[PLUG] AMD64, Java, and Flash.

[someone]

> "'How will this software get my users laid' should be on the minds of
>  anyone writing social software (and these days, almost all software is
>  social software).
>    --Luis Villa (FoRK)

Hmm, comments like this may partially explain why 50% 
of marriages end in divorce.  I think it is extremely 
crass to promote promiscuity in a technical forum.

I don't see how buying AMD64 machines when Linux and even
Windows hasn't caught up with them is going to promote 
any decrease or for that matter an increase of proprietary 
software options.  I don't even suspect a direct 
correlation let alone a stronger indicator.

The way Microsoft wastes memory and processing power,
this to me seems to be why AMD64 is available today.
Will Windows take advantage of AMD64 fully, I doubt it.
I have already seen updates from Microsoft to try and
reconcile 64 bit Windows with 32 bit Windows.  A PC164
Alpha, 72 pin FPM simms, has been my only 64 bit 
experience.  It was a world where the software didn't
exist yet and it was hard to get the right version
of anything, even if it was available.  At least it was
that way with zoot-alpha and beyond when I tried to 
replace zoot-alpha with a Redhat 7.xx alpha system.  
Let's see, I got that machine in 1998 and it was 
manufactured in 1995.  In eleven years, Alpha seems to 
have died and nothing that is replacing it seems to be 
doing much better.

64 bit architecture machines are very different machines
than systems that are IA32 compatible.

What's wrong with the computers we already have?  I think
the law that processing power will double every 18 months
is going to stop being a law if it hasn't failed already.  
Does every one realize that Intel and AMD are basically 
shoving multiple processors onto a single chip and calling 
it one processor for the most part now?

     Michael C. Robinson