KurtGodel77

This is like arguing for anarchy because governments are sometimes messed-up.

I was referring to long-term trends. IBM is working to cluster Linux computers together; thereby addressing the scaling issue you metion. The way I see it, Linux will take over Windows servers today, and real servers tomorrow.

Moulds had just 1000 yards this year, not exactly Pro Bowl level. Considering he had Evans and McGahee to take pressure off him, and considering he was the 7th most thrown to WR in the league, you'd expect more from him than that. My vote was for Reed, because good hands are as important for a WR as they are in bed.

Well, if you're not going to lump all black people together based on the actions of one black person; why are you assuming all organized religions are bad based on one messed-up practice of one religion?

I assume that if you see one black person doing something wrong, your response would be, "gotta love black people."

People throw around words like "Constitution" and "Bill of Rights" in defending these sleaze joints; and that confuses me. Does anyone seriously believe that George Washington endured Valley Forge so that men could pay money for lap dances? The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceable assembly. But oddly, the Founding Fathers forgot to mention lap dances, or strip clubs, or pornographic movies, or sexual services. But I'm sure these Founding Fathers intended these things to be included. I'm also sure that the freedom to engage in these things is why the Revolutionary War was fought in the first place. A weeping mother to her son, "Be brave, my son, as you go off to fight the British. I would hate to see you die on the battlefield, but even more than that, I'd hate to live in a country where women were not free to work at strip joints, and where men were not free to patronize such sexual establishments. A goal like that is so lofty that for it, I am willing to see you fight, even die, on the gory field of battle. Be brave, my son, and remember what you are fighting for!"

I have nothing against the rank and file at Microsoft. I'm sure that at least two of the employees there are good people whom I'd enjoy spending time with. My issue with the company is its business strategy of wiping out competition, eliminating open standards in favor of its own proprietary operating systems and file formats, and in general standing in the way of innovation. This doesn't mean that the Windows group, for example, isn't innovative. But with Linux, anyone from anywhere in the world can contribute; so Linux does a better job of harnessing the innovative talent of the world's programming community than does Windows.

You have a good point about clock speed. But even if 1 GHz of SPARC is worth 2 of Intel's 64 bit chip, Intel can overcome its inefficient architecture with enough of a MHz increase. Besides, the server market appears to be standardizing around Linux; making the UNIX chip market easier for the likes of AMD and Intel to enter. Even if Sun's SPARC chip gives you 25% better value than the Intel competitor, Intel may still get the sale. Why? Because Dell isn't going to buy the SPARC chip, and Dell's value proposition to the customer--consulting, maintenance and service agreements, the PC assembly itself--may be better than Sun's value proposition for some corporate customers. However, Sun has come up with a clever way of bundling software and hardware together, so for corporate customers who need the software; Sun's offerings are probably better.

I love Sun. I love Java. I love the way that Sun's workstations and low-end servers held the line against M$s' junk servers. But I'm afraid that Sun will be outspent in the CPU market in the long term. I remember back when Sun's MHz ratings were actually pretty close to Intel's; then Intel pulled away. Now Intel has a 64 bit chip; though it's not that widespread yet. You're right in saying Sun is still ahead, but I'm not sure that Sun can spend the same money on chip design that Intel can. I suspect that the long run future of the server market will be Dell assembling Intel servers running Linux.

Dude, you've just admitted ignorance about the computer industry; so why are you arguing about it?

Something I just remembered: yes, it is hyopthetical to ask what Intel and AMD would have done had IBM and Microsoft not standardized the hardware market. But we can look at companies that don't produce Wintel chips: companies like Motorola, Sun Microsystems, etc. Those companies have--in terms of pure megahertz--fallen behind Intel and AMD; but not terribly far behind. On the other hand, the Sun chips are 64 bit (as opposed to the more primitive 32 bit for a standard Intel chip); and the Motorola chips are RISC-based instead of the more primitive CISC-based chips common with Intel. So Moore's Law has proven relatively robust even outside the world of Wintel.

I'm not sure what "bozo" you're talking about. I remember asking the question about why FDR would maintain a pro-Soviet foreign policy from his first year in office until the day he died. I pointed out that during the years of said policy, the Soviets murdered literally tens of millions of people; far more than the Nazis. Your response to all this was to announce--but not prove--that you'd found a source indicating that Ilya Ehrenburg did not have the official title of propaganda minister. Other than that, you expressed a lot of hostility towards my arguments, but you didn't refute any of them. Moore's Law was created by Gordon Moore of Intel. Moore noticed that the number of transistors on a chip doubled every 18 months to two years; so back in the 1960s or early 1970s he mentioned this to a computer magazine. That trend has continued ever since; and is the primary driver behind falling PC prices, because it affects both the CPU and RAM. Whether this trend would have continued at the same speed had Microsoft not standardized the hardware industry is a hypothetical question. One could argue that IBM deserves much of the credit for standardizing the hardware industry. When IBM was designing its first PC, it had to choose between the Intel and the Motorola architecture. It chose Intel, but it forced Intel to license its chip design to a second source. Intel chose AMD. Even though the licensing arrangement later expired, AMD continued making Intel-compatible chips; leading to higher competition and lower prices in the CPU market.

Do you know anything at all about the PC industry, or do you just like to hear yourself talk?

The price cuts in the PC industry are because hardware manufacturers are cutting their prices. This is a direct function of Moore's law. Moore's law, formulated before Microsoft was even incorporated, states the number of transistors that can be placed on a chip of any given surface area will double every 18 months - 2 years. In English, this means that the price of chips from companies like Intel will fall dramatically with the passage of time, while the speed goes steadily up. Again, this trend was in place before Microsoft was even founded, and the trend appears to have continued at about the same pace regardless of what Microsoft has done. What, specifically, has Microsoft contributed to the market? It has done two things: dis-unified the OS market from the software and hardware markets; promoting competition in the latter two. It has also created a standardized OS and standardized office suite; thereby putting price pressure on everyone else in the market--Intel, Dell, etc. Microsoft's presence is becoming increasingly unnecessary. Yes, the computer industry seeks standardization; especially for the OS. But for servers, the standard is increasingly becoming Linux. If consumers are lucky, the Linux standard will spread from the server market to the home PC market.

Good post.

Good point, but chances are O.J. Simpson still roots for the Bills. I'm rooting for the Pats in this game. I remember that when the NFC won the Super Bowl, the AFC--including the AFC Champion Buffalo Bills--got no respect. Now it's the NFC's turn to get humiliated. Let the rest of the league see what the Bills have to deal with twice each year. If the Bills can't beat the Pats--which they can't--no NFC team should be able to either.

This wins my post of the week award!

I can't believe I actually found the answer to this, but I did. In the games when Willis started, Drew had 304 attempts, 172 completions, 1933 yards, 15 TDs, and 9 INTs. This works out to a rating of 79.8; not much different from his rating for the year as a whole. Considering all the things that were good about those games--weaker defenses, an offensive line that had come together, the emergence of Evans, McGahee as the starter, defenses daring us to pass--you'd think he'd have been able to take better advantage of the situation. Kurt Warner came into a situation where a new offensive system was being installed, the offensive line--awful to begin with--was learning a new blocking scheme, and where he hadn't had the chance to develop chemistry with any of the players in previous years. That his QB rating was substantially higher than Drew's; even if you're just looking at the non-Travis part of Drew's season--says a lot about Warner as a player.

You're 100% right. I'm sure that every GM in the league was thinking the same thing as they watched Warner carve up their defenses with surgical precision. "There is a reason this guy was stocking shelves," they surely thought to themselves. "Leading a team to a SB win--when that team relies more on passing than running, more on offense than defense--isn't good enough to deserve a roster spot in the NFL."

Drew's record? Drew doesn't have a record. The TEAM has a record; unless you think that one man can win a football game. Given that the Bills had the #2 ranked defense and the best special teams in the league, you'd expect at least a decent record no matter how inept the offense was. That's why I'm focusing on QB ratings, because they focus on what the individual player contributed to his team. Warner's rating was ten points higher than Drew's.

Not much worse than ours? It seemed to me that with the exception of the first six games or so, the Bills offensive line did a good job of pass protection. The Giants' offensive line was a sieve. Tiki Barber had 1500 yards rushing last year; so calling him top 3 is a stretch. Travis Henry has had a 1400 yard season, and most fans would be pretty happy with a 3rd round pick for him. In any case, McGahee got over 1000 yards in his ten starts, so he was on pace to have the same kind of year that Barber had.

With any first-time starter, there is a learning period. I'm sure the fans will show Losman just as much patience as they did the last time the Bills traded away a first round pick (plus some change) for a QB with a surfer dude look to him.

We DO have another option. We could sign a guy who has a Super Bowl MVP; and two NFL MVP awards. A guy who just last year had a QB rating ten points higher than Drew's despite having a lot less offensive talent to work with than Drew did. A guy who is scheduled to become a free agent; and whom we could probably sign at a reasonable price. A good character guy who won't divide the locker room if you bench him. If the coaches decide Losman needs more time out on the practice field before he starts, I say sign this other guy. This guy is younger than Rich Gannon was when he signed with the Raiders.

The real problem with NYC is the political problems is causes. New York State has one of the most generous welfare programs in the country, and that's directly traceable to NYC influence. So people from elsewhere get attracted to New York State to basically take advantage of the system. Regardless of which communities these people ultimately choose to live in, NYC was the source of the problem due to its political influence. The same is true of excess regulation. A New York State hospital was recently told that it must spend $3 million to widen its doorways. The hospital administrator responded by saying that he didn't have the money to do this. He was told that he needed to widen the doorways--due to some regulation--or he'd be shut down. Another regulator came by, from a department responsible for stopping hospitals from engaging in frivolous spending. When this other guy learned of the situation, he said that spending $3 million on widening doorways was silly, and that if the hospital did it it'd be shut down. Hyperactive regulation is clearly driving up health care costs in NY state, just as it is driving up costs of doing business in general. NYC is apparently better able to bear these regulatory costs than upstate NY; because NYC is such a financial hub. Unfortunately, NYC regularly chooses to elect politicians who impose high regulatory costs on the entire state.

I'd be willing to trade Travis to Miami for a draft pick; or a player at a position of need. Our secondary is just about the last thing we should be worrying about.