Pretentious Pontifications: Finally, a respectable entry-level system

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

David is still messing around with that ancient 500-MHz Compaq Proliant server, so I am filling in for him today. I threw all of my Pentium III-based systems out for the swine to trample months ago and I suggested David do the same. But, as usual, David refuses to listen to reason.
I see the peasants over at Ars Technica have finally started to show signs of coming to their senses. They have finally designed a personal computer that would be good enough to put in my bathroom. You can read about it here, if you must.

You can tell the people at Ars Technica are peasants, since people with special relationships with Intel (or people who know people with special relatonships with Intel have been running 3.6 GHz Pentium IV systems for weeks. Like I said, the entry-level PC described at Ars Technica is suitable for use in my bathroom. I feel sorry for those who have to putt-putt along on slower equipment in their main PCs. As I have said many times in the past (I am not a revisionist unlike some people), it is incredibly hard to get any serious work done at less than 3.5 GHz.

However, I must salute Ars Technica for getting it correct by using Rambus memory. Rambus memory is demonstrably superior in all regards to the DDR memory used by tyros. Any simple-minded twit can come to that conclusion simply by reading the benchmarks of trustworthy Web sites and looking at the price tag. One does not have to have insider sources like I do to know that.

Unfortunately, I must take issue with their use of IBM hard drives. IBM hard drives are demonstrably inferior to Seagate and Maxtor drives. Everybody knows you cannot power on an IBM hard drive for more than 8 hours a day. Why hundreds of thousands of people use IBM drives in their mission-critical servers is beyond me.

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3 thoughts on “Pretentious Pontifications: Finally, a respectable entry-level system

  • September 20, 2002 at 1:06 pm
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    As usual, R. Collins, you have mis-estimated the needs of a commode system (eerily similar, but not the same as, a Commodore system). For what one does on the toilet, a simple 2.6 GHz machine will do. As I have said for years immemorable – and the computer press is just now picking up – the “Hertz” wars are silly. And now the chipmakers have had the curtain pulled aside.

    One need not retire a machine when it can still work very well for reading email whilst you shite. For professional defecators such as R. Collins – and I do speak from experience here; I require him to bring his own plumber when he visits my estate – an extra battery might be a good idea if you choose the laptop option for your water closet.

    While these references to excretory activities have probably appealed to the rabble (i.e. most who would read this site), I won’t carry it any further. Except to say that a true aristocrat does not give land-mass names to anything he’s deposited. I never want to hear the words, “well, it looks like Atlantis has sunk under the sea” again.

  • September 20, 2002 at 3:51 pm
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    Dave, have you been drinking? Or smoking? Or shooting-up? Or chewing it? Or have you been innovative, and found something truly new – like perhaps a suppository?

  • September 28, 2002 at 1:47 am
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    “As I have said many times in the past (I am not a revisionist unlike some people), it is incredibly hard to get any serious work done at less than 3.5 GHz.”

    You are absolutely right for pointing out this glaring error in other people’s views! I daresay 4.0 GHz will soon be unsufficient for most of our needs in no time whatsoever.

    Long live elite systems, and those that champion them!

    Mike
    I’ll-Buy-Your-Old-Tech-While-It’s-Still-New Ltd.

    [insert circus barker quote here]

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