I don't think people in 1920 called the 1910's the 10s because it doesnt roll off the tongue as easily. The reason we call them the 90s, or the eighties or the roaring twenties is because it actually sounds nice.
No, but seriously, I don't farm them, I don't obsess, but I like seeing a sense of purpose when idling the time away in a game. It's nice to see "what left you have to accomplish". Although I despise when "accomplish" is equated to "spent days idling in a corner killing any random zombies the AI decided to throw my way to keep me on my toes". Screw that.
It's really rather simple in my opinion to educate an average person, though being a geek that opinion may be rather wrong, who knows.
Basically, if you're trying to make the computer faster, sometimes all it takes is a good reinstall of (usually) Windows. Usually, this means amongst family that I'm signing my own death warrant to somehow reinstall windows on a case that's been invaded by dust bunnies without spending hours just doing menial things like cleaning up everything or advocating replacements to every component because the power supply looks shot, the cd (yes, CD!) drive seems to be from the late 90s and the IDE cables make the mobo look like the gimp from pulp fiction. Sure, maybe I could get away with just a reinstall but I care too much about this shit, man! Plus, who knows if their house will catch on fire at some indeterminate point in the future and you'll be blamed for the dustbunny problem if you don't do something about it.
The key thing after installing windows is to go through the whole "STOP INSTALLING RANDOM SHIT" rant, hopefully with a nicer tone, and set them up with some free microsoft security essentials (I've felt like it has pretty low resource usage, am I crazy?). Everyone seems to want office, and then explain the wonders of VLC. iTunes is usually something worth explaining and installing, while I expect everyone will chime in saying how much of a bloated piece of crap it is, it is great for an average user. They probably already have it anyway.
After that, the next step would be to replace the hard drive with something faster, either pitching the old HDD or delegating it as a storage volume for things that aren't important. This would likely make the biggest impact on a system aside from a full overhaul. If you dont mind shelling out for an intel or indilinx SSD, then you wont regret it, it will change your computing experience.
Anyways, now to the on topic stuff. The main thing IMHO if someone wants a computer that's not already months (*GASP*) outdated is that dual core is the basic, quad is the middle and hexa now seems to be the upper end. If price is a concern, AMD should be the first stop. If max possible performance is necessary, obviously go with intel. I know I'm preaching to the choir here.
Most people with a few year old computers that weren't high end back then should just give up on the idea of keeping the motherboard. I know it varies, but usually you either have the ability to go with an older intel quad or you should just upgrade the mobo. If you don't have sata, you should upgrade the mobo.
The power supply should just be upgraded, period. Get rid of old ones whenever you feel like not losing the whole system because you felt like cheaping out, which should be always. Of course, I'm talking to somebody who probably has no idea why the power supply is important to be of good quality, if you bought a good one that you know was good when you bought it then maybe you can keep using it, who knows.
So then, the major difference between the dual and the quad would be if you plan on doing anything in the background while surfing the internet (the major activity of the average, non-techy person). Even then, a great dual will be a better value than a decent quad. The quad is for when you want to speed through something like photoshop or cad, but you likely know a lot more about computers if you're like that. I've known a lot of "average" people who use photoshop though, so it could be an OK investment. If you show them handbrake or anything that uses ffmpeg, and they seem interested, a quad should get more attention.
Obviously if you want to max out your gaming potential, a quad would be the minimum for that kind of mindset. Yet still, a great dual would likely beat out a decent quad. Even starcraft 2 only uses two cores I think, and that is arguably one of the pinnacles of PC gaming right now. Source games, another pinnacle, are optimized well enough that duals are enough. Games that run better on quads like GTA
Wait just a minute. Nokia is buying Motorola's wireless division? As in, they get control of all the droid handsets everyone's making a fuss about right now? Does Motorola still make the Razrs or some newer "best of class" feature phone like I think everyone raved about back in the day? Maybe I am just terribly bad about the sense of scale but 1.2 billion almost seems too low.
I wonder if Nokia is going to slowly work them into the symbian fold...after they make all their droid handsets self destruct?
While i like the idea, I worry that this won't amount to much more than graphics being changed to penises or copyrighted stuff like Mario or halo or something.
How hard is it to rewrite the code and wouldn't this just be the equivalent of passing on the brunt of the game development to someone else?
Oh don't get me wrong, I don't mind the content of the average video game one bit. I just dislike the stereotypes that the public applies to videogames because of the demographic that slurps up the average violent FPS and asks for more.
Movies find public approval over video games because for every exploitative film in a given year, there are just as many if not more artsy films and movies to satisy every type of moviegoer. Until videogames get an even distribution of exploitative or pandering games to the artsy and thought provoking ones, I worry they won't find overwhelming public approval.
One of the major hurdles gaming as an entertainment medium needs to overcome before it is taken as seriously as movies, theater and such by more than its major demographic is the pandering to the immature teenage obsession with sex and violence.
There are way too many games that advertise and pride themselves on the quality of their hitboxes (better headshots!), the intricacies of their scoring systems (show everyone how well you can twitch!) and their rewards for being skilled with violence (only ten more kills before I unlock the headraper 3000!). Even worse is when the amount of nudity or sex in a game is treated like some sort of sacred phenomenon like in God of War.
I wait patiently for more games like braid, heavy rain, the monkey islands remakes or portal, although they may not all have the most amazing stories, they push the capabilities of the medium or are rewarding because of the way they make you think, their humor or their beautiful art style.
(I got modded flamebait? It was a legitimate question!)
All the good old classics and the most popular games worked, and I was thankful, but I just remember noticing that there were a good chunk of games i was interested in at the time that were labeled unplayable on wine hq.
I was devastated at the time that I couldn't switch fully to linux yet because I was even remotely interested in games. Dual booting many times ended with tears for me (due to windows usually) so I've just been running my linux stuff in a VM since then.
TFS says dx9 is well supported and I was wondering if I could take that to mean that almost all games now work if they run in DX9.
Has this really gotten that much better for games since about a year ago when I last checked it? Back then it seemed like only the major stuff worked like counter strike, WoW and maybe every other source game was at least passable. I don't even know if TF2 worked that well when I checked it out.
I agree, I don't think the companies you mentioned would've done a damned thing. Maybe the tech support people were told not to offer the bumpers since they were going to give them for free anyway? That way they could have made more legitimate bumper sales to people who may not have realized they could come back to get a refund.
It's like somebody just used an iPhone or iPad browser and noticed that rubbing their palm across the screen didn't do anything different than swiping their finger.
Slowly but surely google continues to acquire startups and expand their business. Not that I mind it that much in Google's case but isn't this the type of thing that Microsoft or AT&T eventually got hammered for?
Legitimately wondering if Microsoft and AT&T did it much more dastardly or if there's no significant comparison whatsoever.
I seriously doubt they would have rigged the demo, it would be way too easy for users of those phones to show how it doesn't happen on those phones at the same place as an iphone 4.
The big problem with the iphone 4 is they showed exactly where you could destroy the signal. Every other phone obfuscates this.
He did spin it a little, but the statistics of the unhappiness of iphone 4 consumers was very telling. Nobody seems to care as much as the media would have you believe. Take from that what you will but as long as you don't strangely think he's just making up the statistics too, it sounds like yet another case of the vocal minority that is a given for any tech device.
That's all well and true but I believe the major point of the conference, that also happens to be a very good argument, is that there are so many improvements to the iphone formula since the 3GS and that the "major public backlash" that the media is portraying isn't reflected in the numbers. They even said if you don't prefer the way the new iphone does things, feel free to return it at no cost. They'll give you a free bumper if you like the phone other than the antenna bridging problem. Not only that, but the death grip as everyone loves to call it will destroy other popular phones just as easily.
They're making it painless for you to either accept that the bridging problem is there and deal with it (and get a complementary case to help) or you can wish you'd never have to deal with such crap and act as if you've never bought it. That sounds like a pretty good deal.
Would it really make it any better if they break out the phone and sit there with a knife showing how you can alter the signal while they are laughing at the bad hardware mistake? Would any company, anywhere with any product ever do something like that? I'm surprised they went as far as they did, showing the youtube video and even just admitting there is a problem.
You say damage control at minimum cost, but in my experience, they already have the best warranty I've ever personally experienced. With even seemingly minor problems in the past with macbooks and iphones and the like, they make you jump through a hoop or two but if you're even slightly determined, you can get a replacement with as little as two visits to the apple store at any time during the first year that you get a free year of applecare.
With as easy as it has been in the past for me to get replacements if I desired, expecting them to do a recall that amounts to "hey, everyone bring your phone back!" seems unnecessary. Let the hypochondriacs of the gadget world get their replacement as they always would have been able to, but let the people on the fence about it have a chance to realize it may not bother them. That seems best for everyone if you at least allow Apple a choice other than to just throw away much of the money they've recently earned creating a good smartphone by letting everyone who doesn't even have a problem get a new one "just because they told me I could".
I'm surprised that he didn't do something else like offer a gift card, but this seems reasonable. I'm sure anyone who's unhappy with the phone will be happy they don't get a restocking fee, and anyone who isn't crazily attached to using the phone naked will be happy with a free case.
Most of all, it was really nice to see them be upfront about it, and it sounds like they've been working pretty hard on it.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think people in 1920 called the 1910's the 10s because it doesnt roll off the tongue as easily. The reason we call them the 90s, or the eighties or the roaring twenties is because it actually sounds nice.
I like achievements.
BING! "You liked achievements." 100 GS
No, but seriously, I don't farm them, I don't obsess, but I like seeing a sense of purpose when idling the time away in a game. It's nice to see "what left you have to accomplish". Although I despise when "accomplish" is equated to "spent days idling in a corner killing any random zombies the AI decided to throw my way to keep me on my toes". Screw that.
It's really rather simple in my opinion to educate an average person, though being a geek that opinion may be rather wrong, who knows.
Basically, if you're trying to make the computer faster, sometimes all it takes is a good reinstall of (usually) Windows. Usually, this means amongst family that I'm signing my own death warrant to somehow reinstall windows on a case that's been invaded by dust bunnies without spending hours just doing menial things like cleaning up everything or advocating replacements to every component because the power supply looks shot, the cd (yes, CD!) drive seems to be from the late 90s and the IDE cables make the mobo look like the gimp from pulp fiction. Sure, maybe I could get away with just a reinstall but I care too much about this shit, man! Plus, who knows if their house will catch on fire at some indeterminate point in the future and you'll be blamed for the dustbunny problem if you don't do something about it.
The key thing after installing windows is to go through the whole "STOP INSTALLING RANDOM SHIT" rant, hopefully with a nicer tone, and set them up with some free microsoft security essentials (I've felt like it has pretty low resource usage, am I crazy?). Everyone seems to want office, and then explain the wonders of VLC. iTunes is usually something worth explaining and installing, while I expect everyone will chime in saying how much of a bloated piece of crap it is, it is great for an average user. They probably already have it anyway.
After that, the next step would be to replace the hard drive with something faster, either pitching the old HDD or delegating it as a storage volume for things that aren't important. This would likely make the biggest impact on a system aside from a full overhaul. If you dont mind shelling out for an intel or indilinx SSD, then you wont regret it, it will change your computing experience.
Anyways, now to the on topic stuff. The main thing IMHO if someone wants a computer that's not already months (*GASP*) outdated is that dual core is the basic, quad is the middle and hexa now seems to be the upper end. If price is a concern, AMD should be the first stop. If max possible performance is necessary, obviously go with intel. I know I'm preaching to the choir here. Most people with a few year old computers that weren't high end back then should just give up on the idea of keeping the motherboard. I know it varies, but usually you either have the ability to go with an older intel quad or you should just upgrade the mobo. If you don't have sata, you should upgrade the mobo.
The power supply should just be upgraded, period. Get rid of old ones whenever you feel like not losing the whole system because you felt like cheaping out, which should be always. Of course, I'm talking to somebody who probably has no idea why the power supply is important to be of good quality, if you bought a good one that you know was good when you bought it then maybe you can keep using it, who knows.
So then, the major difference between the dual and the quad would be if you plan on doing anything in the background while surfing the internet (the major activity of the average, non-techy person). Even then, a great dual will be a better value than a decent quad. The quad is for when you want to speed through something like photoshop or cad, but you likely know a lot more about computers if you're like that. I've known a lot of "average" people who use photoshop though, so it could be an OK investment. If you show them handbrake or anything that uses ffmpeg, and they seem interested, a quad should get more attention.
Obviously if you want to max out your gaming potential, a quad would be the minimum for that kind of mindset. Yet still, a great dual would likely beat out a decent quad. Even starcraft 2 only uses two cores I think, and that is arguably one of the pinnacles of PC gaming right now. Source games, another pinnacle, are optimized well enough that duals are enough. Games that run better on quads like GTA
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarifications, guys.
Wait just a minute. Nokia is buying Motorola's wireless division? As in, they get control of all the droid handsets everyone's making a fuss about right now? Does Motorola still make the Razrs or some newer "best of class" feature phone like I think everyone raved about back in the day? Maybe I am just terribly bad about the sense of scale but 1.2 billion almost seems too low.
I wonder if Nokia is going to slowly work them into the symbian fold...after they make all their droid handsets self destruct?
I'd hate to be an imprisoned Russian spy right about now.
I can see it now, the horror story of the future. A killer challenges you to a co-op game of Starcraft 3 and after you pwn some nubs, you high five!
"Wait, what is this, why did you have a band aid in your hand?" *passes out*
"The pwning has just begun, Billy Lumpkins. I'll teach you to troll the warlock forum."
While i like the idea, I worry that this won't amount to much more than graphics being changed to penises or copyrighted stuff like Mario or halo or something.
How hard is it to rewrite the code and wouldn't this just be the equivalent of passing on the brunt of the game development to someone else?
Oh don't get me wrong, I don't mind the content of the average video game one bit. I just dislike the stereotypes that the public applies to videogames because of the demographic that slurps up the average violent FPS and asks for more.
Movies find public approval over video games because for every exploitative film in a given year, there are just as many if not more artsy films and movies to satisy every type of moviegoer. Until videogames get an even distribution of exploitative or pandering games to the artsy and thought provoking ones, I worry they won't find overwhelming public approval.
So, uh, what happens when the thermosphere contracts too much? The ISS goes *crunch*?
One of the major hurdles gaming as an entertainment medium needs to overcome before it is taken as seriously as movies, theater and such by more than its major demographic is the pandering to the immature teenage obsession with sex and violence.
There are way too many games that advertise and pride themselves on the quality of their hitboxes (better headshots!), the intricacies of their scoring systems (show everyone how well you can twitch!) and their rewards for being skilled with violence (only ten more kills before I unlock the headraper 3000!). Even worse is when the amount of nudity or sex in a game is treated like some sort of sacred phenomenon like in God of War.
I wait patiently for more games like braid, heavy rain, the monkey islands remakes or portal, although they may not all have the most amazing stories, they push the capabilities of the medium or are rewarding because of the way they make you think, their humor or their beautiful art style.
This is really sad, I always liked turtles. And frogs.
We may soon see a rash of BP stations being razed with the only clue being some discarded pizza boxes.
thats....awesome! Exactly what I was hoping for, sounds like it really HAS changed from when I was using it.
Is it like this now for many of the more recent games or is it kinda spotty?
(I got modded flamebait? It was a legitimate question!)
All the good old classics and the most popular games worked, and I was thankful, but I just remember noticing that there were a good chunk of games i was interested in at the time that were labeled unplayable on wine hq.
I was devastated at the time that I couldn't switch fully to linux yet because I was even remotely interested in games. Dual booting many times ended with tears for me (due to windows usually) so I've just been running my linux stuff in a VM since then.
TFS says dx9 is well supported and I was wondering if I could take that to mean that almost all games now work if they run in DX9.
Has this really gotten that much better for games since about a year ago when I last checked it? Back then it seemed like only the major stuff worked like counter strike, WoW and maybe every other source game was at least passable. I don't even know if TF2 worked that well when I checked it out.
I agree, I don't think the companies you mentioned would've done a damned thing. Maybe the tech support people were told not to offer the bumpers since they were going to give them for free anyway? That way they could have made more legitimate bumper sales to people who may not have realized they could come back to get a refund.
It's like somebody just used an iPhone or iPad browser and noticed that rubbing their palm across the screen didn't do anything different than swiping their finger.
Just because there's nobody in the cockpit doesn't mean there isn't somebody wanking a joystick with malicious intent somewhere.
Slowly but surely google continues to acquire startups and expand their business. Not that I mind it that much in Google's case but isn't this the type of thing that Microsoft or AT&T eventually got hammered for?
Legitimately wondering if Microsoft and AT&T did it much more dastardly or if there's no significant comparison whatsoever.
that are used to check passwords and user names when people log into websites such as Twitter and Digg.
You forgot slashdot.
I seriously doubt they would have rigged the demo, it would be way too easy for users of those phones to show how it doesn't happen on those phones at the same place as an iphone 4.
The big problem with the iphone 4 is they showed exactly where you could destroy the signal. Every other phone obfuscates this.
He did spin it a little, but the statistics of the unhappiness of iphone 4 consumers was very telling. Nobody seems to care as much as the media would have you believe. Take from that what you will but as long as you don't strangely think he's just making up the statistics too, it sounds like yet another case of the vocal minority that is a given for any tech device.
Does this have anything to do with the filesharing websites they were messing with recently?
That's all well and true but I believe the major point of the conference, that also happens to be a very good argument, is that there are so many improvements to the iphone formula since the 3GS and that the "major public backlash" that the media is portraying isn't reflected in the numbers. They even said if you don't prefer the way the new iphone does things, feel free to return it at no cost. They'll give you a free bumper if you like the phone other than the antenna bridging problem. Not only that, but the death grip as everyone loves to call it will destroy other popular phones just as easily.
They're making it painless for you to either accept that the bridging problem is there and deal with it (and get a complementary case to help) or you can wish you'd never have to deal with such crap and act as if you've never bought it. That sounds like a pretty good deal.
Would it really make it any better if they break out the phone and sit there with a knife showing how you can alter the signal while they are laughing at the bad hardware mistake? Would any company, anywhere with any product ever do something like that? I'm surprised they went as far as they did, showing the youtube video and even just admitting there is a problem.
You say damage control at minimum cost, but in my experience, they already have the best warranty I've ever personally experienced. With even seemingly minor problems in the past with macbooks and iphones and the like, they make you jump through a hoop or two but if you're even slightly determined, you can get a replacement with as little as two visits to the apple store at any time during the first year that you get a free year of applecare.
With as easy as it has been in the past for me to get replacements if I desired, expecting them to do a recall that amounts to "hey, everyone bring your phone back!" seems unnecessary. Let the hypochondriacs of the gadget world get their replacement as they always would have been able to, but let the people on the fence about it have a chance to realize it may not bother them. That seems best for everyone if you at least allow Apple a choice other than to just throw away much of the money they've recently earned creating a good smartphone by letting everyone who doesn't even have a problem get a new one "just because they told me I could".
I'm surprised that he didn't do something else like offer a gift card, but this seems reasonable. I'm sure anyone who's unhappy with the phone will be happy they don't get a restocking fee, and anyone who isn't crazily attached to using the phone naked will be happy with a free case.
Most of all, it was really nice to see them be upfront about it, and it sounds like they've been working pretty hard on it.
Any reason I should think otherwise?