I can run Linux on more processors and different system types than every other Operating system ever made put together.
You can, but do you?
You have a point but in the realm of a desktop PC, the fact that you can run Linux on a bunch of different architectures is meaningless, especially when a lot of software is difficult to compile because short-sighted developers code them to compile and work on x86.
What was being taken out of context here (desktop PC is the context, not servers or embedded devices) is that being able to run any WLAN card in a linux box is incredibly sketchy. The same goes for graphics cards. The ability to take a piece of hardware from a chain store and be able to use it is the context.
Installation support needs to be improved too. The days where a different package needs to be made for each major distribution and revision should have been gone a few years ago.
Just because it does not support a crappy $9.00 webcam you bought on a whim means nothing.
Just because you don't care doesn't mean it is an irrelevant point. Maybe you don't care if Linux becomes a mainstream desktop, not all Linux users want it. If you do, the ability of a typical user to run on existing, paid-for hardware is of critical importance for it to take off. No one is going to dump Windows if they find they have to replace several pieces of hardware to do what they want to do.
Another poster mentioned lasers, but a problem is that lasers are so rediculously focused that you need to be in the general direction, and looking in the direction of the laser to pick it up. Space is very big and it looks like the odds of picking up a signal are rediculously small.
The instruction density is probably pretty similar. A 64 bit CPU does not automatcially mean a 64 bit instruction word, most are 32 bits for a single instruction.
The instructions themselves are most often 32 bit. Someone noted x86. PPC and Alpha also has 32 bit instruction words, even for 64 bit mode instructions.
If they were 64bits for each individual instruction, I think it would have a huge undesirable impact on execution.
It's amazing how much improvement can be made and detail added in.
You can't add detail using filters. You might be a able to approximate what data might have been under a blotch but it is still a guess. Even sharpness filters generally takeaway detail, look up edge enhancement - which is basically a sharpness filter that makes an image appear sharper when it actually takes away real detail.
Would this story be on the front page if PCs were used? I doubt it, even if they were running Linux.
Sorry, you are wrong. Linux got the front page several times when Digital Domain used it to render Titanic and several other movies. Granted, it did use Alphas, but IIRC, several PC/Linux based projects were given front page treatment here.
Some people use instructions per cycle to claim that AMD64 is better than netburst. If you want to take that route, Itanium2 has about a 33% higher IPC than Opteron, a 1.5GHz Itanium often holds its own performance-wise against a 2GHz Opteron, from the dual CPU workstation to the Top500 clusters.
Where Itanium fails is that the chips still cost a bit too much. They used to be waaaay too expensive, now I think they are only marginally more expensive than an equivalent Opteron system. Itanium doesn't have the 1xx/2xx/8xx markings such that the first digit shows how many CPUs may be in a system, I think they are all 8-way chips by default, and Itaniums compare not so badly against the 8xx chips, which have hit the $2000 mark a couple times.
I think the switch from knobs to buttons in itself a de-evolution in user interfaces in a few respects.
I think knobs are great. They give a more linear feel to a control rather than just holding down a button. With a button, you are held captive by how fast the maker wants to allow the setting change. With a knob, a quick twist, or turning as quickly or slowly depending on fine/coarse tuning, is all that is needed.
Both knobs and buttons have their places though. I suspect buttons are used because they are cheaper, and bean counters love cheap.
IIRC, the certification is mostly for branding. And the branding is rediculously expensive just for the licence fees, not counting the system modifications needed to comply with the standard.
Given its history, I'd want it put in the Smithsonian or some other prestigious museum. Just sending it to be melted down would seem to belittle how much that sub has advanced our understanding of Earth.
It's nothing but a cash grab, they're reselling you the same crap you already have (but now portable!) use your heads/wallets and get a DS.
I don't have these games that Sony is allegedly reselling for PSP.
Personally, I'm not buying either until I can handle them personally, and even then, maybe not. I consider the dual screen thing a gimmick until I can see for myself what it can be useful for. Like, what, it will come in handy for playing Battleship DS? The little handwriting note-passing feature looks cute but that looks like a feature for kids trying to pass notes without teacher intercepting the handwritten note and reading it aloud to the class. It might be useful for land-strategy but that doesn't seem like a good idea on a portable game.
And I am troubled by the number of buttons on a typical console controller now. I like being able to have fun right away, not trying to remember which button is which for umpteen number of moves, especially when move choice devolves into trying to quickly remember which combination of buttons to press to do a particular special move.
I really hope that Sony isn't going to be stupid about battery life.
The battery life figures being thrown about is speculative. The same about the pricing. There really isn't a whole lot of information about the PSP.
Anyhow, regarding feeling the disc spin, I would imagine yes but I really didn't think it was annoying when I had a minidisc player. If it is the same then I really don't expect it to be a problem.
I realize that 1W at 366MHz is fantastic, but a 1GHz Via Eden chip consumes 7 watts maximum. I realize that is 7x the Geode chip but the same chip can apparently dynamically scale to 533MHz and run at 2.5W. I don't know what the comparative compute performances are though but I have to think if someone is going to pay $200 for this, electricity isn't going to be a problem. I think it really should be a $100 computer if it is going for those that don't have a computer already.
I think that is still too expensive of a computer to get into the hands of those that don't have one. A second hand 1GHz computer would probably be a lot cheaper and more suitable for running modern browsers. At least this is pretty power efficient, but even Via probably has more powerful CPUs that are sufficiently low power.
The current HD-DVD standard uses the same blue frequency laser as Blu-Ray. a source There are others, google with keywords: HD-DVD laser color spits out a lot of them.
Blu Ray doesn't have backwards compatability, but thats a feature not a weakness!
Actually, this is a myth. The players are backward compatible, but the standard doesn't require it. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players will play DVDs, the optics are available to take both the blue and red lasers in the same head assembly. Existing Blu-Ray players already play DVDs.
In this circumstance, it would be the wrong way. Unfortunately, only three hardware companies are behind HD-DVD, and they are Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. I think there are like 12 to 15 hardware companies commited to Blu-Ray, inlcuding Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Mitsui, Hitachi, Philips, Panasonic, LG, nVidia, Canon, Sigma Designs, Lite-ON, Kenwood, Sharp, Thompson (RCA), etc.
Not that bandwagon means it will necessarily win, but I think it is a strong indicator. Add to that the fact that three major studios have commited to it, Columbia Tri-Star, Fox, and MGM, I think those three companies have the majority of the existing DVD catalogue.
Paragraphs should be your friend. You aren't making any sense.
Personally, I'd rather a small subscription for a lot of stations, long playlists and no ads versus "free" radio's obnoxious ads, repetitious programming and only a few stations. As it is, there used to be some ads on some channels of satellite radio but they've both gone [i]away[/i] from it. I can't imagine the satellite radio companies making money charging subscriptions AND selling ads, because the no-ads is a major selling point.
I try to avoid "free" radio because of their stupid short playlists too. Die terrestrial radio, die.
From my area, it appears XM has a lot more marketing muscle. I've seen several XM ads and ads for XM products, but Sirius? I've only seen a couple store displays and maybe one TV ad.
I haven't but I don't think that XM necessarily has the same problems that AM has because they are on different bands, and the property of RF vary depending on its wavelength. For many urban areas, XM also has terrestrial repeater antennas to minimize the risk of drop-outs.
Besides, for intermitten't problems, the signal is pre-buffered a bit with plenty of error correction to boot.
I'd be vaguely interested in it if I can dock this little thing to my car, dock it to my HT sound system, or to my computer sound system, and use external antennas that connect through the dock.
Satellite radio subscriptions are charged per-reciever, and for one person, it isn't worth owning multiple recievers.
I really don't think bathrooms should be a tipping situation. When I go to an event or a store, I expect that patronizing the event or store through the purchase of tickets or product should be enough to pay for a clean bathroom, I don't appreciate being "nickled and dimed" for every little thing I do.
I will admit that the tipping might create an incentive to make sure the bathroom really is clean. That said, I thought there had to be a minimum wage. IIRC, the minimum wage assuming there is sufficient tipping is just under $3 an hour, so it makes up for the slow times too.
However, I don't think most people would necessarily enjoy 50% larger payloads required to make this work.
50% is assuming there is a correction/redundant packet for every two data packets. With four data packets and a fifth correction packet would only mean 25% overhead. I bet that you'd regularly be able to sustain 12% or more packets being lost or corrupted.
That said, that is pretty high, I would call the connection suspect. I can see it being useful for wireless connections though.
I'd rather add a thin error checking addition and ask for a retransmission for the occasional dropped packets.
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Yeah, but you have to keep in mind that most game consoles are sold at a loss.
That is kind of a myth.
Game console economics
I can run Linux on more processors and different system types than every other Operating system ever made put together.
You can, but do you?
You have a point but in the realm of a desktop PC, the fact that you can run Linux on a bunch of different architectures is meaningless, especially when a lot of software is difficult to compile because short-sighted developers code them to compile and work on x86.
What was being taken out of context here (desktop PC is the context, not servers or embedded devices) is that being able to run any WLAN card in a linux box is incredibly sketchy. The same goes for graphics cards. The ability to take a piece of hardware from a chain store and be able to use it is the context.
Installation support needs to be improved too. The days where a different package needs to be made for each major distribution and revision should have been gone a few years ago.
Just because it does not support a crappy $9.00 webcam you bought on a whim means nothing.
Just because you don't care doesn't mean it is an irrelevant point. Maybe you don't care if Linux becomes a mainstream desktop, not all Linux users want it. If you do, the ability of a typical user to run on existing, paid-for hardware is of critical importance for it to take off. No one is going to dump Windows if they find they have to replace several pieces of hardware to do what they want to do.
An issue with that is that spacecraft are slow.
Another poster mentioned lasers, but a problem is that lasers are so rediculously focused that you need to be in the general direction, and looking in the direction of the laser to pick it up. Space is very big and it looks like the odds of picking up a signal are rediculously small.
The instruction density is probably pretty similar. A 64 bit CPU does not automatcially mean a 64 bit instruction word, most are 32 bits for a single instruction.
The instructions themselves are most often 32 bit. Someone noted x86. PPC and Alpha also has 32 bit instruction words, even for 64 bit mode instructions.
If they were 64bits for each individual instruction, I think it would have a huge undesirable impact on execution.
No. Air conditioners only require 10W to move 100W of heat to a different location. No laws of physics. Think amplifier here.
It's amazing how much improvement can be made and detail added in.
You can't add detail using filters. You might be a able to approximate what data might have been under a blotch but it is still a guess. Even sharpness filters generally takeaway detail, look up edge enhancement - which is basically a sharpness filter that makes an image appear sharper when it actually takes away real detail.
Would this story be on the front page if PCs were used? I doubt it, even if they were running Linux.
Sorry, you are wrong. Linux got the front page several times when Digital Domain used it to render Titanic and several other movies. Granted, it did use Alphas, but IIRC, several PC/Linux based projects were given front page treatment here.
Some people use instructions per cycle to claim that AMD64 is better than netburst. If you want to take that route, Itanium2 has about a 33% higher IPC than Opteron, a 1.5GHz Itanium often holds its own performance-wise against a 2GHz Opteron, from the dual CPU workstation to the Top500 clusters.
Where Itanium fails is that the chips still cost a bit too much. They used to be waaaay too expensive, now I think they are only marginally more expensive than an equivalent Opteron system. Itanium doesn't have the 1xx/2xx/8xx markings such that the first digit shows how many CPUs may be in a system, I think they are all 8-way chips by default, and Itaniums compare not so badly against the 8xx chips, which have hit the $2000 mark a couple times.
I think the switch from knobs to buttons in itself a de-evolution in user interfaces in a few respects.
I think knobs are great. They give a more linear feel to a control rather than just holding down a button. With a button, you are held captive by how fast the maker wants to allow the setting change. With a knob, a quick twist, or turning as quickly or slowly depending on fine/coarse tuning, is all that is needed.
Both knobs and buttons have their places though. I suspect buttons are used because they are cheaper, and bean counters love cheap.
IIRC, the certification is mostly for branding. And the branding is rediculously expensive just for the licence fees, not counting the system modifications needed to comply with the standard.
Given its history, I'd want it put in the Smithsonian or some other prestigious museum. Just sending it to be melted down would seem to belittle how much that sub has advanced our understanding of Earth.
It's nothing but a cash grab, they're reselling you the same crap you already have (but now portable!) use your heads/wallets and get a DS.
I don't have these games that Sony is allegedly reselling for PSP.
Personally, I'm not buying either until I can handle them personally, and even then, maybe not. I consider the dual screen thing a gimmick until I can see for myself what it can be useful for. Like, what, it will come in handy for playing Battleship DS? The little handwriting note-passing feature looks cute but that looks like a feature for kids trying to pass notes without teacher intercepting the handwritten note and reading it aloud to the class. It might be useful for land-strategy but that doesn't seem like a good idea on a portable game.
And I am troubled by the number of buttons on a typical console controller now. I like being able to have fun right away, not trying to remember which button is which for umpteen number of moves, especially when move choice devolves into trying to quickly remember which combination of buttons to press to do a particular special move.
I really hope that Sony isn't going to be stupid about battery life.
The battery life figures being thrown about is speculative. The same about the pricing. There really isn't a whole lot of information about the PSP.
Anyhow, regarding feeling the disc spin, I would imagine yes but I really didn't think it was annoying when I had a minidisc player. If it is the same then I really don't expect it to be a problem.
I realize that 1W at 366MHz is fantastic, but a 1GHz Via Eden chip consumes 7 watts maximum. I realize that is 7x the Geode chip but the same chip can apparently dynamically scale to 533MHz and run at 2.5W. I don't know what the comparative compute performances are though but I have to think if someone is going to pay $200 for this, electricity isn't going to be a problem. I think it really should be a $100 computer if it is going for those that don't have a computer already.
Not in my opinion.
I think that is still too expensive of a computer to get into the hands of those that don't have one. A second hand 1GHz computer would probably be a lot cheaper and more suitable for running modern browsers. At least this is pretty power efficient, but even Via probably has more powerful CPUs that are sufficiently low power.
Since HD-DVD uses a red laser,
The current HD-DVD standard uses the same blue frequency laser as Blu-Ray. a source There are others, google with keywords: HD-DVD laser color spits out a lot of them.
Blu Ray doesn't have backwards compatability, but thats a feature not a weakness!
Actually, this is a myth. The players are backward compatible, but the standard doesn't require it. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players will play DVDs, the optics are available to take both the blue and red lasers in the same head assembly. Existing Blu-Ray players already play DVDs.
In this circumstance, it would be the wrong way. Unfortunately, only three hardware companies are behind HD-DVD, and they are Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. I think there are like 12 to 15 hardware companies commited to Blu-Ray, inlcuding Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Mitsui, Hitachi, Philips, Panasonic, LG, nVidia, Canon, Sigma Designs, Lite-ON, Kenwood, Sharp, Thompson (RCA), etc.
Not that bandwagon means it will necessarily win, but I think it is a strong indicator. Add to that the fact that three major studios have commited to it, Columbia Tri-Star, Fox, and MGM, I think those three companies have the majority of the existing DVD catalogue.
Paragraphs should be your friend. You aren't making any sense.
Personally, I'd rather a small subscription for a lot of stations, long playlists and no ads versus "free" radio's obnoxious ads, repetitious programming and only a few stations. As it is, there used to be some ads on some channels of satellite radio but they've both gone [i]away[/i] from it. I can't imagine the satellite radio companies making money charging subscriptions AND selling ads, because the no-ads is a major selling point.
I try to avoid "free" radio because of their stupid short playlists too. Die terrestrial radio, die.
From my area, it appears XM has a lot more marketing muscle. I've seen several XM ads and ads for XM products, but Sirius? I've only seen a couple store displays and maybe one TV ad.
Have you actually tried satellite radio?
I haven't but I don't think that XM necessarily has the same problems that AM has because they are on different bands, and the property of RF vary depending on its wavelength. For many urban areas, XM also has terrestrial repeater antennas to minimize the risk of drop-outs.
Besides, for intermitten't problems, the signal is pre-buffered a bit with plenty of error correction to boot.
I'd be vaguely interested in it if I can dock this little thing to my car, dock it to my HT sound system, or to my computer sound system, and use external antennas that connect through the dock.
Satellite radio subscriptions are charged per-reciever, and for one person, it isn't worth owning multiple recievers.
I really don't think bathrooms should be a tipping situation. When I go to an event or a store, I expect that patronizing the event or store through the purchase of tickets or product should be enough to pay for a clean bathroom, I don't appreciate being "nickled and dimed" for every little thing I do.
I will admit that the tipping might create an incentive to make sure the bathroom really is clean. That said, I thought there had to be a minimum wage. IIRC, the minimum wage assuming there is sufficient tipping is just under $3 an hour, so it makes up for the slow times too.
You are right, LCOS isn't used in flat panels, it is used in projection, be it rear or front.
However, I don't think most people would necessarily enjoy 50% larger payloads required to make this work.
50% is assuming there is a correction/redundant packet for every two data packets. With four data packets and a fifth correction packet would only mean 25% overhead. I bet that you'd regularly be able to sustain 12% or more packets being lost or corrupted.
That said, that is pretty high, I would call the connection suspect. I can see it being useful for wireless connections though.
I'd rather add a thin error checking addition and ask for a retransmission for the occasional dropped packets.