as for compensating, I (and you too, I hope) can imagine that people who will pluck down money for the 459 dollar video card is not exactly looking at a 700 dollar system.
compensating, methinks, is when you are pursuing something so rediculously until the costs outweights the benefits. like people who have to put up with noise and / or a lot of trouble for their "faster than the fastest" computer which few programs can take advantage of, or the riceboys who deck out their civics and integras so much that it scratches everytime they pull into a gas station. similarly, I'd say that paying THAT MUCH for a video card simply to get that 10% edge, before it's even useful, is a definite sign of "compensating," and such people (especially if they are actually cutting back on other departments to afford this) really need to get a life and a different, less stressful, perspective on life.
I never implied that this card is only good for Doom3, although you have to admit that Doom3 is pretty much the "big thing on the horizon" that they are all shooting for.
games based on the Doom3 engine won't be around for a few product-cycles after Doom3 comes out, so I think for quite some time, Doom3 is really the only piece of software that would *really* tax your card.
But spending what amounts to the price of a decent computer just to be "ready" for a game that won't hit shelves for a few monthes anyway? I don't see the point, and believes that 1) money can be better spent if you'd just live with the 0.5% difference in quality which you can't notice anyway in a heated battle, by waiting for a while or going with the non-o/c'd version 2) buy stuff that's one generation old would be even more cost-effective.
Heck, even Doom3 will be able to run on XBOX hardware-level; granted not at UXGA with 4XAA, but I can hardly imagine *needing* such a overpriced and overpowerful thing for it.
I dunno; things have went down hill for a while and that's why I stopped. not sure how's the "scene."
the last O/C attempt I did was a pair of P3 700's (with nice S-codes) toward a 933 Dual. Funny thing is, it would just run shy of the 933 and be flaky at that speed, but perfectly stable at 902 or something. TAUNTING you to attempt at the perfect 33.3MHz PCI divider. This was air cooling - and I KNEW if I went with water and actually had the time to fuck with it, it will be solid, but after I counted up the fuss, for the water-cooling setup I could have just gotten a pair of 933's in the first place (This was when P3 1GHz was top of the line, too).
So yes indeed that water-cooled PCs are quieter than usual (well, depends on the size of the fan on the radiator, though) and you can use the setup a few times, and heck I have access to flourinert so I don't even have to worry about any of the harmful side effects - but you can get the same thing by just getting a less-than-bleeding-edge CPU anyway, so I eventually mellowed out and deciding that to be "on top of it" (like running 500MHz PIIs when the fastest out there was 450) was really not worth it afterall, especially considering that you will be "de-throned" only after a few monthes.
Frankly there are much more enjoyable things in life than those; having a stable computer with which to read/. might even qualify.
side-note: overclockers.com seems to have gone under. their CPU database was the bomb back in the days. they will be missed.
sure hope you are not trolling; but for your information I run at 1024x768 with all options on "normal." (yes that includes texture-size) I disable a few things that I don't care for like decals (burn-marks) that just happen to improve performance.
It's a mobile radeon 7500, by the way. the newer mobile radeon 9000 and nvidia's mobile 420/440 can do even better.
for the convenience of not having to fuck with galvinic corrosion or insanely loud fans, I'd say it's a pretty good tradeoff. Not to mention that I can play this on trans-pacific flights.
I mean, honestly. I used to overclock because a 300MHz CPU just wasn't enough. I mean, it helps that a celeron 300A was so damn easy too - but now that they are getting better with speed-sorting, and things are getting so fast and cheap, I really sees no need and it's not worth the trouble for that 10% increase.
Heck, I play UT2k3 on my LAPTOP, which is a measly 1GHz with 64M video ram.
A 459 video card just so I can pluck down another 70 dollars for D3 collector's edition just seems unjustified when you can get a whole computer for that much (I'd know since I GOT ONE for about 400 - and not even the walmart Lindows ones either - 1.8P4; half gig RAM, etc).
I mean, this, yes *THIS* is the true definiton of compensating for something, because there is absolutely no need for it. (especially since the game isn't even out yet). It's like buying a Ferrari and let it sit in a garage for half a year before I get a driver's license. - or possibly a more adequate analogy is buying a same car to drive in the parking lot for half a year before they build a road on which I can properly have fun with it.
no that's not right. the point of the two axis is so that since the gravity stretch / compress effects are vertical / horizontal, you will get different differences between the tubes, therefor costing the light a different amount of time to return. If the light is at constant frequency, this would cause phase shifts between the beams, something you can measure. (this is from their "how it works" website, by the way)
However, I am proposing that since there will be corresponding red/blue shifts in the two shafts, the lights will oscillate the same amount of cycles before merging again, therefore nullifying any potential phase difference, and hence eliminating the possibility of obtaining any result.
I'd think that building these tubes parallel (with a lot of distance between) would be better, because then you would really get phase-shifts from the finite speed of the gravity waves, a positive shift and then a negative shift between the two beams, as the wave affects them sequentially.
Of course, I am just armchair researching - like I said, sure hope they got this right for 300 million dollars.
virgo in italy, GEO in Hung^H^H^Hannover, and TAMA in Japan. There is talk of building one in Australia, too.
All of them I approve, but what's up with Japan? Japan gets some 1,200 minor earthquakes per DAY. how in the world do they expect to overcome the seismic noise floor (pun somewhat intended)?
Observing this fantastically tiny effect is equivalent to detecting the motion of Saturn if it were to move closer to the sun by the diameter of a single hydrogen atom
so it's not the diameter of a proton but the diameter of a hydrogen atom. A lot better, but well, still pretty small.
1) here is an excellent presentation about how it works, etc. something about the sensitivity is on the order of measuring saturn moving toward the sun by the distance of the diameter of a proton.
2)here toward the bottom of the page you can LOG IN to their system and view all the logs. the password and login is blatantly displayed on the site. we should all email the site admin to have this changed.
3) I hope they figured it out for 300 million dollars, but wouldn't changes in gravity wave stretch / compress the tubes AND CAUSE REDSHIFT / BLUESHIFT in the lasers therefore cancelling out the effect?
I'd say they are losing out on Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced; but to be honest I don't think the US ever caught onto the japanese "personalize everything" theme, which is good IMO.
I mean, does the Sony cybercam REALLY need 5 metallic colors? the TUKA phone some 8 colors? people with all sorts of crazy stuff hanging off there DoCoMos?
As long as it's functional (and have good games), so what if I am totting around a ping GBA?
How do I know? I got a copy when I went to China. Hey don't bitch - The movie won't be in Japan for another two monthes (maybe one and half), and if you don't make it available when I am WILLING to pay and see it - you'd bet your ass I'm gonna buy the 1USD copy off a street-stall when it's available.
So anyway - the bootleg was actually for submission to the academy awards - so the quality was definitely not bad. You can imagine academy awards copies are better than the "sit in the theatre w/ a camera" copies, by a far margin. If I ever decide to choke up the cash for a real copy (probably after all three are out), I'll let y'all know. but by that time I wonder if anyone still cares =)
But, this really means that the academy awards ppl is leaking films. so... why arn't you guys (MPAA) looking harder at your OWN PEOPLE? like, the academy, for one?
heh. that's a really good question (the one about DRM); Now that I can't find it, I am beginning to doubt myself.
but (2) and (3) are in the original article. Quoting
Threedegrees is also a fascinating experiment in how music can be legally shared over the Internet. After much negotiation, the labels OK'd musicmix, once Microsoft agreed to somewhat hobble its features. (Playlists have a maximum of 60 tunes, and the songs won't play unless the original owner is participating.)
Originally I must have thought of DRM because
a) they are using media player
b) the records won't let them get away with sharing stuff that's not "authenticated"
c) the "other's can't play your song if you are not participating" part
(a) is a deduction; (b) is an assumption (though one based on much precedence); (c) could be argued that it's just a limitation on the P2P nature - but on the other hand "participating" is a tricky word - does that mean if you are not online or in 3deg? I can imagine I have a perfectly good connection, but am participating in another group, or doing research paper, but would want my friends to listen to my tunes. (granted, might just send them over, or write a "song server" bot).
so, I apologize for the inaccurate information - but I still stands that it would be unlikely (no DRM) otherwise.
1) you need to have licenses (maybe via media player DRM modules?) 2) you can't play more than 60 songs on the playlist 3) others can't play your songs if you are offline.
pretty stringent - but better than what RIAA have been dealing out.
What better to explain the word "clout?"
btw, Ars Technica has a small writeup on this too - so check there for more geeky-perspective.
I thought the Y-12 "Plant" was actually a gene-modified plant (as in, tree or bush) that was able to produce enriched uranium (maybe in the fruits?). And I was like, "wow, I thought only geese could do that."
wait a second. Last I checked you need TWO connections to act as a bridge / router / NAT / firewall / whatever...
How exactly do you recieve packets on eth0 and then route them back out through the same interface? unless
1) I am really missing something 2) you are pulling ethernet cables (crossover, no less) back to coach (yeah-right) 3) you are putting in ANOTHER wireless card so you can do the above (which is feasable but may god have mercy on your batteries)
here is a notebook that rivals Apple's 12" I-book specs. All in a package less than 1kg. Now, the catch - you might have to deal with taking off windows, and you might not even be able to get in in the states - but try to find another notebook that rivals iBooks in design, weight, and battery life (5 hours or so) which would run linux. Life is full of compromises - forcing yourself to not buy windows on a notebook is going to cost you more headaches and time than it's worth, I think. After all - think of the extra 50-150 dollars as "convenience money" to give yourself more choices. After all your time is not free (to continue searching for your "dream notebook")
then again, I vaguely remember Dell willing to provide computers without OS. not authoratative, though.
does anybody know if Dolly got laid in her life?
on
Goodbye, Dolly
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's actually a pretty important question, if you think about it, not even on the "at least give the sheep what it might want" sort of way. few examples:
* does cloned animals retain "normal" sexual apetite? (i.e. would a cloned panda be more, or possibly even less willing to fuck than the one's we've got right now?)
* If dolly does suffer from premature aging, would her offspring suffer the same thing? how would the offspring from a cloned animal be compared to an offspring of the source animal? (with the same "father," let's say)
seriously - I've been at the computer thing for a while now, I have not known a SINGLE person that registered their windows. I mean, heck man - does that email list have a whole 7 recipients?
Of course, most of the replies otherwise would be like "I went from Apple to MS because I can pirate more software and play more games."
though - sadly, there is a bunch of people who are forced to use mycrudsoft. When the IT dept tells some apple die-hards that they are getting PC laptops or nothing at all, because they want to have "one platform" - though the powerbooks would actually cost less (seriously), last longer on flights, and preserve their values better. Sigh... maybe MS can base their campain on that: Switch - because we make you.
Take, say, UT2k3, which is incredibly fun and addictive. And I would never think of playing it without a mouse; nor zooming in w/ a rifle on TV resolution.
How about War Craft III? and if we want an un-arguable "good" strategy game: CIV? the due-out MOO3?
I mean, I tried Max Payne and MDK2 on a PS, and I am sorry but it's just not the same. Max Payne is about downright not-playable. MDK2 is bearable but suffers a great deal. a far cry from their computer counterparts.
But on the other hand, I agree that video cards has been less of a concern as of late. I run UT2k3 on my laptop w/ a mobile radeon 7500. not highest resolution (1024x768), and "normal" features - so while the framerate is not tops and the picture quality is not super-fidelity, (and I have to admit that I do have some texture problems every now and then) - it's playable and I deal with it. For all liklihood I will not touch desktops again, unless some serious disposable income comes my way.
besides, pachinko is NOT about chucky-cheese prizes (even if you knew that, other readers might not).
you would take your prizes and "sell" them to a "hole in an alley" and get way more than they are worth. sometimes more than what you invested in the buckets of bearings.
this is the only way to gamble besides horse-racing and lotto (as far as I know), since gambling is supposedly illegal in japan. the prizes and the selling is just a loophole of some sort that I don't think the government has any intention of plugging.
hell, there are magazines DEDICATED to this stuff - they have pages upon pages of charts that will tell you a machine's win-rates over time (i.e. as a function of how long you sit over there). It's really a professional hobby, if gambling can be called one.
There's definitely a not insignicant component of the dark matter that is made up of unseen, jupiter sized planets. MACHOS.
I say it's more from WIMPS (especially now that we have proven neutrinos have mass). but that's got me wondering, how come you don't see MACHOs / WIMPS camp duke it out on slashdot, in the same fashion as vi vs. emacs, or Linux vs. BSD?
Really, now. That just makes the universe sounds sinister. I can just imagine Vader argue with Yoda in Ep.III (cutting out the huffing) "Ahh you see master yoda, the universe is mostly the dark side." Can't they go for a policitally correct / socially sensitive / thoughtful of the children phrase like "cannot-see energy" or "we have no fscking clue where it is energy"?
otoh, iirc the original background radiation measurements were done using a U2 (not the band, though it would be interesting) flying at some 70k ft, something about only a U2 can fly that steady (without resorting to satelites, anyway).
Not that 54M / 72M is not cool, but what's up with the 5GHz band? It might be that these guys did not realize there are countries out there that does not have an ISM band at 5GHz?
2.4GHz is about as universal as you can get as far as ISM band is concerned - but you still run into trouble. In the US, say, 2.400-2.465 or somesuch is the ISM band. In Japan it is 2.450-2.900 (or 2.83, I can't remember).
That's not a lot of overlap people! That's exactly why I am staying away from D-Link cards right now - only goes up 2.465GHz, which means that I have to operate out of a 15MHz band when I am in Japan. Considering that 2.400-2.450 is used by the military last I checked, I have no intention of jumping this border.
Similarly,.11a is completely out of question - 5GHz is not even an ISM band in japan, along with a slew of other countries. When they get this mess worked out, I will consider it - but that does not seem to be anytime soon.
now, I only says this from *MY* experiences. MY IBM laptop lost about 1/3 of its capacity after 11 charge-discharge cycles. ELEVEN.
both Li-Ion batteries are from Sanyo (the other one seem to have held up, though).
When I got my Dell, one battery was Sanyo and one was Panasonic. Guess what, Sanyo lost about 10% of its capacity after three or four cycles.
These days I avoid Sanyo by all means if possible. So far panasonic gets by vote, though they don't seem to be as far ahead on the technology curve. (their AAA NiMH batteries are rated 2Ah while almost all other manufactures are at 2.1Ah (IIRC 5% increase is about an one year research - battery wise))
ironically, Sanyo built probably the world's largest solar powerplant in Japan. I shudder to think if someday I have no choice but be powered by them.
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as for compensating, I (and you too, I hope) can imagine that people who will pluck down money for the 459 dollar video card is not exactly looking at a 700 dollar system.
compensating, methinks, is when you are pursuing something so rediculously until the costs outweights the benefits. like people who have to put up with noise and / or a lot of trouble for their "faster than the fastest" computer which few programs can take advantage of, or the riceboys who deck out their civics and integras so much that it scratches everytime they pull into a gas station. similarly, I'd say that paying THAT MUCH for a video card simply to get that 10% edge, before it's even useful, is a definite sign of "compensating," and such people (especially if they are actually cutting back on other departments to afford this) really need to get a life and a different, less stressful, perspective on life.
I never implied that this card is only good for Doom3, although you have to admit that Doom3 is pretty much the "big thing on the horizon" that they are all shooting for.
games based on the Doom3 engine won't be around for a few product-cycles after Doom3 comes out, so I think for quite some time, Doom3 is really the only piece of software that would *really* tax your card.
But spending what amounts to the price of a decent computer just to be "ready" for a game that won't hit shelves for a few monthes anyway? I don't see the point, and believes that
1) money can be better spent if you'd just live with the 0.5% difference in quality which you can't notice anyway in a heated battle, by waiting for a while or going with the non-o/c'd version
2) buy stuff that's one generation old would be even more cost-effective.
Heck, even Doom3 will be able to run on XBOX hardware-level; granted not at UXGA with 4XAA, but I can hardly imagine *needing* such a overpriced and overpowerful thing for it.
I dunno; things have went down hill for a while and that's why I stopped. not sure how's the "scene."
/. might even qualify.
the last O/C attempt I did was a pair of P3 700's (with nice S-codes) toward a 933 Dual. Funny thing is, it would just run shy of the 933 and be flaky at that speed, but perfectly stable at 902 or something. TAUNTING you to attempt at the perfect 33.3MHz PCI divider. This was air cooling - and I KNEW if I went with water and actually had the time to fuck with it, it will be solid, but after I counted up the fuss, for the water-cooling setup I could have just gotten a pair of 933's in the first place (This was when P3 1GHz was top of the line, too).
So yes indeed that water-cooled PCs are quieter than usual (well, depends on the size of the fan on the radiator, though) and you can use the setup a few times, and heck I have access to flourinert so I don't even have to worry about any of the harmful side effects - but you can get the same thing by just getting a less-than-bleeding-edge CPU anyway, so I eventually mellowed out and deciding that to be "on top of it" (like running 500MHz PIIs when the fastest out there was 450) was really not worth it afterall, especially considering that you will be "de-throned" only after a few monthes.
Frankly there are much more enjoyable things in life than those; having a stable computer with which to read
side-note: overclockers.com seems to have gone under. their CPU database was the bomb back in the days. they will be missed.
sure hope you are not trolling; but for your information I run at 1024x768 with all options on "normal." (yes that includes texture-size) I disable a few things that I don't care for like decals (burn-marks) that just happen to improve performance.
It's a mobile radeon 7500, by the way. the newer mobile radeon 9000 and nvidia's mobile 420/440 can do even better.
for the convenience of not having to fuck with galvinic corrosion or insanely loud fans, I'd say it's a pretty good tradeoff. Not to mention that I can play this on trans-pacific flights.
I mean, honestly. I used to overclock because a 300MHz CPU just wasn't enough. I mean, it helps that a celeron 300A was so damn easy too - but now that they are getting better with speed-sorting, and things are getting so fast and cheap, I really sees no need and it's not worth the trouble for that 10% increase.
Heck, I play UT2k3 on my LAPTOP, which is a measly 1GHz with 64M video ram.
A 459 video card just so I can pluck down another 70 dollars for D3 collector's edition just seems unjustified when you can get a whole computer for that much (I'd know since I GOT ONE for about 400 - and not even the walmart Lindows ones either - 1.8P4; half gig RAM, etc).
I mean, this, yes *THIS* is the true definiton of compensating for something, because there is absolutely no need for it. (especially since the game isn't even out yet). It's like buying a Ferrari and let it sit in a garage for half a year before I get a driver's license. - or possibly a more adequate analogy is buying a same car to drive in the parking lot for half a year before they build a road on which I can properly have fun with it.
no that's not right. the point of the two axis is so that since the gravity stretch / compress effects are vertical / horizontal, you will get different differences between the tubes, therefor costing the light a different amount of time to return. If the light is at constant frequency, this would cause phase shifts between the beams, something you can measure. (this is from their "how it works" website, by the way)
However, I am proposing that since there will be corresponding red/blue shifts in the two shafts, the lights will oscillate the same amount of cycles before merging again, therefore nullifying any potential phase difference, and hence eliminating the possibility of obtaining any result.
I'd think that building these tubes parallel (with a lot of distance between) would be better, because then you would really get phase-shifts from the finite speed of the gravity waves, a positive shift and then a negative shift between the two beams, as the wave affects them sequentially.
Of course, I am just armchair researching - like I said, sure hope they got this right for 300 million dollars.
All of them I approve, but what's up with Japan? Japan gets some 1,200 minor earthquakes per DAY. how in the world do they expect to overcome the seismic noise floor (pun somewhat intended)?
Observing this fantastically tiny effect is equivalent to detecting the motion of Saturn if it were to move closer to the sun by the diameter of a single hydrogen atom
so it's not the diameter of a proton but the diameter of a hydrogen atom. A lot better, but well, still pretty small.
2)here toward the bottom of the page you can LOG IN to their system and view all the logs. the password and login is blatantly displayed on the site. we should all email the site admin to have this changed.
3) I hope they figured it out for 300 million dollars, but wouldn't changes in gravity wave stretch / compress the tubes AND CAUSE REDSHIFT / BLUESHIFT in the lasers therefore cancelling out the effect?
I'd say they are losing out on Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced; but to be honest I don't think the US ever caught onto the japanese "personalize everything" theme, which is good IMO.
I mean, does the Sony cybercam REALLY need 5 metallic colors? the TUKA phone some 8 colors? people with all sorts of crazy stuff hanging off there DoCoMos?
As long as it's functional (and have good games), so what if I am totting around a ping GBA?
Erm... no.
How do I know? I got a copy when I went to China. Hey don't bitch - The movie won't be in Japan for another two monthes (maybe one and half), and if you don't make it available when I am WILLING to pay and see it - you'd bet your ass I'm gonna buy the 1USD copy off a street-stall when it's available.
So anyway - the bootleg was actually for submission to the academy awards - so the quality was definitely not bad. You can imagine academy awards copies are better than the "sit in the theatre w/ a camera" copies, by a far margin. If I ever decide to choke up the cash for a real copy (probably after all three are out), I'll let y'all know. but by that time I wonder if anyone still cares =)
But, this really means that the academy awards ppl is leaking films. so... why arn't you guys (MPAA) looking harder at your OWN PEOPLE? like, the academy, for one?
but (2) and (3) are in the original article. Quoting
Threedegrees is also a fascinating experiment in how music can be legally shared over the Internet. After much negotiation, the labels OK'd musicmix, once Microsoft agreed to somewhat hobble its features. (Playlists have a maximum of 60 tunes, and the songs won't play unless the original owner is participating.)
Originally I must have thought of DRM because
a) they are using media player
b) the records won't let them get away with sharing stuff that's not "authenticated"
c) the "other's can't play your song if you are not participating" part
(a) is a deduction; (b) is an assumption (though one based on much precedence); (c) could be argued that it's just a limitation on the P2P nature - but on the other hand "participating" is a tricky word - does that mean if you are not online or in 3deg? I can imagine I have a perfectly good connection, but am participating in another group, or doing research paper, but would want my friends to listen to my tunes. (granted, might just send them over, or write a "song server" bot).
so, I apologize for the inaccurate information - but I still stands that it would be unlikely (no DRM) otherwise.
but it's still ristricted.
1) you need to have licenses (maybe via media player DRM modules?)
2) you can't play more than 60 songs on the playlist
3) others can't play your songs if you are offline.
pretty stringent - but better than what RIAA have been dealing out.
What better to explain the word "clout?"
btw, Ars Technica has a small writeup on this too - so check there for more geeky-perspective.
I thought the Y-12 "Plant" was actually a gene-modified plant (as in, tree or bush) that was able to produce enriched uranium (maybe in the fruits?). And I was like, "wow, I thought only geese could do that."
wait a second. Last I checked you need TWO connections to act as a bridge / router / NAT / firewall / whatever...
How exactly do you recieve packets on eth0 and then route them back out through the same interface? unless
1) I am really missing something
2) you are pulling ethernet cables (crossover, no less) back to coach (yeah-right)
3) you are putting in ANOTHER wireless card so you can do the above (which is feasable but may god have mercy on your batteries)
then again, I vaguely remember Dell willing to provide computers without OS. not authoratative, though.
It's actually a pretty important question, if you think about it, not even on the "at least give the sheep what it might want" sort of way. few examples:
* does cloned animals retain "normal" sexual apetite? (i.e. would a cloned panda be more, or possibly even less willing to fuck than the one's we've got right now?)
* If dolly does suffer from premature aging, would her offspring suffer the same thing? how would the offspring from a cloned animal be compared to an offspring of the source animal? (with the same "father," let's say)
seriously - I've been at the computer thing for a while now, I have not known a SINGLE person that registered their windows. I mean, heck man - does that email list have a whole 7 recipients?
Of course, most of the replies otherwise would be like "I went from Apple to MS because I can pirate more software and play more games."
though - sadly, there is a bunch of people who are forced to use mycrudsoft. When the IT dept tells some apple die-hards that they are getting PC laptops or nothing at all, because they want to have "one platform" - though the powerbooks would actually cost less (seriously), last longer on flights, and preserve their values better. Sigh... maybe MS can base their campain on that: Switch - because we make you.
fuckers. (hmm... do I sound bitter?)
Take, say, UT2k3, which is incredibly fun and addictive. And I would never think of playing it without a mouse; nor zooming in w/ a rifle on TV resolution.
How about War Craft III? and if we want an un-arguable "good" strategy game: CIV? the due-out MOO3?
I mean, I tried Max Payne and MDK2 on a PS, and I am sorry but it's just not the same. Max Payne is about downright not-playable. MDK2 is bearable but suffers a great deal. a far cry from their computer counterparts.
But on the other hand, I agree that video cards has been less of a concern as of late. I run UT2k3 on my laptop w/ a mobile radeon 7500. not highest resolution (1024x768), and "normal" features - so while the framerate is not tops and the picture quality is not super-fidelity, (and I have to admit that I do have some texture problems every now and then) - it's playable and I deal with it. For all liklihood I will not touch desktops again, unless some serious disposable income comes my way.
besides, pachinko is NOT about chucky-cheese prizes (even if you knew that, other readers might not).
you would take your prizes and "sell" them to a "hole in an alley" and get way more than they are worth. sometimes more than what you invested in the buckets of bearings.
this is the only way to gamble besides horse-racing and lotto (as far as I know), since gambling is supposedly illegal in japan. the prizes and the selling is just a loophole of some sort that I don't think the government has any intention of plugging.
hell, there are magazines DEDICATED to this stuff - they have pages upon pages of charts that will tell you a machine's win-rates over time (i.e. as a function of how long you sit over there). It's really a professional hobby, if gambling can be called one.
I get a feeling in my gut that says sixxs.org is not as impervious to slashdotting as slashdot itself,
so maybe we will finally be able to slashdot slashdot, or at least the IPv6 gateway,
BUT maybe there are not enough slashdotters using IPv6 to be able to connect to the IPv6 slashdot in order to slashdot slashdot's IPv6 gateway,
and... [head explodes]
I say it's more from WIMPS (especially now that we have proven neutrinos have mass). but that's got me wondering, how come you don't see MACHOs / WIMPS camp duke it out on slashdot, in the same fashion as vi vs. emacs, or Linux vs. BSD?
Really, now. That just makes the universe sounds sinister. I can just imagine Vader argue with Yoda in Ep.III (cutting out the huffing) "Ahh you see master yoda, the universe is mostly the dark side." Can't they go for a policitally correct / socially sensitive / thoughtful of the children phrase like "cannot-see energy" or "we have no fscking clue where it is energy"?
otoh, iirc the original background radiation measurements were done using a U2 (not the band, though it would be interesting) flying at some 70k ft, something about only a U2 can fly that steady (without resorting to satelites, anyway).
Not that 54M / 72M is not cool, but what's up with the 5GHz band? It might be that these guys did not realize there are countries out there that does not have an ISM band at 5GHz?
.11a is completely out of question - 5GHz is not even an ISM band in japan, along with a slew of other countries. When they get this mess worked out, I will consider it - but that does not seem to be anytime soon.
2.4GHz is about as universal as you can get as far as ISM band is concerned - but you still run into trouble. In the US, say, 2.400-2.465 or somesuch is the ISM band. In Japan it is 2.450-2.900 (or 2.83, I can't remember).
That's not a lot of overlap people! That's exactly why I am staying away from D-Link cards right now - only goes up 2.465GHz, which means that I have to operate out of a 15MHz band when I am in Japan. Considering that 2.400-2.450 is used by the military last I checked, I have no intention of jumping this border.
Similarly,
Sanyo. Seriously, Sanyo.
now, I only says this from *MY* experiences. MY IBM laptop lost about 1/3 of its capacity after 11 charge-discharge cycles. ELEVEN.
both Li-Ion batteries are from Sanyo (the other one seem to have held up, though).
When I got my Dell, one battery was Sanyo and one was Panasonic. Guess what, Sanyo lost about 10% of its capacity after three or four cycles.
These days I avoid Sanyo by all means if possible. So far panasonic gets by vote, though they don't seem to be as far ahead on the technology curve. (their AAA NiMH batteries are rated 2Ah while almost all other manufactures are at 2.1Ah (IIRC 5% increase is about an one year research - battery wise))
ironically, Sanyo built probably the world's largest solar powerplant in Japan. I shudder to think if someday I have no choice but be powered by them.