It's interesting looking at your user page after a long time. Posts you don't even remember making have been modded up or down, and that things that you vaguely remember writing about near-future events have already passed by. I think that's why I like technology- it keeps changing in new and exciting ways. Just two years back I was dead-set against ever using Wine again, but just the other day, I decided I wanted to play Portal at the recommendation oif a friend, so I grudgingly merged the latest stable wine in Portage onto my system. I was pleasantly surprised when everything worked. Sure, it makes two links on my desktop for every app I install, and some things just break (AIRRADE, Touhou Fuujinroku). So yeah, gaming in linux works, I guess. Processors have done an about face with Intel now on top and giving AMD a thrashing they won't soon forget (though FSB seems to have not died yet, unfortunately). I still can't seem to buy a Cell based desktop, though IBM will certainly sell me a blade server. As an aside, people are far more manufacturer-agnostic than I seem to recall. It's a good time to be a geek.

Are people spoiled on efficiency now? I love what AMD did and continues to do for the market of desktop processors. But I have to question why it is that people INSIST that this new "Cell" doodad will be only as good as the new AMD/Intel; chip when it comes out. Someone made the point that it might be good for a few things, but for general computing it will suck. Why would you say this? If Intel has proven anything, raw MHz can, to a certain extent, compete with efficient execution. When you have a chip with excess like the Cell, it should be able to plow through somehow. In my eyes, comparing an A64 X2 at a total of 4.8 GHz to an 8-core Cell-ular monstrosity at 25.6 GHz is, if anything, a bit unfair. Saying that they're equals is like saying Paint is equal to Photoshop because you can make digital images in both. Why not have an open mind about these things and consider that AMD/Intel may have finally met its match (Highly unlikely, but still possible)