Nils' Notes
By Nils Dahl
Date: March 19, 2002
Dear Van and Kathy,
Having seen how Tom works, I am not surprised at his pettiness and other actions. You being a professional author does make a difference in the impact of this rewriting of history and of changing author credits. I made contributions to you just because I saw a totally different attitude. Yes, I was offered a chance to become one of Tom's contributing editors a while ago but declined. I wish you well in your battle.
On the positive side, nVidia is finally stressing the fine video performance of nForce and more clearly stating just how the dual memory channel design benefits users. Keep in mind that the 'real dangers of nForce' and nVidia are the non-Intel design concepts - dual memory, Hypertransport, and the mysterious crossbar switch that would, according to Intel's marketing plans, belong strictly in commercial designs only. There is one major benefit of nForce that nobody talks about. For full support of Linux, nForce is the ONLY design solution that comes with full, optimized video, sound, nic and I/O drivers. Users of Linux who want equivalents for other chipsets and video system designs are forced to buy proprietary third party packages -video and audio in particular. This too is a 'clear and serious danger' to the Wintel marketing monopoly program.
Now for something different. A cooking hint. You both likely have been disappointed with potato salad in the past. The potatoes tend to be hard inside - a result of the commercial fast cooking processes that must leave the potatoes hard enough for machine handling. Well, try using a countertop steamer unit at home. Prepare the potatoes as usual (I leave the skins on) in cubes of the preferred size. Steam them 30-40 minutes in the steamer basket. Let them cool down to room temperature and then chill them in the refrigerator - keeping the cubes in the steamer basket. This causes the cooked starch to resolidify enough to be easily handled without mushing up. The resulting potato salad is firm but very tender. Increase cooking time for very large batches of potato.
I wish you well in your battle against Tom. I sincerely hope that this situation will have no lasting effect on you. That person is just not worth agonizing over. It really would be nice if Van could get into an in-depth analysis of nForce that revealed all of the innovations clearly to the world. It would be even nicer if the nForce innovations were compared with the 'Intel way' of doing things to illustrate the Intel shortcuts that compromise performance.
nils
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