Why is "pumping" a good thing? It means that for every pump, you are necessarily under braking and over braking at some point. Why not just brake at the correct level?
Because it averages out to the same thing, or as close as the sample rate of the system can manage. Engineers refer to this as "duty cycle".
I find it very funny that you're lambasting cheaper, early-generation ABS systems when it's readily apparent in your own words that they have potential. Look at higher-end braking systems available today, they offer independent 4-wheel ABS control to maximize the benefits of having ABS on the vehicle.
And I do wish you wouldn't bash ABS just because the designers of your particular system were retards. So your car leaves ABS on for 100 feet...that's pathetic. My crappy Saturn with a cheap-ass ABS system cuts out after a second or less of getting traction back from your typical "braking while going over a big pothole" situation. Even better, they provide a handy button to turn ABS off.
I would imagine that later generations of ABS systems will be even more responsive...and of course, like most electronics, the benefits high-end systems enjoy today will mostly trickle down to the low-end stuff.
Every new saftey invention has growing pains...early lap-only seatbelts weren't very effective. Early airbags killed many people they could have saved by releasing too quickly, and are still dangerous to children. ABS is newer than both of these technologies, and you expect it to be perfect? Give it time.
And if you don't want ABS standard on your car, why the FUCK did you buy a Volkswagen?
You all interpret the EULA in favor of the victim (bots are not allowed).
But then, you conveniently ignore the EULA clause which states that it is against the rules to sell / auction / trade in-game items.
You folks make the claim that the in-game items have real-world value, but according to the EULA they are worth nothing. It doesn't matter what people sell them for in unofficial channels, by even CLAIMING monetary losses lon the items stolen you break the very EULA that protects you from crap like bots.
Charging the theif with a crime...when the crime itself is based on values that go against the EULA...is fucking pathetic. Learn some logical consistency.
Same old story. Idiot taken advange of, perpetrator caught and strung up because there's no hope in hell of actually enforcing 'laws' in online games any more than the US is capable of winning the drug 'war'...but they think an example will somehow help their cause.
The genesis was 16-bit, and had a setup similar to the PS2 (new main processor plus older co-processor for compatibility). It had a 16-bit 68000 as its main processor, and an 8-bit Z80 coprocessor to control sound and provide hardware backward-compatibility with the Master System.
The Saturn had two 32-bit Hitachi SH2 processors. Strangely enough, so did the 32x, although they were clocked slower.
It would really suck if we killed off some kind of plant that was going to hold the key to solving a horrible disease of the future.
Conversely, it would really suck if a new mutation of a plant appeared in the future that could cure a horrible disease...and was subsequently overwhelmed by plants that we'd saved.
It's a two-way street. If species don't die off, new ones can't flourish. Don't pretend that you can comprehend what's best for a system as large as the earth.
Anyway, it's not as if it would be catastrophic if say, an entire species of crocodiles died tomorrow - there are hundreds of species of crocodile, and most are very similar in characteristics. The article doesn't mention a specific species of crocodile because it's probably not important.
It's possible the county was doing it almost as a public service, underpricing for the citizens of the county.
If you want to "help" the citizens of the county who actually need it, while still getting a little cash for these laptops, they could have done something very simple......like, say, make students apply to receive one of the laptops for a low price, and give preference to students who already receive reduced or free school lunch.
Boy, that was easy. As a school district, they already have access to all the information they need to get these laptops to POOR STUDENTS. But, thanks to this retarded blue-light special sale, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were resold.
Yes, that's the first thing I thought of. I've read that dual-core and 64-bit versions of the Pentium M with improved FPU performance have been in the works. The key fact here is that Intel has NEVER announced a desktop version of the Pentium M, even though the rumor mill has made the phasing out of the P4 a certainty. So, TECHNICALLY, it's a new CPU architecture.
These will probably be announced as desktop-only chips, and should be available within a year. 18 months...no way Intel will wait that long.
Indications are that this acceleration will be made available for the entire line of 6200 on up, but will probably be initially used as a selling point for the newer cards (probably limited to 7800 series on initial release).
The indications I get is that this is just a flash drive that acts as a bootable CD-ROM drive. I see no indication that this thing can do anything except boot a host PC. Seems like a waste of a beefy processor just to do simple bus arbitration, especially when custom ASICs can probably do a better job.
I thought the condition of the roads was enough to prevent ANYONE from speeding...myself included.
I am amazed anyone enforced a traffic law, after seeing several cars take red lights as suggestions, make their own lanes where none existed, and casually drive against traffic on a one-way road.
I can see them starting with 802.11b and then going to 802.11g, only to realize that it'll drop down to 802.11b speeds for all connections when one 802.11b client is allowed to connect...
802.11 doesn't work that way.
Every time an 802.11 device sends a packet, it includes a preamble sent at 1 Mbit. The preamble indicates the speed the rest of the packet will be sent at. Thus, the network can support each client sending at different data rates.
A single 802.11b connection will not significantly reduce the speed available to other 802.11g users (it just takes a little more airtime for the 802.11b user to send data, and thus reduces the maximum possible speed slightly). However, each 802.11b user you add to an 802.11g access point means each transmission to and from them takes longer...and that means more chance of collision than with the same number of 802.11g clients. So yes, a well-mixed crowd of 802.11b and 802.11g clients will run at near 802.11b speeds.
The simple solution? Don't let access points get saturated in the first place.
I too am interested in what 3 technologies a university would switch to. I suppose there is Boingo but other than that, 802.11 is the only thing that would make sense today. UWB tomorrow maybe but who knows?
You're forgetting that, before 802.11b, there was 802.11 (1 or 2Mbit data rates). There is also 802.11a, as well as other proprietary standards.
Sounds a lot like the arguments for sticking with the Imperial system of measurement. The rest of world managed the switch just fine, why would it be that much more difficult for time?
What 'rest of the world' are you talking about?
The British switched to liters, but they still measure distances in yards, still sell beer by the pint, and still post speeds in 'miles per hour'.
In Puerto Rico, they sell gas by the liter, cans of coke by the ounce, and post speed limits in 'miles per hour'.
That's just a small sample of just how much the rest of the world has 'switched over'.
Certain imperial units stick around because the Metric replacements offer ZERO improvements. Liters are a nice change because they're easy: you can visualize a Liter as a 10x10x10 cube full of water, and they're approximately 1Qt.
Switching time? That's the one thing the entire world seems to agree shouldn't change.
while Microsoft controls the direction of DirectX. I say that's mixed because a single company in control results in a much tighter API (look at the mass of extensions on OGL if you think their API is loose), but can stifle innovation since they tell the hardware vendor what goes in.
I would agree with this on earlier versions of Direct3D (Up to DX7), where Ms was basically just playing catchup with OpenGL.
However, DX8.0 and above have all been hardware vendor driven upgrades, pushing the boundaries of capabilities "officially" supported by OpenGL.
Nvidia pushed for and got DX8 with PS 1.1 for the GeForce 3.
ATI pushed for and got DX8.1 with PS 1.4 for the Radeon 8500.
ATI pushed for and got DX9 specs tailored specially so their 24-bit precision PS 2.0 pipes would be up to spec.
Nvidia pushed for and got DX9.0c, to support PS 3.0.
Although many other updates make their way into DX releases, you don't tend to get a new DirectX release these days without a major new graphical feature.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. If Apple would ship a standard 5400 RPM laptop drive instead of the pathetic 4200 RPM drive, it would be a quite usable machine. I might even consider buying into one, were this serious deficiency fixed.
It's no secret that Apple shipped all initial review units of the Mac Mini with a 5400 RPM drive, and it's no surprise how much the 4200 RPM drive hurts general usability performance in comparison.
Perhaps another good improvement would have been something more recent for video (no, it doesn't have to be FASTER, just slightly more recent), say, a 6200 TC or an x300 HM...but wait, Apple is in the dark ages still selling AGP core logic chipsets while the rest of the world is quickly moving on to PCIe.
If the media can store more data, then it can have more textures, models, levels without repetition.
There is a balance between cost and space used; you cannot expect space to be used just because it is there. I don't forsee many games pushing the capacity of Dual-layer DVD within the next generation, because it's just too expensive to pay all those artists to make enough additional textures and models to fill a Bluray disc. As for higher-resolution textures, you can already fit millions of them on a DVD.
I would say this is a smart move by Microsoft, although it would be a damn sight smarter to kick the HD-DVD consortium in the ass and get something in time to ship with the initial release of the 360. It doesn't have to run games on HD-DVD, just movies.
If they realized how critical it is to get in the door first with support for their media on a console, they would do whatever it took.
Not only that but they can use more levels of textures for mipmapping
The set of all power of 2 mip-map levels for a texture requires %50 more size than the texture alone, ignoring the benefits of compression. That's hardly worth blinking an eye at.
Try plugging a one-button mouse into a Windows or KDE system and see what kind of day you have.
Not true for Windows. You can accomplish anything in Windows using the single mouse button...you just can't do them as fast as many power users would like.
Single biggest false complaint I've heard concerning Right-Click in Windows: you cannot edit the Start Menu or Desktop without it.
Yes, you can edit the Start Menu and Desktop with a single mouse button, and it's even slightly intuitive: To add files / shortcuts, drag them over the start button and hold for one second (it opens up without a click). Do the same to open submenus, and drop the file where you want. To remove a file from the Start Menu or the Desktop, drag it to the convenient Recycle Bin right there.
Yes, these are by-far much easier to accomplish with the right-click context menu, and keys like delete. But for those who know there's a faster way, well, you're already a power user, and you have no base for complaints.
Oh yeah, you know that little key next to the right Control key? The CONTEXT MENU BUTTON? When you click (or release) the button, it will have the same effect as a right-click. No different from Apple users doing the Control-click. Even if you were to find a rare case where a function is impossible without a right mouse button, you could always use that.
Microsoft typically only includes new drivers with each service pack that give designers a common base to work with (like generic bus and system interface drivers). For example, service packs have added built-in SATA and USB 2.0 support to Windows 2000 and XP.
On the other hand, every new Microsoft OS ships with a good sample of popular drivers for devices released in the past few years. MS does this to encourage the upgrade market: the included drivers make upgrading a potentially smoother process than if you had to go fishing for the drivers yourself.
Once the majority of the upgrade market has jumped onboard (first year or so), the only people who have to worry about drivers are system integrators(who are better off managing their own driversets), and power-users, who don't mind jumping through a few hoops.
It would be foolish for MS to release updated specific driversets for minor service pack releases (which would only make the downloads larger), especially now that Windows Update has a convenient driver update tool.
Yeah, and you've never had a virus or spyware infection despite being on the Internet 24-7 with no firewall and no AV, yada, yada.
Let me tell you a story about a system.
I have a P200 with 48MB ram. For two years it was my internet gateway plus media player, with nothing more than Windows 2000 and Tiny firewall.
No antivirus, 24-7 internet-connected, and I even used it for browsing the net (using phoenix...this WAS over 2 years ago) when I didn't want to turn on another machine. It was marginally slow, but capable. Occasional scans with online AV scanners and anti-syware utilities revealed zero infections.
Why did I use it? Simple: it was very stable, and very easy to set up. BEST UPTIME: over 300 days.
NOW, THAT SAME P200 box runs Debian Linux, and simply performs routing duties. It performs just as admirably as it did under 2k, and were it not for the power-outtages from major storms, the uptime would undoubtedly be over a year at this point.
The point is, you can get a stable system if you use Linux, and you can get a stable system if you use Windows. It's when you start adding cruft that you start adding instability (and YES, you can make Linux unstable by adding the wrong things).
Now, the vast majority of XP users out there are too clueless to be selective in their additions, which results in less stable boxes. This is a good thing, however: when you think about all the shit software people download and run without a clue, it is patently amazing that general uptime numbers for Windows have improved SO MUCH.
Don't blindly down-play impressive improvements just because the end still falls slightly short of your higher standard.
Tom's doesn't know how to benchmark a chip. The folks there only post a limited viewpoint that supports whatever claim they're currently backing.
Note the sensationalist title, even though the Pentium M performs only so-so in the more modern gaming tests like Doom 3 and 3DMark, and falls behind in SSE-intensive tasks like video encoding.
Note also that the review uses Clawhammer and Newcastle core Athlon 64s. This is NO ACCIDENT. These cores are older,.13 micron jobs that produce a lot more heat than AMD's current lineup. If current cores had been used, the power usage difference wouldn't have been dramatic at all.
If you want to see a competent review of the Pentium M, see this review at Anand's. You'll see that the Pentium M is good for general-purpose computing, but but is only so-so for content creation for the most part.
In some cases the PM leads, in others the A64 leads, and in lots of benchmarks they match up fairly well clock-for-clock. Calling a winner depends on what you want to do with it.
Unfortunately, I don't think the PM's performance is going to hold it's own in upcoing games; the floating-point unit will be really stressed compared to all previous games with the coming of real physics simulation for more than a few objects on a map. That is the only reason I don't think Dothan is all-that.
However, Yonah should be an impressive improvement, both with the second core and beefier FPU / SSE unit. We'll have to wait and see.
Picture the idea of a processor that uses less than 30W max (give you a hint, no other current processor comes close),
No other processor, eh? Take a good, long look at those Winchester core power measurements. 33w for a 2.2 GHz processor, full-load, and 27w for a 1.8GHz, full-load. They sip much less than 10w when idle under Cool n Quiet, similar to the Pentium M.
While the PM uses less power, the Athlon 64 is certainly a close second. Now, take into account that the newer revisions of the A64 offer lower power consumption, 64-bit capability, an on-chip memory controller, and SSE3, and you see just how competitive the A64 is.
I believe what you meant to say is: no current Pentium 4 comes close.
and outperforms similarly speced processors without overclocking.
Typically, the PM is not competitve in applications that require strong floating point (and no, games don't typically require as strong of floating point performance as most people think). In all other applications, it is roughly 1:1 with the Athlon 64 in terms of performance per clock, and roughly 1.5:1 with the P4.
And at least according to Tom's Hardware, with overclocking it easily outperforms every processor on the market in most areas.
You can overclock A64 parts to impressive heights, especially with the latest core revisions.
Then again, you might be talking about Windows 98 or 95. Just hit Cancel at the password screen and BOOM!, you're in.
If you've ever worked with profiles, you would know that, along with user-based profiles, there is the "no-login" default profile.
Yes, people can log on, but it is possible to completely cripple the system to the point that they only have the ability to log off. No run, no program execution, no exploit. The only way to override this easily is by using poledit, which the interloper cannot run due to the restrictive policy. Otherwise, you have to reboot to DOS and muck around in policy files.
**NB:
Use care when crippling the default login case. You will make Safe Mode unusable in the process (no matter what you login as in Safe Mode in w95/98, you always get the "no login" policy applied), and could make the PC unrecoverable if you encounter a problem that prevents you from booting into normal mode.
If you're alluding to government intervention in our personal lives, I disagree with the above argument. It's based on the assumption that when the government makes a decision, we still get to make one too, and that's often not the case. The government decides that at 16 I can't see a rated-R movie by myself.
The MPAA ratings system is voluntary, and was put in place by the movie industry to prevent the national government control you are worried about here. Enforcement of the age restrictions is also voluntary, except where local / state laws apply.
The governments of many states have decreed that navigating a box of steel and polymers on pavement at 75 miles per hour is something I'm capable of doing responsibly when I'm 16, but not betting six bucks at a casino.
The governments of all states have come to the agreement that, to simplify things, minors cannot enter into contracts, and have put a minimum age as a general requirement.
A $6 bet is a contract.
As for the 21-years or older restriction for gambling, this is due to the fact that most states follow the leader rather than brave their own trail. Nevada law restricts the gambling floor to those 21 years or older.
Why? Casinos probably pull in as much money on drinks as they do on bets. It's like local clubs charging under-21 folks substantially more for cover, as they won't be ordering expensive drinks. It also doesn't hurt to mention that the 21 and over crowd generally is less rowdy and has more money overall to spend.
Just like the blanket law dealing with contracts, the blanket law dealing with people on the casino floor just makes it easier for those in the position to make the most money.
I'm not bitching about age restrictions; they're arbitrary but necessary. I'm pointing out that there aren't always multiple points of failure when the state is permitted to make decisions on your behalf on a micromanagement level
Sure there are, for necessary situations. Remember my discussion above concerning 18 being the "blanket age" of adulthood? There are certainly ways to become emancipated as early as age 16 in most states, for reasons of responsibility.
The reason they don't make an exception for gambling or alcohol like they do for emancipation? Because alcohol and gambling aren't REQUIRED for someone to take responsibility for themselves in an exceptional situation. They are purely secondary persuits with high levels of responsibility, thus the age restriction.
It goes through most enemies, and the damage is devestating (3 damage on bosses, if I recall correctly). For some of the earlier bosses, it is a single-shot kill.
However, don't think it suddenly makes the game a cakewalk. The rocket launcher is useless when you were being stormed from both sides, because it fires straight, and only one projectile is allowed onscreen. Some levels purposefully make you use another weapon, as enemies are designed to evade / block rocket launcher shots.
And yes, I remember playing this game to the end several times as a kid, and still have it and my NES still working.
Pretty pathetic, as you might imagine. The series had other problems that ultimately killed the concept.
Kenwood produced three drives in the TrueX series: 40x, 52x and 72x.
My roomate, who always liked to buy the latest and greatest, spent over $100 on the 40x TrueX drive when it was released (and the fastest single-speed drives were loud 32x max drives).
The 40x TrueX was a CLV drive, which meant it always read at the same rate ( meaning you got roughly 6x speed x 7 lasers, or ~42x through the whole disc), and changed linear velocity as you got near the edge of the disc. Of course, CAV had benefits and disbenefits: the slow spindle speed meant little noise, but also pathetic seek times. The worst part about CLV was, since the disc spinned slower as you reached the outer areas, the part of the disc with the greatest data density per track had the worst access times.
As for the really bad stuff: the drives had trouble being detected properly by IDE controllers, and were picky about what CD-R discs they would read. Kenwood ultimately had a class-action suit brought against them for the issues surrounding the 40x drives, and they had to pay out. This really hurt the reputation of future TrueX drives.
The 52x was the same drive with a faster CLV rate, ~7x. Spending $150 on a marginal CD-ROM that also wrote CDs seemed like a better invetment by the time this drive hit the market.
The 72x was a marriage of CAV and CLV (and thus, better access times), and though impressive, came ultimately too late. Of course, by then it was obvious that a dedicated CD drive could not survive in the marketplace, regardless of the speed improvements. Kenwood should have added DVD-ROM or CD writer capability.
Genesis: first to market of the REAL 16-bit generation, it had nearly 2 years lead over the SNES, and still managed to nearly fail. Were it not for Sonic, some impressive 3rd-party developer deals and the 6-button controller just in time to combat the SNES, Sega would have been dead long before the Dreamcast.
SegaCD, 32x: wasted efforts that just managed to make Sega look inconsistent. The SegaCD had the capacity of the Saturn without the hardware, and the 32x had the hardware of the Saturn without the capacity. Sega didn't seem to get the fact that they needed BOTH to make the jump to the next generation, and that anything less would be greeted by the market as a largely unsupported stopgap.
Honestly, if Sega hadn't been dicking around with the SegaCD and 32x, they probably could have made a stronger, earlier release of the Saturn. As it was, they had pissed off developers and gamers alike by delivering stopgap solutions.
Sega's hardware division was already fucked by the time they released the Saturn. They just didn't want to admit it.
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Why is "pumping" a good thing? It means that for every pump, you are necessarily under braking and over braking at some point. Why not just brake at the correct level?
Because it averages out to the same thing, or as close as the sample rate of the system can manage. Engineers refer to this as "duty cycle".
I find it very funny that you're lambasting cheaper, early-generation ABS systems when it's readily apparent in your own words that they have potential. Look at higher-end braking systems available today, they offer independent 4-wheel ABS control to maximize the benefits of having ABS on the vehicle.
And I do wish you wouldn't bash ABS just because the designers of your particular system were retards. So your car leaves ABS on for 100 feet...that's pathetic. My crappy Saturn with a cheap-ass ABS system cuts out after a second or less of getting traction back from your typical "braking while going over a big pothole" situation. Even better, they provide a handy button to turn ABS off.
I would imagine that later generations of ABS systems will be even more responsive...and of course, like most electronics, the benefits high-end systems enjoy today will mostly trickle down to the low-end stuff.
Every new saftey invention has growing pains...early lap-only seatbelts weren't very effective. Early airbags killed many people they could have saved by releasing too quickly, and are still dangerous to children. ABS is newer than both of these technologies, and you expect it to be perfect? Give it time.
And if you don't want ABS standard on your car, why the FUCK did you buy a Volkswagen?
You all interpret the EULA in favor of the victim (bots are not allowed).
But then, you conveniently ignore the EULA clause which states that it is against the rules to sell / auction / trade in-game items.
You folks make the claim that the in-game items have real-world value, but according to the EULA they are worth nothing. It doesn't matter what people sell them for in unofficial channels, by even CLAIMING monetary losses lon the items stolen you break the very EULA that protects you from crap like bots.
Charging the theif with a crime...when the crime itself is based on values that go against the EULA...is fucking pathetic. Learn some logical consistency.
Same old story. Idiot taken advange of, perpetrator caught and strung up because there's no hope in hell of actually enforcing 'laws' in online games any more than the US is capable of winning the drug 'war'...but they think an example will somehow help their cause.
The genesis was 16-bit, and had a setup similar to the PS2 (new main processor plus older co-processor for compatibility). It had a 16-bit 68000 as its main processor, and an 8-bit Z80 coprocessor to control sound and provide hardware backward-compatibility with the Master System.
The Saturn had two 32-bit Hitachi SH2 processors. Strangely enough, so did the 32x, although they were clocked slower.
Hardly funny. My Probability and Statistics book I recently bought came with an eratta page stuffed in the back sleeve.
It's basically all the errors caught after publishing and before the books shipped.
It would really suck if we killed off some kind of plant that was going to hold the key to solving a horrible disease of the future.
Conversely, it would really suck if a new mutation of a plant appeared in the future that could cure a horrible disease...and was subsequently overwhelmed by plants that we'd saved.
It's a two-way street. If species don't die off, new ones can't flourish. Don't pretend that you can comprehend what's best for a system as large as the earth.
Anyway, it's not as if it would be catastrophic if say, an entire species of crocodiles died tomorrow - there are hundreds of species of crocodile, and most are very similar in characteristics. The article doesn't mention a specific species of crocodile because it's probably not important.
Same goes for any other species.
It's possible the county was doing it almost as a public service, underpricing for the citizens of the county.
...like, say, make students apply to receive one of the laptops for a low price, and give preference to students who already receive reduced or free school lunch.
If you want to "help" the citizens of the county who actually need it, while still getting a little cash for these laptops, they could have done something very simple...
Boy, that was easy. As a school district, they already have access to all the information they need to get these laptops to POOR STUDENTS. But, thanks to this retarded blue-light special sale, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were resold.
Yes, that's the first thing I thought of. I've read that dual-core and 64-bit versions of the Pentium M with improved FPU performance have been in the works. The key fact here is that Intel has NEVER announced a desktop version of the Pentium M, even though the rumor mill has made the phasing out of the P4 a certainty. So, TECHNICALLY, it's a new CPU architecture.
These will probably be announced as desktop-only chips, and should be available within a year. 18 months...no way Intel will wait that long.
Guess you didn't liook very hard...
Indications are that this acceleration will be made available for the entire line of 6200 on up, but will probably be initially used as a selling point for the newer cards (probably limited to 7800 series on initial release).
I can't figure out why it has a PPC chip onboard.
The indications I get is that this is just a flash drive that acts as a bootable CD-ROM drive. I see no indication that this thing can do anything except boot a host PC. Seems like a waste of a beefy processor just to do simple bus arbitration, especially when custom ASICs can probably do a better job.
You got a speeding ticket in Puerto Rico?
I thought the condition of the roads was enough to prevent ANYONE from speeding...myself included.
I am amazed anyone enforced a traffic law, after seeing several cars take red lights as suggestions, make their own lanes where none existed, and casually drive against traffic on a one-way road.
I can see them starting with 802.11b and then going to 802.11g, only to realize that it'll drop down to 802.11b speeds for all connections when one 802.11b client is allowed to connect...
802.11 doesn't work that way.
Every time an 802.11 device sends a packet, it includes a preamble sent at 1 Mbit. The preamble indicates the speed the rest of the packet will be sent at. Thus, the network can support each client sending at different data rates.
A single 802.11b connection will not significantly reduce the speed available to other 802.11g users (it just takes a little more airtime for the 802.11b user to send data, and thus reduces the maximum possible speed slightly). However, each 802.11b user you add to an 802.11g access point means each transmission to and from them takes longer...and that means more chance of collision than with the same number of 802.11g clients. So yes, a well-mixed crowd of 802.11b and 802.11g clients will run at near 802.11b speeds.
The simple solution? Don't let access points get saturated in the first place.
I too am interested in what 3 technologies a university would switch to. I suppose there is Boingo but other than that, 802.11 is the only thing that would make sense today. UWB tomorrow maybe but who knows?
You're forgetting that, before 802.11b, there was 802.11 (1 or 2Mbit data rates). There is also 802.11a, as well as other proprietary standards.
Sounds a lot like the arguments for sticking with the Imperial system of measurement. The rest of world managed the switch just fine, why would it be that much more difficult for time?
What 'rest of the world' are you talking about?
The British switched to liters, but they still measure distances in yards, still sell beer by the pint, and still post speeds in 'miles per hour'.
In Puerto Rico, they sell gas by the liter, cans of coke by the ounce, and post speed limits in 'miles per hour'.
That's just a small sample of just how much the rest of the world has 'switched over'.
Certain imperial units stick around because the Metric replacements offer ZERO improvements. Liters are a nice change because they're easy: you can visualize a Liter as a 10x10x10 cube full of water, and they're approximately 1Qt.
Switching time? That's the one thing the entire world seems to agree shouldn't change.
while Microsoft controls the direction of DirectX. I say that's mixed because a single company in control results in a much tighter API (look at the mass of extensions on OGL if you think their API is loose), but can stifle innovation since they tell the hardware vendor what goes in.
I would agree with this on earlier versions of Direct3D (Up to DX7), where Ms was basically just playing catchup with OpenGL.
However, DX8.0 and above have all been hardware vendor driven upgrades, pushing the boundaries of capabilities "officially" supported by OpenGL.
Nvidia pushed for and got DX8 with PS 1.1 for the GeForce 3.
ATI pushed for and got DX8.1 with PS 1.4 for the Radeon 8500.
ATI pushed for and got DX9 specs tailored specially so their 24-bit precision PS 2.0 pipes would be up to spec.
Nvidia pushed for and got DX9.0c, to support PS 3.0.
Although many other updates make their way into DX releases, you don't tend to get a new DirectX release these days without a major new graphical feature.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. If Apple would ship a standard 5400 RPM laptop drive instead of the pathetic 4200 RPM drive, it would be a quite usable machine. I might even consider buying into one, were this serious deficiency fixed.
It's no secret that Apple shipped all initial review units of the Mac Mini with a 5400 RPM drive, and it's no surprise how much the 4200 RPM drive hurts general usability performance in comparison.
Perhaps another good improvement would have been something more recent for video (no, it doesn't have to be FASTER, just slightly more recent), say, a 6200 TC or an x300 HM...but wait, Apple is in the dark ages still selling AGP core logic chipsets while the rest of the world is quickly moving on to PCIe.
If the media can store more data, then it can have more textures, models, levels without repetition.
There is a balance between cost and space used; you cannot expect space to be used just because it is there. I don't forsee many games pushing the capacity of Dual-layer DVD within the next generation, because it's just too expensive to pay all those artists to make enough additional textures and models to fill a Bluray disc. As for higher-resolution textures, you can already fit millions of them on a DVD.
I would say this is a smart move by Microsoft, although it would be a damn sight smarter to kick the HD-DVD consortium in the ass and get something in time to ship with the initial release of the 360. It doesn't have to run games on HD-DVD, just movies.
If they realized how critical it is to get in the door first with support for their media on a console, they would do whatever it took.
Not only that but they can use more levels of textures for mipmapping
The set of all power of 2 mip-map levels for a texture requires %50 more size than the texture alone, ignoring the benefits of compression. That's hardly worth blinking an eye at.
Try plugging a one-button mouse into a Windows or KDE system and see what kind of day you have.
Not true for Windows. You can accomplish anything in Windows using the single mouse button...you just can't do them as fast as many power users would like.
Single biggest false complaint I've heard concerning Right-Click in Windows: you cannot edit the Start Menu or Desktop without it.
Yes, you can edit the Start Menu and Desktop with a single mouse button, and it's even slightly intuitive: To add files / shortcuts, drag them over the start button and hold for one second (it opens up without a click). Do the same to open submenus, and drop the file where you want. To remove a file from the Start Menu or the Desktop, drag it to the convenient Recycle Bin right there.
Yes, these are by-far much easier to accomplish with the right-click context menu, and keys like delete. But for those who know there's a faster way, well, you're already a power user, and you have no base for complaints.
Oh yeah, you know that little key next to the right Control key? The CONTEXT MENU BUTTON? When you click (or release) the button, it will have the same effect as a right-click. No different from Apple users doing the Control-click. Even if you were to find a rare case where a function is impossible without a right mouse button, you could always use that.
Microsoft typically only includes new drivers with each service pack that give designers a common base to work with (like generic bus and system interface drivers). For example, service packs have added built-in SATA and USB 2.0 support to Windows 2000 and XP.
On the other hand, every new Microsoft OS ships with a good sample of popular drivers for devices released in the past few years. MS does this to encourage the upgrade market: the included drivers make upgrading a potentially smoother process than if you had to go fishing for the drivers yourself.
Once the majority of the upgrade market has jumped onboard (first year or so), the only people who have to worry about drivers are system integrators(who are better off managing their own driversets), and power-users, who don't mind jumping through a few hoops.
It would be foolish for MS to release updated specific driversets for minor service pack releases (which would only make the downloads larger), especially now that Windows Update has a convenient driver update tool.
Yeah, and you've never had a virus or spyware infection despite being on the Internet 24-7 with no firewall and no AV, yada, yada.
Let me tell you a story about a system.
I have a P200 with 48MB ram. For two years it was my internet gateway plus media player, with nothing more than Windows 2000 and Tiny firewall.
No antivirus, 24-7 internet-connected, and I even used it for browsing the net (using phoenix...this WAS over 2 years ago) when I didn't want to turn on another machine. It was marginally slow, but capable. Occasional scans with online AV scanners and anti-syware utilities revealed zero infections.
Why did I use it? Simple: it was very stable, and very easy to set up. BEST UPTIME: over 300 days.
NOW, THAT SAME P200 box runs Debian Linux, and simply performs routing duties. It performs just as admirably as it did under 2k, and were it not for the power-outtages from major storms, the uptime would undoubtedly be over a year at this point.
The point is, you can get a stable system if you use Linux, and you can get a stable system if you use Windows. It's when you start adding cruft that you start adding instability (and YES, you can make Linux unstable by adding the wrong things).
Now, the vast majority of XP users out there are too clueless to be selective in their additions, which results in less stable boxes. This is a good thing, however: when you think about all the shit software people download and run without a clue, it is patently amazing that general uptime numbers for Windows have improved SO MUCH.
Don't blindly down-play impressive improvements just because the end still falls slightly short of your higher standard.
Tom's doesn't know how to benchmark a chip. The folks there only post a limited viewpoint that supports whatever claim they're currently backing.
.13 micron jobs that produce a lot more heat than AMD's current lineup. If current cores had been used, the power usage difference wouldn't have been dramatic at all.
Note the sensationalist title, even though the Pentium M performs only so-so in the more modern gaming tests like Doom 3 and 3DMark, and falls behind in SSE-intensive tasks like video encoding.
Note also that the review uses Clawhammer and Newcastle core Athlon 64s. This is NO ACCIDENT. These cores are older,
If you want to see a competent review of the Pentium M, see this review at Anand's. You'll see that the Pentium M is good for general-purpose computing, but but is only so-so for content creation for the most part.
In some cases the PM leads, in others the A64 leads, and in lots of benchmarks they match up fairly well clock-for-clock. Calling a winner depends on what you want to do with it.
Unfortunately, I don't think the PM's performance is going to hold it's own in upcoing games; the floating-point unit will be really stressed compared to all previous games with the coming of real physics simulation for more than a few objects on a map. That is the only reason I don't think Dothan is all-that.
However, Yonah should be an impressive improvement, both with the second core and beefier FPU / SSE unit. We'll have to wait and see.
Picture the idea of a processor that uses less than 30W max (give you a hint, no other current processor comes close),
No other processor, eh? Take a good, long look at those Winchester core power measurements. 33w for a 2.2 GHz processor, full-load, and 27w for a 1.8GHz, full-load. They sip much less than 10w when idle under Cool n Quiet, similar to the Pentium M.
While the PM uses less power, the Athlon 64 is certainly a close second. Now, take into account that the newer revisions of the A64 offer lower power consumption, 64-bit capability, an on-chip memory controller, and SSE3, and you see just how competitive the A64 is.
I believe what you meant to say is: no current Pentium 4 comes close.
and outperforms similarly speced processors without overclocking.
Typically, the PM is not competitve in applications that require strong floating point (and no, games don't typically require as strong of floating point performance as most people think). In all other applications, it is roughly 1:1 with the Athlon 64 in terms of performance per clock, and roughly 1.5:1 with the P4.
And at least according to Tom's Hardware, with overclocking it easily outperforms every processor on the market in most areas.
You can overclock A64 parts to impressive heights, especially with the latest core revisions.
Then again, you might be talking about Windows 98 or 95. Just hit Cancel at the password screen and BOOM!, you're in.
If you've ever worked with profiles, you would know that, along with user-based profiles, there is the "no-login" default profile.
Yes, people can log on, but it is possible to completely cripple the system to the point that they only have the ability to log off. No run, no program execution, no exploit. The only way to override this easily is by using poledit, which the interloper cannot run due to the restrictive policy. Otherwise, you have to reboot to DOS and muck around in policy files.
**NB:
Use care when crippling the default login case. You will make Safe Mode unusable in the process (no matter what you login as in Safe Mode in w95/98, you always get the "no login" policy applied), and could make the PC unrecoverable if you encounter a problem that prevents you from booting into normal mode.
If you're alluding to government intervention in our personal lives, I disagree with the above argument. It's based on the assumption that when the government makes a decision, we still get to make one too, and that's often not the case. The government decides that at 16 I can't see a rated-R movie by myself.
The MPAA ratings system is voluntary, and was put in place by the movie industry to prevent the national government control you are worried about here. Enforcement of the age restrictions is also voluntary, except where local / state laws apply.
The governments of many states have decreed that navigating a box of steel and polymers on pavement at 75 miles per hour is something I'm capable of doing responsibly when I'm 16, but not betting six bucks at a casino.
The governments of all states have come to the agreement that, to simplify things, minors cannot enter into contracts, and have put a minimum age as a general requirement.
A $6 bet is a contract.
As for the 21-years or older restriction for gambling, this is due to the fact that most states follow the leader rather than brave their own trail. Nevada law restricts the gambling floor to those 21 years or older.
Why? Casinos probably pull in as much money on drinks as they do on bets. It's like local clubs charging under-21 folks substantially more for cover, as they won't be ordering expensive drinks. It also doesn't hurt to mention that the 21 and over crowd generally is less rowdy and has more money overall to spend.
Just like the blanket law dealing with contracts, the blanket law dealing with people on the casino floor just makes it easier for those in the position to make the most money.
I'm not bitching about age restrictions; they're arbitrary but necessary. I'm pointing out that there aren't always multiple points of failure when the state is permitted to make decisions on your behalf on a micromanagement level
Sure there are, for necessary situations. Remember my discussion above concerning 18 being the "blanket age" of adulthood? There are certainly ways to become emancipated as early as age 16 in most states, for reasons of responsibility.
The reason they don't make an exception for gambling or alcohol like they do for emancipation? Because alcohol and gambling aren't REQUIRED for someone to take responsibility for themselves in an exceptional situation. They are purely secondary persuits with high levels of responsibility, thus the age restriction.
That would be the rocket launcher.
It goes through most enemies, and the damage is devestating (3 damage on bosses, if I recall correctly). For some of the earlier bosses, it is a single-shot kill.
However, don't think it suddenly makes the game a cakewalk. The rocket launcher is useless when you were being stormed from both sides, because it fires straight, and only one projectile is allowed onscreen. Some levels purposefully make you use another weapon, as enemies are designed to evade / block rocket launcher shots.
And yes, I remember playing this game to the end several times as a kid, and still have it and my NES still working.
Pretty pathetic, as you might imagine. The series had other problems that ultimately killed the concept.
Kenwood produced three drives in the TrueX series: 40x, 52x and 72x.
My roomate, who always liked to buy the latest and greatest, spent over $100 on the 40x TrueX drive when it was released (and the fastest single-speed drives were loud 32x max drives).
The 40x TrueX was a CLV drive, which meant it always read at the same rate ( meaning you got roughly 6x speed x 7 lasers, or ~42x through the whole disc), and changed linear velocity as you got near the edge of the disc. Of course, CAV had benefits and disbenefits: the slow spindle speed meant little noise, but also pathetic seek times. The worst part about CLV was, since the disc spinned slower as you reached the outer areas, the part of the disc with the greatest data density per track had the worst access times.
As for the really bad stuff: the drives had trouble being detected properly by IDE controllers, and were picky about what CD-R discs they would read. Kenwood ultimately had a class-action suit brought against them for the issues surrounding the 40x drives, and they had to pay out. This really hurt the reputation of future TrueX drives.
The 52x was the same drive with a faster CLV rate, ~7x. Spending $150 on a marginal CD-ROM that also wrote CDs seemed like a better invetment by the time this drive hit the market.
The 72x was a marriage of CAV and CLV (and thus, better access times), and though impressive, came ultimately too late. Of course, by then it was obvious that a dedicated CD drive could not survive in the marketplace, regardless of the speed improvements. Kenwood should have added DVD-ROM or CD writer capability.
Rushed First out: Saturn
First out: Dreamcast
You're missing a few steps here.
Genesis: first to market of the REAL 16-bit generation, it had nearly 2 years lead over the SNES, and still managed to nearly fail. Were it not for Sonic, some impressive 3rd-party developer deals and the 6-button controller just in time to combat the SNES, Sega would have been dead long before the Dreamcast.
SegaCD, 32x: wasted efforts that just managed to make Sega look inconsistent. The SegaCD had the capacity of the Saturn without the hardware, and the 32x had the hardware of the Saturn without the capacity. Sega didn't seem to get the fact that they needed BOTH to make the jump to the next generation, and that anything less would be greeted by the market as a largely unsupported stopgap.
Honestly, if Sega hadn't been dicking around with the SegaCD and 32x, they probably could have made a stronger, earlier release of the Saturn. As it was, they had pissed off developers and gamers alike by delivering stopgap solutions.
Sega's hardware division was already fucked by the time they released the Saturn. They just didn't want to admit it.