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Slashback: Armed, Cracked, Cables
Nearly anything is better than ribbon cables. aibrahim writes "In the recent /. article about Serial ATA some people wanted to know where SCSI was going, and if Serial ATA could deal with some higher end workstation and low end server requirements. Apparently it has been decided that Serial ATA 2 (pdf doc) and Serial Attached SCSI are the answers."
Because being an American is all about first-person shooters. and i starve writes: "For any of you FPS fans out there who have been champing at the bit to see the newest product of our very own government's attempt at a multiplayer video game since Marine Doom your day has final come. America's Army, which utilizes the Unreal Warfare engine was created and designed by the United States Army and is TOTALLY FREE! go grab it off of File Planet right now!"
Before you hit your "JINGO" button, though, An anonymous reader cautions "In typical Army fashion the release of America's Army is a bust. All the servers are either full or down and the way it's set up, you can't play past the basic training without completing some of the training online. Since you can't connect to any of the servers to complete that training you basically can't play the game at all. What a waste of taxpayer money."
Nobody needs to make any cracks about this. Anonymous Coward writes "According to this CNN Article, [some cracks were] found on Space Shuttle Columbia this week, possibly delaying missions for the remainder of the year. This crack is similar to the crack found on Columbia's sister ships, Atlantis and Discovery. "
Worst pun in relation to this gets no prize.
I don't think the Army's so much looking for Linux-using rebels as Microsoft users willing to follow orders in its enlisted ranks.
Apparently it has been decided that Serial ATA 2 (pdf doc) and Serial Attached SCSI are the answers."
I'm usually a supporter of ATA hard disks in all but the most high end servers, due to the outrageous cost benefits they offer, but this is just stupid.
SCSI is a far superior technology, there is no denying that. ATA is a hack ontop of a hack, just barely "good enough" in most cases. Only recently have large ATA RAIDs been available, through people like AXUS, Promise, and 3ware, by placing one controller per disk. Another hack on top of a hack, but very cost effective, and it works well.
If we are going to change our interface anyway, why not get rid of the SCSI vs ATA argument completely and just stick with one or the other?
I see no need for a serial SCSI and a serial ATA except for reasons of price descrimination against people who think SCSI is more reliable due to supersitions and tech mythology. The HDAs have been the same in many cases for a long time.
So why not ditch Serial ATA, or ditch serial SCSI, or ditch both and use a mature technology like Fibre Channel (which is already basically serial SCSI).
I don't see what this fragmentation gets us.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I find this an interesting contrast to the past few years where people have tried various things ranging from restricting sales of violent games (especially FPSs) to banning them outright, with claims that they were causing kids to want to kill each other.
So the US Army comes along and makes a violent FPS. Why aren't they complaining? Apparently it's bad if Id does it, but it's alright for the army.
Who are they expecting needs to be faught against, anyway?
If "graceful" includes the Revolutionary war, impressment of US sailors, and the war of 1812 in which they marched on our capital and burned the White House, I'd hate to see what "grudgingly" looks like.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Or it could just be that the game is based off the newer builds of the Unreal engine which hasn't been ported to Mac yet (only DirectX at this time). Plus it's also supposed to be a training tool internal to the Army, so why develop for platforms that they don't plan to use.
Personally it seems to be that Windows XP users are the ones with the most liking for getting violated in strange and painful ways...
get a GF4MX for $73 or better yet a Radeon 8500 from Newegg for $99. Heck even a GF2Ti is only ~$60. Buy any one of those cards and you can play any game out there now. Even the older GF2 plays UT2003 well at 800x600 Medium detail.
If you want to be a gamer you gotta spend money sometime.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch