification protocol, no that has never been done before.

5,664,133 "Context Sensitive Menu System/Menu Behavior"

Ha, Ha, Ha Context sensitive menus! I could have sworn I have seen things like that for the last 20 years or so.

6,578,054 "Method and System for Supporting Off-line Mode of Operation and Synchronization Using Resource State Information"

Hmmm... patenting persistent state storage as part of a synchronization process. Hmmmm... I wonder if any of the hash based synchronizer I have built in the past would infringe.

6,370,566 "Generating Meeting Requests and Group Scheduling from a Mobile Device"

Oh, doing it from a mobile device makes it so much more unique.

They are all garbage patents and if Motorola decides to fight versus cross licensing, I don't believe they will hold up.

The editors have a loose definition of the work prove. I read the article and they provide some compelling arguments. However, I saw no proof in a mathematics or scientific way.

Now, if only you had read the article

Oracle is also alleging the Google violated its copyrights. So, if that is true (though I doubt it), it would invalidate the patent grant.

Damn! Let me correct my own math. If solar cells are 20% efficient, then you have to cover 5% of the Sahara. The transmission losses push it to 7%, much less than the 28% I said above, but still much more than 1%.

The common solar cells are only around 20% efficient. So, that leads to the need to cover 20% of the Sahara to power the world. But that's not all, because the long distance power transmission can loose up to 30%, which would push the need to cover the desert to around 28% to get enough energy to run the world.