Actually I find the opposite to be true. Take for example an Xbox, which is basically a PC from about seven years ago. (Sub gigahertz P3, 64megs RAM, GeForce3 video)
But it plays all the popular games of today's PC with little to no lag. Where as you need a very high end PC to play the same game!
This is mostly due to the fact that the architecture with the video is more direct, than it is on a PC. There's no AGP bus, or any bottle neck to access video ram. It's more direct which is probably why an Xbox can perform as well as a current PC rig.
But then an Xbox is only running at 800x600. LOL
Re:IRC is not a "city", it's many cities and towns
on
Is IRC All Bad?
·
· Score: 1
Good point. But most people just default to whatever "big" IRC network their clients connect to when you get on. The main reason why DALnet is (was) so large was because mIRC defaulted to DALnet servers, and it became bigger than EFnet and Undernet.
Plus people want to go to where all the people are, so they usually goto the big three. Underent EFnet and DALnet. Of course all the bots, worms, and "illegal activity" ends up going to these networks.
The network you like to goto is an obscure network that's too small for anyone to even want to BOTHER loading spam bots, and XDCC bots, and what not. And it's also why it's probably never been attacked by any DoS, like DALnet was not to long ago. Security with obscurity!
Re:the author is clueless...
on
Is IRC All Bad?
·
· Score: 1
Yeah it's H4x0r, remember?:)
Re:Is IRC all bad?
on
Is IRC All Bad?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't think your diagnosis of having "post traumatic stress disorder" was from the crazy content you found on IRC. It's the fact you spent far too much time on it. You state you've been using it for about eight years, and spend 18 hours a day, and then crawl to bed which is only 2 feet away.
This is akin to a story where a Korean man at an internet cafe DIED from just sitting at a PC for over a week, playing an online game for FAR too long. Only getting up to use the bathroom, and never sleeping. THAT is sick. However he wasn't sick from the content on his screen.
Please don't try to imply that all of the conversations you had and messages you read from IRC is what caused your disorder that was diagnosed, and you're still dealing with.
The truth is you spent to much time at the computer, which is what got you sick.
I disagree. I play both There and SL, and TSO is a different beast. So comparing There and SL is more adequate considering they are both full 3D worlds, and TSO merely fakes it's 3D.
There and SL don't force you to do anything repetitive as in TSO you have to constantly "green up" just to keep your avatar happy. Avatars in TSO have their own personality and don't always obey what you tell them to do.
Your avatars in SL and There are totally controlled by you, and have no needs of their own like eating, peeing, making friends etc. Or they will collapse and die if you don't tend to those needs.
If you seen There lately it's starting to look like SL in many ways... very cluttered. Homes with furnature, and crazy decorations.. not much diffrent than SL, except not as creative.
While you can't build directly in world, there has been THOUSANDS of new items being put into game, created by other users, not There it self.
There are port-a-zones everywhere that has all kinds of crazy stuff just like you see in SL. But we have no scripting language.
Bursting.. ok so the price is basically set in the contract, including penalty fees, but that's not what the question was about.
There is no technical justification for these extra charges when you go over your allowed bandwidth/throughput. You simply "agree" to pay more if you go overboard, and it's only there to discourage bandwidth gluttony.
When you hit a penalty, does it really harm or cause some sort of increase of operation costs? Does their electric bill go up? Does it cause more wear and tear on their hardware causing more frequent fixes, upgrades, and replacements?
Has anyone ever audited the operation costs of an ISP and see what the true costs are? Dose it really save them money if they place caps on users bandwidth? Of course, if everyone was a bandwidth hog, we would be lagged to hell. So this leads me to think that the reason why they impose caps, and penalty fees, is because they KNOW their network can't handle excessive traffic. And the reason is because they overbook, which was discussed before.
It seems their systems are very keen on noticing when one over-uses their alloted bandwidth, but why don't contracts give refunds or credits when your throughput slows to a crawl? I know most contracts do this when your lose connection entirely, but even then it's not automatic. You have to call tech support and ask for a credit. Why don't their systems measure bandwidth drops and automatically credit you on your next bill? Their systems seem to have no problem jacking your bill up when you "burst" too often.
Another way bigger companies like show how they are "suffering" is when they end up with a lower profit than they expected. If they report "earnings to be up by 20% from last year" and end up with only 19%, they use that as an excuse to downsize, by cutting jobs, closing shops in some locations, etc.
They forget they STILL MADE a 19% profit from last year, and that just a comparison from last year, doesn't say how much they actually made for that year.
Re:'Ask Slashdot' has taught me something.
on
Cheap KVM Over IP?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't think a 386 box will work. I would think some sort of analog-to-video conversion will need to be done, along with video compression. Plus the box will have multiple servers hooked into it. So you'll need a box with a more robust CPU, or other special hardware... but that would drive costs up. But even a Ghz CPU is rather cheap. But it still will require special hardware made for all the KMV inputs if you're gonna build this on a PC.
You could build special PCI cards that have all of these KMV connectors, and you can purchase as many cards as you need. Even use PCI riser cards to add more slots than the motherboard already has. Would be even nice if each card had the power to take the VGA video and convert to digital, and compress the image. Perhaps even make cards that can handle more than just one KMV input. Probably would have to make special 3-in-1 connector cables.
Would be a gawd awful rats nest behind that unit!!!!
Video compression should not be a MPEG format, since there's not much motion/animation going on with a desktop (unless you feel like playing quake 3), plus it would end up looking blurry with artifices >sp?. It would be nice if it were clear to read, at a normal frame rate so scrolling won't look screwy.
It's possible we could ignore analog VGA video, and use pure digital input from a DV-out used for a flat screen. Then just compress the data on the fly as it's pumped over IP. Doubt many servers have newer video cards with Digital output... Unless you used some old matrox cards that used some funky DB-15 port for some sort of digital output.
That's the only hurdle I can think of, the KMV connections into the box. Dealing with the VGA video would be another hurdle, but I don't think it would be that difficult to figure out. KB/Mouse input would be a no brainer.
Funny thing is that the first video game was made about 10 years prior to Atari or Magnavox. This was before my time, but the game "Space War" was made some time in the 60s by MIT I belive. Nolan digged this game, which I belive is what got him into video games in the first place. I don't know if he helped develop it.
You must about 10 years my junior (im 30) to not appreceate the atari 2600. Sure the graphics sucked, but back then it was the top of the line! And you can't deny the fun everyone had playing it. I never heard anyone bitch and complain about graphics, sound, and "lack of a plot" from video games on the 2600.. but we hear it all the time on games we play now!
If you grew up as a kid playing NES then I can understand your apprehension towards the classic 2600.
The Tramiel's originally came from Commodore, which was basically Atari's enemy in the computer market in the 80s. They created the Atari ST line, which was a decent computer, but I always felt they wanted Atari to go down the tubes so Commodore would merge as a better company. Conversely the techs who created the Atari 8-bit systems went over to Commodore, and created the Amiga. That was just WEIRD.
Both companies are now basically dead. The Amiga technology still exists, and now you can see it ported over to just about every platform that exists. It's being used as a sort of universal operating system that is scalable to work on whatever hardware you have.
The Atari name/logo is really all that is left and is being used for marketing.
I still have my 800XL upgraded with RAMBO XL with a whopping 256k of ram, which I stole from an old IBM XT motherboard. I had everything for my little Atari with the exception of a hard drive. I had EXP80 box that gave me an 80 column display plugged into my joystick port, which helped me get online to BBSes that only supported a wide 80 column screen (Most 8-bit systems did only 40 column). External 2400 bps modem, using BOBTerm, connected via Atari 850 interface (I still have the 850 too) using a serial cable I made my self.
I had two 1050 disk drives upgrades with US Doubler, (sold one of them a long time ago) using Sparta Dos X (on a cartridge!) which was the sweetest OS at the time (ran like MS DOS). I still have the cart, version 4.20 I think. I also have an Atari 800 that still works. My Atari gave me some great times, and helped be get online for the first time back in the BBSing days. Ah memories!
It also says nothing about fucking MOVIES either, genius.
That was written long before movies, or video games exited (or even fucking electricity), but we consider movies as a form of speech, why not video games?
Books can be considered toys. Toys are entertaining, books are entertaining, movies are entertaining, and video games are also.
Books are also published for profit. Just as movies are made to make money, and video games too.
Video games have grown beyond the simple scope of a board game. And we are talking about old games like PAC-MAN. There's a story, there are characters, there's action and drama, and a developing plot line. Sounds like a movie, eh?
Good point. But if kids read more books as often as they saw movies and played video games, this same judge would end up declaring books just as you discribed.
Next, kids are reading too many web pages, soon slashdot will be unprotected by free speech!
Some CDrom drives have a "play" button, which would let me play this CD with no problem.
And if I can hear it, it won't be difficult to simply pipe the audio into my in-line jack, and recored the music there, then encode into an MP3. Sure it would take a little more effort and time to do it.. but it can be done.
So don't be supprised when you see these N'suck songs on Gnutilla, or other peer-based sharing networks.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I find the opposite to be true. Take for example an Xbox, which is basically a PC from about seven years ago. (Sub gigahertz P3, 64megs RAM, GeForce3 video)
But it plays all the popular games of today's PC with little to no lag. Where as you need a very high end PC to play the same game!
This is mostly due to the fact that the architecture with the video is more direct, than it is on a PC. There's no AGP bus, or any bottle neck to access video ram. It's more direct which is probably why an Xbox can perform as well as a current PC rig.
But then an Xbox is only running at 800x600. LOL
Good point. But most people just default to whatever "big" IRC network their clients connect to when you get on. The main reason why DALnet is (was) so large was because mIRC defaulted to DALnet servers, and it became bigger than EFnet and Undernet.
Plus people want to go to where all the people are, so they usually goto the big three. Underent EFnet and DALnet. Of course all the bots, worms, and "illegal activity" ends up going to these networks.
The network you like to goto is an obscure network that's too small for anyone to even want to BOTHER loading spam bots, and XDCC bots, and what not. And it's also why it's probably never been attacked by any DoS, like DALnet was not to long ago. Security with obscurity!
Yeah it's H4x0r, remember? :)
I don't think your diagnosis of having "post traumatic stress disorder" was from the crazy content you found on IRC. It's the fact you spent far too much time on it. You state you've been using it for about eight years, and spend 18 hours a day, and then crawl to bed which is only 2 feet away.
This is akin to a story where a Korean man at an internet cafe DIED from just sitting at a PC for over a week, playing an online game for FAR too long. Only getting up to use the bathroom, and never sleeping. THAT is sick. However he wasn't sick from the content on his screen.
Please don't try to imply that all of the conversations you had and messages you read from IRC is what caused your disorder that was diagnosed, and you're still dealing with.
The truth is you spent to much time at the computer, which is what got you sick.
I disagree. I play both There and SL, and TSO is a different beast. So comparing There and SL is more adequate considering they are both full 3D worlds, and TSO merely fakes it's 3D.
There and SL don't force you to do anything repetitive as in TSO you have to constantly "green up" just to keep your avatar happy. Avatars in TSO have their own personality and don't always obey what you tell them to do.
Your avatars in SL and There are totally controlled by you, and have no needs of their own like eating, peeing, making friends etc. Or they will collapse and die if you don't tend to those needs.
If you seen There lately it's starting to look like SL in many ways... very cluttered. Homes with furnature, and crazy decorations.. not much diffrent than SL, except not as creative.
While you can't build directly in world, there has been THOUSANDS of new items being put into game, created by other users, not There it self.
There are port-a-zones everywhere that has all kinds of crazy stuff just like you see in SL. But we have no scripting language.
Bursting.. ok so the price is basically set in the contract, including penalty fees, but that's not what the question was about.
There is no technical justification for these extra charges when you go over your allowed bandwidth/throughput. You simply "agree" to pay more if you go overboard, and it's only there to discourage bandwidth gluttony.
When you hit a penalty, does it really harm or cause some sort of increase of operation costs? Does their electric bill go up? Does it cause more wear and tear on their hardware causing more frequent fixes, upgrades, and replacements?
Has anyone ever audited the operation costs of an ISP and see what the true costs are? Dose it really save them money if they place caps on users bandwidth? Of course, if everyone was a bandwidth hog, we would be lagged to hell. So this leads me to think that the reason why they impose caps, and penalty fees, is because they KNOW their network can't handle excessive traffic. And the reason is because they overbook, which was discussed before.
It seems their systems are very keen on noticing when one over-uses their alloted bandwidth, but why don't contracts give refunds or credits when your throughput slows to a crawl? I know most contracts do this when your lose connection entirely, but even then it's not automatic. You have to call tech support and ask for a credit. Why don't their systems measure bandwidth drops and automatically credit you on your next bill? Their systems seem to have no problem jacking your bill up when you "burst" too often.
This concept seems to be like a combination of automatic server load balancing, and Distributed Computing.
Another way bigger companies like show how they are "suffering" is when they end up with a lower profit than they expected. If they report "earnings to be up by 20% from last year" and end up with only 19%, they use that as an excuse to downsize, by cutting jobs, closing shops in some locations, etc.
They forget they STILL MADE a 19% profit from last year, and that just a comparison from last year, doesn't say how much they actually made for that year.
I don't think a 386 box will work. I would think some sort of analog-to-video conversion will need to be done, along with video compression. Plus the box will have multiple servers hooked into it. So you'll need a box with a more robust CPU, or other special hardware... but that would drive costs up. But even a Ghz CPU is rather cheap. But it still will require special hardware made for all the KMV inputs if you're gonna build this on a PC.
You could build special PCI cards that have all of these KMV connectors, and you can purchase as many cards as you need. Even use PCI riser cards to add more slots than the motherboard already has. Would be even nice if each card had the power to take the VGA video and convert to digital, and compress the image. Perhaps even make cards that can handle more than just one KMV input. Probably would have to make special 3-in-1 connector cables.
Would be a gawd awful rats nest behind that unit!!!!
Video compression should not be a MPEG format, since there's not much motion/animation going on with a desktop (unless you feel like playing quake 3), plus it would end up looking blurry with artifices >sp?. It would be nice if it were clear to read, at a normal frame rate so scrolling won't look screwy.
It's possible we could ignore analog VGA video, and use pure digital input from a DV-out used for a flat screen. Then just compress the data on the fly as it's pumped over IP. Doubt many servers have newer video cards with Digital output... Unless you used some old matrox cards that used some funky DB-15 port for some sort of digital output.
That's the only hurdle I can think of, the KMV connections into the box. Dealing with the VGA video would be another hurdle, but I don't think it would be that difficult to figure out. KB/Mouse input would be a no brainer.
Funny thing is that the first video game was made about 10 years prior to Atari or Magnavox. This was before my time, but the game "Space War" was made some time in the 60s by MIT I belive. Nolan digged this game, which I belive is what got him into video games in the first place. I don't know if he helped develop it.
/ sp acewar/
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects
But I guess the argument you're all talking about was who created the first comercialized video game (arcade I would assume).
Or are you talking about the first home console system?
So which is it guys?
You must about 10 years my junior (im 30) to not appreceate the atari 2600. Sure the graphics sucked, but back then it was the top of the line! And you can't deny the fun everyone had playing it. I never heard anyone bitch and complain about graphics, sound, and "lack of a plot" from video games on the 2600.. but we hear it all the time on games we play now!
If you grew up as a kid playing NES then I can understand your apprehension towards the classic 2600.
The Tramiel's originally came from Commodore, which was basically Atari's enemy in the computer market in the 80s. They created the Atari ST line, which was a decent computer, but I always felt they wanted Atari to go down the tubes so Commodore would merge as a better company. Conversely the techs who created the Atari 8-bit systems went over to Commodore, and created the Amiga. That was just WEIRD.
Both companies are now basically dead. The Amiga technology still exists, and now you can see it ported over to just about every platform that exists. It's being used as a sort of universal operating system that is scalable to work on whatever hardware you have.
The Atari name/logo is really all that is left and is being used for marketing.
I still have my 800XL upgraded with RAMBO XL with a whopping 256k of ram, which I stole from an old IBM XT motherboard. I had everything for my little Atari with the exception of a hard drive. I had EXP80 box that gave me an 80 column display plugged into my joystick port, which helped me get online to BBSes that only supported a wide 80 column screen (Most 8-bit systems did only 40 column). External 2400 bps modem, using BOBTerm, connected via Atari 850 interface (I still have the 850 too) using a serial cable I made my self.
I had two 1050 disk drives upgrades with US Doubler, (sold one of them a long time ago) using Sparta Dos X (on a cartridge!) which was the sweetest OS at the time (ran like MS DOS). I still have the cart, version 4.20 I think. I also have an Atari 800 that still works. My Atari gave me some great times, and helped be get online for the first time back in the BBSing days. Ah memories!
It also says nothing about fucking MOVIES either, genius.
That was written long before movies, or video games exited (or even fucking electricity), but we consider movies as a form of speech, why not video games?
Books can be considered toys. Toys are entertaining, books are entertaining, movies are entertaining, and video games are also.
Books are also published for profit. Just as movies are made to make money, and video games too.
Video games have grown beyond the simple scope of a board game. And we are talking about old games like PAC-MAN. There's a story, there are characters, there's action and drama, and a developing plot line. Sounds like a movie, eh?
Good point. But if kids read more books as often as they saw movies and played video games, this same judge would end up declaring books just as you discribed.
Next, kids are reading too many web pages, soon slashdot will be unprotected by free speech!
I knew some idiot would make some link to Rush Limbaugh, all of that is besides the point. People need to stop dwelling on irrelivant issues.
Some CDrom drives have a "play" button, which would let me play this CD with no problem.
And if I can hear it, it won't be difficult to simply pipe the audio into my in-line jack, and recored the music there, then encode into an MP3. Sure it would take a little more effort and time to do it.. but it can be done.
So don't be supprised when you see these N'suck songs on Gnutilla, or other peer-based sharing networks.