Also, the S3 ViRGE card is *supposed* to have a some 3D-acceleration. Is there any hope for that, or am I condemned to having to shell out $50-$150 for a real 3D card?
Even if it did support 3D acceleration with the ViRGE, there would be no point in using it. The ViRGE is a first generation 3D accelerator, a class of chipsets sometimes not-so-affectionally referred to as 3D deccelerators. Why? Because the chipsets were so primitive and slow that a good CPU could do the job faster than these things and turning on 3D acceleration reduces your performance. If you are at all interested in 3D acceleration, get another card! Stay far, far away from the ViRGE. You don't have a good excuse not to. A voodoo 3 2000 or regular TNT 2 could be found for around $50 if you look hard enough. Sure, they are not the latest and greatest cards out there, but they're not bad either. And they are far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far faster than a ViRGE in anything 3D. Besides, even if you could get the ViRGE working and for some reason you didn't care about the performance penalty of using it, you'd be hard pressed to find a modern 3D application it will actually work with because its feature set is so limited. The ViRGE is something of a joke to people who know hardware.
Hey, I tried out Virtual Boy! I didn't buy it, mind you, I rented it. For the first 10 minutes after I started using it I thought it was the coolest thing ever made. Then my eyes began to hurt, but for some reason I kept playing. Then I finally realized that there was something like a total of 4 games for it and they all sucked royally. I also realized that if I used it much longer my eyes would probably start bleeding or something. Anyway, once the novelty wore off it was hard not to realize that Virtual Boy was just a crappy system in many different ways. However, that does not mean this monitor concept is necessarily that bad an idea. I just hope my eyes won't start bleeding if I use it.
Frankly, I don't understand why Sony ever filed these charges in the first place. How are they hurt by emulation? They sell playstations at a loss! They make all their money on the games. When you have a playstation emulator for your PC, you end up buying the games without buying the playstation, which Sony actually loses money on anyway. It seems to me that they are better off with emulation.
Understand that this isn't the same as somebody like Nintendo suing the makers of an emulator. In that case, since the Nintendo systems use cartridges, all the games anyone will ever acquire for a N64 emulator will be pirated. But with a playstation emulator, you just buy the game and stick the CD in your computer. Sure, there are ways to make copies of the CD and then run these copies with your emulator, but there are ways to do that with a playstation console as well.
So I just don't get it. What is Sony trying to accomplish with lawsuits like this? Is it simply a matter of control?
OK, I'm something of a processor new junky. I follow this kind of stuff with an unhealthy devotion, so I figured I'd explain to everyone what this is before/.'s general ignorance about the subject (From my perspective anyway. Remember, I'm obsessed with this stuff.) starts to show through.
What is the Duron? Essentially it's AMD's answer to the Celeron. Right now their answer to the Celeron is the K6 series, but the K6 core has short pipelines and is not very optimized for high clockspeeds. The bottom line is that the K6-2 currently maxes out at 550 mhz (and in limited quantities) and it's not likely it will ever get much higher. The K6-2+ and K6-3+ (mobile chips only, with 128K and 256K on-die L2 respectively and the additional 3DNow! instructions which were added when the Athlon came out) currently max out at 500 mhz, and I doubt they'll ever get past 600 before they are phased out. Even 600 is a reach.
On the other end of the spectrum there is the Athlon. The Athlon is a brand new core that is extremely well optimized for high clockspeed. These things reach high clockspeeds so well that AMD has to underclock them to meet their contracts with OEMs (who request a certain number of processors at each clockspeed). Obviously the Athlon is where AMD's future lies, but they are considerably more expensive to manufacture than the K6 series. The combination of a large die size, the need for externel L2 cache chips, and the slot packaging adds to the price. Furthermore, AMD is finally making good money selling Athlons for the high end. They don't want to simply cut Athlon prices to sell them for the low end. AMD needs something else for the low end market.
Enter the Duron. The Duron used to have the codename of Spitfire while it was in development, so if you've heard that name before you know what it is. Basically, AMD took the Athlon core, optimized it a bit more to shrink the die and lower power consumption somewhat (although it's still made with a.18 process, it's just that the basic layout has been improved), and added 64K of L2 cache. Yeah, I know, 64K sounds tiny, but it's really not that bad. The most important thing about this cache is that it is an exclusive cache. In most processors, the L2 ends up duplicating the information in the L1 and only uses the amount of cache beyond the size of the L1 for additional data. For example, a Celeron has 32K of L1 and 128K of L2, however 32K of that L2 is simply holding the same information as is in the L1, giving you a total effective cache size of 128K. The Duron is different. Being based on the Athlon core, it has 128K of L1 plus the 64K of exclusive L2, which holds entirely unique data. This gives you an effective total cache size of 192K, 50% more than the Celeron which is the Duron's primary competitor. Plus, the Duron is based on the Athlon core, which is simply a lot better than the PIII core.
The Duron itself will be released in a "Socket A" package sometime in June. Socket A is just like Slot A (which the Athlon uses), only it's a socket. The reason for the socket is because sockets are cheaper and the lack of external L2 makes a slot unecessary. The launch of the Duron will be preceded by a couple weeks by the launch of AMD's "Thunderbird" processor. The Thunderbird is just like the Duron only with 256K of exclusive L2 cache, giving it a total effective cache size of 384K. This processor should offer a real performance boost over the regular Athlon and will eventually completely replace it. Indeed, Thunderbird is just the code name. It will simply be called "Athlon" when it's released. The Thunderbird will be available for both slot A and socket A motherboards, giving those who already own a slot A motherboard an upgrade path.
Oh come on! Just because he wants to do something a little different from the mindless gameplay of Quake does not mean that he will be making a product that is suitable for little children. Some of the most disturbing (in a good way) games I have ever played are RPGs, not FPSs, because they actually create situations which draw you in and make you really think about what is happening rather than simply present you with graphical violence that is so over-the-top that it becomes more comical than realistic. Have you ever played Planescape: Torment? A game like that makes the frags and gibs of Quake seem quike tame.
I agree. The original poster says that he thinks the stories are getting worse even though he admits he never even played all of them. I have been a huge Final Fantasy fan ever since the original for the NES. I've played through I, IV (II in the US), V (using a translated ROM), VI (III in the US), VII, and VIII, most of them multiple times. So I think I know I thing or two about Final Fantasy. Let me tell you: it get's better every time. Yeah, VI was great. It's definately one of my favorites (and I've played through it more times than I can remember), however I think the plot of VII is even better (although the characters aren't quite as interesting). It's certainly more original at least. VIII is a bit different in that it really tries to base itself on a love theme. Sure, there were some relationships in some of the other games, but they never took the kind of center stage that the relationship between Squall and Rinoa takes in VIII. Now, some people may not like this game as much as VII, but it's still good and I think it contains some of the most memorable moments of and Final Fantasy game.
Anyway, it all boils down to personal preference. You might like one game more than another, but I don't think any fan of the series would say that any of the games are bad, or that there has been a downhill trend. Whatever, I forgot what my original point was. But hey, I love FF, and I am really looking forward to this movie.
I completely agree about the Uematsu thing. He is an incredible composer. In case you're wondering I'm enough of a FF freak that I collect the soundtracks for the various games. There that good.
I agree completely. I played the demo of Diablo and I just didn't get it. I still don't get it. I realize that it is an incredibly popular game but I can't understand why. Basically all you do is hop into a randomly generated dungeon and then click on the monsters a bunch of times. Wee. I love RPGs, but Diablo isn't much of one. Honestly, I'd really like to understand why people like this game so much, but I just can't.
I'm a gamer and I'm also a Linux user, unfortunately these two things rarely coincide. I have a win95 partition on my computer pretty much for the sole purpose of playing games, while I use Linux for everything else. It might seem that I am the perfect person to buy Loki products but I can honestly say I have never purchases a single Loki game. Why? Several reasons:
1. Limited selection of games. I don't necessarily want to spend my money on the handful of games that you've ported.
2. Games come out to late. If it's something I really wanted then I probably already bought it before I even knew you've started a port.
3. Problems with the Linux platform. I love Linux for some things, but it has a ways to go before it is a real viable gaming platform. We need better video drivers, better sound, better controller support, etc.
What exactly are you doing to address these concerns? Will you support a more diverse variety of games (let's see some RPGs!)? Will you work on beginning a port before the game in question is already finished and available for windows? Most importantly, what are you doing to address the problems with the Linux platform for gaming?
I also have a completely unrelated question. If, some time in the future, more and more companies begin doing their own in-house ports to Linux, will Loki consider developing original games?
Wow, I've never had so much fun reading such idiotic ravings. The only thing is I can't figure out whether you really believe this mindless drivel or if you're a troll. If you are a troll, then I salute you. You have exceeded all of my expectations of trolls. If you really believe this stuff then I think you should be shot. But then, what do I know?
Your evil religion powers will have no effect on me, for I am an athiest! Hahahaha!
I first read about this type of technology over a year ago, and it never materialized. While it is an interesting concept, it's difficult to market. Who wants to buy something that will give them motion sickness?
OK, I actually posted the following somewhere else first. But it's all good information and I figured I could get some Karma by posting it here. So sue me.
Well, technical difficulties caused me to miss the technical questions, but I'll give you what I got (which is a lot).
Let's start at the very beginnng... Transmeta was founded in 1995 in response to problems they perceived in the microprocessor industry. Namely that processors have gotten so complex they take 5 years or more to develop, require teams of hundreds of people, and contain millions of transistors which cause them to run extremely hot an consume large amounts of power. They realized that a lot of these problems could be solved with new processor architectures, but then you lose the compatability which is so important.
So the two big problems are compatability and complexity.
Transmeta's idea was software based microprocessor, in which software itself is an integral part of the processor. They criticized semiconductor companies for trying to do everything with more transistors. The benefits of this approach include simplier hardware, which makes less expensive and less power-producing products. By using software to handle some of the functions normally done in hardware they don't need as many transistors.
The benefits of software are not limited to reduced complexity, however. They later discussed their "Smart microprocessor" technology in which the software could optimize certain things about your programs as they were run. Basically, the more you used it the better it ran.
The essential thing which makes the Crusoe processors work is their "Code Morphing" software. This software is the only thing that is ever compiled for the Crusoe's VLIW instruction set. Everything else is in whatever instruction set it happens to be running.
Here is a summary of the "Code Morphing" software.
Morphs x86 into VLIW
128 bit wide instructions
3/4 of functionality implemented in software
Completely invisible dynamic translation
Processor can learn about application program
Very simple and very fast hardware chip
Reduction in number of logic transistors
Their goal is a single solution with extremley low power, x86 compatability, and competitive performance.
There were two processor shown today, the TM3120 and the TM5400. As I mentioned in the previous post, the TM3120 is aimed more at small "Internet appliances" while the TM5400 is aimed at the more traditional laptop market, although both are completely x86 compatable. Both feature an integrated north bridge and the TM5400 has DDR memory support. The TM3120 really seems to be being paired with a slightly modified version of Linux they are calling Mobile Linux. Mobile Linux will be able to fit into ROM modules so these small webpads, etc. do not have to have hard drives and it will include all the basic applications that one would expect from such a device. It sounds to me like some very interesting products could be made out of this. The TM5400 is aimed at more conventional laptops (In the entire program they never once mentioned desktops. They are really targetting the mobile market.) and will feature better performance, but it will still dissipate only 1 Watt of power. Expect traditional windows based machines using these processors, although I certainly wouldn't mind a good Linux laptop.
There was a lot of marketing speech in the whole presentation, which I will try to filter out. Basically they went on (and on) about how they are the only semiconductor company that is really designing exclusively for the mobile market. They pointed out how previous mobile processors are just modified versions of desktop ones, but their processors are different. They compared current notebooks to the first generation cell-phones: bulky, heavy, and impractical. They say mobile computing is currently hampered by the form factors used.
They went on to discuss compatability. Crusoe processors will be completely compatable with normal x86 instructions as well as MMX. There currently is no support for either SSE or 3DNow!, although it might be added in the future. They pointed out that where current internet devices have the most difficulty is with plugins. Plugins are basically small, x86 compatable programs that are downloaded, and most internet devices just aren't x86 compatable. The Crusoe, being x86 compatable, will have no difficulty at all handling plugins.
Next on the agenda was battery life and weight. These are very important things for mobile computing and is the one area where current mobile processors have the most difficulty. This area really impressed me (as I'm sure it was supposed to). The fact that the Crusoe dissipates only 1 Watt while in operation is just the beginning. It also features a special sleep mode that will allow it to dissipate less than 20 milliwatts. Also, the smaller number of transistors when compared to most processors means that the Crusoe generates less heat and doesn't need a fan, resulting in less noise made and less power consumed. But the really cool part is their "LongRun" technology.
"LongRun" ties in with the "Code Morphing" software and will manage your mhz and voltage on the fly. It actually determines how much processing power your applications require and throttles the processor back to exactly that level while you run them. It happens instantaneously whenever you start or stop an application and there is absolutely nothing the user has to do to take advantage of this technology. This simply wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for the software nature of the Crusoe processor. They call it, "performance on demand".
They also talked about the company, but I'm more interested in the technical stuff (as I'm sure you are), so I'll make it breif. They have 200 employees worldwide, including Japan and Taiwan because that is where a lot of the manufacturing happens. They were very proud of their design teams, especially the way the software guys and the hardware guys worked together in a way that just doesn't normally happen. They talked about some of their partners, confirming that IBM will be manufacturing their chips using their.18 micron process. They also mentioned that all Transmeta chips will be sold by Transmeta, so they evidently don't have the same kind of crappy deal Cyrix got. In fact, they said that IBM had an entire team in Vermont dedicated to nothing else besides supporting the Crusoe.
One of the (many) interesting things about Transmeta is that they are not simply a chip company. They designed their own BIOS, they designed a lot of the apps for Mobile Linux (especially the power management stuff), and although they never actually confirmed it (at least if they did, I missed it), I'm pretty sure they designed their own chipset, seeing how they have a custom BIOS and a processor with and integrated north bridge. They also designed a lot of the prototypes for various internet appliances which could be picked up by OEMs. Basically, they are committed to delivering an entire platform, not just a processor. Maybe AMD could learn a thing or two from these people.
On to some of the specifics about the processors. They don't have any sort of registry renamers or reorder buffers in hardware, it's all done in the software. They actually used a very modest VLIW engine. (Although one of the really interesting things they mentioned is that their different processors don't have to use the same instruction set. In fact, the TM3120 and the TM5400 have slightly different instruction sets optimized for different tasks. This has a lot of potential for future scalability.) They weren't very clear about this point, but they seemed to imply that their software could actually theoretically be ported to other architectures, although with very poor performance because the architectures would not be optimized for using software in that way. But the point was that it's the combination of software and hardware that makes the Crusoe special. They are really designed to work together. Many things are implemented in software to save on hardware, and other aspects of the hardware make it well optimized for using the software in this way.
There are no x86 decoders in hardware at all. The x86 instructions reach the software where they are decoded, translated, and stored in a special memory area that essentiall caches translated programs for future reference. This means that the processor does not have to be constantly translating the same instructions again and again, although it will only cache the part of whatever programs you are running that you are currently using.
The Code Morphing software goes beyond simple translation, however. There is a "back end" that can actually learn about and optimize your programs as they are run, actually justifying the marketing term "smart processor". The Code Morphing only takes time to optimize the most commonly used parts of your programs. In one example they gave, it was possible to take 20 x86 instructions and do the same thing with only 10 VLIW instructions. Making the programs smaller in this way can also help lower the power consumption.
They went on to discuss different benchmarks. This part reeked of marketing and I think they tried to cover up some things, but I'll tell you what I can. Basically, they criticized current benchmarks for laptops for not taking into account the amount of power consumed in going through the benchmark. I suppose there is some truth to this claim, but that doesn't justify what they did. They actually created a benchmarking program that (somehow, we don't know the actual formula used) actually integrates power usage into the score. That's right, there isn't a seperate performance score and power usage score, they are part of the same number. I'm sure this is great for a company advertising a really low power usage processor, but does it make sense. To add to the complexity, the entire benchmark was sort of calibrated around a reference system. They said the system was a P3 500, although they didn't mention anything else about it. The reference system is given a score of 10 and everything else was compared to that. Basically, the Crusoe scored in the 30-40 range, which might be really impressive if I knew what in the hell that score actually meant. Oh well.
They did mention some things about real-world performance, although no other benchmarks were given. They said that DVD decoding and mp3 playing should perform comparably to other x86 processors, although I don't know whether that is compared to the processors out now, the processors that will be out when the Crusoe is release, at the same mhz, or what. So I don't know exactly what this all means. They also said that other applications should perform at 80-90% of other processors, and in this case I have two "others" I don't know what they mean. Later on in the Q&A they said that most business apps should perform slightly better. Better than what? Either they just weren't clear or they're trying to hide something. Performance might not be the Crusoe's strongpoint, although frankly I can live with that if the claims about battery life are true.
The next part of the program was very amusing. We all got to watch Linus Torvalds play against Dave Taylor (one of the original Quake designers and also a Transmeta employee) in a game of Quake (running on TM5400s of course), although they didn't say what version. Linus basically got his ##### kicked. That's about all there is to say about that part.
There was a lot of stuff about business forcasts and the like after that. They looked at the laptop market and pointed out that the fastest growing segment of that market is in the thin and lightweight models pioneered by Sony's VAIO. Obviously if the claims are true, Crusoe is perfect for that market. I wonder if Sony will make a VAIO based on the Crusoe? They also talked about Mobile Linux and how it will be able to fit into ROM for internet appliances. They even went on to talk about how there might eventually be a palm-sized device based on the Crusoe. Obviously, that would be just impossible with any other x86 compatable processor.
One story I would like to mention deals with the software nature of the Crusoe. They talked about a situation in which some guy in Japan came across a bug in an early version of their product. Instead of having to fix the design in hardware and fab a new sample, which could take months, they fixed it in software and sent a fix to the guy over the internet. Everything was working fine in under a week. The Software-upgradability of the Crusoe really has some interesting applications.
Finally, some mention of prices. They said the TM5400 would be in the $119-321 range and that the TM3120 would be in the $65-89 range. PCs based on them could be around $1200. They said that internet appliances based on the TM3120 could be anywhere from $500 to $1000, as there is a lot of room for variation in their configurations. No specific products have been announced yet, they are leaving that up to the individual OEMs. They did say that a lot of companies are interested in their technology, and I don't blame them.
I think you mean Drakan, but I don't see how anyone could remember that game fondly. It was horrible! OK, the dragon riding parts were OK for a couple of minutes, but only if you were masochistic enough to play the game long enough to get to them. You have to get past the incredibly pointless and tiresome plot first, going through a lame third person game that makes Tomb Raider seem like a work of art in comparison. And don't even get me started on the voice acting. It's so bad it makes me cringe everytime I hear it. That game is complete crap.
Sure, I would love to have some Linux games, but in most cases ports are released long after the original versions. Any game that I really want to play I probably already have, so getting the Linux version would require buying it AGAIN. Who wants to pay for something twice? Not me. Especially since, as much as I love Linux, its hardware support needs some work. Maybe X 4.0 will help, but currently the same game using the same hardware will perform considerably slower under Linux than it will under windoze.
Right now, I'm running X on an ASUS V6600 GeForce just fine and I never downloaded this server. I think Slashdot forgot to mention that the only thing really new here is the 3D stuff. Oh well, I'm happy. Now my spiffy new GeForce will be able to run 3D stuff in Linux! If only I had some 3D software for Linux...
No no no! It's not the same at all! This is a subtle point a lot of people don't realize. Organisms are not like hammers. They are not static. Instead, their population reaches a dynamic equilibrium with their environment. If you use some sort of antibiotic which kills 90% of them, the population will be reduced to 10% at first, but it is no longer at equilibrium. The remaining organisms will reproduce until they are once again at equilibrium. The final population is the same only at first only 10% of their population was resistant to the antibiotic. Now 100% of their population is resistant to the antibiotic. This is the reason the overuse of antibiotics is such a problem. Doctors give them out for everything, sometimes even when they know it won't do anything just because they feel the need to do something. All this accomplishes is the generation of a shitload of bacteria that is totally resistant to all out antibiotics. This is a bad thing.
I completely agree with the original post. I also agree with your statement that forgetting your keys doesn't make Zen. But forgetting your keys is not all that happens in a good game of Quake (Or any other FPS for that matter. Personally, I prefer Halflife or even System Shock 2). You become so immersed in what is happening on your screen that you lose awareness of your physical body. You completely lose track of time. In a sense, you do become one with your character. All of the sudden, something will happen to jolt you back to reality and you realize it's two hours later, your soda is flat, and you're incredibly stiff. You try to think about what happened to you in the last two hours, but the only sensory information you can remember is what was displayed on your screen and what you heard out of your speakers. You were one with your game. It's really quite addictive (unfortunately for my school work).
Honestly, if we can talk about the Zen of pinball, why on earth can't one talk about the Zen of Quake. If you haven't experienced it you have no right to dismiss it.
Note: The following post is a rant. The views and opinions expressed within are the views and opinions of a especially pissed offed/. reader.
Why don't people riot over this? Why don't they do anything? This is a very disturbing question. These laws are morally outrageous and completely contrary to the basic rights that people deserve, yet they are simply accepted as is and nothing is done about it. That is the real problem. If the people (I mean the general population. I'm sure there are some who care, but they are the minority) actually cared laws like this could never be passed. But they don't.
Why are people so willing to flush their basic freedoms down the toilet? The first factor is ingorance. Your average Joe doesn't understand the issue. All your average Joe knows is that there are "bad people" on the internet and that big brother government is needed to protect the poor, defenseless children from them. No matter that these laws don't do squat for protecting the "poor, defenseless children", but they do wonders for oppressing the general population. Average Joe's attention span has been rendered far too short by sensationalism and TV to actually spend the time to determine what exactly the laws are doing. All average Joe cares is that big brother is doing something. So the end result is that the only one that big brother's actions serve to protect is big brother itself.
It disgusts me how easily people can be fooled. Sometimes I am embarassed to be a member of the human race. Honestly, people don't look for any sort of evidence so support their opinions. They just look at what everyone else is doing and decide to hop on the bandwagon. If they hear about "evil things" going on on the internet (or anywhere else) they are all too happy to get themselves into some unjustified outrage over these "evil things" regardless of how much they have been blown out of proportion or even whether or not they are true. Then they will start writing letters and going to protests about these evil things until big brother swoops in to protect them. They just love big brother. Big brother is their friend. In their minds. In reality, the only evil thing going on is big brother.
OK, I'm starting to sound very repetitive so I will stop writing now. In conclusion: I'm pissed off and I hate the government. Hey, if anyone from big brother is reading this now feel free to go after me or something. I'd make a much better martyr than I'll ever make a speaker. Maybe we can actually get the general population to give a damn about the fact that they are flushing their rights down a toilet.
I use Linux as my primary desktop machine. I run Debian and my window manager of choice is Enlightenment (just E, none of that GNOME crap). Quite frankly, after getting used to this setup I just can't stand windoze's interface. I hate the start menu, I feel confined with only one desktop, and I just don't like the general look and feel of it. I avoid using windoze unless absolutely necessary. I do word processing on Star Office, and although it's a bit big and slow I don't have any other complaints about it. Why do some people have so much difficulty imagining Linux on the desktop? Exactly what does windoze do that Linux doesn't. Personally, I think Linux makes and ideal desktop environment.
You're missing the point. You seem to be acting as if getting some decent games for Linux would somehow prevent it from being "useful, stable, and good". Believe me, Linux is in absolutely no danger of being seen as a "gamers platform". The gaming situation in Linux is horrible. Do you think of windows, or even Macs, as nothing but "gamers platforms". I think not, yet both of these OSes have FAR more game support than Linux. This complete lack of games for Linux is off-putting for a lot of potential Linux users. What on earth is wrong with being able to kick back and play some computer games from time to time? Why do you have to act so conceited as if having some games for Linux would somehow hurt it. If you don't want to play them then don't, but there is no reason to prevent others from doing so.
I can't believe this comment was moderated up. It is extremely offensive and doesn't provide anything to back up its extraordinarily biased opinion.
Look, I don't care whether or not you play games, but I'd like to tell that gaming is one of MY main interests. "...not able to install Red Hat"?! What on earth makes you say something like that?! I've installed Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, and Debian all quite easily (and I much prefer Debian). I've also set up and administered an internet gateway with firewalling, a web server, a samba server, an NFS server, a mail server, and all that good stuff. I hate to break it to you, but serious gamers are generally some of the most technically enabled computer users out there. Afterall, when we're not playing games we're upgrading and tweaking our computers for maximum performance;-)
Gaming is a serious force in the computer industry. It is what drives the majority of hardware advances. And there are a LOT of gamers out there who would love to use Linux and would make extremely valuable additions to the Linux community, but are put off by the fact that there are very few Linux games out there. If Linux is ever going to succeed as a desktop OS then it's going to need games. You don't have to play them, but you have no right to make such offensive comments towards those who do.
Actually, modern weapons are all fission-fusion hybrids. Your basic "H-bomb", more technically a fission-fusion bomb, has a fission trigger (that normally uses plutonium) that results in a fusion reaction from the stored hydrogen. It's a relatively "clean" weapon, in that there is a big explosion but not a whole lot of fallout.
But things don't stop there. There are fission-fusion-fission bombs that start out like a fission-fusion bomb, but the fusion reaction is used to create another fission reaction in a sheath of material on the outside of the bomb. Typically, this sheath is made of common U-238, as opposed to the U-235 that is used in uranium based fission bombs and nuclear reactors. U-238 actually has more destructive potential than U-235, but it wasn't used in earlier bombs because it's simply impossible to start a fission reaction in it under normal circumstances. That's why you need that fusion trigger. Fission-fusion-fission bombs are basically the most destructive weapons in existence, and unlike fission-fusion bombs they result in a lot of fallout as well. They are nasty things.
Here's an interesting fact: a lot of modern warheads can be converted between fission-fusion and fission-fusion-fission quite easily. Since the U-238 is typically a sheath surrounding the bomb it can be replaced with a simple lead sheath quite easily. It's nice to have versitile nuclear weapons, isn't it. If you want to blow something up, use the lead sheath. If you want to REALLY blow something up and have no intention of taking over the land you blew up anytime in the near future, use the U-238 sheath.
Want to hear about some even nastier weapons? Sometimes called "hemisphere bombs", cobalt-salted nuclear weapons have the ability to, well, kill everything on a hemisphere. They don't do this with a really big explosion, but rather with intentional and very lethal fallout. If I remember correctly, they use a sheath of cobalt-59. The cobalt-59 is changed to cobalt-60 when the bomb blows up. Cobalt-60 is special because it is very radioactive with a half-life perfect for totally annihalating your enemy. It's half-life is 5 years, which is short enough to be fatal if you are simply exposed to it, rather than just causing cancer which might shorten your life-span in the long-run, yet long enough to make waiting it out in some underground bunker rather impractical. Your cobalt-salted bomb is detonated in the upper atmosphere to spead the cobalt-60 all over your enemy, at which point they are as good as dead.
In case any of you find my fascination with nuclear weapons a little sick, I'll tell you in advance: I don't care. Nukes are fun!
While I think what you said is true, that doesn't mean that the media and the general public will perceive it that way. There is no doubt about it, this could be some very bad PR for Linux. There are already people running around claiming that open source means communism (note: I do not think that communism the most evil thing in the universe, but THEY seem to.), and this will actually give them something to use as evidence. Pretty ridiculous evidence, sure, but that won't stop them from creating some mass hysteria about how Linux will lead to nuclear war or something. This is a good thing for China. I think that Linux is an excellent choice for them. But, unfortunately, this is NOT a good thing for Linux. It just makes too many PR issues.
Look, I love Debian but their latest stable release still uses the 2.0.36 kernel. They should really get something out the door soon. OK, I know you can just download stuff from the unstable tree (and I do), but that can be very intimidating for the new user, and sometimes there are some problems with package incompatabilites and some packages requiring other packages which aren't there, etc. that can really screw up your system if you just go with the suggestions dselect makes (usually involving removing just about every package on your system). I was very much looking forward to an actual stable release.
What gives? Are the Debian people just perfectionists or something? All other distributions seem to release new versions a LOT more often.
How useful is this really? Now, having an artificial limb that could be controlled by your computer (i.e. your brain) would really be something. However, all this involves is sending electrical signals into your limbs. A computer is controlling you. Is there really any purpose to this? None that I can see. I suppose that there might be some people with neurological problems that might benefit, but there are already similar (although less full-featured) systems in existance for exactly that purpose. This experiment is cool, but I don't see much scientific merit to it. It doesn't demonstrate anything we don't already know, it just does so in a very flashy and unnecessarily involved way. Is this guy more interested in real cybernetics research or becoming a media sensation.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, the S3 ViRGE card is *supposed* to have a some 3D-acceleration. Is there any hope for that, or am I condemned to having to shell out $50-$150 for a real 3D card?
Even if it did support 3D acceleration with the ViRGE, there would be no point in using it. The ViRGE is a first generation 3D accelerator, a class of chipsets sometimes not-so-affectionally referred to as 3D deccelerators. Why? Because the chipsets were so primitive and slow that a good CPU could do the job faster than these things and turning on 3D acceleration reduces your performance. If you are at all interested in 3D acceleration, get another card! Stay far, far away from the ViRGE. You don't have a good excuse not to. A voodoo 3 2000 or regular TNT 2 could be found for around $50 if you look hard enough. Sure, they are not the latest and greatest cards out there, but they're not bad either. And they are far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far faster than a ViRGE in anything 3D. Besides, even if you could get the ViRGE working and for some reason you didn't care about the performance penalty of using it, you'd be hard pressed to find a modern 3D application it will actually work with because its feature set is so limited. The ViRGE is something of a joke to people who know hardware.
Hey, I tried out Virtual Boy! I didn't buy it, mind you, I rented it. For the first 10 minutes after I started using it I thought it was the coolest thing ever made. Then my eyes began to hurt, but for some reason I kept playing. Then I finally realized that there was something like a total of 4 games for it and they all sucked royally. I also realized that if I used it much longer my eyes would probably start bleeding or something. Anyway, once the novelty wore off it was hard not to realize that Virtual Boy was just a crappy system in many different ways. However, that does not mean this monitor concept is necessarily that bad an idea. I just hope my eyes won't start bleeding if I use it.
Frankly, I don't understand why Sony ever filed these charges in the first place. How are they hurt by emulation? They sell playstations at a loss! They make all their money on the games. When you have a playstation emulator for your PC, you end up buying the games without buying the playstation, which Sony actually loses money on anyway. It seems to me that they are better off with emulation.
Understand that this isn't the same as somebody like Nintendo suing the makers of an emulator. In that case, since the Nintendo systems use cartridges, all the games anyone will ever acquire for a N64 emulator will be pirated. But with a playstation emulator, you just buy the game and stick the CD in your computer. Sure, there are ways to make copies of the CD and then run these copies with your emulator, but there are ways to do that with a playstation console as well.
So I just don't get it. What is Sony trying to accomplish with lawsuits like this? Is it simply a matter of control?
Umm...I believe you are taking the previous post way too literally. Try thinking about it a little more. The results are amusing and entertaining.
OK, I'm something of a processor new junky. I follow this kind of stuff with an unhealthy devotion, so I figured I'd explain to everyone what this is before /.'s general ignorance about the subject (From my perspective anyway. Remember, I'm obsessed with this stuff.) starts to show through.
.18 process, it's just that the basic layout has been improved), and added 64K of L2 cache. Yeah, I know, 64K sounds tiny, but it's really not that bad. The most important thing about this cache is that it is an exclusive cache. In most processors, the L2 ends up duplicating the information in the L1 and only uses the amount of cache beyond the size of the L1 for additional data. For example, a Celeron has 32K of L1 and 128K of L2, however 32K of that L2 is simply holding the same information as is in the L1, giving you a total effective cache size of 128K. The Duron is different. Being based on the Athlon core, it has 128K of L1 plus the 64K of exclusive L2, which holds entirely unique data. This gives you an effective total cache size of 192K, 50% more than the Celeron which is the Duron's primary competitor. Plus, the Duron is based on the Athlon core, which is simply a lot better than the PIII core.
What is the Duron? Essentially it's AMD's answer to the Celeron. Right now their answer to the Celeron is the K6 series, but the K6 core has short pipelines and is not very optimized for high clockspeeds. The bottom line is that the K6-2 currently maxes out at 550 mhz (and in limited quantities) and it's not likely it will ever get much higher. The K6-2+ and K6-3+ (mobile chips only, with 128K and 256K on-die L2 respectively and the additional 3DNow! instructions which were added when the Athlon came out) currently max out at 500 mhz, and I doubt they'll ever get past 600 before they are phased out. Even 600 is a reach.
On the other end of the spectrum there is the Athlon. The Athlon is a brand new core that is extremely well optimized for high clockspeed. These things reach high clockspeeds so well that AMD has to underclock them to meet their contracts with OEMs (who request a certain number of processors at each clockspeed). Obviously the Athlon is where AMD's future lies, but they are considerably more expensive to manufacture than the K6 series. The combination of a large die size, the need for externel L2 cache chips, and the slot packaging adds to the price. Furthermore, AMD is finally making good money selling Athlons for the high end. They don't want to simply cut Athlon prices to sell them for the low end. AMD needs something else for the low end market.
Enter the Duron. The Duron used to have the codename of Spitfire while it was in development, so if you've heard that name before you know what it is. Basically, AMD took the Athlon core, optimized it a bit more to shrink the die and lower power consumption somewhat (although it's still made with a
The Duron itself will be released in a "Socket A" package sometime in June. Socket A is just like Slot A (which the Athlon uses), only it's a socket. The reason for the socket is because sockets are cheaper and the lack of external L2 makes a slot unecessary. The launch of the Duron will be preceded by a couple weeks by the launch of AMD's "Thunderbird" processor. The Thunderbird is just like the Duron only with 256K of exclusive L2 cache, giving it a total effective cache size of 384K. This processor should offer a real performance boost over the regular Athlon and will eventually completely replace it. Indeed, Thunderbird is just the code name. It will simply be called "Athlon" when it's released. The Thunderbird will be available for both slot A and socket A motherboards, giving those who already own a slot A motherboard an upgrade path.
I hope I didn't leave anything out.
Oh come on! Just because he wants to do something a little different from the mindless gameplay of Quake does not mean that he will be making a product that is suitable for little children. Some of the most disturbing (in a good way) games I have ever played are RPGs, not FPSs, because they actually create situations which draw you in and make you really think about what is happening rather than simply present you with graphical violence that is so over-the-top that it becomes more comical than realistic. Have you ever played Planescape: Torment? A game like that makes the frags and gibs of Quake seem quike tame.
I agree. The original poster says that he thinks the stories are getting worse even though he admits he never even played all of them. I have been a huge Final Fantasy fan ever since the original for the NES. I've played through I, IV (II in the US), V (using a translated ROM), VI (III in the US), VII, and VIII, most of them multiple times. So I think I know I thing or two about Final Fantasy. Let me tell you: it get's better every time. Yeah, VI was great. It's definately one of my favorites (and I've played through it more times than I can remember), however I think the plot of VII is even better (although the characters aren't quite as interesting). It's certainly more original at least. VIII is a bit different in that it really tries to base itself on a love theme. Sure, there were some relationships in some of the other games, but they never took the kind of center stage that the relationship between Squall and Rinoa takes in VIII. Now, some people may not like this game as much as VII, but it's still good and I think it contains some of the most memorable moments of and Final Fantasy game.
Anyway, it all boils down to personal preference. You might like one game more than another, but I don't think any fan of the series would say that any of the games are bad, or that there has been a downhill trend. Whatever, I forgot what my original point was. But hey, I love FF, and I am really looking forward to this movie.
I completely agree about the Uematsu thing. He is an incredible composer. In case you're wondering I'm enough of a FF freak that I collect the soundtracks for the various games. There that good.
I agree completely. I played the demo of Diablo and I just didn't get it. I still don't get it. I realize that it is an incredibly popular game but I can't understand why. Basically all you do is hop into a randomly generated dungeon and then click on the monsters a bunch of times. Wee. I love RPGs, but Diablo isn't much of one. Honestly, I'd really like to understand why people like this game so much, but I just can't.
I'm a gamer and I'm also a Linux user, unfortunately these two things rarely coincide. I have a win95 partition on my computer pretty much for the sole purpose of playing games, while I use Linux for everything else. It might seem that I am the perfect person to buy Loki products but I can honestly say I have never purchases a single Loki game. Why? Several reasons:
1. Limited selection of games. I don't necessarily want to spend my money on the handful of games that you've ported.
2. Games come out to late. If it's something I really wanted then I probably already bought it before I even knew you've started a port.
3. Problems with the Linux platform. I love Linux for some things, but it has a ways to go before it is a real viable gaming platform. We need better video drivers, better sound, better controller support, etc.
What exactly are you doing to address these concerns? Will you support a more diverse variety of games (let's see some RPGs!)? Will you work on beginning a port before the game in question is already finished and available for windows? Most importantly, what are you doing to address the problems with the Linux platform for gaming?
I also have a completely unrelated question. If, some time in the future, more and more companies begin doing their own in-house ports to Linux, will Loki consider developing original games?
Thank you
Wow, I've never had so much fun reading such idiotic ravings. The only thing is I can't figure out whether you really believe this mindless drivel or if you're a troll. If you are a troll, then I salute you. You have exceeded all of my expectations of trolls. If you really believe this stuff then I think you should be shot. But then, what do I know?
Your evil religion powers will have no effect on me, for I am an athiest! Hahahaha!
I first read about this type of technology over a year ago, and it never materialized. While it is an interesting concept, it's difficult to market. Who wants to buy something that will give them motion sickness?
OK, I actually posted the following somewhere else first. But it's all good information and I figured I could get some Karma by posting it here. So sue me.
.18 micron process. They also mentioned that all Transmeta chips will be sold by Transmeta, so they evidently don't
Well, technical difficulties caused me to miss the technical questions, but I'll give you what I got (which is a lot).
Let's start at the very beginnng...
Transmeta was founded in 1995 in response to problems they perceived in the microprocessor industry. Namely that processors have gotten so complex they take
5 years or more to develop, require teams of hundreds of people, and contain millions of transistors which cause them to run extremely hot an consume large
amounts of power. They realized that a lot of these problems could be solved with new processor architectures, but then you lose the compatability which is so
important.
So the two big problems are compatability and complexity.
Transmeta's idea was software based microprocessor, in which software itself is an integral part of the processor. They criticized semiconductor companies for
trying to do everything with more transistors. The benefits of this approach include simplier hardware, which makes less expensive and less power-producing
products. By using software to handle some of the functions normally done in hardware they don't need as many transistors.
The benefits of software are not limited to reduced complexity, however. They later discussed their "Smart microprocessor" technology in which the software
could optimize certain things about your programs as they were run. Basically, the more you used it the better it ran.
The essential thing which makes the Crusoe processors work is their "Code Morphing" software. This software is the only thing that is ever compiled for the
Crusoe's VLIW instruction set. Everything else is in whatever instruction set it happens to be running.
Here is a summary of the "Code Morphing" software.
Morphs x86 into VLIW
128 bit wide instructions
3/4 of functionality implemented in software
Completely invisible dynamic translation
Processor can learn about application program
Very simple and very fast hardware chip
Reduction in number of logic transistors
Their goal is a single solution with extremley low power, x86 compatability, and competitive performance.
There were two processor shown today, the TM3120 and the TM5400. As I mentioned in the previous post, the TM3120 is aimed more at small "Internet
appliances" while the TM5400 is aimed at the more traditional laptop market, although both are completely x86 compatable. Both feature an integrated north
bridge and the TM5400 has DDR memory support. The TM3120 really seems to be being paired with a slightly modified version of Linux they are calling Mobile
Linux. Mobile Linux will be able to fit into ROM modules so these small webpads, etc. do not have to have hard drives and it will include all the basic applications
that one would expect from such a device. It sounds to me like some very interesting products could be made out of this. The TM5400 is aimed at more
conventional laptops (In the entire program they never once mentioned desktops. They are really targetting the mobile market.) and will feature better
performance, but it will still dissipate only 1 Watt of power. Expect traditional windows based machines using these processors, although I certainly wouldn't
mind a good Linux laptop.
There was a lot of marketing speech in the whole presentation, which I will try to filter out. Basically they went on (and on) about how they are the only
semiconductor company that is really designing exclusively for the mobile market. They pointed out how previous mobile processors are just modified versions of
desktop ones, but their processors are different. They compared current notebooks to the first generation cell-phones: bulky, heavy, and impractical. They say
mobile computing is currently hampered by the form factors used.
They went on to discuss compatability. Crusoe processors will be completely compatable with normal x86 instructions as well as MMX. There currently is no
support for either SSE or 3DNow!, although it might be added in the future. They pointed out that where current internet devices have the most difficulty is with
plugins. Plugins are basically small, x86 compatable programs that are downloaded, and most internet devices just aren't x86 compatable. The Crusoe, being x86
compatable, will have no difficulty at all handling plugins.
Next on the agenda was battery life and weight. These are very important things for mobile computing and is the one area where current mobile processors have
the most difficulty. This area really impressed me (as I'm sure it was supposed to). The fact that the Crusoe dissipates only 1 Watt while in operation is just the
beginning. It also features a special sleep mode that will allow it to dissipate less than 20 milliwatts. Also, the smaller number of transistors when compared to
most processors means that the Crusoe generates less heat and doesn't need a fan, resulting in less noise made and less power consumed. But the really cool
part is their "LongRun" technology.
"LongRun" ties in with the "Code Morphing" software and will manage your mhz and voltage on the fly. It actually determines how much processing power your
applications require and throttles the processor back to exactly that level while you run them. It happens instantaneously whenever you start or stop an
application and there is absolutely nothing the user has to do to take advantage of this technology. This simply wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for the software
nature of the Crusoe processor. They call it, "performance on demand".
They also talked about the company, but I'm more interested in the technical stuff (as I'm sure you are), so I'll make it breif. They have 200 employees worldwide,
including Japan and Taiwan because that is where a lot of the manufacturing happens. They were very proud of their design teams, especially the way the
software guys and the hardware guys worked together in a way that just doesn't normally happen. They talked about some of their partners, confirming that IBM
will be manufacturing their chips using their
have the same kind of crappy deal Cyrix got. In fact, they said that IBM had an entire team in Vermont dedicated to nothing else besides supporting the Crusoe.
One of the (many) interesting things about Transmeta is that they are not simply a chip company. They designed their own BIOS, they designed a lot of the apps
for Mobile Linux (especially the power management stuff), and although they never actually confirmed it (at least if they did, I missed it), I'm pretty sure they
designed their own chipset, seeing how they have a custom BIOS and a processor with and integrated north bridge. They also designed a lot of the prototypes for
various internet appliances which could be picked up by OEMs. Basically, they are committed to delivering an entire platform, not just a processor. Maybe AMD
could learn a thing or two from these people.
On to some of the specifics about the processors. They don't have any sort of registry renamers or reorder buffers in hardware, it's all done in the software. They
actually used a very modest VLIW engine. (Although one of the really interesting things they mentioned is that their different processors don't have to use the
same instruction set. In fact, the TM3120 and the TM5400 have slightly different instruction sets optimized for different tasks. This has a lot of potential for
future scalability.) They weren't very clear about this point, but they seemed to imply that their software could actually theoretically be ported to other
architectures, although with very poor performance because the architectures would not be optimized for using software in that way. But the point was that it's
the combination of software and hardware that makes the Crusoe special. They are really designed to work together. Many things are implemented in software to
save on hardware, and other aspects of the hardware make it well optimized for using the software in this way.
There are no x86 decoders in hardware at all. The x86 instructions reach the software where they are decoded, translated, and stored in a special memory area
that essentiall caches translated programs for future reference. This means that the processor does not have to be constantly translating the same instructions
again and again, although it will only cache the part of whatever programs you are running that you are currently using.
The Code Morphing software goes beyond simple translation, however. There is a "back end" that can actually learn about and optimize your programs as they are
run, actually justifying the marketing term "smart processor". The Code Morphing only takes time to optimize the most commonly used parts of your programs. In
one example they gave, it was possible to take 20 x86 instructions and do the same thing with only 10 VLIW instructions. Making the programs smaller in this
way can also help lower the power consumption.
They went on to discuss different benchmarks. This part reeked of marketing and I think they tried to cover up some things, but I'll tell you what I can. Basically,
they criticized current benchmarks for laptops for not taking into account the amount of power consumed in going through the benchmark. I suppose there is some
truth to this claim, but that doesn't justify what they did. They actually created a benchmarking program that (somehow, we don't know the actual formula used)
actually integrates power usage into the score. That's right, there isn't a seperate performance score and power usage score, they are part of the same number.
I'm sure this is great for a company advertising a really low power usage processor, but does it make sense. To add to the complexity, the entire benchmark was
sort of calibrated around a reference system. They said the system was a P3 500, although they didn't mention anything else about it. The reference system is
given a score of 10 and everything else was compared to that. Basically, the Crusoe scored in the 30-40 range, which might be really impressive if I knew what in
the hell that score actually meant. Oh well.
They did mention some things about real-world performance, although no other benchmarks were given. They said that DVD decoding and mp3 playing should
perform comparably to other x86 processors, although I don't know whether that is compared to the processors out now, the processors that will be out when the
Crusoe is release, at the same mhz, or what. So I don't know exactly what this all means. They also said that other applications should perform at 80-90% of
other processors, and in this case I have two "others" I don't know what they mean. Later on in the Q&A they said that most business apps should perform
slightly better. Better than what? Either they just weren't clear or they're trying to hide something. Performance might not be the Crusoe's strongpoint, although
frankly I can live with that if the claims about battery life are true.
The next part of the program was very amusing. We all got to watch Linus Torvalds play against Dave Taylor (one of the original Quake designers and also a
Transmeta employee) in a game of Quake (running on TM5400s of course), although they didn't say what version. Linus basically got his ##### kicked. That's
about all there is to say about that part.
There was a lot of stuff about business forcasts and the like after that. They looked at the laptop market and pointed out that the fastest growing segment of that
market is in the thin and lightweight models pioneered by Sony's VAIO. Obviously if the claims are true, Crusoe is perfect for that market. I wonder if Sony will
make a VAIO based on the Crusoe? They also talked about Mobile Linux and how it will be able to fit into ROM for internet appliances. They even went on to talk
about how there might eventually be a palm-sized device based on the Crusoe. Obviously, that would be just impossible with any other x86 compatable processor.
One story I would like to mention deals with the software nature of the Crusoe. They talked about a situation in which some guy in Japan came across a bug in an
early version of their product. Instead of having to fix the design in hardware and fab a new sample, which could take months, they fixed it in software and sent a
fix to the guy over the internet. Everything was working fine in under a week. The Software-upgradability of the Crusoe really has some interesting applications.
Finally, some mention of prices. They said the TM5400 would be in the $119-321 range and that the TM3120 would be in the $65-89 range. PCs based on them
could be around $1200. They said that internet appliances based on the TM3120 could be anywhere from $500 to $1000, as there is a lot of room for variation in
their configurations. No specific products have been announced yet, they are leaving that up to the individual OEMs. They did say that a lot of companies are
interested in their technology, and I don't blame them.
I think you mean Drakan, but I don't see how anyone could remember that game fondly. It was horrible! OK, the dragon riding parts were OK for a couple of minutes, but only if you were masochistic enough to play the game long enough to get to them. You have to get past the incredibly pointless and tiresome plot first, going through a lame third person game that makes Tomb Raider seem like a work of art in comparison. And don't even get me started on the voice acting. It's so bad it makes me cringe everytime I hear it. That game is complete crap.
Sure, I would love to have some Linux games, but in most cases ports are released long after the original versions. Any game that I really want to play I probably already have, so getting the Linux version would require buying it AGAIN. Who wants to pay for something twice? Not me. Especially since, as much as I love Linux, its hardware support needs some work. Maybe X 4.0 will help, but currently the same game using the same hardware will perform considerably slower under Linux than it will under windoze.
Upsilon
Right now, I'm running X on an ASUS V6600 GeForce just fine and I never downloaded this server. I think Slashdot forgot to mention that the only thing really new here is the 3D stuff. Oh well, I'm happy. Now my spiffy new GeForce will be able to run 3D stuff in Linux! If only I had some 3D software for Linux...
No no no! It's not the same at all! This is a subtle point a lot of people don't realize. Organisms are not like hammers. They are not static. Instead, their population reaches a dynamic equilibrium with their environment. If you use some sort of antibiotic which kills 90% of them, the population will be reduced to 10% at first, but it is no longer at equilibrium. The remaining organisms will reproduce until they are once again at equilibrium. The final population is the same only at first only 10% of their population was resistant to the antibiotic. Now 100% of their population is resistant to the antibiotic. This is the reason the overuse of antibiotics is such a problem. Doctors give them out for everything, sometimes even when they know it won't do anything just because they feel the need to do something. All this accomplishes is the generation of a shitload of bacteria that is totally resistant to all out antibiotics. This is a bad thing.
Upsilon
I completely agree with the original post. I also agree with your statement that forgetting your keys doesn't make Zen. But forgetting your keys is not all that happens in a good game of Quake (Or any other FPS for that matter. Personally, I prefer Halflife or even System Shock 2). You become so immersed in what is happening on your screen that you lose awareness of your physical body. You completely lose track of time. In a sense, you do become one with your character. All of the sudden, something will happen to jolt you back to reality and you realize it's two hours later, your soda is flat, and you're incredibly stiff. You try to think about what happened to you in the last two hours, but the only sensory information you can remember is what was displayed on your screen and what you heard out of your speakers. You were one with your game. It's really quite addictive (unfortunately for my school work).
Honestly, if we can talk about the Zen of pinball, why on earth can't one talk about the Zen of Quake. If you haven't experienced it you have no right to dismiss it.
Note: The following post is a rant. The views and opinions expressed within are the views and opinions of a especially pissed offed /. reader.
Why don't people riot over this? Why don't they do anything? This is a very disturbing question. These laws are morally outrageous and completely contrary to the basic rights that people deserve, yet they are simply accepted as is and nothing is done about it. That is the real problem. If the people (I mean the general population. I'm sure there are some who care, but they are the minority) actually cared laws like this could never be passed. But they don't.
Why are people so willing to flush their basic freedoms down the toilet? The first factor is ingorance. Your average Joe doesn't understand the issue. All your average Joe knows is that there are "bad people" on the internet and that big brother government is needed to protect the poor, defenseless children from them. No matter that these laws don't do squat for protecting the "poor, defenseless children", but they do wonders for oppressing the general population. Average Joe's attention span has been rendered far too short by sensationalism and TV to actually spend the time to determine what exactly the laws are doing. All average Joe cares is that big brother is doing something. So the end result is that the only one that big brother's actions serve to protect is big brother itself.
It disgusts me how easily people can be fooled. Sometimes I am embarassed to be a member of the human race. Honestly, people don't look for any sort of evidence so support their opinions. They just look at what everyone else is doing and decide to hop on the bandwagon. If they hear about "evil things" going on on the internet (or anywhere else) they are all too happy to get themselves into some unjustified outrage over these "evil things" regardless of how much they have been blown out of proportion or even whether or not they are true. Then they will start writing letters and going to protests about these evil things until big brother swoops in to protect them. They just love big brother. Big brother is their friend. In their minds. In reality, the only evil thing going on is big brother.
OK, I'm starting to sound very repetitive so I will stop writing now. In conclusion: I'm pissed off and I hate the government. Hey, if anyone from big brother is reading this now feel free to go after me or something. I'd make a much better martyr than I'll ever make a speaker. Maybe we can actually get the general population to give a damn about the fact that they are flushing their rights down a toilet.
I use Linux as my primary desktop machine. I run Debian and my window manager of choice is Enlightenment (just E, none of that GNOME crap). Quite frankly, after getting used to this setup I just can't stand windoze's interface. I hate the start menu, I feel confined with only one desktop, and I just don't like the general look and feel of it. I avoid using windoze unless absolutely necessary. I do word processing on Star Office, and although it's a bit big and slow I don't have any other complaints about it. Why do some people have so much difficulty imagining Linux on the desktop? Exactly what does windoze do that Linux doesn't. Personally, I think Linux makes and ideal desktop environment.
You're missing the point. You seem to be acting as if getting some decent games for Linux would somehow prevent it from being "useful, stable, and good". Believe me, Linux is in absolutely no danger of being seen as a "gamers platform". The gaming situation in Linux is horrible. Do you think of windows, or even Macs, as nothing but "gamers platforms". I think not, yet both of these OSes have FAR more game support than Linux. This complete lack of games for Linux is off-putting for a lot of potential Linux users. What on earth is wrong with being able to kick back and play some computer games from time to time? Why do you have to act so conceited as if having some games for Linux would somehow hurt it. If you don't want to play them then don't, but there is no reason to prevent others from doing so.
I can't believe this comment was moderated up. It is extremely offensive and doesn't provide anything to back up its extraordinarily biased opinion.
;-)
Look, I don't care whether or not you play games, but I'd like to tell that gaming is one of MY main interests. "...not able to install Red Hat"?! What on earth makes you say something like that?! I've installed Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, and Debian all quite easily (and I much prefer Debian). I've also set up and administered an internet gateway with firewalling, a web server, a samba server, an NFS server, a mail server, and all that good stuff. I hate to break it to you, but serious gamers are generally some of the most technically enabled computer users out there. Afterall, when we're not playing games we're upgrading and tweaking our computers for maximum performance
Gaming is a serious force in the computer industry. It is what drives the majority of hardware advances. And there are a LOT of gamers out there who would love to use Linux and would make extremely valuable additions to the Linux community, but are put off by the fact that there are very few Linux games out there. If Linux is ever going to succeed as a desktop OS then it's going to need games. You don't have to play them, but you have no right to make such offensive comments towards those who do.
Actually, modern weapons are all fission-fusion hybrids. Your basic "H-bomb", more technically a fission-fusion bomb, has a fission trigger (that normally uses plutonium) that results in a fusion reaction from the stored hydrogen. It's a relatively "clean" weapon, in that there is a big explosion but not a whole lot of fallout.
But things don't stop there. There are fission-fusion-fission bombs that start out like a fission-fusion bomb, but the fusion reaction is used to create another fission reaction in a sheath of material on the outside of the bomb. Typically, this sheath is made of common U-238, as opposed to the U-235 that is used in uranium based fission bombs and nuclear reactors. U-238 actually has more destructive potential than U-235, but it wasn't used in earlier bombs because it's simply impossible to start a fission reaction in it under normal circumstances. That's why you need that fusion trigger. Fission-fusion-fission bombs are basically the most destructive weapons in existence, and unlike fission-fusion bombs they result in a lot of fallout as well. They are nasty things.
Here's an interesting fact: a lot of modern warheads can be converted between fission-fusion and fission-fusion-fission quite easily. Since the U-238 is typically a sheath surrounding the bomb it can be replaced with a simple lead sheath quite easily. It's nice to have versitile nuclear weapons, isn't it. If you want to blow something up, use the lead sheath. If you want to REALLY blow something up and have no intention of taking over the land you blew up anytime in the near future, use the U-238 sheath.
Want to hear about some even nastier weapons? Sometimes called "hemisphere bombs", cobalt-salted nuclear weapons have the ability to, well, kill everything on a hemisphere. They don't do this with a really big explosion, but rather with intentional and very lethal fallout. If I remember correctly, they use a sheath of cobalt-59. The cobalt-59 is changed to cobalt-60 when the bomb blows up. Cobalt-60 is special because it is very radioactive with a half-life perfect for totally annihalating your enemy. It's half-life is 5 years, which is short enough to be fatal if you are simply exposed to it, rather than just causing cancer which might shorten your life-span in the long-run, yet long enough to make waiting it out in some underground bunker rather impractical. Your cobalt-salted bomb is detonated in the upper atmosphere to spead the cobalt-60 all over your enemy, at which point they are as good as dead.
In case any of you find my fascination with nuclear weapons a little sick, I'll tell you in advance: I don't care. Nukes are fun!
While I think what you said is true, that doesn't mean that the media and the general public will perceive it that way. There is no doubt about it, this could be some very bad PR for Linux. There are already people running around claiming that open source means communism (note: I do not think that communism the most evil thing in the universe, but THEY seem to.), and this will actually give them something to use as evidence. Pretty ridiculous evidence, sure, but that won't stop them from creating some mass hysteria about how Linux will lead to nuclear war or something. This is a good thing for China. I think that Linux is an excellent choice for them. But, unfortunately, this is NOT a good thing for Linux. It just makes too many PR issues.
Look, I love Debian but their latest stable release still uses the 2.0.36 kernel. They should really get something out the door soon. OK, I know you can just download stuff from the unstable tree (and I do), but that can be very intimidating for the new user, and sometimes there are some problems with package incompatabilites and some packages requiring other packages which aren't there, etc. that can really screw up your system if you just go with the suggestions dselect makes (usually involving removing just about every package on your system). I was very much looking forward to an actual stable release.
What gives? Are the Debian people just perfectionists or something? All other distributions seem to release new versions a LOT more often.
How useful is this really? Now, having an artificial limb that could be controlled by your computer (i.e. your brain) would really be something. However, all this involves is sending electrical signals into your limbs. A computer is controlling you. Is there really any purpose to this? None that I can see. I suppose that there might be some people with neurological problems that might benefit, but there are already similar (although less full-featured) systems in existance for exactly that purpose. This experiment is cool, but I don't see much scientific merit to it. It doesn't demonstrate anything we don't already know, it just does so in a very flashy and unnecessarily involved way. Is this guy more interested in real cybernetics research or becoming a media sensation.