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

Robert Myers wrote:
[...]
>> Quality is a variable to be optimized, not some
>> deity to be wor****pped.  "Beware false gods".
>>
> I can just imagine hanging that as a motto in someone's office.
> You're kidding, right?  Heard of ISO 9000?  Prepare to wor****p a false
> god.  From what I've seen of it, I'm not keen on ISO 9000, but the
> success of something so clunky should be a clue.

It should be a clue that you don't have one wrt things you're discussing
here.

BTW ISO 900x is not about quality but predictable quality. You can set
your
quality bottom low and you have to adhere to that :)


> Similarly, citing financial institutions as expert in risk management
> would have worked before Long Term Capital Management.  As it is, the
> financial industry, like George Bush, is a study in the catastrophic
> consequences of being overconfident.

Your constant insisting on comparability of risk estimation in long term
capital and software only shows your lack of clue.


> The funny thing about risk, like NASA's estimates of risks to the
> shuttles, is that you learn that the methodology is faulty only after
> a catastrophic failure.  A statement of confidence about handicapping
> of risk should tell you to find another handicapper.

So please show me that catastrophic failure of risk estimation of
software. 


>> > You can act silly in every way you want.  In every field of
>> > commerce *except* software development, it's getting harder and
>> > harder to lay risk off onto the end user.  That's the direction
>> > that *capitalism* has taken.  These issues are settled in the
>> > courts and legislatures, not in Usenet rants.  Sooner or later,
>> > laissez-faire software development will be reigned in because
>> > the ac***ulated risks to society of the system we have now are
>> > unacceptable.  Calling me names will change nothing.
>>
>> There is risk in everything we do.  And different coping mechanisms.
>> I see no reason to suppose that software quality will be legislated
>> or otherwise adjudicated.  Legal and scientific proofs are
>> fundamentally different.  Far more likely, certifying agencies
>> will evolve like UL.
> 
> As I've already pointed out, they already have evolved.

You have pointed out only our imaginations.


>> Where human life is at risk, certification
>> might be legislated.  Otherwise using the principle of minimum
>> interference, contract and tort remedies would apply.  Note UCITA
>> failed in nearly all states, and safe harbor in some.
>>
> Big changes are on the way.  Maybe later rather than sooner, but they
> will come.  If you're going to plug into the internet, you will be
> regulated.  I'm not happy about that, but I see no way around it.

The problem is that you don't see. Others do. Fortunately world doesn't
care
about one's Roberts imaginations.


>> > We get it, all right.  People's identities and medical
>> > records are stolen en masse, bank accounts are pilfered,
>> > and the Internet is home to powerful botnets with unknowable
>> > levels of capability or maliciousness of intent.
>>
>> Oh dear, you really _do_ live in fear.  NYC? My sympathies.
>>
>> Most of the listed items are _potentials_ whose probability
>> and consequences need to be weighed against other threats.
>>
> There's nothing hypothetical about what I presented.  All the
> incidents I've described have already occurred.

What? Like national grid being shut down by terrorists? Do you also look
for
Bin Laden under your bed every evening?

Sebastian Kaliszewski
-- 
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang