Steve Jobs announced at the WWDC keynote today that Apple is switching to Intel processors and Apple computers will now suck.
Further the hardware will remain proprietary, to ensure customers have to buy their sucky computers from Apple to continue doing what they did just fine before.
...Why video cards cost 400 dollars when you can get a WHOLE CONSOLE with DVD drive and custom hardware for the same price?
So you only have to buy one piece of hardware to do everything from games, to burning CD/DVDs, to getting that crap done you had to bring home from the office, to having complete control over your box to connect at LAN parties without having to connect through some pay-to-play network.
Sure this only applies to some people, but having the flexibility to swap in upgrades doesn't exist with XBox or PS2/3/P. You just keep buying a new box every 2 years like some kinda cross between a sheep and a lemming.
It actually did, because I've been paying more attention to CPU advances, WiFi advances, Kernel upgrades, etc., etc. There's only about 500 things to keep track of these days and that yet-another standard has traipsed out which is completely incompatible with the last one. Meanwhile my focus was on moving from a 32 bit CPU to a 64 bit (single core) and made the simple error of overlooking that one aspect while critiquing the motherboard of all other aspects. A quick email to the vendor and problem averted.
You mean you actually figured out you had something called a "video card", that it was actually inside the box you have sitting on your desk, AND, you have opened successfully up your case, AND you identified which card was the video card somehow, AND you are considering putting a new one in its place, AND you have gone through the trouble to determine what is lacking about your card and which card is the best upgrade for it? All that trouble, AND you didn't think to read the NAME of the video card to notice whether it said "PCI-Express" or "AGP"?
I put the box together, you sodding twit. In case it has slipped your mind, most of us only buy a new mobo or computer every few years, so when we do commit ourselves we do a lot of research to find out what's all been happening, make a list, check it twice sort of thing. That I don't do this every day I think it's pretty cool when I pull together parts from 20 vendors and the thing works. I dropped a lot on my AGP video card and decided nVidia's SLI advantages didn't warrant another $400 video card outlay (the mobo and CPU were only $300) everything else in the existing box will simply plug in and I'll be off again with hardly a blip.
Man, that is one big coincidence... what are the odds of all that happening to the same unfortunate soul? Well, what the hell... blame it on Intel, right?
Sorry pragmatism doesn't fascinate you as much as making a complete ass of yourself, but some of us like to spend our time with systems actually running and doing things rather than being l33tist.
I know this sounds like a flame, but I ave your best interests at heart...
No..... really?
You should totally not be opening up your PC, much less believing the anal drivel AMD resorts to. What, are there rules to dual-core?
As I was given to understand, about 10 years ago when there was a lot of experimental work on these sorts of things at the Pentagon/Los Alamos Money-Is-No-Object level, multi-core meant more than one processing unit on the same die. All Intel have done is stick a couple processors on their individual dies, along with the usual support circuitry (ALU, MMU, L1 Cache, L2 Cache,...) in the same package and called it dual-core. The main difference is they have to wire these things together and there's some performance sacrifice as it's really cobbled together to meet a deadline. Puts me in mind of the days when Detroit would just dump a bigger engine in a commuter car, add a stripe of paint, and call it a sports car. Too bad a lot of people died not realising the similarity only was in power and not handling.
And AMD gets to set these rules? Even if this means their processor will cost twice as much and also return lower margins? Yeah, they might get a few percent performance on a few benchmarks, but at twice the cost, who wants that?
People who really do want more bang for the buck. Intel will make scads on the gullible, while they put their real effort into a 64 bit Xeon with 24MB of cache. You know that beast will cost $$$$ while the eventual production costs of real dual core chips will soon mean commodity chips, again, can beat the pants of high end.
Also AMD is casting doubt on Intel's claim of dual core. Explains how Intel beat them to market, just
do a cheap shortcut.
As if sockets aren't enough, there's now two video card standards AGP and SLI (card: PCI-E) which
caught me by surprise. I had to change my order before shipping as I didn't realise I could not use an AGP card with the new
SLI/PCI-E configuration. Better? I don't need to spend $$$, my existing video card works fine, I just wanted to upgrade the mobo and CPU.
<snide whiney voice>The RIAA isn't going to like this one! The RIAA isn't going to like this one!
The RIAA isn't going to like this one!
</snide whiney voice>
Get a grip! The RIAA doesn't like anything unless it involves holding performers as chattel slaves, manufacturing hideous pop and rolling around naked in huge piles of money. The Grammys are a sham, just like the Oscars and it's all about promotion of the crap they want you programmed to like and buy. When actual consumers are able to pick and choose music in a broadcast then they have broken the chains of the RIAA, whose members regularly engage in payola.
It is probably considered a great sin by the RIAA when you turn up your stereo and other people get to hear your music for free (and you just thought it was people bitching about you being inconsiderate!) They've probably got an army of mad scientists (or severerly ethically challenged) working on some way to prevent public performance and free music in the parks, etc., and one day the only music you will enjoy will be chosen by their board and driven directly into your auditory nerves and you will enjoy it, because you'll have no choice in the matter.
hey, welcome to traffic jams from station 620-LPT, the black thunderbird! It's 5:30 PM and how's your coolant level? We've got the Smiths coming up, but first, the driver of the Red Explorer, your left turn signal has been on for the past two miles, are you turning any day now? [cue music]
Interesting bit about the mega mammals. There's a diarama at the Chippewa Nature Center, Midland, Michigan, depicting a giant beaver. Stood about 6 feet tall, probably a few hundred pounds. (what kind of trees did this thing gnaw anyway, it'd need lots of them) Always wondered how they would have died off, I can't imagine too many bow-and-arrow or spear wielding humans able to take on something like that.
For all of you who can't see it, there's a picture of a heatsink - with six or eight heatpipes up to a 6-inch fan surrounded by copper fins - with a pack of cigarettes for comparison. It would make the heatsink over 1 foot tall. The text refers to 25 cubic meters per second of airflow, and a 1400 watt power requirement.
Does anyone remember the first Pentium IV heatsinks? IIRC they were 1 lb (that's 454 grams) solid aluminum (alumium) I've been looking for one for a while.
I'm sure that this woman is not the first person who has had an ex-boyfriend/husband/lover post nude pictures of them on the net.
Paris Hilton ring a bell?
I seriously wonder wtf is wrong with women who let a boyfriend (in most instances an uncommitted relationship of indeterminant duration) photograph or tape them nekkid. One spat later and it's on half the PC's in the world.
You'd think Vanessa Williams downfall would have taught people something, but alas, it appears the more foolish the person, the more famous they eventually become.
A grand for a video card? A grand? All I can say is some folks have more dollars than sense, but that's just MHO.
I just picked up a new mobo and skipped the PCI-Express/SLI thing. I bought my card about 2 years ago and as far as I'm concerned I still haven't fully depreciated it yet so I stuck with a mobo with AGP 8X and I'll be fine with it. I did shift to the Athlon 64, bottom of the line Venice core, but that seemed reasonable as it'll use a bit less power and run faster than my old 32 bit Athlon. Anything more isn't justified unless I do video editting which is high CPU demand.
So what's the point of these SLI things anyway? So you can run dual heads at a LAN party?
My spam count has gone from "insane" to "alot". I guess we haven't arrested enough.
I know what you mean. My spam has gone in waves over the last month. I'll have a couple dozen each day that elude the filter and then suddenly 170+ in a few hours. And these fake Rolex, Pharmacy and pirate software are the bulk of what constitutes these waves.
I figured there was a new player in spam who had just increased their volume immensely.
Under the lawsuit Mr Reilly wants the defendants fined for breaking state and national laws outlawing spam. He also wants them to repay people who lost money because of the huge amounts of spam mail that was sent.
For a HD tv, Take a look at the Samsung HLRxx68 and 78 series set's due out around June/July. Around $4k for one but they are stunning to look at and much improved upon an already great picture.
That's $4,000. Quite a lot more than I'm willing to shell, no matter how good it looks. I'm positive the prices will continue to fall, but at some point they will establish a floor, below which prices won't go because they'll be kept in place by addition of features.
A fellow outside my office was just lamenting, minutes ago, that laptop prices don't get down to the level he's willing to spend. Yeah, funny that, because in each iteration of product offerings: CPU's get faster, Memory gets higher, HDD gets larger, more features, etc.
Yeah, except you could use used it one for that time. Stop being one of those people who won't buy anyhthing because something better or cheaper is bound to show up. If you need/want it, get it. Consumerium to the end!
It's about the money. Only so much to buy toys with. The cheaper the toys, the more you can have.
The packaging on burners will look something like this:
16x4x16x DVD+RW / 12x4x16x DVD-RW / 5x DVD+R DL / 4x HD DVD+R / 32X HD3-DVD1-R+RW / etc / etc
and the DVD burners will be easily identifiable as the only DVD drives you've ever see with a heatsink for the processor it takes to shift all these standards.
The worst bit will probably the the several hours burn time for a disc (as mandated, not by technology, but to keep pirate videos down.)
Actually, you can find really good HD-capable sets now for around $1200 to $2500, depending on the sale or how big you want it.
Which, to me, is a lot of money.
Back in the early 90's I first saw 17" LCD monitors and drooled, yet that same drool dried up in a puff of vapor when I saw the $2000+ price tags. Now you can get a fairly basic one for ~$200. This is what I'm waiting for to happen to HD / Flatpanel TV monitors.
When everyone finally jumps off the fence and starts manufacturing, distributing and fully supporting what technology
they all settle on, drop me a line.
I'm sure Star Wars re-re-re-released on HD DVD will be stunning, but I'm rather skeptical about
when I'll actually have a HD TV to watch it on. As it is, the set I just got is pretty damn good when viewed on a non-CRT screen (no black lines.) A couple
years ago Philips had the TV/Monitor to watch HD on, but it was $18,000. I'm certain that kind of quality hasn't come down far enough in price, nor shall it
in the next 3 years for me to even consider buying one (probably only when I get HD Soccer on FSC or such.) Meanwhile, as we saw the other day, someone has nanotubes which may make some really
great screens, but probably won't actually hit consumer markets, priced attactively (gotta pay off that investment in research.)
Heck, I'm only moving to a 64bit CPU at home because 32bit motherboards aren't being innovated anymore and I need a new mobo. It'll probably be a burned out
monitor that forces me to get the nanotube screen and a few really good movie titles which convince me to upgrade to a new DVD (only because non HD players aren't made at that point.)
It's actually a revolutionary new transportation system which will enable people to get about without
requiring gasoline. In snow you simply stand upon it and carve your way downhill or grab a fender and glide along behind traffice. In the summer attach trucks and wheels and you've got it finished.
Slashdot Mirror
Further the hardware will remain proprietary, to ensure customers have to buy their sucky computers from Apple to continue doing what they did just fine before.
So you only have to buy one piece of hardware to do everything from games, to burning CD/DVDs, to getting that crap done you had to bring home from the office, to having complete control over your box to connect at LAN parties without having to connect through some pay-to-play network.
Sure this only applies to some people, but having the flexibility to swap in upgrades doesn't exist with XBox or PS2/3/P. You just keep buying a new box every 2 years like some kinda cross between a sheep and a lemming.
It actually did, because I've been paying more attention to CPU advances, WiFi advances, Kernel upgrades, etc., etc. There's only about 500 things to keep track of these days and that yet-another standard has traipsed out which is completely incompatible with the last one. Meanwhile my focus was on moving from a 32 bit CPU to a 64 bit (single core) and made the simple error of overlooking that one aspect while critiquing the motherboard of all other aspects. A quick email to the vendor and problem averted.
You mean you actually figured out you had something called a "video card", that it was actually inside the box you have sitting on your desk, AND, you have opened successfully up your case, AND you identified which card was the video card somehow, AND you are considering putting a new one in its place, AND you have gone through the trouble to determine what is lacking about your card and which card is the best upgrade for it? All that trouble, AND you didn't think to read the NAME of the video card to notice whether it said "PCI-Express" or "AGP"?
I put the box together, you sodding twit. In case it has slipped your mind, most of us only buy a new mobo or computer every few years, so when we do commit ourselves we do a lot of research to find out what's all been happening, make a list, check it twice sort of thing. That I don't do this every day I think it's pretty cool when I pull together parts from 20 vendors and the thing works. I dropped a lot on my AGP video card and decided nVidia's SLI advantages didn't warrant another $400 video card outlay (the mobo and CPU were only $300) everything else in the existing box will simply plug in and I'll be off again with hardly a blip.
Man, that is one big coincidence... what are the odds of all that happening to the same unfortunate soul? Well, what the hell... blame it on Intel, right?
Sorry pragmatism doesn't fascinate you as much as making a complete ass of yourself, but some of us like to spend our time with systems actually running and doing things rather than being l33tist.
I know this sounds like a flame, but I ave your best interests at heart...
No..... really?
You should totally not be opening up your PC, much less believing the anal drivel AMD resorts to. What, are there rules to dual-core?
As I was given to understand, about 10 years ago when there was a lot of experimental work on these sorts of things at the Pentagon/Los Alamos Money-Is-No-Object level, multi-core meant more than one processing unit on the same die. All Intel have done is stick a couple processors on their individual dies, along with the usual support circuitry (ALU, MMU, L1 Cache, L2 Cache, ...) in the same package and called it dual-core. The main difference is they have to wire these things together and there's some performance sacrifice as it's really cobbled together to meet a deadline. Puts me in mind of the days when Detroit would just dump a bigger engine in a commuter car, add a stripe of paint, and call it a sports car. Too bad a lot of people died not realising the similarity only was in power and not handling.
And AMD gets to set these rules? Even if this means their processor will cost twice as much and also return lower margins? Yeah, they might get a few percent performance on a few benchmarks, but at twice the cost, who wants that?
People who really do want more bang for the buck. Intel will make scads on the gullible, while they put their real effort into a 64 bit Xeon with 24MB of cache. You know that beast will cost $$$$ while the eventual production costs of real dual core chips will soon mean commodity chips, again, can beat the pants of high end.
As if sockets aren't enough, there's now two video card standards AGP and SLI (card: PCI-E) which caught me by surprise. I had to change my order before shipping as I didn't realise I could not use an AGP card with the new SLI/PCI-E configuration. Better? I don't need to spend $$$, my existing video card works fine, I just wanted to upgrade the mobo and CPU.
Google have secrets you can't even begin to imagine, like this toast!
<snide whiney voice>The RIAA isn't going to like this one!
The RIAA isn't going to like this one!
The RIAA isn't going to like this one! </snide whiney voice>
Get a grip! The RIAA doesn't like anything unless it involves holding performers as chattel slaves, manufacturing hideous pop and rolling around naked in huge piles of money. The Grammys are a sham, just like the Oscars and it's all about promotion of the crap they want you programmed to like and buy. When actual consumers are able to pick and choose music in a broadcast then they have broken the chains of the RIAA, whose members regularly engage in payola.
It is probably considered a great sin by the RIAA when you turn up your stereo and other people get to hear your music for free (and you just thought it was people bitching about you being inconsiderate!) They've probably got an army of mad scientists (or severerly ethically challenged) working on some way to prevent public performance and free music in the parks, etc., and one day the only music you will enjoy will be chosen by their board and driven directly into your auditory nerves and you will enjoy it, because you'll have no choice in the matter.
Have a nice day.
hey, welcome to traffic jams from station 620-LPT, the black thunderbird! It's 5:30 PM and how's your coolant level? We've got the Smiths coming up, but first, the driver of the Red Explorer, your left turn signal has been on for the past two miles, are you turning any day now? [cue music]
Castoroides ohioensis
Interesting bit about the mega mammals. There's a diarama at the Chippewa Nature Center, Midland, Michigan, depicting a giant beaver. Stood about 6 feet tall, probably a few hundred pounds. (what kind of trees did this thing gnaw anyway, it'd need lots of them) Always wondered how they would have died off, I can't imagine too many bow-and-arrow or spear wielding humans able to take on something like that.
Does anyone remember the first Pentium IV heatsinks? IIRC they were 1 lb (that's 454 grams) solid aluminum (alumium) I've been looking for one for a while.
Paris Hilton ring a bell?
I seriously wonder wtf is wrong with women who let a boyfriend (in most instances an uncommitted relationship of indeterminant duration) photograph or tape them nekkid. One spat later and it's on half the PC's in the world.
You'd think Vanessa Williams downfall would have taught people something, but alas, it appears the more foolish the person, the more famous they eventually become.
return to the temple of the revenge seeking crusader
I just picked up a new mobo and skipped the PCI-Express/SLI thing. I bought my card about 2 years ago and as far as I'm concerned I still haven't fully depreciated it yet so I stuck with a mobo with AGP 8X and I'll be fine with it. I did shift to the Athlon 64, bottom of the line Venice core, but that seemed reasonable as it'll use a bit less power and run faster than my old 32 bit Athlon. Anything more isn't justified unless I do video editting which is high CPU demand.
So what's the point of these SLI things anyway? So you can run dual heads at a LAN party?
Try Cheetos. The keys will stick to your fingers and you'll make typos like the most 1337 /. poster pro.
I know what you mean. My spam has gone in waves over the last month. I'll have a couple dozen each day that elude the filter and then suddenly 170+ in a few hours. And these fake Rolex, Pharmacy and pirate software are the bulk of what constitutes these waves.
I figured there was a new player in spam who had just increased their volume immensely.
Under the lawsuit Mr Reilly wants the defendants fined for breaking state and national laws outlawing spam. He also wants them to repay people who lost money because of the huge amounts of spam mail that was sent.
He's letting them off easy. I want them fileted.
Imagine some cretin in the cattle-class seats on a jet trying to open one of these things up.
"Excuse me, mind if I take over some of your very limited personal space?"
"No, mind if my baby pukes on you keyboard?"
At some point I expect these things to come with telescoping legs so you could actually use it as a portable desk.
That's $4,000. Quite a lot more than I'm willing to shell, no matter how good it looks. I'm positive the prices will continue to fall, but at some point they will establish a floor, below which prices won't go because they'll be kept in place by addition of features.
A fellow outside my office was just lamenting, minutes ago, that laptop prices don't get down to the level he's willing to spend. Yeah, funny that, because in each iteration of product offerings: CPU's get faster, Memory gets higher, HDD gets larger, more features, etc.
I can dream, can't I?
It's about the money. Only so much to buy toys with. The cheaper the toys, the more you can have.
16x4x16x DVD+RW / 12x4x16x DVD-RW / 5x DVD+R DL / 4x HD DVD+R / 32X HD3-DVD1-R+RW / etc / etc
and the DVD burners will be easily identifiable as the only DVD drives you've ever see with a heatsink for the processor it takes to shift all these standards.
The worst bit will probably the the several hours burn time for a disc (as mandated, not by technology, but to keep pirate videos down.)
Which, to me, is a lot of money.
Back in the early 90's I first saw 17" LCD monitors and drooled, yet that same drool dried up in a puff of vapor when I saw the $2000+ price tags. Now you can get a fairly basic one for ~$200. This is what I'm waiting for to happen to HD / Flatpanel TV monitors.
I'm sure Star Wars re-re-re-released on HD DVD will be stunning, but I'm rather skeptical about when I'll actually have a HD TV to watch it on. As it is, the set I just got is pretty damn good when viewed on a non-CRT screen (no black lines.) A couple years ago Philips had the TV/Monitor to watch HD on, but it was $18,000. I'm certain that kind of quality hasn't come down far enough in price, nor shall it in the next 3 years for me to even consider buying one (probably only when I get HD Soccer on FSC or such.) Meanwhile, as we saw the other day, someone has nanotubes which may make some really great screens, but probably won't actually hit consumer markets, priced attactively (gotta pay off that investment in research.)
Heck, I'm only moving to a 64bit CPU at home because 32bit motherboards aren't being innovated anymore and I need a new mobo. It'll probably be a burned out monitor that forces me to get the nanotube screen and a few really good movie titles which convince me to upgrade to a new DVD (only because non HD players aren't made at that point.)
In a disused lavatory, in the basement, with the sign "Beware the leopard" on the door.
In the time between the parent post and when I looked Firefly have moved up to #45 from #48. I believe this is totally based upon hits, not purchases.
It's actually a revolutionary new transportation system which will enable people to get about without requiring gasoline. In snow you simply stand upon it and carve your way downhill or grab a fender and glide along behind traffice. In the summer attach trucks and wheels and you've got it finished.