Tuesday, April 26, 2011

CPU Comparison Charts and the mystery that is Pricewatch.com





I'm always looking for a good website with obvious and easy to interpret lists of the comparative speeds of intel and amd cpu's. I have been paying attention to the market for these "chips" since Intel was making the DX series of processors and Apple was using Motorola 68020 chips circa 1992.

I have seen the i486DX, Pentium, P2, P3, P4, Centrino, Duo, and many more come and all of the miniscule updatyes they do in between those major goalposts. It is mind boggling and absolutely made to confuse. The product managers figured out long ago that making many miniscule upgrades (then pumping each one up like it was the next greatest thing) makes more money than wider spaced major updates. I always kept one or two steps back from the edge of the pricing precipice and I have paid way less over time for that decision! Chip makers taught me valuable lessons about life, marketing, and human behavior. YOU DONT NEED THE FASTEST chip. You really don't! That is, unless you can afford it.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Here is a site I have been using for years as well. Really great concept and seems to be run by a shadowy cabal like organization. They have no about us section... thats pretty shadowy. here is a typical post if you run a quick search for "who runs pricewatch.com"



Does anyone know who owns and runs Pricewatch.com? I don't want guesses or rumors. They don't have any phone numbers on the site, no email, no addresses, etc., and the WHOIS info is no help either. Anybody know?

Reason for asking? Well, I've been using their search engine for several years now, and have seen changes come and go. It would be really nice to know who they are.
LINK

http://www.pricewatch.com/

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

extending the Amtrak in Maine





More highspeed passenger rail being extended farther into Maine? I'm all for it. Here is a good article I found on MaineBiz.biz about a plan to extend the Downeaster . The story within the story related to Florida giving up the funds for the Tampa-Orlando high speed Rail is something to follow up on too. It seems like all that funding that was available keeps getting turned down. Chris Christie in New Jersey, Rick Scott in Florida, what about the LA to Vegas high speed line idea that I keep hearing about?



http://www.mainebiz.biz/news47796.html

WOW a plan to link the

North Station/South Station
acela/downeaster tracks.

that will be 10 years and lots of corruption cooked in it but makes sense to make it happen eventually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_Rail_Link