Re: AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in part:
> On May 22, 10:40 am, Robert Redelmeier <red...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The poster was an AMD architect.

If so, perhaps s/he could not see the forest for the trees.
However large it might seem inside, in the context of the
whole industry, AMD is nothing.  And I like them.

>> > Market mechanisms were adequate to drive a solution to the
>> > RISC vs. CISC problem, but market mechanisms do not always work.

>> This depends entirely on your definition of "work", and you
>> must expect different people to have different values.

> That's easy.  Markets that "work" are left alone.
> Markets that don't "work" are regulated.

Unbelieveable ... you have confidence in the US Congress and
political process???  They're the ones who regulate [or not] markets.
I never would have accused you of that :)  So you think cableTV &
internet is a market that "works" [deregulated], vitamins do not
[set for a clamp-down] and cellphones do not [FCC].

> You went there, anyway.  

Of course.  Why do you expect to bring up a topic and
 not have it discussed?  Asking?  Better to edit out.

> My friend is *dead*.

My condolences.  But frankly less than for those who lose a child.
We all die one day, and there are lots of risks before then.

> I thought financial wizards knew how to estimate risk.

??? even if they did, why would they tell you the truth
from free?  Wall Street is all about selling paper, and
the wizards are just window dressing.

>> At work, I've been an ISO-certified internal auditor for 5 years.
>> The ISO 9000 series really isn't onerous at all: "say what you do,
>> and do what you say".  It is mostly just good management and some
>> do***entation that you really should have been keeping all along.
>>
> It depends on the business you're in, I suppose.

Not much, really.  The ISO 9000s are very flexible and applicable to
many different kinds of product.  However, they are _NO_ guarantee
of any particular quality standard beyond that which management
and customers agree upon.  Plenty of weasle-room.

> This is not a discussion of politics.  I brought him up
> as another "expert" that no one who knew recent history
> would cite.  

Then why bring GWB up?  No US President since Jimmy Carter has ever
been accused of any special expertise.  All have been generalists.

> Financial institutions claim that one of their areas o
> of special expertise is management of risk.

Salesman****p.  Is it printed on glossy paper?  
Then you know it is most probably an unproveable lie.

> Recent history has proven that they are at best unreliable.

Are you young?  Past history too (S&L & more).

>> You should study Taleb's book "Black Swans"
>>
> Looks like an interesting book.  Thanks for calling it
> to my attention.

> The difference is that most software risk is not
> unexpected and can be eliminated.

No.  Please study the Halting Problem [Turing].  
In simple terms, you cannot make anything foolproof
because fools are too d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ingenious!

> As painful as the shuttle disasters were, 
> we learned things from each one.  

IMHO we learned nearly nothing from either one.  Both were
simple things about taking care of business.  The O-rings are
still wrong and get burnt each time, just within tolerence.
Tiles still get ice damaged, but we watch.

> They have resulted in changes in methodology,
> not drugs to increase imaginative capacity.

Methodology is what I had in mind, but your idea of
drugs might also have merit.


> What will *not* happen, unfortunately, is to recognize the
> behavior patterns of managers present in both cases and to
> eliminate such people from critical decision-making roles.

Agreed.  But why would you expect the power-seekers to
relinquish power?

> ISP's are packet-capturing now.  CISCO has just released
> an appliance with mind-bending bandwidth.

GHz or THz is nice for a switch but doesn't help capture.  Do the
math: Even a small 100 Mbps neighborhood will fill a 1 TB disk
per day.  Who is going to shuffle, sort & search all of those?


-- Robert