actually your totally wrong. motion blur is when an object moves so fast our brains aren't able to disinquish it clearly. ghosting is the effect caused when a pixel changes colour slowly and you see a "ghost" image of whats moving. this effect happens on both crt's and lcd's, however it tends to be more pronounced on lcd's. just move your mouse around the screen quickly on your crt and you will see an example. you look like a right idiot now don't you!
Ever shake your hand really quickly in front of a CRT monitor? I assure you your hand isn't ghosting but rather the CRT is causing your eye to only see the high-contrast hand shape at a handful of points. This is called strobing (like a strobe light.) And it happens in all projected moving media.
Your definition of motion blur is a bit off too. Motion blur is caused by persistence of vision. Your eye doesn not see objects at one point in time but rather a range of time... in nature there's an infinite number of points we see an object at as it travels during this time range. It's basicly like blending those infinite states together to make a smeared result.
In film, if you set your shutter speed super fast you'll see super sharp images that don't blend well together (go watch Gladiator again and you'll see it durring the fights.) Strobing is normal, only film and video usually capture motion blur when shooting by leaving the shutter open for a period of time (basicly duplicating your eye's persistence of vision.)
Computers can't possibly calculate the infine number of points your mouse cursor should be going through as it moves through time. Instead it projects the mouse cursor at the one point at the time a frame is rendered. CRTs will display one mouse cursor per refresh... and monitors refresh many times before your eye stops seeing the persisting image... So your persistence of vision will therefore blend the projected states of your mouse cursor and you see multiple mouse cursors.
And one more thing... CRTs should have absolutely no ghosting whatsoever as they strobe and the phosphors go dark long before the next image is displayed.
Ummm... so if MS requires you to use the new Microsoft Trusted Computing seat with a spiked dildo that plows into your butt whenever the MPAA wants too... you'll feel MS is without fault?
Yeah... there are alternatives for those that happen to land the relatively few jobs out in their suburban areas. But a lot of companies and governments can't afford to buy a bunch of small buildings in the various sprawling areas... they need a lot of folks working under one building. They also like to be near other companies they do business with.
I know around my neighborhood there are probably only about a hundred or so jobs that pay enough for one to support a family. In fact there's a number of strip malls in my area that really suffer because people don't seem interested in shopping there.
There's also store competition problems with this. It's very common for similar stores to open in one area. It's good for business and customers as it both fuels competition and increases customers to the various stores. For example, there's two blocks in my town that have no less than 5 music stores. When people go to the music store they know of to buy an instrument, they'll see the other stores and check them out. There's also a string of bars that greatly benefit from their close proximity. They'll often join forces in events and pull a much larger audience that brings more money to each than would if the bars were miles apart. Then there are the businesses that don't have enough demand to be supported by one small area of town but require he whole town's attention.
Then there's the towns and cities that depend on tourism. Tourism and the benefit to the town would take a major hit in the 'nads. An example would be New Orleans... if it weren't for all the bars, fortune tellers and touristy shops being downtown together, there'd be little reason for folks to go there.
This will also cause much greater division of wealth in a town. Poor sections of town will be without any economic flow from the richer parts of town. This will increase crime dramaticly. There's also a much higher cost for the local government if they have to deal with fire, schooling, police and transportation is divided even more than it already is.
Bringing everyone closer to town helps business, crime, quality of public services, a feeling of unity by the town and gives people greater freedom when choosing jobs.... or yeah... and cuts down on pollution overall. Though the concentration of pollution will be increased.
It's not like designing systems and algorithms that can render a scene with millions of polygons, accurate shadows, bump maps specular shading takes any special knowledge... What's next?! John Carmack being called a rocket scientist!?
I've never run into issues with my AMD box or my Intel box. Both of these boxes have 3rd part mobos. My AMD has an ASUS mobo and my Intel box has an A-bit mobo.
I have however wanted to beat myself to death to spare me the pain of getting an Intel box with an Intel mobo working properly. Granted that was a PIII box, but your suggestion that Intel mother boards with Intel chips are guaranteed quality is bullshit.
I completely agree there's a ton of shoddy component makers out there, but if you do your homework and read the reviews on parts you're considering buying, you can build a damned good and dependable computer. Reguardless of chip manufacturer... three cheers for run on sentences.
It also probably holds off on bringing up the network and anything else not required to show the GUI until the GUI is up.
Though 10 seconds really sounds dramatic. Makes me think it's basicly hibernating when you shut it down.
Depends on what you call a computer and what you call an entertainment center.
My computer is my web center, DVD player, gaming station, TV, stereo and sometimes my phone... So it's an entertainment center... only hooked up to a monitor instead of a TV.
A PS3 will have a hard drive, video playback, internet connection capabilities, games, plenty of CPU power and a slew of other features. With a friendly GUI for the OS and a few basic apps I don't see what sets it appart from a computer really.
The major setback of most TV devices in the past has been screen resolution. 720x480 (actually a lot less than that) really sucks for reading. With really sharp 1080i HDTVs this isn't such a problem anymore... in fact some folks have started hooking their computers to these HDTVs.
I've installed Win2k at least a dozen times in the past 5 years and have never been victim of one of these attacks. I install a software firewall and antivirus stuff as soon as I can, but that usually takes at least 30 minutes to download.... and don't get me started on how long before I can install the latest service packs.
I think this 50% chance of being h4x0rD is scare mongering crap. And before you start cracking on the number of installs I've done they've always been because of changing my boot HD, getting a new machine or helping a friend install their copy of Win2k. Not because an install became a virus-infected, spyware-saturated heap of 1s and 0s.
Don't get me wrong, Win2k is horribly insecure and I wouldn't trust it to last long without a firewall and anti-virus program... but a 50% chance in 12 minutes seems a bit ridiculous.
TV is more than simply entertainment. Sure 99.99% of it is pure stupidity but every now and again a major crisis will occur and everyone will tune into their local NBC or whatever so they can remain informed on the progress of whatever event.
Be it the hurricane that's moving into your beach-side town or the crazy riots down the road... sometimes TV is a very good way of keeping up on things. Seems like a bad idea to leave the poor in the dark.
I hate to sound like an advertisment but I'm a very happy customer.
I've owned a Logitec MX700 and a Logitec wireless keyboard for over a year. The range is really great if you have the reciever away from metal/electronics. I once had to use the computer from about 30 feet away (during a play where the computer controlled some video sequences that were being projected on the wall.) I also use it to control movies from my bed.
I've had issues with mice cords being just a wee bit too short or dragging the mouse up because of the weight of the cord (really annoying with setups where you need the cursor over a text box to type in it.)
They even work with a couple walls in the way. Though once I was trying to play some video from a room across the house and it didn't quite cut it. Really, metal and electronic interference are the main issue. Not range so much.
As far as drivers go, the hardware works just like a regular 3 button mouse/keyboard wihtout drivers. I've used them with Windows 2000* XP, NT4, Knoppix, Mandrake and Slackware. The scroll wheel even works whithout drivers (except in NT as it doesn't support scroll wheels.) I don't have any drivers set up for my keyboard but the volume buttons work under win2k. I don't really have any use for the other special keys. My one complaint about the keyboard is the lack of caps/numlock indicators on the keyboard. My recievers are under my desk and I can't easily see them from my chair. I realize having LEDs sucks batteries (the keyboard goes for a REALLY long time without a battery change... in fact I use it daily and have only needed one replacing since Christmas 2003.
The recharge unit for the mouse is quite useful. Most cordless mice have low frame rates (and therefore lower precision.) This is especially true when the mouse has been still for a couple seconds. This is done in the name of longer battery life. The rechargable mice have a significantly higher frame rate since the user doesn't need the battery to last a couple months.
Also keep in mind that you have to feed the cows some of those plants grown with the nutrients from the soil resulting in lower efficiency of getting nutrients to dinner table.
I was just about to post the same! I'm extremely happy with AVG. It's saved my parent's computer twice from trojans (My mom is so trusting of those zipped attachments.)
I prefer sygate's free firewall to zone alarm, though. It's a little easier to use IMHO and it's a little lighter on resources.
Something will survive on earth reguardless of what we do to it. Even if only deep sea bacteria or the bacteria in antarcica survive, it's inevitable they will evolve into something. So long as there's water on Earth and competition amongst themselves.
Life is one enduring bastard.
I highly doubt this tablet was designed with heavy computing in mind. 1.4 GHz Intel chip is more than enough to do word processing, email, watch video, paint, even play many popular games.
I don't know anyone who would get a tablet for heavy processing.
I do a lot of 3D rendering and compositing... My 3D renderer can take advantage of multiple processors.
I also like to have a lot of big programs running at the same time. Like my 3D package, Compositing package, image manipulator, web browser, audio player, instant messaging app, and email client.
Currently I modify priorities in order to say, render a scene (low priority) while setting up the composite (high priority) it's going into.
It isn't at all uncommon for my system to be at 100% proccessor utilization for hours on end while I'm working on it.
There are plenty of folks out there who have a use for this power.
I'm going to assume your post is a joke... unfortunately it has a +1 insightful. So in case it's not here is my response:
You ignorant dumbfuck! Of course ice ages and global warming are natural. Few if any scientists will deny this.
The problem is that we humans have adapted well to the current conditions and global warming will probably lead to an ice age. Though it is doubtful this will lead to our extinction, will cause a lot of death and pain.
Earth doesn't need saving. For all it cares it can be another Mars. It's us, the one's who depend on plenty of oxygen and temperatures that our food can grow in that need saving.
Sure you can consider science to be another religion... the big difference is the importance of evidence and willingness to throw out common beliefs once it is disproven. If science were just another religion I doubt we would have accepted the earth is spherical just because some sailor sailed west and ended up east. Science doesn't accept anything without testing it or lots and lots of observation... and even then it has to be proven to be called fact. There's also documentation on how people came to their conclusions through experimentation and observation.
The only great leaps of faith I can think of in science are 1+1=2 and the basic forces... and people are working on proving those forces.
Then there's what most think of as religion... "this passage in this book that's been translated and reinterpreted many times and was origionally written by some dude who heard some stuff from some dude who said he saw some god in some desert that said we shouldn't work on Sundays bacause god will burn us."
Well those half apes are probably all dead like the dinosaurs and we like to call them things other than half apes... like australopithecines and stuff.
It kind of makes sense that organisms would evolve as a group until that group is split up for some reason and there is a branch on genetic threads.
For example, where are the other members of the homo genus? A lot of folks think we killed out the other homo members and others think we interbred with them... then there's the ones who think we did a bit of both. Either way they aren't going to pass on their genes and we are.
First off, evolution is an observation, not a theory. We can see it happen and people have been harnessing its power in farming and making better pets for ages. We also see it happening all the time. Hell, it's why you can get the flu every year. The bacteria keep changing.
Secondly, evolution does not state that bacteria + mutations + time = humans. It's more like death of organisms that failed to pass certain genes + organisms that successfully passed different genes + mutations + time = different species.
Then you can take it farther with things like "change in environment requiring change in species for survival" and "species competition"
You mention Mendel... Is Mendel's work not more evidence of evolution? It's clear that if Mendel changes the requirements for an organism to pass its genes and an organism fails to meet those requirements, the organism fails to pass its genes while the ones who successfully met the requirements passed their genes and still have their genetic material in the world. These requirements can be anything from "Having a pleasing flower color so that human that's controling its ability to pass genes" to "being able to outrun that large predator that's going to get in the way of gene passing."
If Mendel's work is gold, but ignore mutation then you'll end up with genes being kicked out and none being created... meaning life would have died out a very, very long time ago.
I'm a computer animaton/FX guy and I need every little bit of speed out of my GPU... in many cases my GPU ends up holding me back, not my CPU. I don't really need menus and windows to be taking video RAM either.
I wish MS would work to make computers cheaper and more a part of everybody's life instead of trying to make companies spend $1000 to upgrade each system so they can continue to use Office (on top of the already unbelievable MS Office tax.)
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actually your totally wrong. motion blur is when an object moves so fast our brains aren't able to disinquish it clearly. ghosting is the effect caused when a pixel changes colour slowly and you see a "ghost" image of whats moving. this effect happens on both crt's and lcd's, however it tends to be more pronounced on lcd's. just move your mouse around the screen quickly on your crt and you will see an example. you look like a right idiot now don't you!
Ever shake your hand really quickly in front of a CRT monitor? I assure you your hand isn't ghosting but rather the CRT is causing your eye to only see the high-contrast hand shape at a handful of points. This is called strobing (like a strobe light.) And it happens in all projected moving media.
Your definition of motion blur is a bit off too. Motion blur is caused by persistence of vision. Your eye doesn not see objects at one point in time but rather a range of time... in nature there's an infinite number of points we see an object at as it travels during this time range. It's basicly like blending those infinite states together to make a smeared result.
In film, if you set your shutter speed super fast you'll see super sharp images that don't blend well together (go watch Gladiator again and you'll see it durring the fights.) Strobing is normal, only film and video usually capture motion blur when shooting by leaving the shutter open for a period of time (basicly duplicating your eye's persistence of vision.)
Computers can't possibly calculate the infine number of points your mouse cursor should be going through as it moves through time. Instead it projects the mouse cursor at the one point at the time a frame is rendered. CRTs will display one mouse cursor per refresh... and monitors refresh many times before your eye stops seeing the persisting image... So your persistence of vision will therefore blend the projected states of your mouse cursor and you see multiple mouse cursors.
And one more thing... CRTs should have absolutely no ghosting whatsoever as they strobe and the phosphors go dark long before the next image is displayed.
We have constructed a world optimized for 5.5' tall bipedal organisms with hands and arms.
... that and it's pretty friggin' cool!
If we can build a robot that can move like humans, it will be very versitile and will function well in most environments where humans dwell.
Ummm... so if MS requires you to use the new Microsoft Trusted Computing seat with a spiked dildo that plows into your butt whenever the MPAA wants too... you'll feel MS is without fault?
Yeah... there are alternatives for those that happen to land the relatively few jobs out in their suburban areas. But a lot of companies and governments can't afford to buy a bunch of small buildings in the various sprawling areas... they need a lot of folks working under one building. They also like to be near other companies they do business with.
I know around my neighborhood there are probably only about a hundred or so jobs that pay enough for one to support a family. In fact there's a number of strip malls in my area that really suffer because people don't seem interested in shopping there.
There's also store competition problems with this. It's very common for similar stores to open in one area. It's good for business and customers as it both fuels competition and increases customers to the various stores. For example, there's two blocks in my town that have no less than 5 music stores. When people go to the music store they know of to buy an instrument, they'll see the other stores and check them out. There's also a string of bars that greatly benefit from their close proximity. They'll often join forces in events and pull a much larger audience that brings more money to each than would if the bars were miles apart. Then there are the businesses that don't have enough demand to be supported by one small area of town but require he whole town's attention.
Then there's the towns and cities that depend on tourism. Tourism and the benefit to the town would take a major hit in the 'nads. An example would be New Orleans... if it weren't for all the bars, fortune tellers and touristy shops being downtown together, there'd be little reason for folks to go there.
This will also cause much greater division of wealth in a town. Poor sections of town will be without any economic flow from the richer parts of town. This will increase crime dramaticly. There's also a much higher cost for the local government if they have to deal with fire, schooling, police and transportation is divided even more than it already is.
Bringing everyone closer to town helps business, crime, quality of public services, a feeling of unity by the town and gives people greater freedom when choosing jobs.... or yeah... and cuts down on pollution overall. Though the concentration of pollution will be increased.
Yeah seriously!
It's not like designing systems and algorithms that can render a scene with millions of polygons, accurate shadows, bump maps specular shading takes any special knowledge... What's next?! John Carmack being called a rocket scientist!?
I've never run into issues with my AMD box or my Intel box. Both of these boxes have 3rd part mobos. My AMD has an ASUS mobo and my Intel box has an A-bit mobo. I have however wanted to beat myself to death to spare me the pain of getting an Intel box with an Intel mobo working properly. Granted that was a PIII box, but your suggestion that Intel mother boards with Intel chips are guaranteed quality is bullshit. I completely agree there's a ton of shoddy component makers out there, but if you do your homework and read the reviews on parts you're considering buying, you can build a damned good and dependable computer. Reguardless of chip manufacturer... three cheers for run on sentences.
It also probably holds off on bringing up the network and anything else not required to show the GUI until the GUI is up. Though 10 seconds really sounds dramatic. Makes me think it's basicly hibernating when you shut it down.
Depends on what you call a computer and what you call an entertainment center.
My computer is my web center, DVD player, gaming station, TV, stereo and sometimes my phone... So it's an entertainment center... only hooked up to a monitor instead of a TV.
A PS3 will have a hard drive, video playback, internet connection capabilities, games, plenty of CPU power and a slew of other features. With a friendly GUI for the OS and a few basic apps I don't see what sets it appart from a computer really.
The major setback of most TV devices in the past has been screen resolution. 720x480 (actually a lot less than that) really sucks for reading. With really sharp 1080i HDTVs this isn't such a problem anymore... in fact some folks have started hooking their computers to these HDTVs.
I've installed Win2k at least a dozen times in the past 5 years and have never been victim of one of these attacks. I install a software firewall and antivirus stuff as soon as I can, but that usually takes at least 30 minutes to download.... and don't get me started on how long before I can install the latest service packs.
I think this 50% chance of being h4x0rD is scare mongering crap. And before you start cracking on the number of installs I've done they've always been because of changing my boot HD, getting a new machine or helping a friend install their copy of Win2k. Not because an install became a virus-infected, spyware-saturated heap of 1s and 0s.
Don't get me wrong, Win2k is horribly insecure and I wouldn't trust it to last long without a firewall and anti-virus program... but a 50% chance in 12 minutes seems a bit ridiculous.
Good point... never used one of those for anything but a hurricane.
TV is more than simply entertainment. Sure 99.99% of it is pure stupidity but every now and again a major crisis will occur and everyone will tune into their local NBC or whatever so they can remain informed on the progress of whatever event.
Be it the hurricane that's moving into your beach-side town or the crazy riots down the road... sometimes TV is a very good way of keeping up on things. Seems like a bad idea to leave the poor in the dark.
No it's not to hide loading menus... and it's usually not the programer's choice.
I have a Roomba. It's a robot and in my home. w00t!
And I'll keep dreaming of a computer millions of times as powerful as the eniac that'll fit in a small box and will be common place in homes.
I hate to sound like an advertisment but I'm a very happy customer.
I've owned a Logitec MX700 and a Logitec wireless keyboard for over a year. The range is really great if you have the reciever away from metal/electronics. I once had to use the computer from about 30 feet away (during a play where the computer controlled some video sequences that were being projected on the wall.) I also use it to control movies from my bed.
I've had issues with mice cords being just a wee bit too short or dragging the mouse up because of the weight of the cord (really annoying with setups where you need the cursor over a text box to type in it.)
They even work with a couple walls in the way. Though once I was trying to play some video from a room across the house and it didn't quite cut it. Really, metal and electronic interference are the main issue. Not range so much.
As far as drivers go, the hardware works just like a regular 3 button mouse/keyboard wihtout drivers. I've used them with Windows 2000* XP, NT4, Knoppix, Mandrake and Slackware. The scroll wheel even works whithout drivers (except in NT as it doesn't support scroll wheels.) I don't have any drivers set up for my keyboard but the volume buttons work under win2k. I don't really have any use for the other special keys. My one complaint about the keyboard is the lack of caps/numlock indicators on the keyboard. My recievers are under my desk and I can't easily see them from my chair. I realize having LEDs sucks batteries (the keyboard goes for a REALLY long time without a battery change... in fact I use it daily and have only needed one replacing since Christmas 2003.
The recharge unit for the mouse is quite useful. Most cordless mice have low frame rates (and therefore lower precision.) This is especially true when the mouse has been still for a couple seconds. This is done in the name of longer battery life. The rechargable mice have a significantly higher frame rate since the user doesn't need the battery to last a couple months.
It's difficult to make a fair comparision because programs are usually designed/optimized for one architecture.
Also keep in mind that you have to feed the cows some of those plants grown with the nutrients from the soil resulting in lower efficiency of getting nutrients to dinner table.
I was just about to post the same! I'm extremely happy with AVG. It's saved my parent's computer twice from trojans (My mom is so trusting of those zipped attachments.)
I prefer sygate's free firewall to zone alarm, though. It's a little easier to use IMHO and it's a little lighter on resources.
Something will survive on earth reguardless of what we do to it. Even if only deep sea bacteria or the bacteria in antarcica survive, it's inevitable they will evolve into something. So long as there's water on Earth and competition amongst themselves. Life is one enduring bastard.
That's a joke, right?
I highly doubt this tablet was designed with heavy computing in mind. 1.4 GHz Intel chip is more than enough to do word processing, email, watch video, paint, even play many popular games.
I don't know anyone who would get a tablet for heavy processing.
I do a lot of 3D rendering and compositing... My 3D renderer can take advantage of multiple processors.
I also like to have a lot of big programs running at the same time. Like my 3D package, Compositing package, image manipulator, web browser, audio player, instant messaging app, and email client.
Currently I modify priorities in order to say, render a scene (low priority) while setting up the composite (high priority) it's going into.
It isn't at all uncommon for my system to be at 100% proccessor utilization for hours on end while I'm working on it.
There are plenty of folks out there who have a use for this power.
I'm going to assume your post is a joke... unfortunately it has a +1 insightful. So in case it's not here is my response:
You ignorant dumbfuck! Of course ice ages and global warming are natural. Few if any scientists will deny this.
The problem is that we humans have adapted well to the current conditions and global warming will probably lead to an ice age. Though it is doubtful this will lead to our extinction, will cause a lot of death and pain.
Earth doesn't need saving. For all it cares it can be another Mars. It's us, the one's who depend on plenty of oxygen and temperatures that our food can grow in that need saving.
Sure you can consider science to be another religion... the big difference is the importance of evidence and willingness to throw out common beliefs once it is disproven. If science were just another religion I doubt we would have accepted the earth is spherical just because some sailor sailed west and ended up east. Science doesn't accept anything without testing it or lots and lots of observation... and even then it has to be proven to be called fact. There's also documentation on how people came to their conclusions through experimentation and observation.
The only great leaps of faith I can think of in science are 1+1=2 and the basic forces... and people are working on proving those forces.
Then there's what most think of as religion... "this passage in this book that's been translated and reinterpreted many times and was origionally written by some dude who heard some stuff from some dude who said he saw some god in some desert that said we shouldn't work on Sundays bacause god will burn us."
Well those half apes are probably all dead like the dinosaurs and we like to call them things other than half apes... like australopithecines and stuff. It kind of makes sense that organisms would evolve as a group until that group is split up for some reason and there is a branch on genetic threads. For example, where are the other members of the homo genus? A lot of folks think we killed out the other homo members and others think we interbred with them... then there's the ones who think we did a bit of both. Either way they aren't going to pass on their genes and we are.
First off, evolution is an observation, not a theory. We can see it happen and people have been harnessing its power in farming and making better pets for ages. We also see it happening all the time. Hell, it's why you can get the flu every year. The bacteria keep changing.
Secondly, evolution does not state that bacteria + mutations + time = humans. It's more like death of organisms that failed to pass certain genes + organisms that successfully passed different genes + mutations + time = different species.
Then you can take it farther with things like "change in environment requiring change in species for survival" and "species competition"
You mention Mendel... Is Mendel's work not more evidence of evolution? It's clear that if Mendel changes the requirements for an organism to pass its genes and an organism fails to meet those requirements, the organism fails to pass its genes while the ones who successfully met the requirements passed their genes and still have their genetic material in the world. These requirements can be anything from "Having a pleasing flower color so that human that's controling its ability to pass genes" to "being able to outrun that large predator that's going to get in the way of gene passing."
If Mendel's work is gold, but ignore mutation then you'll end up with genes being kicked out and none being created... meaning life would have died out a very, very long time ago.
I'm a computer animaton/FX guy and I need every little bit of speed out of my GPU... in many cases my GPU ends up holding me back, not my CPU. I don't really need menus and windows to be taking video RAM either.
I wish MS would work to make computers cheaper and more a part of everybody's life instead of trying to make companies spend $1000 to upgrade each system so they can continue to use Office (on top of the already unbelievable MS Office tax.)