I was just thinking the same thing. I mean, they're practicaly debuting a brand new distribution method with a high profile game 8 out of every 10 nerds it's eager to atleast try.
If there's a bigger honeypot for crackers in the net, i can't imagine it. Give it 72hs, my guess is someone will figure it out.
You're not the only one my friend. CS1.5 is still *INMENSLY* popular; mostly because the Steam issues with it. The constant patching doesn't help either.
o, just to clarify, clock frequency doesn't matter, unless it's quite a lot?
Bad phrasing on my part. It does matter, but, as i tried to explain, there's a lot of factors that are much more important than how many MHz is the chip clocked to - hence, it's not good idea to take that number as an indicator of the chip performance.
Of course, all other factors equaled, higher clock frequency = higher performance = higher consumption.
I get 11 hours off my MiniDisc with a freshly charged 1300mAH battery. Thing is, MiniDisc keeps the juice consumption down by a number of tricks: the drive spin up is VERY slow (takes a couple of seconds) and it reads in burst and plays from memory.
I don't know if this would work well on a game console.
It's because it's not the clock frequency that matters; it's also the ammount of work per cycle that matters. Not only that, they're not general purpose processors, they're tailored for the need. GPUs, per example, are clocked much lower than most desktop CPUs, but don't try beating them pushing polygons with your brand new Athlon.
Also, there's a lot of crud the CPU won't be dealing with - the OS is much more minimal and oriented just for games.
That being said, 333MHz it's quite a lot of processing power. I'm amazed they can get chips clocked higher and higher into portables while keeping the power consupmtion down.
I'm not sorry for them - i don't know how it was in the rest of the world, but here (Argentina), telephone companies would take each chance they could to screw their customers for an extra penny.
Extraplolating, I can easily see Windows itself being replaced by a future knoptix-like system, just as soon as it runs the latest games.
You know, you're not *that* far away from the truth... i have countless friends who would ditch Windows in a second if they could play their games just fine. No, Wine is good, but's not good enough, and probably never will (not Wines' team fault - it's impossible to keep up with a moving target).
Today, open source gives useable alternatives to almost anything you'd need in a desktop / workstation PC. And games are still the number #1 force behind after all computer / software / hardware upgrades. I don't think Microsoft came with DirectX just because it wanted to be friendly with developers; it's another platform lock-down tool. Much like Office cryptic file formats.
I've tried the CVS for Enlightenment v0.17, and it looks so sexy i can't wait to give it a shot. The ammount of work the E team is putting onto E17 is incredible.
Who knows, i might even drop XFCE for it if it runs well enough.
Laugh all you want; it was more or less the first though that crossed my mind when i readed "heatsinks":) I build a lot of electronic devices, and heatsinking is almost always a monetary bottleneck.
Symantec: The internet is a dangerous place these days - overrun with all sorts of viruses, worms, and malware. But, for only $79, we can see to it that your computer is safe. Without us, who knows what might happen to you...
It would be funny - if it wasn't almost verbatim from their ad campaigns. "Boooh! Protect your PC from EVIL HACKERS that will SET YOUR PC ON FIRE!" (cue to picture of Peter Norton, stuffed in position with his arms crossed).
The security model on 2k/XP is as good as it is in NT4, and it's better (more fine grained) in several aread than UNIX. The thing is:
a) 99% of Windows users don't care and run as Admin,
b) There's still a shitload of Windows software that won't run without Admin privileges, and hence...
c)... of the remaining 1%, 99% is forced to run as Admin just to play their favourite games.
Given, Windows has security holes elsewhere, but if most users had access like they should you'd see a dramatic drop in virus and spyware proliferation, IMHO.
First "Little computer people", then that Tamagotchi thing, and now Sims. I always fail to see the appeal for those games; but people here are already flipping over Sims 2 and asking me when we'll purchase it.
EXT3 sucks compared to (almost) every other filesystem in everything but one thing: it's stability. I've lost data to ReiserFS in the past, but i've *never* lost a byte under EXT3, even under extreme conditions.
I still want to see what the fuzz is all about though;) I'll be installing it on a spare HD this week.
I suffer this aswell, mostly with EE and Maths books. 9 out of 10 times, if you compare editions you're really hard pressed to find noticeable changes.
I would kill for an unified IM system; Jabber is the best out there so far. There's a good primer at http//www.jabber.org, but basically, think of an instant e-mail; the network stays decentralized. No one controls it, there's not a single server running the show. Not only that, right now Jabber can be "bridged" onto other IM networks, so transition can be smoothed, to a degree. Your own ISP could host a Jabber server for you, with the same username as your mail, for example. Neat stuff.
The protocol is also well designed, as far as i've looked into it. I'm forced to use MSN, and i've already stumbled into the "can't block annoying kids" problem. ICQ is nice, but seems to be dying, and AOL i can't stand.
Online purchasing is cool, but useless for me if i can't keep a hard copy of relatively expensive stuff somewhere. Or a quality copy for that matter; MP3 is cool but i'm not paying for some file encoded at god-knows-which-bitrate.
Not american, but still...
Yes, free speech. Everyone's entitled to free speech. Everyone's also entitled to not listening if they don't want to - and for me, this is where spam crosses the line. The mere fact that you have to go through so much pain to keep your e-mail box spam free is indicator of how annoying these people can get in order to FORCE you to read their advertisements.
SuSE does. I haven't fiddled much with it, but tried it's default KDE desktop (friends' PC) and i was pleasantly surprised of how well set up it was. It also has a small utility that upgrades RPMs over the net automatically, a-la apt-get or emerge.
I was just thinking the same thing. I mean, they're practicaly debuting a brand new distribution method with a high profile game 8 out of every 10 nerds it's eager to atleast try.
If there's a bigger honeypot for crackers in the net, i can't imagine it. Give it 72hs, my guess is someone will figure it out.
You're not the only one my friend. CS1.5 is still *INMENSLY* popular; mostly because the Steam issues with it. The constant patching doesn't help either.
o, just to clarify, clock frequency doesn't matter, unless it's quite a lot? Bad phrasing on my part. It does matter, but, as i tried to explain, there's a lot of factors that are much more important than how many MHz is the chip clocked to - hence, it's not good idea to take that number as an indicator of the chip performance. Of course, all other factors equaled, higher clock frequency = higher performance = higher consumption.
You can do that right now. My Athlon 1800+ keeps my room nicely warm in winter, and it's a (relatively) low consumption chip.
I get 11 hours off my MiniDisc with a freshly charged 1300mAH battery. Thing is, MiniDisc keeps the juice consumption down by a number of tricks: the drive spin up is VERY slow (takes a couple of seconds) and it reads in burst and plays from memory.
I don't know if this would work well on a game console.
It's because it's not the clock frequency that matters; it's also the ammount of work per cycle that matters. Not only that, they're not general purpose processors, they're tailored for the need. GPUs, per example, are clocked much lower than most desktop CPUs, but don't try beating them pushing polygons with your brand new Athlon.
Also, there's a lot of crud the CPU won't be dealing with - the OS is much more minimal and oriented just for games.
That being said, 333MHz it's quite a lot of processing power. I'm amazed they can get chips clocked higher and higher into portables while keeping the power consupmtion down.
No, wait. It's not.
I'm not sorry for them - i don't know how it was in the rest of the world, but here (Argentina), telephone companies would take each chance they could to screw their customers for an extra penny.
Adapt and improve service, or die. Tough luck.
Yup, i had the same issues. Still, it looked stunning.
Extraplolating, I can easily see Windows itself being replaced by a future knoptix-like system, just as soon as it runs the latest games.
You know, you're not *that* far away from the truth... i have countless friends who would ditch Windows in a second if they could play their games just fine. No, Wine is good, but's not good enough, and probably never will (not Wines' team fault - it's impossible to keep up with a moving target).
Today, open source gives useable alternatives to almost anything you'd need in a desktop / workstation PC. And games are still the number #1 force behind after all computer / software / hardware upgrades. I don't think Microsoft came with DirectX just because it wanted to be friendly with developers; it's another platform lock-down tool. Much like Office cryptic file formats.
Your sir, are evil. Hillarious, but evil.
I've tried the CVS for Enlightenment v0.17, and it looks so sexy i can't wait to give it a shot. The ammount of work the E team is putting onto E17 is incredible.
Who knows, i might even drop XFCE for it if it runs well enough.
Please notice DirectX != Direct3D. SDL does a fine job of covering everything OpenGL doesn't (input, sounds, net, etc).
In any case, OpenGL 2 should be a far better standart than the current incarnation of DX. I just hope they release the standart someday soon.
Laugh all you want; it was more or less the first though that crossed my mind when i readed "heatsinks" :) I build a lot of electronic devices, and heatsinking is almost always a monetary bottleneck.
Symantec: The internet is a dangerous place these days - overrun with all sorts of viruses, worms, and malware. But, for only $79, we can see to it that your computer is safe. Without us, who knows what might happen to you...
:)
It would be funny - if it wasn't almost verbatim from their ad campaigns. "Boooh! Protect your PC from EVIL HACKERS that will SET YOUR PC ON FIRE!" (cue to picture of Peter Norton, stuffed in position with his arms crossed).
Nah, on second though, it IS funny
The security model on 2k/XP is as good as it is in NT4, and it's better (more fine grained) in several aread than UNIX. The thing is:
... of the remaining 1%, 99% is forced to run as Admin just to play their favourite games.
a) 99% of Windows users don't care and run as Admin,
b) There's still a shitload of Windows software that won't run without Admin privileges, and hence...
c)
Given, Windows has security holes elsewhere, but if most users had access like they should you'd see a dramatic drop in virus and spyware proliferation, IMHO.
First "Little computer people", then that Tamagotchi thing, and now Sims. I always fail to see the appeal for those games; but people here are already flipping over Sims 2 and asking me when we'll purchase it.
It's a crazy world eh.
EXT3 sucks compared to (almost) every other filesystem in everything but one thing: it's stability. I've lost data to ReiserFS in the past, but i've *never* lost a byte under EXT3, even under extreme conditions.
;) I'll be installing it on a spare HD this week.
I still want to see what the fuzz is all about though
I use Opera; whenever i find a page that bitches about the browser used, i go to the quick options and set the browser to identify itself as IE.
Works every time; i wonder if webmaster include those verifications just because.
lisandro at hotmail.com You = the man :)
I suffer this aswell, mostly with EE and Maths books. 9 out of 10 times, if you compare editions you're really hard pressed to find noticeable changes.
I'd love one :)
I would kill for an unified IM system; Jabber is the best out there so far. There's a good primer at http//www.jabber.org, but basically, think of an instant e-mail; the network stays decentralized. No one controls it, there's not a single server running the show. Not only that, right now Jabber can be "bridged" onto other IM networks, so transition can be smoothed, to a degree. Your own ISP could host a Jabber server for you, with the same username as your mail, for example. Neat stuff.
The protocol is also well designed, as far as i've looked into it. I'm forced to use MSN, and i've already stumbled into the "can't block annoying kids" problem. ICQ is nice, but seems to be dying, and AOL i can't stand.
Thank God, and i thought i was the only one.
Online purchasing is cool, but useless for me if i can't keep a hard copy of relatively expensive stuff somewhere. Or a quality copy for that matter; MP3 is cool but i'm not paying for some file encoded at god-knows-which-bitrate.
Not american, but still... Yes, free speech. Everyone's entitled to free speech. Everyone's also entitled to not listening if they don't want to - and for me, this is where spam crosses the line. The mere fact that you have to go through so much pain to keep your e-mail box spam free is indicator of how annoying these people can get in order to FORCE you to read their advertisements.
SuSE does. I haven't fiddled much with it, but tried it's default KDE desktop (friends' PC) and i was pleasantly surprised of how well set up it was. It also has a small utility that upgrades RPMs over the net automatically, a-la apt-get or emerge.