I chalk whatever small decline there is to the lack of advancements. CPU performance hasnt made any huge gains lately. GPU performance has been good but most PCs come with integrated graphics. The only people pushing hard are the enthusiasts.
One of the things with HardOCPs review shows one extremely interesting thing...
If you have a single high end card (7900), there isnt a whole lot of difference between the FX62 and the X6800, or even the E6700. Most games are GPU limited now, and will be until the next generation of cards is released in 3+ months (FEAR is really the only exception to this).
They didnt run any benchmarks at 800x600 or whatever, because those results are more or less useless. Who spends $500+ on a processor and $500 on a video card and plays games at that low resolution.
What matters if you're going to buy a new rig now is the price performance ratio. If you're a midrange gamer, your best bet is probably a E6600 and a $250 video card. Or an AM2 setup, it all depends on the prices AMD cuts their X2 line to. We'll find out closer to the end of this month what the deal is. Come August 1st we'll have a very good idea of which platform is on top.
Thats because Robert Bigelow is camera shy and he really really doesnt like attention. Two years ago he gave a few phone interviews, and thats it. He keeps a low profile, with one warehouse in North Las Vegas, where Bigelow Aerospace is located.
FWIW, he got his fortunes by starting the Budget Suites of America chain, and has a building (the Robert Bigelow Physics Building) named after him on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he has donated lots of money.
Its a very worrying time (as someone who makes his lving doing web-related stuff) when it comes to the net and government regulation. Its frought on all sides with peril - government letting corporations do whatever they want can be just as dangerous as governments coming in and dictating what goes on. There is a narrow path on which government can walk and not hurt innovation and consumers. I dont think they'll be able to pull it off.
What astounds me is how bad google, MS, etc. are at lobbying. It seems like google and MS should be winning and not losing (as my current perception leads me to believe).
The one good side is that if this gets struck down, why cant we get the DMCA's "trafficing" clause struck down as well? Telling someone how to gamble online illegally vs. Dimitri Skylarov telling people how to crack PDFs. Whats the diff?
Yea but what communication channels do you (a third party) have to reach people? For people to do their own research?
Newspaper TV/Radio Internet
Now rules have come along lately and changed ownership rules for the first two, and lo-and-behold net neutrality could stand to threaten the third.
Its kinda like the education system in this country - if all kids know are facts and not how to engage in logic, reason and critical thinking, what chance do they have? They'll just believe whatever their preferred party tells them and assume that the other party is wrong without listening to the other side and thinking about why they say that - is there some valid reasons or are they just batshitinsane?
For us geeks, did you know you can subscribe to RSS feeds for your elected officials to see what votes they have made lately?
Yea, one you read the original source article at IGN you realize Iwata was talking about new, fresh games and not "classic" games, but apparently neither Ars Technica nor slashdot seems to give a damn about accuracy, its all about pageviews and ad revenue.
Apple wont get back into gaming until some contemporary games are ported (and they work decently)
Contemporary games wont be ported until Apple ships something better than GMA950 in a majority of their consumer level products (so Doom 3, HL2, etc don't look like a slideshow).
I really think the reason they're finally using AMD chips is that AMD will finally have the manufacturing capacity to supply Dell. Fab36 is delivering revenue now, and will ramp more as the year goes by. Between Fab36 and their relationship with Chartered Semi, they can supply Dell with the chips they need. And since its most likely they'll be 4S (8 core) servers, for ever server dell sells, they'll need 4 chips from AMD.
I agree mostly, a lot of Mac Fanbois say you can ignore Dell. But thats really not the case if Apple wants this new advertising campaign to go anywhere and increase their market share. They (the fanbois and Apple) can sit around with their noses up in the air and keep a 3-4% marketshare or they can start to figure out what will move switchers.
And Apple doesnt have to match Dell prices, but it is very important to remain competitive from a value standpoint. Including stuff like iLife and Front Row are important if they are going to charge more.
I still think we'll see three models - all come with 13.3" screens, 40-60GB HDs, 512MB... $899 core solo pushed towards edu (and of course, cheaper in bulk amounts for schools), $1099 for a 1.66 duo and $1299 for a 1.83 duo. BTO X1400 graphics available on the duo models for $200 or so (Dell has this exact option so I know its fesiable - On their Inspiron E1505 you get GMA950 by default, and you can BTO X1300 128MB or X1400 256MB for $99 and $179 respectively).
The 1.83 might be pushing it, but I think Intel is going to release their 2.33Ghz top end chip soon enough - and then the 1.83s will vanish from the Pro line and we'll see 2.0, 2.16 and 2.33Ghz options on the MacBook Pro lineup. Prices for all the core duo chips are set to be cut at the end of May anyways.
Pictures. Taking a picture of some setup can be worth a page of words. You'll need to explain the context and maybe annotate it, but its just so much easier to show someone a screenshot or picture instead of using tons of words.
Using JVM 1.4.x or 1.5 I get display artifacts when scrolling in various controls - datagrid, text boxes, etc. It only seems to happen when my display is in portrait mode.
What does a commercial entity have to gain with a credit at iTMS? Unless it is transferable (e.g. sell it on ebay), there isn't much they can do with it.
What part of "business account" was so hard to read? I have a business account at home. If I max my bandwidth all the time my ISP wont say anything because I pay them a lot for the service. I also get stuff like a static IP and better tech support.
I can see Apple doing this for movies since they're so large size-wise. I wouldn't mind using half of my upstream to earn credit at the store. Good way to defray the cost of my internet bill - and since I'm on a comercial account my ISP doesnt say anything about me using a lot of bandwidth.
The fact that these panels are much cheaper to develop and output the same power as a conventional PV panel is where its at. If they can get the price down to $1.50/W, it starts to look really appealing. For an installation of 10 200W panels (2kW), you're looking at saving $2000.
One of the other factors with this panel is that it brings down the net carbon impact of the devices. It takes less energy to produce these panels, so the breakeven time is much shorter than on a conventional PV panel.
However, the biggest price hurdle is actually the cost of a licensed electrician to install the equipment. Cheap panels are nice, but its got to get to the point where you can "plug and gen" instead of paying out the ass. Have you priced labor in the trades lately? In my town, apprentices are making $30/hr, master electricians, plumbers, etc make $50+/hr.
But the addition vectors are all crammed into the first 14 or 15 bits of the 40 bit addition vector. (that is bits 16 to 40 are zero). This would assure that the addition vectors are linearly dependent and the code cannot be cracked.
Didnt the article say that the vectors always have 20 1's and 20 zeros? Doesnt that limit the permutability of the vector?
Also, if you were to hand vectors out 10,000 keys like that to one manufacturer, woudln't you only need 14 or 15 of those types of devices to conspire to break the system? You could essentially break any device of that manufacturer (or whoever made the internals) with a fewer number of devices.
I believe my company still uses some token ring cabling to carry ethernet. You have to put this funny adapter on the end (at each end) and then the token ring cable will carry ethernet. It cant go any faster than 100Mbps though. I think they are supposed to replace it next year when a large part of the company moves buildings.
But I do know that I am ditching my windows laptop for a Mac Book whenever they come out (supposedly in the next month or two). I'm inclined to replace my desktop later this year if they come out with an affordable Desktop Mac ($1500 or less) that I can put in a new video card every year or 18 months, new proc (assuming mobo compatibility), more/faster RAM, etc.
Voting machines should print human-readable paper ballots, verifiable by the voter, that can also be counted by machine, and those ballots should be put in a locked metal box and then counted under supervision of all the major political parties to produce the official tallies.
Nevada is one of the few states that has a voter verified paper trail. While the voting machines aren't as secure as our slot machines, it seems to be quite apt for Americans to care more about their money than democracy.
Slashdot Mirror
I chalk whatever small decline there is to the lack of advancements. CPU performance hasnt made any huge gains lately. GPU performance has been good but most PCs come with integrated graphics. The only people pushing hard are the enthusiasts.
One of the things with HardOCPs review shows one extremely interesting thing...
If you have a single high end card (7900), there isnt a whole lot of difference between the FX62 and the X6800, or even the E6700. Most games are GPU limited now, and will be until the next generation of cards is released in 3+ months (FEAR is really the only exception to this).
They didnt run any benchmarks at 800x600 or whatever, because those results are more or less useless. Who spends $500+ on a processor and $500 on a video card and plays games at that low resolution.
What matters if you're going to buy a new rig now is the price performance ratio. If you're a midrange gamer, your best bet is probably a E6600 and a $250 video card. Or an AM2 setup, it all depends on the prices AMD cuts their X2 line to. We'll find out closer to the end of this month what the deal is. Come August 1st we'll have a very good idea of which platform is on top.
Thats because Robert Bigelow is camera shy and he really really doesnt like attention. Two years ago he gave a few phone interviews, and thats it. He keeps a low profile, with one warehouse in North Las Vegas, where Bigelow Aerospace is located.
FWIW, he got his fortunes by starting the Budget Suites of America chain, and has a building (the Robert Bigelow Physics Building) named after him on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he has donated lots of money.
What could possibly be motivating Stevens if it's not the money?
A cushy consultant job with the telecos after he retires from the Senate?
Its a very worrying time (as someone who makes his lving doing web-related stuff) when it comes to the net and government regulation. Its frought on all sides with peril - government letting corporations do whatever they want can be just as dangerous as governments coming in and dictating what goes on. There is a narrow path on which government can walk and not hurt innovation and consumers. I dont think they'll be able to pull it off.
What astounds me is how bad google, MS, etc. are at lobbying. It seems like google and MS should be winning and not losing (as my current perception leads me to believe).
To allow the uber-religious folk to watch movies with the bad parts cut out. Of course, this made Pulp Fiction about 30 seconds long, but oh well.
Regardless, soon we'll hear from (R)s (and some D's like Clinton and Lieberman) about activist judges and restoring something of something.
The one good side is that if this gets struck down, why cant we get the DMCA's "trafficing" clause struck down as well? Telling someone how to gamble online illegally vs. Dimitri Skylarov telling people how to crack PDFs. Whats the diff?
Yea but what communication channels do you (a third party) have to reach people? For people to do their own research?
Newspaper
TV/Radio
Internet
Now rules have come along lately and changed ownership rules for the first two, and lo-and-behold net neutrality could stand to threaten the third.
Its kinda like the education system in this country - if all kids know are facts and not how to engage in logic, reason and critical thinking, what chance do they have? They'll just believe whatever their preferred party tells them and assume that the other party is wrong without listening to the other side and thinking about why they say that - is there some valid reasons or are they just batshitinsane?
For us geeks, did you know you can subscribe to RSS feeds for your elected officials to see what votes they have made lately?
Yea, one you read the original source article at IGN you realize Iwata was talking about new, fresh games and not "classic" games, but apparently neither Ars Technica nor slashdot seems to give a damn about accuracy, its all about pageviews and ad revenue.
Apple wont get back into gaming until some contemporary games are ported (and they work decently)
Contemporary games wont be ported until Apple ships something better than GMA950 in a majority of their consumer level products (so Doom 3, HL2, etc don't look like a slideshow).
I really think the reason they're finally using AMD chips is that AMD will finally have the manufacturing capacity to supply Dell. Fab36 is delivering revenue now, and will ramp more as the year goes by. Between Fab36 and their relationship with Chartered Semi, they can supply Dell with the chips they need. And since its most likely they'll be 4S (8 core) servers, for ever server dell sells, they'll need 4 chips from AMD.
Bah, where are my modpoints when I need them.
I agree mostly, a lot of Mac Fanbois say you can ignore Dell. But thats really not the case if Apple wants this new advertising campaign to go anywhere and increase their market share. They (the fanbois and Apple) can sit around with their noses up in the air and keep a 3-4% marketshare or they can start to figure out what will move switchers.
And Apple doesnt have to match Dell prices, but it is very important to remain competitive from a value standpoint. Including stuff like iLife and Front Row are important if they are going to charge more.
I still think we'll see three models - all come with 13.3" screens, 40-60GB HDs, 512MB... $899 core solo pushed towards edu (and of course, cheaper in bulk amounts for schools), $1099 for a 1.66 duo and $1299 for a 1.83 duo. BTO X1400 graphics available on the duo models for $200 or so (Dell has this exact option so I know its fesiable - On their Inspiron E1505 you get GMA950 by default, and you can BTO X1300 128MB or X1400 256MB for $99 and $179 respectively).
The 1.83 might be pushing it, but I think Intel is going to release their 2.33Ghz top end chip soon enough - and then the 1.83s will vanish from the Pro line and we'll see 2.0, 2.16 and 2.33Ghz options on the MacBook Pro lineup. Prices for all the core duo chips are set to be cut at the end of May anyways.
Pictures. Taking a picture of some setup can be worth a page of words. You'll need to explain the context and maybe annotate it, but its just so much easier to show someone a screenshot or picture instead of using tons of words.
The only bright light in this spec. That and it supposedly can support *really* high resolutions.
Using JVM 1.4.x or 1.5 I get display artifacts when scrolling in various controls - datagrid, text boxes, etc. It only seems to happen when my display is in portrait mode.
What does a commercial entity have to gain with a credit at iTMS? Unless it is transferable (e.g. sell it on ebay), there isn't much they can do with it.
What part of "business account" was so hard to read? I have a business account at home. If I max my bandwidth all the time my ISP wont say anything because I pay them a lot for the service. I also get stuff like a static IP and better tech support.
I can see Apple doing this for movies since they're so large size-wise. I wouldn't mind using half of my upstream to earn credit at the store. Good way to defray the cost of my internet bill - and since I'm on a comercial account my ISP doesnt say anything about me using a lot of bandwidth.
The fact that these panels are much cheaper to develop and output the same power as a conventional PV panel is where its at. If they can get the price down to $1.50/W, it starts to look really appealing. For an installation of 10 200W panels (2kW), you're looking at saving $2000.
One of the other factors with this panel is that it brings down the net carbon impact of the devices. It takes less energy to produce these panels, so the breakeven time is much shorter than on a conventional PV panel.
However, the biggest price hurdle is actually the cost of a licensed electrician to install the equipment. Cheap panels are nice, but its got to get to the point where you can "plug and gen" instead of paying out the ass. Have you priced labor in the trades lately? In my town, apprentices are making $30/hr, master electricians, plumbers, etc make $50+/hr.
You know you probably dont have long to wait (3-4 months?) for a HiDef TiVo that works with cable TV.
But the addition vectors are all crammed into the first 14 or 15 bits of the 40 bit addition vector. (that is bits 16 to 40 are zero). This would assure that the addition vectors are linearly dependent and the code cannot be cracked.
Didnt the article say that the vectors always have 20 1's and 20 zeros? Doesnt that limit the permutability of the vector?
Also, if you were to hand vectors out 10,000 keys like that to one manufacturer, woudln't you only need 14 or 15 of those types of devices to conspire to break the system? You could essentially break any device of that manufacturer (or whoever made the internals) with a fewer number of devices.
I believe my company still uses some token ring cabling to carry ethernet. You have to put this funny adapter on the end (at each end) and then the token ring cable will carry ethernet. It cant go any faster than 100Mbps though. I think they are supposed to replace it next year when a large part of the company moves buildings.
Uh, did I have a "Pro" on the end of the product I was talking about? No, I'm waiting for the mac book "regulars" or whatever they're called.
And the mini isnt really a fine desktop if you want to play CS2.
Not to say I dont like apple products, I've been thinking about buying a Mini and hooking it up to my HDTV for HTPC-like functionality.
But I do know that I am ditching my windows laptop for a Mac Book whenever they come out (supposedly in the next month or two). I'm inclined to replace my desktop later this year if they come out with an affordable Desktop Mac ($1500 or less) that I can put in a new video card every year or 18 months, new proc (assuming mobo compatibility), more/faster RAM, etc.
Voting machines should print human-readable paper ballots, verifiable by the voter, that can also be counted by machine, and those ballots should be put in a locked metal box and then counted under supervision of all the major political parties to produce the official tallies.
Nevada is one of the few states that has a voter verified paper trail. While the voting machines aren't as secure as our slot machines, it seems to be quite apt for Americans to care more about their money than democracy.