Really its a matter of scale. The examples you cite were small fringe groups, which didn't have much popular support. The only way any sort of revolt works is if it has a lot of support.
Figure, our current military is somewhere around a million people. If you assume that a popular revolt gets 30% of the US populous willing to fight, the revolt would have 90 million. Yes, it would be bloody and there would be heavy losses on the revolt side, eventually though, the shear numbers would be able to wear down the military.
Moreover, if such a war was to be fought, and the revolt side had half a clue, it would be fought in much the same way as the current insurgency in Iraq. It would consist of gurella style attacks, with explosives and ambushes. It would be a war of attrition. Also, the US military relies on a lot of civilian services to run. How well would the artillery brigades function if the factories which produced their ammunition were either stopped due to lack of workers, or outright being blown up? This has been one advantage the US has had in every war it has fought in the last century, it's home infrastructure was never under attack. They could rely on the factories turning out the weapons and ammunition they needed to wage war. During a civil war, that might not be as true.
I'm not saying that it would be easy or that a revolt could definatly work, but I do think its possible. I am saying that dismissing it out of hand, because of the current strength of our militray, it short sighted.
XP has an equivilent to sudo. Right-Click - Run As. Or, at the command prompt runas/user:domain\username CommandToRun.exe
The problem is that everyone is used to just being a local admin on their box, so we get what we have today, malware ridden computers.
The alternative is unacceptable to a lot of people. XP has some good security features, the problem, as always, is the interface between the chair and the keyboard.
Thanks, I was looking for a link to put this in perspective.
I just can't believe that Bethesda was this stupid. The Hot Coffee debacle is not some obsucre thing, and Bethesda had to have at least guessed that modders would get ahold of their game and try this sort of thing. Why in the world would you add nipples to the models if you don't expect them to ever be seen? Just make the skin texture a uniform flesh tone and be done with it. At least with that you could compare it to someone stripping a Barbie doll. Sure, at some point someone would figure out a way to change the texture to include the naughty bits, but you would still be able to say, "it wasn't us."
From the article, this just sounds like the "customize it" button on Dell's web site, not the PC Club style, "here's your parts, go fo it." Moreover, this could be really good for small computer shops. I don't see anything about Wal-Mart supporting those PC's. So, a few months after purchase, and two kids who know computers later, the owner will still have to go get the adware removed by someone.
IE7 is not being tied to the OS. That's been a known feature for a while. Yes, it's going to come with Windows, and will be the default, but they, at least, got rid of that problem.
I honestly can't give you a simple answer to that one since it's complex issue.
Talk about a cop-out. They are making a browser, and that browser has a buit in search bar, it's going to have to have a default, so what should it be? Trying to paralyze the argument by saying, "it's complicated" is bullshit. If anything, at least claim that it should be a choice during install/first use, that holds some water. Of course, the next question is, which search engines should they include on that install list? Can MS have their own listed on top?
The problem is, there is going to have to be either a default or a list. No matter which way MS goes, they are going to have someone cry foul. If they forget to include someone in their list, that search company will claim that MS is trying to eat their market share. Also, if you look at most MS products, they make an attempt during install to allow the user to just click next-next-finish and end up with reasonable choices (usually favoring easy of use over security). To force a choice without some sort of default would break from their usual operating procedure.
Ok, so if Google was paying Microsoft to be the default search engine, would that be OK?
Yes, MS is making thier own search engine the default. So what? Every browser is going to have a default search engine (assuming that it has integrated search), is it any suprise that MS chose their own? As long as it's not tied to the OS and as long as you can change it without registy hacking and/or a third-party app I don't see the big deal. It strikes me as a bit of a double standard that Google wants to be able to be the default in Mozilla, but they don't want IE7 to have a default.
At my office we get a set of 15-20 Dell laptops twice a year (we're a school). I open one box, uninstall all of the crapware, install all of the software the students will need, including putting our own anti-virus on them. Run sysprep, and then image that laptop. The rest of the laptops are then hooked up to a dedicated switch and the image multicasted out to them. Each laptop is then powered up, given a unique name and put in the domain.
One thing to look into if you are pushing that many systems through, Dell offers a service where they will load a custom image on new systems for you. They will only do it if your volume is high enough, and your's probably is. You simply setup an image, send it to them and all new systems come pre-loaded to your configuration.
It depends on the version you get. If it's a retail box, yes, you can move it. If it is an OEM copy, it is tied to the hardware. If you read through the OEM EULA, you will notice that you are supposed to affix the license key sticker to the computer which that copy is tied to. Most people end up getting an OEM copy, this is what you get with a Dell PC. Also, the OEM version is cheaper, ostensibly because it is tied to the hardware, still a lot of people will buy an OEM copy from a web site retailer (which is valid as long as you purchase hardware at the same time) and never afix the label, and will move it between machines. This is, technically, a violation of the EULA.
Note this is all from memory, and you should read your EULA rather than blindly trusting some pseduo-anonymous person on a website.
While it's true that minimum working standards are non-capitalistic, that does not make them de facto bad. Take a look back in history at the working conditions of the 1920's. Worker safety was a joke; if you were sick, too bad, work or don't get paid; if you get seriously injured you were probably out of a job and well on your way to being dead broke. Pure capitalism is not functional, in the end it will degenrate into a form of feudalism (technically oligarcy) with a huge seperation between the have's and the have-not's. This will, almost inevitably, lead to civil unrest. In fact, in the early part of the 20th century, this is exactly where it lead. Workers unionized, and there were a lot of violent clashes. In the end, it was realized that there needs to be a balancing factor in the worker-employer relationship.
If you look at the relationship between a worker and his employer it is naturally coersive. The employer has a measure of power over worker. Yes, technically the worker can leave at anytime, but this involves some level of risk, so the worker will be inclined to stay with a known quantity, rather than taking the risk; this is just human nature. The goal of employement laws is to prevent the employer from abusing this power, in order to pervent a race to the bottom condition, much like the US had in the 1920's. Which would lead to civil unrest.
you have actually selected FOR the problem,br/>
That's not quite true, all you have done is stop the selection agaist it. It's a subtle difference but important. to say that we are selecting for it would assume that, somehow, said condition has been made more desireable than not having it. This is not true, the normal condition is still just as viable. In fact, given the cost of infertility treatments, this sort of thing is probably not significantly affecting the selection against the genetic defects which cause infertility. Yes, there will be some incerese in the inceidence of said condition, as it will now be added to the gene pool more often, but there is no reason to expect that it will overtake the default condition. There is no selection for it.
As someone once put it, because you CAN doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD
Which is a nice saying, but I still think that the onus lies on the side saying "don't do it" to show a valid reason why. Discoveries have a tendancy to suddenly become useful in new and unexpected ways after they have been tried and used, I would rather not limit us to only those things which we are sure will have no ethical questions attached.
Because we can. Seriously, we have found ways to cure many of these sorts of problems, so why not keep doing it? Nature is a rather harsh cruel bitch, we should do everything we can to tell her to go stuff it.
As for saving things before they are even fertalized, I think the Catholics are already on that. Every sperm is sacred, after all.
In Rifts, I found that the safest thing to do was define the type of game you were going to run first, then limit the characters appropriatly. For example, I very often limited my players to the main book only for OCC/RCC selections. And then they were often restricted as well. It seemed like every time a new book came out there was an attempt to make the classes contained in it even more powerful than before. By the time Atlantis came out, there was no point in any of the base book's classes. And god help you if you let one of your players use any of the Phase World stuff.
I really like the base Rifts world, but the system is a crime against humanity.
At a guess, they will just ignore the flag and do what they have always done. The only problem will be is if this sort of thing gets mandated in the US, as MythTV.org is currently resgistered in the US. If that happens, the best thing they can do is find a user in the Iceland or some such, and put everything in that user's name. Once it's outside the US's legal jurisdiction, they can avoid many of the stupid laws.
That said, with the growing popularity of DVR's, and they fact that users like the skip-ad feature, I don't expect DVR's with this to take off. All it will take is one manufacturer not implimenting this technology, and assuming that it does not get mandated, and it will die. Joe Six-pack expects the buttons on his DVR to work. If he can't fast-forward through commercials anymore, he'll replace the unit. The problem with this technology is similar to P2P networks: the genine is out of the bottle. People have started using this feature, and have grown to the point of social acceptance. Trying to take it away from them isn't going to happen, they will find ways around it.
There are areas which need this. I support GIS(Geospatial Information Systems) users. It's not uncommon for one of my users to need access to a 20GB raster image. Then they load a 100GB LIDAR raster on top of that. Which sounds fine, just put it on the SAN, and we're happy. Then they will ask for access to that data while in the field, with their laptop.
Sure, a USB drive works, but when you are talking about 100's of gigs of data, and everytime they pan around the map a chunk of it is going to be pulled off the drive again, speed makes a difference.
That said, this is the first I've really read about eSATA. I somehow expect thought that I will have a few users ask about it soon.
I'm expecting that we'll end up, eventually, at a point where there is something akin to DirectX for physics. I also woldn't be suprised if it's also a Microsoft set of API's. You're probably right, it will start out as something sitting on a high end video, but, like 3d acceleration, it will eventually trickle down to the rest of us.
Point taken. Though I would guess that, if we had some standard hardware, which could be relied upon to be there in most cases, we would end up with a standard API which companies could use. Most likely, we're going to end up with something akin to DirectX for physics, which will help make the life of developers easier. Sure, if they people plugging values into the API's don't put any thought into it, you'll still have problems, but it will make life a little better for those that pay attention to wat theyare doing.
As a fan of the Janes line of flight sims, I would agree that this has its place. Whenever I play, I usually turn all of the realism features on (sunflare, black/red-out, aerodynamics, etc.). I know that there is still a departure between what I am doing and what it must actually be like to fly an F/A-18; still, the closer the better.
That said, I still think a good physics engine would enhance any game. It's not necessarily about realism as it is a consistent experience. When I do something in a game world, I should be able to expect the world to react in a set way. e.g. If I push a chair, it should move based on mass and friction. Obviously, this will change based up on the world and other factors. If I push said chair on ice, it should go further than if was on a wood floor. It doesn't need to be a perfect representation of reality though. By changing the constants in physics equations, or just throwing scalars on them, you can make a world do some funny things. You can even affect magic and Hollywood type stuff.
I've not played Oblivion, so I'll not comment on it. However, on the physics side, the idea of "casual" physics does not mean that you have to forego trade-offs between realism and fun. Assuming that the physics engine is little more than a set of Newtonian physics equations, with dedicated processing power to them, you just have to change a few values to muck about with the physics of the world. For example, if you want an area to have low gravity, simply change the value of G in that area, viola, you have different gravity. The advantage is, everything in that area is affected by the changed gravity consistently. Unlike the targeted physics, you won't have errors where the player is affected, but a chair isn't. Fact is, you could generate a lot of unrealistic physics just by modifying base numbers. e.g. if you want to have the Hollywood bullet kick effect, just change the mass of the bullet as it hits.
On the other hand, would this be worth spending a bunch of money on, and filling another PCI slot for? I don't know. If games started taking it into account, ya I'd probably do it. Problem is, I don't see that it would be adopted much. For any new game, developers would have to make a decision:
1. Require the physics processing card. Which might potentially cause a game to not sell well.
2. Have the physics card usage be an option, which means the game needs to be developed for both options. This would increse costs quite a bit, for not much gain.
3. Say screw the PPU stuff and just keep doing what works. This option doesn't have too big of a down side, as they are unlikely to lose sales because of it.
The only way I see this whole PPU thing getting big is if some "must have" title comes out and either includes it in the box, or requires it. I just don't see that happening any time soon.
If you ever get masochistic, get a couple of slightly older Dimension systems (not the same number, with RAMBUS) and try swapping memory. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it will tell you to go to hell. Different levels of the same model use different speed memory, and if the memory you put in is slower than what the BIOS likes, your dead in the water. Normally this is fine, but when you have a couple of systems which have been designated to be canibalized to keep others running, this can create a real headache. It gets even more fun when the memory just has a Dell part number, and no specs listed. Much of that type of spare memory is now sitting in static bags with post-it notes taped to the bag, listing what is in each.
Still, for a workplace, you can't beat the corporate level support (really, it's good). And since Excel doesn't take much in the way of horsepower, the systems work well, and they are cheap. I expect that Dell will always remain a workplace brand, with dreams of gaming. They know how to treat businesses, but they don't have the first clue when it comes to gamers. And with Alienware now a Dell brand, I'm expecting it to slowly die as a gaming brand.
AVG for antivirus - Definite Must! run firefox so you don't need anything for spyware - WTF, over? While IE is *a* source for spyware, I've cleaned enough systems of spyware, which ran FireFox to know that this is bullshit. FireFox will still download WeatherBug, and you can still install it, and it will still fuck your system with spyware. I love FF for tabs and the AdBlock extension, but let's not say it will fix spyware when it won't. Desktop Earth for your background because it looks really cool - XPlanet beats Deasktop Earth, hand down. Though, this will probably change over time.
The rest is a pretty good list though.
At work, we buy Dell systems. For a work environment, they work quite well. When I go home, I wouldn't buy a Dell system at a 50% discount (unless it was just for parts). Dell systems use a shitty proprietary motherboard, with a horrible BIOS, and way too many limitations. When I build a gaming system I want quality parts with a good upgrade path, not vendor lock-in.
I actually have a friend who has been screwed by this sort of thing more than once. He bought an HP computer back before the Compaq/HP merge. As he discovered gaming he also discovered that the system lacked an AGP port (the built in graphics card was, technically, AGP). So, he went out and bought a Dell (against my recommendations). It had a better built in graphics card, and the price was right (Dude, you're getting a cheap piece of junk). Once again, no AGP slot. He runs a fairly high end (as such things go) video card on PCI. Unsuprisingly, his video performance sucks.
Give me a beige box, which I built myself, any day of the week. I might run across a few hardware incompatabilities here and there, but that beats the hell out of finding myself without an upgrade path, because the vendor used cheap parts.
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Really its a matter of scale. The examples you cite were small fringe groups, which didn't have much popular support. The only way any sort of revolt works is if it has a lot of support.
Figure, our current military is somewhere around a million people. If you assume that a popular revolt gets 30% of the US populous willing to fight, the revolt would have 90 million. Yes, it would be bloody and there would be heavy losses on the revolt side, eventually though, the shear numbers would be able to wear down the military.
Moreover, if such a war was to be fought, and the revolt side had half a clue, it would be fought in much the same way as the current insurgency in Iraq. It would consist of gurella style attacks, with explosives and ambushes. It would be a war of attrition. Also, the US military relies on a lot of civilian services to run. How well would the artillery brigades function if the factories which produced their ammunition were either stopped due to lack of workers, or outright being blown up? This has been one advantage the US has had in every war it has fought in the last century, it's home infrastructure was never under attack. They could rely on the factories turning out the weapons and ammunition they needed to wage war. During a civil war, that might not be as true.
I'm not saying that it would be easy or that a revolt could definatly work, but I do think its possible. I am saying that dismissing it out of hand, because of the current strength of our militray, it short sighted.
XP has an equivilent to sudo. Right-Click - Run As. Or, at the command prompt runas /user:domain\username CommandToRun.exe
The problem is that everyone is used to just being a local admin on their box, so we get what we have today, malware ridden computers.
The alternative is unacceptable to a lot of people. XP has some good security features, the problem, as always, is the interface between the chair and the keyboard.
And I thought I was cynical. Sadly, you're probably right.
Thanks, I was looking for a link to put this in perspective.
I just can't believe that Bethesda was this stupid. The Hot Coffee debacle is not some obsucre thing, and Bethesda had to have at least guessed that modders would get ahold of their game and try this sort of thing. Why in the world would you add nipples to the models if you don't expect them to ever be seen? Just make the skin texture a uniform flesh tone and be done with it. At least with that you could compare it to someone stripping a Barbie doll. Sure, at some point someone would figure out a way to change the texture to include the naughty bits, but you would still be able to say, "it wasn't us."
Shh! No pointing out the gaping plot holes!
From the article, this just sounds like the "customize it" button on Dell's web site, not the PC Club style, "here's your parts, go fo it." Moreover, this could be really good for small computer shops. I don't see anything about Wal-Mart supporting those PC's. So, a few months after purchase, and two kids who know computers later, the owner will still have to go get the adware removed by someone.
IE7 is not being tied to the OS. That's been a known feature for a while. Yes, it's going to come with Windows, and will be the default, but they, at least, got rid of that problem.
I honestly can't give you a simple answer to that one since it's complex issue.
Talk about a cop-out. They are making a browser, and that browser has a buit in search bar, it's going to have to have a default, so what should it be? Trying to paralyze the argument by saying, "it's complicated" is bullshit. If anything, at least claim that it should be a choice during install/first use, that holds some water. Of course, the next question is, which search engines should they include on that install list? Can MS have their own listed on top?
The problem is, there is going to have to be either a default or a list. No matter which way MS goes, they are going to have someone cry foul. If they forget to include someone in their list, that search company will claim that MS is trying to eat their market share. Also, if you look at most MS products, they make an attempt during install to allow the user to just click next-next-finish and end up with reasonable choices (usually favoring easy of use over security). To force a choice without some sort of default would break from their usual operating procedure.
Ok, so if Google was paying Microsoft to be the default search engine, would that be OK?
Yes, MS is making thier own search engine the default. So what? Every browser is going to have a default search engine (assuming that it has integrated search), is it any suprise that MS chose their own? As long as it's not tied to the OS and as long as you can change it without registy hacking and/or a third-party app I don't see the big deal. It strikes me as a bit of a double standard that Google wants to be able to be the default in Mozilla, but they don't want IE7 to have a default.
At my office we get a set of 15-20 Dell laptops twice a year (we're a school). I open one box, uninstall all of the crapware, install all of the software the students will need, including putting our own anti-virus on them. Run sysprep, and then image that laptop. The rest of the laptops are then hooked up to a dedicated switch and the image multicasted out to them. Each laptop is then powered up, given a unique name and put in the domain.
One thing to look into if you are pushing that many systems through, Dell offers a service where they will load a custom image on new systems for you. They will only do it if your volume is high enough, and your's probably is. You simply setup an image, send it to them and all new systems come pre-loaded to your configuration.
It depends on the version you get. If it's a retail box, yes, you can move it. If it is an OEM copy, it is tied to the hardware. If you read through the OEM EULA, you will notice that you are supposed to affix the license key sticker to the computer which that copy is tied to. Most people end up getting an OEM copy, this is what you get with a Dell PC. Also, the OEM version is cheaper, ostensibly because it is tied to the hardware, still a lot of people will buy an OEM copy from a web site retailer (which is valid as long as you purchase hardware at the same time) and never afix the label, and will move it between machines. This is, technically, a violation of the EULA.
Note this is all from memory, and you should read your EULA rather than blindly trusting some pseduo-anonymous person on a website.
While it's true that minimum working standards are non-capitalistic, that does not make them de facto bad. Take a look back in history at the working conditions of the 1920's. Worker safety was a joke; if you were sick, too bad, work or don't get paid; if you get seriously injured you were probably out of a job and well on your way to being dead broke. Pure capitalism is not functional, in the end it will degenrate into a form of feudalism (technically oligarcy) with a huge seperation between the have's and the have-not's. This will, almost inevitably, lead to civil unrest. In fact, in the early part of the 20th century, this is exactly where it lead. Workers unionized, and there were a lot of violent clashes. In the end, it was realized that there needs to be a balancing factor in the worker-employer relationship.
If you look at the relationship between a worker and his employer it is naturally coersive. The employer has a measure of power over worker. Yes, technically the worker can leave at anytime, but this involves some level of risk, so the worker will be inclined to stay with a known quantity, rather than taking the risk; this is just human nature. The goal of employement laws is to prevent the employer from abusing this power, in order to pervent a race to the bottom condition, much like the US had in the 1920's. Which would lead to civil unrest.
you have actually selected FOR the problem,br />
That's not quite true, all you have done is stop the selection agaist it. It's a subtle difference but important. to say that we are selecting for it would assume that, somehow, said condition has been made more desireable than not having it. This is not true, the normal condition is still just as viable. In fact, given the cost of infertility treatments, this sort of thing is probably not significantly affecting the selection against the genetic defects which cause infertility. Yes, there will be some incerese in the inceidence of said condition, as it will now be added to the gene pool more often, but there is no reason to expect that it will overtake the default condition. There is no selection for it.
As someone once put it, because you CAN doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD
Which is a nice saying, but I still think that the onus lies on the side saying "don't do it" to show a valid reason why. Discoveries have a tendancy to suddenly become useful in new and unexpected ways after they have been tried and used, I would rather not limit us to only those things which we are sure will have no ethical questions attached.
why do humans think they're exempt??
Because we can. Seriously, we have found ways to cure many of these sorts of problems, so why not keep doing it? Nature is a rather harsh cruel bitch, we should do everything we can to tell her to go stuff it.
As for saving things before they are even fertalized, I think the Catholics are already on that. Every sperm is sacred, after all.
In Rifts, I found that the safest thing to do was define the type of game you were going to run first, then limit the characters appropriatly. For example, I very often limited my players to the main book only for OCC/RCC selections. And then they were often restricted as well. It seemed like every time a new book came out there was an attempt to make the classes contained in it even more powerful than before. By the time Atlantis came out, there was no point in any of the base book's classes. And god help you if you let one of your players use any of the Phase World stuff.
I really like the base Rifts world, but the system is a crime against humanity.
At a guess, they will just ignore the flag and do what they have always done. The only problem will be is if this sort of thing gets mandated in the US, as MythTV.org is currently resgistered in the US. If that happens, the best thing they can do is find a user in the Iceland or some such, and put everything in that user's name. Once it's outside the US's legal jurisdiction, they can avoid many of the stupid laws.
That said, with the growing popularity of DVR's, and they fact that users like the skip-ad feature, I don't expect DVR's with this to take off. All it will take is one manufacturer not implimenting this technology, and assuming that it does not get mandated, and it will die. Joe Six-pack expects the buttons on his DVR to work. If he can't fast-forward through commercials anymore, he'll replace the unit. The problem with this technology is similar to P2P networks: the genine is out of the bottle. People have started using this feature, and have grown to the point of social acceptance. Trying to take it away from them isn't going to happen, they will find ways around it.
There are areas which need this. I support GIS(Geospatial Information Systems) users. It's not uncommon for one of my users to need access to a 20GB raster image. Then they load a 100GB LIDAR raster on top of that. Which sounds fine, just put it on the SAN, and we're happy. Then they will ask for access to that data while in the field, with their laptop.
Sure, a USB drive works, but when you are talking about 100's of gigs of data, and everytime they pan around the map a chunk of it is going to be pulled off the drive again, speed makes a difference.
That said, this is the first I've really read about eSATA. I somehow expect thought that I will have a few users ask about it soon.
I'm expecting that we'll end up, eventually, at a point where there is something akin to DirectX for physics. I also woldn't be suprised if it's also a Microsoft set of API's. You're probably right, it will start out as something sitting on a high end video, but, like 3d acceleration, it will eventually trickle down to the rest of us.
Point taken. Though I would guess that, if we had some standard hardware, which could be relied upon to be there in most cases, we would end up with a standard API which companies could use. Most likely, we're going to end up with something akin to DirectX for physics, which will help make the life of developers easier. Sure, if they people plugging values into the API's don't put any thought into it, you'll still have problems, but it will make life a little better for those that pay attention to wat theyare doing.
As a fan of the Janes line of flight sims, I would agree that this has its place. Whenever I play, I usually turn all of the realism features on (sunflare, black/red-out, aerodynamics, etc.). I know that there is still a departure between what I am doing and what it must actually be like to fly an F/A-18; still, the closer the better.
That said, I still think a good physics engine would enhance any game. It's not necessarily about realism as it is a consistent experience. When I do something in a game world, I should be able to expect the world to react in a set way. e.g. If I push a chair, it should move based on mass and friction. Obviously, this will change based up on the world and other factors. If I push said chair on ice, it should go further than if was on a wood floor. It doesn't need to be a perfect representation of reality though. By changing the constants in physics equations, or just throwing scalars on them, you can make a world do some funny things. You can even affect magic and Hollywood type stuff.
I've not played Oblivion, so I'll not comment on it. However, on the physics side, the idea of "casual" physics does not mean that you have to forego trade-offs between realism and fun. Assuming that the physics engine is little more than a set of Newtonian physics equations, with dedicated processing power to them, you just have to change a few values to muck about with the physics of the world. For example, if you want an area to have low gravity, simply change the value of G in that area, viola, you have different gravity. The advantage is, everything in that area is affected by the changed gravity consistently. Unlike the targeted physics, you won't have errors where the player is affected, but a chair isn't. Fact is, you could generate a lot of unrealistic physics just by modifying base numbers. e.g. if you want to have the Hollywood bullet kick effect, just change the mass of the bullet as it hits.
On the other hand, would this be worth spending a bunch of money on, and filling another PCI slot for? I don't know. If games started taking it into account, ya I'd probably do it. Problem is, I don't see that it would be adopted much. For any new game, developers would have to make a decision:
1. Require the physics processing card. Which might potentially cause a game to not sell well.
2. Have the physics card usage be an option, which means the game needs to be developed for both options. This would increse costs quite a bit, for not much gain.
3. Say screw the PPU stuff and just keep doing what works. This option doesn't have too big of a down side, as they are unlikely to lose sales because of it.
The only way I see this whole PPU thing getting big is if some "must have" title comes out and either includes it in the box, or requires it. I just don't see that happening any time soon.
Wow, and then the astroturfing asshats come back and troll anyone calling the astroturfing what it is.
If you ever get masochistic, get a couple of slightly older Dimension systems (not the same number, with RAMBUS) and try swapping memory. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it will tell you to go to hell. Different levels of the same model use different speed memory, and if the memory you put in is slower than what the BIOS likes, your dead in the water. Normally this is fine, but when you have a couple of systems which have been designated to be canibalized to keep others running, this can create a real headache. It gets even more fun when the memory just has a Dell part number, and no specs listed. Much of that type of spare memory is now sitting in static bags with post-it notes taped to the bag, listing what is in each.
Still, for a workplace, you can't beat the corporate level support (really, it's good). And since Excel doesn't take much in the way of horsepower, the systems work well, and they are cheap. I expect that Dell will always remain a workplace brand, with dreams of gaming. They know how to treat businesses, but they don't have the first clue when it comes to gamers. And with Alienware now a Dell brand, I'm expecting it to slowly die as a gaming brand.
AVG for antivirus - Definite Must!
run firefox so you don't need anything for spyware - WTF, over? While IE is *a* source for spyware, I've cleaned enough systems of spyware, which ran FireFox to know that this is bullshit. FireFox will still download WeatherBug, and you can still install it, and it will still fuck your system with spyware. I love FF for tabs and the AdBlock extension, but let's not say it will fix spyware when it won't.
Desktop Earth for your background because it looks really cool - XPlanet beats Deasktop Earth, hand down. Though, this will probably change over time.
The rest is a pretty good list though.
At work, we buy Dell systems. For a work environment, they work quite well. When I go home, I wouldn't buy a Dell system at a 50% discount (unless it was just for parts). Dell systems use a shitty proprietary motherboard, with a horrible BIOS, and way too many limitations. When I build a gaming system I want quality parts with a good upgrade path, not vendor lock-in.
I actually have a friend who has been screwed by this sort of thing more than once. He bought an HP computer back before the Compaq/HP merge. As he discovered gaming he also discovered that the system lacked an AGP port (the built in graphics card was, technically, AGP). So, he went out and bought a Dell (against my recommendations). It had a better built in graphics card, and the price was right (Dude, you're getting a cheap piece of junk). Once again, no AGP slot. He runs a fairly high end (as such things go) video card on PCI. Unsuprisingly, his video performance sucks.
Give me a beige box, which I built myself, any day of the week. I might run across a few hardware incompatabilities here and there, but that beats the hell out of finding myself without an upgrade path, because the vendor used cheap parts.