"Lindows is nothing special, they dont offer any software that makes linux more user friendly, all they do is modify existing software to be more like windows and attempt to hide the guts of the machine(no icon for terminal, no compiler, lack of basic command line tools, etc)"
Funny, that's what a lot of people said about Microsoft Windows. Back in the day, it was nothing more than a GUI on top of DOS.
- Want a graphical file manager? Use Dosshell. - Want a fairly capable graphical text editor, capable of editing multiple documents at once? Use Edit. - Want a graphical fully-featured help system? DOS has it.
Not only were all of the "power" features touted by Windows available in DOS, but many of them even came with slick interfaces. 3rd-party software could perform exactly the same in Windows as it did in DOS.
It seemed like a waste. And yet, it won over millions. It's the total package that counts, including presentation.
But apparently, you are not aware that PC/Windows vs Mac/OSX is a VERY tender subject on Slashdot. Be careful where you step, there are lots of irrational folks with a fast shot in these discussions.
Think about it. Macs used to be prohibitively expensive across the product line. They COULD make money doing this, but it was only because the offered the whole package. A LONG warranty, a nice package and a unique OS with fairly unique hardware.
But now, Macs are commodity items. Most of them don't come with SCSI drives anymore, and proprietary busses have been phased out and warranties trimmed.
Sure, the price has come down, but a lot of folks don't think it's enough for the ammount of commodity downgrade Apple's services and hardware have received.
It's like buying a $25k Land Rover. You KNOW it can't possibly be as good as a real Land Rover, but it's still 5k more than other small SUVs in it's price range, and is about the same build quality. So it feels like you're getting rooked.
But tell me, there has to be some mechanical engineer here on Slashdot to back me up:
Isn't a skid just an analog to OVERDAMPED RESPONSE, that is overshoot in a control system? That is to say, the system overshoots, and you lose contact and gain contact in oscillation as the system attempts to approach your target ( your "target" being full contact with the road )
Anti-Lock brakes would tend to force the driver to stay in contact with the roadway, and FORCE a CRITICALLY-DAMPED response. That is the say, the car responds as quickly as it possiblt can given the conditions.
When a child is born with a deformed head, it will most likely exhibit less intelligence.
When a man is hit in the head, he may become disoriented.
Extreme head injury can lead to long-term brain damage.
You don't think we just sat around and banged rocks together all day, do you?
Anyway, humans could not help but have a basic understanding of how a system like the digestive tract works. They slaughtered animals to live, they must have observed the system as a whole and in parts.
This gives rise to the question: how do you connect the brain with the concept of central control? Unlike the digestive tract it has no obvious flow path, it has no obvious inputs and outputs. But it is connected to the spine with nervs splintering out throught the body. This would imply some sort of system that branchs out, with the center being in the brain.
So, if you've observed brain injuries to affect cognitive ability, then the answer is obvious.
I'll set you loose in the Library of Congress. We will remove the Card Catalog, and all indicative signs.
You find a single book that I specify.
I'll come back and check on you in three years.
Routing is an art. Do not assume you can just magically pull it out of your ass. That IP is as scalable and capable as it is is truely impressive.
As to your dreams, there is nothing wrong with thinking aout of the box. Things like the internet got started as little projects like ARPAnet. But your optimisim leaves something to be desired, come back when you can get this working on even a dense city level.
First of all, you have the problem of latency. The only reason you can cross the USA in 40ms and the Atlantic in 100 is high-speed backbones. ad-hoc networks are going to have terrible latency, on the order of seconds.
Combine thousands of crappy routers with thin pipes contantly re-negotiating in between yourself and your target node, and you get crap latency.
Second of all, you've got to supply the other aspect backbones supply: links between population centers. You don't think every hick in Nebraska and every desert dweller in New Mexico is gonna contribute to this, do you?
"I for one started writing text adventures on my TI-82.:+)"
I would say the TI-82 was also the platform that sparked my love for programming.
I took classes and coded up the assignments on PC, but I never really got hooked. But after I discovered just how powerful and complete the basic-like language of the 82 was, I was hooked.
People were astounded when I showed them the simple driving game I came up with. Nobody at my school had ever thought of the 82 as anything more than a fancy calculator.
The key is, kids need something straightforward to initially ignite their interests. The interface and programming language need to be closely tied to the hardware, something you can't get on PCs today.
So, get your kids a graphing calculator. It's the closest thing on the market to the computers of the 70s/80s.
That or else download an emulator for your computer of choice. Simplify the introduction. They'll pick up the complicated stuf when they discover how much they like the process.
My god, this system is absolutely fucked due to the very nature of capitalism.
But the one thing we CAN do to bring some sembalance of order to the system is fight money with money. I mean, come on, nobody patents anything 'just because', they use the patent to make money or prevent competitors from making money.
People with no money complaining about getting caught on prior art? That's their problem, every single US Patent is available their disclosure before they file.
But I imagine since you get similar reactions between color boundaries, you probably end up with much less unique colors than that. So, 31k colors sounds about right.
If it's a very small loop that can be kept entirely in cache, the G4 is going to own that sucker.
It has very short pipelines, perfect for a single loop. This hardly makes it "better" overall, it is simply the better choice for that particular task.
This is the very decision that has torn any sembalance of government for the people out and replaced it with capitalism. IF you folks want to address the REAL problems with America, you should start there.
It's delayed about 45 minutes, but you can't tell me some warm body is actually LISTENING and updating the site. They just don't want to tell the public the truth, that %99 of all radio stations have their music schedule planned out weeks in advance.
If you could get them to publish this crap in advance for subscribers, you would have your scheduler feature.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with application-specific optimizations.
But this misses the whole point of 3dmark 2003. Different developers stress the pixel and triangle pipelines in different ways to produce a whole boatload of effects. While major games and engines are often optimized-for, there is no guarantee that ATI or Nvidia will sit down and optimize for the game you just bought.
That said, 3dmark 2003 should be considered a relational tool for generic perfrormance. Consider it a good bet that if two cards perform similarly and acceptably, the two cards should be able to run almost any DX8/DX9 game off the shelf acceptably.
The fact that Nvidia's unopitmized drivers perform significantly behind ATI's unoptimized drivers in 3dmark 2003 raises a significant question:
We all know how well the 5900 does in Quake III, Serious Sam 2, UT2003, etc, but how does it do in ?
I want to know that if I take *insert random DX8 game here* home to play, IT WILL PERFORM WELL. That is the entire point of having a benchmark like 3dmark. To do application-specific optimizations for it is to nullify the entire point of the benchmark.
I guess you didn't read the article I linked you to. Yes, take ou the obvious space, thank Slashdot for that beauty.
Juice and soda have the same approximate amount of calories. You'd be better off eating the fruit equivalant anyway.
* Eat more veggies * Lay off the simpler sugars / carbs * Drink water man. If you don't like water, the market feels your pain. You can get hundreds of things to flavor your water with that don't have sugar or caffene.
READ THE DAMN NUTRITION LABELS, don't just assume something is good for you. Too much of any 'good' thing is bad...you know, like sucking down an entire gallon of juice in a day. IF you don't exercise regularly and heavily, shoot for the 2500 calorie diet. If you grossly exceed those numbers, you're going to gain weight.
You think that just because a fluid is 'natural', it doesn't matter.
1 gallon = 128 fluid ounces
2% MILK = 5g fat per 8 ounce serving. 1 gallon %2 milk = 80g fat, more than your daily allowance.
Just from the fat, you now have 800 calories consumed. And that's ignoring the additional calories from protines and carbs.
JUICE : ranges from 110-210 calories per 8 ounce serving.
Best case: 1760 calories consumed in that gallon of juice.
Worst case: 3360 calories in that gallon.
The target burn for anyone who isn't weight training is well under 3000 calories per day. Anything left over is converted to fat.
http://www.jsonline.com/alive/nutrition/aug00/ju ic e30082900.asp
Dude. Drink MORE water. Lay off the milk, you don't have to set up your own calcium farm. Your bone structure will be fine if you consume the 1-2 8-ounce servings a day, instead of the 16 you're currently taking.
Lay off carbs. That means juice. That means potatos. Don't give them up, but make sure you curtail them quite a bit.
Yup. The world is run by big corps, and cares not what you give a rat's ass about.
Global Capitalism is the current empire, and we are surrounded by the Bread and Circus phase.
What am I talking about? Take a look at the Roman Empire. After it had grown too large to sustain it's weight, and the government had grown too corrupted and set in it's ways to change, the empire slowly crumbled. But they kept society ignorant by distraction - Bread and Circus. In such a situation, even free thinkers cannot motivate the masses due to their general satisfaction, so there's nothing dissenters can do.
So, be a cog in the machine, and take what you can. Watch the Daily Show for all your news and funnies, and be thankful that you are alive NOW rather than 100 years from now.
You know this world is going to hell in a handbasket, but thanks to the slow pace of such things, you won't have to endure much of it.
Do not buy them thinking they will change the way you do things.
Don't already have an organizer? You probably won't use a Palm/PocketPC for more than holding telephone numbers of people you hardly ever call, since your average cell phone can already handle this task.
Do you already organize your time with a calender? If not, don't bet on using the Palm/PocketPC for more than birthdays.
Do you have a portable gaming system, or have you used one often in the past? If not, you're probably not the type of person to use this feature much after the novelty wears off. True mobile gamers probably already own a Gameboy Classic / Color / Advance.
Web, Productivity? Forget it. Nobody does it on a regular basis because the screens are too damn low resolution.
Funny you should mention blurry screens...
on
YOPY Arrives
·
· Score: 1
The Palm III and the Palm IIIe were the last in Palm's lineup to use the older generation of LCD screens.
The newer generation of LCD screens, used on all non-color Handspring PDAs and all more recent Palm PDAs, has higher contrast and better response times. The image produced is sharper.
Of course, this BLOKE you speak of could have been just like the dozens of idiots who destroyed their screen's protective coating through heavy use. Any screen with a damaged coating is gonna look damn blurry.
Every slashdotter had a pretty good shot, To get spot inside the Public Server lot, If something happened on the way to that place, They threw a 'Personal File Server' subscription in our face!
1. Buy yourself a car with anti-lock brakes. No, I'm not kidding, you're a fucking fool if you pass up this wonder of technology. Uneven streets, potholes, oily spots, sheets of water, steel plates...ALL of the above and more can cause you to lose traction when you brake. Streets suck, and they're only getting worse.
2. Assume everyone around you is a complete idiot. On multi-laned highways, never sit in a driver's blind spot, either give a half a car length or pass him. Even more, be aware of other drivers and their intentions. Watch them, you will notice distinct patterns, such that you can anticipate a driver's intent even when the asshole doesn't use a signal. BE CAREFUL OF ANY ERRATIC DRIVERS, these are the worst because you cannot possibly predict their intent. Give them plenty of ground and sneak past only if it's safe.
You don't honestly think the lock on your door and the deadbolt is going to keep out a determined theif, do you?
You don't think that "anti-theft" or "electronic key" system is going to keep away the most determined and skilled car theif?
You can't honestly think that ANY box out there is %100 explot-free.
That said, this hack is the same thing as if a gang of theives broke into a large company, and moved every office in the building to a different location.
Nothing is stolen, and yet it costs the company money. The employees are visibly upset and distracted. Computers have been moved to different domains, and documents have been shuffled to who knows where.
Would the above be written off as a childish prank? Certainly not. It doesn't matter WHAT the target was, so long as it has value in someone's eyes.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with application-specific optimizations.
But this misses the whole point of 3dmark 2003. Different developers stress the pixel and triangle pipelines in different ways to produce a whole boatload of effects. While major games and engines are often optimized-for, there is no guarantee that ATI or Nvidia will sit down and optimize for the game you just bought.
That said, 3dmark 2003 should be considered a relational tool for generic perfrormance. Consider it a good bet that if two cards perform similarly and acceptably, the two cards should be able to run almost any DX8/DX9 game off the shelf acceptably.
The fact that Nvidia's unopitmized drivers perform significantly behind ATI's unoptimized drivers in 3dmark 2003 raises a significant question:
We all know how well the 5900 does in Quake III, Serious Sam 2, UT2003, etc, but how does it do in ?
Slashdot Mirror
"Lindows is nothing special, they dont offer any software that makes linux more user friendly, all they do is modify existing software to be more like windows and attempt to hide the guts of the machine(no icon for terminal, no compiler, lack of basic command line tools, etc)"
Funny, that's what a lot of people said about Microsoft Windows. Back in the day, it was nothing more than a GUI on top of DOS.
- Want a graphical file manager? Use Dosshell.
- Want a fairly capable graphical text editor, capable of editing multiple documents at once? Use Edit.
- Want a graphical fully-featured help system? DOS has it.
Not only were all of the "power" features touted by Windows available in DOS, but many of them even came with slick interfaces. 3rd-party software could perform exactly the same in Windows as it did in DOS.
It seemed like a waste. And yet, it won over millions. It's the total package that counts, including presentation.
Some situations, sarcasm is expected, and applauded.
/hd/crap/chicken/wing/feather/hda1
Take the Linux vs Windows crowds. On any thread involving discussion of one or the other ( both are not necessary ), you expect to see posts like:
"Ahahah, I paid Bill Gates $299, and all I got was this stupid Blue Screen of Death"
"I'm a first time Linux user, and it was so easy to install. After only 10 hours to build my slackware install, it was all ready to go:
Now, I simply went to the console and typed:
>creoni tarball gz==d | sdfnh!!@ fek fsk-f++++
>grep | -lba+12 cron | (dsfd)sdfsa0/hda/dev0
>ld -abcdefg$$$556%0 - |R|G|T|Y
>mnt
>die ?|TY
It was that easy!"
This is accepted, and expected.
But apparently, you are not aware that PC/Windows vs Mac/OSX is a VERY tender subject on Slashdot. Be careful where you step, there are lots of irrational folks with a fast shot in these discussions.
Or WWDC FM, Washington.
That's DC-101: Howard Stern's old stomping grounds.
Think about it. Macs used to be prohibitively expensive across the product line. They COULD make money doing this, but it was only because the offered the whole package. A LONG warranty, a nice package and a unique OS with fairly unique hardware.
But now, Macs are commodity items. Most of them don't come with SCSI drives anymore, and proprietary busses have been phased out and warranties trimmed.
Sure, the price has come down, but a lot of folks don't think it's enough for the ammount of commodity downgrade Apple's services and hardware have received.
It's like buying a $25k Land Rover. You KNOW it can't possibly be as good as a real Land Rover, but it's still 5k more than other small SUVs in it's price range, and is about the same build quality. So it feels like you're getting rooked.
But tell me, there has to be some mechanical engineer here on Slashdot to back me up:
Isn't a skid just an analog to OVERDAMPED RESPONSE, that is overshoot in a control system? That is to say, the system overshoots, and you lose contact and gain contact in oscillation as the system attempts to approach your target ( your "target" being full contact with the road )
Anti-Lock brakes would tend to force the driver to stay in contact with the roadway, and FORCE a CRITICALLY-DAMPED response. That is the say, the car responds as quickly as it possiblt can given the conditions.
Observation, of course.
When a child is born with a deformed head, it will most likely exhibit less intelligence.
When a man is hit in the head, he may become disoriented.
Extreme head injury can lead to long-term brain damage.
You don't think we just sat around and banged rocks together all day, do you?
Anyway, humans could not help but have a basic understanding of how a system like the digestive tract works. They slaughtered animals to live, they must have observed the system as a whole and in parts.
This gives rise to the question: how do you connect the brain with the concept of central control? Unlike the digestive tract it has no obvious flow path, it has no obvious inputs and outputs. But it is connected to the spine with nervs splintering out throught the body. This would imply some sort of system that branchs out, with the center being in the brain.
So, if you've observed brain injuries to affect cognitive ability, then the answer is obvious.
Let me put it to you this way.
I'll set you loose in the Library of Congress. We will remove the Card Catalog, and all indicative signs.
You find a single book that I specify.
I'll come back and check on you in three years.
Routing is an art. Do not assume you can just magically pull it out of your ass. That IP is as scalable and capable as it is is truely impressive.
As to your dreams, there is nothing wrong with thinking aout of the box. Things like the internet got started as little projects like ARPAnet. But your optimisim leaves something to be desired, come back when you can get this working on even a dense city level.
Sure, it's possible, but no, it would never work.
First of all, you have the problem of latency. The only reason you can cross the USA in 40ms and the Atlantic in 100 is high-speed backbones. ad-hoc networks are going to have terrible latency, on the order of seconds.
Combine thousands of crappy routers with thin pipes contantly re-negotiating in between yourself and your target node, and you get crap latency.
Second of all, you've got to supply the other aspect backbones supply: links between population centers. You don't think every hick in Nebraska and every desert dweller in New Mexico is gonna contribute to this, do you?
"I for one started writing text adventures on my TI-82. :+)"
I would say the TI-82 was also the platform that sparked my love for programming.
I took classes and coded up the assignments on PC, but I never really got hooked. But after I discovered just how powerful and complete the basic-like language of the 82 was, I was hooked.
People were astounded when I showed them the simple driving game I came up with. Nobody at my school had ever thought of the 82 as anything more than a fancy calculator.
The key is, kids need something straightforward to initially ignite their interests. The interface and programming language need to be closely tied to the hardware, something you can't get on PCs today.
So, get your kids a graphing calculator. It's the closest thing on the market to the computers of the 70s/80s.
That or else download an emulator for your computer of choice. Simplify the introduction. They'll pick up the complicated stuf when they discover how much they like the process.
My god, this system is absolutely fucked due to the very nature of capitalism.
But the one thing we CAN do to bring some sembalance of order to the system is fight money with money. I mean, come on, nobody patents anything 'just because', they use the patent to make money or prevent competitors from making money.
People with no money complaining about getting caught on prior art? That's their problem, every single US Patent is available their disclosure before they file.
The image is 217x217, which means 47089 pixels.
But I imagine since you get similar reactions between color boundaries, you probably end up with much less unique colors than that. So, 31k colors sounds about right.
If it's a very small loop that can be kept entirely in cache, the G4 is going to own that sucker.
It has very short pipelines, perfect for a single loop. This hardly makes it "better" overall, it is simply the better choice for that particular task.
>Corporations don't have rights, people do
Quite right, and Corporations are people. You can thank the Supreme Court, and a terrible interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Have a look for yourself
This is the very decision that has torn any sembalance of government for the people out and replaced it with capitalism. IF you folks want to address the REAL problems with America, you should start there.
Check out Yes.net
It's delayed about 45 minutes, but you can't tell me some warm body is actually LISTENING and updating the site. They just don't want to tell the public the truth, that %99 of all radio stations have their music schedule planned out weeks in advance.
If you could get them to publish this crap in advance for subscribers, you would have your scheduler feature.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with application-specific optimizations.
But this misses the whole point of 3dmark 2003. Different developers stress the pixel and triangle pipelines in different ways to produce a whole boatload of effects. While major games and engines are often optimized-for, there is no guarantee that ATI or Nvidia will sit down and optimize for the game you just bought.
That said, 3dmark 2003 should be considered a relational tool for generic perfrormance. Consider it a good bet that if two cards perform similarly and acceptably, the two cards should be able to run almost any DX8/DX9 game off the shelf acceptably.
The fact that Nvidia's unopitmized drivers perform significantly behind ATI's unoptimized drivers in 3dmark 2003 raises a significant question:
We all know how well the 5900 does in Quake III, Serious Sam 2, UT2003, etc, but how does it do in ?
I want to know that if I take *insert random DX8 game here* home to play, IT WILL PERFORM WELL. That is the entire point of having a benchmark like 3dmark. To do application-specific optimizations for it is to nullify the entire point of the benchmark.
"I figure juice is probably better than soda"
I guess you didn't read the article I linked you to. Yes, take ou the obvious space, thank Slashdot for that beauty.
Juice and soda have the same approximate amount of calories. You'd be better off eating the fruit equivalant anyway.
* Eat more veggies
* Lay off the simpler sugars / carbs
* Drink water man. If you don't like water, the market feels your pain. You can get hundreds of things to flavor your water with that don't have sugar or caffene.
READ THE DAMN NUTRITION LABELS, don't just assume something is good for you. Too much of any 'good' thing is bad...you know, like sucking down an entire gallon of juice in a day. IF you don't exercise regularly and heavily, shoot for the 2500 calorie diet. If you grossly exceed those numbers, you're going to gain weight.
You think that just because a fluid is 'natural', it doesn't matter.
u ic e30082900.asp
1 gallon = 128 fluid ounces
2% MILK = 5g fat per 8 ounce serving.
1 gallon %2 milk = 80g fat, more than your daily allowance.
Just from the fat, you now have 800 calories consumed. And that's ignoring the additional calories from protines and carbs.
JUICE : ranges from 110-210 calories per 8 ounce serving.
Best case: 1760 calories consumed in that gallon of juice.
Worst case: 3360 calories in that gallon.
The target burn for anyone who isn't weight training is well under 3000 calories per day. Anything left over is converted to fat.
http://www.jsonline.com/alive/nutrition/aug00/j
Dude. Drink MORE water. Lay off the milk, you don't have to set up your own calcium farm. Your bone structure will be fine if you consume the 1-2 8-ounce servings a day, instead of the 16 you're currently taking.
Lay off carbs. That means juice. That means potatos. Don't give them up, but make sure you curtail them quite a bit.
Yup. The world is run by big corps, and cares not what you give a rat's ass about.
Global Capitalism is the current empire, and we are surrounded by the Bread and Circus phase.
What am I talking about? Take a look at the Roman Empire. After it had grown too large to sustain it's weight, and the government had grown too corrupted and set in it's ways to change, the empire slowly crumbled. But they kept society ignorant by distraction - Bread and Circus. In such a situation, even free thinkers cannot motivate the masses due to their general satisfaction, so there's nothing dissenters can do.
So, be a cog in the machine, and take what you can. Watch the Daily Show for all your news and funnies, and be thankful that you are alive NOW rather than 100 years from now.
You know this world is going to hell in a handbasket, but thanks to the slow pace of such things, you won't have to endure much of it.
Do not buy them thinking they will change the way you do things.
Don't already have an organizer? You probably won't use a Palm/PocketPC for more than holding telephone numbers of people you hardly ever call, since your average cell phone can already handle this task.
Do you already organize your time with a calender? If not, don't bet on using the Palm/PocketPC for more than birthdays.
Do you have a portable gaming system, or have you used one often in the past? If not, you're probably not the type of person to use this feature much after the novelty wears off. True mobile gamers probably already own a Gameboy Classic / Color / Advance.
Web, Productivity? Forget it. Nobody does it on a regular basis because the screens are too damn low resolution.
The Palm III and the Palm IIIe were the last in Palm's lineup to use the older generation of LCD screens.
The newer generation of LCD screens, used on all non-color Handspring PDAs and all more recent Palm PDAs, has higher contrast and better response times. The image produced is sharper.
Of course, this BLOKE you speak of could have been just like the dozens of idiots who destroyed their screen's protective coating through heavy use. Any screen with a damaged coating is gonna look damn blurry.
Every slashdotter had a pretty good shot,
To get spot inside the Public Server lot,
If something happened on the way to that place,
They threw a 'Personal File Server' subscription in our face!
1. Buy yourself a car with anti-lock brakes. No, I'm not kidding, you're a fucking fool if you pass up this wonder of technology. Uneven streets, potholes, oily spots, sheets of water, steel plates...ALL of the above and more can cause you to lose traction when you brake. Streets suck, and they're only getting worse.
2. Assume everyone around you is a complete idiot. On multi-laned highways, never sit in a driver's blind spot, either give a half a car length or pass him. Even more, be aware of other drivers and their intentions. Watch them, you will notice distinct patterns, such that you can anticipate a driver's intent even when the asshole doesn't use a signal. BE CAREFUL OF ANY ERRATIC DRIVERS, these are the worst because you cannot possibly predict their intent. Give them plenty of ground and sneak past only if it's safe.
You don't honestly think the lock on your door and the deadbolt is going to keep out a determined theif, do you?
You don't think that "anti-theft" or "electronic key" system is going to keep away the most determined and skilled car theif?
You can't honestly think that ANY box out there is %100 explot-free.
That said, this hack is the same thing as if a gang of theives broke into a large company, and moved every office in the building to a different location.
Nothing is stolen, and yet it costs the company money. The employees are visibly upset and distracted. Computers have been moved to different domains, and documents have been shuffled to who knows where.
Would the above be written off as a childish prank? Certainly not. It doesn't matter WHAT the target was, so long as it has value in someone's eyes.
In the future, people will make their own characters, and play their own game.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with application-specific optimizations.
But this misses the whole point of 3dmark 2003. Different developers stress the pixel and triangle pipelines in different ways to produce a whole boatload of effects. While major games and engines are often optimized-for, there is no guarantee that ATI or Nvidia will sit down and optimize for the game you just bought.
That said, 3dmark 2003 should be considered a relational tool for generic perfrormance. Consider it a good bet that if two cards perform similarly and acceptably, the two cards should be able to run almost any DX8/DX9 game off the shelf acceptably.
The fact that Nvidia's unopitmized drivers perform significantly behind ATI's unoptimized drivers in 3dmark 2003 raises a significant question:
We all know how well the 5900 does in Quake III, Serious Sam 2, UT2003, etc, but how does it do in ?