Don't buy into the shell game played by both sides of the aisle. Both are equally bad and stopped caring about anything but their own power and wallets long, long ago. They play both sides against the middle constantly. It's just a shell game.

There are still technical challenges to increasing clock speed. Just because "IBM said it would" doesn't make it so. Instead you are seeing higher IPC due to architectural refinements as well as more and more cores. Clock speeds are still inching up but do not expect any huge radical jumps anytime soon.

Presumably the novel way they address (pun intended) cache coherency is what is new. More efficiency = greater performance. Time will tell.

They certainly were if you look at the bigger picture. The entire Cold War and the proxy wars during that period were all about power and who's ideology would reign supreme. The whole point of becoming a superpower is control of resources. Natural resources, human resources, financial resources, etc.

All wars are ultimately about resources. To the winner go the spoils.

You do know that statistically you're more likely to die of bee stings than from a shark, right? I'd have to check but I think it's even more likely you'll die from a lightning strike. So you'd better be safe and never leave your house again.

Seriously...that's a really silly attitude based in ignorance. Now, I don't care if you ever go in the ocean, but your reasoning so flawed it's almost funny.

Spacecraft launches and news related to them definitely qualify as 'News for nerds' as well as 'stuff that matters,' so you can just go back to Mom's basement now :)

Everyone repeat after me. Anonymous Cowards aren't scientifically literally. It was AFTER the Big Bang. Try again.

In the snow. Never forget the snow.

I didn't say things are good, I said that his citing of where job growth was is flawed, as well as his overall assessment of the economy. The middle class is shrinking, this is true.

The US economy is doing a damn sight better than the EU's, and most job growth is in sectors like hospitality, mining, retail, business services, etc. I don't know where you got your facts but they aren't. Aren't facts that is.

You really should get your head out of the clouds. The point of any schooling is to prepare one to live. It doesn't matter if it's college, vocational school, or any other training. Sure, we want to increase our understanding of the Universe and be well rounded human beings, but that is the secondary goal of college. The primary goal is to make a living. You know. Food. Housing. Clothing. Those little things. Such idealism. You sound like you live in the Ivory Tower yourself.

Maybe you should start. If I were you I'd start with anti-psychotics.

*In

Need more coffee...

I Soviet Russia, computer chips program YOU.

I've always preferred inline assembly or linked asm routines for tricky bits, but the problem then is it's not portable.