There are two categories of strategy guide, in my opinion. There are the magazine-type guides, reminiscant of the Ninetendo Guide era. These are pretty worthless, but are high profit-margin for retailers. They only contain maps, frivolous tips, and walkthroughs that would ruin the game if you read them in advance, and which you can find anyhwere on the interweb anyway. They also cost half as much as the game does!
Then there are the old school, actual strategy guides. These are as thick as textbooks and contain a large amount of detailed information on all apsects of the game. They are more then just walkthroughs provided by the developer, they are fun to read and help you get more into the game. They discuss strategy and methods useful at mastering the game. The strategy guide to Command & Conquer is an example of this. These are the only types I could ever buy, because I'm not paying $20 for a magazine.
After re-reading the original post, I have to correct myself. The safety systems in which a large volume of water is stored with positive gravitational potential energy (i.e. big tanks above the reactor vessel) are known as accumulators. These are passive because the only thing blocking the path of water from the tank to the reactor is that the pressure in the accumulator tank is less then that of the reactor cooland system (RCS). If there was a break in the RCS, the pressure would drop and allow the accumualtors to dump. Safety injection is the active system which pumps reserve water into the reactor coolant system in case of a loss-of-coolant accident.
The French have been building small scale N-Plants w/ passive cooling; meaning if something goes wrong it shuts itself down without any need (or room for) equipment failure. (an example being using the pressure from the reaction to hold back water. If there is less pressure or more pressure the water enters an shuts down the plant.
All light water reactors have this system. It is called Safety Injection.
Furthermore, most French reactors are basically identical to most US reactors, they are the same Westinghouse designs.
Mining uranium releases heavy/highly soluble radon gas http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html which is highly radioactive and pollutes any nearby water table. Currently it kills more people than drunk driving per annum.
While radon gas may kill many people each year, it is not due to Uranium mining, it is due to naturally occuring radon in the ground which accumulates in people's homes.
The reason is deliberate, CURRENT GENERATION NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ARE ENGINEERED TO PRODUCE PLUTONIUM FOR WEAPONS AS THIER MAIN PRODUCT and electricity as a by-product. Consequently they are heavily subsidised to make them appear economically viable.
This is entirely false. Light water reactors used in the west do not have this capability. In order to get weapons grade plutonium from a reactor, the fuel must be removed and the Pu-239 extracted before too much of it becomes Pu-240. This must be done every few weeks. A light water reactor would be shut down for refuelling more often then it was online. To say they were engineered in this manner is ludicrious.
There is an exception, the CANDU reactors. They do have the capability to be refuelled while online, however they were designed this way to be able to use natural (unenriched) uranium, not for producing weapons grade plutonium. The only power reactor specifically designed to make plutonium is the Soviet RBMK design.
The only realistic future for nuclear is the INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR, liquid metal cooled, uses 99% of the radioactive elements U238/U239 (vs less than 3% for cold war reactors)and current nuclear waste becomes a useable fuel. No need to mine uranium any more as there is enough spent fuel to use for many thousands of years, and no need to worry about those pesky terrorist spoiling your day because of the pyro-process closed loop feul re-processing. These are the types of reactors that we need to invest in around the world because they virtually eliminate waste transuranics, the volume of waste decreases and the remaining fissile radioactive material (the plutonium ash) is reduce to a half life of a mere 500 years.
You say you are worried about plutonium production, yet you want to build breeder reactors? Huh? What do you think breeders do? They intentionally turn uranium-238 into plutonium-239 to burn for power. They would still require uranium mining to operate, as they require uranium-235 to run and this must still be optained from the earth. They are no more closed-system then current U.S. reactors, which store all of the waste they produce on-site. They are just as suseptible to terrorism as current reactors as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of using breeder reactors, but not for the same reasons as you espouse.
While I commend your pro-nuclear attitude, you do need to get your facts straight.
Ultima Online began that way. I played it back during the beta test. The NPC vendors were not gold-sinks and could only buy resources at fixed intervals. Resources also only reappeared once they were taken out of circulation by NPC's. Also, there was no "vendor trash" like in WoW, vendors would not buy worthless items. The only way to get money was from tougher monsters, or buy selling farmed items to higher-up players.
The result of this was that there were very few powerful or rich players, almost everyone was equally poor. High-level mages were almost unheard of, as reagents were too expensive to afford. Going on a dungeon crawl and casting higher level spells would be a significant financial hit. You didn't start with any money or resources on a new account, and it was very difficult to even come up with enough money to buy implements for gaining resources, such as a pick-axe or skinning knife.
Because of this, there was zero inflation, and even deflation at many times. This is in stark contrast to WoW, where even before the farmers there is built-in inflation due to the rising cost of higher level supplies like potions and food. Having a few hundred gold in UO was significant at any skill level, and it meant you were quite wealthy. This system worked reasonably well, but made entering the game prohibitively difficult. You would have to farm and grind for weeks before becoming powerful enough to fight mobs which gave any amount of treasure.
Then the players got more whiney, and OWO got greedy for new accounts, so they started down the slippery slope. First, they gave new characters starting money. Then they let vendors buy trash and other resources. They put more money into the system and recirculated resources faster to accomodate the larger player base. This caused significant inflation. Once the game got popular, the gold farmers arrived. And that's what it all comes down to.
So to summarize, the developers start with a fun and challenging game, then they make it easier for noobies to start out in order to draw in more accounts, then add high priced or rare rewards for higher players in order to keep them from quitting, and voila, a perfect market for RMT's.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo, who somehow seems less evil than Sony and Microsoft.
Are they really less evil, or is it just a feeling or a image? Maybe just the thought of the super cute green dinosaur Yoshi, or the cartoony-style games just contrasts so strongly with the murdering-thug/action-horror games of the other systems. People complain about EA releasing Madden 2000,2001,2002 ad nauseum, but what version is Mario Party up to now, 7?:)
What are you talking about? I played Civ 3 all the time from the very first release, it mostly had minor bugs, I never had any problems with it even with 1.0. It never crashed, I've had Civ 4 crash to desktop once a game almost and it's always right when a wonder building goes up.
What I meant to say was game-play issues. Even after all of the work done to it, Civ 3 still has many gameplay flaws. Such as the erratic diplomacy, ICS, tech trading, and other bugs. While Civ 4 may have some technical issues, there are few gameplay annoyances and the ones that do exist are relatively minor.
No Elvis advisors, although Leonard Nimoy's comments occasionally get a bit tedious, but usually they add a bit of cute without being cheesy.
Actually, Elvis DOES make an appearance later in the game, as the great artist of the modern era. Also, a likeness of Al Gore is used for The Internet.:)
There is actually a fan-made patch in the form of a DLL that fixes a major memory leak in the game. It can be tweaked for systems with 512 or 1024 megs of ram in order to eliminate massive disk paging.
I can't get to the page where it's hosted because I'm at work, but if you go to apolyton.com and go to the general discussion for civ 4, the thread should be near the top.
I havn't had to mess with it, since I have a nice system with 2048 megs of ram. The only bugs I've encountered with the game were graphical glitches in 1.0 that were fixed by rolling back to a previous video card driver. There are a few other in-game usability annoyances, but on the whole, civ 4 is much more playable on release then civ 3 ever was, even after all of its patches and expansion packs.
Actually I think the problem is just the opposite. The problem is that teachers nowadays are being taught the "theory of learning", i.e. majoring in education, without learning the material they will be teaching adequately.
I remember when I was in primary schools, the best teachers were the retired or teaching-on-the-side physicists, chemists, economists, writers, journalists, etc. They were there because they liked their field so much, they want to teach it to the next generation.
The dismal failures of teaching were the recent education-major graduates. They basically taught from a pre-written lesson plan using a teachers manual. They liked teaching for the sake of teaching, but had no interest in what they were teaching. This is one of the problems with public education these days.
Albert Swank Jr., a 55-year-old civil engineer in Anchorage, Alaska, is a man with a mission. He wants to install a nuclear particle accelerator in his home.
But when neighbors learned of plans to place the 20-ton device inside the house where Swank operates his engineering firm, their response was swift: Not in my backyard.
Find local technology jobs. Local lawmakers rushed to introduce emergency legislation banning the use of cyclotrons in home businesses. State health officials took similar steps, and have suspended Swank's permit to operate cyclotrons on his property.
"Some of the neighbors who are upset about the cyclotron have started calling it SHAFT -- Swank's high-energy accelerator for tomography," attorney Alan Tesche said. "Part of what's got everyone so upset is we're not sure when it's going to arrive on the barge. We know Anchorage is gonna get the SHAFT, but we just don't know when." Tesche is also the local assemblyman who represents the area where Swank and his cyclotron would reside.
Johns Hopkins University agreed to donate the used cyclotron, which is roughly six feet tall by eight feet wide, to Swank's business, Langdon Engineering and Management.
The devices are relatively scarce in Alaska, and are used to produce radioactive substances that can be injected into patients undergoing PET scans.
Short for positron emission tomography, a PET scan is similar to an X-ray. During the imaging procedure, radioactive material administered to the patient can help medical professionals detect cancerous tissue inside the body. The substance typically remains radioactive for only a couple of hours.
For Swank, the backyard cyclotron is a personal quest: He lost his father to cancer years ago, and he says his community needs the medical resource. He also wants to use it to inspire young people to learn about science.
"My father worked with me while I was building my first cyclotron at age 17 in this same home, and he encouraged all of the educational pursuits that resulted in who I am," Swank said.
"Because of that and my desire to not see other cancer patients suffer -- if I can use this technology to prevent one hour of suffering, or stimulate one young person's mind to pursue science, I will devote every resource that I possess to that."
Swank maintains the device is not dangerous for nearby residents.
But assemblyman Tesche says noble intentions don't outweigh potential risks and nuisances. He and others fear a particle accelerator could pose hazards such as radiation leak risks to nearby residences. They also think the large amount of electricity it consumes could drain available power in the neighborhood.
"We in Alaska embrace technology, and we love it -- but we would like to see this in a hospital or industrial area, where it belongs," Tesche said. "We don't need cyclotrons operating out of back alleys, or in someone's garage."
In a letter to the city assembly, the South Addition Community Council compared potential damage from a cyclotron mishap to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident.
"Cyclotrons are not nuclear reactors," explains Roger Dixon of the Fermi National Accelerator laboratory or Fermilab in Illinois, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. "Probably the worst thing that could happen with small cyclotrons is that the operator might electrocute themselves."
At Fermilab, Dixon oversees the world's highest-energy collider, about four miles in circumference. It smashes matter and antimatter together so scientists can study the nature of energy.
Dixon told Wired News that shielding from concrete walls or lead sheets is typically used to prevent the electrical beams produced by smaller cyclotrons from escaping.
"Our neighbors here at Fermilab like us," said Dixon. "But then, our particle accelerator is not installed in a living room."
Some of Swank's neighbors are not worried. Veronica Martinson, a homemaker who has lived next door to Swank for 36 ye
While obviously a cyclotron can't compare to a commercial nuclear power plant, I wouldn't want my neighbor building one. Aside from self-electrocution, they can release high energy photons which could reach other people, if improperly shielded. There is also the issue with any radioactive waste he may produce. The risk may be miniscule, but people generally shy away from non-controllable risks. While the guy is a civil-engineer, TFA doesn't say whether he has training or experience in nuclear technology or health physics either.
That said, I think it would be awesome to have a back-yard cyclotron. Imagine all the cool things you could do, activate pennies, evil radioactive monsters, become THE HULK, etc.
The only way that would work would be if you made a deal where you recieve $100 for not even manufacturing the 360 that you would have bought, assuming that you would not have bought any games or accessories which would up their profit margine regardless. Once the unit is built, they are out -$526 until someone buys it, at which point they are then at -$126.
If they manufacture 999,999 units instead of 1,000,000 units, assuming that last unit would have sold to someone who had no intention of buying any games or accessories for it, then it would be profitable for them to send you $100.
What kind of outcry do you think there will be if microsoft releases a patch via live which reduces the clock speeds of the gpu/cpu, thus making games even more choppy? When I saw my friend playing Morrowind on the xbox for the first time, and saw the constant, dismal 15-20 fps, I knew I would probably never buy a console again. This crashing buisness with the 360 only reinforces that thought.
This is why I'm a PC guy. With a PC, you can tweak your hardware to get the most stable, highest performance configuration. You can also change graphics settings within any game to get similar results. If a console game runs slow or the console itself crashes due to overheating or overclocking, you are out of luck.
Well now that a company is offering a completely legal and conveniant service, I am perfectly willing to pay for it. When there is nothing on TV, I would love nothing more then to be able to quickly download an episode for a past show that I havn't seen before without having to go through the various bit torrent sites.
...is not a good sign for people who don't have the best hardware. The article talks about how smoothly WMP11 ran and how they were able to easily scroll through long lists of songs without hiccups. If you ask me, that is not really a feature or something to get excited about. It's something you'd take for granted as being able to work in the first place.
Quote:
We have never seen any WMP run this smooth especially on a beta release. While this might not mean much to anybody, it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Only thing we need to check now is how smoothly it runs while running a plethora of other applications in the end.
...
One thing we would like to mention is that our library had 1000+ songs, but there were no hiccups while scrolling through the list. It was almost like scrolling down Google's search results, which is very smooth and hassle-free. This could be due to implementation of Microsoft's new graphics technologies, namely XAML and WGF 2.0. Needless to say, this is definitely something to get excited about, since we can clearly remember the times when we launched WMP 10 and it would get stuck at the guide page, thereby making the user experience terrible.
Who's panicking? I'm hoping for another shot at a free taco...
Re:Does anyone else find myth busters annoying?
on
Archimedes Death Ray
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Mythbusters is usually right on the money. In a recent episode, they conclusively proved that it is possible to break a glass by singing at it, both using amplification and, with significant effort from a professional singer, just bare vocal chords. However with some myths, due to time or expense contraints, they only test a very limited number of circimstantces, and then when that fails they say the myth is busted in all possible circumstances. For example, the episode where they "busted" the myth of the cell phone/gas station fire, they only used one type of cell phone and only limited conditions of gasoline vapor, etc. They called this myth busted when in fact cell phones can indeed start a fire, and it has happened before.
Re:Its a matter of perspective
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
The American society is driven by greed to the point of obsession. The change has to come from within. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
What you call greed, I call an increase in the standard of living for everyone. That $5000 plasma TV did't come out of nowhere. It was made by eltrical engineers, industrial engineers, factory workers, stock holders, delivery guys, sales clerks, etc. The more you work and the more you buy, the better off everyone is.
The "problem" as you call it is the socialist mentality that you "deserve" this or "have a right to" that, at the expensive of the government and thus the taxpayers. Working hard to buy nice things is not greed. Demanding "free" services from the government; that is greed.
I think the real purpose of the 7800 gtx/sli is for people playing the latest games on HDTV's, which are 1920x1080 resolution. While playing on a big TV, you still need AA so playing Battlefield 2 at 1920x1080 with 4x AA requires quite a bit of horsepower.
Slashdot Mirror
Then there are the old school, actual strategy guides. These are as thick as textbooks and contain a large amount of detailed information on all apsects of the game. They are more then just walkthroughs provided by the developer, they are fun to read and help you get more into the game. They discuss strategy and methods useful at mastering the game. The strategy guide to Command & Conquer is an example of this. These are the only types I could ever buy, because I'm not paying $20 for a magazine.
After re-reading the original post, I have to correct myself. The safety systems in which a large volume of water is stored with positive gravitational potential energy (i.e. big tanks above the reactor vessel) are known as accumulators. These are passive because the only thing blocking the path of water from the tank to the reactor is that the pressure in the accumulator tank is less then that of the reactor cooland system (RCS). If there was a break in the RCS, the pressure would drop and allow the accumualtors to dump. Safety injection is the active system which pumps reserve water into the reactor coolant system in case of a loss-of-coolant accident.
All light water reactors have this system. It is called Safety Injection.
Furthermore, most French reactors are basically identical to most US reactors, they are the same Westinghouse designs.
While radon gas may kill many people each year, it is not due to Uranium mining, it is due to naturally occuring radon in the ground which accumulates in people's homes.
The reason is deliberate, CURRENT GENERATION NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ARE ENGINEERED TO PRODUCE PLUTONIUM FOR WEAPONS AS THIER MAIN PRODUCT and electricity as a by-product. Consequently they are heavily subsidised to make them appear economically viable.
This is entirely false. Light water reactors used in the west do not have this capability. In order to get weapons grade plutonium from a reactor, the fuel must be removed and the Pu-239 extracted before too much of it becomes Pu-240. This must be done every few weeks. A light water reactor would be shut down for refuelling more often then it was online. To say they were engineered in this manner is ludicrious.
There is an exception, the CANDU reactors. They do have the capability to be refuelled while online, however they were designed this way to be able to use natural (unenriched) uranium, not for producing weapons grade plutonium. The only power reactor specifically designed to make plutonium is the Soviet RBMK design.
The only realistic future for nuclear is the INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR, liquid metal cooled, uses 99% of the radioactive elements U238/U239 (vs less than 3% for cold war reactors)and current nuclear waste becomes a useable fuel. No need to mine uranium any more as there is enough spent fuel to use for many thousands of years, and no need to worry about those pesky terrorist spoiling your day because of the pyro-process closed loop feul re-processing. These are the types of reactors that we need to invest in around the world because they virtually eliminate waste transuranics, the volume of waste decreases and the remaining fissile radioactive material (the plutonium ash) is reduce to a half life of a mere 500 years.
You say you are worried about plutonium production, yet you want to build breeder reactors? Huh? What do you think breeders do? They intentionally turn uranium-238 into plutonium-239 to burn for power. They would still require uranium mining to operate, as they require uranium-235 to run and this must still be optained from the earth. They are no more closed-system then current U.S. reactors, which store all of the waste they produce on-site. They are just as suseptible to terrorism as current reactors as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of using breeder reactors, but not for the same reasons as you espouse.
While I commend your pro-nuclear attitude, you do need to get your facts straight.
The result of this was that there were very few powerful or rich players, almost everyone was equally poor. High-level mages were almost unheard of, as reagents were too expensive to afford. Going on a dungeon crawl and casting higher level spells would be a significant financial hit. You didn't start with any money or resources on a new account, and it was very difficult to even come up with enough money to buy implements for gaining resources, such as a pick-axe or skinning knife.
Because of this, there was zero inflation, and even deflation at many times. This is in stark contrast to WoW, where even before the farmers there is built-in inflation due to the rising cost of higher level supplies like potions and food. Having a few hundred gold in UO was significant at any skill level, and it meant you were quite wealthy. This system worked reasonably well, but made entering the game prohibitively difficult. You would have to farm and grind for weeks before becoming powerful enough to fight mobs which gave any amount of treasure.
Then the players got more whiney, and OWO got greedy for new accounts, so they started down the slippery slope. First, they gave new characters starting money. Then they let vendors buy trash and other resources. They put more money into the system and recirculated resources faster to accomodate the larger player base. This caused significant inflation. Once the game got popular, the gold farmers arrived. And that's what it all comes down to.
So to summarize, the developers start with a fun and challenging game, then they make it easier for noobies to start out in order to draw in more accounts, then add high priced or rare rewards for higher players in order to keep them from quitting, and voila, a perfect market for RMT's.
Now Zoidberg is the popular one!
Are they really less evil, or is it just a feeling or a image? Maybe just the thought of the super cute green dinosaur Yoshi, or the cartoony-style games just contrasts so strongly with the murdering-thug/action-horror games of the other systems. People complain about EA releasing Madden 2000,2001,2002 ad nauseum, but what version is Mario Party up to now, 7? :)
What are you talking about? I played Civ 3 all the time from the very first release, it mostly had minor bugs, I never had any problems with it even with 1.0. It never crashed, I've had Civ 4 crash to desktop once a game almost and it's always right when a wonder building goes up. What I meant to say was game-play issues. Even after all of the work done to it, Civ 3 still has many gameplay flaws. Such as the erratic diplomacy, ICS, tech trading, and other bugs. While Civ 4 may have some technical issues, there are few gameplay annoyances and the ones that do exist are relatively minor.
Actually, Elvis DOES make an appearance later in the game, as the great artist of the modern era. Also, a likeness of Al Gore is used for The Internet. :)
I can't get to the page where it's hosted because I'm at work, but if you go to apolyton.com and go to the general discussion for civ 4, the thread should be near the top.
I havn't had to mess with it, since I have a nice system with 2048 megs of ram. The only bugs I've encountered with the game were graphical glitches in 1.0 that were fixed by rolling back to a previous video card driver. There are a few other in-game usability annoyances, but on the whole, civ 4 is much more playable on release then civ 3 ever was, even after all of its patches and expansion packs.
Symantec fixes hardware now, too? Man, and I thought their software was bloated when it just protected against viruses...
I remember when I was in primary schools, the best teachers were the retired or teaching-on-the-side physicists, chemists, economists, writers, journalists, etc. They were there because they liked their field so much, they want to teach it to the next generation.
The dismal failures of teaching were the recent education-major graduates. They basically taught from a pre-written lesson plan using a teachers manual. They liked teaching for the sake of teaching, but had no interest in what they were teaching. This is one of the problems with public education these days.
But when neighbors learned of plans to place the 20-ton device inside the house where Swank operates his engineering firm, their response was swift: Not in my backyard.
Find local technology jobs. Local lawmakers rushed to introduce emergency legislation banning the use of cyclotrons in home businesses. State health officials took similar steps, and have suspended Swank's permit to operate cyclotrons on his property.
"Some of the neighbors who are upset about the cyclotron have started calling it SHAFT -- Swank's high-energy accelerator for tomography," attorney Alan Tesche said. "Part of what's got everyone so upset is we're not sure when it's going to arrive on the barge. We know Anchorage is gonna get the SHAFT, but we just don't know when." Tesche is also the local assemblyman who represents the area where Swank and his cyclotron would reside.
Johns Hopkins University agreed to donate the used cyclotron, which is roughly six feet tall by eight feet wide, to Swank's business, Langdon Engineering and Management.
The devices are relatively scarce in Alaska, and are used to produce radioactive substances that can be injected into patients undergoing PET scans.
Short for positron emission tomography, a PET scan is similar to an X-ray. During the imaging procedure, radioactive material administered to the patient can help medical professionals detect cancerous tissue inside the body. The substance typically remains radioactive for only a couple of hours.
For Swank, the backyard cyclotron is a personal quest: He lost his father to cancer years ago, and he says his community needs the medical resource. He also wants to use it to inspire young people to learn about science.
"My father worked with me while I was building my first cyclotron at age 17 in this same home, and he encouraged all of the educational pursuits that resulted in who I am," Swank said.
"Because of that and my desire to not see other cancer patients suffer -- if I can use this technology to prevent one hour of suffering, or stimulate one young person's mind to pursue science, I will devote every resource that I possess to that."
Swank maintains the device is not dangerous for nearby residents.
But assemblyman Tesche says noble intentions don't outweigh potential risks and nuisances. He and others fear a particle accelerator could pose hazards such as radiation leak risks to nearby residences. They also think the large amount of electricity it consumes could drain available power in the neighborhood.
"We in Alaska embrace technology, and we love it -- but we would like to see this in a hospital or industrial area, where it belongs," Tesche said. "We don't need cyclotrons operating out of back alleys, or in someone's garage."
In a letter to the city assembly, the South Addition Community Council compared potential damage from a cyclotron mishap to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident.
"Cyclotrons are not nuclear reactors," explains Roger Dixon of the Fermi National Accelerator laboratory or Fermilab in Illinois, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. "Probably the worst thing that could happen with small cyclotrons is that the operator might electrocute themselves."
At Fermilab, Dixon oversees the world's highest-energy collider, about four miles in circumference. It smashes matter and antimatter together so scientists can study the nature of energy.
Dixon told Wired News that shielding from concrete walls or lead sheets is typically used to prevent the electrical beams produced by smaller cyclotrons from escaping.
"Our neighbors here at Fermilab like us," said Dixon. "But then, our particle accelerator is not installed in a living room."
Some of Swank's neighbors are not worried. Veronica Martinson, a homemaker who has lived next door to Swank for 36 ye
While obviously a cyclotron can't compare to a commercial nuclear power plant, I wouldn't want my neighbor building one. Aside from self-electrocution, they can release high energy photons which could reach other people, if improperly shielded. There is also the issue with any radioactive waste he may produce. The risk may be miniscule, but people generally shy away from non-controllable risks. While the guy is a civil-engineer, TFA doesn't say whether he has training or experience in nuclear technology or health physics either.
That said, I think it would be awesome to have a back-yard cyclotron. Imagine all the cool things you could do, activate pennies, evil radioactive monsters, become THE HULK, etc.
The only way that would work would be if you made a deal where you recieve $100 for not even manufacturing the 360 that you would have bought, assuming that you would not have bought any games or accessories which would up their profit margine regardless. Once the unit is built, they are out -$526 until someone buys it, at which point they are then at -$126.
If they manufacture 999,999 units instead of 1,000,000 units, assuming that last unit would have sold to someone who had no intention of buying any games or accessories for it, then it would be profitable for them to send you $100.
What kind of outcry do you think there will be if microsoft releases a patch via live which reduces the clock speeds of the gpu/cpu, thus making games even more choppy? When I saw my friend playing Morrowind on the xbox for the first time, and saw the constant, dismal 15-20 fps, I knew I would probably never buy a console again. This crashing buisness with the 360 only reinforces that thought.
This is why I'm a PC guy. With a PC, you can tweak your hardware to get the most stable, highest performance configuration. You can also change graphics settings within any game to get similar results. If a console game runs slow or the console itself crashes due to overheating or overclocking, you are out of luck.
Actually DVD's are the SAME resolution as broadcast TV, 480i.
Well now that a company is offering a completely legal and conveniant service, I am perfectly willing to pay for it. When there is nothing on TV, I would love nothing more then to be able to quickly download an episode for a past show that I havn't seen before without having to go through the various bit torrent sites.
Quote:
We have never seen any WMP run this smooth especially on a beta release. While this might not mean much to anybody, it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Only thing we need to check now is how smoothly it runs while running a plethora of other applications in the end.
One thing we would like to mention is that our library had 1000+ songs, but there were no hiccups while scrolling through the list. It was almost like scrolling down Google's search results, which is very smooth and hassle-free. This could be due to implementation of Microsoft's new graphics technologies, namely XAML and WGF 2.0. Needless to say, this is definitely something to get excited about, since we can clearly remember the times when we launched WMP 10 and it would get stuck at the guide page, thereby making the user experience terrible.
Who's panicking? I'm hoping for another shot at a free taco...
Mythbusters is usually right on the money. In a recent episode, they conclusively proved that it is possible to break a glass by singing at it, both using amplification and, with significant effort from a professional singer, just bare vocal chords. However with some myths, due to time or expense contraints, they only test a very limited number of circimstantces, and then when that fails they say the myth is busted in all possible circumstances. For example, the episode where they "busted" the myth of the cell phone/gas station fire, they only used one type of cell phone and only limited conditions of gasoline vapor, etc. They called this myth busted when in fact cell phones can indeed start a fire, and it has happened before.
I'm sure 99.9% of those are pr0n, sp4m, and (crap) blogs.
Oil for root, anyone?
--Saddam H.
What you call greed, I call an increase in the standard of living for everyone. That $5000 plasma TV did't come out of nowhere. It was made by eltrical engineers, industrial engineers, factory workers, stock holders, delivery guys, sales clerks, etc. The more you work and the more you buy, the better off everyone is.
The "problem" as you call it is the socialist mentality that you "deserve" this or "have a right to" that, at the expensive of the government and thus the taxpayers. Working hard to buy nice things is not greed. Demanding "free" services from the government; that is greed.
I think the real purpose of the 7800 gtx/sli is for people playing the latest games on HDTV's, which are 1920x1080 resolution. While playing on a big TV, you still need AA so playing Battlefield 2 at 1920x1080 with 4x AA requires quite a bit of horsepower.