d_leiderman - Slashdot User

8-Core Intel Nehalem-EX To Launch This Month 186

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 08, 2010 @05:29PM from the double-the-cores-for-only-twice-the-price dept.

MojoKid writes "What could you do with 8 physical cores of CPU processing power? Intel's upcoming 8-core Nehalem-EX is launching later this month, according to Intel Xeon Platform Director Shannon Poulin. The announcement puts to rest rumors that the 8-core part might be delayed, and makes good on a promise Intel made last year when the chip maker said it would release the chip in the first half of 2010. To quickly recap, Nehalem-EX boasts an extensive feature-set, including up to 8 cores per processor, up to 16 threads per processor with Intel Hyper-threading, scalability up to eight sockets via Intel's serial Quick Path Interconnect and more with third-party node controllers, and 24MB of shared cache."

Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience 219

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @07:49PM from the type-A-negative-personality dept.

trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @07:07PM from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

Indian CEO Says Most US Tech Grads "Unemployable" 1144

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 22, 2009 @02:01AM from the you-stereotype-i-draw-distinctions dept.

theodp writes "When questioned about his firm's US hiring, Information Week reports that Vineet Nayar, the CEO of the Indian outsourcing giant HCL Technologies, showed he can stereotype with the best of them, telling an audience in NYC that most American tech grads are 'unemployable.' Explaining that Americans are far less willing than students from developing economies like India, China, and Brazil to master the 'boring' details of tech process and methodology, the HCL chief added that most Americans are just too expensive to train. HCL, which was reportedly awarded a secretive $170 million outsourcing contract by Microsoft last April, gets a personal thumbs-up from Steve Ballmer for 'walking the extra mile.' Ballmer was busy last week pitching more H-1B visas as the cure for America's job ills at The National Summit."

Comment SSD are the way to go (Score 1) 480

by d_leiderman on Friday March 06, 2009 @06:18PM (#27098615) Attached to: Can SSDs Be Used For Software Development?

Since there are no moving parts, there is no difference in latency for reading different sectors. This is the reason you simply don't care about fragmentation. Regarding limitations on lifespan, there are many systems using SSD for databases indexes, where the index is updated hundredth times a day and the drive is specified to work for several years.

from personal experience, the build process is limited by I/O capabilities, and this is where the SSD is just way beyond any mechanical disk. Real life performance information give about 100 IOPS for Fiber channel / SAS disks, and 80 IOPS for SATA disks. for SSD the numbers go up to 5,000 IOPS - about 50 times increase.

design to last - blog on system engineering

Comment microsoft is a monopoly (Score 1) 52

by d_leiderman on Friday March 06, 2009 @10:11AM (#27090809) Attached to: No Patch For Excel Zero-Day Flaw

This just proves that being a monopoly allows you to ignore your users.

Excel is a major tool in many corporates, and having such an exploit can make havoc.

no the least, this shows that making your own rules can help you claim whatever you want - time to fix / number of vulnerabilities, etc.

Design to last - blog on system engineering

Comment use a combination of methods (Score 1) 451

by d_leiderman on Saturday January 17, 2009 @09:13AM (#26496219) Attached to: How Best To Deal With WiFi Interference?

Finding the problem will help you with some ideas:

- what are the most busy bands in term of actual usage.

- what is the strength of the interfering AP's.

- what is the actual SNR for your computer in the locations you work normally.

having this information you can use some of the methods above:

- directional antenna

- selecting the correct frequency

- setting the power

changing to a band can be an interesting idea but its more expensive than the others.

Daniel

http://design-to-last.com/

Comment Re:Notebooks == Obvious (Score 1) 232

by d_leiderman on Thursday January 15, 2009 @03:12PM (#26471115) Attached to: PC Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis

Why upgrade if everything is working? Windows XP is a a good enough operating system for most users, and unless you are running the newest games, any computer from the last 3 years is good enough. There is still a reason to change, but for other reasons: - change mobility -> laptop - broken system due to viruses -> cheaper to get a new computer - broken hw -> same as above increased capacity / memory can be bought very cheaply now. http://design-to-last.com/ Daniel

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