[Updated] World's most powerful Linux supercomputer by IBM, will use AMD Opteron CPUs which is definitely a vote of confidence for AMD. (especially considering IBM chose the Opteron over their own Power 4 CPU!) It's set to be the world's 3rd most powerful supercomputer "system will comprise 1058 dual-processor 1U rack-mounted eServer 325s. Each server is based on a pair of AMD Opteron 200-series CPUs, including the Opteron 246 (2ghz), IBM said."

Opteron's are going to be used in other super computers too. Apparently they scale much better than dual Xeons do. Adding a second Opteron get's you nearly twice the speed, whereas adding an extra Xeon gets you 1.09x the speed.

there's a number of opteron benchmarks at the inq.; here, here (this one shows "MTOPS" for all CPU configs, and includes results for 2ghz Opterons as well), and here the last one showing a dual Opteron 1.8ghz as twice as fast as a P4 at 3ghz, and also twice as fast as a dual Xeon 1.7ghz system.

http://www.mailinator.com/ it's funny. so is crapmail.com.

failures of desktop linux tested in the real world more here.

i've started to understand why people might want 2gb/4gb or more in RAM. i converted a 1 minute section from DVD into an uncompressed AVI, and the resulting file is 1.7gb! and then to do anything with it, whatever program you use (eg adobe image ready) tends to open the whole file into memory! (in fact, the system is using over 2gb of memory now... i've only got 256mb physical ram so the rest is virtual) crucial sell ram. (couldn't have a post without a link!)

scary worm. make sure you're patched. alt patch location.

this months (sept 2003) PC Pro* has a benchmark / review of a dual 1.8ghz Opteron workstation costing a shocking �4000+ including VAT (2gb, 200gb, DVD-+RW, Quadro FX, 17" TFT, XP Pro), it beats a dual 3.06ghz Xeon in 2d, and compares well with a p4 3ghz system according to the PC Pro tests. They also claim to have a review of the G5, but inside it's called a preview (says it's only 20db!). cheeky. although with the G5, with dual G5's at 2ghz, at �2,299 inc VAT it does seem much better value than the dual opteron system. IT Week / PC Pro says the 2ghz Opteron should be out soon though (28th July!), with price drops accross the entire AMD range... also in an advert, I noticed MESH are selling a 17" TFT P4 2.66Ghz, 256mb, 40gb, 64mb ati radeon 9000, DVD/CDRW, WinXP Home, Laptop for �1173 inc VAT!! (�350 off!)

*if you go to pc pro's site and do their Reliability and Awards Survey you could win one of �15,000 worth of prizes.

ULTRA cheap Linux / Lindows Webstations which boot from CD and therefore don't need a Hard Drive, costing just $169 US Dollars (�104 UK Pounds). Crikey, that's cheap. I wonder how anyone can make any money from building and selling PCs these days! These would probably be perfect for an internet cafe, if they booted into Windows... but one slashdotter points out "the OEM XP Pro costs more than the machine AND the Operating system" this site looks like it could be interesting, it's about cheap pcs.

Athlon 64 Motherboard(s) and Dual Opteron Motherboard with AGP. Make sure you know that the 754 pin Athlon64 is single channel DDR - whereas the 939/940 pin Athlon 64's will be dual channel DDR meaning faster ram performance - i think you may as well just get a dual opteron system :)

AMIGA 600 HD for sale.

anti virus software results top four are : 1. F-Secure version 5.40 - 99.67% 2. Kaspersky version 4.0.5.37 - 99.55% 3. e-Scan Pro version 2.5.181.5 - 7.66% 4. McAfee version 7.00.5000 - 97.14% with AVG 22nd, and eTrust 23rd.

Canadian teenager has filed a �100,000 lawsuit against four of his peers for stealing a video clip of his light sabre acrobatics and posting it on the web. Any one seen the clip? Got any images?

http://www.christianlinux.com/. hmmm. big family? what about people who aren't his sisters and brothers?

"The reason I am offering these disk at these low prices is because most of them are CDR disks. Yes the licencing allows me to do this and because I can do this I can offer them to my sisters and brothers at prices that will make you never spend full price for a broken OS again."

"A number of them described the company's overall strategy as "integrated innovation," a reference to the drive to add a continual stream of features and services to Microsoft's Windows and Office software businesses.

"It shouldn't be necessary for people to buy additional products for their secure infrastructures," Mr. Gates said."

so much for that whole going to court thing, and being ruled a monopoly, due to adding / tying in additional software into windows to wipe out the competition. don't worry about that, lets just carry on doing what we always do... interesting article here.

"Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day."

and that's just the PCs that bother reporting the errors, what about the people (with win98 etc) that don't have that feature or those that aren't connected to the net...

"Mr. Gates said the company was considering the possibility of charging for some of its software updates that are now made available free over the Internet."

It looks like they are copying off Apple again...

5.1 speakers AND sound card (5.1) AND FREE SHIPPING!! �50 inc vat! wow. Creative Soundblaster soundcard, and Cambridge Soundworks speakers!!

another windows security issue - i won't bother putting affects all versions of windows, including windows 2003 server, as i may end up with the grammar police onto me again :)

microsoft passwords dead easy to crack.

"Swiss researchers released a paper on Tuesday outlining a way to speed the cracking of alphanumeric Windows passwords, reducing the time to break such codes to an average of 13.6 seconds, from one minute 41 seconds."

more details

Google bias article fairly interesting, sort of.

wahey isn't the web brilliant sesameseventies.com

What would have happened if Intel got stuck at 1ghz? and the fastest CPU they did was the P3-1Ghz chip? Would we now be running Dual and Quad P3-1ghz chips with 512k / 1mb caches? (ala apple and the G4).

Did you know you can get a Quad at Argos! Lets you choose whether you want to get done 1, 2, 3 or 4 bits of work. Completely scalable, no loss of performance when using all 4 units. Extreme value.

Dell dell.co.uk do Celeron (P4 based) 2.0ghz, 128mb ECC, 40gb IDE, CD-ROM, Servers for �299 (exc vat) with 1yr warranty. No OS. Has Gigabit (1000Mbit) NIC. Includes keyboard, but you can save �23 if you don't have it. (making it �276 exc / �324 inc vat) No monitor. Plus you can get Linux pre-installed for you with CDs and documents (for �113).

"SCO, in the middle of a $1 billion-plus lawsuit with IBM, has sent letters to 1,500 of the largest global enterprises, warning them that it believes Linux infringed on SCO's Unix intellectual property rights.

Now SCO is considering asking business users for a fee for every copy of Linux they run distributed by any of the vendors, including Red Hat Inc., SuSE Inc., Debian GNU Linux and Turbolinux Inc., sources said, adding that individual users would likely not have to pay."

SCO are bad. more details This would certainly help kill Linux, if people start having to pay for it! Especially if they had to pay SCO for it, when SCO didn't even make it!

go to joshwaller.tk and try out the new "flashcom" thingy. (click flashcom when you're there). you'll need flash installed. :)

Pentium Mac story. it's pretty crap. opteron seti benchmark here seems the 1.6ghz Opteron running 32bit code, does a unit in about 3hours 38minutes which is about the same as my Athlon XP 2400+ anyway, here's an article about how he doesn't care about IT and how it's all really boring.

University Robot ruled too scary. looks a bit like terminator.

load of abandonware sim games including Sim Earth, which I haven't played yet. (as well as Sim City and Sim City 2000 and others).

Linux Ranks No. 2 On Microsoft Risk List you may be interested to see what rates No. 1

fan tastic! fan dribbly tastic (disable your pop-up blocker).

Free competitions The Smart Car competition is only open to Orange customers, but the rest are open to anyone.

ha ha apple. read the article here it's very funny. (here's where you can get the dual opteron 64-bit desktop / workstation computers - [UK Supplier] - not that there's really any difference between "workstation" and "desktop" in my opinion...)

new at onestupid.org Download icons for MSN messenger 6

Cat translater

"Although AOL owns Netscape, it has preferred to build its web browsing tools around Microsoft's Internet Explorer."

BBC News has an article about the death of Netscape the browser. With some good links to Browser emulators, archive, and the early internet.

Microsoft urges users to patch their PCs, users should expect another update... I use the Automatic Updates things that you get with W2K SP3/4 / XP and got an update through the other day, and this morning again, I got another one. Well now I know why :)

A senior British official said the case added urgency to legislation intended to outlaw cultivating sexual contacts over the Internet. Ban the internet I say, and the phone, and the written word. Idiots

joel from rathergood.com has made an advert for't telly which you can watch here.

Sending faeces through the post was (is) illegal. "The police have told us that they will prosecute if they can prove wrongdoing."

Commodore 64 to be relaunched. Again.

According to ArsTechnica you can download Counter Strike and Half-Life for FREE! Sweet! :) Anyone downloaded them yet?

Police Sunglasses for sale!.

IBM Busy downloading the web. Yes all of it. "It is an operation made up of about a 1000-node Intel Linux cluster and half a Petabyte of storage, according to Carlson." more people with big hard drives.

PC Satisfaction survey, says HP/Compaq users aren't very happy, but Apple users are happy. There's an article here x86 vs PPC, written by a guy who develops PPC systems running "MorphOS" (AmigaOS roots) and "Linux", which I think Matt's previously mentioned, they're also available in the UK. In additional AMD news, they are going to make their retail heatsink/fans quieter.

Amd to phase out Duron, (hey I've herd that before ;-)) Athlon FX Likely Successor to Duron, and More links from google news.

Linux on the desktop.

More Windows Security Issues They even effect Windows 98. (as well as Win NT4 , 2000 , XP etc)

Laptops vs Normal PCs Laptops are cool, they're small, portable, but aren't much use [as they may get too hot, or wear the fans out] for things that require 100% CPU time 24/7, such as SETI or UD, as they're not really designed for that kind of use. Also they're a bit too expensive compared to general PCs. Here's information about a new VIA C3 Laptop CPU and motherboard, and also an $800 Linux Laptop. You could get a Dell 2ghz celeron laptop for $749 though. Laptops may not be suitable as a full time replacement for your desktop pc.

But if you want a smaller PC, you could always get a Shuttle PC [starting at �150 inc vat for case + motherboard], then you could have a fast CPU, and use it 100% and it'd still be small. So basically, whilst it would be cool and convienient to have a laptop, I think with the compromises that have to be made, it may be more useful to have a Shuttle PC, as you can still have a high performance in a small package.

this is interesting grad student makes a huge map of american infastructure.

New Apple 15" thing, could be a tablet Mac... and in other Apple related news, Microsoft picture shows woman using Apple Powerbook. (zoom)

nada (software) | very nice (mac mods very impressive, especially ze cube) | very funny (pic)

Got a spare machine doing nowt? Or not using your CPU to 100%? Why not do UD, and help find a cure for Cancer?. (Also, why not join this team?)

AMD Athlon 64 release date Sept 22nd wooo! here's some pricing information. I wonder whether you'll be able to do dual CPU systems with them, or whether you would have to buy an Opteron for that. VIA release new mobile 11watt CPU. Also, something maybe more relevant to us "old-skool" AMD'ers, a Gadget (another link) that lets you use the latest AMD Barton CPUs on old KT133/266 motherboards. (some people say that a new motherboard would be cheaper than this device though)

You know how there's "hot" mail [hotmail.com] and "yahoo" mail [yahoo.com] - I think Royal Mail [royalmail.com] should do web based email too :)

"I have this final say in my tree. It is special in that a lot of people trust my tree. So some people will not use it if it is not my tree. That is a minority. But most people end up using various appendages. My tree is really not. Yes I have the final say on my tree. There is always this forking but there is always this joining. There is more forking than there is joining. But that just means that there are all these dead branches that not end up not being interesting. My branch is to some degree, you could think of it as the trunk of the tree. People try to join back into my tree."

Torvalds on Linux, SCO and IBM article [silicon valley]

steve says:
wots bruce almighty?

Matt says:
a film

Matt says:
Theres this bloke, and he goes down to a cookie store

and at the cookie store, theres a lady and a man, and the man likes to pick his nose

and the lady had recently had the environemental health people coming around,

and they said there were rat droppings.

and she said no they are chocolate chip cookies.

i mean chocolate chips,

so anyway they cleaned up the shop and they needed to attract more customers

so they decided to make the biggest cookie in the world.

And our friend Bruce, he's gone to the cookie store to report the story,

and interview the lady.

but after he's done the interview, he misses the meeting where they decide whether to put it on tv or not.

and they decide not to.

so he's not very happy.

but his wife thinks its a very good story. but he's still not happy. he wants a better job. he wants to be the 'anchorman' the one that says the news and stays inside and reads the autocue.

but his enemy at the news station, gets the job of being anchorman, while he is reporting from niagara falls

Bruce is very upset and tells the other guy what he thinks of him

so Bruce gets sacked.

and then he tries to help a homeless guy that's being bullied.

but he then gets beaten up too.

he starts to ask God why all this stuff's happening.

And God gives him a phone number and an address for him to contact him.

They get together, and Bruce gets the opportunity to have a go at being God for a while.

Bruce doesn't do a very good job.

But they all live happily ever after the end.

steve says:
what is the parable of the story?

Matt says:
That Gods doing a fine job, but he can't mess with people's will, and he cant force anyone to love him.

and that some of our prayers aren't good. We don't always need what we ask for.

And that there's nothing wrong with a bit of manual labor.

And Bruce is only interested in his career unless he is hit by a truck, which turns his priorities right around, so then he settles into his regular job.

Steve says:
interesting but what does the cookie represent?
Matt says:
"that's the way the cookie crumbles." that was his saying at the end of the news reports.

Maybe i didn't really get the deeper meaning.

steve says:
maybe the cookie represents his life. built up high and strong but yet it quite lacks its whole being and is missing its centre ingredient of a chocolate chip rich taste. In time because the cookie is happy where he is and does not self assess his own life or have vision. The cookie gradually is taken away and fades. smashed in time with other things and cramped out the cookie fades and the perfect circle cycle is smashed beyond repair. Yet only at the end does bruce realise this and through realising what was stolen from him does bruce redeem himself and it is as if a new circle has begun. he has a pathway set beck towards the route that God has sustained. The crumbling of the cookie is the same paul had on his vision and therefore bruce sees differently. Infact he becomes rededicated,rebirthed in God and ready to follow christ unto the end

Train crash drama somewhere between Burnley and Hebden Bridge.

http://www.baddesigns.com/ A scrapbook of illustrated examples of things that are hard to use because they do not follow human factors principles.

BBC News decide to write about the Mac G5, nearly 2 weeks after the thing was announced!

"Adobe Systems plans to announce new versions of its video-editing software Monday, including a Windows-only application that marks another high-profile defection from Apple Computer's Macintosh operating system. " - Which is interesting, considering they were at the Apple Keynote thing. But I guess it makes sense since Apple are now making that kind of software for the Mac themselves. Doesn't really sound too good for Apple "I think you're going to find that more and more--if Apple's in a software market, third-party vendors are going to skip it.", well in one sense, it's good in that Apple make the money from selling software, but in another sense, they're driving away software support, which is bad. Adobe also endorse the Intel P4.

the 118118 experience some silly videos.

The Country of Estonia believes having the Internet is a human right. Also, here's a 16mb vid from the 90's about why you shouldn't copy games. (it's a bit scary and it's got some guy rapping, it's 9minutes 37seconds.)

Movies: Steve of [H]ard|OCP says this: "I have seen some horrible ones like Charlie�s Angels, but the BEST MOVIE of the summer so far is Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Went to see it last night and it was money well spent. Lots of good laughs and great action stuff too. If you are wondering what to go see this summer�go see T3."

I watched Sweet Home Alabama last night, and it's pretty good. Romantic love type film that's pretty interesting. I learnt that when lightning strikes sand it creates a beautiful glass sculpture. The girls seemed to like this film a bit more than me so it might be more of a chick flick. Elvyn, the Texan, says that the Alabama parts [in the film] are exactly like the real Alabama in America. [sorry reworded]

Movie Reviews Bruce Almighty : Very funny. Even people who don't like Jim Carrey much would probably like this film. Quite a lot of very very funny bits that just have to be watched. Don't watch the trailer, it'll probably just spoil the best bits. Basic story, Jim Carrey thinks God's being mean to him, so Jim get's the be God for a while.

Shallow Hal Brilliant, very funny. Highly recommend this, it's out at blockbuster to rent. Got some good morals thrown in too. Basic story, an average looking guy sets his women standards too high, but someone makes it so that he see's people's inner beauty...

how can they release a new game called "the italian job" for the new film "the italian job" when there is already a game called "the italian job" available here [PC Game only �9.99 at PC World] based on the original film.

PS - (mini review of the original PC game) The PC Game is pretty cool. I don't think the driving handling is as good as CMR2/3 or Driver, but it's definitely fun and the plot sections make it more interesting. It's also got a good range of cars you can drive, such as the original mini, and a Land Rover. (you can download a demo here)

August may be a very good month for AMD:
They start selling 4 processor 'servers'
They start selling 2ghz opterons
The compilers available make opteron code run a little bit faster (34% faster than existing code compiled on their last compiler)
(of course it would be nice to see real benchmarks - this one suggests a 1.4 opteron is faster by a little or a noticeable gap than a p4 2.5ghz.)
- and with intels continuing competition with AMD (intel release 3ghz xeon July 13, 2.8ghz Xeon, 30 june), we should be able to get cheaper chips.

Did you download service pack 4 for windows?? hmm. can you guess what I'm going to say next? That's right. there are service packs now available for your service pack, otherwise known as patches. to infinity and beyond

NASA benchmark the G5 againt "dual 1ghz Xserve, a dual 1.25 ghz Powermac, a Pentium4 2 ghz, and a Pentium4 2.66 ghz" Story found at /.. Why not include an some AMD systems? Here's an interesting post. 6369497

woo lovely puppy dog sings pop song video - dude on fire don't try this at home kids! more top notch stuff in the b3ta newsletter. here.

What do you think matt, would it be possible to use an Apple ADB Keyboard on a PC? For example the Apple keyboard that comes with the 4400...

Hoorah! dot.tk give you a Free domain, WITHOUT advertising, IF you turn off the pop-up / banner add, in the dot.tk settings for your site. Hence joshwaller.tk is now working and is pop-up / advert free!

Cheap HD's 160gig for �85 + vat !! Eee I remember when I were a lad, it cost �150 for a 3.5gig hard drive! Eee them were the days, when ya had to sell your grandma just so you could afford one!

Too funny: SPAM : Hormel has filed a lawsuit against Spam Arrest LLC. for endangering "substantial goodwill and good reputation" of their meat product, Spam. If Hormel wins, it could be bad news for umpteen companies that make use of the word spam in their name."
- the comments are funny:


Its a "meat-like substance"

Ok, enough! SPAM is not just "meat like." It's meat! Not the best parts I'll admit, but calling it a non-meat is just wrong.
...
The labeled ingredients on the original SPAM are chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrite.

A Hormel official once stated that the original source of the name SPAM was "Shoulder of Pork And haM".
...
Ok dude, you expect me to believe that there is some magical animal that contains both pork and ham?

Just thought I'd let you know, I needed to reboot my firewall / router, and now my IP address is: 62.30.21.182.

1.1ghz IBM 750GX / G3 cpu. http://www.aceshardware.com/ "Typical power dissipation is under 8 W at 1 GHz and the chip is pin-compatible with the 750FX." There's more details here. I'm not sure it actually means anything to anyone, not even the 3% of the world that uses Macs, unless Apple decide they want to use it in upgraded ibook - the only Mac still using a G3. (edit - apparently the FX is the G3 in the iBooks, so it may mean quicker iBooks.)

i've come to the conclusion that all pcs (runing windows / linux) are rubbish, and all users are thick. it's a bad combination. but it gives IT bods an annoying but potentially well payed job. gosh and we could end up working till we're 70! great.

microsoft bob? no really check it out. windows for warehouses? os/2? GEM? surely I'm just making it all up! I'm not. Toshiba? Making a 17" laptop? It's true. I've seen the 17" Powerbook in person, and even though it's probably the most "attractive"/"nice looking" 17" laptop you can get, it still just seems too big. Toshiba's laptop just looks wrong too - Why have a mainly silverbody, and then have a black keyboard? Why are PC Laptop makers so good at making laptops look rubbish? *cough*Compaq*cough* etc - edit : Another 17" laptop, which looks nicer and uses the extra space for a numeric keyboard.