"When Windows users say, "There aren't as many viruses/worms/exploits for GNU/Linux/BSD/MacOS X because there are more Windows machines," flame the shit out of them, because they're ignorant as all get out about the architectural differences between these systems."
How so? Archtecturaly, Windows is MORE SECURE than Linux or Mac OS X. It has a much better permissions model, far finer control over user-rights, and a number of other features that make it inherently more secure.
Note, however, that Windows is not more secure than Mac OS X or Linux. This is because of several reasons:
- Most users run as Administrator all the time, negating the entire usefulness of those fancy permissions. - Software is written to be used as Administrator, so many users have no choice. - A number of Windows components leave ports open by default, and some have had sloppy coding. - Internet Explorer has a number of security problems.
Don't "flame the shit" out of people who don't understand "the architectural differences between these systems". It sounds like you don't understand the architecture of Linux yourself. The UNIX-style security model is, quite frankly, outdated.
For example, why should it be possible for a user to execute *anything* as root if they can set the "set UID" bit? A single file with permissions of 7777 immediately breaks the security of a Linux box. Hell, NFS has to have checks explicitly to prevent this kind of crap.
Why should root be a special uber-user who can do anything irregardless of filesystem permissions? SE-Linux has demonstrated the benefits of finer privelage control, but this kind of control has been standard on Windows (and many commercial UNIX solutions) for years.
Moreover, Linux apps such as OpenSSH have had severe holes in the past few years. If these had been exploited, they could have been just as dangerous as the IIS hole that allowed Code Red.
The truth is, GNU/Linux is *not* the Fort Knox that everyone makes it out to be. Just like Windows, it can be made secure with proper procedure. Most Windows servers are very secure - that's why microsoft.com can run Windows Server 2003, IIS, and MSSQL.
It's not about architecture. Windows is vulnerable because of:
- Buggy coding in some OS modules - Poor security practices of users - Popularity
Oh, and *don't* bring out the "Why isn't Apache more vulnerable than IIS?" crap. Here's the answer to that: *it is*. IIS/6 has had fewer security issues than Apache 2.0. Look it up on Bugtraq - only ONE issue has been reported, compared to over 20 for Apache2.
You used your money to by PV cells to run your Mac Mini. Yet, your Mini is 85W *peak*. Add your LCD, and we're talking around 150W.
What if, instead, you had spent the $1500 to:
- Replace outdated or inefficent appliances - Service your vehicle to ensure it is running at maximum efficency - Purchase compact-flourescent lights - Add insulation to your house - Install energy-efficent windows - Purchase renewable-resource energy credits from your energy provider - Invest in a renewable energy cooperative - Cover the cost differential to purchase biodiesel
Now, perhaps you have done some - or all - of these things already. If you have, perhaps the PV cells were a good investment.
However, there are at least 20 ways that most people - particularly in the USA - could spend $1500 that would lead to a greater reduction in energy use.
Running your 150W computer setup on PV cells isn't necessarily going to do a lot. My Athlon 64 box draws - from the wall, including PSU inefficency - 54W at idle. My entire setup is 104W. This is measured, at the wall.
When I stop using it for 10 minutes, it goes to S3 suspend. The monitor is off, the computer is (mostly) off. Measured power draw is under 1W.
Typical monthly energy usage for my computer is 23KWh.
Compare that with my car. 1 gallon of gas is approximately 37KWh of chemical energy. I go through that much energy *every day* with my vehicle.
Even in a Prius, with 20 miles of usage, at the ideal 55MPG, that's 13KWh per day.
"Microsoft has real competition and two of the main players are based in Europe, e.g. SuSE and Mandrake. "
I'll give you SuSE, but Mandrakesoft isn't a major player in the commercial Linux market.
If you run Linux in the enterprise, it's probably RedHat or SuSE. In the US, it's almost always RedHat; in Europe, it's almost always SuSE. This has chnaged a bit recently, after the Novell acquisition, but it's still the case.
Unlike open-source, government provided WiFi isn't exactly "free". Like it or not, you have to pay for that "free" service through taxes. Even if you don't have a computer.
Windows XP Media Center 2005 is, in my opinion, the best PVR software available today.
I have two DirecTV DVRs which I use on a regular basis, so it's not like I'm a Microsoft zealot.
However, MCE is better in a number of notable ways:
- Speed. Even my Series2 DVRs are ploddingly slow. Bringing up "Now Playing" takes 10 seconds or more.
- FF / RW. I don't use fast-forward much on my MCE box. The 30-second skip isn't just conveinent, it's also "instant". Even the hacked 30-second skip on the TiVo has a 1/2 second delay that makes repeated use difficult. On the MCE box, I can blast through a commercial break extremely quickly - and if I overshoot the mark, the 7-second replay function is equally fast. On the TiVo, the delay in both functions makes this impossible - so I resort to traditional fast-forward.
- Conflict management. TiVo's conflict resolution interface sucks. It asks a question with a huge screen of text and gives me two choices which are ambiguous. MCE tells me that there is a a conflict, and asks me which shows to record (I can record 2 of 3 because I have a dual-tuner box). Moreover, it tells me if - and when - there are future showings of a program. This lets me decide whether to cancel a recording - if it replays two hours later, it's an easy choice.
- MCE handles failure well. If a recording is interrupted, it starts recording as soon as power is restored. Moreover, it will record the complete program automatically if there is another showing.
- MCE softpads. I get three minutes before every program and five minutes after, unless something else is scheduled to record. You never need to worry about missing the first or last minute of your show because the schedule is slightly off. On TiVo, you can pad, but it creates conflicts if there is a show in the next (or previous) timeslot.
- MCE has a better recording history. It doesn't just tell me what happened to a program, it tells me who did it and when. Everyone has different accounts, so there's no getting away with deleting my programs or cancelling my recordings.
- MCE has a better interface. It not only looks better, but most screens have the video as a PIP in the corner, so I can schedule recordings or do other things while watching my program. It also has a real back button, so if I make a mistake, I can get right back to where I was. TiVo's left button does different things at different places in the interface. Recording settings are also more easily changed in MCE. Even the OSD is less intrusive in MCE.
- MCE lets me play shows on my notebook or other computer. My DirecTV TiVos don't let me do this.
- MCE lets me add storage easily. I can use a FireWire or SATA drive. I don't have to muck with opening the case, "blessing" the drive, and potentially modding the OS (on DirecTV units like mine) to use HDDs with more than 137GB. I can even archive shows to a network share easily.
MCE is a really solid PVR solution. Don't sell it short because it comes from Microsoft. If you want to dislike it because it only works on Windows, or because it requires a PC, or because it comes from Microsoft, that's fine. But don't tell me it's not a good PVR. It is.
Oh, and to all of you who say that MCE is poor because it requires an expensive PC: that's OK, but don't turn around and tell me how great the Mac Mini would be as a media box. The Mini requires at least $300 of hardware (tuner, remote, HDD, TV adaptor) to be as capable as an $800 Media Center PC.
"If the code was written differently for games, they could allocate some of the graphic responsiblities to the 2nd CPU instead of all of it going to the GPU."
No. For graphics operations, GPUs are hundreds - if not thousands - of times faster than CPUs. They have pipelines designed for pixel processing, insane memory bandwidth (6x dual-channel DDR400), and far more logic transistors.
NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 has 220 million transistors. Most of those are logic. An Athlon 64 has under 100 million, and many (perhaps 1/2 to 3/4) are devoted to the 1M cache.
Even in an ideal situation, you'd be lucky to get 5%, and bandwidth constraints rule that out altogether.
Now, certainly you could run AI in one thread and the physics engine in another. But today's fastest games are still GPU bottlenecked - particularly at high resolution / AA / AF settings. Adding more CPU power isn't going to change that unless you plan on running Half-Life 2 at 640x480.
" I think it would be awesome if they could somehow create a "broadcast flag" that specifies some level of indecency. Then have TV's [sic] do the censoring according to the viewers [sic] taste."
It's called the V-Chip. Every US TV made in the past few years has one.
Ratings are encoded in the VBI. Most cable and satellite boxes also pass V-Chip ratings.
You can configure your TV to block specific content descriptors or ratings.
I've used Primere Pro and a variety of "prosumer" editing packages, but I keep coming back to Vegas.
It's significantly faster than most NLE packages, offers a number of preview modes including a decent real-time preview, renders quickly, and doesn't burn a hole in your pocket.
It comes with a basic (but decent) titler, and it allows you to layer clips easily to do things like video inlays (layer clip + frame filter to resize video) or graphic overlays (PNG image with alpha). You can use envelopes to modify the alpha of a layer, which is really nice for custom fade effects.
All in all, it's a very powerful package that's not too hard to use. They have a free trial so you can see if you like it.
"Mmmkay. The Mini comes with about $200 in software which makes the hardware about $300."
Bullshit. If that were the case, then you could call the $400 emachines PC "$200" because it includes Windows XP and Microsoft Works, a "$200" value.
If you buy a Pizza and it comes with a free DVD, the Pizza doesn't cost less. It's still the same price.
The Mini comes with iPhoto (similar to Picasa on PC, which is free), iDVD (similar to Sonic or other software included with most PCs), iTunes (free for PC), and iMovie (similar to Windows Movie Maker, also free).
The only app included with the Mini that's not included with most PCs is GarageBand. You can argue that the Mac apps are better, but claiming that their inclusion effectively lowers the price of the Mini is pure crap. Any way you slice it, it's still a $500 computer. And you can get a computer, monitor, keyboard / mouse, and printer for $400. It may not have the same GPU, or be as compact as the Mini, but it does the job for 95% of people who simply want to surf the net, read email, play some tunes, look at / send photos, and type documents.
"Oh, and go look on ebay sometime for used computers. Compare the Macs to PCs, and then tell me if the initial purchase price was worth the extra couple of bucks."
The resale value of both is pretty abysmal. 700MHz iBooks go for around $600; similar-age PC notebooks go for around $500. It's not a huge difrerence.
BestBuy.com is selling an eMachines system - computer, monitor, and printer - for $330 after rebates:
- Has a better GPU - Has a DVD drive - Has FireWire - Has iPhoto / iDVD / iMovie / GarageBand instead of Picasa (free) / Sonic MyDVD / Windows Movie Maker (possible advantage depending on use, though you're not going to be burning DVDs on either)
Compared to the Mini, the eMachines:
- Is $170 cheaper, not including keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers - Has a faster CPU - Has a faster and larger HDD - Has more USB ports - Is more expandable
"Both, IBM and SONY, will be using CELL CPUs in virtually all of their new products from DVD players to supercomputers."
Doubtful. DVD players rarely have much of a processor at all - usually a low-end CPU combined with a custom DSP. All decoding is done in hardware, so there's no need for high FP performance like the CELL offers.
If you've actually watched the 3rd and 4th seasons, you'd know that the show is actually rather critical of the Iraq war.
Particularly notice the episode where the Vulcan leader is going to attack another race because of an incorrect claim that they have dangerous "weapons". Enterprise must stop the attack to save the quadrant.
If that's not a blatant criticism of the Bush administration, I don't know what is.
"Why spend so much money to save an unpopular show?"
Because it's not unpopular at all. The *lowest* ratings that ST:ENT has ever recieved amounted to 5 million viewers. That may be poor for network TV, but it's great for cable. Even BS:G averages around 3-4 million.
Oh, so some kind of wireless media reciever that integrates with the desktop media software.
Sorry, but Microsoft beat them to the punch. For $199, you can get a "Media Center Extender" that allows you to view your shows, watch live TV or a DVD, play music, view photos, and more. It integrates nicely with the desktop as well - it's basically a clone of the interface, which makes it pretty easy to use.
Comparing the resolution and color representation of film and current DLP (the most common cinema projection systems) is a bit misleading.
Yes, clean film stock run on properly maintained and configured equipment is currently superior to DLP in resolution and color representation, not to mention the random ordering of the grain which increases apparent resolution further.
However, most film is poorly cared for and projected on equipment that is outdated, misconfigured, or broken.
One of the three cinemas in my city has decent projectionists. Gate jitter is minimal, there aren't poor splices or lines on the film, the film is clean, the aspect ratio is properly set, and the DTS decoder is configured properly.
This is the exception - not the norm. At many theaters, gate jitter is exceptionally annoying, the film is dusty or scratched, and the sound is rarely properly configured. Sometimes even the aspect ratio is wrong.
Digital cinema eliminates these problems. It's "idiot proof". That's why it provides a better experience to the typical audience.
"2.6GHz Athlon FX57 with 1MB cache. The latter has a 95W power draw already, but it is 130nm"
There is no Athlon 64 FX-57. The fastest available Athlon 64 is the Athlon 64 FX-55, at 2.6GHz / 1M / 130nm.
All 130nm Athlon 64 CPUs, excluding notebook parts, have a Vcore of 1.5v and thermal design power of 89W. Measurements of the Athlon 64 FX-55 actually place it at around 70-80W.
All current Opteron processors (excluding the HE and EE variants) have Vcore of 1.5V and TDP of 89W as well.
Winchester-based (90nm) Athlon 64 cpus have Vcore of 1.4V and TDP of 63W. As with earlier K8-based CPUs, the TDP is for the entire line, regardless of clock. Low-end parts consume substantially less power than indicated by the TDP.
Intel, on the other hand, understates their TDP. Their TDP is meant to reflect "typical" usage patterns. Actual P4 Prescott CPUs have been measured to draw as much as 130W - 150W when under heavy load. Intel is relying on the thermal protection built into the CPU to slow down the system if necessary and prevent overheating.
3DLabs pixel shader / vertex shader implementation is broken and incomplete. Forget about DOOM3, Half-Life 2, FarCry, or other modern games rendering properly.
All rechargable batteries have a fixed number of recharge cycles. How many cycles you can get out of the battery depends on:
- Battery chemistry (e.g. Li-Ion vs. Ni-MH) - Manufacturing tolerences (how well is the product built) - Environmental considerations (temperature of storage, etc.) - Charging methods (e.g. overcharging / charging too quickly) - Cycle depth
It's best with Li-Ion to cycle the battery as little as possible. Depending on how deeply - and how frequently - you discharge the battery, you may experience reduced lifespan.
It's bad to overcharge, but modern Li-Ion battery packs won't allow themselves to be overcharged. There's nothing wrong in leaving your notebook plugged in all the time.
I wear a computer
on
Whereables?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
What everyone seems to miss is that we are already wearing computers. 145 million Americans have cellular telephones. Many of them have capabilities that far surpass what could be done with 1996-class desktops, let alone wearables.
There's no need for the dorky headgear or the wierd chorded keyboards. I'm already wearing a computer. It's the Danger Hiptop2. It has a thumbkeyboard, a display, a connection to the internet, and a number of other features. It can do just about anything that the "wearables" of 1996 could do.
Wearables don't exist because they don't need to exist. What's wrong with products like the Dell Axim X50v? It has a 624MHz PXA270 ARM processor, 64MB of DRAM, 128MB of flash, a VGA touchscreen, WLAN, Bluetooth, infared, CF and SD expansion, and a lot more.
It's $425, it runs for 6 hours on batteries, and it absolutely blows away any "wearable" you saw on the Discovery Channel. Oh, and you don't look like a dork for carrying one.
What's not 'serious' about AMD64? It has excellent integer and decent fp performance, solid hardware and software support, low cost, and true big memory support (48-bit physical).
UltraSparc, in particluar, offers lackluster performance (excluding some very specific applications) and is quite expensive. Power4 is also extremely pricey. Don't be ashamed to use AMD64 because it's 'only' x86+. It's a solid, high performance platform.
The recently released hp xw9300 is exactly what you want. It has room for 2 Opteron processors, up to 16gb of ram, and dual PCIe x16 graphics cards.
It starts at around $1900, a decent price for a dual-proc workstation. It has SATA II 300, an NVIDIA chipset (NForce Professional 2200; based on NForce4) and 8 dimm slots for registered DDR.
I love my Comcast internet. It's $42 a month, and it's worth every penny.
Yes, it's only 3mbit/256kbps (soon to be 4/384).
Yes, it's a shared medium.
However, oversubscription isn't a problem (I almost always reach the cap), and, more importantly, I get 37ms pings to Yahoo and many other websites.
The connection doesn't drop packets, the latency is nice, and there have been no service interruptions since the transfer from @Home 4 years ago.
It's not 100mbps, but, consider this: is 100mbps really 100mbps? At the local university (CSU), I have been tied directly into the backbone (multiple OC-3 connnections and an OC-12) with switched gigabit ethernet.
I tried downloading an image from kernel.org, which (in theory) has a 1gbit connection. According to their bandwidth meter, they had over 500mbps of bandwidth to spare.
Guess what transfer speed I got? 12mbps. I tried tweaking my TCP settings, and I tried multi-threaded downloaders. I can't get more than 12mbps.
That's the awful truth. It doesn't matter what theoretical bandwidth you have. What matters is actual transfer rates. 100mbps doesn't do you any good if it's horribly oversubscribed or if the latency is garbage.
CHSI gives me a reliable, reasonably fast connection with low oversubscription and excellent latency. I couldn't be happier.
" i hate tearing down my torrents, just coz i got a videocall.
100MB/s would let me keep all that running, while also dealing with high-bandwidth demands.
just face it: the U.S. is lagging, because its people have no imagination. you proved the point."
100MB/s means nothing if the lines are oversubscribed at 10000:1. I run torrents all the time, and I use GNOMEMeeting to do videoconferincing at the same time, and I run two lines of VOIP, and I have others browsing on the network.
Doing all of this simultaneously on a 3Mbit connection is not a problem. The upstream is limiting, but that is a separate issue.
Comcast absolutely, positively has the capability to offer 40mbps *tomorrow*. They just have to upload a different config file to my modem.
3Mbit caps have *nothing* to do with technology. The US is not "behind". We are not "lagging". We have a different market, and that market has not demanded 100mbit access. Even Verizon's FIOS service, which offers 30Mbps for $45 a month, has done relatively poorly. 3Mbps is "fast enough" for most people. Many people are fine with 56k.
It's not, and has never been, the technology. The tech is here, deployed, in the US, right now. It's the social element that's different.
VOIP runs great with 64kbps. Good quality video requires only 512K - 2M (remember, we're transmitting faces here - you don't need DVD bitrates). Even HD video is only 19MBPS.
So, why, again, do you need 100Mbps? Most people don't need 5 HD-quality streams for videoconferencing.
For entertainment, US homes are already recieving gigabits of bandwith per second. HD video-on-demand, digtal cable, and other services are already deployed. They don't use IP, but, then again, they don't need to.
So, in a way, US households *already* have "superbroadband". They just don't have it on their internet connection.
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"When Windows users say, "There aren't as many viruses/worms/exploits for GNU/Linux/BSD/MacOS X because there are more Windows machines," flame the shit out of them, because they're ignorant as all get out about the architectural differences between these systems."
How so? Archtecturaly, Windows is MORE SECURE than Linux or Mac OS X. It has a much better permissions model, far finer control over user-rights, and a number of other features that make it inherently more secure.
Note, however, that Windows is not more secure than Mac OS X or Linux. This is because of several reasons:
- Most users run as Administrator all the time, negating the entire usefulness of those fancy permissions.
- Software is written to be used as Administrator, so many users have no choice.
- A number of Windows components leave ports open by default, and some have had sloppy coding.
- Internet Explorer has a number of security problems.
Don't "flame the shit" out of people who don't understand "the architectural differences between these systems". It sounds like you don't understand the architecture of Linux yourself. The UNIX-style security model is, quite frankly, outdated.
For example, why should it be possible for a user to execute *anything* as root if they can set the "set UID" bit? A single file with permissions of 7777 immediately breaks the security of a Linux box. Hell, NFS has to have checks explicitly to prevent this kind of crap.
Why should root be a special uber-user who can do anything irregardless of filesystem permissions? SE-Linux has demonstrated the benefits of finer privelage control, but this kind of control has been standard on Windows (and many commercial UNIX solutions) for years.
Moreover, Linux apps such as OpenSSH have had severe holes in the past few years. If these had been exploited, they could have been just as dangerous as the IIS hole that allowed Code Red.
The truth is, GNU/Linux is *not* the Fort Knox that everyone makes it out to be. Just like Windows, it can be made secure with proper procedure. Most Windows servers are very secure - that's why microsoft.com can run Windows Server 2003, IIS, and MSSQL.
It's not about architecture. Windows is vulnerable because of:
- Buggy coding in some OS modules
- Poor security practices of users
- Popularity
Oh, and *don't* bring out the "Why isn't Apache more vulnerable than IIS?" crap. Here's the answer to that: *it is*. IIS/6 has had fewer security issues than Apache 2.0. Look it up on Bugtraq - only ONE issue has been reported, compared to over 20 for Apache2.
Saving energy is an optimization problem.
You used your money to by PV cells to run your Mac Mini. Yet, your Mini is 85W *peak*. Add your LCD, and we're talking around 150W.
What if, instead, you had spent the $1500 to:
- Replace outdated or inefficent appliances
- Service your vehicle to ensure it is running at maximum efficency
- Purchase compact-flourescent lights
- Add insulation to your house
- Install energy-efficent windows
- Purchase renewable-resource energy credits from your energy provider
- Invest in a renewable energy cooperative
- Cover the cost differential to purchase biodiesel
Now, perhaps you have done some - or all - of these things already. If you have, perhaps the PV cells were a good investment.
However, there are at least 20 ways that most people - particularly in the USA - could spend $1500 that would lead to a greater reduction in energy use.
Running your 150W computer setup on PV cells isn't necessarily going to do a lot. My Athlon 64 box draws - from the wall, including PSU inefficency - 54W at idle. My entire setup is 104W. This is measured, at the wall.
When I stop using it for 10 minutes, it goes to S3 suspend. The monitor is off, the computer is (mostly) off. Measured power draw is under 1W.
Typical monthly energy usage for my computer is 23KWh.
Compare that with my car. 1 gallon of gas is approximately 37KWh of chemical energy. I go through that much energy *every day* with my vehicle.
Even in a Prius, with 20 miles of usage, at the ideal 55MPG, that's 13KWh per day.
There are bigger fish to fry than your Mac Mini.
"Microsoft has real competition and two of the main players are based in Europe, e.g. SuSE and Mandrake. "
I'll give you SuSE, but Mandrakesoft isn't a major player in the commercial Linux market.
If you run Linux in the enterprise, it's probably RedHat or SuSE. In the US, it's almost always RedHat; in Europe, it's almost always SuSE. This has chnaged a bit recently, after the Novell acquisition, but it's still the case.
Unlike open-source, government provided WiFi isn't exactly "free". Like it or not, you have to pay for that "free" service through taxes. Even if you don't have a computer.
What's wrong with co-op wireless?
Windows XP Media Center 2005 is, in my opinion, the best PVR software available today.
I have two DirecTV DVRs which I use on a regular basis, so it's not like I'm a Microsoft zealot.
However, MCE is better in a number of notable ways:
- Speed. Even my Series2 DVRs are ploddingly slow. Bringing up "Now Playing" takes 10 seconds or more.
- FF / RW. I don't use fast-forward much on my MCE box. The 30-second skip isn't just conveinent, it's also "instant". Even the hacked 30-second skip on the TiVo has a 1/2 second delay that makes repeated use difficult. On the MCE box, I can blast through a commercial break extremely quickly - and if I overshoot the mark, the 7-second replay function is equally fast. On the TiVo, the delay in both functions makes this impossible - so I resort to traditional fast-forward.
- Conflict management. TiVo's conflict resolution interface sucks. It asks a question with a huge screen of text and gives me two choices which are ambiguous. MCE tells me that there is a a conflict, and asks me which shows to record (I can record 2 of 3 because I have a dual-tuner box). Moreover, it tells me if - and when - there are future showings of a program. This lets me decide whether to cancel a recording - if it replays two hours later, it's an easy choice.
- MCE handles failure well. If a recording is interrupted, it starts recording as soon as power is restored. Moreover, it will record the complete program automatically if there is another showing.
- MCE softpads. I get three minutes before every program and five minutes after, unless something else is scheduled to record. You never need to worry about missing the first or last minute of your show because the schedule is slightly off. On TiVo, you can pad, but it creates conflicts if there is a show in the next (or previous) timeslot.
- MCE has a better recording history. It doesn't just tell me what happened to a program, it tells me who did it and when. Everyone has different accounts, so there's no getting away with deleting my programs or cancelling my recordings.
- MCE has a better interface. It not only looks better, but most screens have the video as a PIP in the corner, so I can schedule recordings or do other things while watching my program. It also has a real back button, so if I make a mistake, I can get right back to where I was. TiVo's left button does different things at different places in the interface. Recording settings are also more easily changed in MCE. Even the OSD is less intrusive in MCE.
- MCE lets me play shows on my notebook or other computer. My DirecTV TiVos don't let me do this.
- MCE lets me add storage easily. I can use a FireWire or SATA drive. I don't have to muck with opening the case, "blessing" the drive, and potentially modding the OS (on DirecTV units like mine) to use HDDs with more than 137GB. I can even archive shows to a network share easily.
MCE is a really solid PVR solution. Don't sell it short because it comes from Microsoft. If you want to dislike it because it only works on Windows, or because it requires a PC, or because it comes from Microsoft, that's fine. But don't tell me it's not a good PVR. It is.
Oh, and to all of you who say that MCE is poor because it requires an expensive PC: that's OK, but don't turn around and tell me how great the Mac Mini would be as a media box. The Mini requires at least $300 of hardware (tuner, remote, HDD, TV adaptor) to be as capable as an $800 Media Center PC.
"If the code was written differently for games, they could allocate some of the graphic responsiblities to the 2nd CPU instead of all of it going to the GPU."
No. For graphics operations, GPUs are hundreds - if not thousands - of times faster than CPUs. They have pipelines designed for pixel processing, insane memory bandwidth (6x dual-channel DDR400), and far more logic transistors.
NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 has 220 million transistors. Most of those are logic. An Athlon 64 has under 100 million, and many (perhaps 1/2 to 3/4) are devoted to the 1M cache.
Even in an ideal situation, you'd be lucky to get 5%, and bandwidth constraints rule that out altogether.
Now, certainly you could run AI in one thread and the physics engine in another. But today's fastest games are still GPU bottlenecked - particularly at high resolution / AA / AF settings. Adding more CPU power isn't going to change that unless you plan on running Half-Life 2 at 640x480.
" I think it would be awesome if they could somehow create a "broadcast flag" that specifies some level of indecency. Then have TV's [sic] do the censoring according to the viewers [sic] taste."
It's called the V-Chip. Every US TV made in the past few years has one.
Ratings are encoded in the VBI. Most cable and satellite boxes also pass V-Chip ratings.
You can configure your TV to block specific content descriptors or ratings.
I've used Primere Pro and a variety of "prosumer" editing packages, but I keep coming back to Vegas.
It's significantly faster than most NLE packages, offers a number of preview modes including a decent real-time preview, renders quickly, and doesn't burn a hole in your pocket.
It comes with a basic (but decent) titler, and it allows you to layer clips easily to do things like video inlays (layer clip + frame filter to resize video) or graphic overlays (PNG image with alpha). You can use envelopes to modify the alpha of a layer, which is really nice for custom fade effects.
All in all, it's a very powerful package that's not too hard to use. They have a free trial so you can see if you like it.
"Mmmkay. The Mini comes with about $200 in software which makes the hardware about $300."
Bullshit. If that were the case, then you could call the $400 emachines PC "$200" because it includes Windows XP and Microsoft Works, a "$200" value.
If you buy a Pizza and it comes with a free DVD, the Pizza doesn't cost less. It's still the same price.
The Mini comes with iPhoto (similar to Picasa on PC, which is free), iDVD (similar to Sonic or other software included with most PCs), iTunes (free for PC), and iMovie (similar to Windows Movie Maker, also free).
The only app included with the Mini that's not included with most PCs is GarageBand. You can argue that the Mac apps are better, but claiming that their inclusion effectively lowers the price of the Mini is pure crap. Any way you slice it, it's still a $500 computer. And you can get a computer, monitor, keyboard / mouse, and printer for $400. It may not have the same GPU, or be as compact as the Mini, but it does the job for 95% of people who simply want to surf the net, read email, play some tunes, look at / send photos, and type documents.
"Oh, and go look on ebay sometime for used computers. Compare the Macs to PCs, and then tell me if the initial purchase price was worth the extra couple of bucks."
The resale value of both is pretty abysmal. 700MHz iBooks go for around $600; similar-age PC notebooks go for around $500. It's not a huge difrerence.
BestBuy.com is selling an eMachines system - computer, monitor, and printer - for $330 after rebates:
Celeron D 2.66GHz
256M PC2700 DDR
60GB 7200rpm HDD
CD-RW
Mouse, keyboard & speakers
17" Flat CRT
10/100 Ethernet
Compare the Mini:
PowerPC G4 1.25GHz
DVD/CD-RW combo drive
256M PC2700 DDR
40GB 5200rpm notebook HDD
10/100 Ethernet
Compared to the eMachines, the Mini:
- Has a better GPU
- Has a DVD drive
- Has FireWire
- Has iPhoto / iDVD / iMovie / GarageBand instead of Picasa (free) / Sonic MyDVD / Windows Movie Maker (possible advantage depending on use, though you're not going to be burning DVDs on either)
Compared to the Mini, the eMachines:
- Is $170 cheaper, not including keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers
- Has a faster CPU
- Has a faster and larger HDD
- Has more USB ports
- Is more expandable
It looks a bit like Plastik (which I like), but not at all like the butt-ugly Keramik theme.
"Both, IBM and SONY, will be using CELL CPUs in virtually all of their new products from DVD players to supercomputers."
Doubtful. DVD players rarely have much of a processor at all - usually a low-end CPU combined with a custom DSP. All decoding is done in hardware, so there's no need for high FP performance like the CELL offers.
If you've actually watched the 3rd and 4th seasons, you'd know that the show is actually rather critical of the Iraq war.
Particularly notice the episode where the Vulcan leader is going to attack another race because of an incorrect claim that they have dangerous "weapons". Enterprise must stop the attack to save the quadrant.
If that's not a blatant criticism of the Bush administration, I don't know what is.
"Why spend so much money to save an unpopular show?"
Because it's not unpopular at all. The *lowest* ratings that ST:ENT has ever recieved amounted to 5 million viewers. That may be poor for network TV, but it's great for cable. Even BS:G averages around 3-4 million.
Oh, so some kind of wireless media reciever that integrates with the desktop media software.
Sorry, but Microsoft beat them to the punch. For $199, you can get a "Media Center Extender" that allows you to view your shows, watch live TV or a DVD, play music, view photos, and more. It integrates nicely with the desktop as well - it's basically a clone of the interface, which makes it pretty easy to use.
Comparing the resolution and color representation of film and current DLP (the most common cinema projection systems) is a bit misleading.
Yes, clean film stock run on properly maintained and configured equipment is currently superior to DLP in resolution and color representation, not to mention the random ordering of the grain which increases apparent resolution further.
However, most film is poorly cared for and projected on equipment that is outdated, misconfigured, or broken.
One of the three cinemas in my city has decent projectionists. Gate jitter is minimal, there aren't poor splices or lines on the film, the film is clean, the aspect ratio is properly set, and the DTS decoder is configured properly.
This is the exception - not the norm. At many theaters, gate jitter is exceptionally annoying, the film is dusty or scratched, and the sound is rarely properly configured. Sometimes even the aspect ratio is wrong.
Digital cinema eliminates these problems. It's "idiot proof". That's why it provides a better experience to the typical audience.
"2.6GHz Athlon FX57 with 1MB cache. The latter has a 95W power draw already, but it is 130nm"
There is no Athlon 64 FX-57. The fastest available Athlon 64 is the Athlon 64 FX-55, at 2.6GHz / 1M / 130nm.
All 130nm Athlon 64 CPUs, excluding notebook parts, have a Vcore of 1.5v and thermal design power of 89W. Measurements of the Athlon 64 FX-55 actually place it at around 70-80W.
All current Opteron processors (excluding the HE and EE variants) have Vcore of 1.5V and TDP of 89W as well.
Winchester-based (90nm) Athlon 64 cpus have Vcore of 1.4V and TDP of 63W. As with earlier K8-based CPUs, the TDP is for the entire line, regardless of clock. Low-end parts consume substantially less power than indicated by the TDP.
Intel, on the other hand, understates their TDP. Their TDP is meant to reflect "typical" usage patterns. Actual P4 Prescott CPUs have been measured to draw as much as 130W - 150W when under heavy load. Intel is relying on the thermal protection built into the CPU to slow down the system if necessary and prevent overheating.
3DLabs pixel shader / vertex shader implementation is broken and incomplete. Forget about DOOM3, Half-Life 2, FarCry, or other modern games rendering properly.
Longhorn has a set RTM date. May 24, 2006. Yeah, it's long overdue. But it's not Duke Nukem Forever.
All rechargable batteries have a fixed number of recharge cycles. How many cycles you can get out of the battery depends on:
- Battery chemistry (e.g. Li-Ion vs. Ni-MH)
- Manufacturing tolerences (how well is the product built)
- Environmental considerations (temperature of storage, etc.)
- Charging methods (e.g. overcharging / charging too quickly)
- Cycle depth
It's best with Li-Ion to cycle the battery as little as possible. Depending on how deeply - and how frequently - you discharge the battery, you may experience reduced lifespan.
It's bad to overcharge, but modern Li-Ion battery packs won't allow themselves to be overcharged. There's nothing wrong in leaving your notebook plugged in all the time.
What everyone seems to miss is that we are already wearing computers. 145 million Americans have cellular telephones. Many of them have capabilities that far surpass what could be done with 1996-class desktops, let alone wearables.
There's no need for the dorky headgear or the wierd chorded keyboards. I'm already wearing a computer. It's the Danger Hiptop2. It has a thumbkeyboard, a display, a connection to the internet, and a number of other features. It can do just about anything that the "wearables" of 1996 could do.
Wearables don't exist because they don't need to exist. What's wrong with products like the Dell Axim X50v? It has a 624MHz PXA270 ARM processor, 64MB of DRAM, 128MB of flash, a VGA touchscreen, WLAN, Bluetooth, infared, CF and SD expansion, and a lot more.
It's $425, it runs for 6 hours on batteries, and it absolutely blows away any "wearable" you saw on the Discovery Channel. Oh, and you don't look like a dork for carrying one.
What's not 'serious' about AMD64? It has excellent integer and decent fp performance, solid hardware and software support, low cost, and true big memory support (48-bit physical).
UltraSparc, in particluar, offers lackluster performance (excluding some very specific applications) and is quite expensive. Power4 is also extremely pricey. Don't be ashamed to use AMD64 because it's 'only' x86+. It's a solid, high performance platform.
The recently released hp xw9300 is exactly what you want. It has room for 2 Opteron processors, up to 16gb of ram, and dual PCIe x16 graphics cards.
It starts at around $1900, a decent price for a dual-proc workstation. It has SATA II 300, an NVIDIA chipset (NForce Professional 2200; based on NForce4) and 8 dimm slots for registered DDR.
I love my Comcast internet. It's $42 a month, and it's worth every penny.
Yes, it's only 3mbit/256kbps (soon to be 4/384).
Yes, it's a shared medium.
However, oversubscription isn't a problem (I almost always reach the cap), and, more importantly, I get 37ms pings to Yahoo and many other websites.
The connection doesn't drop packets, the latency is nice, and there have been no service interruptions since the transfer from @Home 4 years ago.
It's not 100mbps, but, consider this: is 100mbps really 100mbps? At the local university (CSU), I have been tied directly into the backbone (multiple OC-3 connnections and an OC-12) with switched gigabit ethernet.
I tried downloading an image from kernel.org, which (in theory) has a 1gbit connection. According to their bandwidth meter, they had over 500mbps of bandwidth to spare.
Guess what transfer speed I got? 12mbps. I tried tweaking my TCP settings, and I tried multi-threaded downloaders. I can't get more than 12mbps.
That's the awful truth. It doesn't matter what theoretical bandwidth you have. What matters is actual transfer rates. 100mbps doesn't do you any good if it's horribly oversubscribed or if the latency is garbage.
CHSI gives me a reliable, reasonably fast connection with low oversubscription and excellent latency. I couldn't be happier.
" i hate tearing down my torrents, just coz i got a videocall.
100MB/s would let me keep all that running, while also dealing with high-bandwidth demands.
just face it: the U.S. is lagging, because its people have no imagination. you proved the point."
100MB/s means nothing if the lines are oversubscribed at 10000:1. I run torrents all the time, and I use GNOMEMeeting to do videoconferincing at the same time, and I run two lines of VOIP, and I have others browsing on the network.
Doing all of this simultaneously on a 3Mbit connection is not a problem. The upstream is limiting, but that is a separate issue.
Comcast absolutely, positively has the capability to offer 40mbps *tomorrow*. They just have to upload a different config file to my modem.
3Mbit caps have *nothing* to do with technology. The US is not "behind". We are not "lagging". We have a different market, and that market has not demanded 100mbit access. Even Verizon's FIOS service, which offers 30Mbps for $45 a month, has done relatively poorly. 3Mbps is "fast enough" for most people. Many people are fine with 56k.
It's not, and has never been, the technology. The tech is here, deployed, in the US, right now. It's the social element that's different.
"what part of "VOIP" did you not understand?"
VOIP runs great with 64kbps. Good quality video requires only 512K - 2M (remember, we're transmitting faces here - you don't need DVD bitrates). Even HD video is only 19MBPS.
So, why, again, do you need 100Mbps? Most people don't need 5 HD-quality streams for videoconferencing.
For entertainment, US homes are already recieving gigabits of bandwith per second. HD video-on-demand, digtal cable, and other services are already deployed. They don't use IP, but, then again, they don't need to.
So, in a way, US households *already* have "superbroadband". They just don't have it on their internet connection.