This is a bad way to look at it. What we have here is something that will give people a false sense of security in much the same way that you have Mac people who think they can't get a virus because "Macs are more secure, so they don't need antivirus software". Do you REALLY think that the Microsoft tool will keep people protected from the newest viruses and malware out there compared to the better programs out there?
Yes, any anti-virus is better than no anti-virus, but it won't take long before malware authors discover how to circumvent the Microsoft tool.
What has been happening with the games market is a mirror of what we see from the film industry. There have been a number of reasons for the success of a movie:
1: Artistic reasons, including story and quality of acting.
2: Sex, nudity, violence, suspense, and other things that stimulate primal urges.
3: Special effects, and looking back, even things like the move from black and white to color and things like 3D.
Now, the film industry has had an advantage where there are movies for the different audiences. So, you find adult films, you find special effects, and you find artistically inclined movies. All of them have their place, and those who prefer them or aspects of them. So, why is it that the games industry has been really focused on a very select market?
Console/action games have come to dominate, with special effects being the big push. When it comes to games that really focus on great storyline and are not about violence, the game market is really pretty weak. Games that have a good mix of storyline with some sex(I am not talking about sex-games), and minimal violence are never seen these days. And that is why the game industry is having so many problems, the lack of attention to game players who are over the age of 23 and are not interested in war games and running around shooting everything that moves.
It isn't about Apple vs. PC vs. consoles vs. cell phones for platforms, it is really about a lack of maturity in the industry, and the fear that publishers and developers have of failure, since there is very little true expertise in the game industry. There are clearly strengths that the Windows/PC platform has at this point when it comes to games, and yet, the developers are so focused on making games for all platforms, they ignore the strengths available on one platform, just to make products for multiple platforms.
In a way, the deaths of Sierra and Interplay(I don't count the zombie that Interplay is now as being alive) are a big part of the problem. Sierra was about making games with a storyline that the player could play through. Interplay back in 1999 was about games that had a storyline, but were more action or roleplaying types. The surviving companies did not fill in the void that was left when these two great companies faded away. EA and 2K for example just didn't look to see if the problems were the games, or the genre, or just stupidity on the part of management that caused the Sierra and Interplay problems. Basically, poor execution of a good idea should not scare publishers away from a good idea.
Cell phones may be acceptable for certain types of games, but not for the more complex. At the same time, a PC is overkill for certain games. There has to be a proper mix, or the entire games industry will implode and no one will make ANY game, because it takes development money, and no one seems to be willing to come in and break the mold.
Oh, and being focused on a console means that the PC version will end up being horrible, because the controllers are so different.
The problem that I have with this sort of thinking is that PCs don't really end up costing us all that much on our electric bills, and if the overall electric usage were to drop, or costs were to drop, the consumer would see NO savings. Basically, if the computer being on costs $5 per month, that isn't enough for us to really care about at the current cost of living. If every person around the world were to work on conservation, that wouldn't reduce our bills by even one penny, because utility companies would just pocket the profits.
Yes, this is selfish, but that really is the sort of thing you have to expect from the general populace. Doing the right thing and not getting anything back really is why many people just don't care about this stuff anymore. The big problem with sleep mode is that in MANY cases, the system doesn't wake up from sleep properly, with Wireless(802.11) returning from sleep and having the connection be restored and working perhaps 5 percent of the time. I am all for fast boot times, since I WOULD be more inclined to shut down when not using the computer, but I just don't expect any real personal benefits from shutting off a computer when it is not in use.
RAID 4 is where you have one dedicated parity drive. RAID 5 solves this by spreading the parity information for each drive to all the other drives in the array. RAID 6 adds a second parity block for increased reliability, but as a result of the increased write for that extra parity block, it slows down write speeds.
The real key to making RAID 4, 5, or 6 work is that you really need 4-6 drives in the array to take advantage of the design. I wouldn't say that it will fall out of favor though, because having solid protection from a single drive going bad really is critical for many businesses. Backups are all well and good for if your system crashes, but for most businesses, uptimes are more critical yet. So, backups for data so corruption problems can be rolled back, and RAID 5,6,10 for stability and to avoid having the entire system die if one drive goes bad. What takes more time, doing a data restore from a backup for when an individual application has problems, or having to restore the entire system from a backup, with the potential that the backup itself was corrupted?
With that said, web farms and other applications can get away with just using a cluster approach instead of a single well designed machine(or set of machines) have become popular, but there are many situations which make a system with one or more RAID arrays a better choice. The focus on RAID 0 and 1 for SMALL systems and residential setups has simply kept many people from realizing how useful a 4-drive RAID 5 setup would be.
Then again, most people go to a backup when they screw up their system, not because of a hard drive failure. With techs upgrading hardware before they run into a hard drive failure, the need for RAID 1, 4, 5, and 6 has dropped.
I will say this, since a RAID 5 array can rebuild on the fly(since it keeps working even if one drive fails), the rebuild time itself does not significantly impact system availability. Gone are the days when a rebuild has to be done while the system is down.
The big problem with using GPS in a hand held device is that the software tends to use a lot of battery power. This applies to ANY of the big name companies like Garmin, Tomtom, or any others, the software combined with the power draw of the LCD screen, GPS receiver, etc will have you out of battery too quickly for an extended outing(4+ hours of operation).
There are hiking GPS units that really only tell you your GPS location without the fancy LCD screen, routing information, etc that come in handy and are perfect to use when combined with a regular map. That is really the down side to the regular GPS units you see, they are generally dedicated to how to DRIVE from place to place, and they draw a lot of power for the software that makes all of that possible. Maps would also be road maps, not trail maps from the "big names" like Tomtom.
If you move to an area, you will learn how to get around, and the GPS also shows the street names BEFORE you get to them, which can make you a safer driver. How about all those streets where the signs are missing, or where they do not tell you what street you are on, but show the name of the cross street?
I personally find a GPS helps you learn an area faster, because you see the names of the cross streets on the display as you pass them while traveling on your primary route. If you will only go somewhere once, then you don't really need to learn the route anyway, and being able to get to the same place using a different route than the "normal" way is useful as well.
Everyone should know by now that the WGA really was always about Microsoft cracking down on pirated versions of their products. Now, with that in mind, if the WGA does some checking and phones home, but does not send up anything that would identify the owner of the computer, what is the big deal? An IP address might get logged by Microsoft and attached to your registration key?
What is new at this point? If your version of Windows has been cut off due to being pirated(or being flagged as a pirated version), that means it IS a security issue for people. Some may complain that Microsoft stopped service packs from being installed on pirated versions of Windows, but, if you pirate a product, you really have sacrificed any rights you have to complain about the behavior of said product. If your copy is flagged as pirated when it is not, then you have the right to contact Microsoft to address the issue. Again, if you fail to do this, then it is your own fault because it TELLS you it thinks it is a pirated copy, and even what to do about it.
That final line about how MacOS doesn't have copy protection.....ummm, you can ONLY put it on an Apple branded computer, and there is a price premium built into Apple branded computers already, so the copy protection is there, just not in the normal form. If Apple were to open up MacOS to run on non-Apple computers, can you REALLY claim that copy protection of some sort would not be put in at that point?
Apple had a fit when Palm made the Pre work with iTunes, so can you REALLY say that Apple is innocent or doesn't have a lock-down mindset?
One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that there is the ownership of some code, but how much code can really be said to belong to one entity. BSD was spawned from the idea of creating a UNIX-like operating system, but was not using code from UNIX. So, when you say "UNIX", it is important to look at the code base and where each piece came from. All things considered, there are standard methods of doing things that are taught in school that may have originated from the old UNIX code, but are now considered a standard way of doing things. Can you say that everyone who uses code they have learned in school now runs the risk of copyright violation because the code may look identical to pieces of the "copyrighted" UNIX code?
This is where a lot of the problems will come from in these lawsuits from SCO. Also, if AT&T put a lot of code out into the public domain back when they owned System V, then it can't be taken back at this point. Does anyone know how much of the so-called UNIX code is actually held under the copyright at this point?
Maybe it is time for those people who have no ability to come up with anything new to come up with their own intellectual property, instead of just making games based on movies and books. Seriously, a good game is a good game, and I am sick of how few original ideas and stories show up in the game industry.
If license fees are too expensive, come up with your own original works that share the same vibe as what you are looking to make, and if you make it solid, people will play. Gamers are STARVED for games that are new, and not just a clone of an existing game, or a 6 hour game based on a movie.
The console world also should NOT be the center of the game universe. A really really huge game that is PC-only right now can be released for the next generation consoles if those can handle it. Drop support for Intel graphics if they can't handle the demands, and in under five years, Intel will either get their act together on the graphics front, or players will start to demand that computers come with a real graphics chip in them that CAN handle it.
The sad thing is that the way corporations work can be seen as deeply flawed, and a lot of it has to do with the idea that brute force methods can be used to deal with any situation. Those going to school for business administration, at least those who end up in upper management seem to think that just knowing how to do paperwork makes someone better in management than those who really understand how a company works, and what the strengths AND weaknesses of the product are.
It isn't about how many hours a person works, it is about getting the job done. In most of my career, the job was not an hourly job, so from that perspective, you get paid a certain amount per year, and if you work more or less hours, it doesn't affect your paycheck, at least until it comes to annual review time where those who don't work as hard don't get the pay increase that others get. Also, if you DO slack off and don't put in enough hours, you will be warned about it or you may lose your job. That is what happens once you get out of that entry level garbage in most companies. People know you are at work, your boss knows if you are early or late, and it affects your chances for advancement within the company.
Then again, it seems like most people take every so-called problem at face value rather than looking to see if it is a symptom of a larger issue that needs to be fixed. That may be a global issue though, not just here in the USA.
So, the economy sucks, jobs for people with experience are hard to find, and here we have someone fresh out of school trying to act like things are going well in the world? I also find is laughable that the attendance record for college classes would even be recorded by anyone but the instructor. Seriously, it is college, not high school. If you show up for classes or not isn't the issue, it is if you do the course work and learn the material. Even then, the college as a whole won't care about if students are showing up for class.
In this particular case though, you also have the basic concept that people pay for a college education. It can be hoped that a good job/career will come of it, but there are many people who go to college without any clear idea what they want to do in life, and even after they graduate they still have no idea. That does not mean that the school did not do what you paid them to do. Three months of looking for a job in this job market is also not all that long. People have lost their jobs, where they had been working for YEARS, and someone without any job experience is complaining about having a problem finding a job? These days, a LOT of people would be happy with ANY job at all, because things are really bad.
So, I agree with those who say that this IDIOT has basically made sure no one would ever want to hire her.
Back in the days of adventure games, there was a bit of focus on the older gamers as well as the younger players. So you could have games with a lot of material that WOULD appeal to the crowd Chris Tolworthy is targeting. The problem is that in those days, you didn't see enough marketing to try to draw in that sort of customer.
Take a look at Gabriel Knight 3, which came out well before Da vinci Code even was written(1999 for GK3, 2003 for Da Vinci Code). Yes, the 3D engine wasn't very good, and there were things that could have been done better, but the writing was very good, the puzzles were pretty solid, and if it were to get a face lift(using a new 3D engine), it would appeal to those who prefer books to most games.
After the death of Sierra and Interplay, there has been a shortage of publishers willing to back games targeted at an older audience. It seems like the focus is the teen market, and if you are older than 25 years old and prefer something other than a first person shooter, your choices are more and more limited.
If every movie were rated PG, with the content of a PG movie, it wouldn't be long before the majority of adults would just stop watching movies. People grow up, and want things that THEY find entertaining. If the movie industry can have a wide variety of movie types, from the really bad formula action adventure movies, to the highly artistic types, to romance, comedy, and drama, then why has the computer and console game industries focused primarily on first person shooters that only appeal to one type of game player?
Realistic? Not even close. It takes roughly 5 million polygons to fully render a human in full detail, and even the best GPU on the PC side of things isn't close to that. The problem is really that development is going to the lowest common denominator when it comes to multi-platform releases, so developers look at what is available, and code to make sure that in even the scenes where you have the greatest amount of activity in a game that there isn't enough of a slowdown to bother the player.
Then you have the PC side of cross-platform, and you have Intel holding things back because they have a large marketshare, yet are three generations behind AMD/ATI and NVIDIA. If Intel would just drop out of the graphics market, we would see a huge surge in graphics quality in 4-5 years(once the old Intel graphics were no longer an issue to consumers).
Remember, developers MUST code with the idea of supporting hardware from the past five years, as well as keeping an eye on where things will be at launch for their titles. Support things from too far back, and you encounter a lot of technical issues in supporting the old junk. Don't aim high enough, and the graphics won't seem good enough for those with a cutting edge system. With the transition to the next generation of consoles not TOO far away, developers need to guess just how good the graphics will be, so their objects will look good on the next generation hardware(easy port to the next generation).
When graphics in general have hit the point where we can put 200 different objects on the screen at once at 5 million polygons each, and still get 60+ frames per second, THEN the need for new and better graphics will finally end. Until then, there is a HUGE amount of improvement that can be done. I HATE the rendered people in games, because they look really plastic and fake. Rendered people with what I want to see in games should look so realistic, you have to REALLY look to even notice that live actors were not used.
It has nothing to do with Apple, if the concepts behind podcasting were in use to the public prior to the file date, that is grounds enough for a "Prior Art" complaint. In a way, isn't an RSS feed similar in concept, since the system you use for the RSS feed checks for updates to a "subscription"? Being able to sync ANY information to or from a computer, documents and such could be seen as prior art for that concept as well.
RSS started to show up back in 1999 or so in Netscape(according to the Wiki), so text to audio....I would call that a pretty obvious and natural progression.
This is why software patents in general can be seen as a generally bad idea, because there are very few ideas that are really revolutionary. Most of the things you see out there are a natural evolution that have come over time. Once web pages were developed that used a database to feed the content on that web page, most things suddenly can not be patented because database design really is so well established that pictures, or pretty much any use of stored data will have been thought of by thousands of software developers independently of each other.
I keep wondering if the use of birth control pills at an earlier and earlier age is causing this, rather than just genetics. It is probably something that many researchers are not taking into account in their studies.
People may not remember, but it wasn't Sony who first designed EverQuest, it was 989 Studios. Sony is the company that BROKE the game, and as time went on, it became more and more broken due to basic mistakes that Sony made.
So, whatever SOE touches tends to turn to crap. Sony as a company may have some good products, but SOE has a proven track record of taking a good product and ruining it with stupid decisions on the design end of things.
There is a huge difference between fixing a bug and intentionally stopping another product from working with your software for no other reason than to break interoperability. That is the problem here.
Support is one thing, intentionally breaking things is another. Microsoft could just as easily make a patch for all of their software that prevents it from running under MacOS, which would force people with a Mac to run Windows. Oh, we just made sure that our software will only run under Windows. The EULA states that Microsoft has the right to cancel the license for any reason. If Microsoft were to do that, there would be all sorts of legal action, but if Apple pulls that sort of crap, you have people running out to defend Apple.
There are many ways to look at it, all of them somewhat legit and acceptable to a good sized group of people. For starters, an ISP will generally go on the idea that they need enough bandwidth to handle the average amount used. This is not on a per-user type of basis, but across their customer base. Now, if you get 5 megabit/second service, chances are that you will be downloading at 5 megabit speeds SOME of the time, but not all of the time. The same thing goes for upload bandwidth. Now, if you are using 5 megabit ALL of the time, something is probably wrong.
And that is the primary concern that ISPs will have, the amount of bandwidth used should be for your personal use. The moment you get into the P2P stuff, and when you leave your computer on all the time, chances are that you are uploading more than you are downloading. In essence, for your residential grade service you are using more bandwidth than is "fair". It isn't about download bandwidth, it is about sustained bandwidth usage.
So, you may be entitled to your 5 megabits worth of speed, but if you are using that much for too long, that may very well be an indication of illegal activity as well. How many games can you REALLY buy for digital download where you will be downloading at 5 megabit ALL the time? How about a 10 or 15 megabit connection? Most download sites also have a cap on download speeds, so you have to be doing multiple transfers at once to fully saturate the connection.
SHARING of files when you are not doing it legally is not considered valid under fair use. I have yet to find a case where I can saturate a 10 megabit link for an extended period of time(over 24 hours) without doing something wrong on a residential connection. Running your own web server for example is not covered under a residential class service, even though it will work technically, you have not signed up for providing a commercial service for that price.
So, again, at 5 megabit, the average should be at around half of that since the chances that everyone is using max bandwidth at once is fairly low. While some are downloading, others are not transferring anything at all. If an ISP finds bandwidth is being maxed out, until they can lay more fiber, or license more, they have to put some limits in place so that the majority get an acceptable level of service. No service provider could possibly meet demand if every customer were running their connection at max usage.
Even in a larger LAN environment you see cases where one workstation might saturate the connection to the Internet, and unless that person has a VERY good reason for using that bandwidth, the others in the office are effectively being denied proper access. Doing a blanket restriction of 1 megabit would make it so EVERYONE is getting slowed down, or loses enough productivity where it isn't worth it. The idea that you SHARE resources is there, and if you are going to saturate the network with a download, that is fine here and there, but not for an extended time, and not on any sort of continuing basis. And so, that is why ISPs MUST use a sort of "fair usage" type of rule.
If you are the sort of person who REALLY wants to run their connection that way, there are business plans that are available that probably will not be subject to that sort of rule. If you pay $40/month, don't expect to get treated the same as someone who is paying $150/month.
With the economy in the toilet, it seems that this drop in sales could easily be caused by the economy and not about ANYTHING else. Sure, some people may use a phone version, but TomTom Navigator 6 for smartphones was there too, and most people wanted to go with the larger dedicated device just because of the screen size alone, plus getting proper support.
When the economy recovers, I am sure that sales will pick back up again.
Back in the ancient days of video and computer games, there really was no way to put up realistic graphics. As a result, storyline and just aiming for the "fun" factor was the most you could hope for. Think of that period the way you would the early days of movies, where special effects were not an option, so story(and good acting) was the most they could hope for.
Now, as with anything, there would be two "schools" of thought on how to attract people. In movies, you had things like nudity that eventually came in as a way to attract audiences, followed by special effects, while other factors took a back seat. With computer games, you eventually had better graphics and audio.
What we have seen is that games with a great story and depth have really been pushed so far back that the adventure game has all but disappeared. Storyline has also taken a back seat(look how many people just click through the dialog options to PLAY games, rather than reading or listening). That is the big difference here. In film, there have been special effects movies, or movies with a lot of sex, but those that are more artistic have also continued to be produced.
The true games that are a work of art have pretty much gone away. You have shooters as the dominant type of game, and you have a handful of pseudo-RPGs that give perhaps 3 dialog choices, but without any way to REALLY change the outcome of the game(you just end up with a different end-game "movie" based on your dialog choices). There are also the "sandbox" type of games that give you a big open world like Oblivion where you can do a lot, but the depth of the world, and your options are very limited to what mods/adventures people write(nothing dynamic, all pre-scripted).
It really is the shooter genre that has had the greatest chance to change this, since the gameplay isn't all THAT much different from game to game, storyline COULD start to become a more dominant force, or to change the "if it moves, shoot it" style in most shooters to one where it COULD be more of an adventure game, or to use the engine for an RPG(Vampire - Bloodlines did this but bugs caused it to not sell as well as it should have based on storyline and gameplay).
The death of Interplay and Sierra is also a key factor in what has happened to the game industry. When one publisher dominates in releasing a certain type of game, and that publisher fades away, and the other publishers do not pick up the slack by releasing or at least publishing that type of game(to fill the void), that leaves a huge gap that SHOULD be filled, but for some reason has not.
There is room for a publisher to really take up the reins and start publishing adventure and RPG games, but due to the economy, we have not seen this happen. Until a more artistic approach is taken to game design, games will continue to have a hard time attracting the general public. In movies, if EVERY movie was a battlefield war drama or zombie film, people would grow bored, and only a tiny group of people would even pay attention to what new movies were released. The special effects movies at least are starting to incorporate SOME storyline and depth, but there are still plenty that fall flat(Star Wars Episode 1 for example). Special effects without a good storyline does not do well, and within ten years, the first person shooter market will also dry up if nothing is done to make storyline the key rather than the overdone "run around, shoot people without a reason" type we see today.
Give the player a purpose they can identify with, and it will attract people. Look for something that older players and those not drawn to shooting guns, and you will bring in the masses.
One thing that many people do not think about when it comes to evolution is the idea that the environment does affect evolution. If the climate changes, those more suited to the new changes tend to come out on top, and so that species will change ever so slightly over a large period of time based on those traits. One thing that really comes into play here is that environmental conditions for humans have become far less of an issue when it comes to evolution due to things like air conditioning, and being more able than other species on this planet to change our environment.
On the flip side, discussions of evolution tend not to incorporate socialization within a species where mental traits may account for a part of the process. Since we as humans still have a very limited understanding of the human brain, things like being more artistic, or analytical, or having a seemingly natural aptitude for different subjects may very well be genetic, or influenced by genetics, and as such, could very well be a part of the evolutionary process that we just do not understand. And of course, since there are so few species capable of using tools, it becomes less obvious when we study other species if this process applies only to humans, or if it applies to other species as well.
So conspiracy to cause harm to others should be allowed? How about telling people how to make an explosive device in the hopes they actually make one and use it?
When you know how people will react to certain stimuli, and you make use of that information to cause harm to others, that WILL be seen for what it is, and should be illegal. Shouting fire is well known to cause panic in people, so if you do it and people are hurt, you are directly responsible.
Now, the basic purpose of most laws is to give voice to a basic concept that people should not be allowed to harm others. What may cause harm of course will change over time, but that is the basic idea behind it. If someone intentionally harms another PHYSICALLY, that is a clear case where there should be laws to prevent that sort of action.
So, what about mental harm, or preventing someone from living a happy and healthy life by causing them mental anguish over an extended period. Should THAT be allowed under the law? What about manipulating a child to cause mental anguish over an extended period, or to manipulate that child into become something generally looked down upon by society(drug addict, prostitute, etc...)?
Remember, discussing something on an academic level is a very different thing than dealing with things in the real world, because people do NOT necessarily react in a rational way to the events they encounter in life. Children also are considered minors because they are not old enough to be EXPECTED to deal with everything that life may throw at them. In theory, the ability to really apply logic starts at around the age of 12, give or take, and it often takes people to the age of 25 before many can fully deal with life on their own(due to not HAVING to take responsibility for many things for far too long).
In this particular case, mental abuse by an adult on a minor is the true crime, and for that crime, some people in society might feel the death penalty would be in order, while others might feel that a long time in prison would be appropriate. Letting that woman go free really is the wrong thing because she IS guilty of harming a minor. The prosecutors should lose their license to practice law, because they were obviously too stupid to use that approach in this case.
Your rights to free speech end when you use it to do harm to others. The idea of the freedom of speech is so that people can discuss various subjects without the fear of government stopping dissent. But, if you run the risk of harming a minor with your speech, then THAT is not covered.
This also goes to some basic problems with current popular culture. This idea of freedom of speech makes people feel they can say ANYTHING at any time, with anyone else listening. Discussing detailed sexual acts when there are six to eight year olds around might make you a criminal in the eyes of many. Even the use of profanity SHOULD be frowned on when there are young children around at the very least, even if it may not be illegal.
Basically, people should be trying to make the world a better place. If you don't like people swearing at you(even if you may laugh it off), then perhaps the first step is to start with your own actions. Certain freedoms may be seen as a right, but with it, there comes a responsibility. The problem comes from people who are NOT acting responsibly.
The difference here is the INTENT to do harm. The intent to cause the girl to kill herself may not have been there, but there was clearly an intent to do emotional harm to a minor by an adult. This is a clear problem with the legal system if this is not an obvious problem.
Now, you say that people have a responsibility to not let yourself be manipulated, but, minors are NOT expected to be fully able to do this. That is the difference between if the victim was an adult or not. In spite of how grown-up many teenagers may act, they are still not adults, and need to be protected from mental abuse by others.
I will say this, any adult who intentionally causes emotional or physical pain to a minor should not just be locked up, but locked up with the worst sorts of people so they can know the sort of fear and pain they have caused.
AMD and Intel are in the position where they need to make products used by a large number of customers. As a result of this, their primary focus will be on making products that will draw in the greatest number of customers. As we saw with Itanium, if the customer base is not large enough, the R&D costs will never be made up.
So, when does it make sense for a chip and motherboard supplier to make a product with only one or two POTENTIAL customers in mind? Never is the answer that comes to mind. Both AMD and Intel MUST spend their resources on making products that will result in a net profit.
So, Facebook and web servers, and database engines...it should be possible for AMD or Intel to make a platform with these specific applications in mind, but the cost for such a specific product to be developed when there are very few potential customers that would want it would be small. Potential is the key, because I am sure that if Facebook approached AMD or Intel and wanted a fixed-purpose product to be developed, they would be happy to do it for the right price.
When a company makes a motherboard, the focus is to make a product that will get enough interest and sales to make a profit. As a result, we see motherboards with extra PCI, PCI Express, memory, USB, SATA, and other connectors than most people would actually need. If it gets cut back to only what would be needed for a specific customer, then the machine would probably perform better. Expecting a product aimed at a large number of people to be perfectly optimized and customized for any one specific purpose is foolish.
And of course, you have the limitations inherent in any system, including bandwidth between components, ethernet controllers, and how much CPU power may be used for things like USB, SATA, and ethernet. When you buy a $75 motherboard and expect the performance of a $250 motherboard, you are pretty much guaranteed to be disappointed.
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This is a bad way to look at it. What we have here is something that will give people a false sense of security in much the same way that you have Mac people who think they can't get a virus because "Macs are more secure, so they don't need antivirus software". Do you REALLY think that the Microsoft tool will keep people protected from the newest viruses and malware out there compared to the better programs out there?
Yes, any anti-virus is better than no anti-virus, but it won't take long before malware authors discover how to circumvent the Microsoft tool.
What has been happening with the games market is a mirror of what we see from the film industry. There have been a number of reasons for the success of a movie:
1: Artistic reasons, including story and quality of acting.
2: Sex, nudity, violence, suspense, and other things that stimulate primal urges.
3: Special effects, and looking back, even things like the move from black and white to color and things like 3D.
Now, the film industry has had an advantage where there are movies for the different audiences. So, you find adult films, you find special effects, and you find artistically inclined movies. All of them have their place, and those who prefer them or aspects of them. So, why is it that the games industry has been really focused on a very select market?
Console/action games have come to dominate, with special effects being the big push. When it comes to games that really focus on great storyline and are not about violence, the game market is really pretty weak. Games that have a good mix of storyline with some sex(I am not talking about sex-games), and minimal violence are never seen these days. And that is why the game industry is having so many problems, the lack of attention to game players who are over the age of 23 and are not interested in war games and running around shooting everything that moves.
It isn't about Apple vs. PC vs. consoles vs. cell phones for platforms, it is really about a lack of maturity in the industry, and the fear that publishers and developers have of failure, since there is very little true expertise in the game industry. There are clearly strengths that the Windows/PC platform has at this point when it comes to games, and yet, the developers are so focused on making games for all platforms, they ignore the strengths available on one platform, just to make products for multiple platforms.
In a way, the deaths of Sierra and Interplay(I don't count the zombie that Interplay is now as being alive) are a big part of the problem. Sierra was about making games with a storyline that the player could play through. Interplay back in 1999 was about games that had a storyline, but were more action or roleplaying types. The surviving companies did not fill in the void that was left when these two great companies faded away. EA and 2K for example just didn't look to see if the problems were the games, or the genre, or just stupidity on the part of management that caused the Sierra and Interplay problems. Basically, poor execution of a good idea should not scare publishers away from a good idea.
Cell phones may be acceptable for certain types of games, but not for the more complex. At the same time, a PC is overkill for certain games. There has to be a proper mix, or the entire games industry will implode and no one will make ANY game, because it takes development money, and no one seems to be willing to come in and break the mold.
Oh, and being focused on a console means that the PC version will end up being horrible, because the controllers are so different.
The problem that I have with this sort of thinking is that PCs don't really end up costing us all that much on our electric bills, and if the overall electric usage were to drop, or costs were to drop, the consumer would see NO savings. Basically, if the computer being on costs $5 per month, that isn't enough for us to really care about at the current cost of living. If every person around the world were to work on conservation, that wouldn't reduce our bills by even one penny, because utility companies would just pocket the profits.
Yes, this is selfish, but that really is the sort of thing you have to expect from the general populace. Doing the right thing and not getting anything back really is why many people just don't care about this stuff anymore. The big problem with sleep mode is that in MANY cases, the system doesn't wake up from sleep properly, with Wireless(802.11) returning from sleep and having the connection be restored and working perhaps 5 percent of the time. I am all for fast boot times, since I WOULD be more inclined to shut down when not using the computer, but I just don't expect any real personal benefits from shutting off a computer when it is not in use.
RAID 4 is where you have one dedicated parity drive. RAID 5 solves this by spreading the parity information for each drive to all the other drives in the array. RAID 6 adds a second parity block for increased reliability, but as a result of the increased write for that extra parity block, it slows down write speeds.
The real key to making RAID 4, 5, or 6 work is that you really need 4-6 drives in the array to take advantage of the design. I wouldn't say that it will fall out of favor though, because having solid protection from a single drive going bad really is critical for many businesses. Backups are all well and good for if your system crashes, but for most businesses, uptimes are more critical yet. So, backups for data so corruption problems can be rolled back, and RAID 5,6,10 for stability and to avoid having the entire system die if one drive goes bad. What takes more time, doing a data restore from a backup for when an individual application has problems, or having to restore the entire system from a backup, with the potential that the backup itself was corrupted?
With that said, web farms and other applications can get away with just using a cluster approach instead of a single well designed machine(or set of machines) have become popular, but there are many situations which make a system with one or more RAID arrays a better choice. The focus on RAID 0 and 1 for SMALL systems and residential setups has simply kept many people from realizing how useful a 4-drive RAID 5 setup would be.
Then again, most people go to a backup when they screw up their system, not because of a hard drive failure. With techs upgrading hardware before they run into a hard drive failure, the need for RAID 1, 4, 5, and 6 has dropped.
I will say this, since a RAID 5 array can rebuild on the fly(since it keeps working even if one drive fails), the rebuild time itself does not significantly impact system availability. Gone are the days when a rebuild has to be done while the system is down.
The big problem with using GPS in a hand held device is that the software tends to use a lot of battery power. This applies to ANY of the big name companies like Garmin, Tomtom, or any others, the software combined with the power draw of the LCD screen, GPS receiver, etc will have you out of battery too quickly for an extended outing(4+ hours of operation).
There are hiking GPS units that really only tell you your GPS location without the fancy LCD screen, routing information, etc that come in handy and are perfect to use when combined with a regular map. That is really the down side to the regular GPS units you see, they are generally dedicated to how to DRIVE from place to place, and they draw a lot of power for the software that makes all of that possible. Maps would also be road maps, not trail maps from the "big names" like Tomtom.
If you move to an area, you will learn how to get around, and the GPS also shows the street names BEFORE you get to them, which can make you a safer driver. How about all those streets where the signs are missing, or where they do not tell you what street you are on, but show the name of the cross street?
I personally find a GPS helps you learn an area faster, because you see the names of the cross streets on the display as you pass them while traveling on your primary route. If you will only go somewhere once, then you don't really need to learn the route anyway, and being able to get to the same place using a different route than the "normal" way is useful as well.
Everyone should know by now that the WGA really was always about Microsoft cracking down on pirated versions of their products. Now, with that in mind, if the WGA does some checking and phones home, but does not send up anything that would identify the owner of the computer, what is the big deal? An IP address might get logged by Microsoft and attached to your registration key?
What is new at this point? If your version of Windows has been cut off due to being pirated(or being flagged as a pirated version), that means it IS a security issue for people. Some may complain that Microsoft stopped service packs from being installed on pirated versions of Windows, but, if you pirate a product, you really have sacrificed any rights you have to complain about the behavior of said product. If your copy is flagged as pirated when it is not, then you have the right to contact Microsoft to address the issue. Again, if you fail to do this, then it is your own fault because it TELLS you it thinks it is a pirated copy, and even what to do about it.
That final line about how MacOS doesn't have copy protection.....ummm, you can ONLY put it on an Apple branded computer, and there is a price premium built into Apple branded computers already, so the copy protection is there, just not in the normal form. If Apple were to open up MacOS to run on non-Apple computers, can you REALLY claim that copy protection of some sort would not be put in at that point?
Apple had a fit when Palm made the Pre work with iTunes, so can you REALLY say that Apple is innocent or doesn't have a lock-down mindset?
One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that there is the ownership of some code, but how much code can really be said to belong to one entity. BSD was spawned from the idea of creating a UNIX-like operating system, but was not using code from UNIX. So, when you say "UNIX", it is important to look at the code base and where each piece came from. All things considered, there are standard methods of doing things that are taught in school that may have originated from the old UNIX code, but are now considered a standard way of doing things. Can you say that everyone who uses code they have learned in school now runs the risk of copyright violation because the code may look identical to pieces of the "copyrighted" UNIX code?
This is where a lot of the problems will come from in these lawsuits from SCO. Also, if AT&T put a lot of code out into the public domain back when they owned System V, then it can't be taken back at this point. Does anyone know how much of the so-called UNIX code is actually held under the copyright at this point?
Maybe it is time for those people who have no ability to come up with anything new to come up with their own intellectual property, instead of just making games based on movies and books. Seriously, a good game is a good game, and I am sick of how few original ideas and stories show up in the game industry.
If license fees are too expensive, come up with your own original works that share the same vibe as what you are looking to make, and if you make it solid, people will play. Gamers are STARVED for games that are new, and not just a clone of an existing game, or a 6 hour game based on a movie.
The console world also should NOT be the center of the game universe. A really really huge game that is PC-only right now can be released for the next generation consoles if those can handle it. Drop support for Intel graphics if they can't handle the demands, and in under five years, Intel will either get their act together on the graphics front, or players will start to demand that computers come with a real graphics chip in them that CAN handle it.
The sad thing is that the way corporations work can be seen as deeply flawed, and a lot of it has to do with the idea that brute force methods can be used to deal with any situation. Those going to school for business administration, at least those who end up in upper management seem to think that just knowing how to do paperwork makes someone better in management than those who really understand how a company works, and what the strengths AND weaknesses of the product are.
It isn't about how many hours a person works, it is about getting the job done. In most of my career, the job was not an hourly job, so from that perspective, you get paid a certain amount per year, and if you work more or less hours, it doesn't affect your paycheck, at least until it comes to annual review time where those who don't work as hard don't get the pay increase that others get. Also, if you DO slack off and don't put in enough hours, you will be warned about it or you may lose your job. That is what happens once you get out of that entry level garbage in most companies. People know you are at work, your boss knows if you are early or late, and it affects your chances for advancement within the company.
Then again, it seems like most people take every so-called problem at face value rather than looking to see if it is a symptom of a larger issue that needs to be fixed. That may be a global issue though, not just here in the USA.
So, the economy sucks, jobs for people with experience are hard to find, and here we have someone fresh out of school trying to act like things are going well in the world? I also find is laughable that the attendance record for college classes would even be recorded by anyone but the instructor. Seriously, it is college, not high school. If you show up for classes or not isn't the issue, it is if you do the course work and learn the material. Even then, the college as a whole won't care about if students are showing up for class.
In this particular case though, you also have the basic concept that people pay for a college education. It can be hoped that a good job/career will come of it, but there are many people who go to college without any clear idea what they want to do in life, and even after they graduate they still have no idea. That does not mean that the school did not do what you paid them to do. Three months of looking for a job in this job market is also not all that long. People have lost their jobs, where they had been working for YEARS, and someone without any job experience is complaining about having a problem finding a job? These days, a LOT of people would be happy with ANY job at all, because things are really bad.
So, I agree with those who say that this IDIOT has basically made sure no one would ever want to hire her.
Back in the days of adventure games, there was a bit of focus on the older gamers as well as the younger players. So you could have games with a lot of material that WOULD appeal to the crowd Chris Tolworthy is targeting. The problem is that in those days, you didn't see enough marketing to try to draw in that sort of customer.
Take a look at Gabriel Knight 3, which came out well before Da vinci Code even was written(1999 for GK3, 2003 for Da Vinci Code). Yes, the 3D engine wasn't very good, and there were things that could have been done better, but the writing was very good, the puzzles were pretty solid, and if it were to get a face lift(using a new 3D engine), it would appeal to those who prefer books to most games.
After the death of Sierra and Interplay, there has been a shortage of publishers willing to back games targeted at an older audience. It seems like the focus is the teen market, and if you are older than 25 years old and prefer something other than a first person shooter, your choices are more and more limited.
If every movie were rated PG, with the content of a PG movie, it wouldn't be long before the majority of adults would just stop watching movies. People grow up, and want things that THEY find entertaining. If the movie industry can have a wide variety of movie types, from the really bad formula action adventure movies, to the highly artistic types, to romance, comedy, and drama, then why has the computer and console game industries focused primarily on first person shooters that only appeal to one type of game player?
Realistic? Not even close. It takes roughly 5 million polygons to fully render a human in full detail, and even the best GPU on the PC side of things isn't close to that. The problem is really that development is going to the lowest common denominator when it comes to multi-platform releases, so developers look at what is available, and code to make sure that in even the scenes where you have the greatest amount of activity in a game that there isn't enough of a slowdown to bother the player.
Then you have the PC side of cross-platform, and you have Intel holding things back because they have a large marketshare, yet are three generations behind AMD/ATI and NVIDIA. If Intel would just drop out of the graphics market, we would see a huge surge in graphics quality in 4-5 years(once the old Intel graphics were no longer an issue to consumers).
Remember, developers MUST code with the idea of supporting hardware from the past five years, as well as keeping an eye on where things will be at launch for their titles. Support things from too far back, and you encounter a lot of technical issues in supporting the old junk. Don't aim high enough, and the graphics won't seem good enough for those with a cutting edge system. With the transition to the next generation of consoles not TOO far away, developers need to guess just how good the graphics will be, so their objects will look good on the next generation hardware(easy port to the next generation).
When graphics in general have hit the point where we can put 200 different objects on the screen at once at 5 million polygons each, and still get 60+ frames per second, THEN the need for new and better graphics will finally end. Until then, there is a HUGE amount of improvement that can be done. I HATE the rendered people in games, because they look really plastic and fake. Rendered people with what I want to see in games should look so realistic, you have to REALLY look to even notice that live actors were not used.
It has nothing to do with Apple, if the concepts behind podcasting were in use to the public prior to the file date, that is grounds enough for a "Prior Art" complaint. In a way, isn't an RSS feed similar in concept, since the system you use for the RSS feed checks for updates to a "subscription"? Being able to sync ANY information to or from a computer, documents and such could be seen as prior art for that concept as well.
RSS started to show up back in 1999 or so in Netscape(according to the Wiki), so text to audio....I would call that a pretty obvious and natural progression.
This is why software patents in general can be seen as a generally bad idea, because there are very few ideas that are really revolutionary. Most of the things you see out there are a natural evolution that have come over time. Once web pages were developed that used a database to feed the content on that web page, most things suddenly can not be patented because database design really is so well established that pictures, or pretty much any use of stored data will have been thought of by thousands of software developers independently of each other.
I keep wondering if the use of birth control pills at an earlier and earlier age is causing this, rather than just genetics. It is probably something that many researchers are not taking into account in their studies.
People may not remember, but it wasn't Sony who first designed EverQuest, it was 989 Studios. Sony is the company that BROKE the game, and as time went on, it became more and more broken due to basic mistakes that Sony made.
So, whatever SOE touches tends to turn to crap. Sony as a company may have some good products, but SOE has a proven track record of taking a good product and ruining it with stupid decisions on the design end of things.
There is a huge difference between fixing a bug and intentionally stopping another product from working with your software for no other reason than to break interoperability. That is the problem here.
Support is one thing, intentionally breaking things is another. Microsoft could just as easily make a patch for all of their software that prevents it from running under MacOS, which would force people with a Mac to run Windows. Oh, we just made sure that our software will only run under Windows. The EULA states that Microsoft has the right to cancel the license for any reason. If Microsoft were to do that, there would be all sorts of legal action, but if Apple pulls that sort of crap, you have people running out to defend Apple.
There are many ways to look at it, all of them somewhat legit and acceptable to a good sized group of people. For starters, an ISP will generally go on the idea that they need enough bandwidth to handle the average amount used. This is not on a per-user type of basis, but across their customer base. Now, if you get 5 megabit/second service, chances are that you will be downloading at 5 megabit speeds SOME of the time, but not all of the time. The same thing goes for upload bandwidth. Now, if you are using 5 megabit ALL of the time, something is probably wrong.
And that is the primary concern that ISPs will have, the amount of bandwidth used should be for your personal use. The moment you get into the P2P stuff, and when you leave your computer on all the time, chances are that you are uploading more than you are downloading. In essence, for your residential grade service you are using more bandwidth than is "fair". It isn't about download bandwidth, it is about sustained bandwidth usage.
So, you may be entitled to your 5 megabits worth of speed, but if you are using that much for too long, that may very well be an indication of illegal activity as well. How many games can you REALLY buy for digital download where you will be downloading at 5 megabit ALL the time? How about a 10 or 15 megabit connection? Most download sites also have a cap on download speeds, so you have to be doing multiple transfers at once to fully saturate the connection.
SHARING of files when you are not doing it legally is not considered valid under fair use. I have yet to find a case where I can saturate a 10 megabit link for an extended period of time(over 24 hours) without doing something wrong on a residential connection. Running your own web server for example is not covered under a residential class service, even though it will work technically, you have not signed up for providing a commercial service for that price.
So, again, at 5 megabit, the average should be at around half of that since the chances that everyone is using max bandwidth at once is fairly low. While some are downloading, others are not transferring anything at all. If an ISP finds bandwidth is being maxed out, until they can lay more fiber, or license more, they have to put some limits in place so that the majority get an acceptable level of service. No service provider could possibly meet demand if every customer were running their connection at max usage.
Even in a larger LAN environment you see cases where one workstation might saturate the connection to the Internet, and unless that person has a VERY good reason for using that bandwidth, the others in the office are effectively being denied proper access. Doing a blanket restriction of 1 megabit would make it so EVERYONE is getting slowed down, or loses enough productivity where it isn't worth it. The idea that you SHARE resources is there, and if you are going to saturate the network with a download, that is fine here and there, but not for an extended time, and not on any sort of continuing basis. And so, that is why ISPs MUST use a sort of "fair usage" type of rule.
If you are the sort of person who REALLY wants to run their connection that way, there are business plans that are available that probably will not be subject to that sort of rule. If you pay $40/month, don't expect to get treated the same as someone who is paying $150/month.
With the economy in the toilet, it seems that this drop in sales could easily be caused by the economy and not about ANYTHING else. Sure, some people may use a phone version, but TomTom Navigator 6 for smartphones was there too, and most people wanted to go with the larger dedicated device just because of the screen size alone, plus getting proper support.
When the economy recovers, I am sure that sales will pick back up again.
Back in the ancient days of video and computer games, there really was no way to put up realistic graphics. As a result, storyline and just aiming for the "fun" factor was the most you could hope for. Think of that period the way you would the early days of movies, where special effects were not an option, so story(and good acting) was the most they could hope for.
Now, as with anything, there would be two "schools" of thought on how to attract people. In movies, you had things like nudity that eventually came in as a way to attract audiences, followed by special effects, while other factors took a back seat. With computer games, you eventually had better graphics and audio.
What we have seen is that games with a great story and depth have really been pushed so far back that the adventure game has all but disappeared. Storyline has also taken a back seat(look how many people just click through the dialog options to PLAY games, rather than reading or listening). That is the big difference here. In film, there have been special effects movies, or movies with a lot of sex, but those that are more artistic have also continued to be produced.
The true games that are a work of art have pretty much gone away. You have shooters as the dominant type of game, and you have a handful of pseudo-RPGs that give perhaps 3 dialog choices, but without any way to REALLY change the outcome of the game(you just end up with a different end-game "movie" based on your dialog choices). There are also the "sandbox" type of games that give you a big open world like Oblivion where you can do a lot, but the depth of the world, and your options are very limited to what mods/adventures people write(nothing dynamic, all pre-scripted).
It really is the shooter genre that has had the greatest chance to change this, since the gameplay isn't all THAT much different from game to game, storyline COULD start to become a more dominant force, or to change the "if it moves, shoot it" style in most shooters to one where it COULD be more of an adventure game, or to use the engine for an RPG(Vampire - Bloodlines did this but bugs caused it to not sell as well as it should have based on storyline and gameplay).
The death of Interplay and Sierra is also a key factor in what has happened to the game industry. When one publisher dominates in releasing a certain type of game, and that publisher fades away, and the other publishers do not pick up the slack by releasing or at least publishing that type of game(to fill the void), that leaves a huge gap that SHOULD be filled, but for some reason has not.
There is room for a publisher to really take up the reins and start publishing adventure and RPG games, but due to the economy, we have not seen this happen. Until a more artistic approach is taken to game design, games will continue to have a hard time attracting the general public. In movies, if EVERY movie was a battlefield war drama or zombie film, people would grow bored, and only a tiny group of people would even pay attention to what new movies were released. The special effects movies at least are starting to incorporate SOME storyline and depth, but there are still plenty that fall flat(Star Wars Episode 1 for example). Special effects without a good storyline does not do well, and within ten years, the first person shooter market will also dry up if nothing is done to make storyline the key rather than the overdone "run around, shoot people without a reason" type we see today.
Give the player a purpose they can identify with, and it will attract people. Look for something that older players and those not drawn to shooting guns, and you will bring in the masses.
One thing that many people do not think about when it comes to evolution is the idea that the environment does affect evolution. If the climate changes, those more suited to the new changes tend to come out on top, and so that species will change ever so slightly over a large period of time based on those traits. One thing that really comes into play here is that environmental conditions for humans have become far less of an issue when it comes to evolution due to things like air conditioning, and being more able than other species on this planet to change our environment.
On the flip side, discussions of evolution tend not to incorporate socialization within a species where mental traits may account for a part of the process. Since we as humans still have a very limited understanding of the human brain, things like being more artistic, or analytical, or having a seemingly natural aptitude for different subjects may very well be genetic, or influenced by genetics, and as such, could very well be a part of the evolutionary process that we just do not understand. And of course, since there are so few species capable of using tools, it becomes less obvious when we study other species if this process applies only to humans, or if it applies to other species as well.
So conspiracy to cause harm to others should be allowed? How about telling people how to make an explosive device in the hopes they actually make one and use it?
When you know how people will react to certain stimuli, and you make use of that information to cause harm to others, that WILL be seen for what it is, and should be illegal. Shouting fire is well known to cause panic in people, so if you do it and people are hurt, you are directly responsible.
Now, the basic purpose of most laws is to give voice to a basic concept that people should not be allowed to harm others. What may cause harm of course will change over time, but that is the basic idea behind it. If someone intentionally harms another PHYSICALLY, that is a clear case where there should be laws to prevent that sort of action.
So, what about mental harm, or preventing someone from living a happy and healthy life by causing them mental anguish over an extended period. Should THAT be allowed under the law? What about manipulating a child to cause mental anguish over an extended period, or to manipulate that child into become something generally looked down upon by society(drug addict, prostitute, etc...)?
Remember, discussing something on an academic level is a very different thing than dealing with things in the real world, because people do NOT necessarily react in a rational way to the events they encounter in life. Children also are considered minors because they are not old enough to be EXPECTED to deal with everything that life may throw at them. In theory, the ability to really apply logic starts at around the age of 12, give or take, and it often takes people to the age of 25 before many can fully deal with life on their own(due to not HAVING to take responsibility for many things for far too long).
In this particular case, mental abuse by an adult on a minor is the true crime, and for that crime, some people in society might feel the death penalty would be in order, while others might feel that a long time in prison would be appropriate. Letting that woman go free really is the wrong thing because she IS guilty of harming a minor. The prosecutors should lose their license to practice law, because they were obviously too stupid to use that approach in this case.
Your rights to free speech end when you use it to do harm to others. The idea of the freedom of speech is so that people can discuss various subjects without the fear of government stopping dissent. But, if you run the risk of harming a minor with your speech, then THAT is not covered.
This also goes to some basic problems with current popular culture. This idea of freedom of speech makes people feel they can say ANYTHING at any time, with anyone else listening. Discussing detailed sexual acts when there are six to eight year olds around might make you a criminal in the eyes of many. Even the use of profanity SHOULD be frowned on when there are young children around at the very least, even if it may not be illegal.
Basically, people should be trying to make the world a better place. If you don't like people swearing at you(even if you may laugh it off), then perhaps the first step is to start with your own actions. Certain freedoms may be seen as a right, but with it, there comes a responsibility. The problem comes from people who are NOT acting responsibly.
The difference here is the INTENT to do harm. The intent to cause the girl to kill herself may not have been there, but there was clearly an intent to do emotional harm to a minor by an adult. This is a clear problem with the legal system if this is not an obvious problem.
Now, you say that people have a responsibility to not let yourself be manipulated, but, minors are NOT expected to be fully able to do this. That is the difference between if the victim was an adult or not. In spite of how grown-up many teenagers may act, they are still not adults, and need to be protected from mental abuse by others.
I will say this, any adult who intentionally causes emotional or physical pain to a minor should not just be locked up, but locked up with the worst sorts of people so they can know the sort of fear and pain they have caused.
AMD and Intel are in the position where they need to make products used by a large number of customers. As a result of this, their primary focus will be on making products that will draw in the greatest number of customers. As we saw with Itanium, if the customer base is not large enough, the R&D costs will never be made up.
So, when does it make sense for a chip and motherboard supplier to make a product with only one or two POTENTIAL customers in mind? Never is the answer that comes to mind. Both AMD and Intel MUST spend their resources on making products that will result in a net profit.
So, Facebook and web servers, and database engines...it should be possible for AMD or Intel to make a platform with these specific applications in mind, but the cost for such a specific product to be developed when there are very few potential customers that would want it would be small. Potential is the key, because I am sure that if Facebook approached AMD or Intel and wanted a fixed-purpose product to be developed, they would be happy to do it for the right price.
When a company makes a motherboard, the focus is to make a product that will get enough interest and sales to make a profit. As a result, we see motherboards with extra PCI, PCI Express, memory, USB, SATA, and other connectors than most people would actually need. If it gets cut back to only what would be needed for a specific customer, then the machine would probably perform better. Expecting a product aimed at a large number of people to be perfectly optimized and customized for any one specific purpose is foolish.
And of course, you have the limitations inherent in any system, including bandwidth between components, ethernet controllers, and how much CPU power may be used for things like USB, SATA, and ethernet. When you buy a $75 motherboard and expect the performance of a $250 motherboard, you are pretty much guaranteed to be disappointed.