Actually, while you may want to make certain parts of you game in C for speed purposes, you're probably going to want a simple scripting engine that everyone from designers to artists can use with little additional training... And you can't expect them to deallocate variables intelligently.
Parent poster implies a very important point. No security model needs to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough that it isn't worth screwing up whatever the security model is there to protect.
If it takes 50 solder points and a week of effort, 99.9% of your users won't modify their consoles and your software sales won't be negatively impacted. If it takes a complete code re-write then finding a hash collision to get a modified console online, nobody will do it. Heck, Nintendo found that adding 2 little plastic tabs to the SNES was sufficient to greatly reduce the scope of the import market.
Security is about dissuading people from doing things, not preventing them.
1) it's designed for a modern 3x CPU and GPU that don't ever run on a battery.
2) It outputs two different voltages (12v and 5v)
3) it has two fans in the PSU brick, obviously it's unique
It's pretty close to a PC PSU, or one of many project PSU's. It's probably a 250 Watt ATX modified to only output for the molex connectors (5 and 12v), without the fidgety power control bits that most motherboards require. External power supplies have been available in the computer industry for years. The power supply is about the simplest and most straightforward part of a computer. Considering the complexity of a modern machine, it is the most well understood component.
It's more forward-looking than the PS3 is though. Most people, unless they've actually tried it out, underestimate how important the centralized online aspect of the 360 is.
The online aspect of the Xbox 360 is awesome. It is truly amazing. I'm excited by both the directions that they have taken it and the directions that they have yet to implement. That is completely the killer portion of the Xbox 360 system.
But that doesn't change the fact that they screwed up the Power Supply design. Again, they get a pass for one or two quickly fixed hardware problems at launch, so I won't hold it against them. But that doesn't change the fact that it needs to fit where other consoles fit, and that they screwed up.
Will you expect to fill a hydrogen car with unleaded fuel just because that's how things have always been with cars? No? Why not? Because you're aware of how the technology works and is supposed to work, right?
How can you expect to just park your gasoline car in the driveway? You know that technology advances, and if you had read your manual on page 360 paragraph 2 subsection 1 you would see that you cannot park this car on inclines of any sort.
I agree that the design is terrible for those that expect things to stay the way they've always been, but from the standpoint of moving forward with technology, having new restrictions and requirements is not unreasonable at all,
They took a decent modern PC, added some good online software, and put it in a giant plastic box. It isn't like this is a VR system where you acknowledge that the wireless gloves might interfere with AM radio reception. It's just a console. A nice one, mind you, but it is very clearly another console.
And we're not talking about a design decision taken because they were trying to revolutionize the console world. We're talking about a bog standard AC/DC converter with insufficient ventilation. That's not revolutionizing anything.
Everyone is entitled to a blunders or two on a new piece of hardware. This is MS's.
The article actually says that Windows Server sales accounts for 5% more total sales revenue than Linux server sales.
That makes sense. Item A is grossly overpriced, yet there are lots of companies locked into it. Item B is free, though you can buy support and extensions if you want. Which is going to have a bigger net negative impact on your cash flow?
The title of the article should be "Windows Server sucks up more of your IT budget. Stop that!"
Re:Dude! You gotta stop buying Britney Spears CDs!
on
Barenaked USB Drive
·
· Score: 1
You'll notice I've referred to three different forms of compression in my posts so far.
From the article that you linked to yet obviously didn't read:
"[with CDs] consumers could purchase a recording in a medium whose dynamic range exceeded that of $20,000 professional tape machines."
Also from the article:
"And for the first few years CDs did provide appreciably better dynamic range than LPs or cassettes. But since then something has gone seriously wrong."
As a side note, why do audio discussions bring out the vitrol in people?
You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Sampling isn't "compression."
Sure it is. It is taking a highly detailed analog compression wave and reducing it to a series of slices. You're reducing it into a bitrate that is convienient to you.
Also, you might want to read up on the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem to find out why the sampling rate on CDs is sufficient for human listening.
You know, they also say that flourescent lights blink far faster than human beings can detect, yet the blinking has documented phisiological effects. They say that human beings detect 30 FPS as perfect motion, yet nearly all games went to 60 FPS and the difference is noticable.
If CD's were perfect audio sources for human ears, why make DVD Audio? Why does an analog amplification of a performance still sound better than a digital capture and playback of that performance through the same microphones?
Re:If I had a million dollars...
on
Barenaked USB Drive
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
But they're compressed... what a bummer, the reason I don't use iTunes is because I don't want compressed music... now they're not even offering CD Quality music with their new release?
Even CD's are compressed down to their sample rate. Of course, they're also compressed to maximize volume thus destroying their dynamic range.
I'd rather have a cassette that was mastered well than a modern CD that has been smashed up against the noise ceiling. A 256 kbps VBR MP3 in the hands of someone who cares will sound a lot better than a studio producer in a Porsche mashing 100 years of audio engineering in a misguided attempt to be louder than Howard Stern.
On the one hand, I totally agree that this isn't the way to win an intellectual argument.
On the other hand, Jack Thompson has taken it so far outside of the realm of intellectual arguments that making rational statements in his general direction is basically pointless. Jack Thompson is not a normal person advocating a position. He's a media figure lawyer who is attempting to establish a legal censorship doctorine through heavy lawsuits and lying to the media. It doesn't hurt that he gets paid handsomely for it.
He's also one known for guerilla tactics. He's said that his political opponent of the time, Janet Reno, was unfit to serve because she was a "closet lesbian." He's promised to make donations to charity and then claimed they were "obviously satire." And he makes frivilous claims, pretty much constantly that he's going to call the police or file lawsuits about anyone with a contradictory opinion. And if he's fine with attempting to censor his critics through frivilous lawsuits, I'm fine with his critics expressing their opinion about him on his Amazon review.
The one thing I can say in Jack's defense, and the one reason to cut him a little slack, is that he's probably going senile. If you follow a lot of the conversation threads out there, he's pretty confused as to who contacted who or what was just said. But unfortunately that doesn't make him any less of a media figure, and doesn't reduce his eggregious behavior at all.
Amazon will probably take the reviews down, as that is the responsible thing to do. But I'm not going to shed a tear if it hurts his book sales.
The nice thing about Hard Drives is they tend to grow geometrically. Get a backup drive now, and by the time you need another backup drive you can get one proportionally bigger for the same amount of money. Wait a while longer, and grow it again at the same cost.
You should be doing this already anyway, for your photographs and other valuables, so it doesn't take any extra effort.
Nintendo and Sony were really beginning to rest on their laurels and that has come to an end.
I'm not seeing this. As a developer, Sony put a lot of resources into experimental titles... a strategy that paid off for them. They've also pushed into the realm of network adaptors, Hard disk drives, and other areas they felt they needed to compete in. They poured a lot of resources into the PSP. Sony was by no means resting on their laurels.
Nintendo either. They knew they had a huge challenge ahead of them after the N64. They managed to design and release a system roughly as powerful as the Xbox (and in certain ways, moreso) but at half the cost. They've pushed forward with system-selling first party titles, and supported a lot of quirky alternative games. Remember, first-and-third person gaming didn't even exist before Metroid prime. They released a heavily redesigned controller, designed and released the very original DS. I can't say their support for 3rd party American games has been legendarily great, but they have gone out and gotten quite a few high-profile exclusives.
The GC has been spared the ravages of time a bit because of Nintendo's disinterest in pushing the graphic envelope (they have their reasons, and I respect that. I'm not looking for a flamefest on that issue).
Not to sound too much like a Nintendo fanboy or start a flamefest, but the GC is a powerful little piece of kit. Nintendo may say they're disinterested in pushing the graphic envelope, but if you look at Resident Evil 5 on the GC vs the PS2, you will see big graphical difference. Spend as much time on an Xbox and GC version of a game, and you should be able to get them looking just about the same. The same can't be said of the PS2, though I like the little buggar anyway.
What Nintendo wants to do is reframe the competition from "which console has the best graphics" to "which console has the most original gameplay." The former means ever escalating RnD costs and smaller margins. The latter means focusing more profitably on attracting and retaining talented developers, something Nintendo has traditionally been strong on.
Microsoft *DOES* produce other devices and they know the manufacturing/shop floor management. (They run facilities and design the software that manages them)
Certain Asian-style games, such as Gunbound don't require a subscription, but allow you to use money to purchase in-game items. Or you can play for a really, really, really long time to earn the gold to have those items.
Most of the codec work in the past few years has been optimizing low file-size, high-processor algorithms. They are optimized to make something low rez look not-as-crappy. MPEG2 was designed for pristine, high-rez data, which is why it breaks down so much in low-rez situations.
And the high-processor is a kicker. A lot won't run without at least a P3 800 or a p4. Sure, Mpeg4 has better motion estimation, etc, but it is very processor intensive.
Maybe they want the Blu-Ray standard to replace the VHS, at which point they need real-time encoding speed. MPEG-4 is basically impossible to do real-time encoding at good quality even with a more modern PC. You can do it, but the processor maxes out and just doesn't bother with some of the encoding tricks.
I don't know if those are the reasons for the decision necesarily, but it would seem that if they are looking to reach the point of sub-100 dollar blu-ray players soon, they would need to keep the processing power requirements down.
So if being a geek has really become cool, why has interest in CS as a major dropped among incoming freshmen and women are still a minority in computer and engineering fields? Is it cooler to pretend to be a geek (wear 'Save Pedro' shirts, etc.) than to really be one?"
Austrailians were cool for a while, but you didn't see people running off to that prison. And that was one of those nice club-med style prisons, not some solitary confinement.
It isn't just the Ayatollah or Stalin, it is everyone. Even goodhearted people are wrong in some of their views. If you look at gay rights initiatives, the public's position is changing on them in almost exact proportion to the older population dying and the younger population being born. The same was true of civil rights. Or the number of people who believed in Newton's laws, etc.
Additionally, people who have lived their entire lives with a technology internalize it in a way that the older generation just can't. They can take it and extend it out in radical new directions because to them it is basis for how they see the world, rather than an abberation. Companies in the UK are now offering textbooks by SMS, but my grandmother is still shocked whenever I pull out my cellphone. The older generation can contextualize it, but that isn't the same thing.
Get an old, used 4:1 amp on the cheap with a mono output option. Put a speaker in every room. Assuming you have smaller speakers than the manufacturer was expecting to drive, use two speakers per line, for 8 total.
I wouldn't worry about stereo. When you have music coming from every room, stereo separation gets muddied. Alltogether, the audio is a bit cleaner in mono, if you've got 5 or 6 mono sources from around the house coming at you.
Another way to do it, if you really want to be cheap, is broadcast. Get a low-powered radio transmitter, pick an unused station, and blast it. Tune the radios in your house, and you're done.
Sony paid someone for a root kit to be secretly installed on people's machines. A root kit. You know, like paying a criminal to bug someone's phone. Sony damn well should have gone over that thing with a fine toothed comb, as it would have been trivial for First4Internet to get credit card numbers, access to bank accounts, corporate secrets, and anything else it wanted. Or, say, accidentally give access to that stuff to everyone in the world.
All parties involved in an illegal activity are responsible for that activity. Sony is no different.
I think the one thing I really like about the hydrogen combustion engine is that it still has the potential to sound like a small block V8. As much as fuel cell vehicles are cool from a tech and enviro perspective, there's just something about the sound of a combustion engine that I don't want to go away, no matter what. Imagine the black Mad Max Interceptor [aussiecoupes.com] running on hydrogen!
Hmm... Maybe I come from another generation, but noise is usually associated with something running badly, inefficiently, or otherwise incorrectly. Things channeling all of their energy into going faster should be silent.
That, and my apartment is on the second floor next to a busy street. Shaddaup down there, already!
Thank you for saying this. I don't know where the perception that playing videogames is a niche hobby comes from, especially with consoles outnumbering people in this country.
Ping Pong qualifies as niche. Video Games? Video Games are as common a hobby as watching DVD's.
It would be interesting to see a similar paper on Total Environmental Impact.
It would be interesting to see a paper on Total Economic Impact including environmental costs. It has always bugged me that environmental impact papers don't generally include the cost of asthma-related hospitalizations, increases in lung cancer, the detrimental effects of acid rain on equipment, etc.
The kyoto protocol was one way we've put a price on air pollution. How much would the equivalent amount of environmental pollution cost on the open market?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, while you may want to make certain parts of you game in C for speed purposes, you're probably going to want a simple scripting engine that everyone from designers to artists can use with little additional training... And you can't expect them to deallocate variables intelligently.
Parent poster implies a very important point. No security model needs to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough that it isn't worth screwing up whatever the security model is there to protect.
If it takes 50 solder points and a week of effort, 99.9% of your users won't modify their consoles and your software sales won't be negatively impacted. If it takes a complete code re-write then finding a hash collision to get a modified console online, nobody will do it. Heck, Nintendo found that adding 2 little plastic tabs to the SNES was sufficient to greatly reduce the scope of the import market.
Security is about dissuading people from doing things, not preventing them.
Not to ask the obvious question, but why not drill some holes and add a fan?
Actually, you shouldn't use it on ducts. You might have better luck using it on a duck.
I don't think it's standard in any way.
1) it's designed for a modern 3x CPU and GPU that don't ever run on a battery.
2) It outputs two different voltages (12v and 5v)
3) it has two fans in the PSU brick, obviously it's unique
It's pretty close to a PC PSU, or one of many project PSU's. It's probably a 250 Watt ATX modified to only output for the molex connectors (5 and 12v), without the fidgety power control bits that most motherboards require. External power supplies have been available in the computer industry for years. The power supply is about the simplest and most straightforward part of a computer. Considering the complexity of a modern machine, it is the most well understood component.
It's more forward-looking than the PS3 is though. Most people, unless they've actually tried it out, underestimate how important the centralized online aspect of the 360 is.
The online aspect of the Xbox 360 is awesome. It is truly amazing. I'm excited by both the directions that they have taken it and the directions that they have yet to implement. That is completely the killer portion of the Xbox 360 system.
But that doesn't change the fact that they screwed up the Power Supply design. Again, they get a pass for one or two quickly fixed hardware problems at launch, so I won't hold it against them. But that doesn't change the fact that it needs to fit where other consoles fit, and that they screwed up.
Will you expect to fill a hydrogen car with unleaded fuel just because that's how things have always been with cars? No? Why not? Because you're aware of how the technology works and is supposed to work, right?
How can you expect to just park your gasoline car in the driveway? You know that technology advances, and if you had read your manual on page 360 paragraph 2 subsection 1 you would see that you cannot park this car on inclines of any sort.
I agree that the design is terrible for those that expect things to stay the way they've always been, but from the standpoint of moving forward with technology, having new restrictions and requirements is not unreasonable at all,
They took a decent modern PC, added some good online software, and put it in a giant plastic box. It isn't like this is a VR system where you acknowledge that the wireless gloves might interfere with AM radio reception. It's just a console. A nice one, mind you, but it is very clearly another console.
And we're not talking about a design decision taken because they were trying to revolutionize the console world. We're talking about a bog standard AC/DC converter with insufficient ventilation. That's not revolutionizing anything.
Everyone is entitled to a blunders or two on a new piece of hardware. This is MS's.
The article actually says that Windows Server sales accounts for 5% more total sales revenue than Linux server sales.
That makes sense. Item A is grossly overpriced, yet there are lots of companies locked into it. Item B is free, though you can buy support and extensions if you want. Which is going to have a bigger net negative impact on your cash flow?
The title of the article should be "Windows Server sucks up more of your IT budget. Stop that!"
You'll notice I've referred to three different forms of compression in my posts so far.
From the article that you linked to yet obviously didn't read:
"[with CDs] consumers could purchase a recording in a medium whose dynamic range exceeded that of $20,000 professional tape machines."
Also from the article:
"And for the first few years CDs did provide appreciably better dynamic range than LPs or cassettes. But since then something has gone seriously wrong."
As a side note, why do audio discussions bring out the vitrol in people?
You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Sampling isn't "compression."
Sure it is. It is taking a highly detailed analog compression wave and reducing it to a series of slices. You're reducing it into a bitrate that is convienient to you.
Also, you might want to read up on the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem to find out why the sampling rate on CDs is sufficient for human listening.
You know, they also say that flourescent lights blink far faster than human beings can detect, yet the blinking has documented phisiological effects. They say that human beings detect 30 FPS as perfect motion, yet nearly all games went to 60 FPS and the difference is noticable.
If CD's were perfect audio sources for human ears, why make DVD Audio? Why does an analog amplification of a performance still sound better than a digital capture and playback of that performance through the same microphones?
But they're compressed... what a bummer, the reason I don't use iTunes is because I don't want compressed music... now they're not even offering CD Quality music with their new release?
Even CD's are compressed down to their sample rate. Of course, they're also compressed to maximize volume thus destroying their dynamic range.
I'd rather have a cassette that was mastered well than a modern CD that has been smashed up against the noise ceiling. A 256 kbps VBR MP3 in the hands of someone who cares will sound a lot better than a studio producer in a Porsche mashing 100 years of audio engineering in a misguided attempt to be louder than Howard Stern.
On the one hand, I totally agree that this isn't the way to win an intellectual argument.
On the other hand, Jack Thompson has taken it so far outside of the realm of intellectual arguments that making rational statements in his general direction is basically pointless. Jack Thompson is not a normal person advocating a position. He's a media figure lawyer who is attempting to establish a legal censorship doctorine through heavy lawsuits and lying to the media. It doesn't hurt that he gets paid handsomely for it.
He's also one known for guerilla tactics. He's said that his political opponent of the time, Janet Reno, was unfit to serve because she was a "closet lesbian." He's promised to make donations to charity and then claimed they were "obviously satire." And he makes frivilous claims, pretty much constantly that he's going to call the police or file lawsuits about anyone with a contradictory opinion. And if he's fine with attempting to censor his critics through frivilous lawsuits, I'm fine with his critics expressing their opinion about him on his Amazon review.
The one thing I can say in Jack's defense, and the one reason to cut him a little slack, is that he's probably going senile. If you follow a lot of the conversation threads out there, he's pretty confused as to who contacted who or what was just said. But unfortunately that doesn't make him any less of a media figure, and doesn't reduce his eggregious behavior at all.
Amazon will probably take the reviews down, as that is the responsible thing to do. But I'm not going to shed a tear if it hurts his book sales.
I think you got the link wrong. I've fixed it below.
Lies, Slander , lies, Propaganda, Childish Name Calling, Unfounded assertions, Unscientific, Defamation, Biased, Self-promoting with fake reviews, Libel, Money grabbing lawyer, Racist, Terrorism, No Truth, smug
BART Outfitted With Wireless
Like this?
The nice thing about Hard Drives is they tend to grow geometrically. Get a backup drive now, and by the time you need another backup drive you can get one proportionally bigger for the same amount of money. Wait a while longer, and grow it again at the same cost.
You should be doing this already anyway, for your photographs and other valuables, so it doesn't take any extra effort.
Nintendo and Sony were really beginning to rest on their laurels and that has come to an end.
I'm not seeing this. As a developer, Sony put a lot of resources into experimental titles... a strategy that paid off for them. They've also pushed into the realm of network adaptors, Hard disk drives, and other areas they felt they needed to compete in. They poured a lot of resources into the PSP. Sony was by no means resting on their laurels.
Nintendo either. They knew they had a huge challenge ahead of them after the N64. They managed to design and release a system roughly as powerful as the Xbox (and in certain ways, moreso) but at half the cost. They've pushed forward with system-selling first party titles, and supported a lot of quirky alternative games. Remember, first-and-third person gaming didn't even exist before Metroid prime. They released a heavily redesigned controller, designed and released the very original DS. I can't say their support for 3rd party American games has been legendarily great, but they have gone out and gotten quite a few high-profile exclusives.
The GC has been spared the ravages of time a bit because of Nintendo's disinterest in pushing the graphic envelope (they have their reasons, and I respect that. I'm not looking for a flamefest on that issue).
Not to sound too much like a Nintendo fanboy or start a flamefest, but the GC is a powerful little piece of kit. Nintendo may say they're disinterested in pushing the graphic envelope, but if you look at Resident Evil 5 on the GC vs the PS2, you will see big graphical difference. Spend as much time on an Xbox and GC version of a game, and you should be able to get them looking just about the same. The same can't be said of the PS2, though I like the little buggar anyway.
What Nintendo wants to do is reframe the competition from "which console has the best graphics" to "which console has the most original gameplay." The former means ever escalating RnD costs and smaller margins. The latter means focusing more profitably on attracting and retaining talented developers, something Nintendo has traditionally been strong on.
Why would they expect failure now?
Microsoft *DOES* produce other devices and they know the manufacturing/shop floor management. (They run facilities and design the software that manages them)
I think you answered your own question there.
Puzzle Pirates -
There is an option in puzzle pirates to play in a "dabloons" ocean. Dabloons are basically a form of in-game currency that you buy with real cash. While you need gold to buy things, you also need dabloons. You can use dabloons to purchase badges which allow you to do certain things in-game, such as play certain puzzles or lead a team of pirates. These badges generally last for 30 login days (as opposed to 30 calendar days)... in other words, they only degrade as you log in and use them. You can play Puzzle Pirates perfectly well for free, if you so choose, or you can pay to access certain features of the game. And it's pretty cheap: a badge that will allow you 30 login days of access to the most commonly used puzzle costs the real-world equivalent of a dollar.
Certain Asian-style games, such as Gunbound don't require a subscription, but allow you to use money to purchase in-game items. Or you can play for a really, really, really long time to earn the gold to have those items.
Most of the codec work in the past few years has been optimizing low file-size, high-processor algorithms. They are optimized to make something low rez look not-as-crappy. MPEG2 was designed for pristine, high-rez data, which is why it breaks down so much in low-rez situations.
C
And the high-processor is a kicker. A lot won't run without at least a P3 800 or a p4. Sure, Mpeg4 has better motion estimation, etc, but it is very processor intensive.
http://www.aussievideosearch.com/svcdhelp.htm
Maybe they want the Blu-Ray standard to replace the VHS, at which point they need real-time encoding speed. MPEG-4 is basically impossible to do real-time encoding at good quality even with a more modern PC. You can do it, but the processor maxes out and just doesn't bother with some of the encoding tricks.
http://edibletv.1go.dk/comments.php?id=350_0_1_0_
I don't know if those are the reasons for the decision necesarily, but it would seem that if they are looking to reach the point of sub-100 dollar blu-ray players soon, they would need to keep the processing power requirements down.
So if being a geek has really become cool, why has interest in CS as a major dropped among incoming freshmen and women are still a minority in computer and engineering fields? Is it cooler to pretend to be a geek (wear 'Save Pedro' shirts, etc.) than to really be one?"
Austrailians were cool for a while, but you didn't see people running off to that prison. And that was one of those nice club-med style prisons, not some solitary confinement.
It isn't just the Ayatollah or Stalin, it is everyone. Even goodhearted people are wrong in some of their views. If you look at gay rights initiatives, the public's position is changing on them in almost exact proportion to the older population dying and the younger population being born. The same was true of civil rights. Or the number of people who believed in Newton's laws, etc.
Additionally, people who have lived their entire lives with a technology internalize it in a way that the older generation just can't. They can take it and extend it out in radical new directions because to them it is basis for how they see the world, rather than an abberation. Companies in the UK are now offering textbooks by SMS, but my grandmother is still shocked whenever I pull out my cellphone. The older generation can contextualize it, but that isn't the same thing.
Progress is made in a hearse.
Get an old, used 4:1 amp on the cheap with a mono output option. Put a speaker in every room. Assuming you have smaller speakers than the manufacturer was expecting to drive, use two speakers per line, for 8 total.
I wouldn't worry about stereo. When you have music coming from every room, stereo separation gets muddied. Alltogether, the audio is a bit cleaner in mono, if you've got 5 or 6 mono sources from around the house coming at you.
Another way to do it, if you really want to be cheap, is broadcast. Get a low-powered radio transmitter, pick an unused station, and blast it. Tune the radios in your house, and you're done.
Sony paid someone for a root kit to be secretly installed on people's machines. A root kit. You know, like paying a criminal to bug someone's phone. Sony damn well should have gone over that thing with a fine toothed comb, as it would have been trivial for First4Internet to get credit card numbers, access to bank accounts, corporate secrets, and anything else it wanted. Or, say, accidentally give access to that stuff to everyone in the world.
All parties involved in an illegal activity are responsible for that activity. Sony is no different.
I think the one thing I really like about the hydrogen combustion engine is that it still has the potential to sound like a small block V8. As much as fuel cell vehicles are cool from a tech and enviro perspective, there's just something about the sound of a combustion engine that I don't want to go away, no matter what. Imagine the black Mad Max Interceptor [aussiecoupes.com] running on hydrogen!
Hmm... Maybe I come from another generation, but noise is usually associated with something running badly, inefficiently, or otherwise incorrectly. Things channeling all of their energy into going faster should be silent.
That, and my apartment is on the second floor next to a busy street. Shaddaup down there, already!
Thank you for saying this. I don't know where the perception that playing videogames is a niche hobby comes from, especially with consoles outnumbering people in this country.
Ping Pong qualifies as niche. Video Games? Video Games are as common a hobby as watching DVD's.
It would be interesting to see a similar paper on Total Environmental Impact.
It would be interesting to see a paper on Total Economic Impact including environmental costs. It has always bugged me that environmental impact papers don't generally include the cost of asthma-related hospitalizations, increases in lung cancer, the detrimental effects of acid rain on equipment, etc.
The kyoto protocol was one way we've put a price on air pollution. How much would the equivalent amount of environmental pollution cost on the open market?