Monthly Archives: February 2011

Sometimes One Picture Says It All

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Robert Pogson

That’s a Can-Do attitude. Let’s give them equipment and material and they will do the job. see Al Jazeera

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The Coast Road Past Sirte in Libya

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Robert Pogson

A blogger reports that anti-Gaddafi forces in Benghazi are heading to Tripoli by avoiding the stronghold of Sirte which guards the coast road along the Mediterranean Sea by travelling hundreds of kilometres to the south. This might be the easiest … Continue reading →

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Possible Actions in Libya

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Robert Pogson

Al Jazeera reports that “conservatives” in USA are recommending “military intervention”. The concern seems to be that this could be a repeat of Iraq.

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Sudbury

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Robert Pogson

I was reading one of M$’s glowing reports of how the City of Sudbury moved everyone to Office and lived happily ever-after. The city amalgamated and it was natural to consider moving everyone to a single platform to make IT … Continue reading →

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IcedRobot or Cool Android/Linux

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Robert Pogson

One of the things that will help end-users get ARM going on their ordinary personal computers is the love of GNU/Linux or Android/Linux. There are moves to port Android to x86 but now there is IcedRobot which seeks to create … Continue reading →

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What the Libyans Want

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Robert Pogson

There is chaos in Libya with food shortages imminent. Rather than the sanctions against Libya that some are asking of the UN and countries, consider what Libyans who are getting organized around Benghazi are asking: A statement from The Network … Continue reading →

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Oh Dear! Yet Another Architecture Competing With Wintel

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Robert Pogson

For a few years now I have seen home-grown microprocessors shipping in China. The Register has an update and a roadmap for the Longsoon/Godson family of MIPS processors. These can run GNU/Linux or Irix but not that other OS (except … Continue reading →

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Magic Pixie Dust or Why x86 Cannot Beat ARM

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Robert Pogson

John Stokes wrote:”It’s also the case that as ARM moves up the performance ladder, it will necessarily start to drop in terms of power efficiency. Again, there is no magic pixie dust here, and the impact of the ISA alone … Continue reading →

Posted in technology | 16 Comments

Amateurism

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Robert Pogson

One of the false charges that anti-FLOSS protestors hurl at FLOSS is that FLOSS is run by amateurs. Begging that question, they conclude that FLOSS cannot be as good as their favourite non-free software.

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Be All You Can Be. Buy a Smartphone

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Robert Pogson

Gartner has more numbers for 2011. It looks like a smartphone is the number one item on consumers wishlists. Combined with the numbers from 2010, this means the numbers of users of Linux on client devices likely doubled in 2010 … Continue reading →

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20nm ARM Chips This Year From Samsung

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Robert Pogson

ARM is doing well at 45nm and below. Samsung is expecting 30% power reduction at 20nm compared to 28nm processes with the same level of performance. Its current 45nm Exynos processor is perfectly able to run all kinds of gadgets. … Continue reading →

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ARM Ships Billions of Chips but IDC Doesn’t Count Them

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Robert Pogson

In a year in which HP and M$ both announced intent to ship personal computing products with ARM processors, IDC still does not count them… “Looking at processor shipments by form factor, during the year 2010 mobile PC processor unit … Continue reading →

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