Net neutrality. The idea that all content is created (and thusly allowed to traverse the internet) equally. Ok, so I have a couple questions really.
The first, what happens if encryption makes it impossible to really tell what anything is? How does a non-net-neutral ISP then determine tiered prices for the content? Does encryption effectively enforce Net Neutrality?
And second, if an ISP wants to charge a customer more because they are simply using the bandwidth or transfer limits which the ISP already sold to the customer, what is this telling us? I mean, if I buy 50 gigs of transfer a month and I use it all, that's ok right? Until all of the suddend everyone is using it all. And then the ISP is saying "wait wait wait, yea we sold you this, but uhm, if you are all going to use it then this isn't going to work". In effect the same as the cell companies when they sell you minutes. If everyone is using their cell phones, your phone is pretty much useless "network busy".
Wolfenstein was my first. I then went to Doom over modem. That was like a whole new realm of video games. Then came QTest. It was revolutionary. I was hooked and played Quake deathmatch until my eyes bled.
One thing I remember about the old-school Quake matches was there was no net prediction code. When you pressed move forward you literally didn't move forward until the command went from you, to the server, then back to you to. Whatever your ping was, you could pretty much double it and that was how long it might take to finally see you move forward.
I played pretty competitively with my dial-up. Then as time passed they came out with Rocket Arena. Then Clan Arena and Quakeworld.
By then there were people I played with who had pings in the 20-30s. Even though they weren't as skilled as I, they often beat me by sheer fact that they had the ping advantage.
There was an acronym for these people, maybe you don't remember it. It was LPB. Low-ping Bastard. They were hated.
Then they became the norm. And the acronym became HPB. High-ping Bastard. And they were hated too. But mostly because a lot of them would whine and say it was only the ping that made them lose. Sometimes they were right, mostly not. I was one of those HPBs who still put a massive hurting on guys with much lower pings. Me with my mid-200s beating down those with mid 20s.
Point is, skill being equal, the person with the lower ping will win. I'm not saying that a MMO sports game is impossible. But if you think you've seen whining before... Just wait until a thousand people log in to a server and pings are so bad that good reaction times mean jack shit.
And enter the seven-hundred-millionth whine in the history of the shooter (which is what your dodgeball game would be): LAG!!!!
Seriously, in most MMORPGs your ping is never anywhere NEAR low enough to achieve the kind of reaction times needed to be truly on the competitive edge of human capability. Have you ever played a FPS with a 200 ping? Yea, that's only a fifth of a second, I know. But that can be the entire duration of some battles in games like Counterstrike.
Lots of ice on Mars.. More gravity is a good thing too. Sure, it's farther away, but once you're there it's probably more self-sustaining. Something tells me that if the Earth were to suffer a major catastrophe a moon base would be doomed as well. Not so for a Mars base, perhaps.
First, develop some kind of autonomous solar power development system. Let it work its magic for a couple decades. Maybe cover a thousand square miles with the cells. That should generate plenty of power for the first colonists.
Then send the first crew there with enough equipment to set up a base camp. You'll probably want to have the major stuff underground, just reduce the possibility of accidental depressurization.
Once they establish the initial systems, go into full colonization mode. Start doing geological surveys to look for usable natural resources such as Methane or petroleum.
Heck, in 50 years you could have something that might survive if the rest of the human population on Earth were to meet catastrophe. And this is with today's tech.
I mean, isn't that really the best reason to make an offworld base? To have some of our eggs diverge from the coordinates of our current basket?
I assume this is really only talking about mainstream home PCs. The big name brands. I mean, if Dell spends sum X on making new, 'pretty' cases for their PCs, and Gateway spends sum X minus Y on their cases which aren't that much 'uglier', doesn't Gateway win because they can offer the same performance/support (in theory) at a lower price, or offer more performance at the same price?
Truly, PC attractiveness is an enthusiast market, i.e. case modding. Otherwise, you're going to get something that looks like every other major brand PC: a stylized, but nevertheless cheaply made, box, so the company can compete price-wise.
Or, you can go with the 'high end' like Alienware, thereby paying an outrageous sum for the name and look. People who buy Alienware don't really care about the price.
Me, I'd rather buy the components and build my own. You can make a respectable looking box for a lot cheaper than what Alienware will charge you. There are cases out there that look damn good too. Mine is the NZXT Lexa.
Hell, if you really want a unique case, buy any one of the $50-100 cases and mod it to your liking. Though I get the feeling if you do that, you're not the kind of person who will be quite jumping for joy to get Vista when it is released.
One of the really intriguing things about Spore, at least to me, was the way it used a random sample of species from a worldwide depository (via the net) to populate the game and create a unique experience every time you played it. I got all sorts of chills thinking about it, sort of like this kind of evolutionary programming might some day lead to an accidental AI (yes I know, very pseudo-science Sci-Fi.. but hey I'm a dreamer)
So, while I applaud the game being released on the consoles, if it doesn't have the same net-based populating code I think something will be lost. But hey, it'll probably still be cool.
Yeah, because nobody would ever notice a reporter sitting down to dinner with a high ranking pentagon official. And nobody would take a second notice of a reporter coming in to CIA headquarters with an appointment scheduled with a senior manager. Nor would anyone notice the CIA manager walking into the Washington Posts' office and to meet with a reporter.
Tell me, is it right that said high ranking officials et al should need to worry about their identities being secret if what they are saying is truly something that the citizens need to know, and we as a country need to be aware of? If the revelations they provide are important enough to the country as a whole, they shouldn't need fear anything but publicity from the exposure. And if they are truly revelations, there is no way their identities won't eventually be revealed. How else are we going to eventually believe what the reporter says? And, like I've said before, if there's some fear of government repurcussion from above, a form of which is NOT legal and violates the rights of individuals, then we need to examine the government or the agency or group involved in the actions against the informants. Not look at a bandage solution like a shield law which will essentially only cover up the real problem.
Hey now, DDD has some practical use. A video game that actually involves burning calories is probably just what the US needs, and more of it. Though your original point is well taken.
It is my understanding of the Plame Affair that the reporter revealed the identity of Plame as a CIA operative. I'm not sure how this relates to a reporter being allowed to keep their sources identities a secret when the very same reporter has decided to reveal their source's identity? Are you saying it would become illegal for a reporter to reveal the identity of a CIA agent? I am fairly sure that it already is. Which is to say, I don't know how this relates to the aforementioned shield law.
It strikes me as strange to think that someone who is doing The Right Thing should have to worry about government repurcussion. If it's true that they need to then perhaps it's not a shield law we need but rather to closer examine our government and its ability to persecute people who have done no wrong, if indeed that is even what happened.
One question I have: if communication between reporter and source is truly anonymous then how does any reporter know if the information is legitmate? At some point anonymity had better break down between reporter and source. Because when a reporter tells me something, which they say is news, I had better damn well know what their source is and know that it's legit, or they are going to be hard pressed to get me to believe a word of what they're saying.
Another question is about the supposed 'only' methods of achieving the anonymity I above questioned.
From the article: "Only a clearly written federal shield law will give reporters and their anonymous sources the confidence they need to communicate outside of darkened parking garages."
Darkened parking garages? Please. How about just an office? Or a restaurant. Or, well, anywhere. If someone really wants to evesdrop on a reporter I can't imagine the reporter is going to be able to stop them by simply going to a parking garage. How about a public phone?
I am really just waiting for someone to tell me why I should believe anything a reporter says when their source is completely unknown due to total anonymity.
Well, TBH the companies are beginning to focus on this sector (mobile).
A lot of the newer mobile GPU (like GeForce Go) are capable of greatly reducing their overall consumption when their total demand is low. They ramp up when needed.
Of course this doesn't address the fact that, when needed, and when ramped up, they consume a lot of power. To which I say, yes, we need more power efficient cards.
This is unique to the mobile sector for now, but of course will eventually find its way into the entire realm of graphics computing.
Unless of course we find a way to produce power more cheaply and abundantly than with hydrocarbons. In which case the only thing we'll care about then is cooling;) But I suspect that could be a long ways off.
The bottom line is simple: graphics makers must take a step back from feature brainstorming until the power issue is resolved.
Today this is irrelevant. If consumers continue to purchase ever more power hungry graphics cards, what is to stop the companies from making them? When the market actually changes and people start considering the power requirements of their cards, then I'll believe this statement about the bottom line. Because right now the only thing I hear from people building or buying new computers about the power requirements is "make sure you get a PFC PSU and get lots of watts", not "make sure you get a low-power GPU". For one thing, some people actually enjoy saying they have a 600+ watt PSU. I can imagine that with current power costs today this trend will continue. Do the math, it's not actually costing a person much more per month to go from 600 to a 1000 watt PSU, especially since most people don't use their GPU to full power most of the time.
Power requirements take a back seat to overall performance, and will continue to do so until electricity costs are driven up further. It's simple economics. People are willing to pay for the power-hungry cards. And until they're not, power consumption will continue to be less important to the producers than performance. This is analogous to today's vehicles, still being built and shipped with huge fuel sucking engines. For many people, and I'd wager to say enough to sustain the market for years to come, the cost of energy (either liquid or electrical) is still low enough that they aren't going to give up their cherished powers, be they piston driven or transistor.
I have a book, about a thousand pages long, by a certain author of a certain mathematics program (who I will not name here) that basically says the same thing.
Translation for the 1000+ pages:
"omGz)R patterns pwnz joO!"
Really though, the guy goes on and on about his 'new kind of science' and after a thousand pages gets pretty much nowhere.
Saving time is no myth. It's an expression that if taken literally is of course logically false. You can't save it, it continues to progress at the same rate, thus you lose it the same no matter what.
But, if you spend time on things less important to you, you might as well say you are wasting it. And conversely, if you can avoid wasting it, you are saving it. But I shouldn't need to explain this.
As to the rest of your post, I get the feeling any reply I write will be met with the same nature of commentary: pointless rhetoric.
Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not thought.
Life is not a standarized test.
Who said that it was?
The point is, time is precious. Would you rather waste it digging up answers, or have them at your fingertips, giving you more time to concentrate on the more important matters in this short life?
You assume that is even possible. Can someone hack into your brain through today's internet?
No, unless you believe pop-ups are TRUE.
It is entirely possible to interface with computers without direct connections to your gray matter. Subvocal for example. There are many, many more possibilities.
Today we have bulky boxen and entire rooms filled with computers. We have computers taking up space in our offices and homes. We dedicate energy to just keeping them cool. Tommorow (ok, so not really tommorow, probably in the semi-distant future) we won't really see computers at all in terms of our daily routines. They'll be so miniaturized as to become transparent. The only aspect of computing we'll see in our daily lives will be the user interfaces. The actual computers themselves will be invisible, or at least barely noticeable. They'll become mere extensions of our every whim, capable of reinforcing and improving our minds in a seamless fashion. That, I believe, is the future of computing.
Take for example Google. What happens when you can query a search into google without actually interfacing with an external device like a laptop with a wireless internet connection? Or into Wikipedia? You'll be able to answer questions within seconds of being asked. Maybe less. This is a bigger change than you might think. Where does this leave conventional schooling, for example?
To me, it's exciting. And I wish it were here already.
As much as I like AMD, I have to say that if Intel and nVidia teamed up they would probably beat the crap out of AMD + ATi.
And if AMD and ATi merge.. It sort of seems like a punch in the face to nVidia. Leaving them wanting to talk to Intel. Leading to... what?
For a long time there have been two beasts in the CPU market and two beauties in the GPU market. AMD and Intel in CPUs, and ATi and nVidia in GPUs. If they marry respectively, the offspring might have the good qualities of neither and the bad qualities of both. I think overall the consumer would probably (more than likely) lose out.
Yeah I missed that draining powers Lore... Not entirely sure I believe it. Of course, Blizzard is allowed to change the Lore whenever they want, it is their universe after all.
As far as the plague to kill the living and make them all undead.. that there is a simply break in continuity of the lore if you ask me. Obviously the Horde as a group doesn't all want that to happen.. Why else would you still have anything BUT undead? So there are holes in the logic... it was bound to happen.
But if you are telling me that the Tauren are evil, I would just have to disagree.
Ah well though, it's a game, and it's far from perfect.
That's such a hilarious generalization. You know some people leave because they get bored of it. Or don't care for the repetitive nature of the end game. I myself just got bored with it and I was a high up guild officer who played nicely with others. It was a bit hard to walk away from the social side of it, but in the end I wasn't enjoying myself much so I left. Saying that people who quit playing are anti-social pricks is just stupid.
I didn't mean to say that everyone leaves because they don't play well with others. Just that many I have seen have done so.
And it's natural for people to get tired of it like you did. But I think your form of attrition is less prevalent than the drop-off of solo players. Nowadays nearly everyone is guilded.
So I'm not saying that everyone who quits is an anti-social prick. I'm say that some people who quit make up other reasons for quitting, like blaming Blizzard for making bad choices that weren't really bad choices. Just those people had to blame anything but themselves, to protect their pride or whatever.
I play WoW. Not a lot, like I used to, but I still play. I intend to get the expansion and I think I will enjoy it, even though I am a casual player these days. I'm even considering getting another account so I can dual box. It makes solo'n a lot more fun and the money is immaterial to me. I've played since beta so I have a pretty good knowledge base of the game (been in a hardcore raiding guild for a while now, one which is consistently in competition for furthest advanced on our server, Windrunner). I was the second person on my server to hit level 60 in my class (Warlock).
All that said, I think people who are whining that both Horde and Alliance will be basically the same now (in endgame) are making assumptions.
First, the Horde Paladin will not be identical to the Alliance Paladin. The same goes for the Shaman on each side. The new racial abilities will see to it that they are different in a meaningful way. If there's one thing I know about racials in WoW, they ARE relevant. Take Perception for humans, WotF for Undead, and Escape Artist for gnomes as just three examples of how racials are useful. I promise that Blizzard will make the new racials quite useful as well. And on top of that there will be specific skills, like the Priest class has, which are unique to the new cross-overs. For example, undead horde priests have Devouring Plague, which is a pretty good Drain Over Time. Nobody else has that.
Well, ok then. So what about the problem with "evil" paladins? Uhm, what? Who said the Horde was really, inherently evil? Show me somewhere in the WoW Lore that says Horde are 'evil'. Tell me why the Argent Dawn would ally with Horde if they were? Just because they are at war with the Alliance makes them evil? I don't think so. So the Horde sees things differently than the Alliance, and so they clash... Take any number of real life examples and you see that two groups can be at war with each other and either none or both might be considered "evil". Sometimes it's very difficult in a war to see which side is right and which wrong.
I wouldn't mind it, however, if the Horde Paladin, being Blood Elf specific, was given an extra word in the name, such as Crimson Paladin... But that's beside the point.
From personal experience I have found that the people who tend to leave WoW are the ones who can't play along with others. They can't join a guild or don't want to because they just don't have a very agreeable personality. So they wind up playing alone. And they wind up watching as everyone else progresses and has a good time while they are still wearing the same old crappy blues, or whatever. Well, like I said, whine, bitch moan and sniffle. If you can't play well with others, WoW isn't for you.
I'm all for making the consoles more efficient. Wasting energy is no good.
But as long as we're talking about wasting energy... Let's talk television. I have a hundred channels, and nothing is on worth watching. Unless I have erectile dysfunction, in which case I get tons of relevant programming in the form of commercials.
Seriously, TV, with the exception of RARE broadcasting from Discovery, History, and PBS, is mostly garbage. I'd hope that people would choose to exercise their minds via playing games rather than watch TV any day, even if it means we have to burn a little more midnight oil to get there.
Try it. At first, you're right. You're gonna hurt.
Then, after a few weeks, maybe a few months depending on your body type and how overweight you are, you'll wonder what the hell you ever sat down for.
Granted, during your standing sessions it is recommended that you move around, take frequent walks, etc. But overall I think you'll feel better and, yes, even lose weight. And you'll most likely get more work done.
Slashdot Mirror
Net neutrality. The idea that all content is created (and thusly allowed to traverse the internet) equally. Ok, so I have a couple questions really.
The first, what happens if encryption makes it impossible to really tell what anything is? How does a non-net-neutral ISP then determine tiered prices for the content? Does encryption effectively enforce Net Neutrality?
And second, if an ISP wants to charge a customer more because they are simply using the bandwidth or transfer limits which the ISP already sold to the customer, what is this telling us? I mean, if I buy 50 gigs of transfer a month and I use it all, that's ok right? Until all of the suddend everyone is using it all. And then the ISP is saying "wait wait wait, yea we sold you this, but uhm, if you are all going to use it then this isn't going to work". In effect the same as the cell companies when they sell you minutes. If everyone is using their cell phones, your phone is pretty much useless "network busy".
I mean, what the hell?
TLF
Naw, I am as old school as the FPS gets.
Wolfenstein was my first. I then went to Doom over modem. That was like a whole new realm of video games. Then came QTest. It was revolutionary. I was hooked and played Quake deathmatch until my eyes bled.
One thing I remember about the old-school Quake matches was there was no net prediction code. When you pressed move forward you literally didn't move forward until the command went from you, to the server, then back to you to. Whatever your ping was, you could pretty much double it and that was how long it might take to finally see you move forward.
I played pretty competitively with my dial-up. Then as time passed they came out with Rocket Arena. Then Clan Arena and Quakeworld.
By then there were people I played with who had pings in the 20-30s. Even though they weren't as skilled as I, they often beat me by sheer fact that they had the ping advantage.
There was an acronym for these people, maybe you don't remember it. It was LPB. Low-ping Bastard. They were hated.
Then they became the norm. And the acronym became HPB. High-ping Bastard. And they were hated too. But mostly because a lot of them would whine and say it was only the ping that made them lose. Sometimes they were right, mostly not. I was one of those HPBs who still put a massive hurting on guys with much lower pings. Me with my mid-200s beating down those with mid 20s.
Point is, skill being equal, the person with the lower ping will win. I'm not saying that a MMO sports game is impossible. But if you think you've seen whining before... Just wait until a thousand people log in to a server and pings are so bad that good reaction times mean jack shit.
Then ye shall see whining in all its glory.
TLF
Does bring up the issue of crime on such a small colony.
I figure if someone does something pretty bad, the punishment wouldn't be that bad really. We'd just ask them to.. take a walk.
TLF
And enter the seven-hundred-millionth whine in the history of the shooter (which is what your dodgeball game would be): LAG!!!!
Seriously, in most MMORPGs your ping is never anywhere NEAR low enough to achieve the kind of reaction times needed to be truly on the competitive edge of human capability. Have you ever played a FPS with a 200 ping? Yea, that's only a fifth of a second, I know. But that can be the entire duration of some battles in games like Counterstrike.
TLF
Why not choose Mars instead?
Lots of ice on Mars.. More gravity is a good thing too. Sure, it's farther away, but once you're there it's probably more self-sustaining. Something tells me that if the Earth were to suffer a major catastrophe a moon base would be doomed as well. Not so for a Mars base, perhaps.
First, develop some kind of autonomous solar power development system. Let it work its magic for a couple decades. Maybe cover a thousand square miles with the cells. That should generate plenty of power for the first colonists.
Then send the first crew there with enough equipment to set up a base camp. You'll probably want to have the major stuff underground, just reduce the possibility of accidental depressurization.
Once they establish the initial systems, go into full colonization mode. Start doing geological surveys to look for usable natural resources such as Methane or petroleum.
Heck, in 50 years you could have something that might survive if the rest of the human population on Earth were to meet catastrophe. And this is with today's tech.
I mean, isn't that really the best reason to make an offworld base? To have some of our eggs diverge from the coordinates of our current basket?
TLF
What is PC attractiveness vs. Cost?
I assume this is really only talking about mainstream home PCs. The big name brands. I mean, if Dell spends sum X on making new, 'pretty' cases for their PCs, and Gateway spends sum X minus Y on their cases which aren't that much 'uglier', doesn't Gateway win because they can offer the same performance/support (in theory) at a lower price, or offer more performance at the same price?
Truly, PC attractiveness is an enthusiast market, i.e. case modding. Otherwise, you're going to get something that looks like every other major brand PC: a stylized, but nevertheless cheaply made, box, so the company can compete price-wise.
Or, you can go with the 'high end' like Alienware, thereby paying an outrageous sum for the name and look. People who buy Alienware don't really care about the price.
Me, I'd rather buy the components and build my own. You can make a respectable looking box for a lot cheaper than what Alienware will charge you. There are cases out there that look damn good too. Mine is the NZXT Lexa.
Hell, if you really want a unique case, buy any one of the $50-100 cases and mod it to your liking. Though I get the feeling if you do that, you're not the kind of person who will be quite jumping for joy to get Vista when it is released.
TLF
One of the really intriguing things about Spore, at least to me, was the way it used a random sample of species from a worldwide depository (via the net) to populate the game and create a unique experience every time you played it. I got all sorts of chills thinking about it, sort of like this kind of evolutionary programming might some day lead to an accidental AI (yes I know, very pseudo-science Sci-Fi.. but hey I'm a dreamer)
So, while I applaud the game being released on the consoles, if it doesn't have the same net-based populating code I think something will be lost. But hey, it'll probably still be cool.
TLF
As I understand it, the only reason Felt wanted to remain anonymous was to for privacy.
And the constitution already covers that right adequately. Any law trying to destroy that right violates the constitution IMHO.
So, IMHO, a shield law is -1 redundant.
TLF
Yeah, because nobody would ever notice a reporter sitting down to dinner with a high ranking pentagon official. And nobody would take a second notice of a reporter coming in to CIA headquarters with an appointment scheduled with a senior manager. Nor would anyone notice the CIA manager walking into the Washington Posts' office and to meet with a reporter.
Tell me, is it right that said high ranking officials et al should need to worry about their identities being secret if what they are saying is truly something that the citizens need to know, and we as a country need to be aware of? If the revelations they provide are important enough to the country as a whole, they shouldn't need fear anything but publicity from the exposure. And if they are truly revelations, there is no way their identities won't eventually be revealed. How else are we going to eventually believe what the reporter says? And, like I've said before, if there's some fear of government repurcussion from above, a form of which is NOT legal and violates the rights of individuals, then we need to examine the government or the agency or group involved in the actions against the informants. Not look at a bandage solution like a shield law which will essentially only cover up the real problem.
TLF
Hey now, DDD has some practical use. A video game that actually involves burning calories is probably just what the US needs, and more of it. Though your original point is well taken.
TLF
It is my understanding of the Plame Affair that the reporter revealed the identity of Plame as a CIA operative. I'm not sure how this relates to a reporter being allowed to keep their sources identities a secret when the very same reporter has decided to reveal their source's identity? Are you saying it would become illegal for a reporter to reveal the identity of a CIA agent? I am fairly sure that it already is. Which is to say, I don't know how this relates to the aforementioned shield law.
It strikes me as strange to think that someone who is doing The Right Thing should have to worry about government repurcussion. If it's true that they need to then perhaps it's not a shield law we need but rather to closer examine our government and its ability to persecute people who have done no wrong, if indeed that is even what happened.
TLF
One question I have: if communication between reporter and source is truly anonymous then how does any reporter know if the information is legitmate? At some point anonymity had better break down between reporter and source. Because when a reporter tells me something, which they say is news, I had better damn well know what their source is and know that it's legit, or they are going to be hard pressed to get me to believe a word of what they're saying.
Another question is about the supposed 'only' methods of achieving the anonymity I above questioned.
From the article: "Only a clearly written federal shield law will give reporters and their anonymous sources the confidence they need to communicate outside of darkened parking garages."
Darkened parking garages? Please. How about just an office? Or a restaurant. Or, well, anywhere. If someone really wants to evesdrop on a reporter I can't imagine the reporter is going to be able to stop them by simply going to a parking garage. How about a public phone?
I am really just waiting for someone to tell me why I should believe anything a reporter says when their source is completely unknown due to total anonymity.
TLF
Well, TBH the companies are beginning to focus on this sector (mobile).
;) But I suspect that could be a long ways off.
A lot of the newer mobile GPU (like GeForce Go) are capable of greatly reducing their overall consumption when their total demand is low. They ramp up when needed.
Of course this doesn't address the fact that, when needed, and when ramped up, they consume a lot of power. To which I say, yes, we need more power efficient cards.
This is unique to the mobile sector for now, but of course will eventually find its way into the entire realm of graphics computing.
Unless of course we find a way to produce power more cheaply and abundantly than with hydrocarbons. In which case the only thing we'll care about then is cooling
TLF
The bottom line is simple: graphics makers must take a step back from feature brainstorming until the power issue is resolved.
Today this is irrelevant. If consumers continue to purchase ever more power hungry graphics cards, what is to stop the companies from making them? When the market actually changes and people start considering the power requirements of their cards, then I'll believe this statement about the bottom line. Because right now the only thing I hear from people building or buying new computers about the power requirements is "make sure you get a PFC PSU and get lots of watts", not "make sure you get a low-power GPU". For one thing, some people actually enjoy saying they have a 600+ watt PSU. I can imagine that with current power costs today this trend will continue. Do the math, it's not actually costing a person much more per month to go from 600 to a 1000 watt PSU, especially since most people don't use their GPU to full power most of the time.
Power requirements take a back seat to overall performance, and will continue to do so until electricity costs are driven up further. It's simple economics. People are willing to pay for the power-hungry cards. And until they're not, power consumption will continue to be less important to the producers than performance. This is analogous to today's vehicles, still being built and shipped with huge fuel sucking engines. For many people, and I'd wager to say enough to sustain the market for years to come, the cost of energy (either liquid or electrical) is still low enough that they aren't going to give up their cherished powers, be they piston driven or transistor.
TLF
I have a book, about a thousand pages long, by a certain author of a certain mathematics program (who I will not name here) that basically says the same thing.
Translation for the 1000+ pages:
"omGz)R patterns pwnz joO!"
Really though, the guy goes on and on about his 'new kind of science' and after a thousand pages gets pretty much nowhere.
But hey, it was complex, man! Serious!
TLF
Saving time is no myth. It's an expression that if taken literally is of course logically false. You can't save it, it continues to progress at the same rate, thus you lose it the same no matter what.
But, if you spend time on things less important to you, you might as well say you are wasting it. And conversely, if you can avoid wasting it, you are saving it. But I shouldn't need to explain this.
As to the rest of your post, I get the feeling any reply I write will be met with the same nature of commentary: pointless rhetoric.
TLF
Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not thought.
Life is not a standarized test.
Who said that it was?
The point is, time is precious. Would you rather waste it digging up answers, or have them at your fingertips, giving you more time to concentrate on the more important matters in this short life?
TLF
You assume that is even possible. Can someone hack into your brain through today's internet?
No, unless you believe pop-ups are TRUE.
It is entirely possible to interface with computers without direct connections to your gray matter. Subvocal for example. There are many, many more possibilities.
TLF
Today we have bulky boxen and entire rooms filled with computers. We have computers taking up space in our offices and homes. We dedicate energy to just keeping them cool. Tommorow (ok, so not really tommorow, probably in the semi-distant future) we won't really see computers at all in terms of our daily routines. They'll be so miniaturized as to become transparent. The only aspect of computing we'll see in our daily lives will be the user interfaces. The actual computers themselves will be invisible, or at least barely noticeable. They'll become mere extensions of our every whim, capable of reinforcing and improving our minds in a seamless fashion. That, I believe, is the future of computing.
Take for example Google. What happens when you can query a search into google without actually interfacing with an external device like a laptop with a wireless internet connection? Or into Wikipedia? You'll be able to answer questions within seconds of being asked. Maybe less. This is a bigger change than you might think. Where does this leave conventional schooling, for example?
To me, it's exciting. And I wish it were here already.
TLF
As much as I like AMD, I have to say that if Intel and nVidia teamed up they would probably beat the crap out of AMD + ATi.
And if AMD and ATi merge.. It sort of seems like a punch in the face to nVidia. Leaving them wanting to talk to Intel. Leading to... what?
For a long time there have been two beasts in the CPU market and two beauties in the GPU market. AMD and Intel in CPUs, and ATi and nVidia in GPUs. If they marry respectively, the offspring might have the good qualities of neither and the bad qualities of both. I think overall the consumer would probably (more than likely) lose out.
So, I really kind of hope this is just a rumor.
TLF
Yeah I missed that draining powers Lore... Not entirely sure I believe it. Of course, Blizzard is allowed to change the Lore whenever they want, it is their universe after all.
As far as the plague to kill the living and make them all undead.. that there is a simply break in continuity of the lore if you ask me. Obviously the Horde as a group doesn't all want that to happen.. Why else would you still have anything BUT undead? So there are holes in the logic... it was bound to happen.
But if you are telling me that the Tauren are evil, I would just have to disagree.
Ah well though, it's a game, and it's far from perfect.
TLF
That's such a hilarious generalization. You know some people leave because they get bored of it. Or don't care for the repetitive nature of the end game.
I myself just got bored with it and I was a high up guild officer who played nicely with others. It was a bit hard to walk away from the social side of it, but in the end I wasn't enjoying myself much so I left. Saying that people who quit playing are anti-social pricks is just stupid.
I didn't mean to say that everyone leaves because they don't play well with others. Just that many I have seen have done so.
And it's natural for people to get tired of it like you did. But I think your form of attrition is less prevalent than the drop-off of solo players. Nowadays nearly everyone is guilded.
So I'm not saying that everyone who quits is an anti-social prick. I'm say that some people who quit make up other reasons for quitting, like blaming Blizzard for making bad choices that weren't really bad choices. Just those people had to blame anything but themselves, to protect their pride or whatever.
TLF
I play WoW. Not a lot, like I used to, but I still play. I intend to get the expansion and I think I will enjoy it, even though I am a casual player these days. I'm even considering getting another account so I can dual box. It makes solo'n a lot more fun and the money is immaterial to me. I've played since beta so I have a pretty good knowledge base of the game (been in a hardcore raiding guild for a while now, one which is consistently in competition for furthest advanced on our server, Windrunner). I was the second person on my server to hit level 60 in my class (Warlock).
All that said, I think people who are whining that both Horde and Alliance will be basically the same now (in endgame) are making assumptions.
First, the Horde Paladin will not be identical to the Alliance Paladin. The same goes for the Shaman on each side. The new racial abilities will see to it that they are different in a meaningful way. If there's one thing I know about racials in WoW, they ARE relevant. Take Perception for humans, WotF for Undead, and Escape Artist for gnomes as just three examples of how racials are useful. I promise that Blizzard will make the new racials quite useful as well. And on top of that there will be specific skills, like the Priest class has, which are unique to the new cross-overs. For example, undead horde priests have Devouring Plague, which is a pretty good Drain Over Time. Nobody else has that.
Well, ok then. So what about the problem with "evil" paladins? Uhm, what? Who said the Horde was really, inherently evil? Show me somewhere in the WoW Lore that says Horde are 'evil'. Tell me why the Argent Dawn would ally with Horde if they were? Just because they are at war with the Alliance makes them evil? I don't think so. So the Horde sees things differently than the Alliance, and so they clash... Take any number of real life examples and you see that two groups can be at war with each other and either none or both might be considered "evil". Sometimes it's very difficult in a war to see which side is right and which wrong.
I wouldn't mind it, however, if the Horde Paladin, being Blood Elf specific, was given an extra word in the name, such as Crimson Paladin... But that's beside the point.
From personal experience I have found that the people who tend to leave WoW are the ones who can't play along with others. They can't join a guild or don't want to because they just don't have a very agreeable personality. So they wind up playing alone. And they wind up watching as everyone else progresses and has a good time while they are still wearing the same old crappy blues, or whatever. Well, like I said, whine, bitch moan and sniffle. If you can't play well with others, WoW isn't for you.
TLF
I'm all for making the consoles more efficient. Wasting energy is no good.
But as long as we're talking about wasting energy... Let's talk television. I have a hundred channels, and nothing is on worth watching. Unless I have erectile dysfunction, in which case I get tons of relevant programming in the form of commercials.
Seriously, TV, with the exception of RARE broadcasting from Discovery, History, and PBS, is mostly garbage. I'd hope that people would choose to exercise their minds via playing games rather than watch TV any day, even if it means we have to burn a little more midnight oil to get there.
TLF
Try it. At first, you're right. You're gonna hurt.
Then, after a few weeks, maybe a few months depending on your body type and how overweight you are, you'll wonder what the hell you ever sat down for.
Granted, during your standing sessions it is recommended that you move around, take frequent walks, etc. But overall I think you'll feel better and, yes, even lose weight. And you'll most likely get more work done.
TLF