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Comment Re:With more memory per CPU, it might not suck (Score 1) 124

by generationxyu (#33868938) Attached to: IBM's Plans For the Cell Processor
Please don't confuse the SPUs (the eight coprocessors on the Cell die) with the PPU (the main CPU core). The PPU is also part of the Cell, so don't call the SPUs "Cell CPUs". There is also no MIPS core -- the PPU is a 3.2GHz PPC core with two hardware threads. The SPUs also run at 3.2GHz, but are not considered "real" CPUs since they can't bootstrap themselves, they have to be given tasks from the PPU. SPU programming forces a model on you as a developer -- modularize your tasks with as few synchronization points as possible and treat the SPUs like a thread pool. What's the problem here? This is a good model even if you're not limited to the SPUs. Developers who move more and more tasks to the SPUs will find themselves in a much better position next generation when parallelization is more massive, regardless of whether the Cell or something like it is involved.

Comment Re:How can you... (Score 1) 452

by c4ffeine (#29384581) Attached to: Future of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Looks Bleak

"every species becomes either space-faring, or extinct"

Which species are you using as examples in this statement?

You've been modded insightful but I think the modders don't understand the meaning of that word.

There are no examples of any species becoming "space-faring" while there are a lot of species here on earth that have been around for millions of years (us included) and which have no indications of going extinct any time soon (read for several more million years).

This planet will become uninhabitable eventually. Therefore, any species that does not develop spaceflight and leave the planet will die with it.

Comment Re:Rockets vs Scramjets (Score 1) 131

by c4ffeine (#29336211) Attached to: Mach 6 Test Aircraft Set For Trials

Take a look at the SABRE engine sometime. It's a hybrid rocket/turbojet/ramjet engine designed specifically to solve the problem you're referring to. I'll admit that it still needs a lot of further development, but it's the approach that I think is most likely to be practical.

Fortunately, Wiki seems to have a moderately accurate overview of the project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_SABRE
The Courts

A Short Summary Following the Pirate Bay Trial 500

Posted by kdawson from the all-over-but-the-sawdust dept.
Dan B. writes "The Guardian has a nice piece wrapping up the trial in Sweden for the co-defendants in the P2P trial-of-the-decade, that of The Pirate Bay. 'Today, the defense lawyers summed up. It was a short trial and not a particularly merry one, but it could have far-reaching effects.' Surprisingly, when the defendants hit the stand they didn't bash copyright or take a libertarian approach; it all came back to the tried and tested formula for criminal defense, 'I am not responsible.'"

Comment EditPad (Score 1) 1131

by c4ffeine (#26692807) Attached to: Favorite text editor?

At work, I have to deal with rather large (often >2GB) log files. I've found very few editors that don't choke on files that large. So far, my favorite has been the EditPad series.

Anyone else know any editors that can handle text files of that magnitude easily? I'm always looking for options
Image

jQuery in Action 154

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Michael J. Ross writes "As perhaps the only substantial computer language embedded inside of the major Web browsers, JavaScript has brought an unprecedented level of power to client-side programming for the Internet. Yet as a result of cross-browser incompatibilities and other problems, it has probably also resulted in an unprecedented number of headaches for Web developers. JavaScript libraries attempt to mitigate much of these difficulties. One of the most popular such libraries, jQuery, is explored in a book by Bear Bibeault and Yehuda Katz, titled jQuery in Action." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
The Courts

French Record Labels Go After Limewire, SourceForge 326

Posted by kdawson from the lawyers-on-airplanes dept.
An anonymous reader notes that TorrentFreak is reporting: "French record labels have received the green light to sue four US-based companies that develop P2P applications, including the BitTorrent client Vuze, Limewire, and Morpheus. Shareaza is the fourth application, for which the labels are going after the open source development platform SourceForge. ... Putting aside the discussion on the responsibilities of application developers for their users activities, the decision to go after SourceForge for hosting a application that can potentially infringe, is stretching credibility beyond all bounds." SourceForge is Slashdot's corporate parent.

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