There was no storyline information because Mumbo Jumbo is apparently following in Bungie's footsteps by making the game's storyline very complex, very detailed, and a very important part of the game, and keeping it secret until you can actually play the game and be surprised by it. This approach is much better than the "reveal more reveal sooner" marketing of most other game companies. Sometimes there's nothing left in a game for me to find once I finally get it (Unreal 1, I'm looking in your direction...)
It takes a LOT more than polygon-pushing power to make a realistic image. The Geforce 3 (and the OpenGL or D3D which drives it) cannot do motion blur (REAL distributed motion blur, not accumulation), accurate reflection or refraction, shaders of arbitrary complexity, or any scene management and geometry generation operations.
You're forgetting that the reason that the fiber is still dark is that actually hooking it up is so expensive. If there was sufficient demand, companies could sign up customers, hook up the fiber on advances or loans (since they are no longer a risky investment), and it's all good. But as it is, there isn't sufficient demand to even get the ball rolling.
So it's not economical to hook up these cables. You are expecting the companies to throw away their profits for the good of humanity? Please.
The opposite side of this argument is that the demand just isn't there. Everyone bitches about Internet overload and how slow is or will get, but is anyone doing anything about it (besides pointing it out and complaining)? The bandwidth is not being demanded because no one is paying for it, apparently because our current network performance is acceptable to the vast majority of the customers. This fiber is just excess left over from the now-burst Internet bubble. If you want to drive bandwidth growth, be ready to buy it when someone provides it. Or invest in Qwest or something.
Re:Am I the only one who can "tune out" the noise?
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Yo - Pay Attention!
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· Score: 2
You are not alone... the flood only pours in through the open gates. I don't access any of the media channels through which information is sprayed at you as if from a hose, just the places I choose and the places I want. Once you learn how to do that and what to avoid the world is manageable. Recieving information is still a choice, and will always be, whether through technological measures (banner blocking, mute button) or by just shutting one's eyes.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
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· Score: 1
For Feature Journalism, GRC's report on DoS attacks and zombie bots. Any news article that contains the phrase "Attack-Neutered Mutant Zombies" definitely deserves some sort of award:P
Required reading for any developing geek. Now when are they going to reprint the original Tom Swift?
Re:Not really important
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Space Blimps
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· Score: 2
Do you have any URLs to support this? I find it hard to believe that a few million gallons of fuel is more expensive than the resources needed to keep humans alive indefinitely in a sealed environment and send them supplies from Earth as you propose.
Perhaps wwe could plan some sort of self-returning mission: Take along equipment that can make fuel out of whatever you expect to find at the destination. Not an uncommon concept in sci-fi.
It's all nice and geeky and all that, but it would be better to go for depth of exploration than breadth- Know all there is to know about a small subset of the possibilities than try to get a little of everything.
Instead of trying to explore every planet in the solar system at once, we should be returning men to the moon, or heading out to Mars. The latter, while far more expensive and complex, would gain us far more knowledge than these probes ever would
(I would propose establishing a permanent presence on the Moon or Mars, but I'm trying to be at least slightly realistic:) )
This is at the same time desirable and undesirable for various reasons.
Cutting commercials: Sure, I'd love to do this on the face of it, but give it five seconds of thought and you see that a) the content providers will give you this feature when hell freezes over b) the alternatives to commercial breaks are even worse. The article suggests that commercials could be replaced with either split-screen (wtf! that's already bad enough when they run promos over the credits of the previous show), logos (Not sure exactly what they mean... if it's anything bigger than the station emblem in the corner it will get annoying) or product placement (read as: give significant control of content to advertisers). None of those are preferable to commercial breaks.
Not to mention the technological issues: At the worst case, every single person orders a different movie at once, so they lose all the advantages of distribution. Even with digital cable I can't see how they can stream more than a few movies at once, in which case the meaningful choice (any movie whenever) is gone and this is no different from current premium cable.
Slashdot Mirror
There was no storyline information because Mumbo Jumbo is apparently following in Bungie's footsteps by making the game's storyline very complex, very detailed, and a very important part of the game, and keeping it secret until you can actually play the game and be surprised by it. This approach is much better than the "reveal more reveal sooner" marketing of most other game companies. Sometimes there's nothing left in a game for me to find once I finally get it (Unreal 1, I'm looking in your direction...)
[disclaimer against redundancy disclaimer]
It takes a LOT more than polygon-pushing power to make a realistic image. The Geforce 3 (and the OpenGL or D3D which drives it) cannot do motion blur (REAL distributed motion blur, not accumulation), accurate reflection or refraction, shaders of arbitrary complexity, or any scene management and geometry generation operations.
I believe that Luxo Jr. is about 20 years old, so Duff is still right. :)
You're forgetting that the reason that the fiber is still dark is that actually hooking it up is so expensive. If there was sufficient demand, companies could sign up customers, hook up the fiber on advances or loans (since they are no longer a risky investment), and it's all good. But as it is, there isn't sufficient demand to even get the ball rolling.
We seem to agree on 3 points:
- Bandwidth is expensive
- People are not buying it
- The fiber is being wasted.
I am saying the problem (and where to attempt to fix it) lies in point 2, not points 1 or 3 as you and the article are saying.So it's not economical to hook up these cables. You are expecting the companies to throw away their profits for the good of humanity? Please.
The opposite side of this argument is that the demand just isn't there. Everyone bitches about Internet overload and how slow is or will get, but is anyone doing anything about it (besides pointing it out and complaining)? The bandwidth is not being demanded because no one is paying for it, apparently because our current network performance is acceptable to the vast majority of the customers. This fiber is just excess left over from the now-burst Internet bubble. If you want to drive bandwidth growth, be ready to buy it when someone provides it. Or invest in Qwest or something.
What about the lusers who call their ISP's tech support and complain that "the internet is down"?
::strangles enormous laugh, collapses on desk::
God, I wish I had some mod points...
You are not alone... the flood only pours in through the open gates. I don't access any of the media channels through which information is sprayed at you as if from a hose, just the places I choose and the places I want. Once you learn how to do that and what to avoid the world is manageable. Recieving information is still a choice, and will always be, whether through technological measures (banner blocking, mute button) or by just shutting one's eyes.
That book rules.
Declaration that this is the funniest thing the poster has read in a long time.
Misguided/failed attempt to construct this comment in similar style.
For Feature Journalism, GRC's report on DoS attacks and zombie bots. Any news article that contains the phrase "Attack-Neutered Mutant Zombies" definitely deserves some sort of award :P
Actually, the superconductor plague did turn out to be the result of a conspiracy ;P
(and if that was a spoiler to anyone, go read the rest of the series already)
Could this fungus, once isolated and brought under control, have applications in recycling?
I see, it's this second series I was talking about all along.
Are you sure those are the *original* series? I've never seen any of those titles before, in any Tom Swift series.
Required reading for any developing geek. Now when are they going to reprint the original Tom Swift?
Do you have any URLs to support this? I find it hard to believe that a few million gallons of fuel is more expensive than the resources needed to keep humans alive indefinitely in a sealed environment and send them supplies from Earth as you propose.
Perhaps wwe could plan some sort of self-returning mission: Take along equipment that can make fuel out of whatever you expect to find at the destination. Not an uncommon concept in sci-fi.
It's all nice and geeky and all that, but it would be better to go for depth of exploration than breadth- Know all there is to know about a small subset of the possibilities than try to get a little of everything.
:) )
Instead of trying to explore every planet in the solar system at once, we should be returning men to the moon, or heading out to Mars. The latter, while far more expensive and complex, would gain us far more knowledge than these probes ever would
(I would propose establishing a permanent presence on the Moon or Mars, but I'm trying to be at least slightly realistic
I hope the judge considers the profound legal implications of Godwin's Law in his decision.
You are disqualified: The choice involving cowboyNeal makes sense :P
An extra button on the remote: "Do not ever show me the current commercial again." I know I'd buy one.
no, the psychic friends are widely available to the public. Just give them a call :)