Thailand decides their kids need no computers
See this report. OLPC suffers a setback as a result. Thailand has an aircraft carrier, but their kids need no computers? Their kids can pedal the OLPC power generator and exercise both mentally and physically.
So, this is the reality with the 3rd world. Indeed, they need to open their mind. SUN Microsystems is pretty good at marketing, they managed to offer "try and buy" two large "blackbox" in the middle of Africa where people are porting foods on their heads. Maybe the blackbox is a Star Trek TNG replicator which can produce food, but still, I don't see where the blackbox gets its mega watt of power. SUN even managed to land the box on mars, the SUN shine there is so intense, the whole blackbox was supplied by two tiny solar panels.
If I were SUN's CEO, I would immediately fire the two dudes who came up with such idiotic scenarios for total lack of common sense.
posted by Sharikou, Ph. D. @ 11/28/2006 08:22:00 AM
53 Comments:
I’m not worried about the kids in Thailand; the corrupt government has the problem. We have proven we can’t manage the worlds affairs if they don’t want the change, look at Iraq.
Example: People are starving in India and won’t eat the cow because it’s sacred. We can’t fix that.
U mean you think the 'blackbox' idea is not good ??
"Example: People are starving in India and won’t eat the cow because it’s sacred. We can’t fix that."
Such comment is arrogant, insulting, and ignorant at best. Another American who thinks he represents world standard.
So, do you think the reasonable Americans would sacrifice the lives of homeless dogs to satify the hunger of homeless Americans? Oh no, because although dogs are not sacred in this country, they are people's friends.
Learn to respect other cultures, dude.
Example: People are starving in India and won’t eat the cow because it’s sacred. We can’t fix that.
I can't help LOL. but, dude, you are touching some religious issue here, which is a taboo. Chinese eat dogs, and Americans hate them for that.
U mean you think the 'blackbox' idea is not good ??
Well, blackbox is not an innovative idea at all. Years ago, there was a report that Google is doing large number of opteron CPUs inside a shipping container. Unless SUN was part of that project, the inventor was google.
"Chinese eat dogs, and Americans hate them for that."
I have to correct you on this one. ;-) I know many perfectly normal Chinese who would rather die than eating dogs. I also know some who'd rather die than eating cows, as a matter of fact.
It seems to me that different parts of China have very different cultural backgrounds, and from my experience the Chinese accept other cultures much better than the Americans.
Hey, wanna make a silly post about how Intel's 45nm will make them BK?
“Example: People are starving in India and won’t eat the cow because it’s sacred. We can’t fix that.”
My goodness calm down, that’s my exact point. Religious and culture differences is what we can’t do anything about. Iraq’s problem is both culture and religious.
Thailand’s problem is both of the above and economical. My lesson from Iraq is; mind our own business unless we can positively due something to help.
Now back to my main point. (We can’t fix that) I should have said; We can’t do anything about that.
Btw, I sent 21 used computers to Africa.
There is still a case to be made whether computing tools or aids like calculators or a $100 laptop allow students to be smarter or more informed. Take the calculator: it is a strict no-no upto the 12th grade in India where I come from (hopefully it is so today as well). Children do sums in their heads or on paper, and are generally better in mathematical ability than those in other countries who use calculator aids.
A bit OT but the Great Ruler of the World, GWBjr is sleeping in the same town as I am. It's visit looks more like a military operation. The hotel he stays is surrounded by concrete blockades and several barbed wire fences. I wonder why didn't they roll out that tank from the museoum to patrol in the city. I don't know if all this is funny or sad.
"Years ago, there was a report that Google is doing large number of opteron CPUs inside a shipping container"
They used Sun's servers for in those boxes and actually it was about a year ago.
"Btw, I sent 21 used computers to Africa."
Let me guess: it was cheaper than getting rid of them in your own country? I remember about ten years ago our country was getting old junk of others too. Luckily those days are over and now we export top-of-the-line IT solutions to those guys :)
"Chinese eat dogs, and Americans hate them for that."
I don't think Chinese people
will give a shit if Americans
hate them for that.
anonymous said...
Hey, wanna make a silly post about how Intel's 45nm will make them BK?
Intel moving to 45nm will not cause BK directly, but it will influence it.
As the size shrinks, the problems that arise grow exponentially. These problems can, and will, be ironed out, but this takes time.
AMD's 4x4 is coming and coming fast. Intel is scared and running. In 2007, history will repeat itself. Intel will push their unfinished 45nm product out the door. It will be the same unstable, underperforming piece of trash that one comes to expect from Intel. Intel will arrogantly expect the public to buy it anyway, and will again flood the market with a barrage of propaganda and phony benchmarks. But this time, it will not work, because they have already lost support from hardware manufacturers. The manufacturers wised up to Intel's BS and have begun rolling out AMD product in mass. Without support from manufacturers and vendors, Intel cannot compete. Consumers do not buy product that is not offered to them.
Game over. BK. Goodnight.
anonymous said...
Btw, I sent 21 used computers to Africa.
I keep getting e-mailed by scam artists trying to get me to send them money via Western Union. They are all from Africa. I guess we have you to blame.
anonymous said...
I’m not worried about the kids in Thailand; the corrupt government has the problem.
I agree. Thailand is too screwed up right now for computers to make a difference. If a kid had a computer, it would be stolen in a matter of minutes. Thailand is only good for two things, yum yum and boom boom.
"Chinese eat dogs, and Americans hate them for that."
... and most probably Americans accidentally screw themselves by doing something about it.
Southern Thailand have safety issues. Get rid of that first before thinking of having computers.
Shak/all - you should read the latest MIT tech journal which had an article about Negroponte and his $100 --> $150 --> $200+? computers.
There was also an interesting editorial asking how people would be trained to use these computers, where teachers to teach kids how to use them would come from and who would maintain them when many of the target areas do not have clean water or stable food supplies. The question was would the $300+/child money be better spent elsewhere? (on infrastructure?) And where was the diminishing returns on the usefulness of how many computers are needed (1 per child, fixed #/area, etc...)?
“Intel moving to 45nm will not cause BK directly, but it will influence it.
As the size shrinks, the problems that arise grow exponentially. These problems can, and will, be ironed out, but this takes time.
AMD's 4x4 is coming and coming fast. Intel is scared and running. In 2007.........................................., history will repeat itself............................................................................. Intel will push their unfinished 45nm product out the door. It will be the same unstable,................................ underperforming piece of trash that one comes to expect from Intel................................... Intel will arrogantly expect the public to buy it anyway, and will again flood the market with a barrage of propaganda and phony benchmarks. But this time, it will not work, because they have already lost support from hardware manufacturers. The manufacturers wised up to Intel's BS and have begun rolling out AMD product in mass. Without support from manufacturers and vendors, Intel cannot compete. Consumers do not buy product that is not offered to them.
Game over. BK. Goodnight”...............................................................................................................................................................DOES THIS GUY SOUND GAY?????????????? YES..........................
Well, the problem is, which government wants its citizens to have access to so much knowledge? Ignorant people are easier to conduct than well informed people.
penis,
why would intel be scared of 4x4? 2-socket systems have been around for a long time. 4x4 won't offer anything more than a hack to try to compete with intel's quadcore parts.
And the children would have to exercise physically a lot since theres an AMD chip inside, wouldnt they?
““Btw, I sent 21 used computers to Africa.
I keep getting e-mailed by scam artists trying to get me to send them money via Western Union. They are all from Africa. I guess we have you to blame.’”
I’ll confess to you it was for a tax credit, I’m not really that nice a guy.
To bad for the kids in Thailand, doc. I’m amazed how many people hate America. The world has choices.
Off topic
Intel may be a tuff competitor fresh out of BK 2009 with a new architecture and no debt. Food for thought.
“I keep getting e-mailed by scam artists trying to get me to send them money via Western Union.”
I use CLOUDMARK spam filter in my outlook; basically I receive “0” spam in my inbox.
"Their kids can pedal the OLPC power generator and exercise both mentally and physically."
For some reason I think people in US would have much more use of such thing. Just look at their average weight and smartness. Just reading this blog says a lot about the latter.
"why would intel be scared of 4x4? 2-socket systems have been around for a long time. 4x4 won't offer anything more than a hack to try to compete with intel's quadcore parts."
I agree with such view with an exception: 4x4 will serve the power users better.
When you are a true power user, for example, if you run 2+ virtual machines or compile distributions in the background while running a home network server and games, the main bottleneck becomes IO and memory, which won't be solved by 15% more CPU or 30% better SSE2 optimization. 4x4 with HT links has much better potential than MCM quadcore with FSB.
OTOH, if you're a enthusiast who likes to show off the fastest machine you have, then 4x4 is no good. It will lose to Intel quadcore on both single-process (k8 vs core2) and multi-process (separate vs shared L2 caches) benchmarks, unless the workload becomes heavily multi-processing such as ones found in servers; but the latter of course contradict our assumption.
I believe there are more enthusiasts than power users out there, and 4x4 doesn't seem to make much sense market-wise except to save some face for AMD. Practically, it just offers a cheaper 2-way server/workstation alternative.
Anonymous moron said...
penis,
why would intel be scared of 4x4? 2-socket systems have been around for a long time. 4x4 won't offer anything more than a hack to try to compete with intel's quadcore parts.
4x4 cannot be compared to an Intel multi-socket system. AMD engineered their entire platform to scale in a way Intel systems cannot. As the core count increases, AMD platform performance will grow, but Intel's will level off quickly. Without a doubt, the 4x4 will beat the Intel counterpart. Intel knows this, which is why they are rushing 45nm out the door. In order to even stay in the game, they must squeeze more performance out of their obsoleted platform. The only way to do this is to shrink the die size.
I think that it is a quite wise decision for Thailand to skip this. I believe that the fundamental problem with computers for all kids are that the computers wont be compatible with anything else. So instead of creating a more widely adopted computer base I believe that you will instead create a social downside where the pour kids might have a computer but they cant use the skill for anything as the people that belong to the middelclass won't use the crappy computers they will use the normal windows or linux computers that they also use out in the real society.
You must remember that Thailand are not a real 3. world country. Agreed there are many people that cannot afford to go to school for more than 7 years (if you have no money tempel schools give education up till 7. grade for free).
Penix >> you are fucked up!
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1129/tawada92.htm
Sad day for 4x4 and AMD
"AMD's 4x4 is coming and coming fast. Intel is scared and running.."
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpc.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2F2006%2F1129%2Ftawada92.htm&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
Oh yes, the 4X4 is coming, but its not fast!
AMD 4x4 defeated by Intel's 1X1.
Must be a sad day for all AMD fans.
AMD's 4x4 is coming and coming fast. Intel is scared and running. In 2007.........................................., history will repeat
Yeah, 4x4 is coming. Too bad Kentsfield is faster and uses half the power! It OCs better too! http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36050
My, my... what will Sharikou have to say about that one?
And the children would have to exercise physically a lot since theres an AMD chip inside, wouldnt they?
Even more if they had an Intel chip inside. Except for the first AMD Athlons/Athlon XPs, Intel gets the heat/power draw crown. Some people will never get educated.
I built a dual processor AMD Opteron 242 box with 2GB of RAM, with 8 IDE disks on a 3ware RAID card and 2 SCSI disks for the system drive (mirrored). The power supply? 350W redundant power supply from 2themax. Oh, that the power supply is more than sufficient has been proven by the client's happy report that he has had no problems with its stability for the last two years and more. The box is used as the mail server and handles over 50 personnel in the local office besides being the gateway for other offices.
Let us see you do that with Intel chips ha!
I think that the Japanese AMD Quad FX bench mark is a big lie sponsored by Intel. I would wait for AMD and some trusted 3rd parties to release thier bench marks ..dude these guys didnt even have the right mobo. And who really knows , how they are setting up the benches ..
LOL 4x4 is launched and Sharikou has NOTHING to say?!?!
Probably scouring the entire WWW searching for a SINGLE review that says 4x4 beats Kentsfield! Haha!
"I would wait for AMD and some trusted 3rd parties to release thier bench marks .."
How many reviews do you need to see before acceptance sets in - apparently you are still in the denial stage in the 7 stages of grief...
I'm shocked Shari-kook has no article extolling the virtues of 4x4. He must really be searching hard for some obscure website in a foreign language with a single data point saying how a 3.0GHz solution with nearly double the power consumption "keeps up" with a 2.67GHz kludge from Intel (I mean really it's just 2 dies glued together, how can you not be able to beat that?)
And how about those "cheap" 4x4 mobos! Makes bad axe look inexpensive...
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-quad-fx_14.html
another benchmark in from xbitlabs.
Wheres the good old AMD and their bang for the buck products ?
Seems Intel still have the crown
"In other words, AMD Quad FX will most likely appeal only to the most dedicated AMD fans." - Xbitlabs
(http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-quad-fx_14.html)
Quad FX == AMD 64 version of Netbust. High Power Low Performance. 'nuff said.
Classic.
That's why I project 4x4 will frag Kentsfield. AMD64's scalable architecture will establish itself as the performance king. Anything less than that will be just second rate or mainstream.
After AMD 4x4 launch, the desktop computing landscape will be the following. At the high end, we have AMD 4x4 with performance supremacy, it will be the only high end machine, costing $2000 or more. Down below, we have mainstream CPUs, such as Kentsfield, Conroe and Athlon 64 X2. At the bargain basement, we have Pentium D and Semprons. Pentium 4 and Core Duo will be found in landfills.
An overclocked Kentsfield won't help. The limiting factor in Kentsfield is the choking FSB, with only 266MHZ allowance for each core.
posted by Sharikou, Ph. D @ 11/04/2006 05:46:00 PM
The first look at the 4x4 doesn’t seem impressive. AMD is playing the Intel game of throw something together just so you have something. What we have here is a failure to communicate.
4x4 cannot be compared to an Intel multi-socket system. AMD engineered their entire platform to scale in a way Intel systems cannot. As the core count increases, AMD platform performance will grow, but Intel's will level off quickly. Without a doubt, the 4x4 will beat the Intel counterpart. Intel knows this, which is why they are rushing 45nm out the door. In order to even stay in the game, they must squeeze more performance out of their obsoleted platform. The only way to do this is to shrink the die size.
So? Whatever gives the best performance. Even if Intel has to make 45nm processors to outperform 65nm AMD chips, who cares? It's all about performance. I don't give a crap if it's squeezing more out of outdated technology, it's still performing better than AMD.
Well, at least the 4x4 is inexpensive and can be upgraded to 8 cores later. I’m not sure if even the kids Thailand want this setup. LOL
see more 4x4 benches here:
www.tomshardware.com
www.xbitlabs.com
www.hwupgrade.it
AMD seems to me too late, too slow, and sadly power hungry too
4x4 may not be all that impressive, but AMD/Apple is. ATI and Apple are old buddies and coming soon to neighborhoods near you will be the AMD/Apple notebooks.
Remember the game is about money, market share and image. AMD can’t win every battle but they can win the war. The 4x4 is candy for the few OC’ers with a future easy upgrade which secures the investment. I don’t think software is available yet to take advantage of 4x4’s best assets.
Congratulations to Intel for a good job in this space.
Yeah, I love the Tomshardware review of 4x4. They tried their hardest to gloss over the fact that 4x4 lost almost every benchmark and used a ridiculous amount of power. In fact, you could almost read the review as moderately positive.
But then, if you actually look at the results 4x4 is absolutely pathetic. Huge power requirements, mediocre performance, expensive motherboard, questionable future. They mention the price of the Intel Quad core as issue, but I can buy _just_ the quad core and drop into my existing motherboard, unlike the lumbering, ridiculous 4x4 solution which requires whole new platform.
This is a hilarious day for me. You AMDroids have been harping on 4x4, and as expected it's a pathetic solution only silly AMD fanboys would buy.
"netrama said...
I think that the Japanese AMD Quad FX bench mark is a big lie sponsored by Intel. I would wait for AMD and some trusted 3rd parties to release thier bench marks ..dude these guys didnt even have the right mobo. And who really knows , how they are setting up the benches .."
A big +1 to that, the OS used in the testing is not even sufficently NUMA aware.(will have to wait for Vista for a truly NUMA aware OS it seems) It makes a WORLD of difference with 4x4 and regular Opteron server rigs for that matter from what I have seen. Chalk up another pathetic attempt to preview/review new AMD technology in a "unbiased", much less educated viewpoint.
For these reasons I(and others like me I'm sure) really don't put much weight or faith in review sites or even computer magazines anymore. Most of thier "reviewers" barely know crap about the actual hardware that they are reviewing, much less how to get the most out of a setup.(hey, I'll even admit sometimes it's not entirely thier fault, as the hardware is that new. Still they should do the testing with actual, non-prototype hardware IMHO) Some sites/magazines don't even bother to do the testing on equal footing or in some cases even with comparable hardware setups. Sloppy, inaccurate and unrealistic testing, plain and simple, it's very unprofessional.
And people question why some of us wonder considering the possibility of Intel paying off review sites to show thier wares in a favorable light??? See Tom's Hardware for a glaring example of this.
"I think that the Japanese AMD Quad FX bench mark is a big lie sponsored by Intel. I would wait for AMD and some trusted 3rd parties to release thier bench marks ..dude these guys didnt even have the right mobo. And who really knows , how they are setting up the benches .."
There is only one Mobo for AMD's 4x4 system which is made by Asus.
Take a look at Xbitlabs's review which is usually pretty gung-ho about AMD and you will see that AMD's 4x4 is a horrible idea.
Two 3.0Ghz dual-core Opterons get spanked by a single 2.4Ghz quad-core Intel. On every single test. And then you need a giant ETX board, massive power and cooling, etc.
I read through the tests and saw that a single quad-core Intel is fast, quiet, and reasonably low power. It is all that I need for my purposes. So I am selling one of my Opteron systems and moving to Intel quad-core. I don't have time to wait for AMD anymore. AM2 was a flop and now this "4x4" which is just a warmed over 2P Opteron system has alienated me. There is no value proposition.
AMD is in serious trouble if they don't field some sort of competitor to Intel soon. Competing on price will only last so long.
Thailand is not going forth with their open source adventure because Microsoft had the previous government replaced with a military dictatorship.
What happened is a prime example of how difficult it will be to get rid of Windows.
Because Windows provides the big governments with the ability to spy on their citizens, there is a vested interest by these governments (and their cronies the banks, etc) to do anything to keep Windows as the main OS.
Witness China's recent $400M purchase of Windows after the Chinese President visits Bill Gates.
How many lives will it cost?
As for Thailand, the fate of the people has just become much harsher. The armies of darkness have returned.
"I think that the Japanese AMD Quad FX bench mark is a big lie sponsored by Intel. I would wait for AMD and some trusted 3rd parties to release thier bench marks .."
I don't think so. They don't have the right mobo, but they don't seem like Intel-sponsored liers. 4x4 doesn't perform well against Intel quadcore unless the memory/IO is heavily stressed. For integer benchmarks we all know that Core 2 is in average 20% faster than K8. 4x4 is not going to change that.
" I would wait for AMD and some trusted 3rd parties to release thier bench marks"
Like hardocp?
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIzMywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
Basic result is the same:
on the average, slower clocked Intel is faster. Especially in multitasking when runnig games and other programs together. Also power usage is twice of the Intel machine. No wonder, it basically has two northbridges.
"dude these guys didnt even have the right mobo"
What would be the right mobo?
All you Intel fanboys are getting worked up for no reason.
Remember , the original benchmarks for CORE-2 was handed out in an Intel controlled environment. The 4X4 is a purely an enuthusiast plaftorm of a DIY nature. It is for me to choose the put it all together - the mobo, cpus and graphics ..and is not like a discrete Core-2 Processor In a Box kind of thing where benches are established by a simple button pushing. Commonsense says that in real world applicaiton this will give double the computing power , at a lower power consumption.
Dont even bother comparing this the glued crap intel is trying to sell.. if you are an Intel shareholder shout all the crap you want , I am a geek and am indifferent to how your F**ing stock is doing !!
Netrama , how does common sense tell you that 2 dual core cpus in diff sockets should pull double the performance and less the energy expenditure of a single 4 core 1 socket solution running a superior IPC and with a better thermal envelope?!
Care to exlplain that logic?
"Commonsense says that in real world applicaiton this will give double the computing power , at a lower power consumption."
I hope you were being sarcastic, because otherwise you seem to be in deep denial ....
4x4 consumes more power and achieves less performance for benchmarks. That's a proven fact. The only argument I have for 4x4 is its direct connect (HyperTransport) and NUMA nature, but current OS and software don't support NUMA well enough. At this point, 4x4 will be useful (only) to those who find memory and IO of FSB being the bottleneck (i.e., not many).
Even AMD "sells" 4x4 to the power users. It's IMO too early a release of 4x4 to be useful to the majority. It needs NUMA support; it needs ability to run cooler/slower processors, or even different (co)processors.
Taking to the other direction, 4x4 also means four GPU cores. We know most 3D games in pleasantly playable resolutions (e.g. 1280x800 or higher) are GPU bound. SLI alleviates the problem; quad-SLI will be more than adequate to solve it. However, cost and power of quad-SLI are insanely high, and few would use it. (Again 4x4 is ahead of its time here.)
While 4x4 is a cool idea, at this point of time it doesn't seem to make much sense marketing-wise.
So Libya is not corrupted - Qaddafi locked a deal with OLPC. Qaddafi even pretended to design a car before - much like Al Gore who 'invented' the internet. LMAO
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