Large portions of the low life expectancy part of America also take in close to 20% more federal funds than they put into the system. If you've ever stopped off at a gas station between New Orleans and Atlanta on I-10, you'd know how low the standard of living is there. We're talking large swaths of the states in that area with average incomes barely breaking the $20,000 mark. In defense of Texas, the portion they're talking about is between Beaumont and Texarkana, right on the border, bleeding into the Tyler/Longview area. Houston/Dallas/Austin have some of the highest standards of living (and lowest cost of living) in the country.
Yup, look at what happened to American Auto manufacturers in the 70's and 80's - near complete monopoly, 3 big players, quality went to shit and their competitors finally made inroads with quality products. Dunno how well this applies though, since new cars are ~$20,000 and new consoles are ~$150-300
I think that mostly has to do with the fact that a)Very little console competition (3 major players + two handheld units) and
b)huge sunk costs. your xbox goes belly up. do you a) buy all your games all over again for PS3/Wii? buy new drums/guitars for guitar hero/rock band etc? buy 3 new wireless controllers for the new console? or b) buy a new/used/refurb 360 and keep playing?
If you think about it, the average player probably has $300 in sunk costs in 360-specific accessories or games that they'd have to rebuy.
You need a new hobby. You managed to nail every Microsoft/Win 7 slashdot talking point in one post. What are the rest of us supposed to talk about now?
My favorite was the Seattle Metro used Cheers/Fraiser character names for all the servers currently residing in the same cubicle, near a major data trunk on the floor. Fraiser, Lilith, Sam and more.
Well, "nine page" in a newspaper is only - no wait, that is a pretty gianormous review. Good call on that. Although the NYT is doing a good job of establishing itself as the best source of original tech news and reporting. Keep an eye out, almost every day, every day the NYT has at least one article featured on slashdot's primary page. Expect more, in depth technology reviews (for the items that warrant it, at least). Beatles on Rock Band (or whatever the othe3r one is called) is a pretty big deal, culturally.
FYI, L4D is using the original HL2 engine. Not the Orange Box engine, or whatever they're working on now.
Err, what? [citation needed] - TF2 engine (also the engine running DoD:S) might not be identical to what's used in L4D, but I'm reasonably sure you're at least half wrong there; the HL2 engine is pretty old, ancient technology; the HL2:Episode 2 and Lost coast engines feature tons of new lighting, particle effects, etc, in addition to a completely rewritten facial animation system (also used in the TF2 engine). TF2 was almost scheduled to use the L4D engine (which loads almost instantly), but they want to keep DX8 compatibility for people still running Windows ME computers. So they're very similar, and IMO much more closely related than to the original HL2 engine (Source).
kick my ass in FPS since they were 11. And before any nanny lovers have a fit, I actually taught my boys the difference between reality and fantasy.
You don't even need to teach them that; they'll pick up on it on their own. Probably half the people on slashdot have been playing "violent" video games since they were 9, maybe earlier, and those people are well adjusted (at least as well adjusted as you can be, posting on slashdot) people in their 20's-mid-late-20s. Mortal Kombat came out what, in 1992? Yeah I guess church attendance is down but so is crime murder and violent crime in general. Anyone giving you BS for "exposing" your kids to mainstream media like quake or doom needs to get their head screwed on straight.
Texas doesn't have open carry laws, it actually has more restrictive gun laws in the us than many states; for example you need a handgun permit, people under 21 can't own handguns etc. They do allow concealed carry licences though. Most people I know (here in Texas) aren't aware you can apply (and most people who apply for receive) concealed carry licences. Anyways texas is a poor example at best to illustrate your point; texas has a relatively low population density, japan has one of the highest population densities(Tokyo being 10 times as large a city as the largest city in Texas (houston)), lending itself to more crime.
Maybe you could explain the legal grey area that guitar effects pedal clones work in then? This is exactly the same, kits exist, the only difference is that the analog output is 15 pin instead of 1/4" plug.
Construction's been pretty light lately and yeah you have to average 90+mph but its doable and I've done it before; its by no means impossible, but I wouldn't try it on a friday or sunday, or within 2 days before or after ACL or SXSW.
Perhaps, but the event is enough to draw more gamers who actually play games, than the entire town could muster, whether or not they actually play games. Maybe 30% of quakecon is actually playing a game made by iD at any one time, agreed, but there's far better towns in Texas (pick almost any town in Texas) that have a greater claim to gaming than somewhere in a flyover state.
There are 3,500 people playing video games in one room at quakecon right now. Could they have picked a worse inaugural weekend to do this? Anyone who's anyone in the videogame press is at Quakecon, home to iD software, the SMU Guildhall and countless other software houses. Not to mention 2 hours south is Austin, where at any one point there are probably 3,500 people playing halo in the dorms at UT. Good luck with that.
I'm not able to look at that board's specs right now, but most people I know skip the bargain bin motherboards and go for Asus brand (I prefer genuine intel myself) which are generally mid to high priced boards. Core2Duo boards of that caliber are still $100-120
If you really have to ask that question, you really shouldn't be posting on slashdot. But I'll humor you:)
TF2 has what's called windowed noborder mode which allow you to alt+tab between it and other apps with zero impact on gaming performance on modern computers. I play arena on tf2 (shamless plug steamcommunity.com/groups/lemuria) which has a lot of sit out time, similar to counterstrike. Its convenient to alt tab between tf2 and firefox. Also, with a 4 screen setup on a computer that is never turned off and has a 3+month avg uptime, there's no reason to ever close a window if you have an efficent windowing solution. The only time firefox crashes is usually a day or two after it automatically downloads and applies an update in the background and you decline to restart. So yeah, 200 pages, between forum threads, slashdot, guitar tabs and more isn't unreasonable. I guess you could call me a power user:) Now queue the posts telling me a more efficent way to do it that true power users use.
I have my sights set on the intel Q6600 (2.6(?)ghz quad core2)... as soon as the price dips below $175. It's been the same price since Dec 2007, but it overclocks to 3.4ghz on the stock cooler and dissipates only 95w, meaning it plugs into pretty much any C2Duo motherboard. For now though, my 2.4ghz core 2 duo is fast/powerful enough to do anything, including run folding@home while running TF2 + 20 windows of firefox with 5-10 tabs each.
It's worth pointing out that the Toyota Prius has been in the US market since at least 1999. It's now 2009. That's 10 years, and I still see a bunch of the first gen Priuses running around town. I don't know what condition the batteries are in, but the fact is they still work. And those are using decade-old battery technology.
In Washington State I think hydro is something like 40-70%. They export a lot of it to California. Sadly hydro is tapped out, but yeah, Washington, between nuclear and hydro is one of the greener states (depending on how you define nuclear).
Confirming what Dylan said - it's realtime in lowly Firefox 3.0.2 Ok, so the bottom half of the map was white for 5ms while it loaded the image, but that's the only weak link. Zooming in and out 5 steps in either direction continues to show instantanious use. This is on a 2.4ghz core 2 on XP SP3 with 2GB of ram (an "average" computer for the last two years)
Slashdot Mirror
Large portions of the low life expectancy part of America also take in close to 20% more federal funds than they put into the system. If you've ever stopped off at a gas station between New Orleans and Atlanta on I-10, you'd know how low the standard of living is there. We're talking large swaths of the states in that area with average incomes barely breaking the $20,000 mark. In defense of Texas, the portion they're talking about is between Beaumont and Texarkana, right on the border, bleeding into the Tyler/Longview area. Houston/Dallas/Austin have some of the highest standards of living (and lowest cost of living) in the country.
Yup, look at what happened to American Auto manufacturers in the 70's and 80's - near complete monopoly, 3 big players, quality went to shit and their competitors finally made inroads with quality products. Dunno how well this applies though, since new cars are ~$20,000 and new consoles are ~$150-300
I think that mostly has to do with the fact that
a)Very little console competition (3 major players + two handheld units) and
b)huge sunk costs. your xbox goes belly up. do you a) buy all your games all over again for PS3/Wii? buy new drums/guitars for guitar hero/rock band etc? buy 3 new wireless controllers for the new console? or b) buy a new/used/refurb 360 and keep playing?
If you think about it, the average player probably has $300 in sunk costs in 360-specific accessories or games that they'd have to rebuy.
I'm a little surprised to see that Cannonical isn't on this list. Redhat, sure, but Cannonical has a huge marketshare.
You need a new hobby. You managed to nail every Microsoft/Win 7 slashdot talking point in one post. What are the rest of us supposed to talk about now?
USA! USA!
I just use a ps2 emulator. on a modern computer most popular games run just fine
My favorite was the Seattle Metro used Cheers/Fraiser character names for all the servers currently residing in the same cubicle, near a major data trunk on the floor. Fraiser, Lilith, Sam and more.
Well, "nine page" in a newspaper is only - no wait, that is a pretty gianormous review. Good call on that. Although the NYT is doing a good job of establishing itself as the best source of original tech news and reporting. Keep an eye out, almost every day, every day the NYT has at least one article featured on slashdot's primary page. Expect more, in depth technology reviews (for the items that warrant it, at least). Beatles on Rock Band (or whatever the othe3r one is called) is a pretty big deal, culturally.
Err, what? [citation needed] - TF2 engine (also the engine running DoD:S) might not be identical to what's used in L4D, but I'm reasonably sure you're at least half wrong there; the HL2 engine is pretty old, ancient technology; the HL2:Episode 2 and Lost coast engines feature tons of new lighting, particle effects, etc, in addition to a completely rewritten facial animation system (also used in the TF2 engine). TF2 was almost scheduled to use the L4D engine (which loads almost instantly), but they want to keep DX8 compatibility for people still running Windows ME computers. So they're very similar, and IMO much more closely related than to the original HL2 engine (Source).
You don't even need to teach them that; they'll pick up on it on their own. Probably half the people on slashdot have been playing "violent" video games since they were 9, maybe earlier, and those people are well adjusted (at least as well adjusted as you can be, posting on slashdot) people in their 20's-mid-late-20s. Mortal Kombat came out what, in 1992? Yeah I guess church attendance is down but so is crime murder and violent crime in general. Anyone giving you BS for "exposing" your kids to mainstream media like quake or doom needs to get their head screwed on straight.
Texas doesn't have open carry laws, it actually has more restrictive gun laws in the us than many states; for example you need a handgun permit, people under 21 can't own handguns etc. They do allow concealed carry licences though. Most people I know (here in Texas) aren't aware you can apply (and most people who apply for receive) concealed carry licences. Anyways texas is a poor example at best to illustrate your point; texas has a relatively low population density, japan has one of the highest population densities(Tokyo being 10 times as large a city as the largest city in Texas (houston)), lending itself to more crime.
Maybe you could explain the legal grey area that guitar effects pedal clones work in then? This is exactly the same, kits exist, the only difference is that the analog output is 15 pin instead of 1/4" plug.
Construction's been pretty light lately and yeah you have to average 90+mph but its doable and I've done it before; its by no means impossible, but I wouldn't try it on a friday or sunday, or within 2 days before or after ACL or SXSW.
Perhaps, but the event is enough to draw more gamers who actually play games, than the entire town could muster, whether or not they actually play games. Maybe 30% of quakecon is actually playing a game made by iD at any one time, agreed, but there's far better towns in Texas (pick almost any town in Texas) that have a greater claim to gaming than somewhere in a flyover state.
There are 3,500 people playing video games in one room at quakecon right now. Could they have picked a worse inaugural weekend to do this? Anyone who's anyone in the videogame press is at Quakecon, home to iD software, the SMU Guildhall and countless other software houses. Not to mention 2 hours south is Austin, where at any one point there are probably 3,500 people playing halo in the dorms at UT. Good luck with that.
I'm not able to look at that board's specs right now, but most people I know skip the bargain bin motherboards and go for Asus brand (I prefer genuine intel myself) which are generally mid to high priced boards. Core2Duo boards of that caliber are still $100-120
If you really have to ask that question, you really shouldn't be posting on slashdot. But I'll humor you :)
TF2 has what's called windowed noborder mode which allow you to alt+tab between it and other apps with zero impact on gaming performance on modern computers. I play arena on tf2 (shamless plug steamcommunity.com/groups/lemuria) which has a lot of sit out time, similar to counterstrike. Its convenient to alt tab between tf2 and firefox. Also, with a 4 screen setup on a computer that is never turned off and has a 3+month avg uptime, there's no reason to ever close a window if you have an efficent windowing solution. The only time firefox crashes is usually a day or two after it automatically downloads and applies an update in the background and you decline to restart. So yeah, 200 pages, between forum threads, slashdot, guitar tabs and more isn't unreasonable. I guess you could call me a power user:) Now queue the posts telling me a more efficent way to do it that true power users use.
Yeah, but you have to pay the "i7 tax" for a new $220+ motherboard. Core2Duo/Quads will happily plug into any $50 motherboard you (already) have.
Does the q9550 do virtualization though? The q6600 does.
I have my sights set on the intel Q6600 (2.6(?)ghz quad core2)... as soon as the price dips below $175. It's been the same price since Dec 2007, but it overclocks to 3.4ghz on the stock cooler and dissipates only 95w, meaning it plugs into pretty much any C2Duo motherboard. For now though, my 2.4ghz core 2 duo is fast/powerful enough to do anything, including run folding@home while running TF2 + 20 windows of firefox with 5-10 tabs each.
It's worth pointing out that the Toyota Prius has been in the US market since at least 1999. It's now 2009. That's 10 years, and I still see a bunch of the first gen Priuses running around town. I don't know what condition the batteries are in, but the fact is they still work. And those are using decade-old battery technology.
In Washington State I think hydro is something like 40-70%. They export a lot of it to California. Sadly hydro is tapped out, but yeah, Washington, between nuclear and hydro is one of the greener states (depending on how you define nuclear).
Yeah I was going to say, this sounds like a job for a hex editor, 10 minutes, and a guy who understands basic x86 assembly code.
Confirming what Dylan said - it's realtime in lowly Firefox 3.0.2 Ok, so the bottom half of the map was white for 5ms while it loaded the image, but that's the only weak link. Zooming in and out 5 steps in either direction continues to show instantanious use. This is on a 2.4ghz core 2 on XP SP3 with 2GB of ram (an "average" computer for the last two years)