How about Mac OS X? It was released in this century, and against the backdrop of Windows 2000 and Classic MacOS 9, it absolutely counted as "stunning."
Not only that, but the clone makers got to just build out hardware and ship it - they didn't have the R&D overhead to actually design the system in the first place, much less develop and maintain the operating system.
Many of the clones were just Apple boards that were licensed and reconfigured. There were many PowerComputing boxes that were essentially a PowerMac 7300 for 20% off the price. I bought one instead of a "real" Apple back in the day. It's no wonder that Jobs put a stake through the heard of Mac cloners.
I was sorely disappointed with a few things about Fallout3 / Fallout: New Vegas that didn't follow the spirit of the original Fallout / Fallout2: the decision depth.
In the original Fallout titles, you could be the biggest bastard in California, and the game would adapt to that. You could steal anything not bolted down and only have a problem if you got caught, murder random people by sneaking lit dynamite into their pockets or by spamming super-stims on them, pickpocket people and then sell their own shit back to them, etc.; you could still get on in the game, sometimes with hilarious consequences.
With Fallout3, they tagged 90% of everything with a karma reduction so sneak became completely useless. You would even lose karma if you took stuff out of a house belonging to someone that was dead, and not dead by your hand. If you decided to play an "evil" character, half the NPCs just shut down and wall off half the game from you, rather than dealing with you begrudgingly like the earlier games would. It was like a sanitized version of the Fallout universe that was vaguely related, and with none of the creativity.
With Bethesda, you often don't get to experience the game as the developer intended because of all the bugs that ship in the product. You experience the game as the product manager intended, and they intended to ship with bugs still in the product that weren't blockers.
Was this also the reason for the highly annoying partitioning of The Strip in Fallout: New Vegas?
I never played either Fallout3 or Fallout: NV on a console, and found it quite tiring to have to constantly click through the different sections of such a small area.
Here's another advantage of that $470 PC - if that GTX 750 isn't cutting it any more, take it out and put it something better. You would still be underneath $1k
Very possible. I'm on Time Warner (who totally blows due to abuse of the CCI flags) but they are using SDV adapters on the system here - in order to get my roll-your-own-DVR up and running I needed to get both the CableCARD and a Cisco SDV adapter that plugs in via USB and daisy-chains on the coax.
Works great though - keeps those useless channels I never watch from eating precious bandwidth on my wire.
They've fixed the over-compression problem by using switched digital video now. Every channel isn't on the wire at once - they're banked now. When you change to a channel in a different bank, the switched digital video adapter sends an upstream signal to tell the sending unit to switch banks, and you get the channel you're looking for.
This has dramatically improved video quality while also making room for more data traffic.
Does your TV have the necessary hardware and software to decode encrypted digital cable signals without having a piece of shit set top box that they charge you a rental fee for?
Oh, so they are finishing the job of destroying Media Center that they started with 8 by making Xbox 360 / One the only Media Center Extenders that work. Considering Time Warner's abuse of CCI / Broadcast flagging that results in me compulsively using Microsoft's ReadyPlay DRM in order for my CableCARD to actually be something other than an inert lump of metals, guess that's staying on Win7 for the forseeable future.
There is an argument that it requires more time to set up and get working properly,
I found that argument to be completely false a couple weeks ago. I just built an Intel-X99 based system, with two SSDs inside - one for Ubuntu, one for Windows. I was able to download and create the Ubuntu USB installer on an iMac, install it, and be up and running in about 30 minutes.
You can't get the Windows 8.1 installer without already having Windows on something, because all of Microsoft's downloaders are EXEs. What the hell is that. It took me an hour to get it downloaded and the USB installer made, then plug it in and install (another 20 minutes), and then screw around with getting drivers and crap installed.
Nobody uses multi-megaton weapons anymore (except for keeping around some old stock for bunker-buster type applications) because of the inverse-cube law of expanding spheres. It takes a shload more power to do the same damage as several smaller lighter warheads. Thus, MIRV was born. Less fallout (less fissile material being used in the bomb that blows itself to bits before the material can be fissioned), spread over less distance (cloud doesn't rise as high, injecting radioactive crap into the upper atmosphere), less weight to throw on the top of a rocket, etc.
In fact, the US [reportedly] uses "dial-a-yield" where they can actually electronically tune the warhead from somewhere in the Hiroshima range to 300kt depending on need. The big-dick 15 Mt thermonuclear weapons of the 1950s that required a booster capable of putting a Gemini capsule in orbit are no more.
He's [mis]quoting (wildly out of context) the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Really? I didn't know that not winning a single primary and having far less delegates at the convention to vote for your nomination was now called "changing the rules."
Obama wanted a VP who could play party hatchet man for him, where the biggest skeleton hiding in the closet is his unswerving capacity to say really dumb things in front of a microphone?
It might come as a galloping shock to you, but fissionable materials that are capable of making nuclear weapons don't remain the same materials forever, because they undergo fission.
While everyone hopes these things are never used again, one of the things that makes sure nobody uses them is the deterrent factor. And a decrepit warhead that has a percentage of it turned into plutonium daughter products which make the thing fizzle isn't a deterrent. And any nation with a nuclear arsenal of their own will know this.
Well, how about all the arms reduction treaties from the 1970s to the 1990s? Such as SALT, SALT II, START, START II (not enacted, but negotiated) and New START?
Sounds like they're doing what they agreed to - negotiating in good faith. Also, going past that, as they actually have eliminated all IRBMs, reduced MIRV count, reduced launcher count, banned all testing, etc.
The US current system of replacing nukes is consistent with all treaties because warhead and launcher count is what is specified in the different treaties. These things don't have a forever shelf life, you know - they are actively degrading while they sit there, and need to be "refurbished" in order to be the deterrent they are supposed to be.
A few conflicts where 20,000 people die is far better than a World War II sized event where 60 TO 85 MILLION die. And that total only includes ~130,000 from the use of primitive nuclear weapons.
Are small wars bad? Of course they are. But big honking all-in fuck-up-entire-continents wars are FAR worse.
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How about Mac OS X? It was released in this century, and against the backdrop of Windows 2000 and Classic MacOS 9, it absolutely counted as "stunning."
Not only that, but the clone makers got to just build out hardware and ship it - they didn't have the R&D overhead to actually design the system in the first place, much less develop and maintain the operating system.
Many of the clones were just Apple boards that were licensed and reconfigured. There were many PowerComputing boxes that were essentially a PowerMac 7300 for 20% off the price. I bought one instead of a "real" Apple back in the day. It's no wonder that Jobs put a stake through the heard of Mac cloners.
I was sorely disappointed with a few things about Fallout3 / Fallout: New Vegas that didn't follow the spirit of the original Fallout / Fallout2: the decision depth.
In the original Fallout titles, you could be the biggest bastard in California, and the game would adapt to that. You could steal anything not bolted down and only have a problem if you got caught, murder random people by sneaking lit dynamite into their pockets or by spamming super-stims on them, pickpocket people and then sell their own shit back to them, etc.; you could still get on in the game, sometimes with hilarious consequences.
With Fallout3, they tagged 90% of everything with a karma reduction so sneak became completely useless. You would even lose karma if you took stuff out of a house belonging to someone that was dead, and not dead by your hand. If you decided to play an "evil" character, half the NPCs just shut down and wall off half the game from you, rather than dealing with you begrudgingly like the earlier games would. It was like a sanitized version of the Fallout universe that was vaguely related, and with none of the creativity.
With Bethesda, you often don't get to experience the game as the developer intended because of all the bugs that ship in the product. You experience the game as the product manager intended, and they intended to ship with bugs still in the product that weren't blockers.
Good - I didn't install 16GB to watch it sit there idle. If it's there, use it.
Even consoles have 8GB now. If your PC doesn't, add more - it's cheap.
Was this also the reason for the highly annoying partitioning of The Strip in Fallout: New Vegas?
I never played either Fallout3 or Fallout: NV on a console, and found it quite tiring to have to constantly click through the different sections of such a small area.
Here's another advantage of that $470 PC - if that GTX 750 isn't cutting it any more, take it out and put it something better. You would still be underneath $1k
Let's see you do that with a PlayStation / XBox.
Very possible. I'm on Time Warner (who totally blows due to abuse of the CCI flags) but they are using SDV adapters on the system here - in order to get my roll-your-own-DVR up and running I needed to get both the CableCARD and a Cisco SDV adapter that plugs in via USB and daisy-chains on the coax.
Works great though - keeps those useless channels I never watch from eating precious bandwidth on my wire.
They've fixed the over-compression problem by using switched digital video now. Every channel isn't on the wire at once - they're banked now. When you change to a channel in a different bank, the switched digital video adapter sends an upstream signal to tell the sending unit to switch banks, and you get the channel you're looking for.
This has dramatically improved video quality while also making room for more data traffic.
Yes, but it is substantially less expensive.
Does your TV have the necessary hardware and software to decode encrypted digital cable signals without having a piece of shit set top box that they charge you a rental fee for?
My HTPC does.
Oh, so they are finishing the job of destroying Media Center that they started with 8 by making Xbox 360 / One the only Media Center Extenders that work. Considering Time Warner's abuse of CCI / Broadcast flagging that results in me compulsively using Microsoft's ReadyPlay DRM in order for my CableCARD to actually be something other than an inert lump of metals, guess that's staying on Win7 for the forseeable future.
Vista was fine
This is where I get off the bus.
Vista was fine only in this sense.
There is an argument that it requires more time to set up and get working properly,
I found that argument to be completely false a couple weeks ago. I just built an Intel-X99 based system, with two SSDs inside - one for Ubuntu, one for Windows. I was able to download and create the Ubuntu USB installer on an iMac, install it, and be up and running in about 30 minutes.
You can't get the Windows 8.1 installer without already having Windows on something, because all of Microsoft's downloaders are EXEs. What the hell is that. It took me an hour to get it downloaded and the USB installer made, then plug it in and install (another 20 minutes), and then screw around with getting drivers and crap installed.
Ubuntu was way easier and faster than Windows.
Because in order to get a free upgrade, you have to already have a version of Windows with a valid license. There are people out there that don't.
Then do nothing?
Nobody uses multi-megaton weapons anymore (except for keeping around some old stock for bunker-buster type applications) because of the inverse-cube law of expanding spheres. It takes a shload more power to do the same damage as several smaller lighter warheads. Thus, MIRV was born. Less fallout (less fissile material being used in the bomb that blows itself to bits before the material can be fissioned), spread over less distance (cloud doesn't rise as high, injecting radioactive crap into the upper atmosphere), less weight to throw on the top of a rocket, etc.
In fact, the US [reportedly] uses "dial-a-yield" where they can actually electronically tune the warhead from somewhere in the Hiroshima range to 300kt depending on need. The big-dick 15 Mt thermonuclear weapons of the 1950s that required a booster capable of putting a Gemini capsule in orbit are no more.
Nope. It's asynchronous - less power comes back north when it's reversed in the winter. But it's definitely DC, thus the name "Pacific DC Intertie"
He's [mis]quoting (wildly out of context) the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So basically he's just an idiot.
Well, his speech writers had their hearts in the right place.
That's as far as I'll take it.
Really? I didn't know that not winning a single primary and having far less delegates at the convention to vote for your nomination was now called "changing the rules."
Obama wanted a VP who could play party hatchet man for him, where the biggest skeleton hiding in the closet is his unswerving capacity to say really dumb things in front of a microphone?
It might come as a galloping shock to you, but fissionable materials that are capable of making nuclear weapons don't remain the same materials forever, because they undergo fission.
While everyone hopes these things are never used again, one of the things that makes sure nobody uses them is the deterrent factor. And a decrepit warhead that has a percentage of it turned into plutonium daughter products which make the thing fizzle isn't a deterrent. And any nation with a nuclear arsenal of their own will know this.
Well, how about all the arms reduction treaties from the 1970s to the 1990s? Such as SALT, SALT II, START, START II (not enacted, but negotiated) and New START?
Sounds like they're doing what they agreed to - negotiating in good faith. Also, going past that, as they actually have eliminated all IRBMs, reduced MIRV count, reduced launcher count, banned all testing, etc.
The US current system of replacing nukes is consistent with all treaties because warhead and launcher count is what is specified in the different treaties. These things don't have a forever shelf life, you know - they are actively degrading while they sit there, and need to be "refurbished" in order to be the deterrent they are supposed to be.
A few conflicts where 20,000 people die is far better than a World War II sized event where 60 TO 85 MILLION die. And that total only includes ~130,000 from the use of primitive nuclear weapons.
Are small wars bad? Of course they are. But big honking all-in fuck-up-entire-continents wars are FAR worse.