Someone's has *got* to be fired over this. I forgot the exact figure, but intel has invested a huge amount in Rambus... and you can be sure to expect Rambus's stock prices to go down a bit if word of this spreads far and wide... This incident reminds me of the time the current CEO of Microsoft said at a press release that 'tech stocks are overpriced'. Oops. There go MSFT stocks down $20 a share. I doubt this is proof of the beginning of Intel's favoring of SDRAM over RDRAM. I just think it's another dumb mistake in a series of small dumb mistakes of the lumbering giant, and is foretelling that it's on the way down... Maybe the mistake was not as conscious as the one to make Intel's i820 non-overclockable (therefore losing a part of the market, not a big one, but a piece of the pie nonetheless)... Hail to the king (AMD), baby:)
If you like these books, check out 'The Sky Lords' (forgot the author). It's a bit sketchy on the details, as a scientist didn't write it, but it has an apocalyptic view of how gene therapy/modification could get out of hand. Genetic corporations develop the capability to alter genes. Shortly after, everything begins to change. Humanity is in an age of wonders... Bacteria that turns waste into alcohol/gasoline/whatever, the eradication of disease, etc. In comes Bill Gates (or his counterpart), 'Milo Haze', an entrepreneur who is one of the owners of these syndicates. These corporations begin fighting it out, creating life forms to kill each other, and they design things to protect themselves. Milo, for example, undergoes genetic modification to have bones made of an alloy, vision better than a cat, and the ability to control the speed of his thinking/respose time/metabolism. As a result, he can see at night, and coupled with his strengthened muscles he can run fast enough to *blur*... chop down several enemies, etc. In the meantime, those hurt the most are the general populace, with no protection from this sort of thing. Among the things mentioned are: Fungus genetically engineered to kill everything and anything that resembles a living thing. Food supply goes down the drain as whole farming areas are devastated. 'Designer Plagues' are also widespread... Viruses designed by warring corporations to just kill humans and nothing else within a matter of hours.... And I'm just getting started. There are also Sex Slave creatures... Yowza!;) It's a good read, but unfortunately the last part of the trilogy is not (and never will be I am thinking) finished.
You should see the deal with cable... Ooo boy. Where do I start?
Here's my little fiasco, time organized:
January 28th: A line tech from AT&T comes to my apartment complex to adjust tv problems that were reported. He does standard operating procedure, adjusts the line amplifier of the cable. The non-standard, idiot thing to do in his case was that he amplified the *whole* line to the condominium. So when, in fact, he overamplified the line, he caused the sensitive modems in the whole building to lose connection.
Throughout the next month, I made 14 (!) calls to AT&T for them to fix the problem. They missed two scheduled work orders during this time. Others called as well, which is probably why it took AT&T comparitively so little time to respond...
February 28th: Finally, AT&T trucks come out to handle a line amplifier problem, after a month's outage. This inefficiency was due in part by the fact that AT&T has a very inefficient, decentralized system - they will not just send out a line tech even though they know you have a line problem. Every time I called, I told the support technician (even higher level 2 technicians) told me all they could do is schedule a work order for a regular tech (who can do only a normal check up, no line work).
The current situation: I believe my line is still under/over amplified, or there is some other unknown problem that is causing a horrible line connection. Example of the crap I have to go through: My gateway ping is never lower than 100. This means I never get pings lower than 100. What's worse is that this factor of lag increases during the day (because of the load of the condominium and the surrounding area on the node) to about an average 350 (!)gateway ping. This is slower than AOL, folks. My bandwidth is still normal, though.
This problem only started since Feb. 28th - that's why I believe it's a line problem. Later in the day, it is coupled with node overload - but it can not be solely node overload, because 350 ping is just too much for pure node overload. Since February 28th, I called AT&T 38(!!!) times to solve this problem. No go. This time, they either missed their work orders, or their techs that have come over have told me that they'd set up a line tech. None of the scheduled line techs came (they usually aren't, but these techs said they can make it so).
If you are going to recommend me to other high speed services - don't. I have checked DSL providers in my area (despite that there's less bandwidth, I am willing to lose that in order to frag), and there are none close by. The closest one is tantalizingly 300 feet outside my range. Ug.
The only thing I can get is IDSL (I believe) which is about 128 kilobits throughput (I can settle for low bandwidth but not that low). So cable is basically my only option.
If only AT&T, the raging monopoly, would open its cable lines (which it is never going to) it would help problems of customers such as me...
What can I say but "Oh well"?
P.S. sorry for my crap writing style - it's 6:20 A.M.:)
I can see it now. The scene: An emergency ward where the Joe Quark is being operated on. Due to a severe bullet wound, he only has 2 minutes to live. Using our specialized robotic machinery, that's no problem! Wait a second.. what's going on... 'Fatal Error'?!? Would bring a new definition to the term...
They say Science Fiction is a prediction of the future... So if some research robot from the 21st century is incidentally reading this, trying to figure out how to reshape the matrix into the feel of normal everyday life, I have one plea: Please, oh please, let me be Mr. Anderson! I want to do that cool bullet thingy.
But I think that there are limitations to this way of thinking. Just as with Nuclear Weapons, a terrorist attack will probably be hard to perform.
I doubt that nanobots will be able to hold enough programmed information to go about any task. I believe that the bots will have enough code or reactive material to respond to some sort of message (IE radio signals at a specific frequency, etc.)
If a terrorist got a hold of this technology, he or she would not likely be able to use it in a populated place. Jamming. So they could restrict their attacks to the sahara.
I can picture the 21st century renditon of a megalomaniac: "Die sand, die! Muhahahahaha...."
:) Well, that is unless we develop a way to alter the nucleus through nanobots. Then they can create plutonium or U-235 (which are normally pretty hard to get). To that I can say: Ug.
Grr. You fail to miss the point... Only human. He is trying to be l33t like us h@x0rz, sp33king like the robots he foretells. Now goe back to yoor dwelling. Nazi. Pfft.
People say that science fiction foretells what will happen in real life... Syndicate had a 'persuadatron' which big companies *cough* IBM *cough* used to brainwash people and to control them...
I only have The Return of the King electronically - that's the only one I could gather. I don't know if it's legal. I hope it is.;) If you want it contact me...
They moderated me down! These moderators sure are loony... why did I get a 'flamebait'?
I think that they're so used to seeing crappy first posts that they are automatically biased towards any first post.
Correction: This isn't really the first major book in electronic form... It was the first to be specifically written for the net, but I have electronic copies of several (Animal Farm, etc... even some Tolkien!) J!
My Favorite: (HOMER's SUB VENTURES DANGEROUSLY INTO 'RUSSIAN WATERS'...) KENT BROCKMAN: Well sir, Treason Season started early this year as a nuclear sub was hijacked by local man Homer Simpson.... (AT UN BUILDING) RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR: The Soviet Union will be pleased to offer amnesty to your wayward wessel. USA AMBASSADOR: Soviet Union? (AFFABLE) I thought you guys broke up. RUSSIAN: (EVIL LAUGH) Yes, that's what we WANTED you to think! A HA HA HA HA HA HA! (RUSSIAN MUSIC PLAYS WHILE A MOSCOW PEACE PARADE TURNS INTO A COMMUNIST MARCH... TANKS ROLL OUT OF THE FLOATS. SOLDIERS MARCH. GRASS PEELS BACK, AND THE BERLIN WALL POPS OUT OF THE GROUND--COMPLETE WITH GUARDS. LENIN COMES TO LIFE, PUNCHES THE GLASS AND ESCAPES. PEOPLE FLEE.) LENIN: (ENTRANCED) Must crush capitalism. Rrrr... RRR!
This is offtopic, but what strikes me as funny is that the original post is labeled 'redundant' yet this post that's labeled 3, insightful is really repetition of the article's message. What's your definition of redundant? Good job, moderators! Anyway, ID can't crawl out of this one. I think that they should be fully penalized. This is at the core hacking - the bad type. It all comes down to this: Privacy is ending on the 'net. P3 ID #, the licensed surfer thing, and now private companies are invading our privacy. And the sad thing is, the government is probably behind it. I guess under the guise of 'protecting the people'. Yea. I'm out.
How many hours do you play a week? You must not be really into gaming... and that's what I meant. I am on a different level than you =) I am into gaming, and as much as I don't like it, and would like to stop, I play it obsessively... it's bad. If you play games 5-8 hours a week, you are not 'into' gaming in my opinion.
When I said 'games' I meant obsessive gaming. Sure, the occasional game is entertainment, but playing it for 14 hours straight everyday in hope of getting 4th in PGL is not entertainment. Face it, whenever someone is into gaming, they are into it obsessively... Sports promote physical fitness, museums educate, and amusement parks are just like games. Yet do we visit amusement parks every day and sit in them for 14 hours straight?
Just because these games can (and will) be in the hands of 8 year olds doesn't mean anything. I started playing Wolfenstein when I was 7, and I have been addicted to first person shooters ever since. I play for one to two hours every day! And yet, even though I was 7, I am a pacifist today. I have never been in a fight, I have never been the aggressor. Generalizations shouldn't be made at all. Sims are the same - they shouldn't be taking any blame. They are just games... and it all comes down to the parenting. Kids can watch violent movies. They just need to be told to discern from reality and fantasy... The information isn't harmful. The people who use it are, and that's something the media (and AOL) should figure out.
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Someone's has *got* to be fired over this. I forgot the exact figure, but intel has invested a huge amount in Rambus... and you can be sure to expect Rambus's stock prices to go down a bit if word of this spreads far and wide... This incident reminds me of the time the current CEO of Microsoft said at a press release that 'tech stocks are overpriced'. Oops. There go MSFT stocks down $20 a share. I doubt this is proof of the beginning of Intel's favoring of SDRAM over RDRAM. I just think it's another dumb mistake in a series of small dumb mistakes of the lumbering giant, and is foretelling that it's on the way down... Maybe the mistake was not as conscious as the one to make Intel's i820 non-overclockable (therefore losing a part of the market, not a big one, but a piece of the pie nonetheless)... Hail to the king (AMD), baby:)
If you like these books, check out 'The Sky Lords' (forgot the author). It's a bit sketchy on the details, as a scientist didn't write it, but it has an apocalyptic view of how gene therapy/modification could get out of hand. Genetic corporations develop the capability to alter genes. Shortly after, everything begins to change. Humanity is in an age of wonders... Bacteria that turns waste into alcohol/gasoline/whatever, the eradication of disease, etc. In comes Bill Gates (or his counterpart), 'Milo Haze', an entrepreneur who is one of the owners of these syndicates. These corporations begin fighting it out, creating life forms to kill each other, and they design things to protect themselves. Milo, for example, undergoes genetic modification to have bones made of an alloy, vision better than a cat, and the ability to control the speed of his thinking/respose time/metabolism. As a result, he can see at night, and coupled with his strengthened muscles he can run fast enough to *blur*... chop down several enemies, etc. In the meantime, those hurt the most are the general populace, with no protection from this sort of thing. Among the things mentioned are: Fungus genetically engineered to kill everything and anything that resembles a living thing. Food supply goes down the drain as whole farming areas are devastated. 'Designer Plagues' are also widespread... Viruses designed by warring corporations to just kill humans and nothing else within a matter of hours.... And I'm just getting started. There are also Sex Slave creatures... Yowza! ;) It's a good read, but unfortunately the last part of the trilogy is not (and never will be I am thinking) finished.
You should see the deal with cable... Ooo boy. Where do I start?
Here's my little fiasco, time organized:
January 28th: A line tech from AT&T comes to my apartment complex to adjust tv problems that were reported. He does standard operating procedure, adjusts the line amplifier of the cable. The non-standard, idiot thing to do in his case was that he amplified the *whole* line to the condominium. So when, in fact, he overamplified the line, he caused the sensitive modems in the whole building to lose connection.
Throughout the next month, I made 14 (!) calls to AT&T for them to fix the problem. They missed two scheduled work orders during this time. Others called as well, which is probably why it took AT&T comparitively so little time to respond...
February 28th: Finally, AT&T trucks come out to handle a line amplifier problem, after a month's outage. This inefficiency was due in part by the fact that AT&T has a very inefficient, decentralized system - they will not just send out a line tech even though they know you have a line problem. Every time I called, I told the support technician (even higher level 2 technicians) told me all they could do is schedule a work order for a regular tech (who can do only a normal check up, no line work).
The current situation: I believe my line is still under/over amplified, or there is some other unknown problem that is causing a horrible line connection. Example of the crap I have to go through: My gateway ping is never lower than 100. This means I never get pings lower than 100. What's worse is that this factor of lag increases during the day (because of the load of the condominium and the surrounding area on the node) to about an average 350 (!)gateway ping. This is slower than AOL, folks. My bandwidth is still normal, though.
This problem only started since Feb. 28th - that's why I believe it's a line problem. Later in the day, it is coupled with node overload - but it can not be solely node overload, because 350 ping is just too much for pure node overload. Since February 28th, I called AT&T 38(!!!) times to solve this problem. No go. This time, they either missed their work orders, or their techs that have come over have told me that they'd set up a line tech. None of the scheduled line techs came (they usually aren't, but these techs said they can make it so).
If you are going to recommend me to other high speed services - don't. I have checked DSL providers in my area (despite that there's less bandwidth, I am willing to lose that in order to frag), and there are none close by. The closest one is tantalizingly 300 feet outside my range. Ug.
The only thing I can get is IDSL (I believe) which is about 128 kilobits throughput (I can settle for low bandwidth but not that low). So cable is basically my only option.
If only AT&T, the raging monopoly, would open its cable lines (which it is never going to) it would help problems of customers such as me...
What can I say but "Oh well"?
P.S. sorry for my crap writing style - it's 6:20 A.M. :)
I can see it now. The scene: An emergency ward where the Joe Quark is being operated on. Due to a severe bullet wound, he only has 2 minutes to live. Using our specialized robotic machinery, that's no problem! Wait a second.. what's going on... 'Fatal Error'?!? Would bring a new definition to the term...
They say Science Fiction is a prediction of the future... So if some research robot from the 21st century is incidentally reading this, trying to figure out how to reshape the matrix into the feel of normal everyday life, I have one plea: Please, oh please, let me be Mr. Anderson! I want to do that cool bullet thingy.
But I think that there are limitations to this way of thinking. Just as with Nuclear Weapons, a terrorist attack will probably be hard to perform.
I doubt that nanobots will be able to hold enough programmed information to go about any task. I believe that the bots will have enough code or reactive material to respond to some sort of message (IE radio signals at a specific frequency, etc.)
If a terrorist got a hold of this technology, he or she would not likely be able to use it in a populated place. Jamming. So they could restrict their attacks to the sahara.
I can picture the 21st century renditon of a megalomaniac: "Die sand, die! Muhahahahaha...."
:) Well, that is unless we develop a way to alter the nucleus through nanobots. Then they can create plutonium or U-235 (which are normally pretty hard to get). To that I can say: Ug.
Grr. You fail to miss the point... Only human. He is trying to be l33t like us h@x0rz, sp33king like the robots he foretells. Now goe back to yoor dwelling. Nazi. Pfft.
People say that science fiction foretells what will happen in real life... Syndicate had a 'persuadatron' which big companies *cough* IBM *cough* used to brainwash people and to control them...
Heya. =)
;) If you want it contact me...
I only have The Return of the King electronically - that's the only one I could gather. I don't know if it's legal. I hope it is.
They moderated me down! These moderators sure are loony... why did I get a 'flamebait'?
I think that they're so used to seeing crappy first posts that they are automatically biased towards any first post.
Have fun all!
Correction: This isn't really the first major book in electronic form... It was the first to be specifically written for the net, but I have electronic copies of several (Animal Farm, etc... even some Tolkien!) J!
My Favorite: (HOMER's SUB VENTURES DANGEROUSLY INTO 'RUSSIAN WATERS'...) KENT BROCKMAN: Well sir, Treason Season started early this year as a nuclear sub was hijacked by local man Homer Simpson.... (AT UN BUILDING) RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR: The Soviet Union will be pleased to offer amnesty to your wayward wessel. USA AMBASSADOR: Soviet Union? (AFFABLE) I thought you guys broke up. RUSSIAN: (EVIL LAUGH) Yes, that's what we WANTED you to think! A HA HA HA HA HA HA! (RUSSIAN MUSIC PLAYS WHILE A MOSCOW PEACE PARADE TURNS INTO A COMMUNIST MARCH... TANKS ROLL OUT OF THE FLOATS. SOLDIERS MARCH. GRASS PEELS BACK, AND THE BERLIN WALL POPS OUT OF THE GROUND--COMPLETE WITH GUARDS. LENIN COMES TO LIFE, PUNCHES THE GLASS AND ESCAPES. PEOPLE FLEE.) LENIN: (ENTRANCED) Must crush capitalism. Rrrr... RRR!
This is offtopic, but what strikes me as funny is that the original post is labeled 'redundant' yet this post that's labeled 3, insightful is really repetition of the article's message. What's your definition of redundant? Good job, moderators! Anyway, ID can't crawl out of this one. I think that they should be fully penalized. This is at the core hacking - the bad type. It all comes down to this: Privacy is ending on the 'net. P3 ID #, the licensed surfer thing, and now private companies are invading our privacy. And the sad thing is, the government is probably behind it. I guess under the guise of 'protecting the people'. Yea. I'm out.
How many hours do you play a week? You must not be really into gaming... and that's what I meant. I am on a different level than you =) I am into gaming, and as much as I don't like it, and would like to stop, I play it obsessively... it's bad. If you play games 5-8 hours a week, you are not 'into' gaming in my opinion.
When I said 'games' I meant obsessive gaming. Sure, the occasional game is entertainment, but playing it for 14 hours straight everyday in hope of getting 4th in PGL is not entertainment. Face it, whenever someone is into gaming, they are into it obsessively... Sports promote physical fitness, museums educate, and amusement parks are just like games. Yet do we visit amusement parks every day and sit in them for 14 hours straight?
And there are always people that get hurt in sports accidentally.
And there are always going to be plane crashes.
And there are always going to be car crashes.
And out of 20000 postal workers, there will be one disgruntled one...
Does this mean we should stop playing sports, stop flying, driving, and using the post office?
In any activity there are always going to be some risks involved of the rare exception causing harm... It's just a statistic.
A good question, however, is to ask yourselves this: Are games really worth the rare exception? All they do is waste money, time, and intelligence.
Moo.
Jesus, pick up the sarcasm you big oaf...
Just because these games can (and will) be in the hands of 8 year olds doesn't mean anything. I started playing Wolfenstein when I was 7, and I have been addicted to first person shooters ever since. I play for one to two hours every day! And yet, even though I was 7, I am a pacifist today. I have never been in a fight, I have never been the aggressor. Generalizations shouldn't be made at all. Sims are the same - they shouldn't be taking any blame. They are just games... and it all comes down to the parenting. Kids can watch violent movies. They just need to be told to discern from reality and fantasy... The information isn't harmful. The people who use it are, and that's something the media (and AOL) should figure out.