And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing - Shuttle can't pull up for another landing attempt, Buran could. It also had no main engines - they were in the huge booster that mimic the shuttle main fuel tank. Buran also had no firecrackers (solid rocket boosters), and instead used only liquid fuels - making challenger-style boom impossible.
Yes, it was an aerodynamical copy out of stolen blueprints - so they saved a ton of wind tunnel testing and other stuff, but the innards were all russian tech, and they make good solid space tech.
What didn't work out was the funding. Shuttle is expensive, and so was Buran. Collapsing USSR decided to save SOME kind of space program, and picked MIR and the trusty old rockets they had already in service, and canned Buran. It only flew once, unmanned. A feat Shuttle can't do, by the way, as it can't land unmanned.
Considering how expensive Shuttle is to operate, I'd say they made a smart financial call:)
But there were no technological obstacles. It was only the lack of money. A real shame what they allowed to rust in the former USSR - they had the biggest booster (Energiya) and the 'better' Shuttle, but both are now pretty much gone due to lack of funds.
No. They just said that betamax case is not a 'get out of jail free' card that can be used to prevent prosecution on other grounds. The intent and the conduct of Gorkster matters.
Had they ruled otherwise, you could make your own MegaBitTorrent, and paste full page ads to NY times showing how your 50$ application can be used to download thousands of full DVDs from other users of the same software. That should be illegal, and the ruling states that it is. And the betamax ruling will remain in effect, but it cannot be used as a shield against inductment to commit copyright infringment.
This ruling is pretty good, and can be used to nail profiteers who promote and gain from copyright infringement, but at the same time it does not outlaw the technology, nor it removes the protection of Betamax ruling from devices/programs that are not promoted as nice way for free movies. As long as the P2P app is content neutral, there is no problem. Gorkster wasn't - their business plan was to get as many people to use it to copy stuff as possible, as that meant more ad revenue to them. They WANTED it to be used illegally, and they PROFITED from said illegal use. Hang 'em high.
Wrong. Search engines are specifically mentioned as something with substantial noninfringing uses.
BT-specific search engine is fundamentally no different from googling with the additional qualifier of "filetype:torrent". It's definitely legal by this ruling.
Now if you actively marketed your BT-specific search engine with 'get latest movies for free from here' (basically promoting that your search service is good for infringing uses), and profited from banner ads on the side, you have a chance of getting whacked. While the current case with Grokster is pretty clear-cut, I don't know if it's immediately applicable to likes of suprnova etc..
- The website owner doesn't distribute nor develop Bittorrent. - The website owner doesn't distribute any copyrighted data. - The website owner doesn't faciliate distribution in any way (assuming no tracker ran by the site)
Will 'providing links to copyrighted material' while getting some banner money on the sidelines be the same as this case? Profiting from collecting a pile of links (.torrent) to copyrighted files... would that be the same thing?
How about if major portion of those.torrents were actually legal, and if you made no distinction, editiorial control or anything of the sort?
How about running the actual tracker? As public tracker (meaning you do not control what it's used for)? (Then again, I assume that a trackerless torrents will make this point moot before it becomes an issue...)
I'd say BT as an application is definitely in the clear. Neutral BT search engine with no promotion related to it's potential infringing uses is most likely in the clear. Rest is bit up in the air... but I wouldn't start a business with a plan of getting rich by serving.torrents to infringing content - at least not in the US.:)
Users ignore it, because it's a horrible pain to use XP using a normal user account.
There are numerous games that cannot be installed without admin rights, and plenty who cannot even be EXECUTED without admin rights. All because the devs are lazy morons.
Same goes with numerous applications.
Not to mention the fact that in many case applications break in random ways, without actually telling why they break.
So right now if you actually want to use XP, you pretty much are stuck with admin mode (or you have way more patience than I do in using 'run as..' or switching users)
""they're held accountable for keeping the costs down by ending calls as soon as possible, by any means necessary. ""
This 'method' of saving costs is the easy way to ensure the customer support is total CRAP.
No sane person with any knowledge of the product/service/area of expertise will stick around in a workplace where short call > resolved call. All you get is drones that do their damnest to end calls and/or bounce them around so their 'minutes per call' is kept low and they seem 'l33t support techs' to the PHB's as they can 'resolve the calls so quickly'.
I actually worked in such a hellhole for a few weeks way back (phone support for PCs and stuff), and the job relationship was toast about two weeks in when I was reprimanded for actually doing my job (spending bit over an hour on the phone resolving some poor sap's problem with his PC)
I said straight up there that their policies were insane, and that I would continue to do the job the customers expected (resolve their issues) without watching a stopwatch. I was fired a week later for 'being uncooperative', and I was happy they did it. And lookie, less than 6 months later the shithole company was bought out by a bigger company for cheap as it was almost bankrupt anyway.
Reason why short call > resolved call? The stupid company had made a deal with the PC manufacturer on the NUMBER OF CALLS ANSWERED. Which is the most braindead metric you can use for outsourced tech support. So the company would get more money if every support person would randomly hang up the calls and/or ask the customer to call back later, but if they'd actually take the time and resolve the issue, that would actually result in less funds to the people paying the paychecks of the support techs.
When a computer motherboard costs less than 15 minutes of qualified electronics repairman's time, there is absolutely no point in even trying to repair it. Just ship it to distributor/manufacturer for replacement.
Someone in some low-wage country will probably one day take a look at it and fix it, if its easy to fix... but in the western world, you can't find a person who'd work cheap enough repairing these things to make it worth it even when compared to the retail prices (let alone wholesale prices) of the broken component.
Didn't they already learn that EP1 sucked most, and once they inserted some major Jedi Ass Kicking (EP2 and EP3), someone finally got interested.
Nobody is interested in how luke grew up to be such a brat that he is at the start of EP4. Star Wars is all about epic (and maybe not so epic) battles, not about the growing pains of a twit.
I wish they'd make X-Wing TV-series. The book series, while somewhat uneven, would instantly provide couple of seasons worth of interesting story. And even if they'd just rip the characters and the setting, that alone could give tons of Good Star Wars stuff.
Currently theatre chains have the studios by the balls. Theatre chains see themselves becoming obsolete if movie is out on same day on multiple formats.
End result: If you release movie in theaters and on DVD/PayPerView/Download on same day, the theatre chains pull out, and your 'current money machine' at the box office vanishes.
Would take humongous ironclad balls to pull that off - to go and tell theatre owners to go and take a long walk off a short pier. Not happening as long as we have current dinosaurs running the studios and the MPAA.
I so gdamned love when these giants of the free market economy abuse their position to milk every bit off the market (and cry foul when people circumvent them)
20-30 years is the time current theaters can be ran before requiring renovations. By dropping ticket prices enough, they can keep some kind of business going until it's time to build a new theater (which won't be profitable anymore at that point).
1$-2$/ticket I bet they could still make enough to pay for the 2-3 staff they require to run a small multiplex, and still make a teeny profit...
Plus the fact that they show you buttload of commercials before the actual thing you PAID to see.
Movie theaters and the whole business can only blame themselves. It was different ballgame when a big movie screen competed with your average crappy 20" junk TV and VHS tape.
Now movie theaters are being 0wnz0red by home theater setups that are quite good enough as far as picture and sound quality goes. And you don't have to watch cubic assload of stupid commercials or spend time to actually get to the theater.
Basically theaters milked the price up while offering Same Shit(tm) (but with more commercials than before), and at the same time the home side caught up.
Expect MPAA to react by 'mandatory' delays to DVD/Pay TV releases, armed guards to theater doors with metal detectors to snub out camming, and then outcry of 'WE ARE BEING PIRATED OUT OF BUSINESS!' when people vote with their feet...
Consumers are being overrun by the amount of media available. TV, Internet, Movies etc... there is only so much a person can 'consume', and there is a distinct oversupply. So people optimize, and what easier way to optimize than to watch movies at home when you happen to have some free time (with the knowledge that you can pause and resume should you be interrupted).
Either the theaters improve their value (cost vs. presentation), or they go by the way of the dinosaurs. My bet is that they'll join the dinos within 20-30 years.
Hmm. Looks like your usual rebate crapola and other shit. I'd never shop based on that ad. Then again I guess 99% of your stores over in the US are like that. I feel sorry for you. I really do.
Here in Europe we belive in listing real prices without ten sentences with asterisks describing how the real price is over 50% more, but how you can sell your soul to ten different marketers, and pray some craptastic rebate actually materializes, and THEN get it for the listed big-print price.
Bull. The person describes how it launched somekinda installer (those come from.exes, btw) and then a selfextracter.
If you actually unpacked the rar using winrar, that wouldn't happen.
In any case, it wasn't a proper release. Proper release = bunch of identical-sized partfiles,.nfo, and.sfv files, all neatly in a properly named directory. And then you unpack the directory using WinRar, so there is no way for anything to launch (Since winrar itself searches the actual packets from the folder, then unpacks the actual.avi,.mpg,.iso or whatever).
Anyone with half a brain will NOT download a 'video file' that ends in.exe
None of the real proper releases are 'infected'. Only way to get spyware is to be a moron and download some 'hot_paris_hilton_sex_video.exe'.
There is no magic way to 'insert' spyware in bittorrent transfers. Tracker has the hash of the file, you cannot modify it. This is just a marketer seeding crap, hoping that idiots bite. Hook, line, sinker -style.
The reason for bomb 2 had nothing to do with Japan.
US had to demonstrate to OTHERS, including Russia, that Hiroshima wasn't just an one-off super-special. Yes, Russia was still officially an ally at that point, but the relationship was quickly deteriorating.
Drop one bomb, and potential future enemies think 'yeah, yeah, they spent $gazillion and produced one bomb. nice, but I doubt they even have more of these, and I bet it takes ages to make one'.
Two bombs in rapid succession tells potential enemies 'There's more where that came from...'.
Yes, you can find major faults in such logic, but to US military decisionmakers, that was a GOOD idea. It beat the Japanese to submission so troughoutly that there was no doubt about their surrender, AND it told everyone else that US is the King of The Hill(tm), and anyone not happy with that would have to take into account their new toy.
One could argue that dropping the second bomb might have actually PREVENTED a followup bash in europe (US/UK/France vs. Russia). Russia couldn't try anything due to superior US weaponry (with proof that US could manufacture multiple bombs), and by the time Russia had 'enough' nukes, both had so many, that it suddenly became clear that any further unrestricted war would leave a huge pile of radioactive wasteland for the 'winner' (if any). Also the introduction of nuclear submarines meant that you could not 'surprise attack' the opposing side's whole arsenal off the map - you would always have to take the load from the untraceable nuclear subs to the dome even if you could nuke everything land-based on the first strike... and then we had cold war, with both sides arming to the teeth, but unable to really use that arsenal, because the end result would be a pretty fucked up planet.
So, while it's sad that lots of Japanese got killed, and arguably the second bomb was unneccessary, it might have actually contributed greatly to further stability and peace. There was a a very real risk that Russia would have overrun the whole Europe after Germany was beaten into submission...
No, it's actually a petition to make them acknowledge the results of the nuking of Hiroshima, right next to the plane, so it is displayed in proper context - OR alternatively cancel the plans to display the plane.
I personally think that it would be dumb NOT to display the plane. It's a major piece of last century's history. However, I can see the argument that it should be displayed in the right context ('Dropping a nuke to hiroshima caused 100k+ dead. It was bad.'). Current plans seem to be to just display the plane, as a plane, with it's performance information etc. Plus a footnote of 'oh, by the way, this plane dropped the atomic bomb to hiroshima'.
None. ATI just sucks at implementing OpenGL for gaming use.
If you want 'real' OpenGL, they'll sell you an overpriced '3D productivity' FireGL card - with appropriate working drivers certified for all the major openGL apps.
ASUS, DFI, MSI etc are not competitors of ATI. They are important partners. I'm quite sure ATI will lick ASUS's boots with whatever fix is required so that ASUS customers stay happy and ASUS sells lots of ASUS-branded Crossfire cards to the *existing installed base* of NF4 SLI + X800/X850 users. Sure they'll tell the clueless people that a new ATI chipset motherboard is the 'optimal' solution, but pissing off their prime customer base of technically savy too-rich ubergamers who already forked out a ton for that A8N-SLI seems to me like a true Bonehead Manouver. Since ATI is late, they really can't afford to be picky.
I'm quite sure that while nVidia might be unhappy that ATI is 'using' nVidia's chipset SLI boards with their cards like this, the big motherboard makers just want things to work and be compatible. So unless there is a real technical reason why not, it'll work. Unless nVidia wants to commit a commercial suicide and prevent it at chipset driver level (and that would be kinda blatant...)
Nowhere is it stated that ATI chipset motherboard is *Required*. Instead, the the term 'optimal' is used.
Translation from marketing bullshit: ATI Xpress 200 Crossfire = clone of NForce 4 SLI. Unless they want to shoot their leg by restricting it at drivers, their implementation on the motherboard side of things seems identical. I do hear that nVidia isn't allowing SLI on their drivers with anything except nVidia NForce 4 chipset (tho 'support for Intel chipsets' is coming, I hear).
If it actually would require ATI chipset, they would've stated so clearly. Instead if you read the fine articles, nowhere it is claimed to be a *requirement*.
"which requires both a Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire based motherboard and a CrossFire graphics card"
Wrong. Instead they stated that the 'optimum' platform is the Xpress 200 CrossFire.
However, between the marketing bullshit, you can clearly see that the motherboard is just a dupe of NForce4 SLI (and of similar Intel chipset coming up). Exact same PCIE setup. So it's almost certain that CrossFire will run just fine on nVidia chipset SLI motherboards.
I doubt they'd do a commercial suicide to prevent it on driver side. Today ATI has 0 SLI boards out. Nvidia has a gazillion - many of which are currently running X800/X850 cards. Nforce4 was first working PCIE AMD chipset, so many bought it - even the more expensive A8N-SLI or similar from other manufacturers, because nothing else was available at the time. Then they noticed how sucky the 6800GT/Ultra drivers currently are (stuutttteeerr bug in EQ2 comes to mind) and decided to fill the board with top of the line ATI card.
Such people are the PRIME candidates for forking out extra 500$+ for a CrossFire card, and I'm quite sure that they'll want the money from these people WITHOUT forcing upon them a crappy unproven ATI chipset based motherboard.
Now I do admit that ATI has been very elusive about this in their marketing material (ahem, I mean 'exclusive previews'), but if you go over them all, nowhere it says the thing *requires* ATI chipset, and I'm quite sure that detail is missing for a very good reason - they are late to the party on the motherboard side, and their system is exactly same (two x16 slots, running at x8 mode), that doing it any other way would be just silly.
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And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing - Shuttle can't pull up for another landing attempt, Buran could. It also had no main engines - they were in the huge booster that mimic the shuttle main fuel tank. Buran also had no firecrackers (solid rocket boosters), and instead used only liquid fuels - making challenger-style boom impossible.
:)
Yes, it was an aerodynamical copy out of stolen blueprints - so they saved a ton of wind tunnel testing and other stuff, but the innards were all russian tech, and they make good solid space tech.
What didn't work out was the funding. Shuttle is expensive, and so was Buran. Collapsing USSR decided to save SOME kind of space program, and picked MIR and the trusty old rockets they had already in service, and canned Buran. It only flew once, unmanned. A feat Shuttle can't do, by the way, as it can't land unmanned.
Considering how expensive Shuttle is to operate, I'd say they made a smart financial call
But there were no technological obstacles. It was only the lack of money. A real shame what they allowed to rust in the former USSR - they had the biggest booster (Energiya) and the 'better' Shuttle, but both are now pretty much gone due to lack of funds.
No. They just said that betamax case is not a 'get out of jail free' card that can be used to prevent prosecution on other grounds. The intent and the conduct of Gorkster matters.
Had they ruled otherwise, you could make your own MegaBitTorrent, and paste full page ads to NY times showing how your 50$ application can be used to download thousands of full DVDs from other users of the same software. That should be illegal, and the ruling states that it is. And the betamax ruling will remain in effect, but it cannot be used as a shield against inductment to commit copyright infringment.
This ruling is pretty good, and can be used to nail profiteers who promote and gain from copyright infringement, but at the same time it does not outlaw the technology, nor it removes the protection of Betamax ruling from devices/programs that are not promoted as nice way for free movies. As long as the P2P app is content neutral, there is no problem. Gorkster wasn't - their business plan was to get as many people to use it to copy stuff as possible, as that meant more ad revenue to them. They WANTED it to be used illegally, and they PROFITED from said illegal use. Hang 'em high.
Supreme Court guys are not morons.
Wrong. Search engines are specifically mentioned as something with substantial noninfringing uses.
.torrents were actually legal, and if you made no distinction, editiorial control or anything of the sort?
.torrents to infringing content - at least not in the US. :)
BT-specific search engine is fundamentally no different from googling with the additional qualifier of "filetype:torrent". It's definitely legal by this ruling.
Now if you actively marketed your BT-specific search engine with 'get latest movies for free from here' (basically promoting that your search service is good for infringing uses), and profited from banner ads on the side, you have a chance of getting whacked. While the current case with Grokster is pretty clear-cut, I don't know if it's immediately applicable to likes of suprnova etc..
- The website owner doesn't distribute nor develop Bittorrent.
- The website owner doesn't distribute any copyrighted data.
- The website owner doesn't faciliate distribution in any way (assuming no tracker ran by the site)
Will 'providing links to copyrighted material' while getting some banner money on the sidelines be the same as this case? Profiting from collecting a pile of links (.torrent) to copyrighted files... would that be the same thing?
How about if major portion of those
How about running the actual tracker? As public tracker (meaning you do not control what it's used for)? (Then again, I assume that a trackerless torrents will make this point moot before it becomes an issue...)
I'd say BT as an application is definitely in the clear. Neutral BT search engine with no promotion related to it's potential infringing uses is most likely in the clear. Rest is bit up in the air... but I wouldn't start a business with a plan of getting rich by serving
Users ignore it, because it's a horrible pain to use XP using a normal user account.
There are numerous games that cannot be installed without admin rights, and plenty who cannot even be EXECUTED without admin rights. All because the devs are lazy morons.
Same goes with numerous applications.
Not to mention the fact that in many case applications break in random ways, without actually telling why they break.
So right now if you actually want to use XP, you pretty much are stuck with admin mode (or you have way more patience than I do in using 'run as..' or switching users)
""they're held accountable for keeping the costs down by ending calls as soon as possible, by any means necessary. ""
This 'method' of saving costs is the easy way to ensure the customer support is total CRAP.
No sane person with any knowledge of the product/service/area of expertise will stick around in a workplace where short call > resolved call. All you get is drones that do their damnest to end calls and/or bounce them around so their 'minutes per call' is kept low and they seem 'l33t support techs' to the PHB's as they can 'resolve the calls so quickly'.
I actually worked in such a hellhole for a few weeks way back (phone support for PCs and stuff), and the job relationship was toast about two weeks in when I was reprimanded for actually doing my job (spending bit over an hour on the phone resolving some poor sap's problem with his PC)
I said straight up there that their policies were insane, and that I would continue to do the job the customers expected (resolve their issues) without watching a stopwatch. I was fired a week later for 'being uncooperative', and I was happy they did it. And lookie, less than 6 months later the shithole company was bought out by a bigger company for cheap as it was almost bankrupt anyway.
Reason why short call > resolved call? The stupid company had made a deal with the PC manufacturer on the NUMBER OF CALLS ANSWERED. Which is the most braindead metric you can use for outsourced tech support. So the company would get more money if every support person would randomly hang up the calls and/or ask the customer to call back later, but if they'd actually take the time and resolve the issue, that would actually result in less funds to the people paying the paychecks of the support techs.
Insane.
Can't help it.
When a computer motherboard costs less than 15 minutes of qualified electronics repairman's time, there is absolutely no point in even trying to repair it. Just ship it to distributor/manufacturer for replacement.
Someone in some low-wage country will probably one day take a look at it and fix it, if its easy to fix... but in the western world, you can't find a person who'd work cheap enough repairing these things to make it worth it even when compared to the retail prices (let alone wholesale prices) of the broken component.
Didn't they already learn that EP1 sucked most, and once they inserted some major Jedi Ass Kicking (EP2 and EP3), someone finally got interested.
Nobody is interested in how luke grew up to be such a brat that he is at the start of EP4. Star Wars is all about epic (and maybe not so epic) battles, not about the growing pains of a twit.
I wish they'd make X-Wing TV-series. The book series, while somewhat uneven, would instantly provide couple of seasons worth of interesting story. And even if they'd just rip the characters and the setting, that alone could give tons of Good Star Wars stuff.
Kiddy Luke Skywalker. BAH. Morons...
Simple.
Currently theatre chains have the studios by the balls. Theatre chains see themselves becoming obsolete if movie is out on same day on multiple formats.
End result: If you release movie in theaters and on DVD/PayPerView/Download on same day, the theatre chains pull out, and your 'current money machine' at the box office vanishes.
Would take humongous ironclad balls to pull that off - to go and tell theatre owners to go and take a long walk off a short pier. Not happening as long as we have current dinosaurs running the studios and the MPAA.
I so gdamned love when these giants of the free market economy abuse their position to milk every bit off the market (and cry foul when people circumvent them)
20-30 years is the time current theaters can be ran before requiring renovations. By dropping ticket prices enough, they can keep some kind of business going until it's time to build a new theater (which won't be profitable anymore at that point).
1$-2$/ticket I bet they could still make enough to pay for the 2-3 staff they require to run a small multiplex, and still make a teeny profit...
Plus the fact that they show you buttload of commercials before the actual thing you PAID to see.
Movie theaters and the whole business can only blame themselves. It was different ballgame when a big movie screen competed with your average crappy 20" junk TV and VHS tape.
Now movie theaters are being 0wnz0red by home theater setups that are quite good enough as far as picture and sound quality goes. And you don't have to watch cubic assload of stupid commercials or spend time to actually get to the theater.
Basically theaters milked the price up while offering Same Shit(tm) (but with more commercials than before), and at the same time the home side caught up.
Expect MPAA to react by 'mandatory' delays to DVD/Pay TV releases, armed guards to theater doors with metal detectors to snub out camming, and then outcry of 'WE ARE BEING PIRATED OUT OF BUSINESS!' when people vote with their feet...
Consumers are being overrun by the amount of media available. TV, Internet, Movies etc... there is only so much a person can 'consume', and there is a distinct oversupply. So people optimize, and what easier way to optimize than to watch movies at home when you happen to have some free time (with the knowledge that you can pause and resume should you be interrupted).
Either the theaters improve their value (cost vs. presentation), or they go by the way of the dinosaurs. My bet is that they'll join the dinos within 20-30 years.
Hmm. Looks like your usual rebate crapola and other shit. I'd never shop based on that ad. Then again I guess 99% of your stores over in the US are like that. I feel sorry for you. I really do.
Here in Europe we belive in listing real prices without ten sentences with asterisks describing how the real price is over 50% more, but how you can sell your soul to ten different marketers, and pray some craptastic rebate actually materializes, and THEN get it for the listed big-print price.
Doesn't that 999$ include a (lease) of a computer system? It's not just the price of the software...
So 'I downloaded a spyware-infested P2P client. Hold me!'.
Ummm... considering it takes skill to find an infested BT client, that would require even more moronic user intervention. DL a known good client(!)
Bull. The person describes how it launched somekinda installer (those come from .exes, btw) and then a selfextracter.
.nfo, and .sfv files, all neatly in a properly named directory. And then you unpack the directory using WinRar, so there is no way for anything to launch (Since winrar itself searches the actual packets from the folder, then unpacks the actual .avi, .mpg, .iso or whatever).
If you actually unpacked the rar using winrar, that wouldn't happen.
In any case, it wasn't a proper release. Proper release = bunch of identical-sized partfiles,
DL crap, and you probably get crap...
Then the downloader is too moronic to own a computer.
There is plenty of crap being seeded. Being able to tell crap from real, proper releases is not rocket science.
Anyone with half a brain will NOT download a 'video file' that ends in .exe
None of the real proper releases are 'infected'. Only way to get spyware is to be a moron and download some 'hot_paris_hilton_sex_video.exe'.
There is no magic way to 'insert' spyware in bittorrent transfers. Tracker has the hash of the file, you cannot modify it. This is just a marketer seeding crap, hoping that idiots bite. Hook, line, sinker -style.
The reason for bomb 2 had nothing to do with Japan.
US had to demonstrate to OTHERS, including Russia, that Hiroshima wasn't just an one-off super-special. Yes, Russia was still officially an ally at that point, but the relationship was quickly deteriorating.
Drop one bomb, and potential future enemies think 'yeah, yeah, they spent $gazillion and produced one bomb. nice, but I doubt they even have more of these, and I bet it takes ages to make one'.
Two bombs in rapid succession tells potential enemies 'There's more where that came from...'.
Yes, you can find major faults in such logic, but to US military decisionmakers, that was a GOOD idea. It beat the Japanese to submission so troughoutly that there was no doubt about their surrender, AND it told everyone else that US is the King of The Hill(tm), and anyone not happy with that would have to take into account their new toy.
One could argue that dropping the second bomb might have actually PREVENTED a followup bash in europe (US/UK/France vs. Russia). Russia couldn't try anything due to superior US weaponry (with proof that US could manufacture multiple bombs), and by the time Russia had 'enough' nukes, both had so many, that it suddenly became clear that any further unrestricted war would leave a huge pile of radioactive wasteland for the 'winner' (if any). Also the introduction of nuclear submarines meant that you could not 'surprise attack' the opposing side's whole arsenal off the map - you would always have to take the load from the untraceable nuclear subs to the dome even if you could nuke everything land-based on the first strike... and then we had cold war, with both sides arming to the teeth, but unable to really use that arsenal, because the end result would be a pretty fucked up planet.
So, while it's sad that lots of Japanese got killed, and arguably the second bomb was unneccessary, it might have actually contributed greatly to further stability and peace. There was a a very real risk that Russia would have overrun the whole Europe after Germany was beaten into submission...
No, it's actually a petition to make them acknowledge the results of the nuking of Hiroshima, right next to the plane, so it is displayed in proper context - OR alternatively cancel the plans to display the plane.
I personally think that it would be dumb NOT to display the plane. It's a major piece of last century's history. However, I can see the argument that it should be displayed in the right context ('Dropping a nuke to hiroshima caused 100k+ dead. It was bad.'). Current plans seem to be to just display the plane, as a plane, with it's performance information etc. Plus a footnote of 'oh, by the way, this plane dropped the atomic bomb to hiroshima'.
Hoax by the admins... don't belive everything you read.
:)
It'll be back by tomorrow
None. ATI just sucks at implementing OpenGL for gaming use.
If you want 'real' OpenGL, they'll sell you an overpriced '3D productivity' FireGL card - with appropriate working drivers certified for all the major openGL apps.
ASUS, DFI, MSI etc are not competitors of ATI. They are important partners. I'm quite sure ATI will lick ASUS's boots with whatever fix is required so that ASUS customers stay happy and ASUS sells lots of ASUS-branded Crossfire cards to the *existing installed base* of NF4 SLI + X800/X850 users. Sure they'll tell the clueless people that a new ATI chipset motherboard is the 'optimal' solution, but pissing off their prime customer base of technically savy too-rich ubergamers who already forked out a ton for that A8N-SLI seems to me like a true Bonehead Manouver. Since ATI is late, they really can't afford to be picky.
I'm quite sure that while nVidia might be unhappy that ATI is 'using' nVidia's chipset SLI boards with their cards like this, the big motherboard makers just want things to work and be compatible. So unless there is a real technical reason why not, it'll work. Unless nVidia wants to commit a commercial suicide and prevent it at chipset driver level (and that would be kinda blatant...)
Read the marketing spam bit more carefully.
Nowhere is it stated that ATI chipset motherboard is *Required*. Instead, the the term 'optimal' is used.
Translation from marketing bullshit: ATI Xpress 200 Crossfire = clone of NForce 4 SLI. Unless they want to shoot their leg by restricting it at drivers, their implementation on the motherboard side of things seems identical. I do hear that nVidia isn't allowing SLI on their drivers with anything except nVidia NForce 4 chipset (tho 'support for Intel chipsets' is coming, I hear).
If it actually would require ATI chipset, they would've stated so clearly. Instead if you read the fine articles, nowhere it is claimed to be a *requirement*.
Image degration?
Ever heard of what 'DVI' stands for
Hint; the 'D' stands for 'Digital'. Want to explain to me how a digital signal 'degrades' in the cable?
Wrong. Instead they stated that the 'optimum' platform is the Xpress 200 CrossFire.
However, between the marketing bullshit, you can clearly see that the motherboard is just a dupe of NForce4 SLI (and of similar Intel chipset coming up). Exact same PCIE setup. So it's almost certain that CrossFire will run just fine on nVidia chipset SLI motherboards.
I doubt they'd do a commercial suicide to prevent it on driver side. Today ATI has 0 SLI boards out. Nvidia has a gazillion - many of which are currently running X800/X850 cards. Nforce4 was first working PCIE AMD chipset, so many bought it - even the more expensive A8N-SLI or similar from other manufacturers, because nothing else was available at the time. Then they noticed how sucky the 6800GT/Ultra drivers currently are (stuutttteeerr bug in EQ2 comes to mind) and decided to fill the board with top of the line ATI card.
Such people are the PRIME candidates for forking out extra 500$+ for a CrossFire card, and I'm quite sure that they'll want the money from these people WITHOUT forcing upon them a crappy unproven ATI chipset based motherboard.
Now I do admit that ATI has been very elusive about this in their marketing material (ahem, I mean 'exclusive previews'), but if you go over them all, nowhere it says the thing *requires* ATI chipset, and I'm quite sure that detail is missing for a very good reason - they are late to the party on the motherboard side, and their system is exactly same (two x16 slots, running at x8 mode), that doing it any other way would be just silly.
New Debian and new Fedora Core on same day? I assume this is an attempt to DDOS major backbones? :)