I have a Logitech MX3100 wireless keyboard/mouse combo (MX1000 laser mouse). The mouse will only go for a day and a half or so on a charge (this is assuming constant use, like playing WOW all day, which doesn't surprise me considering the laser takes up a lot more juice than a regular optical mouse)...however, it only takes the thing about an hour on the base to charge completely from empty. With "normal" use (not constant gaming), it can last for almost a week. The main reason I got it was because the keyboard/mouse wires were getting in the way (I have a KVM switch with several computers in there). The KVM switch is pretty close to the computers, but not close enough to the keyboard/mouse without having a jumble of wires on the desk. The cats kept either dragging the mouse off the table or unplugging the keyboard. The way it is now, the receiver is plugged into the KVM switch, and the cables from the switch to the computers are also running underneath where the cats can't get to them. It gives me a lot more freedom with the keyboard/mouse than I could get with wired ones unless I wanted to get extension cords. I haven't had any performance issues with this keyboard/mouse combo, I play WOW with it all the time and was able to play Doom 3 and Half-Life without any problems (not a big FPS fan, just loaded those up to test the keyboard/mouse). I wouldn't even consider going wireless for speakers, headphones, monitor, etc...there's just no point. I do have a wireless network in my apartment, however it's only used by the laptops, the others just use ethernet (wireless generally has too high latency for gaming, and I like the ~40ms ping times I can get on WOW with my ethernet steup). In conclusion, wireless is useful for some things, but trying to replace every cable with a wireless setup is unrealistic.
I can relate to that...I'm not a big PC gamer either. Pretty much the only PC games I play are the Blizzard ones (WOW has pretty much dominated the computer for the last 3 months since I got it). The Blizzard games pretty much don't work on consoles (I know they made Warcraft 2 and Diablo for Playstation/Saturn and Starcraft for N64, but the control schemes on the consoles are pretty much unworkable...you need a mouse and keyboard). I couldn't see playing something like WOW on a console. Aside from that, the games that I like to play have been best on consoles and probably always will be (Metroid, Zelda, etc). They tend to push console hardware a lot harder than PC hardware, because when designing a console game, you know that everyone has exactly the same configuration and you can take advantage of that. PC games often have to be designed for the lowest common denominator, plus you have to take into account the overhead of an OS. Sure, games can take advantage of the latest and greatest hardware, but not to the extent that they can on consoles. Sure, consoles are always technically inferior to PC's at the time that they're released, but being able to push the hardware more tends to make up for it to an extent, plus you have games that are designed for the controller you'll be using. Ocarina of Time is still a damn fun game, even though the graphics are terrible by today's standards.
I think the biggest mistake that was made during the time that separate boxed Linux versions of games were published was just that...the separate boxed Linux version. 1) Retailers don't even have space for the stuff they do have, let alone another shelf of the same games for a different OS. 2) A lot of the Linux gamers at that point already had the Windows versions of the games...would you go out and buy a new copy of a game you already own just to play it on another OS? The only company I've seen get this right is Blizzard (well, almost, since they have yet to do native Linux ports, but they way they do their multiple versions it won't be hard). The BEST way to do mutiple versions of a game for different OS's is to release 1 boxed copy of the game, and include all versions on the CD. Blizzard has done this almost since the very beginning (even the copy of Warcraft 1 I have has both the DOS and Mac versions on the same CD). WOW is the same way, stick it in a PC or Mac and it works. The vast majority of the space a game takes up on the CD is not the actual program code, it's the various artwork, data files, textures, etc, and those are completely platform neutral if development is done properly. All you need to do is stick a Linux executable on there also and you're ready to go. Even if they don't want to go to the trouble of putting the Linux binary on the CD and advertising it, they could make it available for download from their site. It wouldn't do anyone any good without the game CD's. If they wanted to be really anal about it, they could make you register your CD key online before they let you download the Linux version. Most Blizzard games seem to have been developed cross platform from the very beginning. If they already went to the trouble to make x86/Win32 and PPC/MacOSX versions, porting to x86/Linux or PPC/Linux would be trivial compared to the work they've already done. I agree though, Wine is not the answer...as much admiration as I have for the Wine people for what they've managed to accomplish, in the long run it's probably detrimental to the Linux gaming market, because developers will just say "Oh, you can just run it under Wine, we don't need to make a Linux version".
I used to work at a convenience store in Charlotte, NC as an assistant manager a few years back. Back in early 2003 there was an ice storm that took out power to 75% of the city for almost a week. My store was without power for 4 days. The insurance company denied the claim for the perishable stuff that had spoiled, because it turned out the policy stated that the only way they would pay for such a thing was if the transformer was completely removed from the poll and was on the ground. The transformer had not fallen off the pole, so they denied the claim, even though the entire area was without power for at least 4 days. I actually read the policy myself, couldn't believe it. I guess you should read the fine print of a policy before you get it.
I wonder if at some point in the future voice synthesis tech will get good enough to take over for the voice actors too. That wouldn't really work very well at this point though, unless you want everyone to sound like Stephen Hawking. Voice synthesis tech is actually pretty good considering it's trying to completely emulate all the subtleties of a human voice, but it still doesn't sound quite right.
I can't speak for the models you mentioned as I've never owned one, but between me, my wife, and a friend we have 3 Compaq Presario 2108CL laptops (couple years old, Athlon XP-M 2800+, Radeon IGP 320M graphics, 1 gig RAM, etc), and they've all been very reliable. We got them all at once refurbished about a year ago, no problems at all except for the hard drive failing on one of them. Can't really blame Compaq for that since it was a Toshiba hard drive, it was an obvious mechanical failure inside the drive (it made horrible grinding noises). My laptop has the same Toshiba drive and hasn't had any problems. Haven't had any keyboard, screen, button, or battery problems that seem to be common on a lot of laptops.
My only real concern about the depiction in the movie is it might have an unintended side effect: cause the same people who are scared of nuclear power (fission) already to be deathly afraid of fusion reactors because they think they will behave like they did in the movie and an accident would cause the planet to be swallowed. Granted, the people that would think this are the ones who know absolutely nothing about physics, radiation, or science in general...but there are enough of them that having people be afraid of fusion because of the depiction in a movie might be enough to prevent it from being implemented on a large scale if we are ever able to pass the "break even" point and actually start producing energy with it.
I really enjoyed Spider-Man 2, but the depiction of "fusion" was absolutely ridiculous, comic book physics at best. But then, it wasn't really intended to be serious science, it was a plot device to show the accident that caused Doctor Octopus to come about. I still would've portrayed a more realistic depiction of a fusion reactor accident though...but I'm not really sure what kind of accident there could be. You shut off the magnetic fields that are causing fusion, the reaction instantly stops, since there isn't anywhere near enough gravity on something smaller than a star to cause fusion. In the movie it appeared to generate a miniature "sun" that was pulling things in via a strong magnetic field (it only seemed to affect metal), but these objects were "consumed" when they touched it. Where did all that mass go? It behaved more like he created a miniature black hole (although without the tidal forces and nasty time dialation effects.
No kidding. I maintain a WOW subscription, but I don't play it every day. On workdays I sometimes play for about 3 hours every other day or so, then I usually do about 6 hours on Sunday (the main day for my guild to do instances, basically the only time all of us can be there). Sometimes on Sunday it's not even 6 hours, usually only long enough to do the instance of the week and maybe a little bit before or after. This is only when I have free time though, and I often do find other things to do. It's something I enjoy doing in my free time, but I'm not addicted to it. My wife on the other hand, plays obsessively for 12-14 hours/day (usually when I'm at work or asleep) and gets really grouchy if she has to put it down even for a half hour. I'm seriously considering some iptables rules on my router to place limits on the times that WOW will function.
Another idea would be internet voting. If you can file your taxes online, why not vote online? Some people say that it couldn't be secure, or that there's no way to implement it, but if they can do taxes online they can certainly do that. Brazil implemented internet voting awhile ago, if they can do it there's no reason the US can't.
Another idea is to make election day a national holiday, like it is in *every* country except the US. Close everything down, except the polls. A lot of us have to actually *work* for a living, and we can't afford to lose an entire day's pay to sit in line at the polls...but our jobs do give us paid holidays. If they'll shut everything down for the commercial BS of Christmas, they can certainly shut everything down for election day.
No kidding. I just had to get a new PSU for my higher end system, because the PSU that came with the case (supposedly 300w but apparently a cheap one) couldn't keep up. This isn't cutting edge hardware either...it's an Athlon XP 3200+, Radeon X850XT video card, SB Audigy 2 ZS. Basically all of the hardware is pretty much the cutting edge of the last generation, pre-Athlon64, pre-PCI Express. The system started experiencing problems when I swapped the old Duron 750 for the Athlon XP (I was still using a Radeon 9200 then). I had to swap the video card with a Radeon 8500 to get it to run somewhat stable again. At the time, I incorrectly attributed it to the video card, thinking it may have been bad (it was given to me when my roommate upgraded his system when he started having problems). It turns out that the 9200 was AGP 8x while the 8500 was AGP 4x and that was just enough to make a difference. The whole system died when I put the X850XT in, it wouldn't boot most of the time, spontaneous reboots constantly (Windows or Linux), Windows install would crash at the same point, etc. I swapped out the power supply with a 410W, all problems instantly vanished, and the system has been running fine since. I guess having to have a 410W isn't really that bad compared to some of the new stuff where they're starting to have 1000W PSU's though. I'm probably not going to upgrade any further from Athlon XP 3200+/Radeon X850XT for some time. I mainly just got that stuff to play WOW so I can turn the settings all the way up, I'm not really that much of a PC gamer otherwise.
Exactly. Linux DOES have to take over the MBR (with either GRUB or LILO), but unlike the Windows bootloader, GRUB and LILO can both be configured to launch either OS quite easily. I have two machines dual-booting Gentoo and XP via GRUB (Gentoo set as default on both, one of the machines often runs headless and I often need to do stuff on it remotely...it's connected to everything via a KVM switch, but it's usually set to the other computer, which happens to be the gaming system). Once you have GRUB or LILO installed, it's trivial to make either one launch Windows if you wish. You can't say that about the Windows bootloaders, where they happily assume that Windows is going to be the only OS.
...but not as Mario 2. It was on the SNES "Super Mario All-Stars" compilation and titled "The Lost Levels". It was pretty much a harder version of the first Super Mario...more pits to fall in, purple mushrooms that would hurt you, etc. Graphics and sound were nearly identical. Also, to be fair, Doki Doki Panic was developed by the same team that made Mario, but before it's "Mario 2" makeover, it had more of an Arabian theme.
Even if you want to take the stance that the Windows CD isn't your property, I don't think that's what the parent was talking about...I believe he was talking about the computer itself. Regardless of whether the OS is legal or not, regardless of which OS is being used, the computer is the property. I believe the parent meant messing with the computer when he said "messing with my property".
That's kinda funny...I've always said that if Bill Gates was Dr. Evil, then Steve Jobs was Mini Me. Although, can't forget that in AP3, Mini Me became "good" and joined Austin.
It's not Nintendo that's passing off prerendered footage as real time...it's Sony that's doing that. They did it for the PS2 and they're continuing that tradition for the PS3.
SUV's are overrated for off-road anyway. Sure, 4-wheel drive helps, but it's a lot more complex than that. Even though they're built on truck frames (for the most part), they have messed with the suspensions so they don't really handle like trucks, nor are they capable of doing what heavy duty trucks are capable of. If Billy the construction worker needs a truck to carry all his tools around and such, it makes sense to have an F-350 or something along those lines. For soccer moms that do nothing but go to the grocery store, having an SUV that's basically built on the same frame as that F-350 is a ridiculous waste. They don't really have all that much more room inside, it's mostly hype. If you have to carry lots of people around, get a VAN! Not a minivan, a real van...they don't get the gas mileage of efficient cars, but they do a heck of a lot better than SUV's. Personally speaking, I haven't had ANY trouble in heavy snow/ice in my Prius (which is just FWD). I'm averaging 55.4mpg this week so far, with a 4-mile trip to work. Even driving lots of other places, I maybe have to put gas in my car once every two weeks, and sometimes not even that often (and it's got a 10-gallon tank). I saw a video of someone trying to off-road a Hummer H2...it wasn't really severe off-road like you see with custom built 4x4's either, and it managed to break both axles and just about fall apart. SUV's are cheap consumer grade vehicles sold at a premium because they know people will pay it. The off-road capabilities and "safety" are just a myth perpetuated so they can continue to make money. If you need off-road, get a REAL off-road vehicle, don't expect an SUV to do it for you. If you need to carry a lot of people around, get a real van, which is designed to handle it.
The place I work uses passive RFID badges to let us into the building (and to get through doors in the building)...the readers do not work until you get the badge to within an inch of it. If the technology is like this, it would be impossible to read "at a distance"
That's true...but don't knock hardware graphic effects too much. You could easily apply that same statement to more modern systems and say something like "Why bother with the limited hardware functions of 3D accelerators when you could just do it all in software and be able to do more?" In general in software, if you can do something in hardware it's better to do it in hardware. Software sprite scaling/rotation will never be as efficient as doing it in hardware, and thus it won't look as good as a hardware implementation. Another example...the Playstation could do transparent textures in hardware, the Saturn could not. I've seen software transparent texture implementations, and they look HORRIBLE. Some things work out better if you can do them in software, other things work better in hardware. Graphic effects usually fall in the latter category. Today they're looking at shifting physics engines from software to hardware (using a dedicated card based on the Aegia PhysX chipset)...with that, games can have FAR FAR better physics than you could possibly do in a software implementation. Unfortunately, there really isn't much game support for that yet, but check again in 5 years and it'll probably be impossible to play a newer title without one.
The SNES is superior to the Genesis in some ways, but it depends on which component you're talking about. The m68k in the Genesis was FAR FAR FAR superior to the 65816, it's a night-and-day difference, there isn't even any competition there. However, the SNES did have far superior video and audio co-processors...it's the other way there, the Genesis's video and audio processors couldn't touch the SNES's. So once again it's a tossup...the Genesis had a far superior main CPU, the SNES had far superior co-processors. It all depends on what you're doing and what kind of game it is. I've seen Genesis games that do Mode-7 style rotation/scling, but they have to do it entirely in software (unlike the SNES where it was done in hardware on the video processor). The Genesis CAN do more in software because of the stronger CPU, but it can't match a lot of the background and rotation/scaling effects the SNES can do. However, this was really only advantageous in RPG's, which don't have a whole lot happening on screen (usually). Once you get a lot happening on the screen, the limitations of the SNES's CPU come into play and you get a lot of slowdown. Look at a game like Chrono Trigger...there really isn't that much going on on the screen at once, but it has a lot of nice background effects. Super Metroid was an exception...but you do get a lot of slowdown when there's a lot going on (drop a power bomb in a room full of enemies to see). The Genesis had a fairly weak video processor in comparison...fewer colors, no hardware rotation/scaling abilities. The sound processor was weak too, it used a pretty much standard Z80 for sound and didn't have any hardware effects. The SNES's sound processor on the other hand was quite advanced. It could do 8 channels, plus it had lots of hardware effects (like surround and echo). It used a format similar to MOD files, but it did it entirely in hardware. It was night and day compared to Genesis sound, blew it away. Amazingly enough, the SPC sound processor in the SNES was designed by Sony! I almost couldn't believe it...they made one of the best console sound processors for Nintendo, but they can't make a decent sound processor for their own systems to save their life.
An alternative is to just use any normal wireless router. The DS uses standard 802.11b for its online stuff. You don't have to use the proprietary wi-fi USB adapter, the DS can also connect with any standard 802.11b/g access point.
Dang, that must be nice. Where I work all they have is IE and we aren't allowed to install any additional programs. On the one Windows machine I have at home, IE isn't even an option anymore (unless someone really knows what they're doing), as I've deleted the iexplore executable and all of the shortcuts. Granted, you can still get to it via Windows Explorer, but generally that's not something that someone will think of unless they know what they're doing, and if they know what they doing they aren't going to be using IE.
You're right...I must've suffered a brain fart. I was thinking of OpenNIC. I think I got confused because OpenNIC did call themselves OpenDNS for a short time many years ago, and I never got accustomed to the new name.
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I have a Logitech MX3100 wireless keyboard/mouse combo (MX1000 laser mouse). The mouse will only go for a day and a half or so on a charge (this is assuming constant use, like playing WOW all day, which doesn't surprise me considering the laser takes up a lot more juice than a regular optical mouse)...however, it only takes the thing about an hour on the base to charge completely from empty. With "normal" use (not constant gaming), it can last for almost a week. The main reason I got it was because the keyboard/mouse wires were getting in the way (I have a KVM switch with several computers in there). The KVM switch is pretty close to the computers, but not close enough to the keyboard/mouse without having a jumble of wires on the desk. The cats kept either dragging the mouse off the table or unplugging the keyboard. The way it is now, the receiver is plugged into the KVM switch, and the cables from the switch to the computers are also running underneath where the cats can't get to them. It gives me a lot more freedom with the keyboard/mouse than I could get with wired ones unless I wanted to get extension cords. I haven't had any performance issues with this keyboard/mouse combo, I play WOW with it all the time and was able to play Doom 3 and Half-Life without any problems (not a big FPS fan, just loaded those up to test the keyboard/mouse). I wouldn't even consider going wireless for speakers, headphones, monitor, etc...there's just no point. I do have a wireless network in my apartment, however it's only used by the laptops, the others just use ethernet (wireless generally has too high latency for gaming, and I like the ~40ms ping times I can get on WOW with my ethernet steup). In conclusion, wireless is useful for some things, but trying to replace every cable with a wireless setup is unrealistic.
I can relate to that...I'm not a big PC gamer either. Pretty much the only PC games I play are the Blizzard ones (WOW has pretty much dominated the computer for the last 3 months since I got it). The Blizzard games pretty much don't work on consoles (I know they made Warcraft 2 and Diablo for Playstation/Saturn and Starcraft for N64, but the control schemes on the consoles are pretty much unworkable...you need a mouse and keyboard). I couldn't see playing something like WOW on a console. Aside from that, the games that I like to play have been best on consoles and probably always will be (Metroid, Zelda, etc). They tend to push console hardware a lot harder than PC hardware, because when designing a console game, you know that everyone has exactly the same configuration and you can take advantage of that. PC games often have to be designed for the lowest common denominator, plus you have to take into account the overhead of an OS. Sure, games can take advantage of the latest and greatest hardware, but not to the extent that they can on consoles. Sure, consoles are always technically inferior to PC's at the time that they're released, but being able to push the hardware more tends to make up for it to an extent, plus you have games that are designed for the controller you'll be using. Ocarina of Time is still a damn fun game, even though the graphics are terrible by today's standards.
I think the biggest mistake that was made during the time that separate boxed Linux versions of games were published was just that...the separate boxed Linux version. 1) Retailers don't even have space for the stuff they do have, let alone another shelf of the same games for a different OS. 2) A lot of the Linux gamers at that point already had the Windows versions of the games...would you go out and buy a new copy of a game you already own just to play it on another OS? The only company I've seen get this right is Blizzard (well, almost, since they have yet to do native Linux ports, but they way they do their multiple versions it won't be hard). The BEST way to do mutiple versions of a game for different OS's is to release 1 boxed copy of the game, and include all versions on the CD. Blizzard has done this almost since the very beginning (even the copy of Warcraft 1 I have has both the DOS and Mac versions on the same CD). WOW is the same way, stick it in a PC or Mac and it works. The vast majority of the space a game takes up on the CD is not the actual program code, it's the various artwork, data files, textures, etc, and those are completely platform neutral if development is done properly. All you need to do is stick a Linux executable on there also and you're ready to go. Even if they don't want to go to the trouble of putting the Linux binary on the CD and advertising it, they could make it available for download from their site. It wouldn't do anyone any good without the game CD's. If they wanted to be really anal about it, they could make you register your CD key online before they let you download the Linux version. Most Blizzard games seem to have been developed cross platform from the very beginning. If they already went to the trouble to make x86/Win32 and PPC/MacOSX versions, porting to x86/Linux or PPC/Linux would be trivial compared to the work they've already done. I agree though, Wine is not the answer...as much admiration as I have for the Wine people for what they've managed to accomplish, in the long run it's probably detrimental to the Linux gaming market, because developers will just say "Oh, you can just run it under Wine, we don't need to make a Linux version".
I used to work at a convenience store in Charlotte, NC as an assistant manager a few years back. Back in early 2003 there was an ice storm that took out power to 75% of the city for almost a week. My store was without power for 4 days. The insurance company denied the claim for the perishable stuff that had spoiled, because it turned out the policy stated that the only way they would pay for such a thing was if the transformer was completely removed from the poll and was on the ground. The transformer had not fallen off the pole, so they denied the claim, even though the entire area was without power for at least 4 days. I actually read the policy myself, couldn't believe it. I guess you should read the fine print of a policy before you get it.
I wonder if at some point in the future voice synthesis tech will get good enough to take over for the voice actors too. That wouldn't really work very well at this point though, unless you want everyone to sound like Stephen Hawking. Voice synthesis tech is actually pretty good considering it's trying to completely emulate all the subtleties of a human voice, but it still doesn't sound quite right.
I can't speak for the models you mentioned as I've never owned one, but between me, my wife, and a friend we have 3 Compaq Presario 2108CL laptops (couple years old, Athlon XP-M 2800+, Radeon IGP 320M graphics, 1 gig RAM, etc), and they've all been very reliable. We got them all at once refurbished about a year ago, no problems at all except for the hard drive failing on one of them. Can't really blame Compaq for that since it was a Toshiba hard drive, it was an obvious mechanical failure inside the drive (it made horrible grinding noises). My laptop has the same Toshiba drive and hasn't had any problems. Haven't had any keyboard, screen, button, or battery problems that seem to be common on a lot of laptops.
My only real concern about the depiction in the movie is it might have an unintended side effect: cause the same people who are scared of nuclear power (fission) already to be deathly afraid of fusion reactors because they think they will behave like they did in the movie and an accident would cause the planet to be swallowed. Granted, the people that would think this are the ones who know absolutely nothing about physics, radiation, or science in general...but there are enough of them that having people be afraid of fusion because of the depiction in a movie might be enough to prevent it from being implemented on a large scale if we are ever able to pass the "break even" point and actually start producing energy with it.
I really enjoyed Spider-Man 2, but the depiction of "fusion" was absolutely ridiculous, comic book physics at best. But then, it wasn't really intended to be serious science, it was a plot device to show the accident that caused Doctor Octopus to come about. I still would've portrayed a more realistic depiction of a fusion reactor accident though...but I'm not really sure what kind of accident there could be. You shut off the magnetic fields that are causing fusion, the reaction instantly stops, since there isn't anywhere near enough gravity on something smaller than a star to cause fusion. In the movie it appeared to generate a miniature "sun" that was pulling things in via a strong magnetic field (it only seemed to affect metal), but these objects were "consumed" when they touched it. Where did all that mass go? It behaved more like he created a miniature black hole (although without the tidal forces and nasty time dialation effects.
No kidding. I maintain a WOW subscription, but I don't play it every day. On workdays I sometimes play for about 3 hours every other day or so, then I usually do about 6 hours on Sunday (the main day for my guild to do instances, basically the only time all of us can be there). Sometimes on Sunday it's not even 6 hours, usually only long enough to do the instance of the week and maybe a little bit before or after. This is only when I have free time though, and I often do find other things to do. It's something I enjoy doing in my free time, but I'm not addicted to it. My wife on the other hand, plays obsessively for 12-14 hours/day (usually when I'm at work or asleep) and gets really grouchy if she has to put it down even for a half hour. I'm seriously considering some iptables rules on my router to place limits on the times that WOW will function.
Another idea would be internet voting. If you can file your taxes online, why not vote online? Some people say that it couldn't be secure, or that there's no way to implement it, but if they can do taxes online they can certainly do that. Brazil implemented internet voting awhile ago, if they can do it there's no reason the US can't.
Another idea is to make election day a national holiday, like it is in *every* country except the US. Close everything down, except the polls. A lot of us have to actually *work* for a living, and we can't afford to lose an entire day's pay to sit in line at the polls...but our jobs do give us paid holidays. If they'll shut everything down for the commercial BS of Christmas, they can certainly shut everything down for election day.
No kidding. I just had to get a new PSU for my higher end system, because the PSU that came with the case (supposedly 300w but apparently a cheap one) couldn't keep up. This isn't cutting edge hardware either...it's an Athlon XP 3200+, Radeon X850XT video card, SB Audigy 2 ZS. Basically all of the hardware is pretty much the cutting edge of the last generation, pre-Athlon64, pre-PCI Express. The system started experiencing problems when I swapped the old Duron 750 for the Athlon XP (I was still using a Radeon 9200 then). I had to swap the video card with a Radeon 8500 to get it to run somewhat stable again. At the time, I incorrectly attributed it to the video card, thinking it may have been bad (it was given to me when my roommate upgraded his system when he started having problems). It turns out that the 9200 was AGP 8x while the 8500 was AGP 4x and that was just enough to make a difference. The whole system died when I put the X850XT in, it wouldn't boot most of the time, spontaneous reboots constantly (Windows or Linux), Windows install would crash at the same point, etc. I swapped out the power supply with a 410W, all problems instantly vanished, and the system has been running fine since. I guess having to have a 410W isn't really that bad compared to some of the new stuff where they're starting to have 1000W PSU's though. I'm probably not going to upgrade any further from Athlon XP 3200+/Radeon X850XT for some time. I mainly just got that stuff to play WOW so I can turn the settings all the way up, I'm not really that much of a PC gamer otherwise.
Exactly. Linux DOES have to take over the MBR (with either GRUB or LILO), but unlike the Windows bootloader, GRUB and LILO can both be configured to launch either OS quite easily. I have two machines dual-booting Gentoo and XP via GRUB (Gentoo set as default on both, one of the machines often runs headless and I often need to do stuff on it remotely...it's connected to everything via a KVM switch, but it's usually set to the other computer, which happens to be the gaming system). Once you have GRUB or LILO installed, it's trivial to make either one launch Windows if you wish. You can't say that about the Windows bootloaders, where they happily assume that Windows is going to be the only OS.
...but not as Mario 2. It was on the SNES "Super Mario All-Stars" compilation and titled "The Lost Levels". It was pretty much a harder version of the first Super Mario...more pits to fall in, purple mushrooms that would hurt you, etc. Graphics and sound were nearly identical. Also, to be fair, Doki Doki Panic was developed by the same team that made Mario, but before it's "Mario 2" makeover, it had more of an Arabian theme.
Even if you want to take the stance that the Windows CD isn't your property, I don't think that's what the parent was talking about...I believe he was talking about the computer itself. Regardless of whether the OS is legal or not, regardless of which OS is being used, the computer is the property. I believe the parent meant messing with the computer when he said "messing with my property".
That's kinda funny...I've always said that if Bill Gates was Dr. Evil, then Steve Jobs was Mini Me. Although, can't forget that in AP3, Mini Me became "good" and joined Austin.
It's not Nintendo that's passing off prerendered footage as real time...it's Sony that's doing that. They did it for the PS2 and they're continuing that tradition for the PS3.
SUV's are overrated for off-road anyway. Sure, 4-wheel drive helps, but it's a lot more complex than that. Even though they're built on truck frames (for the most part), they have messed with the suspensions so they don't really handle like trucks, nor are they capable of doing what heavy duty trucks are capable of. If Billy the construction worker needs a truck to carry all his tools around and such, it makes sense to have an F-350 or something along those lines. For soccer moms that do nothing but go to the grocery store, having an SUV that's basically built on the same frame as that F-350 is a ridiculous waste. They don't really have all that much more room inside, it's mostly hype. If you have to carry lots of people around, get a VAN! Not a minivan, a real van...they don't get the gas mileage of efficient cars, but they do a heck of a lot better than SUV's. Personally speaking, I haven't had ANY trouble in heavy snow/ice in my Prius (which is just FWD). I'm averaging 55.4mpg this week so far, with a 4-mile trip to work. Even driving lots of other places, I maybe have to put gas in my car once every two weeks, and sometimes not even that often (and it's got a 10-gallon tank). I saw a video of someone trying to off-road a Hummer H2...it wasn't really severe off-road like you see with custom built 4x4's either, and it managed to break both axles and just about fall apart. SUV's are cheap consumer grade vehicles sold at a premium because they know people will pay it. The off-road capabilities and "safety" are just a myth perpetuated so they can continue to make money. If you need off-road, get a REAL off-road vehicle, don't expect an SUV to do it for you. If you need to carry a lot of people around, get a real van, which is designed to handle it.
The place I work uses passive RFID badges to let us into the building (and to get through doors in the building)...the readers do not work until you get the badge to within an inch of it. If the technology is like this, it would be impossible to read "at a distance"
That's true...but don't knock hardware graphic effects too much. You could easily apply that same statement to more modern systems and say something like "Why bother with the limited hardware functions of 3D accelerators when you could just do it all in software and be able to do more?" In general in software, if you can do something in hardware it's better to do it in hardware. Software sprite scaling/rotation will never be as efficient as doing it in hardware, and thus it won't look as good as a hardware implementation. Another example...the Playstation could do transparent textures in hardware, the Saturn could not. I've seen software transparent texture implementations, and they look HORRIBLE. Some things work out better if you can do them in software, other things work better in hardware. Graphic effects usually fall in the latter category. Today they're looking at shifting physics engines from software to hardware (using a dedicated card based on the Aegia PhysX chipset)...with that, games can have FAR FAR better physics than you could possibly do in a software implementation. Unfortunately, there really isn't much game support for that yet, but check again in 5 years and it'll probably be impossible to play a newer title without one.
The SNES is superior to the Genesis in some ways, but it depends on which component you're talking about. The m68k in the Genesis was FAR FAR FAR superior to the 65816, it's a night-and-day difference, there isn't even any competition there. However, the SNES did have far superior video and audio co-processors...it's the other way there, the Genesis's video and audio processors couldn't touch the SNES's. So once again it's a tossup...the Genesis had a far superior main CPU, the SNES had far superior co-processors. It all depends on what you're doing and what kind of game it is. I've seen Genesis games that do Mode-7 style rotation/scling, but they have to do it entirely in software (unlike the SNES where it was done in hardware on the video processor). The Genesis CAN do more in software because of the stronger CPU, but it can't match a lot of the background and rotation/scaling effects the SNES can do. However, this was really only advantageous in RPG's, which don't have a whole lot happening on screen (usually). Once you get a lot happening on the screen, the limitations of the SNES's CPU come into play and you get a lot of slowdown. Look at a game like Chrono Trigger...there really isn't that much going on on the screen at once, but it has a lot of nice background effects. Super Metroid was an exception...but you do get a lot of slowdown when there's a lot going on (drop a power bomb in a room full of enemies to see). The Genesis had a fairly weak video processor in comparison...fewer colors, no hardware rotation/scaling abilities. The sound processor was weak too, it used a pretty much standard Z80 for sound and didn't have any hardware effects. The SNES's sound processor on the other hand was quite advanced. It could do 8 channels, plus it had lots of hardware effects (like surround and echo). It used a format similar to MOD files, but it did it entirely in hardware. It was night and day compared to Genesis sound, blew it away. Amazingly enough, the SPC sound processor in the SNES was designed by Sony! I almost couldn't believe it...they made one of the best console sound processors for Nintendo, but they can't make a decent sound processor for their own systems to save their life.
An alternative is to just use any normal wireless router. The DS uses standard 802.11b for its online stuff. You don't have to use the proprietary wi-fi USB adapter, the DS can also connect with any standard 802.11b/g access point.
One word: MAME
Dang, that must be nice. Where I work all they have is IE and we aren't allowed to install any additional programs. On the one Windows machine I have at home, IE isn't even an option anymore (unless someone really knows what they're doing), as I've deleted the iexplore executable and all of the shortcuts. Granted, you can still get to it via Windows Explorer, but generally that's not something that someone will think of unless they know what they're doing, and if they know what they doing they aren't going to be using IE.
You're right...I must've suffered a brain fart. I was thinking of OpenNIC. I think I got confused because OpenNIC did call themselves OpenDNS for a short time many years ago, and I never got accustomed to the new name.