It's a doubling of the density of transistors every 18 months. It doesn't say anything about magnetic storage density or the clock speed of chips. Intel cancelling the 4GHz P4 was just admitting (and it's about time) that cranking up the clock speed is not the best way to improve CPU performance. There is no indication that will prevent Moore's Law from continuing
Why would I pay to play Sims 2 after getting ripped off on Sims? The Sims looked nice for it's time, it was eye candy. Just because the eye candy is dated now doesn't suddenly decrease the fact that that's what it was.
Anyway, I expect my gameplaying time and money to be going into World of Warcraft for the forseeable future:).
The only ones on your list I've played are The Sims and SimCity. It's funny you mention The Sims, because I'd use that as a perfect example of my point. It looks nice, but the playability is horrible. It takes 30 minutes of gametime to walk across a room. Considering that, there just isn't enough time in a sim day to do everything you have to. Even "cheating" and only going into work every second day so you don't get fired but get more free time doesn't help much. The controls are very cumbersome too, it's hard to get the sim to do what you want it to do, The AI keeps trying to do what it wants, but if you let it go ahead and don't micromanage the character is too stupid to live. Besides all that, it gets very old very fast which is why there's so many expansions just to keep things interesting.
SimCity is old enough to count as an old game, and it has much better playability than SimCity 2000. After the piece of crap that is SC2000 I went back to the original and haven't even tried any of the newer versions.
I'm running slackware on an AMD 5x86 133 MHz. It's a 486 CPU. It works perfectly as a firewall, file server, and test webserver (which is all the functionality I expect from it).
Why would I want to waste $150 upgrading the hardware and who knows how many hours configuring a resource hog version of linux just to get it to do exactly what it does now?
It will always "still" be in beta for 2 reasons. One is so they don't have any liability when things like this happen; after all they never said it was stable or secure, it's a work in progress. Two is that they're getting a lot of data to build up a social network with their invite system. With the rate at which invites are made available it is practically open now, you just need a link for their social network to join.
The DRM will not prevent good old-fashoned "insert and hit play", but it will prevent uncontrolled ripping and copying
I'll believe that when I see it. Copy-protection has been a trade-off between protection and ability to use the data since the idea was first conceived.
The marketing drones always say it won't interfere with normal use. Even the CD DRM that prevents it from being played at all on computers, DVD players and older CD players.
Actually, it's the modern Canadian flag. I just had a look at a Canadian $5 bill with a microscope. It's a bit hard to tell because of lack of detail in the bill, but it's definately the modern maple leaf flag.
The rumour that it's a US flag started because the shape of the flag blowing in the wind looks like the head of a US bald eagle. You don't need any special optics to be able to see that.
It's still seems better than any PDA on the market. The most important feature to me is that it take standard batteries (it takes AAA's). I have 2 sets of NiMH ones and a set of alkalines as spares. One set of rechargables is always charging, the other is in the PDA. When the set in the PDA dies, I use the alkalines as a backup until I get home and swap the ones from the charge into the PDA. I'm still getting 3-4 weeks on a charge.
I had a Treo 90 for the colour screen but the internal Li-Ion battery wouldn't last through a 4-hour flight as an ebook. If I forget to charge it one night, it's useless the next day.
Then you use this fancy new device called a capacitor. They can act like batteries that can be changed in miliseconds and discharged in microseconds. They're quite commonly used that way in camera flashes.
Of course, they can also be discharged slower over hours.
but it has no effect on the total energy output, so it lets you build devices that drain batteries even faster. Just what we need.
An NiMH cell can already handle a load of 2C quite easily. Do we really need more? If that's not enough power, it's time to move to a larger cell. What good is a PDA/Cellphone/Camera that only lasts for 15 minutes on a charge even if it is 10% smaller than the old model?
When starting out in a new language, I like a book like the Teach Yourself series which starts out by taking you through installing and setting up environment at a very simple level, and then goes on to examples I can skim through and quickly graduate to a referrence book or the online docs.
Most referrence books and advanced books assume you already have a working environment and sometimes (think Java) installing and getting everything working is the hardest part.
Once I'm passed the initial bumps though, I want a book that's aimed at advanced users, mainly because the more "beginner friendly" a book is, the lower the signal-noise ratio in the writing.
Interesting article
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I subscribe to Wired and I read the article a few days ago when I got the magazine.
I want the article to be right, but it seems more like a hope than any evidence. Amazon, Netflix, etc are selling/renting a lot of material that traditional stores don't stock, but it doesn't seem like it's indicating any great shift.
Amazon was most dramatic as far as how far much of their sales are of items not stocked at normal book stores. But that just makes sense; if I can buy the book at a brick and morter store I will because then I get a chance to see it, read a bit of it and be sure I like it. Once I've done all that, I don't want to wait a few days to get it from amazon just to save a few percent, I want it right away, so I'll buy it at the store. If I can't find the book in normal stores, then I'll look at amazon.
The cargo ships don't return to earth in one piece. They're allowed to burn up on re-entry. On the manned modules return and they don't have the space for the garbage.
The shuttles had more room for garbage but they aren't flying now.
The result of decoding even 320kbs VBR perceptual coding algorithms such as mp3 is very different from the original sound.
The idea is that those differences are in areas the human ear can't detect; high frequency shifts, loud and quiet sounds at the same time.
There are very likely nuances to the music that we can't "hear" but still detect with our ears at a subconscious level.
Deleting the high freqency co-efficients from the DCT leaves the sound wave much more ragged, this is harder on your speakers (not a big deal), and there is a chance that the ragged sound wave will cause permanent damage to your ears (a very big deal).
Anyway, all this is besides the point; I can go into a store and buy a CD with "CD quality" music that also gives me a pressed media as a backup for about the same price as I can download heavily compressed files of the same music. Why would I not buy the CD?
I bought the 386DX40 then, it was my first AMD chip, and every CPU I've ever bought since has been AMD.
Of course, "cheaper" is relative. It was $340 for the CPU, $200 for the MB, and $800 for 16 meg of memory.
I'd bought 2 4-meg simms for $400 only to find out the 32-bit 386 needed 4 sticks, so I could pay a 20% restocking charge on the 4-megs and buy 4 1-megs or buy 2 more 4-megs.
Intel made a 486SX chip which was a 486 with the math co-processor disabled and it was slightly cheaper than the 486DX. They also sold a 487SX which they called the co-processor, but in truth it was just a 486 with a working co-pro, and when you used the 487SX, it completely disabled the 486SX and took over as the only CPU in the system.
The whole thing seemed like a test of how gullible their customers were. It looks like they're doing the same thing again.
The Moisture Farm the Lars' run is right out of Dune.
Luke is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to be a leader in the rebellion and overthrows the evil emperor; Paul is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to lead the Fremen and overthrow the evil emperor.
Luke finds Obi-Wan in the desert and learns the ways of the Jedi from him; Paul finds Stilgar in the desert and learns the ways of the Fremen from him.
Paul's Voice; Luke's Jedi Mind tricks. Paul's mental Sight; Luke's Jedi Vision. Paul's weirding ways, Luke's jedi fighting. Crysknife - a knife from a worm's tooth; Light Saber - like a saber-toothed tiger
Do you really think the sandworm in RoJ isn't from Dune?
There is almost nothing in SW that isn't taken right out of Dune.
Slashdot Mirror
So windows is superior?
I would explain it, but then I might be violating the patent...sorry.
Jason
ProfQuotes
What makes you think "Moore's Law" is not a correct term?
From Wikipedia under "physical law": A physical law or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations.
Moore's LAW is the empirical observation that every 18 months the transistor density of high-end chips doubles.
Jason
ProfQuotes
It's a doubling of the density of transistors every 18 months. It doesn't say anything about magnetic storage density or the clock speed of chips. Intel cancelling the 4GHz P4 was just admitting (and it's about time) that cranking up the clock speed is not the best way to improve CPU performance. There is no indication that will prevent Moore's Law from continuing
Jason
ProfQuotes
Why would I pay to play Sims 2 after getting ripped off on Sims? The Sims looked nice for it's time, it was eye candy. Just because the eye candy is dated now doesn't suddenly decrease the fact that that's what it was. Anyway, I expect my gameplaying time and money to be going into World of Warcraft for the forseeable future :).
The only ones on your list I've played are The Sims and SimCity. It's funny you mention The Sims, because I'd use that as a perfect example of my point. It looks nice, but the playability is horrible. It takes 30 minutes of gametime to walk across a room. Considering that, there just isn't enough time in a sim day to do everything you have to. Even "cheating" and only going into work every second day so you don't get fired but get more free time doesn't help much. The controls are very cumbersome too, it's hard to get the sim to do what you want it to do, The AI keeps trying to do what it wants, but if you let it go ahead and don't micromanage the character is too stupid to live. Besides all that, it gets very old very fast which is why there's so many expansions just to keep things interesting.
SimCity is old enough to count as an old game, and it has much better playability than SimCity 2000. After the piece of crap that is SC2000 I went back to the original and haven't even tried any of the newer versions.
I'm running slackware on an AMD 5x86 133 MHz. It's a 486 CPU. It works perfectly as a firewall, file server, and test webserver (which is all the functionality I expect from it).
Why would I want to waste $150 upgrading the hardware and who knows how many hours configuring a resource hog version of linux just to get it to do exactly what it does now?
Download the WiredCD: wiredcd.itallconnects.com
You haven't been missing much. The eye candy's been increasing as the playability dropped.
Download the wired CD: wiredcd.itallconnects.com
It will always "still" be in beta for 2 reasons. One is so they don't have any liability when things like this happen; after all they never said it was stable or secure, it's a work in progress. Two is that they're getting a lot of data to build up a social network with their invite system. With the rate at which invites are made available it is practically open now, you just need a link for their social network to join.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Writing a song called Ironic, that completely mis-understands the definition of "Ironic", is very Ironic.
The DRM will not prevent good old-fashoned "insert and hit play", but it will prevent uncontrolled ripping and copying
I'll believe that when I see it. Copy-protection has been a trade-off between protection and ability to use the data since the idea was first conceived.
The marketing drones always say it won't interfere with normal use. Even the CD DRM that prevents it from being played at all on computers, DVD players and older CD players.
Jason
ProfQuotes
The RCC says that it has the support of 90% of game retailers in the voluntary program.
So the kids who want to buy these games will go to the othe 10% of game retailers, and probably to buy all their games, not just the NC17 ones.
All this plan does is hurt the "honest" retailers.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Actually, it's the modern Canadian flag. I just had a look at a Canadian $5 bill with a microscope. It's a bit hard to tell because of lack of detail in the bill, but it's definately the modern maple leaf flag.
The rumour that it's a US flag started because the shape of the flag blowing in the wind looks like the head of a US bald eagle. You don't need any special optics to be able to see that.
Jason
ProfQuotes
It's still seems better than any PDA on the market. The most important feature to me is that it take standard batteries (it takes AAA's). I have 2 sets of NiMH ones and a set of alkalines as spares. One set of rechargables is always charging, the other is in the PDA. When the set in the PDA dies, I use the alkalines as a backup until I get home and swap the ones from the charge into the PDA. I'm still getting 3-4 weeks on a charge.
I had a Treo 90 for the colour screen but the internal Li-Ion battery wouldn't last through a 4-hour flight as an ebook. If I forget to charge it one night, it's useless the next day.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Then you use this fancy new device called a capacitor . They can act like batteries that can be changed in miliseconds and discharged in microseconds. They're quite commonly used that way in camera flashes.
Of course, they can also be discharged slower over hours.
but it has no effect on the total energy output, so it lets you build devices that drain batteries even faster. Just what we need.
An NiMH cell can already handle a load of 2C quite easily. Do we really need more? If that's not enough power, it's time to move to a larger cell. What good is a PDA/Cellphone/Camera that only lasts for 15 minutes on a charge even if it is 10% smaller than the old model?
Jason
ProfQuotes
You do know someone write the articles, don't you?
Jason
ProfQuotes
When starting out in a new language, I like a book like the Teach Yourself series which starts out by taking you through installing and setting up environment at a very simple level, and then goes on to examples I can skim through and quickly graduate to a referrence book or the online docs.
Most referrence books and advanced books assume you already have a working environment and sometimes (think Java) installing and getting everything working is the hardest part.
Once I'm passed the initial bumps though, I want a book that's aimed at advanced users, mainly because the more "beginner friendly" a book is, the lower the signal-noise ratio in the writing.
Jason
ProfQuotes
I subscribe to Wired and I read the article a few days ago when I got the magazine.
I want the article to be right, but it seems more like a hope than any evidence. Amazon, Netflix, etc are selling/renting a lot of material that traditional stores don't stock, but it doesn't seem like it's indicating any great shift.
Amazon was most dramatic as far as how far much of their sales are of items not stocked at normal book stores. But that just makes sense; if I can buy the book at a brick and morter store I will because then I get a chance to see it, read a bit of it and be sure I like it. Once I've done all that, I don't want to wait a few days to get it from amazon just to save a few percent, I want it right away, so I'll buy it at the store. If I can't find the book in normal stores, then I'll look at amazon.
The cargo ships don't return to earth in one piece. They're allowed to burn up on re-entry. On the manned modules return and they don't have the space for the garbage.
The shuttles had more room for garbage but they aren't flying now.
Jason
ProfQuotes
The result of decoding even 320kbs VBR perceptual coding algorithms such as mp3 is very different from the original sound.
The idea is that those differences are in areas the human ear can't detect; high frequency shifts, loud and quiet sounds at the same time.
There are very likely nuances to the music that we can't "hear" but still detect with our ears at a subconscious level.
Deleting the high freqency co-efficients from the DCT leaves the sound wave much more ragged, this is harder on your speakers (not a big deal), and there is a chance that the ragged sound wave will cause permanent damage to your ears (a very big deal).
Anyway, all this is besides the point; I can go into a store and buy a CD with "CD quality" music that also gives me a pressed media as a backup for about the same price as I can download heavily compressed files of the same music. Why would I not buy the CD?
It has to have CD quality or better, no DRM, and substantially cheaper than buying on CD.
I bought the 386DX40 then, it was my first AMD chip, and every CPU I've ever bought since has been AMD.
Of course, "cheaper" is relative. It was $340 for the CPU, $200 for the MB, and $800 for 16 meg of memory.
I'd bought 2 4-meg simms for $400 only to find out the 32-bit 386 needed 4 sticks, so I could pay a 20% restocking charge on the 4-megs and buy 4 1-megs or buy 2 more 4-megs.
Intel made a 486SX chip which was a 486 with the math co-processor disabled and it was slightly cheaper than the 486DX. They also sold a 487SX which they called the co-processor, but in truth it was just a 486 with a working co-pro, and when you used the 487SX, it completely disabled the 486SX and took over as the only CPU in the system.
The whole thing seemed like a test of how gullible their customers were. It looks like they're doing the same thing again.
Jason
ProfQuotes
- Tattoine is a clone of Arrakis
- The Moisture Farm the Lars' run is right out of Dune.
- Luke is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to be a leader in the rebellion and overthrows the evil emperor; Paul is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to lead the Fremen and overthrow the evil emperor.
- Luke finds Obi-Wan in the desert and learns the ways of the Jedi from him; Paul finds Stilgar in the desert and learns the ways of the Fremen from him.
- Paul's Voice; Luke's Jedi Mind tricks. Paul's mental Sight; Luke's Jedi Vision. Paul's weirding ways, Luke's jedi fighting. Crysknife - a knife from a worm's tooth; Light Saber - like a saber-toothed tiger
- Do you really think the sandworm in RoJ isn't from Dune?
There is almost nothing in SW that isn't taken right out of Dune.