Some calculation which can be heavily optimized to simple but fast processing. Hence a [relatively] cheap part that does a few simple tasks very fast can out perform a more expensive part that can do a vastly greater range of tasks with more efficiency across that general range but less in a specific area when performing that optimized calculation.
By capitalizing on this incredibly basic rule of computer science (the an optimized simple thing going fast is faster than a more powerful general thing that is only being used for one of its many potentials), attention grabbing headlines can be garnered.
Note: I'm acknowledging NWN has had great long term support thus far.
I'd just argue the very last message you want to give, right before asking people to pay another round of $50/title for your sequel, is, "We'll only support you so long as there's money in it."
I'd quietly fade out NWN1 support after NWN2 launches in a few months when no one will notice anyway as they're all playing the new title and you've got all of those extra $50s.
It's hard to expect a publisher like Atari to keep on supporting patches forever, and in fact most games are lucky if they can get a few done. The NWN community has been very lucky to have had so many patches with so much free content. We shouldn't lose sight of that.
Once upon a time there was this company called Blizzard. They made three games: a fantasy RTS, a sci-fi RTS and a dungeon romp. They also made a bunch of sequels but those three were pretty much it.
Blizzard supported cool free online match making for their games whilst everyone else was trying to figure out how to charge people a monthly fee for it. They also kept supporting the games with new patches long after every other company in the industry would have given up.
Strangely, people kept buying their new games, which were really just incremental updates of their old games, because they knew that three years down the line they'd still be able to go online, get the latest patch, play multiplayer, etc. Each of those sequels, whilst great games on their own merit, sold incredible numbers due to customer loyalty - far outstripping just about as good games from companies that had previously screwed their customers and couldn't figure out why their cool new game didn't sell as well (clearly it needed more full motion video, duh!)
Then Blizzard decided to make an MMO. Up until that point, no monthly fee MMO had cleared even half a million subscribers. Along comes Blizzard, beloved of all the people they haven't screwed every last penny out of in the past, and they clear the million subscribers almost immediately and five million not long after.
Certainly producing good games has a lot to do with it. But the very best previous MMOs couldn't manage 1/10th the subscriber figures Blizzard got, no matter how good they were. Even if WOW was that much better, the MMO market was relatively tiny at the time. Something changed that meant ten times as many people were willing to give WOW a chance (because, without players giving it a chance, good or not, no game succeeds).
I'd suggest that was the massive loyalty Blizzard has built up amongst fans over the years precisely by not applying the, "Does this make this year's balance sheet look the very best?" school of business.
And, now... Blizzard keep having to buy bigger offices with more rooms to stuff all of their cash in as they rake in ~$90m a month in subscriber fees (so vastly much more than the profit they could ever have made from their prior six or eight titles).
Loyalty, which you get from supporting people even when there's not a quick buck, is worth a fortune in the long run.
At the same time, publishers who're famous for cutting support of a game once the last copy on store shelves is sold can't figure out why they're making great games but just can't seem to turn the crazy profits Blizzard do.
So, no, you can't blame or expect different from Atari. But, perhaps, the reason they've fallen on such hard times is because, like most others, they keep playing the short game.
Requiring all Jewish residents to register as such and wear a Star of David on their shirts is also just a purely administrative aid, to stop people cheating the system and could never be used as a real civil liberties issue either.
I wish people would learn that we can trust the government simply because they tell us we can.
If you skip over to their auto department, you'll also find that, despite expectations to the contrary, a Ferrari performs no better than a VW Beetle. Granted, they didn't have any tires on their Ferrari at the time of testing but that's not going to stop them announcing their findings now with a quiet footnote about retesting later.
"Over 600 terabytes of data were transferred over the network during the week, a figure which represents 30 times more data than is found in all the printed material in the US Library of Congress, according to Microsoft games boss Peter Moore, who thankfully did not go on to provide the standard British comparison of telling us how many double decker buses it equates to."
Ignoring that the library of congress figure considers text strings only with no consideration of the detail stored in images printed at however many hundred dpi whereas Microsoft Live's downloads contain 600 terabytes of image and video files plus the word "l33t"
Compared on like terms, either:
Microsoft have offered 600 terabytes of data in all forms whereas the library of congress contains billions of times that once you consider the information needed to describe the images in the books, the paper used, the binding, font choices, fading of inks, etc.
or
The library of congress has around 20 terabytes worth of laregely uniquely ordererd text strings whereas Microsoft have downloaded the same four bytes that reconstruct to "l33t" a few million times.
Microsoft's spokesperson then went on to compare the Microsoft XBox 360 to having several hundred times the power of a Ferrari which he points out only has a few relatively simple processors in it.
A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article -- (a) intending it to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3 [of the Computer Misuse Act]; or (b) believing that it is likely to be so used.
Given their well known and frequently abused security issues, doesn't this outlaw the distribution of Windows along with Outlook, I.E. and various other of their products?
A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, or offers to supply any article (above products) believing that it is likely to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3 [of the Computer Misuse Act] (botnets once it semi-inevitably gets infected in most unsecured installs);
A standard compliant website more or less guarantees that your website will work atleast decently now, tomorrow and in the far future. A non-standard with hacks might just aswell not render at all in 4 years.
This is what we in the field like to call "job security."
For personal sites, code it correctly or you'll have to fix it in a few years. For sites where you have no chance in hell of convincing your PHB that standards are a good idea and he'll likely mark you down in your performance review for time wasting, do exactly as he asks, safe in the knowledge there'll be plenty of work for them to pay you for next year and the year after and the year after that. Really, it's their way of giving a little something back.;)
Iowa state proudly boasts that they can render over ten million exactly the same color blue pixels at a time - a world record for any single polygon*.
*When asked if the reason for this record was because no one else cares about wasting so many pixels to display exactly the same piece of information on a single circa 1990 polygon, the program director got so upset he completely refused to show journalists the advanced terapixel-pong project in the next room.
>> The dogs, Lucky and Flo, faced their first test at the FedEx UK hub at Stansted Airport.
They are NOT THE COPS, they are NOT federal agents.
And, even if they were federal agents, they can still kiss everyone's lillywhite English asses as their jurisdiction ended about three and a half thousand miles to the left.
Not to, you know, shatter the apparent misconception the U.S. labours under that they are the world's police force and their laws apply everywhere.
Then again, if the CIA and their charming torture flights can't recognize the sovereignty of European nations, I guess it's unfair to expect other representatives of the U.S. government to do so.
Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links."
Google's 2004 revenue was $3.19b Quarterly revenue by late 2005 was up to about $1.5b
So, at a rough estimate, Google's total lifetime revenue as a company is in the ~$10b range.
To have made "billions" in child porn related sponsored links, even if we assume all of Google's revenue is from sponsored links, we'd be assuming 1/4th of all sponsored links Google has ever served were child porn? Assume 50% of their revenue is sponsored links and that jumps to a full 50% of all sponsored links Google has ever served are child porn.
Wow. The internet is a sick place. At least 25% of Google's entire business model is purely about child porn? They're evil!
Or, alternatively, the "billions" claim is completely made up by someone who saw a company with an apparently huge revenue stream and figured he could either:
a) Get rich by blowing a minor issue out of all proportion and then suing for a chunk of that revenue stream for himself.
b) Make a name for himself as the protector of all the little children, taking on the giants, and wouldn't you really like to vote for him for D.A. next year? After all, he cares about the children. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, PEOPLE!
Given I've not seen a single sponsored link for child porn via Google amongst the dozens of How To Make Money On EBay, How To Get Gold In WoW and various home business ads, I'm guessing a full quarter to a half of their business model is not built on child porn. So I'm going to go with self aggrandizing shyster as my guess.
You can buy a $200,000 Italian sports car or a $30,000 Japanese car and add $20,000 in parts to get almost the same performance. But you'll likely never get the same shit-eating grin.
Now, for most people, a Ford or a Honda is plenty. They'd much rather have an OK car and the $180,000 difference that they never had anyway. But that doesn't devalue what Ferrari or Lambourghini offer those who are willing to pay for it.
Similarly, yes, 1960's Ferrari probably can't hold a candle to 1980's higher end Nissan - but the driver who can afford a Ferrari in 1960 has had 20 years of awesome enthusiast's driving and has likely bought 1980's Ferrari that Nissan's 1980 model still can't touch.
Granted, timescales are the same in the gaming world but there is still a period of time where you have a significantly faster system. Sure, it may only be 12 months, not 20 years... But then it only costs $500-1500 more every 12 months ($10,000-$30,000 over 20 years) rather than $150,000 more once every 20.
The point is, these things aren't for everyone. But a lucky few get to live in a world where such options are possible and are quite happy to pay many times the cost if only for that exclusive 20% extra - and, as with cars, it gives those who're fans of the genre but don't have the money fun dreams to drool over.
For what it's worth, I'm guessing the Indian programmer that's about to take your job laughs at your craziness for buying a $20-30,000 car when he gets much better price/performance from a cheap motorbike that lets him take your job. Everything's relative.
Remind me why artists need companies like Sony? Especially known bands.
How do four guys with absolutely no knowledge of the music industry get to become "known bands"?
Most likely, they don't have the money to record a decent album.
Most likely, they don't have the money to get a decent engineer to mix more than a poor version of what it could be.
Most likely, they don't have the money to rent the instruments, amps, etc. they need to get the right different sound for each track.
Almost without a doubt, they don't have the money to put on a single TV spot for their music, let alone the dozens needed to secure enough interest for a high placement in the charts.
Almost without a doubt, they don't have the contacts in the TV and Radio industries that let them buy commercial time for anything like the price those with established connections can.
Almost without a doubt, they don't have the contacts necessary to get them on (buy their way on in ClearChannel's case) to radio circulation
Almost without a doubt, they don't have the money to hire a manager who can achieve all of that for them.
Most likely they're sufficiently impressed with their own imagined brilliance that egos clash and they'd fall apart without a decent manager they also can't manage to hire to keep them together on the road.
Sure, maybe they can beg, borrow and steal enough from relatives to finance a limited tour, maybe buy a couple of local cable ad spots and record a pretty crappy album that's semi popular in the local underground scene and sells maybe 2,000-3,000 copies.
Assuming they're incredibly lucky and have multi millionaire relatives who can fund everything, you think the relatives will be happy with the discovery that, no matter how well you invest, near 9 out of 10 acts still fail to ever break even.
Record companies provide a hell of a lot of services to get a band in to the public eye and to put out the best (commercially speaking) version of that band's work that they can. Without any one of those pieces, the imagined wealth and success never comes. That's what the label provides.
The label also sucks up 9 out of 10 bands never making their money back and, yes, has to fund all ten attempts from one successful band. Bands then bitch they don't see the money they should - missing out that they were quite happy to sign that deal when they were nearly ten times as likely to lose the record company's money as make it.
Sure, once bands are successful, they'd love to take all the money. By that point, it's true, they don't need anywhere near so one sided a contract with the record companies and, with a level playing field, could dictate the terms.
The record companies, knowing that's going to happen down the line, ensure they lock artists in to contracts that last well beyond their first success - otherwise they'd never be able to keep funding those 1-in-10 shots.
If you look at the industry on a per-successful-band basis, it's daylight robbery.
If you look at the industry as something that has to take a 1 in 10 chance even with the best A&R men, has to fund a massive amount before any investment, has to supply a huge number of contacts and has to bribe Clear Channel - it stops looking quite so abusive.
At the end of the day, if there's a better way, the artists should go an do it without signing up to such contracts in the first place. Problem is, there isn't. Evidently, from the way they keep doing it, record labels may be demonized but evidently do still provide a service.
The problem is, they just pay out more in the beginning and recoup it all at the end and people only look at the end part when judging.
An artificial insect eye, the size of a pinhead. Imagine how many of these high school principals and senior law firm partners will be able to install in the typical girls/women's restroom... for "security" purposes.
Some countries have passed a law that cellphone cameras have to make a loud shutter noise to warn people they may be being photographed. Will this be required to make a really loud buzzing? Can you even miniaturize a speaker down that small or does there come a point where you just can't move enough air to make any real noise?
Possibly, the conceptions regarding what radiation exposure does to screw up those exposed are relatively true.
Perhaps the understanding of just how freakishly robust nature can be in coming back from devastating damage is where the misunderstanding comes in.
In the first generation, massive radiation exposure deaths did destroy the population and had a massive effect on birth rates for that generation.
However, in nature, ecosystems are just that - systems. With most predators dead and most of the same species competition for their resources, those herbivors that did survive would have been in pure nirvana. Additionally, natural selection would mean that only those most able to survive the effects of radiation would be passing their robust genes on down.
As the herbivorous population began to rebuild and bloom again from the weird but now ideal environment, those carnivors that could survive would similarly have a minimum of competition and could thus flourish. They too, as the survivors, would be passing on their resiliant genes as well as having larger surviving litters as they were more able to feed them.
Plus, remember, many animals only need a year or two to reach sexual maturity. 20 years can be a full ten generations.
In short, nature has all kinds of tricks built in to help it recover very quickly from any given kind of devastation.
The thing is, whilst this is great for there being an ultimate animal population, it sucks just as badly for specific individuals. Whilst animals will bounce back as a species, individual humans would likely take offense at not getting to be the specific ones who survived and passed on genes.
Look at Iraq or the 9/11 attacks - a couple of thousand deaths out of a population of many hundreds of thousands of times that is considered utterly unacceptable. In animal populations, a 50% die off in a hard winter or 95% die off in a nuclear accident is recoverable. In modern human populations, a 1-2% death rate would be considered a massive disaster and involve much freaking out. Sure, we might recover, but no individual would consider those kinds of odds even close to reasonable.
Plus, even if we could be philosophical about humanity bouncing somewhat back in just ten generations and fully in 20-50, from a 95-99% die off, that's still 200 years for a partial return and 400-1,000 years for a full return, given 20 year human generations.
So, in the scale of things, sure, humanity (albeit in some slightly changed form as different "fitter" ones survived) would likely survive a nuclear holocaust and the animals would too (assuming no climate change etc.). However, given humanities tendency to see ourselves as individuals and only care about our own specific lifetimes, I doubt a 1-5% chance of survival and an ultimate bounceback in 1,000 years is anything any modern human would consider acceptable.
And, of course, there's also civilization to consider. Animals simply need to recover numbers and are considered bounced back. 1-5% of humanity surviving would likely lead to a massive dark age. Even if we could recover our numbers in 1,000 years (ignoring that modern numbers are sustained soley by technology), we'd likely need several times that before our technologies recovered to the point where we had a good enough understanding of physics to be able to nuke ourselves all over again.
So... For animals, it sucks for a generation or ten but they do bounce back.
Bouncing back still isn't something modern man would consider a reasonable option.
Yes, as we currently understand interaction on a quantum level, it's unbreakable.
To assume it's permanently unbreakable assumes that all theories stay prefectly intact, exactly as specified, for all time and that no one comes up with any edge cases that no one else had previously considered.
For a good 150 years, Newton's F = M x A where A=9.81m/s for the earth worked pretty well. Then an irksome German guy came along and came up with a more refined understanding. Newton's theory didn't stop being a pretty damn good approximation - it just turned out there were subtle variations to it that allowed for more complex theories.
Similarly, the Germans were absolutely confident that Enigma was unbreakable to any practical degree. No matter how many mathematicians you could throw at it or how could your cracking code, it would be effectively impossible to break - even if you break one code, you couldn't break the next in any kind of a timely manner. Unfortunately for them, a British postal worker invented this cool thing that could do it a whole new way. The German theory that Enigma was effectively unbreakable remained true in their world that was lacking knowledge of computers.
Right now, it's true, our understanding of electrons is such that, should we attempt to observe one, we fundamentally change it and thus reveal our attempt.
And, in ten or fifty or a hundred years time, some other upstart patent clerk (which will account for 90% of the world's population as current patent law is going) will come up with some weird system that we can't even guess at now.
All of the "properly" educated cryptologists will mock him and say, "The theory has been upheld for decades, centuries even. You can't observe an electron without disturbing it!" and he will carry on placing his weird jumble of quarks or whatever the hell he comes up with in close proximity to a butterfly flapping in Asia and read it unobserved. After he breaks enough of those codes and profits enough from the stolen data, they'll eventually, begrudgingly, begin to accept that... gosh, there might just be an expansion or refinement to the theory that, whilst the theory appeared just as true as Newton's view of gravity, there are things that aren't covered in our arrogance.
But, if you guys would like to religiously quote current theory, and ideally get jobs for banks etc. - the rest of would love to profit off accepting that we may not be all knowing and that, who knows, sometimes new variations on current theories do get discovered. The longer your refuse to accept that, the longer we can exploit your determination and the richer we can get by doing so.
According to the article on CoolTechZone, the author believes that Microsoft will unleash an abundance of next-generation applications that will take everyone by surprise.
People (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because of the sheer familiarity and comfort levels (BSoD et al) that they have with Microsoft software.
Revolutionary, new and completely different products that people will buy because they're familiar and comfortable.
Now there's a trick.
Bill should run for President, taking an ultra conservative, pro-life platform that supports women's rights to choose and caters to the liberals. He'd clearly be a sure win.
Or, alternatively, someone's so enthusiastic that they miss when their hyped statements contradict each other. Most likely, Microsoft is working on new features and products that will be quite a bit ahead of what they launched three to five years ago - but not so radically different that they lose the familiarity card that they play on so heavily. In short - for all they're amoral, they're a smart company that can target the sweet spot pretty well - but a sweet spot isn't, and is never meant to be, all things to all people. No matter how over excited fanboys might get.
Which raises an entertaining point about, "You are permited to make one copy of this [product], for backup purposes only." as, technically, you're copying it from disk to memory, to the processor, to the cache, to the registers on the processor, etc. every single time you play it.
Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off.
To me, pirating (in the software/music sense) means: to copy without the legal right to do so.
If you install a bunch of software under license and then the licensing falls apart, making that software no longer licensed, you don't retroactively go back in time and "pirate" the software. You're simply using now unlicensed software - not copying it.
It's kind of like having sex with someone, dumping them, finding they still stalk you and then claiming they're a rapist. No, they had consensual sex with you. The fact that, since then, they've taken to doing something else that's illegal does not retroactively make them a rapist for having had sex when it was consensual.
Of course, screaming "rape!" in the press gets you a lot more headlines, helps you get more awareness of your product in the marketplace, and helps you strengthen your position in future negotiations with someone who really wants you to shut up, far more than saying, "They keep hanging around outside my window."
Slashdot Mirror
FFT:
Some calculation which can be heavily optimized to simple but fast processing. Hence a [relatively] cheap part that does a few simple tasks very fast can out perform a more expensive part that can do a vastly greater range of tasks with more efficiency across that general range but less in a specific area when performing that optimized calculation.
By capitalizing on this incredibly basic rule of computer science (the an optimized simple thing going fast is faster than a more powerful general thing that is only being used for one of its many potentials), attention grabbing headlines can be garnered.
Note: I'm acknowledging NWN has had great long term support thus far.
I'd just argue the very last message you want to give, right before asking people to pay another round of $50/title for your sequel, is, "We'll only support you so long as there's money in it."
I'd quietly fade out NWN1 support after NWN2 launches in a few months when no one will notice anyway as they're all playing the new title and you've got all of those extra $50s.
It's hard to expect a publisher like Atari to keep on supporting patches forever, and in fact most games are lucky if they can get a few done. The NWN community has been very lucky to have had so many patches with so much free content. We shouldn't lose sight of that.
Once upon a time there was this company called Blizzard. They made three games: a fantasy RTS, a sci-fi RTS and a dungeon romp. They also made a bunch of sequels but those three were pretty much it.
Blizzard supported cool free online match making for their games whilst everyone else was trying to figure out how to charge people a monthly fee for it. They also kept supporting the games with new patches long after every other company in the industry would have given up.
Strangely, people kept buying their new games, which were really just incremental updates of their old games, because they knew that three years down the line they'd still be able to go online, get the latest patch, play multiplayer, etc. Each of those sequels, whilst great games on their own merit, sold incredible numbers due to customer loyalty - far outstripping just about as good games from companies that had previously screwed their customers and couldn't figure out why their cool new game didn't sell as well (clearly it needed more full motion video, duh!)
Then Blizzard decided to make an MMO. Up until that point, no monthly fee MMO had cleared even half a million subscribers. Along comes Blizzard, beloved of all the people they haven't screwed every last penny out of in the past, and they clear the million subscribers almost immediately and five million not long after.
Certainly producing good games has a lot to do with it. But the very best previous MMOs couldn't manage 1/10th the subscriber figures Blizzard got, no matter how good they were. Even if WOW was that much better, the MMO market was relatively tiny at the time. Something changed that meant ten times as many people were willing to give WOW a chance (because, without players giving it a chance, good or not, no game succeeds).
I'd suggest that was the massive loyalty Blizzard has built up amongst fans over the years precisely by not applying the, "Does this make this year's balance sheet look the very best?" school of business.
And, now... Blizzard keep having to buy bigger offices with more rooms to stuff all of their cash in as they rake in ~$90m a month in subscriber fees (so vastly much more than the profit they could ever have made from their prior six or eight titles).
Loyalty, which you get from supporting people even when there's not a quick buck, is worth a fortune in the long run.
At the same time, publishers who're famous for cutting support of a game once the last copy on store shelves is sold can't figure out why they're making great games but just can't seem to turn the crazy profits Blizzard do.
So, no, you can't blame or expect different from Atari. But, perhaps, the reason they've fallen on such hard times is because, like most others, they keep playing the short game.
Requiring all Jewish residents to register as such and wear a Star of David on their shirts is also just a purely administrative aid, to stop people cheating the system and could never be used as a real civil liberties issue either.
I wish people would learn that we can trust the government simply because they tell us we can.
These creatures can climb sheer surfaces thanks to the intermolecular forces exerted by millions of tiny hairs their feet, called setae.
I, for one, can't wait for the "at home" version.
They found no system speed difference between:
1 GB of DDR2
2 GB of DDR1
If you skip over to their auto department, you'll also find that, despite expectations to the contrary, a Ferrari performs no better than a VW Beetle. Granted, they didn't have any tires on their Ferrari at the time of testing but that's not going to stop them announcing their findings now with a quiet footnote about retesting later.
"Over 600 terabytes of data were transferred over the network during the week, a figure which represents 30 times more data than is found in all the printed material in the US Library of Congress, according to Microsoft games boss Peter Moore, who thankfully did not go on to provide the standard British comparison of telling us how many double decker buses it equates to."
Ignoring that the library of congress figure considers text strings only with no consideration of the detail stored in images printed at however many hundred dpi whereas Microsoft Live's downloads contain 600 terabytes of image and video files plus the word "l33t"
Compared on like terms, either:
Microsoft have offered 600 terabytes of data in all forms whereas the library of congress contains billions of times that once you consider the information needed to describe the images in the books, the paper used, the binding, font choices, fading of inks, etc.
or
The library of congress has around 20 terabytes worth of laregely uniquely ordererd text strings whereas Microsoft have downloaded the same four bytes that reconstruct to "l33t" a few million times.
Microsoft's spokesperson then went on to compare the Microsoft XBox 360 to having several hundred times the power of a Ferrari which he points out only has a few relatively simple processors in it.
A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article --
(a) intending it to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3 [of the Computer Misuse Act]; or
(b) believing that it is likely to be so used.
Given their well known and frequently abused security issues, doesn't this outlaw the distribution of Windows along with Outlook, I.E. and various other of their products?
A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, or offers to supply any article (above products) believing that it is likely to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3 [of the Computer Misuse Act] (botnets once it semi-inevitably gets infected in most unsecured installs);
A standard compliant website more or less guarantees that your website will work atleast decently now, tomorrow and in the far future. A non-standard with hacks might just aswell not render at all in 4 years.
;)
This is what we in the field like to call "job security."
For personal sites, code it correctly or you'll have to fix it in a few years. For sites where you have no chance in hell of convincing your PHB that standards are a good idea and he'll likely mark you down in your performance review for time wasting, do exactly as he asks, safe in the knowledge there'll be plenty of work for them to pay you for next year and the year after and the year after that. Really, it's their way of giving a little something back.
...and flat shaded, ~20 poly-count blue planes.
Iowa state proudly boasts that they can render over ten million exactly the same color blue pixels at a time - a world record for any single polygon*.
*When asked if the reason for this record was because no one else cares about wasting so many pixels to display exactly the same piece of information on a single circa 1990 polygon, the program director got so upset he completely refused to show journalists the advanced terapixel-pong project in the next room.
>> The dogs, Lucky and Flo, faced their first test at the FedEx UK hub at Stansted Airport.
They are NOT THE COPS, they are NOT federal agents.
And, even if they were federal agents, they can still kiss everyone's lillywhite English asses as their jurisdiction ended about three and a half thousand miles to the left.
Not to, you know, shatter the apparent misconception the U.S. labours under that they are the world's police force and their laws apply everywhere.
Then again, if the CIA and their charming torture flights can't recognize the sovereignty of European nations, I guess it's unfair to expect other representatives of the U.S. government to do so.
...Ever-1 to the public. The name combines the first human name found in the Bible, Eve, with the 'r' in robot.
At least it isn't an advanced A.I. platform as well. They could have combined Eve, the first human name found in the bible, with 'L' for Learning.
And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.
Ah, if only most employers would play the Sims before designing cube farms and bull-pens.
Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links."
Google's 2004 revenue was $3.19b
Quarterly revenue by late 2005 was up to about $1.5b
So, at a rough estimate, Google's total lifetime revenue as a company is in the ~$10b range.
To have made "billions" in child porn related sponsored links, even if we assume all of Google's revenue is from sponsored links, we'd be assuming 1/4th of all sponsored links Google has ever served were child porn? Assume 50% of their revenue is sponsored links and that jumps to a full 50% of all sponsored links Google has ever served are child porn.
Wow. The internet is a sick place. At least 25% of Google's entire business model is purely about child porn? They're evil!
Or, alternatively, the "billions" claim is completely made up by someone who saw a company with an apparently huge revenue stream and figured he could either:
a) Get rich by blowing a minor issue out of all proportion and then suing for a chunk of that revenue stream for himself.
b) Make a name for himself as the protector of all the little children, taking on the giants, and wouldn't you really like to vote for him for D.A. next year? After all, he cares about the children. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, PEOPLE!
Given I've not seen a single sponsored link for child porn via Google amongst the dozens of How To Make Money On EBay, How To Get Gold In WoW and various home business ads, I'm guessing a full quarter to a half of their business model is not built on child porn. So I'm going to go with self aggrandizing shyster as my guess.
As the article starts out with:
You can buy a $200,000 Italian sports car or a $30,000 Japanese car and add $20,000 in parts to get almost the same performance. But you'll likely never get the same shit-eating grin.
Now, for most people, a Ford or a Honda is plenty. They'd much rather have an OK car and the $180,000 difference that they never had anyway. But that doesn't devalue what Ferrari or Lambourghini offer those who are willing to pay for it.
Similarly, yes, 1960's Ferrari probably can't hold a candle to 1980's higher end Nissan - but the driver who can afford a Ferrari in 1960 has had 20 years of awesome enthusiast's driving and has likely bought 1980's Ferrari that Nissan's 1980 model still can't touch.
Granted, timescales are the same in the gaming world but there is still a period of time where you have a significantly faster system. Sure, it may only be 12 months, not 20 years... But then it only costs $500-1500 more every 12 months ($10,000-$30,000 over 20 years) rather than $150,000 more once every 20.
The point is, these things aren't for everyone. But a lucky few get to live in a world where such options are possible and are quite happy to pay many times the cost if only for that exclusive 20% extra - and, as with cars, it gives those who're fans of the genre but don't have the money fun dreams to drool over.
For what it's worth, I'm guessing the Indian programmer that's about to take your job laughs at your craziness for buying a $20-30,000 car when he gets much better price/performance from a cheap motorbike that lets him take your job. Everything's relative.
How do four guys with absolutely no knowledge of the music industry get to become "known bands"?
Sure, maybe they can beg, borrow and steal enough from relatives to finance a limited tour, maybe buy a couple of local cable ad spots and record a pretty crappy album that's semi popular in the local underground scene and sells maybe 2,000-3,000 copies.
Assuming they're incredibly lucky and have multi millionaire relatives who can fund everything, you think the relatives will be happy with the discovery that, no matter how well you invest, near 9 out of 10 acts still fail to ever break even.
Record companies provide a hell of a lot of services to get a band in to the public eye and to put out the best (commercially speaking) version of that band's work that they can. Without any one of those pieces, the imagined wealth and success never comes. That's what the label provides.
The label also sucks up 9 out of 10 bands never making their money back and, yes, has to fund all ten attempts from one successful band. Bands then bitch they don't see the money they should - missing out that they were quite happy to sign that deal when they were nearly ten times as likely to lose the record company's money as make it.
Sure, once bands are successful, they'd love to take all the money. By that point, it's true, they don't need anywhere near so one sided a contract with the record companies and, with a level playing field, could dictate the terms.
The record companies, knowing that's going to happen down the line, ensure they lock artists in to contracts that last well beyond their first success - otherwise they'd never be able to keep funding those 1-in-10 shots.
If you look at the industry on a per-successful-band basis, it's daylight robbery.
If you look at the industry as something that has to take a 1 in 10 chance even with the best A&R men, has to fund a massive amount before any investment, has to supply a huge number of contacts and has to bribe Clear Channel - it stops looking quite so abusive.
At the end of the day, if there's a better way, the artists should go an do it without signing up to such contracts in the first place. Problem is, there isn't. Evidently, from the way they keep doing it, record labels may be demonized but evidently do still provide a service.
The problem is, they just pay out more in the beginning and recoup it all at the end and people only look at the end part when judging.
An artificial insect eye, the size of a pinhead. Imagine how many of these high school principals and senior law firm partners will be able to install in the typical girls/women's restroom... for "security" purposes.
Some countries have passed a law that cellphone cameras have to make a loud shutter noise to warn people they may be being photographed. Will this be required to make a really loud buzzing? Can you even miniaturize a speaker down that small or does there come a point where you just can't move enough air to make any real noise?
Indiana Jones - Talk about secretive - LucasArts has not breathed a word of Indiana Jones to the press since last year's E3.
Really?
No, that's how you count.
The question was how do you do bloodless surgery!
I don't know how people can claim to know anything without a good grounding in Sesame Street.
Possibly, the conceptions regarding what radiation exposure does to screw up those exposed are relatively true.
Perhaps the understanding of just how freakishly robust nature can be in coming back from devastating damage is where the misunderstanding comes in.
In the first generation, massive radiation exposure deaths did destroy the population and had a massive effect on birth rates for that generation.
However, in nature, ecosystems are just that - systems. With most predators dead and most of the same species competition for their resources, those herbivors that did survive would have been in pure nirvana. Additionally, natural selection would mean that only those most able to survive the effects of radiation would be passing their robust genes on down.
As the herbivorous population began to rebuild and bloom again from the weird but now ideal environment, those carnivors that could survive would similarly have a minimum of competition and could thus flourish. They too, as the survivors, would be passing on their resiliant genes as well as having larger surviving litters as they were more able to feed them.
Plus, remember, many animals only need a year or two to reach sexual maturity. 20 years can be a full ten generations.
In short, nature has all kinds of tricks built in to help it recover very quickly from any given kind of devastation.
The thing is, whilst this is great for there being an ultimate animal population, it sucks just as badly for specific individuals. Whilst animals will bounce back as a species, individual humans would likely take offense at not getting to be the specific ones who survived and passed on genes.
Look at Iraq or the 9/11 attacks - a couple of thousand deaths out of a population of many hundreds of thousands of times that is considered utterly unacceptable. In animal populations, a 50% die off in a hard winter or 95% die off in a nuclear accident is recoverable. In modern human populations, a 1-2% death rate would be considered a massive disaster and involve much freaking out. Sure, we might recover, but no individual would consider those kinds of odds even close to reasonable.
Plus, even if we could be philosophical about humanity bouncing somewhat back in just ten generations and fully in 20-50, from a 95-99% die off, that's still 200 years for a partial return and 400-1,000 years for a full return, given 20 year human generations.
So, in the scale of things, sure, humanity (albeit in some slightly changed form as different "fitter" ones survived) would likely survive a nuclear holocaust and the animals would too (assuming no climate change etc.). However, given humanities tendency to see ourselves as individuals and only care about our own specific lifetimes, I doubt a 1-5% chance of survival and an ultimate bounceback in 1,000 years is anything any modern human would consider acceptable.
And, of course, there's also civilization to consider. Animals simply need to recover numbers and are considered bounced back. 1-5% of humanity surviving would likely lead to a massive dark age. Even if we could recover our numbers in 1,000 years (ignoring that modern numbers are sustained soley by technology), we'd likely need several times that before our technologies recovered to the point where we had a good enough understanding of physics to be able to nuke ourselves all over again.
So... For animals, it sucks for a generation or ten but they do bounce back.
Bouncing back still isn't something modern man would consider a reasonable option.
Yes, as we currently understand interaction on a quantum level, it's unbreakable.
To assume it's permanently unbreakable assumes that all theories stay prefectly intact, exactly as specified, for all time and that no one comes up with any edge cases that no one else had previously considered.
For a good 150 years, Newton's F = M x A where A=9.81m/s for the earth worked pretty well. Then an irksome German guy came along and came up with a more refined understanding. Newton's theory didn't stop being a pretty damn good approximation - it just turned out there were subtle variations to it that allowed for more complex theories.
Similarly, the Germans were absolutely confident that Enigma was unbreakable to any practical degree. No matter how many mathematicians you could throw at it or how could your cracking code, it would be effectively impossible to break - even if you break one code, you couldn't break the next in any kind of a timely manner. Unfortunately for them, a British postal worker invented this cool thing that could do it a whole new way. The German theory that Enigma was effectively unbreakable remained true in their world that was lacking knowledge of computers.
Right now, it's true, our understanding of electrons is such that, should we attempt to observe one, we fundamentally change it and thus reveal our attempt.
And, in ten or fifty or a hundred years time, some other upstart patent clerk (which will account for 90% of the world's population as current patent law is going) will come up with some weird system that we can't even guess at now.
All of the "properly" educated cryptologists will mock him and say, "The theory has been upheld for decades, centuries even. You can't observe an electron without disturbing it!" and he will carry on placing his weird jumble of quarks or whatever the hell he comes up with in close proximity to a butterfly flapping in Asia and read it unobserved. After he breaks enough of those codes and profits enough from the stolen data, they'll eventually, begrudgingly, begin to accept that... gosh, there might just be an expansion or refinement to the theory that, whilst the theory appeared just as true as Newton's view of gravity, there are things that aren't covered in our arrogance.
But, if you guys would like to religiously quote current theory, and ideally get jobs for banks etc. - the rest of would love to profit off accepting that we may not be all knowing and that, who knows, sometimes new variations on current theories do get discovered. The longer your refuse to accept that, the longer we can exploit your determination and the richer we can get by doing so.
According to the article on CoolTechZone, the author believes that Microsoft will unleash an abundance of next-generation applications that will take everyone by surprise.
People (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because of the sheer familiarity and comfort levels (BSoD et al) that they have with Microsoft software.
Revolutionary, new and completely different products that people will buy because they're familiar and comfortable.
Now there's a trick.
Bill should run for President, taking an ultra conservative, pro-life platform that supports women's rights to choose and caters to the liberals. He'd clearly be a sure win.
Or, alternatively, someone's so enthusiastic that they miss when their hyped statements contradict each other. Most likely, Microsoft is working on new features and products that will be quite a bit ahead of what they launched three to five years ago - but not so radically different that they lose the familiarity card that they play on so heavily. In short - for all they're amoral, they're a smart company that can target the sweet spot pretty well - but a sweet spot isn't, and is never meant to be, all things to all people. No matter how over excited fanboys might get.
Which raises an entertaining point about, "You are permited to make one copy of this [product], for backup purposes only." as, technically, you're copying it from disk to memory, to the processor, to the cache, to the registers on the processor, etc. every single time you play it.
Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off.
To me, pirating (in the software/music sense) means: to copy without the legal right to do so.
If you install a bunch of software under license and then the licensing falls apart, making that software no longer licensed, you don't retroactively go back in time and "pirate" the software. You're simply using now unlicensed software - not copying it.
It's kind of like having sex with someone, dumping them, finding they still stalk you and then claiming they're a rapist. No, they had consensual sex with you. The fact that, since then, they've taken to doing something else that's illegal does not retroactively make them a rapist for having had sex when it was consensual.
Of course, screaming "rape!" in the press gets you a lot more headlines, helps you get more awareness of your product in the marketplace, and helps you strengthen your position in future negotiations with someone who really wants you to shut up, far more than saying, "They keep hanging around outside my window."
No, no, no. Shear was the female version of He-Man.