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Comment Re:Translation: (Score 3, Informative) 158

RT has desktop mode.

It's patently untrue that the web is the future for "the kinds of apps that made windows dominant"

Actually, windows was dominant for every kind of app. The growth in apps of all sectors - LOB, entertainment, etc -- is on devices, and people regularly pan device apps that are just thin shells around a browser control.

People want native apps on their devices. MDD (multi-device-development) is something enterprise is very interested in -- they need to deal with a BYOD workforce, and they always want to economize on IT spend.

If it had been feasible to make Win32 apps run well on ARM, don't you think we would have done that?

The most insightful thing you wrote is this:

"But yes, Intel hasn't been asleep, and ARM is no longer as much of a requirement for mobile devices"

Consider the following -- and note that while I work at MS, I am neither privy to, nor attempting to disclose -- any high level strategy

1) Microsoft delivers a lot of value to enterprise customers because of app compat
2) think back a few years at what the CPU landscape looked like -- think about the power consumption of Intel's offerings. Remember, there was no ATOM yet.
3) app compat, battery life, performance -- if you don't have a low-power native x86 processor, you can only get two of these at a time.
4) Enterprise customers want all three
5) Intel, years ago, didn't appear to have any intention to deliver a low-cost, low power x86 part
6) this meant that MS would be unable to deliver low cost, new form factor mobile devices that could still run legacy software
7) this would force a wedge between new form factors and the Microsoft platform advantages (great compatability)

Clearly, what needed to happen is that something had to convince intel to develop a low cost, low power, good performing x86 chip

Based on 20+ years history, considering ARM, AMD, dec Alpha, etc, what makes intel innovate well and do its best work?

A credible marketplace threat to Wintel.

Claim: The purpose of Windows+ARM was to force intel to develop a low-power, low-cost x86 chip. If Windows+ARM took off in its own right, great. But the main purpose has been to secure a $99 x86 windows tablet -- which means that enterprises have the price points and form factors they want, and the app compat they need.

Exhibit A:
http://www.amazon.com/HP-Strea...

I happen to like my RT tablet -- but the Surface Pro is a credible do-it-all device, and now software that runs on the Pro is the same software that runs on your $99 HP tablet and your $4999 gaming rig.

Back when windows+ARM started, the intel hardware to allow that continuum didn't exist.

As I said -- nobody at MS tells me how things really go down. But this is a high stakes game. The people at MS aren't stupid.

Comment Re:its a tough subject (Score 1, Insightful) 673

We can disagree over the rights of herd immunity, but those who maintain that refusal to vaccinate hurts only the one who refuses, as the OP argued, are just plain ignorant of the facts.

Some of us still see a distinction between hurting someone by taking direct action against them, and hurting someone by not taking an action that would benefit them. It's an impasse and I doubt either side is going to persuade the other, no matter how many times it repeats on slashdot, and no matter how many people do or do not understand herd immunity.

Comment Re:its a tough subject (Score 1) 673

Long and short - employers should be able to discriminate against people who voluntarily refuse vaccinations.

That's a completely libertarian position as well. Taken to a logical conclusion, employers may discriminate against employees and even customers on the basis of vaccination, employees and customers may discriminate against businesses on the basis of vaccination policy. I think businesses choosing to have a vaccination policy may be a great innovation that the free market can bring to bear on this issue.

Comment Re:Some people say it's too pricy. (Score 1) 114

But I'd take this in a heartbeat over an AMD counterpart. The maxwell chips are leagues ahead of anything AMD's got.

WIth one exception: the R9 280x when used for DP floating point compute.

For about $250 you can get an R9 280x that in one second will do one trillion double precision floating point operations. That's about 10x faster than the Maxwell cards.

With such a card AMD should have had the scientist/engineer space for GPGPU locked up by now.

But, you know, they're AMD, so...

Comment increase and change visa's. (Score 1) 514

Visa's should be awarded based on nation need first. Iow, we should increase yearly visa ( say 15% more ), and then make 50% of all visa's dependent on nations need and candidates education. The rest can remain as it is.

however, they need to resolve the current group of illegals as well as change what is citizen, along with who can run for president/VP.

Comment Re:Awesome, I shall buy one in a year (Score 4, Informative) 114

Personally I love the GTX 750. It gives the biggest bang-for-the-buck and running at about 55 watts max or so it usually doesn't require a larger power supply. It can run completely off motherboard power going to a 16-lane 75 watt PCIe slot.

It's the perfect card for rescuing old systems from obsolescence, IMO.

The only trouble you might have is finding a single-slot-wide card if your system doesn't have room for a double slot card, though in my case I found a double-slot card that I could modify to fit in a single-slot of an old Core 2 Duo E8500 system.

And heat doesn't seem to be a problem at all, even with the mod I did. The low power of the card means less heat. Even if heat becomes a problem, the card is capable of slowly clocking itself down, though I've never seen that yet, even running Furmark.

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