I do see the points of the new features, I just don't feel like they're best at home in a cheaper card. Props to ATi for keeping their cards unified (unlike the huge mess of i7s using P55 and X58 or mobile GPUs lagging two generations behind but sharing the same name as their newest desktop counterpart), but I just think the angle at which they're marketing this is not the best for the market they're looking at... Unless they really think their biggest buyers will be people who only care about GPGPU and other such number-crunching functions.
Yes, compute shaders are good for H.264 acceleration, but we already have that on even cheaper cards so this comes out as good but not revolutionary. The higher precision mostly matters for GPGPU applications, doesn't it? I have yet to see a good application of it in graphics or hardware acceleration at least. Multithreading sounds nice on paper, but I wonder how many people will actually make use of it.
I'm not against the card having DX11. I just really don't see it as its best selling point.
I'm sorry, I've seen this news go all around tech sites and... I don't get it. Yay, DX11. The biggest new features I could see about it were hardware tessellation and compute shaders. What, this requires a powerful GPU in the first place to be of any use? Something much, much better than this card? Oh...
Seriously, good for AMD, but I just don't see the point. Say it's a good card, say it has very low power consumption, but hyping DX11 when it has no particular benefit - especially at this price point - is absolutely useless.
And before anyone says I'm just bashing AMD, my computer has a 5850.
I'd just like to point out that high-pitched noises, often caused by the flyback transformers found in things such as CRT monitors, are a far cry from detecting x-rays and radio waves. Why? Because one is just a sound and we have ears to feel that; that some people cannot hear the sound while others can is related to the auditive acuity of the person, nothing more. Case in point, you can make the test yourself. Just Google for "mosquito sound" and look for the different frequencies. You have a whole array of higher and higher noises which different people will react to differently. I can hear them and it's annoying, but there was a girl in my physics course who'd immediately sense it the second I turned it on no matter where she was in the classroom. This is perfectly valid because we have ears and ears are supposed to do that.
However, as far as I know, the skin isn't supposed to be an x-ray detector. The closest we have to that would be our own eyes, since x-rays are EM waves just like visible light. The skin's only way of triggering a response would be to react adversely to the energy being transmitted (IE alpha/beta/gamma rays, but not as dangerous). I don't really see how this would be possible for extremely short exposures (although I'm not saying it is impossible, I don't know). However, I'd just like to point out: from what I gathered, the GP saw the x-ray scanner. Have you ever felt a tingling sensation when feeling like something's close, even though there isn't anything? It's a bit like a presence, as if you were about to get touched by someone. I'd argue that you might very well be reacting in this way and not because of the actual x-rays. Until you've been bombarded by them randomly with no visual or auditive cues, it's impossible to say whether you're reacting to the x-rays themselves or just to the thought of the x-rays.
Ask anyone on the street if they know what Android is. Do the same for the iPhone. Check the proportions.
A new unknown product is still an unknown product. The iPhone has Apple's entire marketing (which is arguably one of their strongest assets) behind it, while Android didn't really have much before. I think this shows that no matter the quality of the product, awareness is key.
Whatever some people might like to say, I, for one, applaud their efforts. Whether they do create a new Internet or not, the research and development going into the project will benefit the current Internet. And if they do manage to create a new foundation... Well, maybe we'd finally be able to use a network which was designed for use by more than the military and a handful of universities? The tech behind the web is antiquated and was never created to handle such large network. It's already good we can manage, but there are still plenty of issues that a well-designed system could prevent without needing tons of patches that further complicate things. If it can improve speed, make coding for it easier, make it more reliable and more secure, what exactly is there not to love? Plus, if it doesn't really do everything better, it won't get adopted. It's a win-win situation.
You know, this is why they do something called follow-up care. When you get something which could potentially be dangerous, you get watched for the time normally necessary for the infection to start showing symptoms. Giving antibiotics left and right for every dog bite (which are very seldom infected) would only end up creating resistant illnesses and THEN you'd be utterly screwed. You'd get bit, get antibiotics, still get infected, get more antibiotics and end up with an arm gone. I'm sure that's what you want to happen.
Plus, we've been evolving our energy sources since we first found fire. It's not because we have found a workable and sustainable source of energy that we'll necessarily stop any further development. All it means is that we'll have more time to keep going.
I do believe that we can use thorium-based reactors to sustain us for as long as we can and by then we'll hopefully have workable fusion reactors, at which point resources are much less a problem since, you know, fusion uses water. And hey, we'll also probably find something after that.
They most likely forgot that the people who made them run since the beginning still exist. All they care about now are grandmas and soccer moms playing Wii Fit...
I seriously hope their utter lack of respect for their fans comes and bites them in the ass.
Speaking of Sierra, how about Lucasarts? They went from the likes of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango to crappy Star Wars tie-ins...
As for EA, I'd argue it would've been a fit contender some years ago, but they've improved their image and products a lot in the last few years. I think that deserves some recognition.
There are a few mores that I feel could've made the list, namely IBM (they're still around and strong in certain areas, but they were KINGS of computing back then) or Xerox (again, they were great innovators and now are just one business in a sector). I'd also argue that ATT made another large mistake: Bell Labs. This place was a centre of innovation and ingenuity, but do you really hear about them often nowadays?
Yet this is only about music. Google changed the whole INTERNET. They managed to single-handedly reshape the face of the entire thing for just about everyone, becoming the front-end and first port of call to many, many users. Heck, I'm pretty sure everyone who downloaded iTunes did so through Google. The majority of people use Google even for basic web browsing, searching for an address instead of typing it directly in the address bar.
Say what you will, Google has transformed the decade far more than Jobs and Apple have. No, the problem is that this transformation has happened through "Google" as an entity, while just about everyone's saying that Jobs was the sole driving force behind Apple's rise (which is only true in part). It's that perception that makes people feel Jobs is the more influential person.
As you've said, someone will figure it out if that is the case. Remember they've managed to crack the format; I'd say that's a slighty tougher goal than fixing spelling mistakes and removing double spaces...
Just about everyone that's sane and with basic common sense can understand and be jury on a murder case. There are a lot of variables, but it's usually possible to comprehend as it's rooted in reality and it's something we can, to a point, relate to.
Abstract software patents about very precise methods that have no meaning outside of the software development community are entirely alien to the majority of the population. They cannot begin to understand what it is all about without proper technical background. There's a huge gap between "did the guy murder the other guy or no?" and "did these companies infringe a patent about remote software activation?". The very concept of "patent" is fuzzy for many.
Guess they could always put the ads volume the same as the average of the program and then release a TV for the pro-choice people who want to raise it back up...
Instead of defining a peak level, define an average level? Most shows would have a pretty standard average, but commercials would get raped by it and would actually come out as quieter until they stopped being compressed.
At least some government agencies seem to understand that open source CAN be secure, stable and worthwhile. More power to them I say, they're quite forward-thinking on those matters it seems.
If only more could see that! With every new user, especially military organizations and government agencies, there are more bug fixes, more patches and more useful features added into the open source projects they use. That in turn makes the projects more appealing, more competitive and generally better, which closes the loop by enticing more to adopt it. We just need to get the ball rolling and, most importantly, to break old notions of open source being garage-geek-type material; I think we've seen all around us that we've evolved from that point.
My problem with the quote from OSC you've mentioned here is that he lumps all people in the same basket. Despite what some people may like to do, you can't stereotype all the pro-AGW people in a single category. There are extremists on all sides, and you need to weed some of it out to find what the majority is actually thinking. Remember, a loud minority shouldn't reflect badly on an entire group.
As an example, I do think we should dramatically reduce our CO2 emissions. However, I'm fully supportive of clean nuclear, hydroelectricity, wind power and solar facilities. It's not because there are some utterly idiotic people who can only whine about every single solution that you should automatically assume that everyone thinks the same -- that's foolish.
I'm afraid the problem is that everyone would prefer preventing those altogether. I don't think there are that many people actually caught while texting or talking on a phone while driving. It can be hard to notice, and what proof is there when you're done? It's not like there's a huge alcohol stink like when you're drunk, or that you can pass a test for it. Most people who get "caught" texting get caught by another car driving at 60kph into their side/front/rear. We need to prevent it altogether; reacting after the fact is too often too late.
I have to say I still don't grasp the whole point of texting while driving a car, though. It's not like whatever you're happening to say can't wait another five minutes for the closest coffee shop or McDonald's. The GP is correct; we need to educate the population. If people grasp they're acting like idiots, maybe they'll stop? We can only hope.
Isn't that symptomatic of how the "net culture" has changed, though? Back when Slashdot was new, being on the Internet was something few people did, even less so without inhibitions. It was the lair of tech and science geeks, and that was that. People would dig up interesting science/tech articles and then the comments would debate it over and over (with of course random quotes).
However, nowadays you can't help but notice the politicization of the Internet and, by extension, of all things related to computers and science. I'd argue the politics section you noted highlights that fact: politics now influence this community far more than it did before. There are now ideological debates, megacorporations to praise or decry, lawyers to monitor, laws to bash or applaud... Blogs, social networks, all have changed the face of the Internet and I only believe it normal that Slashdot changed to reflect that.
I honestly wouldn't mind seeing more science and tech articles and less law stuff, but at the same time I'm glad I have a good source from which to read the latest developments in copyright crap or ISP abuses... I guess. Bah, you see my point!
Difference being that this whole energy is applied to something with a mass in the order of 10^-27 kg and a radius of something around 10^-15 meters. Were you to apply this proportionally to a mass of one kilogram, you would have energies of 0.2 Gigajoules... Or, if all energy was kinetic, a speed of around 21,000 m/s.
Slashdot Mirror
Granted, the blogging community are unlikely to finance a reporter who wants to infiltrate the Taliban, at least not any time soon.
On the other hand, locals could report such information, often with far more insight since they actually live there.
I do see the points of the new features, I just don't feel like they're best at home in a cheaper card. Props to ATi for keeping their cards unified (unlike the huge mess of i7s using P55 and X58 or mobile GPUs lagging two generations behind but sharing the same name as their newest desktop counterpart), but I just think the angle at which they're marketing this is not the best for the market they're looking at... Unless they really think their biggest buyers will be people who only care about GPGPU and other such number-crunching functions.
Yes, compute shaders are good for H.264 acceleration, but we already have that on even cheaper cards so this comes out as good but not revolutionary. The higher precision mostly matters for GPGPU applications, doesn't it? I have yet to see a good application of it in graphics or hardware acceleration at least. Multithreading sounds nice on paper, but I wonder how many people will actually make use of it.
I'm not against the card having DX11. I just really don't see it as its best selling point.
I'm sorry, I've seen this news go all around tech sites and... I don't get it. Yay, DX11. The biggest new features I could see about it were hardware tessellation and compute shaders. What, this requires a powerful GPU in the first place to be of any use? Something much, much better than this card? Oh...
Seriously, good for AMD, but I just don't see the point. Say it's a good card, say it has very low power consumption, but hyping DX11 when it has no particular benefit - especially at this price point - is absolutely useless.
And before anyone says I'm just bashing AMD, my computer has a 5850.
Occam's razor would make me go for the second option unless I can see evidence proving otherwise.
So much for mod points...
I'd just like to point out that high-pitched noises, often caused by the flyback transformers found in things such as CRT monitors, are a far cry from detecting x-rays and radio waves. Why? Because one is just a sound and we have ears to feel that; that some people cannot hear the sound while others can is related to the auditive acuity of the person, nothing more. Case in point, you can make the test yourself. Just Google for "mosquito sound" and look for the different frequencies. You have a whole array of higher and higher noises which different people will react to differently. I can hear them and it's annoying, but there was a girl in my physics course who'd immediately sense it the second I turned it on no matter where she was in the classroom. This is perfectly valid because we have ears and ears are supposed to do that.
However, as far as I know, the skin isn't supposed to be an x-ray detector. The closest we have to that would be our own eyes, since x-rays are EM waves just like visible light. The skin's only way of triggering a response would be to react adversely to the energy being transmitted (IE alpha/beta/gamma rays, but not as dangerous). I don't really see how this would be possible for extremely short exposures (although I'm not saying it is impossible, I don't know). However, I'd just like to point out: from what I gathered, the GP saw the x-ray scanner. Have you ever felt a tingling sensation when feeling like something's close, even though there isn't anything? It's a bit like a presence, as if you were about to get touched by someone. I'd argue that you might very well be reacting in this way and not because of the actual x-rays. Until you've been bombarded by them randomly with no visual or auditive cues, it's impossible to say whether you're reacting to the x-rays themselves or just to the thought of the x-rays.
And you've never seen a little child putting stuff into his/her mouth and happily chewing?
Our knowledge of electricity could be wrong and some magical circuit with just the right components will end all of reality as we know it.
Ah, so you've read Steorn's business document.
Ask anyone on the street if they know what Android is. Do the same for the iPhone. Check the proportions.
A new unknown product is still an unknown product. The iPhone has Apple's entire marketing (which is arguably one of their strongest assets) behind it, while Android didn't really have much before. I think this shows that no matter the quality of the product, awareness is key.
Whatever some people might like to say, I, for one, applaud their efforts. Whether they do create a new Internet or not, the research and development going into the project will benefit the current Internet. And if they do manage to create a new foundation... Well, maybe we'd finally be able to use a network which was designed for use by more than the military and a handful of universities? The tech behind the web is antiquated and was never created to handle such large network. It's already good we can manage, but there are still plenty of issues that a well-designed system could prevent without needing tons of patches that further complicate things. If it can improve speed, make coding for it easier, make it more reliable and more secure, what exactly is there not to love? Plus, if it doesn't really do everything better, it won't get adopted. It's a win-win situation.
You know, this is why they do something called follow-up care. When you get something which could potentially be dangerous, you get watched for the time normally necessary for the infection to start showing symptoms. Giving antibiotics left and right for every dog bite (which are very seldom infected) would only end up creating resistant illnesses and THEN you'd be utterly screwed. You'd get bit, get antibiotics, still get infected, get more antibiotics and end up with an arm gone. I'm sure that's what you want to happen.
Plus, we've been evolving our energy sources since we first found fire. It's not because we have found a workable and sustainable source of energy that we'll necessarily stop any further development. All it means is that we'll have more time to keep going.
I do believe that we can use thorium-based reactors to sustain us for as long as we can and by then we'll hopefully have workable fusion reactors, at which point resources are much less a problem since, you know, fusion uses water. And hey, we'll also probably find something after that.
They most likely forgot that the people who made them run since the beginning still exist. All they care about now are grandmas and soccer moms playing Wii Fit...
I seriously hope their utter lack of respect for their fans comes and bites them in the ass.
Speaking of Sierra, how about Lucasarts? They went from the likes of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango to crappy Star Wars tie-ins...
As for EA, I'd argue it would've been a fit contender some years ago, but they've improved their image and products a lot in the last few years. I think that deserves some recognition.
There are a few mores that I feel could've made the list, namely IBM (they're still around and strong in certain areas, but they were KINGS of computing back then) or Xerox (again, they were great innovators and now are just one business in a sector). I'd also argue that ATT made another large mistake: Bell Labs. This place was a centre of innovation and ingenuity, but do you really hear about them often nowadays?
Well, Linux already allows you to install Windows...
Yet this is only about music. Google changed the whole INTERNET. They managed to single-handedly reshape the face of the entire thing for just about everyone, becoming the front-end and first port of call to many, many users. Heck, I'm pretty sure everyone who downloaded iTunes did so through Google. The majority of people use Google even for basic web browsing, searching for an address instead of typing it directly in the address bar.
Say what you will, Google has transformed the decade far more than Jobs and Apple have. No, the problem is that this transformation has happened through "Google" as an entity, while just about everyone's saying that Jobs was the sole driving force behind Apple's rise (which is only true in part). It's that perception that makes people feel Jobs is the more influential person.
As you've said, someone will figure it out if that is the case. Remember they've managed to crack the format; I'd say that's a slighty tougher goal than fixing spelling mistakes and removing double spaces...
And why is this modded funny?
Am I alone thinking that if this company wins their suit maybe Microsoft would actually rename their search engine to something not as cringeworthy?
Just about everyone that's sane and with basic common sense can understand and be jury on a murder case. There are a lot of variables, but it's usually possible to comprehend as it's rooted in reality and it's something we can, to a point, relate to.
Abstract software patents about very precise methods that have no meaning outside of the software development community are entirely alien to the majority of the population. They cannot begin to understand what it is all about without proper technical background. There's a huge gap between "did the guy murder the other guy or no?" and "did these companies infringe a patent about remote software activation?". The very concept of "patent" is fuzzy for many.
Guess they could always put the ads volume the same as the average of the program and then release a TV for the pro-choice people who want to raise it back up...
Instead of defining a peak level, define an average level? Most shows would have a pretty standard average, but commercials would get raped by it and would actually come out as quieter until they stopped being compressed.
At least some government agencies seem to understand that open source CAN be secure, stable and worthwhile. More power to them I say, they're quite forward-thinking on those matters it seems.
If only more could see that! With every new user, especially military organizations and government agencies, there are more bug fixes, more patches and more useful features added into the open source projects they use. That in turn makes the projects more appealing, more competitive and generally better, which closes the loop by enticing more to adopt it. We just need to get the ball rolling and, most importantly, to break old notions of open source being garage-geek-type material; I think we've seen all around us that we've evolved from that point.
My problem with the quote from OSC you've mentioned here is that he lumps all people in the same basket. Despite what some people may like to do, you can't stereotype all the pro-AGW people in a single category. There are extremists on all sides, and you need to weed some of it out to find what the majority is actually thinking. Remember, a loud minority shouldn't reflect badly on an entire group.
As an example, I do think we should dramatically reduce our CO2 emissions. However, I'm fully supportive of clean nuclear, hydroelectricity, wind power and solar facilities. It's not because there are some utterly idiotic people who can only whine about every single solution that you should automatically assume that everyone thinks the same -- that's foolish.
I'm afraid the problem is that everyone would prefer preventing those altogether. I don't think there are that many people actually caught while texting or talking on a phone while driving. It can be hard to notice, and what proof is there when you're done? It's not like there's a huge alcohol stink like when you're drunk, or that you can pass a test for it. Most people who get "caught" texting get caught by another car driving at 60kph into their side/front/rear. We need to prevent it altogether; reacting after the fact is too often too late.
I have to say I still don't grasp the whole point of texting while driving a car, though. It's not like whatever you're happening to say can't wait another five minutes for the closest coffee shop or McDonald's. The GP is correct; we need to educate the population. If people grasp they're acting like idiots, maybe they'll stop? We can only hope.
Isn't that symptomatic of how the "net culture" has changed, though? Back when Slashdot was new, being on the Internet was something few people did, even less so without inhibitions. It was the lair of tech and science geeks, and that was that. People would dig up interesting science/tech articles and then the comments would debate it over and over (with of course random quotes).
However, nowadays you can't help but notice the politicization of the Internet and, by extension, of all things related to computers and science. I'd argue the politics section you noted highlights that fact: politics now influence this community far more than it did before. There are now ideological debates, megacorporations to praise or decry, lawyers to monitor, laws to bash or applaud... Blogs, social networks, all have changed the face of the Internet and I only believe it normal that Slashdot changed to reflect that.
I honestly wouldn't mind seeing more science and tech articles and less law stuff, but at the same time I'm glad I have a good source from which to read the latest developments in copyright crap or ISP abuses... I guess. Bah, you see my point!
Difference being that this whole energy is applied to something with a mass in the order of 10^-27 kg and a radius of something around 10^-15 meters. Were you to apply this proportionally to a mass of one kilogram, you would have energies of 0.2 Gigajoules... Or, if all energy was kinetic, a speed of around 21,000 m/s.