Well, first of all, the joke goes that they gave the gun to some other organization to use it. Secondly, that is almost certainly a false anecdote, or a severe mangling of what actually happened.
Don't believe everything you read, especially when it arrives on a humor mailinglist.
Speaking of crash tests and the Airforce, near where I live there was once an Airforce facility that, among other things, did tests on plane windshields. They needed to find out whether the windshields could withstand hitting a bird in mid-air. So they built a gun. A rather large gun. It shot CHICKENS. The found that a dead chicken flies a lot different from a live one, and that in order to get accurate results, they had to shoot live chickens. Yes, the Airforce built and used a gun that shot live chickens at hundreds of miles per hour at airplane windshields.
I would have hated to have been the one that had to clean up *that* lab.
Hmm... Looking at these pictures reminds me of something...
Aah, yes! How many of you have or are taking Acutane (it's an acne medication)? Inside the packages are strong warnings to women NOT to take it while they are pregnant because of the risk of severe congenital birth defects. It even has some pictures of what the baby might look like. The pictures are INCREDIBLY similar to the skull shown in those pictures. Oversized skull with all the facial features pinched down and in the middle.
I for one think these people are a bit more objective in their analysis than many alien fanatics, but I don't think that there is much of any chance that this has anything to do with aliens.
And if there is an area where barren women suddenly have wacky children that die young, it seems to me that it is far more likely that there is a recessive trait that manifests itself as such conception problems and birth defects. They say the skull has problems that would interfere with normal life. Looks like it *did*.
Hate to break your roll, but an upside down 2 is still a 2. An I've never heard of area 21, nor are we on 2.3.21, so... then again, we might have been at some point, although would we have been on 2.2.13 then?
Well, think about this. Jumping spiders which (legs included) are about a centimeter across can have their jumps significantly extended by small air currents and breezes (I've seen it. When my house was new it was full of 'em!). So what matters more than size is density. A small pebble won't get blown in the wind easily, but wipsy seeds that are over an inch in diameter can seemingly float on the tiniest breezes. And then there's areogels (foamy gels which are lighter than air), which are a whole different matter.
I don't know the details, but this sounds BLATANTLY unconstitutional. The constitution EXPLICITLY forbids states, cities, etc (basically anyone besides the federal governemnt) from collecting interstate tariffs, taxes, etc.
Or am I confused and is this Tuscon city you speak of not in the USA?
Hmm... ERD... make erd... "Sorry, disk full" putter around... hmmm... registry too big to fit, even compressed, onto a floppy... putter around some more make list of files that get put on erd... winzip... zip disk... swear at microsoft and install linux!
My mother was in a similar situation. She had a regular old push-the-key-down-a-long-ways key board, but because she doesn't have large hands, the micros~1 rounded mice were what gave her CTS. The big bulge ended up resting not in her palm, but below it. She has not had surgery to the best of my knowledge, but what she did to aleviate it, in addition to wearing a brace for a while, was to replace the mouse with a touchpad.
Yes, the touchpad does take a little while to get used to (I ended up getting one too), I actually found it a better pointing device, in addition to being more comfortable.
Imagine this. Just flop your hand in a relaxed position on the desk. If you're at all like me, your hand is slightly bulged, and there's a bit of an open space between your index finger and thumb. The pad is there, just move your index finger around. To click, tap your index finger, or you can use the buttons, which just so happen to be right underneath your thumb and pinky. And your ring finger is over on the edge, which acts as a scroll wheel (actually, all 4 edges act as different scroll wheels).
Some of the scroll features are exclusive to the Cirque pads, but the general feel is common to all good trackpads. I paid $40 for my touchpad, which is a bit more than most mice, but you don't have to go through the yucky cleaning like a mouse (just wipe it off with a tissue), and the thing takes much less desk space, and is more durable. Also, I can pick it up and put it on my lap or whatever and not worry about having the ball roll on the pad.
Makes your system run like taffy? McAfee didn't slow my 486/66 down one bit (that was as of a year ago when I got a much better computer)
Restricting Moderation Too Much
on
Moderation Ideas
·
· Score: 4
I think that it is a bad idea to restrict moderation excessively. When I have moderator access, I change my prefs to browse at low scores, and look for new comments (i.e. ones that probably haven't haven't been moderated yet). That way comments that deserve to be moderated up get there. Comments that are at 3 or 4 don't need that much help.
However, once I'm done moderating, I switch the preferences back to a more filtered view, and go back and re-read the articles looking for the content, as usual.
I think it is *essential* that moderators be allowed to pick which comments they moderate during the 3 days they have their points. Giving moderator access more or less frequently based on karma is a perfectly good idea, and could achieve some of the same effect.
Finally, I would like to just throw a reality check out there. Slashdot should be good, but there is *no* way to weed out all the a-holes, flamers, trolls, etc. Slashdot already does a very good job of tagging their comments so that people like me who don't generally want to see them don't have to. I think that, at this point, the moderation system is sufficiently effective, and time would be better spent squashing some of those SQL problems, and implementing some of the great ideas for additional forms of content that could be added.
I suppose that that's correct, but the essential argument that is hiding in the over-complicated bunch of mumbo jumbo I wrote is that all the human body can do is 'burn fuel' to convert some substance(s) into a more usable form of energy, and they are a very inefficient method of doing that.
I hate to point out the obvious, but the supposition that the robots in The Matrix use the people as energy generators is almost pure bullshit. Here's why:
1) Conservation of energy. Nobody's going to argue that with me. 2) The purpose of a generator is to convert fuel that is hard to use into some energy form that is easier to use. 3) Humans require, in addition to the small amounts of vitamins, sizeable amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. 4) All food sources for life on earth, especially mamalian life like humans, depends on *SUNLIGHT* at the beginning of the food chain. Plants need it. Herbivorous animals need it. Carnivores need the herbivores. Omnivores like people need the carnivores, herbivores, and plants. 5) Thus, to feed the humans, the robots would have to *SYNTHESIZE* the food. 6) Can you say 'Monstrous Waste Of Energy!"? 7) Now, The Matrix implied that what the robots actually 'harvested' was the heat generated by a human body. 8) Again, a great loss of energy in trying to trap the small amount of excess heat produced by a human body. By controlling the environment (chilling it), they could get the people to produce more heat, but then they would have to expend energy to do the cooling, and the humans would require more food to produce the heat.
The bottom line is that it just plain doesn't work. The human body is an incredibly inefficient way of burning fuel.
The Matrix was a great movie, but this piece of it was a total crock of shit.
As other people have pointed out, if this guy can raise $700,000 from private investors for something this ludicrous, he can't be that stupid. So that rules out the possiblity that he is a childish little brat that doesn't get it that he can't get the jet. The other possiblity is that he knew all along (or at least pretty much all along) that you couldn't get the jet, and that it was just a joke.
In that case, the whole thing is basically a scam. What do you think he has done with that 700 grand? There's a good possibility that he is making a pretty penny off the interest. As far as him suing Pepsi, he's trying to make a point and/or an ass of himself. I think he made his point when he filed the lawsuit in the first place. I doubt Pepsi or Marlboro or any other company that does the points thing will make such a mistake again. The only reason for continuing the suit is to try and make some more money by making an ass out of yourself.
I'll bet you that when he went to those investors, he didn't say "I'm gonna make a 100 to 1 profit on this by selling the jet and you'll be even richer than you already are!" He probably went to them and said something along the lines of, "We can sue Pepsi for lots of money for this, so I need you to at least pretend to pony up that 700 grand, and to pay my legal fees, and we'll split the settlement and all be even richer, and who cares if we make ourselves look like noxious smelling assholes in the process!"
Making a living by suing other people is one of the most unrespectable employments possible. More so if you're filing ludicrous lawsuits, and even more so if you're not a friggin' lawyer.
The posix subsystem is separate from the win32 subsystem. That means that you can't make any calls to the win32 API if your program uses the posix subsystem! No graphics, none of the standard windows tools. As such the POSIX subsystem is almost entirely useless, and the only place I have seen it used is in the latest 'get administrator privs' crack.
I admit that I didn't read the article in depth, but from what I gathered skimming over it, this sounds like someone has just gotten a bunch of big computers to do what, up until now, has been primarily done by hackers. Granted, finding a way to have a computer do the necessary complex pattern recognition that was previously the domain of hackers is a big and important step in many directions, not the least of which is virus protection, but when it comes down to it, this is the automation of a long standing technique, not a new technique.
The pattern recognition skills, however, have near infinite applications. A system that can detect when a virus has deployed itself, and find the code that is responsible, could serve many purposes. For example, it could help find very deeply buried bugs in program. If the system is capable of finding some idea of how one prevents or cleans the virus, then it would be even more useful. Imagine a compiler/debugger suite that not only told you where your code had problems, but even told you what you probably had to do to fix it!
The next, and truly awesome step would be one that can figure enough out that it can fix the code for you! That would rock! Imagine, the debug button on your ide would no longer launch a program to step through code. It would actually debug the software! Now that would be (c/dr)ool.
Some security paranoids try and have every password different. Others make all their passwords the same. Both end up causing problems. I use a compromise. I have three passwords.
One is a 'high-security' password that I only use in trusted, secure situations. My root password falls into this category. This password NEVER goes over any clear channel, nor is it typed in when anyone is possibly watching.
The next level of password is the medium security password. This is for systems where I care about security, but compromising it wouldn't cause serious problems, the person would just be able to read some personal documents, and perhaps impersonate me.
The final password is the I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass-about-security password. This is for things like slashdot, NYT, and other web services. These are ones where I (or someone else) wants some kind of security, but I don't particularly care if it gets compromised, as the person couldn't do much with it (Oh no, they impersonated me while reading the NYT!).
Each password gets changed with a frequency tied to how important it is. For example, root gets changed every month or so. My regular login gets changed every few months, and I haven't changed the who gives a shit password in over a year.
The upshot is that I never forget my passwords, and I haven't had to ask a sysadmin to change one in years. And none of my accounts have been compromised (yet).
A parallel question, does anyone have any idea when we're going to see 2.2.11? 2.2.11-pre1 is on the kernel mirrors, but I'm not keen on running a devel kernel on my system...
I'd like to second this oppinion. I was kinda surprised to see gis4 announced, when I wasn't aware of gis3 ever being released. Of course, figuring out where the mp3 is saved on theysync's servers is easy, but still...
That is exactly the kind of intelligent response to Reno and the anti-crypto people that I was talking about. I wasn't talking about spys and whatnot, I was talking about making a simple, coherent argument that almost anyone can understand.
I think you people are overreacting a bit here. Janet Reno never says that she wants to encourage the banning of all encryption software. What she is requesting is cooperation in enforcing the rules of the Wassenar Agreement on electronically distributed software, as well as software sold in stores, etc. She is not saying that they should ban all distribution of encryption (although she might like that, it is not what she says).
Granted, I am as against restrictions against cryptography as anyone, but if we go on a holy war of flammage on this one, we are going to look like illiterate morons. Reno is advocating that no exception to the export regulations be made for public domain and/or electronically distributed software.
If we are going to make strong encryption easily availible to everyone, we need to fight the battle as intelligent people, not as a bunch of cultish raving lunatics.
I have a set of Wordstar disks for the ancient Northstar Advantage (Z80 based system) in my attic. No idea what version of WordStar, but the NorthStar definitely runs CP/M. I even have the CP/M manual that came with the machine!
From what I have heard, under certain circumstances, it is not uncommon for a company to use one compiler for development and another one to produce production builds (internal releases, betas, final releases, etc.). You pick the compiler that gives you the fastest compilation time for development and the one that produces the smallest, fastest code for the final thing. Of course, in this day of wholly incompatible compilers and ultrafast desktop machines, this isn't so common any more, since you would spend more time making the code compile on two compilers (at least as far as windows is concerned) than you would save.
some semi-pointless info WinBond is now owned by American Megatrends, makers of AMIBIOS among other things. As someone else pointed out, they make a LOT of other things besides monitoring chips. Just about any type of important chip inside a pc has a version of it made by winbond I think. From IDE controllers to temperature monitors, winbond makes it, I think.
OK, consider these numbers: The human eye percieves smooth motion at about 20 frames per second. TV (in the US at least) is broadcast at 24 fps, and movies are usually at 30 fps. At low resolutions used for games (640x480, 800x600), many graphics cards can supply the monitor with a vertical refresh rate of 85 Hz, but at high resolutions, all but the most expensive cards (things like cards designed for CAD, such as the FireGL cards) drop off in maximum vertical refresh rate. I don't know about you, but I found 1024x768 to be a much more desirable resolution for playing quake. So, what use is it if the Athlon can push out frames faster than your monitor can display them??? Granted, there are other areas where fast 3D performance is a big plus (rendering movies, etc.), but for games, 70fps is absolutely pointless.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, first of all, the joke goes that they gave the gun to some other organization to use it. Secondly, that is almost certainly a false anecdote, or a severe mangling of what actually happened.
Don't believe everything you read, especially when it arrives on a humor mailinglist.
Speaking of crash tests and the Airforce, near where I live there was once an Airforce facility that, among other things, did tests on plane windshields. They needed to find out whether the windshields could withstand hitting a bird in mid-air. So they built a gun. A rather large gun. It shot CHICKENS. The found that a dead chicken flies a lot different from a live one, and that in order to get accurate results, they had to shoot live chickens. Yes, the Airforce built and used a gun that shot live chickens at hundreds of miles per hour at airplane windshields.
I would have hated to have been the one that had to clean up *that* lab.
Hmm... Looking at these pictures reminds me of something...
Aah, yes! How many of you have or are taking Acutane (it's an acne medication)? Inside the packages are strong warnings to women NOT to take it while they are pregnant because of the risk of severe congenital birth defects. It even has some pictures of what the baby might look like. The pictures are INCREDIBLY similar to the skull shown in those pictures. Oversized skull with all the facial features pinched down and in the middle.
I for one think these people are a bit more objective in their analysis than many alien fanatics, but I don't think that there is much of any chance that this has anything to do with aliens.
And if there is an area where barren women suddenly have wacky children that die young, it seems to me that it is far more likely that there is a recessive trait that manifests itself as such conception problems and birth defects. They say the skull has problems that would interfere with normal life. Looks like it *did*.
Hate to break your roll, but an upside down 2 is still a 2. An I've never heard of area 21, nor are we on 2.3.21, so...
then again, we might have been at some point, although would we have been on 2.2.13 then?
My god this is pointless...
Well, think about this. Jumping spiders which (legs included) are about a centimeter across can have their jumps significantly extended by small air currents and breezes (I've seen it. When my house was new it was full of 'em!). So what matters more than size is density. A small pebble won't get blown in the wind easily, but wipsy seeds that are over an inch in diameter can seemingly float on the tiniest breezes. And then there's areogels (foamy gels which are lighter than air), which are a whole different matter.
I don't know the details, but this sounds BLATANTLY unconstitutional. The constitution EXPLICITLY forbids states, cities, etc (basically anyone besides the federal governemnt) from collecting interstate tariffs, taxes, etc.
Or am I confused and is this Tuscon city you speak of not in the USA?
Hmm... ERD...
make erd...
"Sorry, disk full"
putter around...
hmmm... registry too big to fit, even compressed, onto a floppy...
putter around some more
make list of files that get put on erd...
winzip...
zip disk...
swear at microsoft and install linux!
My mother was in a similar situation. She had a regular old push-the-key-down-a-long-ways key board, but because she doesn't have large hands, the micros~1 rounded mice were what gave her CTS. The big bulge ended up resting not in her palm, but below it. She has not had surgery to the best of my knowledge, but what she did to aleviate it, in addition to wearing a brace for a while, was to replace the mouse with a touchpad.
Yes, the touchpad does take a little while to get used to (I ended up getting one too), I actually found it a better pointing device, in addition to being more comfortable.
Imagine this. Just flop your hand in a relaxed position on the desk. If you're at all like me, your hand is slightly bulged, and there's a bit of an open space between your index finger and thumb. The pad is there, just move your index finger around. To click, tap your index finger, or you can use the buttons, which just so happen to be right underneath your thumb and pinky. And your ring finger is over on the edge, which acts as a scroll wheel (actually, all 4 edges act as different scroll wheels).
Some of the scroll features are exclusive to the Cirque pads, but the general feel is common to all good trackpads. I paid $40 for my touchpad, which is a bit more than most mice, but you don't have to go through the yucky cleaning like a mouse (just wipe it off with a tissue), and the thing takes much less desk space, and is more durable. Also, I can pick it up and put it on my lap or whatever and not worry about having the ball roll on the pad.
Makes your system run like taffy? McAfee didn't slow my 486/66 down one bit (that was as of a year ago when I got a much better computer)
I think that it is a bad idea to restrict moderation excessively. When I have moderator access, I change my prefs to browse at low scores, and look for new comments (i.e. ones that probably haven't haven't been moderated yet). That way comments that deserve to be moderated up get there. Comments that are at 3 or 4 don't need that much help.
However, once I'm done moderating, I switch the preferences back to a more filtered view, and go back and re-read the articles looking for the content, as usual.
I think it is *essential* that moderators be allowed to pick which comments they moderate during the 3 days they have their points. Giving moderator access more or less frequently based on karma is a perfectly good idea, and could achieve some of the same effect.
Finally, I would like to just throw a reality check out there. Slashdot should be good, but there is *no* way to weed out all the a-holes, flamers, trolls, etc. Slashdot already does a very good job of tagging their comments so that people like me who don't generally want to see them don't have to. I think that, at this point, the moderation system is sufficiently effective, and time would be better spent squashing some of those SQL problems, and implementing some of the great ideas for additional forms of content that could be added.
I suppose that that's correct, but the essential argument that is hiding in the over-complicated bunch of mumbo jumbo I wrote is that all the human body can do is 'burn fuel' to convert some substance(s) into a more usable form of energy, and they are a very inefficient method of doing that.
I hate to point out the obvious, but the supposition that the robots in The Matrix use the people as energy generators is almost pure bullshit. Here's why:
1) Conservation of energy. Nobody's going to argue that with me.
2) The purpose of a generator is to convert fuel that is hard to use into some energy form that is easier to use.
3) Humans require, in addition to the small amounts of vitamins, sizeable amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.
4) All food sources for life on earth, especially mamalian life like humans, depends on *SUNLIGHT* at the beginning of the food chain. Plants need it. Herbivorous animals need it. Carnivores need the herbivores. Omnivores like people need the carnivores, herbivores, and plants.
5) Thus, to feed the humans, the robots would have to *SYNTHESIZE* the food.
6) Can you say 'Monstrous Waste Of Energy!"?
7) Now, The Matrix implied that what the robots actually 'harvested' was the heat generated by a human body.
8) Again, a great loss of energy in trying to trap the small amount of excess heat produced by a human body. By controlling the environment (chilling it), they could get the people to produce more heat, but then they would have to expend energy to do the cooling, and the humans would require more food to produce the heat.
The bottom line is that it just plain doesn't work. The human body is an incredibly inefficient way of burning fuel.
The Matrix was a great movie, but this piece of it was a total crock of shit.
As other people have pointed out, if this guy can raise $700,000 from private investors for something this ludicrous, he can't be that stupid. So that rules out the possiblity that he is a childish little brat that doesn't get it that he can't get the jet. The other possiblity is that he knew all along (or at least pretty much all along) that you couldn't get the jet, and that it was just a joke.
In that case, the whole thing is basically a scam. What do you think he has done with that 700 grand? There's a good possibility that he is making a pretty penny off the interest. As far as him suing Pepsi, he's trying to make a point and/or an ass of himself. I think he made his point when he filed the lawsuit in the first place. I doubt Pepsi or Marlboro or any other company that does the points thing will make such a mistake again. The only reason for continuing the suit is to try and make some more money by making an ass out of yourself.
I'll bet you that when he went to those investors, he didn't say "I'm gonna make a 100 to 1 profit on this by selling the jet and you'll be even richer than you already are!" He probably went to them and said something along the lines of, "We can sue Pepsi for lots of money for this, so I need you to at least pretend to pony up that 700 grand, and to pay my legal fees, and we'll split the settlement and all be even richer, and who cares if we make ourselves look like noxious smelling assholes in the process!"
Making a living by suing other people is one of the most unrespectable employments possible. More so if you're filing ludicrous lawsuits, and even more so if you're not a friggin' lawyer.
Yes, there is POSIX support in NT. HOWEVER...
The posix subsystem is separate from the win32 subsystem. That means that you can't make any calls to the win32 API if your program uses the posix subsystem! No graphics, none of the standard windows tools. As such the POSIX subsystem is almost entirely useless, and the only place I have seen it used is in the latest 'get administrator privs' crack.
I admit that I didn't read the article in depth, but from what I gathered skimming over it, this sounds like someone has just gotten a bunch of big computers to do what, up until now, has been primarily done by hackers. Granted, finding a way to have a computer do the necessary complex pattern recognition that was previously the domain of hackers is a big and important step in many directions, not the least of which is virus protection, but when it comes down to it, this is the automation of a long standing technique, not a new technique.
The pattern recognition skills, however, have near infinite applications. A system that can detect when a virus has deployed itself, and find the code that is responsible, could serve many purposes. For example, it could help find very deeply buried bugs in program. If the system is capable of finding some idea of how one prevents or cleans the virus, then it would be even more useful. Imagine a compiler/debugger suite that not only told you where your code had problems, but even told you what you probably had to do to fix it!
The next, and truly awesome step would be one that can figure enough out that it can fix the code for you! That would rock! Imagine, the debug button on your ide would no longer launch a program to step through code. It would actually debug the software! Now that would be (c/dr)ool.
Some security paranoids try and have every password different. Others make all their passwords the same. Both end up causing problems. I use a compromise. I have three passwords.
One is a 'high-security' password that I only use in trusted, secure situations. My root password falls into this category. This password NEVER goes over any clear channel, nor is it typed in when anyone is possibly watching.
The next level of password is the medium security password. This is for systems where I care about security, but compromising it wouldn't cause serious problems, the person would just be able to read some personal documents, and perhaps impersonate me.
The final password is the I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass-about-security password. This is for things like slashdot, NYT, and other web services. These are ones where I (or someone else) wants some kind of security, but I don't particularly care if it gets compromised, as the person couldn't do much with it (Oh no, they impersonated me while reading the NYT!).
Each password gets changed with a frequency tied to how important it is. For example, root gets changed every month or so. My regular login gets changed every few months, and I haven't changed the who gives a shit password in over a year.
The upshot is that I never forget my passwords, and I haven't had to ask a sysadmin to change one in years. And none of my accounts have been compromised (yet).
A parallel question, does anyone have any idea when we're going to see 2.2.11? 2.2.11-pre1 is on the kernel mirrors, but I'm not keen on running a devel kernel on my system...
I'd like to second this oppinion. I was kinda surprised to see gis4 announced, when I wasn't aware of gis3 ever being released. Of course, figuring out where the mp3 is saved on theysync's servers is easy, but still...
And what's more, the javascript error message is:
Windows is not defined
HA HA HA HA!
That is exactly the kind of intelligent response to Reno and the anti-crypto people that I was talking about. I wasn't talking about spys and whatnot, I was talking about making a simple, coherent argument that almost anyone can understand.
I think you people are overreacting a bit here. Janet Reno never says that she wants to encourage the banning of all encryption software. What she is requesting is cooperation in enforcing the rules of the Wassenar Agreement on electronically distributed software, as well as software sold in stores, etc. She is not saying that they should ban all distribution of encryption (although she might like that, it is not what she says).
Granted, I am as against restrictions against cryptography as anyone, but if we go on a holy war of flammage on this one, we are going to look like illiterate morons. Reno is advocating that no exception to the export regulations be made for public domain and/or electronically distributed software.
If we are going to make strong encryption easily availible to everyone, we need to fight the battle as intelligent people, not as a bunch of cultish raving lunatics.
I have a set of Wordstar disks for the ancient Northstar Advantage (Z80 based system) in my attic. No idea what version of WordStar, but the NorthStar definitely runs CP/M. I even have the CP/M manual that came with the machine!
From what I have heard, under certain circumstances, it is not uncommon for a company to use one compiler for development and another one to produce production builds (internal releases, betas, final releases, etc.). You pick the compiler that gives you the fastest compilation time for development and the one that produces the smallest, fastest code for the final thing. Of course, in this day of wholly incompatible compilers and ultrafast desktop machines, this isn't so common any more, since you would spend more time making the code compile on two compilers (at least as far as windows is concerned) than you would save.
some semi-pointless info
WinBond is now owned by American Megatrends, makers of AMIBIOS among other things.
As someone else pointed out, they make a LOT of other things besides monitoring chips. Just about any type of important chip inside a pc has a version of it made by winbond I think. From IDE controllers to temperature monitors, winbond makes it, I think.
OK, consider these numbers:
The human eye percieves smooth motion at about 20 frames per second. TV (in the US at least) is broadcast at 24 fps, and movies are usually at 30 fps. At low resolutions used for games (640x480, 800x600), many graphics cards can supply the monitor with a vertical refresh rate of 85 Hz, but at high resolutions, all but the most expensive cards (things like cards designed for CAD, such as the FireGL cards) drop off in maximum vertical refresh rate. I don't know about you, but I found 1024x768 to be a much more desirable resolution for playing quake. So, what use is it if the Athlon can push out frames faster than your monitor can display them??? Granted, there are other areas where fast 3D performance is a big plus (rendering movies, etc.), but for games, 70fps is absolutely pointless.