That's it, I'm seriously quitting programming and going back to mechanical engineering. I wanted to get into programming b/c of the potential for innovation I saw in it, but now I only get disgusted when I think about its future.
I suppose what's left of the bright and creative people will be able to continue to score selling their companies to MS for a bit, but it's clear that there will soon be no place for intelligence and creativity among what will be hoards of community college dropout, 2nd-chance-at-life-thru-MS-certified-ineptitude, Gates pawns.
Yes, I'm aware that our fuels in general have much higher sulfur content than they do in Europe. However, from what I read here it seems as if people think that it's only the diesel fuel with this problem. US gasoline has the same problem. That's why, for example, BMW used iron block gas engines here for years while the same cars had different, aluminum block engines in Europe. So, the fact that US diesel sucks doesn't make gas engines a better choice for over here, because US gas has the same problem!
By the way, 75mpg from a hybrid one day might be good, but you can buy a VW Lupo 3L TDI that gets 78.5mpg and is faster than the Insight right now (except in the US of course). When you look at the facts, there's simply no justification for hybrids right now -- they are slower, get worse fuel economy, are more expensive and have worse driveabililty than modern diesels. The only reason Honda and Toyota make them is for the halo effect.
Debunking the marketing myths that trick people into buying hybrids when they would be happier with another car that is at least as good for the planet has some value.
Toyota's not making the hybrid because it loves the planet, by the way -- it's making it for the halo effect. Notice that Toyota makes 9? SUVS now, compared to Dodge's one, for example? For the one little 42mpg car they've come out with, they're pushing 5 new SUVS (including a gluttonous-as-they-get V8 clone of the ol' american V8 variety in case the 10mpg land cruiser wasn't big and disgusting enough). Nothing but a cynical marketing tactic.
I'm afraid the best thing we can do to get people to move out of big fat POSes and into intelligent vehicles is by raising gas prices and/or showing them that the intelligent cars are every bit as fun to drive, don't look weird, and will actually save them money. The VW TDI models are the only cars available in the US right now that meet these criteria.
Have you looked at a TDI's exhaust -- no visible particulates -- extremely clean despite US diesel fuel quality? Even though diesel exhaust contains more NOx than gasoline exhaust, it's overall more ecofriendly than gasoline exhaust (especially wrt greenhouse gasses). Ask any IC engines professor. Diesels really always have been friendlier, it's just that the asthetics of their exhaust has made them look bad. The black is just carbon -- inert though dirty -- not noxious. Gasoline engines exhaust gasses, although invisible, have always been more toxic.
Bus engines are old diesel technology. The turbocharged direct injection diesels used in VWs, BMWs, Audis, Opels, Ford Europe, Peugot, Mercedes, etc. (ie modern car diesels) are a whole different ball game.
Basically the only thing TDIs have in common with bus engines is compression ratio twice as high as gas engines and diesel fuel is not as refined, taking less energy to produce and containing more energy to utilize. I can understand why, having seen them primarily only in ratty old trucks and busses, one would find it hard to believe that diesel is the cutting edge of eco-friendly ic engines, but they are. The components necessary to realize their potential have only become available in recent years.
Also, people always seem to think they are going to have trouble finding diesel, but everytime I talk to diesel owners they say it's no problem at all. Part of this is undoubtedly related to their range -- 700+ in the case of the Jetta.
I wouldn't say it's a good review. I would say it's just a typical new-owner's gush by some dude who (blinded by the hype) thinks he's cool cuz he got a car he thinks is green and technologically advanced. If you read articles by people that actually carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of hybrids versus diesel engines in particular, you'll find that the "conclusions" of the ars article are actually quite anamolous. The article as basically vacuous -- pissed me off all the incorrect information and misconceptions being put forth as "product review"
Yes, stirling cycle engines are the most efficient combustion (in sterling case usually external) engines available. However, they are ill-suited for use in cars because they cant react quickly to varying loads and have to pretty much run at constant speed. If they had order of magnitude higher power density, then they might be suitable for use in hybrid (load buffered by battery), but hybrids really dont make sense anyway (especially one where electric motors would be primary propulsion thus necessitating huge batteries).
It makes me sad to see well-intentioned people buying hybrids.
People (more specifically Americans -- only americans buy these things of course), wake up! These things are dreadfully slow and dynamically atrocious for no real gain in efficiency. You don't have to be a mechanical engineer who specializes in high efficiency energy sources [like me:)] to be able to realize this before dropping that 23k or whatever to buy one of these things -- just look at the specs.
So you are an american (I know you aren't european b/c europeans know about fuel-efficient cars and they laugh at hybrids). This means you probably dont care that hatchbacks (like the vw golf) are more versatile/practical (and more rigid, lighter, shorter despite more room, etc.) than sedans. So let's compare a Toyota Prius to a Jetta TDI.
Okay so the jetta gets better gas mileage than the prius, but that must means the prius is faster, right?
The Prius does 0-60 in 14.1 sec. The Jetta TDI does 0-60 in 11.0 sec.
But aren't diesels loud, smelly and dirty? 20 years ago they were. Now they have a silky purr, awesome throttle response (TDI stands for turbocharged w/ direct injection), far higher reliability than gas engines, and basically particulate free exhaust.
Well is there anything good at all about hybrids then? Maybe one day the regenerative braking will be able to offset the tradeoffs of having tons of batteries on board, but with current technology, hybrids are plain dumb.
This is all aside from the fundamental issues with trying to get linear behavior across a wide range of power input/output demands out of a system which constantly has to switch electric motor and ic engine + mechanical drivetrain subsystems -- ugly dynamics.
In fact, modern diesels are really starting to make gas engines look bad in terms of real-world performance. At normal rpms (say 1000 - 4000) diesels produce tremendously more torque than their peak output gasoline engine equivalents (in addition to twice the efficiency). This means that, around town at
High tech diesels are taking over in europe but dont expect americans to get it. The never have. The only thing americans get is peak hp figures. That's why japanese cars sell so well here (no-torque engines that rev high due to displacement restrictions designed to shield markets from foreign cars) whereas they dont sell worth a damn in europe.
Small engines aren't more efficient -- they are less efficient b/c they have to rev higher for given output and revving higher incurs exponentiated thermal and volumetric efficiency losses. The only reason the same car with smaller engine tends to get better mpg is that its engine cant produce as much power in normal driving range. Larger engine with imposed output limitation would get better mpg.
So, dont fall for this hybrid crap. These manufacturers are going for the halo effect at your expense. I hate those giant 10mpg turd SUV always blocking sight, squeeling around turns, flipping, and ramming cars at roof height with incompatible bumpers as much as anyone, but we have to react intelligently. Just hang on as daimler-chrysler, bmw, audi, et al start trickling the new diesels over. You are going to be amazed.
ur supposed to drink large-mouth-bottled mountain dew so you dont have to get up to "go to the bathroom". Anyone else here have like 10 bottles of mountain dew full of not-quite-as-fluorescent-yellow-as-it-should-be mountain dew on their desk?
The thing that annoys me most while using linux is that copy and paste never seems to work right. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't at all, and sometimes the order on the clipboard is really weird.
Other top annoying things include that browsers never seem to have plugins ready to go and then when you install them it's a pain deciding where to put them since the correct place varies so much across systems. And it's also annoying to click on a URL in instant message and have nothing happen, and then you type entire URL out in browser cos copy paste doesn't work -- this one REALLY pisses me off.
There are drivers, and then there are drivers that you actually want to play games with.
On account of ATI's generally/traditionally superior image quality, I'd get a Radeon over a Geforce if it weren't for that nvidia linux drivers actually take advantage of all the card's hardware features. My experience with owning an older Radeon has been that even the most concerted DRI efforts haven't put half of the Radeon's features into effect. Thus, I do not want to play games in linux with my radeon.
Is it possible that The Weather Channel will get the Radeon's gaming features working in full? If not, then this doesn't really change anything for Radeons in linux.
If you don't care about gaming, then this news isn't very notable because the 2D is already good. Otherwise, any incompleteness of 3D features will just perpetuate the Radeon's status as pointless for linux when geforce available.
On the other hand, it's true that nothing comes close to radeons in the mobile department (considering things like their low energy consumption on dvd accel). So I guess there definately are people compelled to buy a radeon despite superiority of geforce drivers, who must we welcoming of any and everything they can get in radeon support.
What does this mean for Ximian, what with their contract with Sun?
dont compare linux SO to windows SO
on
StarOffice 6.0
·
· Score: 1
My understanding is that Linux StarOffice is severely marred (basically THE thing people find lacking) by its GUI which is neither KDE nor Gnome, and basically rather underdeveloped.
This primary shortcoming doesn't apply to the Windows Staroffice, where its graphics are windows standard (ie same as MS Office).
People on Windows aren't expecting GUI better than windows standard. If all you've seen is SO on linux, then don't be surprised when you start hearing about windows users being impressed by SO.
Nothing surprising here. MS is following the Nvidia model, and Sony is doing what it needs to to keep outselling.
The reason Sony and MS have cut prices on their current systems is that MS is coming out with the second-generation XBOX in September.
The system of coming out with twice as good generation every 9 months or whatever along with reducing price at midway point to prevent windows for competitors, has been NVidia's method for years now.
Considering that Xbox's whole thing is that it brings NVidia graphics to console gaming, what else do you expect?
I hope you are joking because Sony CD-Rs test out to be some of the worst of the big names. Sony, like just about all the other big names, doesn't make their own media. This is generally ok except when the manufacturers are companies like Ritek, Princo, Fornet.
I try to always have a plentiful batch of Taiyo Yudens (found on pricewatch), but when I need some immediately for workplace or something, and dont have access to my Taiyos, I look for Philips Premium Silver (made by Taiyo) and default to TDK's best (made by TDK in USA).
Major pushers of crappy CDRs include: Maxell, Fuji, Sony, Imation, and Samsung.
Don't take my word for it, find test results at places like http://home.earthlink.net/~mzupanek/cdrlinks.htm.
It really makes a difference and there are huge variations in quality. Don't just buy the cheapest. You can find the best (Taiyo Yuden and TDK) on pricewatch for cheap anyway.
If everyone was talking about Microsoft being crazy for selling a machine they wouldn't be able to make any money on for 7 years even if they sold a ton of games, does their having to unplannedly drop the price this early pretty much mean it's a failure?
As hesitant as everyone seems to be to officially call the XBox a failure, it seems like all I ever see are statistics about PS2 insanely outselling it. That's the opposite of normal for consoles. If the latest and greatest console can't outsell 2yo technology immediately (dont forget PS2 came out in Japan like 9mo or something earlier), then I think that has always meant quick and certain doom. I actually almost feel bad for MS - here they are actually technically way superior (the hardware) for once, and yet are unable and yet are failing in the face of extreme hype.
Of course, as much as I'm revolted by all the shady crap sony pulled with retailers preceding launch, sony's bogus "supercomputer" claims that had everyone waiting based on lies for a misdesigned heap of crap instead of buying dreamcasts for like a year before hand, and the general irritation of having the damn advertising and extravagent hype in my face everywhere I go (even like grandmothers talking about it and thinking they're cool cuz they're down with the "sony style"), nothing would actually make me feel sorry for MS.
My bet is that Microsoft, being the company it is, will learn from each and every little mistake it's made with XBox1 and come back in incredible avengence with XBox2. I don't give a rat's ass about consoles, and think 340x200 interlaced graphics are a weak alternative to a geforce 4 pc, but I know that a cornered Bill Gates is about the most vicious competitor the world has ever seen, and that he has determined that the console segment is going to be an extremely important one in the future.
MS has a history of always starting out low-key with 1.0 releases (Word 1, IE 1, Excel 1, NT 1, etc. all super weak and unpopular), but then completely taking over with subsequent releases.
This might be cool or might just be like a lot of trouble to develop for platform equivalent performance-wise to a PI 166 with video max resolution 640x480 or something.
Wish someone would provide at least ballpark assessment of performance of PS2 relative to other linux platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if it was basically same as Dreamcast powerwise.
I can say it based on looking at the hardware specs alone. It's not that mysterious. Comparison of one apple to another. Both have relatively conventional PC-like graphics systems. One has 32-valve, 5.7L V8 whereas other has 24-valve, 3.0L V6. Neither is exempt from laws of physics. It really has never been much of a source of controversy (cept for within console zealotry circles which have never had much interest in facts anyway) anyway.
I'm a huge Nintendo and Sega fan (still think DC best console ever easily), but this sounds kind of pathetic. If the XBox is just a couple year old PIII with a low-end GeForce3 (last year's graphics tech), but still smokes the Gamecube, then why the hell would someone come out with something "new" which is just a clone of the old Gamecube internals? Sega was being cool while ahead of the time using PowerVR hidden surface removal (Kyro 1) together with MIPS/Hitachi. Why not continue with that? Why the hell does it take 3 giant/legendary companies to rehash old ATI technology?
It's basically just regurgitating a fact we've known ever since we first saw the design of the PIV: The PIV was designed under the assumption that Intel would be able to force the public to spend way too much on CPUS and memory simply b/c there would be no alternative just as there hadn't been for the previous 20 years. In other words, the PIV was designed for RDRAM.
It's not news that a CPU which was designed to use one memory doesn't perform as well when using a different kind of memory. The PIV needs memory bandwidth desperately. How was Intel supposed to know that all those Alpha engineers would go to AMD and give the public a decent alternative? How were they to know that the public would have the option of getting better performance for less than half the money? The PIV is the last processor of an era AMD just put an end to. It's foolhardy to derive the future of a memory technology from its performance in conjunction with a misdesigned processor. If you could test an Athlon with DDR versus RDRAM, of course, the DDR would perform better. Please let's not post "news" from Tom's anymore - Tom's has just really gone to crap.
As long as I can always watch the original Rocky and Bullwinkle animated series, I'm in heaven. For those of you who haven't revisited R & B since you were too young to catch its humor, do. Nothing else even comes close.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone know? It's sweet if playable, but no fun if killing batteries for 1 fps.
That's it, I'm seriously quitting programming and going back to mechanical engineering. I wanted to get into programming b/c of the potential for innovation I saw in it, but now I only get disgusted when I think about its future.
I suppose what's left of the bright and creative people will be able to continue to score selling their companies to MS for a bit, but it's clear that there will soon be no place for intelligence and creativity among what will be hoards of community college dropout, 2nd-chance-at-life-thru-MS-certified-ineptitude, Gates pawns.
Back to robotics.
Yes, I'm aware that our fuels in general have much higher sulfur content than they do in Europe. However, from what I read here it seems as if people think that it's only the diesel fuel with this problem. US gasoline has the same problem. That's why, for example, BMW used iron block gas engines here for years while the same cars had different, aluminum block engines in Europe. So, the fact that US diesel sucks doesn't make gas engines a better choice for over here, because US gas has the same problem!
By the way, 75mpg from a hybrid one day might be good, but you can buy a VW Lupo 3L TDI that gets 78.5mpg and is faster than the Insight right now (except in the US of course). When you look at the facts, there's simply no justification for hybrids right now -- they are slower, get worse fuel economy, are more expensive and have worse driveabililty than modern diesels. The only reason Honda and Toyota make them is for the halo effect.
Debunking the marketing myths that trick people into buying hybrids when they would be happier with another car that is at least as good for the planet has some value.
Toyota's not making the hybrid because it loves the planet, by the way -- it's making it for the halo effect. Notice that Toyota makes 9? SUVS now, compared to Dodge's one, for example? For the one little 42mpg car they've come out with, they're pushing 5 new SUVS (including a gluttonous-as-they-get V8 clone of the ol' american V8 variety in case the 10mpg land cruiser wasn't big and disgusting enough). Nothing but a cynical marketing tactic.
I'm afraid the best thing we can do to get people to move out of big fat POSes and into intelligent vehicles is by raising gas prices and/or showing them that the intelligent cars are every bit as fun to drive, don't look weird, and will actually save them money. The VW TDI models are the only cars available in the US right now that meet these criteria.
Have you looked at a TDI's exhaust -- no visible particulates -- extremely clean despite US diesel fuel quality? Even though diesel exhaust contains more NOx than gasoline exhaust, it's overall more ecofriendly than gasoline exhaust (especially wrt greenhouse gasses). Ask any IC engines professor. Diesels really always have been friendlier, it's just that the asthetics of their exhaust has made them look bad. The black is just carbon -- inert though dirty -- not noxious. Gasoline engines exhaust gasses, although invisible, have always been more toxic.
Bus engines are old diesel technology. The turbocharged direct injection diesels used in VWs, BMWs, Audis, Opels, Ford Europe, Peugot, Mercedes, etc. (ie modern car diesels) are a whole different ball game.
Basically the only thing TDIs have in common with bus engines is compression ratio twice as high as gas engines and diesel fuel is not as refined, taking less energy to produce and containing more energy to utilize. I can understand why, having seen them primarily only in ratty old trucks and busses, one would find it hard to believe that diesel is the cutting edge of eco-friendly ic engines, but they are. The components necessary to realize their potential have only become available in recent years.
Also, people always seem to think they are going to have trouble finding diesel, but everytime I talk to diesel owners they say it's no problem at all. Part of this is undoubtedly related to their range -- 700+ in the case of the Jetta.
I wouldn't say it's a good review. I would say it's just a typical new-owner's gush by some dude who (blinded by the hype) thinks he's cool cuz he got a car he thinks is green and technologically advanced. If you read articles by people that actually carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of hybrids versus diesel engines in particular, you'll find that the "conclusions" of the ars article are actually quite anamolous. The article as basically vacuous -- pissed me off all the incorrect information and misconceptions being put forth as "product review"
Yes, stirling cycle engines are the most efficient combustion (in sterling case usually external) engines available. However, they are ill-suited for use in cars because they cant react quickly to varying loads and have to pretty much run at constant speed. If they had order of magnitude higher power density, then they might be suitable for use in hybrid (load buffered by battery), but hybrids really dont make sense anyway (especially one where electric motors would be primary propulsion thus necessitating huge batteries).
People (more specifically Americans -- only americans buy these things of course), wake up! These things are dreadfully slow and dynamically atrocious for no real gain in efficiency. You don't have to be a mechanical engineer who specializes in high efficiency energy sources [like me :)] to be able to realize this before dropping that 23k or whatever to buy one of these things -- just look at the specs.
So you are an american (I know you aren't european b/c europeans know about fuel-efficient cars and they laugh at hybrids). This means you probably dont care that hatchbacks (like the vw golf) are more versatile/practical (and more rigid, lighter, shorter despite more room, etc.) than sedans. So let's compare a Toyota Prius to a Jetta TDI.
The Prius gets 43/41 mpg (city/hw) (hw is lower because no regeneration).
The Jetta TDI gets 42/49. Many find that hybrids dont actually get nearly the mileage the manufacturers claim.
Okay so the jetta gets better gas mileage than the prius, but that must means the prius is faster, right?
The Prius does 0-60 in 14.1 sec.
The Jetta TDI does 0-60 in 11.0 sec.
But aren't diesels loud, smelly and dirty? 20 years ago they were. Now they have a silky purr, awesome throttle response (TDI stands for turbocharged w/ direct injection), far higher reliability than gas engines, and basically particulate free exhaust.
Well is there anything good at all about hybrids then? Maybe one day the regenerative braking will be able to offset the tradeoffs of having tons of batteries on board, but with current technology, hybrids are plain dumb.
This is all aside from the fundamental issues with trying to get linear behavior across a wide range of power input/output demands out of a system which constantly has to switch electric motor and ic engine + mechanical drivetrain subsystems -- ugly dynamics.
In fact, modern diesels are really starting to make gas engines look bad in terms of real-world performance. At normal rpms (say 1000 - 4000) diesels produce tremendously more torque than their peak output gasoline engine equivalents (in addition to twice the efficiency). This means that, around town at High tech diesels are taking over in europe but dont expect americans to get it. The never have. The only thing americans get is peak hp figures. That's why japanese cars sell so well here (no-torque engines that rev high due to displacement restrictions designed to shield markets from foreign cars) whereas they dont sell worth a damn in europe.
Small engines aren't more efficient -- they are less efficient b/c they have to rev higher for given output and revving higher incurs exponentiated thermal and volumetric efficiency losses. The only reason the same car with smaller engine tends to get better mpg is that its engine cant produce as much power in normal driving range. Larger engine with imposed output limitation would get better mpg.
So, dont fall for this hybrid crap. These manufacturers are going for the halo effect at your expense. I hate those giant 10mpg turd SUV always blocking sight, squeeling around turns, flipping, and ramming cars at roof height with incompatible bumpers as much as anyone, but we have to react intelligently. Just hang on as daimler-chrysler, bmw, audi, et al start trickling the new diesels over. You are going to be amazed.
Did I mention the TDI has zero CO emmissions?
philosophy -- a safest of havens for vague thinking
ur supposed to drink large-mouth-bottled mountain dew so you dont have to get up to "go to the bathroom". Anyone else here have like 10 bottles of mountain dew full of not-quite-as-fluorescent-yellow-as-it-should-be mountain dew on their desk?
The thing that annoys me most while using linux is that copy and paste never seems to work right. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't at all, and sometimes the order on the clipboard is really weird.
Other top annoying things include that browsers never seem to have plugins ready to go and then when you install them it's a pain deciding where to put them since the correct place varies so much across systems. And it's also annoying to click on a URL in instant message and have nothing happen, and then you type entire URL out in browser cos copy paste doesn't work -- this one REALLY pisses me off.
They owed us one after copying our space shuttle.
There are drivers, and then there are drivers that you actually want to play games with.
On account of ATI's generally/traditionally superior image quality, I'd get a Radeon over a Geforce if it weren't for that nvidia linux drivers actually take advantage of all the card's hardware features. My experience with owning an older Radeon has been that even the most concerted DRI efforts haven't put half of the Radeon's features into effect. Thus, I do not want to play games in linux with my radeon.
Is it possible that The Weather Channel will get the Radeon's gaming features working in full? If not, then this doesn't really change anything for Radeons in linux.
If you don't care about gaming, then this news isn't very notable because the 2D is already good. Otherwise, any incompleteness of 3D features will just perpetuate the Radeon's status as pointless for linux when geforce available.
On the other hand, it's true that nothing comes close to radeons in the mobile department (considering things like their low energy consumption on dvd accel). So I guess there definately are people compelled to buy a radeon despite superiority of geforce drivers, who must we welcoming of any and everything they can get in radeon support.
If anyone here has used one of these racquets (notice the correct spelling :p) then please post your impressions.
What does this mean for Ximian, what with their contract with Sun?
My understanding is that Linux StarOffice is severely marred (basically THE thing people find lacking) by its GUI which is neither KDE nor Gnome, and basically rather underdeveloped.
This primary shortcoming doesn't apply to the Windows Staroffice, where its graphics are windows standard (ie same as MS Office).
People on Windows aren't expecting GUI better than windows standard. If all you've seen is SO on linux, then don't be surprised when you start hearing about windows users being impressed by SO.
The reason Sony and MS have cut prices on their current systems is that MS is coming out with the second-generation XBOX in September.
The system of coming out with twice as good generation every 9 months or whatever along with reducing price at midway point to prevent windows for competitors, has been NVidia's method for years now.
Considering that Xbox's whole thing is that it brings NVidia graphics to console gaming, what else do you expect?
I hope you are joking because Sony CD-Rs test out to be some of the worst of the big names. Sony, like just about all the other big names, doesn't make their own media. This is generally ok except when the manufacturers are companies like Ritek, Princo, Fornet.
.
I try to always have a plentiful batch of Taiyo Yudens (found on pricewatch), but when I need some immediately for workplace or something, and dont have access to my Taiyos, I look for Philips Premium Silver (made by Taiyo) and default to TDK's best (made by TDK in USA).
Major pushers of crappy CDRs include: Maxell, Fuji, Sony, Imation, and Samsung.
Don't take my word for it, find test results at places like http://home.earthlink.net/~mzupanek/cdrlinks.htm
It really makes a difference and there are huge variations in quality. Don't just buy the cheapest. You can find the best (Taiyo Yuden and TDK) on pricewatch for cheap anyway.
If everyone was talking about Microsoft being crazy for selling a machine they wouldn't be able to make any money on for 7 years even if they sold a ton of games, does their having to unplannedly drop the price this early pretty much mean it's a failure?
As hesitant as everyone seems to be to officially call the XBox a failure, it seems like all I ever see are statistics about PS2 insanely outselling it. That's the opposite of normal for consoles. If the latest and greatest console can't outsell 2yo technology immediately (dont forget PS2 came out in Japan like 9mo or something earlier), then I think that has always meant quick and certain doom. I actually almost feel bad for MS - here they are actually technically way superior (the hardware) for once, and yet are unable and yet are failing in the face of extreme hype.
Of course, as much as I'm revolted by all the shady crap sony pulled with retailers preceding launch, sony's bogus "supercomputer" claims that had everyone waiting based on lies for a misdesigned heap of crap instead of buying dreamcasts for like a year before hand, and the general irritation of having the damn advertising and extravagent hype in my face everywhere I go (even like grandmothers talking about it and thinking they're cool cuz they're down with the "sony style"), nothing would actually make me feel sorry for MS.
My bet is that Microsoft, being the company it is, will learn from each and every little mistake it's made with XBox1 and come back in incredible avengence with XBox2. I don't give a rat's ass about consoles, and think 340x200 interlaced graphics are a weak alternative to a geforce 4 pc, but I know that a cornered Bill Gates is about the most vicious competitor the world has ever seen, and that he has determined that the console segment is going to be an extremely important one in the future.
MS has a history of always starting out low-key with 1.0 releases (Word 1, IE 1, Excel 1, NT 1, etc. all super weak and unpopular), but then completely taking over with subsequent releases.
This might be cool or might just be like a lot of trouble to develop for platform equivalent performance-wise to a PI 166 with video max resolution 640x480 or something.
Wish someone would provide at least ballpark assessment of performance of PS2 relative to other linux platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if it was basically same as Dreamcast powerwise.
I can say it based on looking at the hardware specs alone. It's not that mysterious. Comparison of one apple to another. Both have relatively conventional PC-like graphics systems. One has 32-valve, 5.7L V8 whereas other has 24-valve, 3.0L V6. Neither is exempt from laws of physics. It really has never been much of a source of controversy (cept for within console zealotry circles which have never had much interest in facts anyway) anyway.
I'm a huge Nintendo and Sega fan (still think DC best console ever easily), but this sounds kind of pathetic. If the XBox is just a couple year old PIII with a low-end GeForce3 (last year's graphics tech), but still smokes the Gamecube, then why the hell would someone come out with something "new" which is just a clone of the old Gamecube internals? Sega was being cool while ahead of the time using PowerVR hidden surface removal (Kyro 1) together with MIPS/Hitachi. Why not continue with that? Why the hell does it take 3 giant/legendary companies to rehash old ATI technology?
It's not news that a CPU which was designed to use one memory doesn't perform as well when using a different kind of memory. The PIV needs memory bandwidth desperately. How was Intel supposed to know that all those Alpha engineers would go to AMD and give the public a decent alternative? How were they to know that the public would have the option of getting better performance for less than half the money? The PIV is the last processor of an era AMD just put an end to. It's foolhardy to derive the future of a memory technology from its performance in conjunction with a misdesigned processor. If you could test an Athlon with DDR versus RDRAM, of course, the DDR would perform better. Please let's not post "news" from Tom's anymore - Tom's has just really gone to crap.
As long as I can always watch the original Rocky and Bullwinkle animated series, I'm in heaven. For those of you who haven't revisited R & B since you were too young to catch its humor, do. Nothing else even comes close.
At best it would be C double flat