The reason that deregulation occurs is to stop these problems, so why do they still continue even after the company has been deregulated.
And the reason we have security officers administer networks is to stop people from breaking into the network, so why does it still continue to happen even after they've been hired? Let's be honest: shit is going to happen, and nothing's going to stop it. Turning services over to the state won't stop it, privatizing services isn't going to stop it either. The hope is to reduce it, hopefully to the point where it becomes a negligible risk.
There is arguements for both sides, but usually when a utility company is not deregulated, prices are cheaper, and service is better.
Gee, prices are so much cheaper when half of the operation costs are being paid through taxes. Who would'a thunkit?
I haven't personally done the research, but I have a lingering suspicion that if you were to compare the average, long-time state-held facility with a comparable average long-time privately-held facility, the privately-held one is going to have lower operation costs. Now, this may come at the cost of reduced service, but this isn't always necessarily a bad thing. As an exaggerated analogy, it could very well be like paying $500 a week for someone to mow your grass. If you were to stop the service, you wouldn't have your grass mowed. On the other hand, you'd have $500 in your pocket. Which is more valuable to you is, well, your decision. But I'll take the cash.
Why does everyone always say that private companies cut costs? It's simple economics, there are two ways to increase profits: cutting costs and increasing revenue.
A company is just as likely to try to cut service in order to reduce costs as it is to increase service to bring about more revenue. In fact, both actions routinely happen at the same time, and the majority of the time they're beneficial (i.e., eliminating bad, unproductive sectors of the business and adding new, hopefully useful sectors). Please--can the FUD and put up a real argument.
Sounds like you're forgetting some history. Namely, just about every framer of the Constitution stating at one time or another that it'd be a pretty damned nice thing if every able-bodied man carried a firearm.
But sure, go on and claim that that Constitution was never intended to protect the rights of individuals to own guns. Just because the actual authors of the statement advocated and demanded it, and that every other of the Bill of Rights grants rights to individuals isn't any sort of indication of intent.
Interestingly, one commentary about GTA3 in Japan says that the author's Japanese friends "..have been disgusted that such a game exists, and judgmental, as in 'that's the kind of game only an American would like'"...
This is coming from the country who produced Yatta, Fecal Japan, Tokyo Breakfast, and more tentacle-rape hentai than America has action movies?
Actually, IIRC, discovering copyright violations is easier done looking at the assembly code. Once you decompile, the C++ code will effectively do the same thing, but it will probably look nothing like the original source.
Furthermore, they can't show any examples of living things falling from that altitude and surviving
Er, remember the worms surviving the shuttle crash? This stuff happens all the time, especially when the live organism is distanced from the outer layers of whatever it came down to Earth in.
However, this is not to say that I believe their theory contains much clout. To say that virii external to Earth mutated and evolved as such that they can infect us without having had any previous contact with us is a bit loony, to say the least. I'm sure the chances of that are roughly the same chance of humans with roughly the same genetic sequences having evolved in a different area of space at the same time as us.
It's only worth it if you're running a full 333MHz FSB. If you've got a processor in there running at 266MHz, and you're using a multiplier to have the memory bus be at 333MHz, you'll see almost no performance gain over PC2100.
Re:Graphics processor vs. general-purpose CPU
on
Future of 3d Graphics
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Actually, I see it more like having a brain surgeon as your family doctor.
I do often wonder why specialised hardware is not used more often for tasks that are often performed. I recall that the Mac used to have some add-on cards that spead some Photoshop operations up to modern levels 3-4 years ago.
Why buy a big processor when the only intensive computational tasks are video en/decoding and games, tasks that can easily be farmed off to other, cheaper units?
For the same reason many people buy a $1,000 computer, rather than a $100 VCR, $250 DVD player, two $250 gaming consoles, $100 stereo, etc. Because although it may be more expensive than buying only specialized parts (although it often isn't), versatility has massive benefits.
A word of note before we begin: I've only played a developers build. It's the complete game, and AFAIK, it's extremely similar to the one that's being shipped out for retail. There may be minor differences, but most of my beefs with the game are not ones that can be fixed through minor bugfixes.
Save your money and spend the $50 or so on something more worth your time. Worth a rent if you've got that opportunity in your area, especially if you're interested in finding out the (supposedly) deep and intricate parallell plotline that only it will contain.
As far as the game is concerned, it's somewhat like Max Payne, except catered towards the lowest common denominator. In other words, it's got piss-poor graphics (which run choppy anyways, even at mid detail, and are full of lots of bugs), the fonts are ugly as hell, the Matrix "screen" (green, reversed katakana characters sliding down the screen) is pathetically done (not just bad, but absolutely pathetic--I've seen screensavers do a FAR better job), the gameplay isn't too hard (if you stand for approx. 5 seconds, you start to regen health and "Focus" (bullet-time juice)), and the controls are clunky at best. For instance, there's no crosshair to aim while on foot (although there's a fairly crappy autoaim), in the car, your crosshair jumps 10 pixels at a minimum when you're riding shotgun and shooting, and in the car while driving, it handles like a souped-up Yugo on ice.
There's a few interesting things however. Some of the moves you can do are downright nifty. However, they aren't nearly as cool after the fiftieth time you've used them on the same level. There's a nifty "hacking" mode available from the main menu. I've done a bit of tinkering in, and it's kind of fun. It basically drops you at a DOS-ish shell, and you tinker around from there. However, the keyboard tends to flit between being unresponsive (missing keystrokes entirely) or over-sensitive (typing letters twice). This wouldn't be so bad, except there's no tab completion (for us BASH lovers) and there's no command history (so you can't hit up or shift+up for instance, to recall the last command you typed). This makes it a bitch to type long commands, especially since you have to type full directory paths for everything (there's no 'cd' command). Once you get used to it's quirks, however, it's worth fooling around in. Finally, the FMV is pretty good. The acting's as good, or better than in any other game's FMV. Also, they used a good codec, so there's no blocking, bleeding, or other graphical glitches in the FMV. I have to say, however, that I've been unimpressed with the meager bits of story I've seen so far, although admittedly, I'm only ten or so levels in.
I suppose had they had more time to work on it, it could have been an amazing game--one to go down in time as a classic. Alas, this was not the case. Also, in my opinion, Shiny was probably not the best developer to have chosen for the project. They aren't exactly known for their top-quality engines, and I would have far preferred seeing them use Max Payne's completely capable engine instead of trying to develop their own under limited time constraints.
To be honest, I'm horribly disappointed. With the incredible franchise they've got going, I expected more. After being wowed by The Matrix, having heard amazing things about The Matrix: Reloaded, and having seen the incredibly well-done Animatrix episodes, I've been nothing but impressed with the franchise. I'd been expecting the world from Enter the Matrix, having heard that the Wachowski Brothers viewed it as just as integral a part of the storytelling of the Matrix as the movies were. Now I'm beginning to feel that that was just marketing bullshit.
Rating: 4/10.
From a post of mine later on:
Interesting.
I cranked all the details up to max and entered the game, just to see how the graphics looked with full antialiasing, max resolution, etc. Oddly enough, a
I've tried to customize the message to make it easy to understand, but I guess I have dumb or stubborn friends. In particular, if a relative sends a joke to me and a long list of other people, and one of those people replies to everyone ("ha, that was really funny!!"), the sender gets really confused about getting a confirmation request from someone they haven't heard of before.
This could possibly be implemented in the way that Yahoo, PayPal, et al do. Send an image with a slightly mangled word in it. Have them reply back with the word in the subject header.
The problem is effectively defining spam, so as not to accidentally turn innocent civilians into criminals. Kind of like how grandmothers have been arrested on child pornography charges, 'cause they had pictures of their grandkids in the bathtub or rolling around on the floor in the buff.
Now lets say that the mailing list programs make some mods to automatically respond to the message, assuming it has a standard format. Now a spammer can use the mailing list's address as their return address and take advantage of its response to a challenge!
Why wouldn't they, um, just set up their software to automatically respond to the emails?
Since you're gonna be so picky, the kung fu content was borderline nil. There was some ju jitsu, judo, kempo, karate, and tae kwon do, but relatively little kung fu.
This isn't necessarily a good thing, especially when you fuck over businesses in order to do it. If you don't agree with the business' stance, and want to use a different heatsink while keeping your warranty, but Intel. If you think it's worth voiding the warranty, by all means, go for it. Don't force companies to cater to idiots who don't know how to install hardware properly.
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The reason that deregulation occurs is to stop these problems, so why do they still continue even after the company has been deregulated.
And the reason we have security officers administer networks is to stop people from breaking into the network, so why does it still continue to happen even after they've been hired? Let's be honest: shit is going to happen, and nothing's going to stop it. Turning services over to the state won't stop it, privatizing services isn't going to stop it either. The hope is to reduce it, hopefully to the point where it becomes a negligible risk.
There is arguements for both sides, but usually when a utility company is not deregulated, prices are cheaper, and service is better.
Gee, prices are so much cheaper when half of the operation costs are being paid through taxes. Who would'a thunkit?
I haven't personally done the research, but I have a lingering suspicion that if you were to compare the average, long-time state-held facility with a comparable average long-time privately-held facility, the privately-held one is going to have lower operation costs. Now, this may come at the cost of reduced service, but this isn't always necessarily a bad thing. As an exaggerated analogy, it could very well be like paying $500 a week for someone to mow your grass. If you were to stop the service, you wouldn't have your grass mowed. On the other hand, you'd have $500 in your pocket. Which is more valuable to you is, well, your decision. But I'll take the cash.
Why does everyone always say that private companies cut costs? It's simple economics, there are two ways to increase profits: cutting costs and increasing revenue.
A company is just as likely to try to cut service in order to reduce costs as it is to increase service to bring about more revenue. In fact, both actions routinely happen at the same time, and the majority of the time they're beneficial (i.e., eliminating bad, unproductive sectors of the business and adding new, hopefully useful sectors). Please--can the FUD and put up a real argument.
A decent analogy, with one flaw. When windows crashes, you probably aren't going to die. That is, unless it's powering your pacemaker, or something.
Sounds like you're forgetting some history. Namely, just about every framer of the Constitution stating at one time or another that it'd be a pretty damned nice thing if every able-bodied man carried a firearm.
But sure, go on and claim that that Constitution was never intended to protect the rights of individuals to own guns. Just because the actual authors of the statement advocated and demanded it, and that every other of the Bill of Rights grants rights to individuals isn't any sort of indication of intent.
Linux has Tux, the cute/cool little mascot. What does SCO have?
A cadre of menacing lawyers?
Interestingly, one commentary about GTA3 in Japan says that the author's Japanese friends "..have been disgusted that such a game exists, and judgmental, as in 'that's the kind of game only an American would like'"...
This is coming from the country who produced Yatta, Fecal Japan, Tokyo Breakfast, and more tentacle-rape hentai than America has action movies?
The prospected walls of this monumental dam?
This is silly and sophomoric. You should be ashamed.
I mean, for god's sakes you forgot the recycling for loop.
It's not a bug, it's a feature! The "crash" input type allows the user to crash the browser. It's very useful and another Microsoft (TM) innovation.
Yeah, gotta love Micrsoft's technique of "embrace and expand". Pretty soon they'll implement
<input type bsod>
and
<input type format_C>
Actually, IIRC, discovering copyright violations is easier done looking at the assembly code. Once you decompile, the C++ code will effectively do the same thing, but it will probably look nothing like the original source.
Furthermore, they can't show any examples of living things falling from that altitude and surviving Er, remember the worms surviving the shuttle crash? This stuff happens all the time, especially when the live organism is distanced from the outer layers of whatever it came down to Earth in. However, this is not to say that I believe their theory contains much clout. To say that virii external to Earth mutated and evolved as such that they can infect us without having had any previous contact with us is a bit loony, to say the least. I'm sure the chances of that are roughly the same chance of humans with roughly the same genetic sequences having evolved in a different area of space at the same time as us.
in vacuum-sealed bags!
Simple answer: because idiots still use them.
It's only worth it if you're running a full 333MHz FSB. If you've got a processor in there running at 266MHz, and you're using a multiplier to have the memory bus be at 333MHz, you'll see almost no performance gain over PC2100.
Actually, I see it more like having a brain surgeon as your family doctor.
I do often wonder why specialised hardware is not used more often for tasks that are often performed. I recall that the Mac used to have some add-on cards that spead some Photoshop operations up to modern levels 3-4 years ago.
Why buy a big processor when the only intensive computational tasks are video en/decoding and games, tasks that can easily be farmed off to other, cheaper units?
For the same reason many people buy a $1,000 computer, rather than a $100 VCR, $250 DVD player, two $250 gaming consoles, $100 stereo, etc. Because although it may be more expensive than buying only specialized parts (although it often isn't), versatility has massive benefits.
This game came out just a couple of days ago, you have to admit it's a little bit early for a patch...
Makes you think they didnt even finish the game properly, kind of reminds of a game called Ultima IX
Or Diablo II, or Morrowind, or Neverwinter Nights, or Unreal Tournament 2003...Seriously, releasing a patch nearly the day of release is Standard Operating Procedure for video game development nowadays.
I posted this on another forum several days ago.
A word of note before we begin: I've only played a developers build. It's the complete game, and AFAIK, it's extremely similar to the one that's being shipped out for retail. There may be minor differences, but most of my beefs with the game are not ones that can be fixed through minor bugfixes.
Save your money and spend the $50 or so on something more worth your time. Worth a rent if you've got that opportunity in your area, especially if you're interested in finding out the (supposedly) deep and intricate parallell plotline that only it will contain.
As far as the game is concerned, it's somewhat like Max Payne, except catered towards the lowest common denominator. In other words, it's got piss-poor graphics (which run choppy anyways, even at mid detail, and are full of lots of bugs), the fonts are ugly as hell, the Matrix "screen" (green, reversed katakana characters sliding down the screen) is pathetically done (not just bad, but absolutely pathetic--I've seen screensavers do a FAR better job), the gameplay isn't too hard (if you stand for approx. 5 seconds, you start to regen health and "Focus" (bullet-time juice)), and the controls are clunky at best. For instance, there's no crosshair to aim while on foot (although there's a fairly crappy autoaim), in the car, your crosshair jumps 10 pixels at a minimum when you're riding shotgun and shooting, and in the car while driving, it handles like a souped-up Yugo on ice.
There's a few interesting things however. Some of the moves you can do are downright nifty. However, they aren't nearly as cool after the fiftieth time you've used them on the same level. There's a nifty "hacking" mode available from the main menu. I've done a bit of tinkering in, and it's kind of fun. It basically drops you at a DOS-ish shell, and you tinker around from there. However, the keyboard tends to flit between being unresponsive (missing keystrokes entirely) or over-sensitive (typing letters twice). This wouldn't be so bad, except there's no tab completion (for us BASH lovers) and there's no command history (so you can't hit up or shift+up for instance, to recall the last command you typed). This makes it a bitch to type long commands, especially since you have to type full directory paths for everything (there's no 'cd' command). Once you get used to it's quirks, however, it's worth fooling around in. Finally, the FMV is pretty good. The acting's as good, or better than in any other game's FMV. Also, they used a good codec, so there's no blocking, bleeding, or other graphical glitches in the FMV. I have to say, however, that I've been unimpressed with the meager bits of story I've seen so far, although admittedly, I'm only ten or so levels in.
I suppose had they had more time to work on it, it could have been an amazing game--one to go down in time as a classic. Alas, this was not the case. Also, in my opinion, Shiny was probably not the best developer to have chosen for the project. They aren't exactly known for their top-quality engines, and I would have far preferred seeing them use Max Payne's completely capable engine instead of trying to develop their own under limited time constraints.
To be honest, I'm horribly disappointed. With the incredible franchise they've got going, I expected more. After being wowed by The Matrix, having heard amazing things about The Matrix: Reloaded, and having seen the incredibly well-done Animatrix episodes, I've been nothing but impressed with the franchise. I'd been expecting the world from Enter the Matrix, having heard that the Wachowski Brothers viewed it as just as integral a part of the storytelling of the Matrix as the movies were. Now I'm beginning to feel that that was just marketing bullshit.
Rating: 4/10.
From a post of mine later on:
Interesting.
I cranked all the details up to max and entered the game, just to see how the graphics looked with full antialiasing, max resolution, etc. Oddly enough, a
I've tried to customize the message to make it easy to understand, but I guess I have dumb or stubborn friends. In particular, if a relative sends a joke to me and a long list of other people, and one of those people replies to everyone ("ha, that was really funny!!"), the sender gets really confused about getting a confirmation request from someone they haven't heard of before.
This is a bad thing?
This could possibly be implemented in the way that Yahoo, PayPal, et al do. Send an image with a slightly mangled word in it. Have them reply back with the word in the subject header.
The problem is effectively defining spam, so as not to accidentally turn innocent civilians into criminals. Kind of like how grandmothers have been arrested on child pornography charges, 'cause they had pictures of their grandkids in the bathtub or rolling around on the floor in the buff.
Now lets say that the mailing list programs make some mods to automatically respond to the message, assuming it has a standard format. Now a spammer can use the mailing list's address as their return address and take advantage of its response to a challenge!
Why wouldn't they, um, just set up their software to automatically respond to the emails?
Since you're gonna be so picky, the kung fu content was borderline nil. There was some ju jitsu, judo, kempo, karate, and tae kwon do, but relatively little kung fu.
Actually, the Evil Demon question was posed a little later than Plato's time, by Descartes.
This isn't necessarily a good thing, especially when you fuck over businesses in order to do it. If you don't agree with the business' stance, and want to use a different heatsink while keeping your warranty, but Intel. If you think it's worth voiding the warranty, by all means, go for it. Don't force companies to cater to idiots who don't know how to install hardware properly.