Keep in mind that the "grid" tech is for server/server communications, not communications with the game clients, which could still be TCP (although highly unlikely, since clustering ALSO requires low latency.)
I would not be surprised if most clustering technologies use UDP with something above it to handle the possibilities of loss, since they rely so much on low-latency communications.
No one's going to buy your games if no one's buying your consoles.
Therefore, while in and of itself Nintendo would not make direct revenue from DVD capability, they would make indirect revenue in that for many people, lack of DVD capability was a big strike against the Gamecube when answering the question, "Which should I buy?". I know this was one of the factors in my cousin buying a PS2 for his kids instead of a Gamecube.
"T-Mobile has better coverage than any other provide in Northern/Central New Jersey."
Look at T-Mobile's coverage map: http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/Default.asp
Then look at Verizon's coverage map.
Oh look, Verizon is STILL the only provider that can cover 100% of the landmass of the most densely populated state in the union.
And I *live* in Central Jersey (Bridgewater, I work in Warren) - My Verizon phone routinely works in places where T-Mobile phones don't work. I have yet to go anywhere that my Verizon phone does NOT work around here, with the exception of inside the office building I work in where no one's phones work. (The building was built with significant RF shielding due to the fact that we develop power amplifiers for cell towers - Between that and all the interference from amps being tested, no one's phones work reliably anywhere but the lunchroom.)
Remember - Fans get noisy when they start failing.
A vacuum cleaner and some silicone lubricant can do wonders for a GF4 fan - I had one that became very loud and then stopped. I vacuumed it out, unscrewed the fan (On mine, the heatsink is epoxied but the fan can be unscrewed from the heatsink) and sprayed lubricant into the workings of the fan.
" A college roommate and I had a nice setup of liquor bottles filled with highlighter ink in water (1 marker per bottle). When the blacklight was on, the bottle glow would almost light up the room."
Don't host a party.
It's a matter of time before some drunkard decides to go for the pretty glowy booze.
Yes, this happened once during a party my apartmentmates and I held my senior year. Fortunately it was nontoxic water-soluble paint...
The only time I use text messaging is when I send a message to someone who might be in a situation where they don't want to be disturbed by a phone call (even a short one.) Thus I send a text message which they can read at their leisure.
The TDMA you refer to is officially called D-AMPS I believe. It uses TDMA as its modulation scheme - But so does GSM.
Most CDMA providers (Basically all for now, this will change with UMTS) use cdmaOne or CDMA2000. CDMA2000 is a seamless upgrade from cdmaOne. (cdmaOne phones work on CDMA2000 networks and vice versa, unlike UMTS and GSM, which are completely incompatible with each other.) UMTS (3G GSM) also uses CDMA for modulation.
Of the providers in the U.S. Verizon - cdmaOne, rolling out CDMA2000 gradually
Sprint PCS - Small CDMA2000 network. They rolled out CDMA2000 to all their towers at once.
AT&T - Formerly D-AMPS. Their D-AMPS network was #1 in coverage, even better than VZW. AT&T shot themselves in the foot by upgrading to GSM. Not only did they negate their coverage advantage, but they rolled out a dead-end technology with no upgrade path. (UMTS requires new base stations, new phones, and new RF heads network-wide. A partial UMTS rollout is not possible.)
Cingular - Another D-AMPS gone GSM provider.
VoiceStream (now T-Mobile) - Has been GSM since Day 1. Worst coverage and service of any provider in the nation. GSM can't seem handle multiple providers gracefully, so many T-Mobile customers started getting "Service Unavailable" the day that AT&T or Cingular put a GSM tower on-air in their area. (See an above comment about AT&T's "No Service Weekends" plans.)
Nextel - Uses Motorola's iDEN system. Completely proprietary, but is firmly entrenched in the construction/contractor business due to their direct-connect functionality.
There are also a few smaller CDMA providers, such as Alltel. Note that Verizon seems to have roaming agreements with all of the other CDMA providers, very often "one-way" ones. (Verizon customers can use Sprint towers as part of their plan, but Sprint customers can't use VZW towers. Of course, VZW customers are paying more per minute for that privilege. As a VZW customer - It's worth it. I hear people with other providers complain about their cell service routinely - My service is great.)
"Perhaps laptops with WiFi and big amplifiers and antennas will be the ham-radio of the future.
Hams (and non hams) play with this now. Of course, the rules prohibit big amplifiers, but good antennas can be used." Interestingly enough, the ARRL does have some WiFi-related projects.
Keep in mind that hams can reclassify Part 15 WiFi devices under Part 97, allowing the use of much larger amplifiers.
Still, I don't see reliance on WiFi, part 97 reclassified or not, as something that can be relied upon in an emergency. It's not reliable enough.
The most powerful signal processor in the world is the human ear. That's why FM and SSB voice will always have their place.
"The only reason HAM is still any one of those things is because it has no marketable value, in terms of the average consumer. Can you imagine if one day out of the blue, the major telecom companies decided to market HAM, and everyone had one? Can you imagine how useful it'd be then? In my opinion, its saving grace is the fact that it never caught on (though I agree, it does certainly have its place)." Amateur radio cannot be used for commercial purposes. So the telecom companies are never going to "market" it, because legally they can't.
I've seen examples of hams with minivans decked out with more long-range microwave equipment than a military command truck.
That sort of thing costs $$$ - The kind of $$$ that many emergency organizations simply don't have.
My interest in ham radio has declined, simply due to lack of people my age in the hobby. Fortunately, I'm in it more for the technical aspects. (I don't even have HF privileges, I just have a Tech class license for VHF+)
Admittedly, HF is getting to be an old dinosaur, but it still has its place. One of the main reasons I'm working on learning Morse to upgrade to a General class license (Unless the FCC drops the code requirement since the ITU no longer requires it, but this is the FCC we're talking about) is because a friend of mine from college is in the Peace Corps in the South Pacific. Apparently with the exception of a $2/minute satellite connection, their only means of communication with the outside world is HF. I'm hoping that once I get my license upgraded I might be able to talk to them occasionally.
Face it - HF communications is the only option for people located in remote areas that are not filthy rich. (Example: I know some people in the Peace Corps. For many of them, there is only one way to communicate with friends and family back home - The local ham with an HF rig.)
GH operation was the thing I hated the most about Q2 CTF... It just *felt wrong*.
Nothing can compare to the original Threewave grapple-wise. It had some levels that were designed *beautifully* for the grapple. Threewave for Q3 has great hook operation, but thanks to the inclusion of CaptureStrike (bleh! Take a good game and ruin it by throwing in CounterStrike elements), most levels are designed to be fully playable without the grapple. (A few have jump pads depending on whether or not you have the grapple. But overall grapple action in Q3TWCTF is compromised thanks to CaptureStrike.)
I absolutely hated Quake II's multiplayer. The single-player action was OK, but the multiplayer just felt WRONG.
Now, classic Threewave CTF gameplay combined with a new engine, or the ORIGINAL QWTF ported up to a new engine but with the same gameplay... Puddles of drool are threatening to short out my keyboard.
QII is the bastard child of the series. Everything about it just felt wrong. (Except the graphics, those were cool.:) Q3A was much better gameplay-wise for fans of the classic Quakeworld game mechanics. While out-of-the-box the CTF wasn't so hot, Threewave CTF for Q3A and Q3F (TeamFortress for Q3A) both come close to the fun of classic Threewave CTF and QWTF. No matter what mods I tried, Q2 CTF was never fun to play.
While Tenebrae2 might be Q2-based (I could've sworn it was a fork of the Q1-based Tenebrae though, without any of the released Q2 code), from everything I read, Tenebrae2 will not in any way be recognizable as Quake 2. Unlike Tenebrae, which can use Q1 maps and then load new textures for them, some of the docs indicated that Tenebrae2 would have a new (incompatible) map format.
Long Island residents fight tooth and nail against the construction of ANY power plant in their neighborhoods, whether coal or nuclear. This attitude didn't change until the past 2-3 years when the LIPA was basically forced to ignore the complaints due to capacity problems.
Needless to say, it takes time to build new powerplants, and Long Islanders are paying for NIMBY now. This massive grid failure might likely not have happened if Shoreham had been allowed to begin operations.
Meanwhile in New Jersey, where we have at least one (I believe more than one) nuclear plant (In Forked River, NJ) and a number of coal-fired plants, all we had to deal with was a brief flicker at 4:10.
Genetic research secured diabetics a reliable supply of insulin that wasn't dependent on the worlds' eating habits. (Short summary: Until the 70s, all insulin was derived from pork or beef pancreases removed at slaughterhouses. Rising numbers of diabetics and falling amounts of beef/pork being eaten spelled Bad News for diabetics sometime in the 80s or 90s. Thanks to genetic engineering (insulin-producing bacteria were the first genetically engineered organism), diabetics have a reliable supply of insulin, which as an added bonus is chemically identical to human insulin. (It was possible to develop a tolerance to beef and pork insulins over time.)
Genetic engineering has enabled the creation of "designer" insulins with effectiveness profiles not possible with human insulin. (Specifical Humalog ultra-fast-acting insulin, which peaks and leaves the system faster than natural human insulin, and Lantus "peakless" insulin, used to provide an all-day baseline dose.)
Stem cells are the next frontier in diabetes research - Some of the only cures for diabetes on the horizon rely on stem cells being used to replace destroyed beta cells in the pancreas of diabetics.
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind that the "grid" tech is for server/server communications, not communications with the game clients, which could still be TCP (although highly unlikely, since clustering ALSO requires low latency.)
I would not be surprised if most clustering technologies use UDP with something above it to handle the possibilities of loss, since they rely so much on low-latency communications.
We did quite a lot of "network load testing" back in high school.
Or more simply:
No one's going to buy your games if no one's buying your consoles.
Therefore, while in and of itself Nintendo would not make direct revenue from DVD capability, they would make indirect revenue in that for many people, lack of DVD capability was a big strike against the Gamecube when answering the question, "Which should I buy?". I know this was one of the factors in my cousin buying a PS2 for his kids instead of a Gamecube.
FYI, my cousin and his kids are a perfect example of how Nintendo blew it with the Gamecube.
They were all big Nintendo fans.
Which of the current-gen consoles do they have? Hint: Not a Gamecube. Why? They wanted a DVD player too when they bought it.
Used CDs:
a) Are cheaper
b) Don't send money to the RIAA
I haven't bought a new CD in many years. I have bought used though.
half.com rocks.
I was the same.
When I turned 21, I could drink 2 pints and barely feel any effects. I could drink 4 and still feel great the next day.
Now, about two and a half years later, it takes one bottle of beer for me to have a headache for most of the next day.
"T-Mobile has better coverage than any other provide in Northern/Central New Jersey."
Look at T-Mobile's coverage map: http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/Default.asp
Then look at Verizon's coverage map.
Oh look, Verizon is STILL the only provider that can cover 100% of the landmass of the most densely populated state in the union.
And I *live* in Central Jersey (Bridgewater, I work in Warren) - My Verizon phone routinely works in places where T-Mobile phones don't work. I have yet to go anywhere that my Verizon phone does NOT work around here, with the exception of inside the office building I work in where no one's phones work. (The building was built with significant RF shielding due to the fact that we develop power amplifiers for cell towers - Between that and all the interference from amps being tested, no one's phones work reliably anywhere but the lunchroom.)
Remember - Fans get noisy when they start failing.
A vacuum cleaner and some silicone lubricant can do wonders for a GF4 fan - I had one that became very loud and then stopped. I vacuumed it out, unscrewed the fan (On mine, the heatsink is epoxied but the fan can be unscrewed from the heatsink) and sprayed lubricant into the workings of the fan.
It's quieter than ever now.
" A college roommate and I had a nice setup of liquor bottles filled with highlighter ink in water (1 marker per bottle). When the blacklight was on, the bottle glow would almost light up the room."
Don't host a party.
It's a matter of time before some drunkard decides to go for the pretty glowy booze.
Yes, this happened once during a party my apartmentmates and I held my senior year. Fortunately it was nontoxic water-soluble paint...
Plan 9 from Outer Space isn't on the list.
Thus, it can't be trusted.
And even though I haven't seen Gigli, I can't see how it could possibly be WORSE than Super Mario Bros.
The only time I use text messaging is when I send a message to someone who might be in a situation where they don't want to be disturbed by a phone call (even a short one.) Thus I send a text message which they can read at their leisure.
Just a minor comment:
The TDMA you refer to is officially called D-AMPS I believe. It uses TDMA as its modulation scheme - But so does GSM.
Most CDMA providers (Basically all for now, this will change with UMTS) use cdmaOne or CDMA2000. CDMA2000 is a seamless upgrade from cdmaOne. (cdmaOne phones work on CDMA2000 networks and vice versa, unlike UMTS and GSM, which are completely incompatible with each other.) UMTS (3G GSM) also uses CDMA for modulation.
Of the providers in the U.S.
Verizon - cdmaOne, rolling out CDMA2000 gradually
Sprint PCS - Small CDMA2000 network. They rolled out CDMA2000 to all their towers at once.
AT&T - Formerly D-AMPS. Their D-AMPS network was #1 in coverage, even better than VZW. AT&T shot themselves in the foot by upgrading to GSM. Not only did they negate their coverage advantage, but they rolled out a dead-end technology with no upgrade path. (UMTS requires new base stations, new phones, and new RF heads network-wide. A partial UMTS rollout is not possible.)
Cingular - Another D-AMPS gone GSM provider.
VoiceStream (now T-Mobile) - Has been GSM since Day 1. Worst coverage and service of any provider in the nation. GSM can't seem handle multiple providers gracefully, so many T-Mobile customers started getting "Service Unavailable" the day that AT&T or Cingular put a GSM tower on-air in their area. (See an above comment about AT&T's "No Service Weekends" plans.)
Nextel - Uses Motorola's iDEN system. Completely proprietary, but is firmly entrenched in the construction/contractor business due to their direct-connect functionality.
There are also a few smaller CDMA providers, such as Alltel. Note that Verizon seems to have roaming agreements with all of the other CDMA providers, very often "one-way" ones. (Verizon customers can use Sprint towers as part of their plan, but Sprint customers can't use VZW towers. Of course, VZW customers are paying more per minute for that privilege. As a VZW customer - It's worth it. I hear people with other providers complain about their cell service routinely - My service is great.)
Human brain, not human ear.
"Perhaps laptops with WiFi and big amplifiers and antennas will be the ham-radio of the future.
Hams (and non hams) play with this now. Of course, the rules prohibit big amplifiers, but good antennas can be used."
Interestingly enough, the ARRL does have some WiFi-related projects.
Keep in mind that hams can reclassify Part 15 WiFi devices under Part 97, allowing the use of much larger amplifiers.
Still, I don't see reliance on WiFi, part 97 reclassified or not, as something that can be relied upon in an emergency. It's not reliable enough.
The most powerful signal processor in the world is the human ear. That's why FM and SSB voice will always have their place.
"The only reason HAM is still any one of those things is because it has no marketable value, in terms of the average consumer. Can you imagine if one day out of the blue, the major telecom companies decided to market HAM, and everyone had one? Can you imagine how useful it'd be then? In my opinion, its saving grace is the fact that it never caught on (though I agree, it does certainly have its place)."
Amateur radio cannot be used for commercial purposes. So the telecom companies are never going to "market" it, because legally they can't.
I've seen examples of hams with minivans decked out with more long-range microwave equipment than a military command truck.
That sort of thing costs $$$ - The kind of $$$ that many emergency organizations simply don't have.
My interest in ham radio has declined, simply due to lack of people my age in the hobby. Fortunately, I'm in it more for the technical aspects. (I don't even have HF privileges, I just have a Tech class license for VHF+)
Admittedly, HF is getting to be an old dinosaur, but it still has its place. One of the main reasons I'm working on learning Morse to upgrade to a General class license (Unless the FCC drops the code requirement since the ITU no longer requires it, but this is the FCC we're talking about) is because a friend of mine from college is in the Peace Corps in the South Pacific. Apparently with the exception of a $2/minute satellite connection, their only means of communication with the outside world is HF. I'm hoping that once I get my license upgraded I might be able to talk to them occasionally.
Do you realize how expensive that is?
Do you realize how low-capacity it is?
Face it - HF communications is the only option for people located in remote areas that are not filthy rich. (Example: I know some people in the Peace Corps. For many of them, there is only one way to communicate with friends and family back home - The local ham with an HF rig.)
GH operation was the thing I hated the most about Q2 CTF... It just *felt wrong*.
Nothing can compare to the original Threewave grapple-wise. It had some levels that were designed *beautifully* for the grapple. Threewave for Q3 has great hook operation, but thanks to the inclusion of CaptureStrike (bleh! Take a good game and ruin it by throwing in CounterStrike elements), most levels are designed to be fully playable without the grapple. (A few have jump pads depending on whether or not you have the grapple. But overall grapple action in Q3TWCTF is compromised thanks to CaptureStrike.)
Quake II Remix?
:) Q3A was much better gameplay-wise for fans of the classic Quakeworld game mechanics. While out-of-the-box the CTF wasn't so hot, Threewave CTF for Q3A and Q3F (TeamFortress for Q3A) both come close to the fun of classic Threewave CTF and QWTF. No matter what mods I tried, Q2 CTF was never fun to play.
Why not Quake I Remix?
I absolutely hated Quake II's multiplayer. The single-player action was OK, but the multiplayer just felt WRONG.
Now, classic Threewave CTF gameplay combined with a new engine, or the ORIGINAL QWTF ported up to a new engine but with the same gameplay... Puddles of drool are threatening to short out my keyboard.
QII is the bastard child of the series. Everything about it just felt wrong. (Except the graphics, those were cool.
While Tenebrae2 might be Q2-based (I could've sworn it was a fork of the Q1-based Tenebrae though, without any of the released Q2 code), from everything I read, Tenebrae2 will not in any way be recognizable as Quake 2. Unlike Tenebrae, which can use Q1 maps and then load new textures for them, some of the docs indicated that Tenebrae2 would have a new (incompatible) map format.
Did you read the parent?
"Kind of similar to the rocket-engine people who were there 2 years ago with Dick Rutan as their test pilot..."
I was talking about them, not the pulsejet people.
That would be Xcor Aerospace, which gets /. coverage pretty often. :)
Their rocket-powered Long-EZ is called the EZ-Rocket.
It relied on there being quite a number of parallel discs. Which would look like circular "fins" on the axle of the turbine.
Long Island residents fight tooth and nail against the construction of ANY power plant in their neighborhoods, whether coal or nuclear. This attitude didn't change until the past 2-3 years when the LIPA was basically forced to ignore the complaints due to capacity problems.
Needless to say, it takes time to build new powerplants, and Long Islanders are paying for NIMBY now. This massive grid failure might likely not have happened if Shoreham had been allowed to begin operations.
Meanwhile in New Jersey, where we have at least one (I believe more than one) nuclear plant (In Forked River, NJ) and a number of coal-fired plants, all we had to deal with was a brief flicker at 4:10.
Genetic research secured diabetics a reliable supply of insulin that wasn't dependent on the worlds' eating habits. (Short summary: Until the 70s, all insulin was derived from pork or beef pancreases removed at slaughterhouses. Rising numbers of diabetics and falling amounts of beef/pork being eaten spelled Bad News for diabetics sometime in the 80s or 90s. Thanks to genetic engineering (insulin-producing bacteria were the first genetically engineered organism), diabetics have a reliable supply of insulin, which as an added bonus is chemically identical to human insulin. (It was possible to develop a tolerance to beef and pork insulins over time.)
Genetic engineering has enabled the creation of "designer" insulins with effectiveness profiles not possible with human insulin. (Specifical Humalog ultra-fast-acting insulin, which peaks and leaves the system faster than natural human insulin, and Lantus "peakless" insulin, used to provide an all-day baseline dose.)
Stem cells are the next frontier in diabetes research - Some of the only cures for diabetes on the horizon rely on stem cells being used to replace destroyed beta cells in the pancreas of diabetics.