People were worried about their decaying floppy disks, then hard drives and CD-Rs came along, the data got copied over, and it's ready to go for the next twenty years. It's been that way throughout the information revolution, and it'll keep being done. My MSc thesis is currently residing on its fourth hard drive.
Along with data copying, technology is delivering home users progressively better storage mediums. From 5.25" to 2.5" floppies, to hard drives, to CD-Rs, each media lasts longer than the previous. We'll eventually get it to archaeological standards.
There appears to be no problem that someone won't try to solve by throwing huge amounts of money at it. Except maybe curing parasitic diseases in Africa.
First of all, they weren't relegated to anything at GDC. They did not have any new product to show to developers at GDC, and thus did not need a huge spiffy booth to sell nothing. They did, however, blab long and hard about hardware displacement mapping, so only a fool would have failed to see the connection between that and their unannounced next product.
Second, everyone acts like it's a race between Matrox, nVidia, and ATI to make the fastest chip. It's not. They're in separate races to earn money. And sometimes the success of one impedes the other. nVidia makes faster 3D chips, and that gives them the edge in 3D gaming markets. Matrox has the edge in 2D speed and quality and that gives them the edge in other markets. In some cases they don't compete. nVidia has the nForce chip; Matrox has nothing. No-one wails, "Oh my God, Matrox has no motherboard chipset, they're so dead."
And third, making a chip go faster is not rocket science; it's economics. It's not like, "Up until now we were too dumb to make fast chips, but now we have new California smart guys." It's a matter of predicting two years ahead how many transistors you'll be able to pack onto a chip and still be able to sell it to people and make a profit. nVidia takes baby steps every six months. Matrox takes bigger steps over longer periods. They're merely different business plans.
Spoken like a person who has no idea how computers are used in the real world. Yes, there are programs that use 3D, including modelling and games. They continue to form a very small part of the market.
In evidence I present the Matrox G200 MMS; a four-head video card based on the marginally 3D-capable G200 chip. Matrox sells these by the bucketload into businesses like finance, who give some value to a card that can present four screens of 2D information. I also present the 10 Top Selling Games of 2001. There's exactly zero games in there that can't be played on a G400, and one that would like a more powerful card (Black and White).
Yes, Matrox realizes that they cannot compete in the high-end 3D gaming market with the G550. What you need to realize is that most of the computer users in the world don't need any3D, let alone more than what a G400 can deliver.
The bit your're not getting is that the benefit is obtained when the fittest flies of this egenration mate with the sterile flies, not when they compete with them. Mating with a sterile fly produces no offspring. No children, and the population falls. The only way this could screw up natural selection is if the fertile flies could somehow figure out which other flies were sterile and avoid them. So no, it's not like "antibacterial stuff."
The mistake you're making is to think that mindshare is necessarily worth something positive. Non-paying users are using up Ambrosia's bandwidth, their servers, and probably their tech support.
If I were them I'd let them try twice then re-route their browser to the legitimate purchase web page.
Deflation is generally considered to be a bad thing in a real economy because it discourages consumption. In this case, if I wait a year I can buy 30% more than I can now. So demand drops and prices drop even further.
Of course, the usual arguments about savings and investment in a real economy don't apply; no-one is saving for their retirement from EverQuest.
One solution is to cut MonsterHut off at the bank teller. On their web site is a very prominent animated ad for Hertz rental cars. Fire off a letter to Hertz stating that as long as they use a company that engages in mass email campaigns you will never rent a rental car from Hertz.
However, it seems to me that MonsterHut would very much like to be legitimate; it's not like the Nigerian Money Scam spam I received yesterday has a sophisticated web site associated with it. Maybe someone should try removing themselves from the MonsterHut list and see if they're the single legit mass emailer in 15 years of email.
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Along with data copying, technology is delivering home users progressively better storage mediums. From 5.25" to 2.5" floppies, to hard drives, to CD-Rs, each media lasts longer than the previous. We'll eventually get it to archaeological standards.
There appears to be no problem that someone won't try to solve by throwing huge amounts of money at it. Except maybe curing parasitic diseases in Africa.
I think Americans are compensating by becoming 15% heavier themselves.
As a game programmer, I look forward to the changes coming for DirectSound: CreateSnobbyAudiophileDirectSoundBuffer().
First of all, they weren't relegated to anything at GDC. They did not have any new product to show to developers at GDC, and thus did not need a huge spiffy booth to sell nothing. They did, however, blab long and hard about hardware displacement mapping, so only a fool would have failed to see the connection between that and their unannounced next product.
Second, everyone acts like it's a race between Matrox, nVidia, and ATI to make the fastest chip. It's not. They're in separate races to earn money. And sometimes the success of one impedes the other. nVidia makes faster 3D chips, and that gives them the edge in 3D gaming markets. Matrox has the edge in 2D speed and quality and that gives them the edge in other markets. In some cases they don't compete. nVidia has the nForce chip; Matrox has nothing. No-one wails, "Oh my God, Matrox has no motherboard chipset, they're so dead."
And third, making a chip go faster is not rocket science; it's economics. It's not like, "Up until now we were too dumb to make fast chips, but now we have new California smart guys." It's a matter of predicting two years ahead how many transistors you'll be able to pack onto a chip and still be able to sell it to people and make a profit. nVidia takes baby steps every six months. Matrox takes bigger steps over longer periods. They're merely different business plans.
Spoken like a person who has no idea how computers are used in the real world. Yes, there are programs that use 3D, including modelling and games. They continue to form a very small part of the market.
In evidence I present the Matrox G200 MMS; a four-head video card based on the marginally 3D-capable G200 chip. Matrox sells these by the bucketload into businesses like finance, who give some value to a card that can present four screens of 2D information. I also present the 10 Top Selling Games of 2001. There's exactly zero games in there that can't be played on a G400, and one that would like a more powerful card (Black and White).
Yes, Matrox realizes that they cannot compete in the high-end 3D gaming market with the G550. What you need to realize is that most of the computer users in the world don't need any3D, let alone more than what a G400 can deliver.
Yeah, It's all fun and games until the Mule shows up.
The bit your're not getting is that the benefit is obtained when the fittest flies of this egenration mate with the sterile flies, not when they compete with them.
Mating with a sterile fly produces no offspring. No children, and the population falls. The only way this could screw up natural selection is if the fertile flies could somehow figure out which other flies were sterile and avoid them. So no, it's not like "antibacterial stuff."
The mistake you're making is to think that mindshare is necessarily worth something positive. Non-paying users are using up Ambrosia's bandwidth, their servers, and probably their tech support.
If I were them I'd let them try twice then re-route their browser to the legitimate purchase web page.
Deflation is generally considered to be a bad thing in a real economy because it discourages consumption. In this case, if I wait a year I can buy 30% more than I can now. So demand drops and prices drop even further.
Of course, the usual arguments about savings and investment in a real economy don't apply; no-one is saving for their retirement from EverQuest.
One solution is to cut MonsterHut off at the bank teller. On their web site is a very prominent animated ad for Hertz rental cars. Fire off a letter to Hertz stating that as long as they use a company that engages in mass email campaigns you will never rent a rental car from Hertz.
However, it seems to me that MonsterHut would very much like to be legitimate; it's not like the Nigerian Money Scam spam I received yesterday has a sophisticated web site associated with it. Maybe someone should try removing themselves from the MonsterHut list and see if they're the single legit mass emailer in 15 years of email.