In that case, why is the first security measure the airports in the UK introduced to ban hand luggage? If we're worried about bombs, why does it matter whether the bomb is hand luggage or cargo?
Because the plan was to bring in two non-explosive substances and mix them in the washroom, creating an explosive on board. Checking them in makes them harmless, since you can't get to them to mix them up...
I think he was joking, aluding to the poker bots which are often thought, by laymen, to be able to clean out the online players. It should be clear to any programmer that programming bots for this kind of a contest are unlikely to be even attempted in the near future.
HTX based ATI video cards are a better idea then one in the cpu
Well, that's pretty much what a Radeon Xpress chipset for AMD is, if you don't plug in an external card into its PCIE slot -- an HT video card. You still have all that latency up and down HT to deal with, though, vs. a solution in the CPU itself.
Seems highly unlikely to me that they'd stick a GPU into the CPU. Modern GPUs are a similar size to CPUs (if not larger) and need much higher memory bandwidth... so you'd be doubling the size of your CPU and you'd need a 256-bit 1GHz+ memory interface. And then the 'high end' users would just go and buy a PCI-Express card when the next generation came out, making the whole thing a total waste.
GPU/CPU combination wouldn't be meant for high-end graphics systems, but the low-end ones. It's just the next step after integrating graphics into the chipset, which has already proven to be a huge (financial) success. Low-end graphics are already sharing the system memory bandwidth with the CPU, in both integrated graphics and low-end discrete cards (TurboCache, and whatever ATI's similar solution is called)...
Why ATI? I think there are two major reasons... First, ATI dominates the mobile market, and AMD is very weak in it. Creating a solution to compete with Intel's mobile offerings requires you to offer all the parts at a good price, and it's much harder to do that as 2 companies instead of one. ("Buy our CPU, we'll toss in a cheaper ATI chipset/card in" doesn't work if you don't own ATI:) ). Second, nVidia, even with its recent dismal stock performance, is worth over $6B, making it a lot more expensive then ATI. And, really, when you look past the Linux driver issue that irks so many here, they have very similar offerings.
Nobody will ever get to align with Intel. Intel already makes their own graphics, and, sucky as they are, they sell more of them than either ATI or nVidia. Their chipsets are already rock-solid and well-enough performing. They have all the pieces of the puzzle to sell a good "all-in-one" platform -- they've already taken over the mobile market with the Centrino platform, because they had the best mobile CPUs on top of the other things. Now they seem to be ready to attempt the same on the desktop, with the new Conroe CPUs... The only way AMD can fight that kind of a platform is to offer one of their own, and they are currently missing both graphics and chipset expertise -- which both ATI and nVidia have. I think the only reason they went with ATI is because it's cheaper:).
But have consumers decided that SDTV isn't good enough? I don't see many people buying HDTVs.
It could be just the circles you're moving in... A lot of people I know have some sort of an HDTV (little LCD, a cheap CRT, and some, but not many, have the big-screen kind). Here in Canada, you can get a 27" CRT for $379 (name brand, like Toshiba/Sony), and a 27" wide-screen HDTV for $499. That's a pretty small price difference, and if you're getting this to be your primary TV, I imagine a non-significant number of people select the HD option.
And, if you need space and want to go with LCD, it's almost impossible to buy an LCD that's not HD!
Even worse, there is a Broadcom ASIC that performs the actual decoding. The Pentium 4 must just be used for DRM and drawing the menus.
Decoding is actually not the most difficult task, processing wise, so you're almost correct. Where you really need the processing power is in de-interlacing, scaling, blending between multiple surfaces that these standards define, handling the 2d effects (yes, the menus, but you can also run a full-screen game in one of the surfaces if the DVD author so desired, and you need the processing power to run the Java or iHD software)... Even the high-end graphics cards can't handle all of this load yet.
Ummmm 25GB per disk, that is 2,500 GB or 2.5 TERRABYTES of storage for $10 dollars, which gives a price per Megabyte of 0.0004c. Current CompUSA own brand [compusa.com] is $24.99 for a $100 spindle CR-R (700Mb) which is 0.0357c, so you are asking for something almost ONE THOUSAND TIMES cheaper.
It's not fair to compare CDRs to Blu-Ray DVDs.. Comparing to DVD-Rs is much more realistic. Blank DVDs are 4.7GB, and they cost $22.99 for 100 on newegg, or 4.89c per GB. Blu-Ray costs $20 per 25GB disk, or 8c per GB. So, they do cost almost twice as much as DVDs, and you also have to spend a lot of money on getting a burner for Blu-Ray.
Obviously, a spindle of 100 for $10 is unrealistic, as even CDs are not there yet. The parent still has a point, though -- they are still too overpriced to be seriously considered, unless you have to burn files larger than 4.7GB.
Neither AMD nor ATI have been known for their ability to make chipsets that don't Totally Suck, and being the leader in a particular market isn't something that a company will just let go of because of a grudge.
ATI's RD580 chipset has been getting glowing reviews pretty much across the board as being the fastest dual x16 performance you can get. You can agree with that or not, but that definitely qualifies it for "doesn't Totally Suck".
And, Intel making Intel-brand boards with ATI chipsets is also a strong suggestion that there's some value to them.
Because nVidia's market cap is more than half of AMD's, while ATI's is smaller than a third of it. ATI is cheaper, and you get more-or-less the same thing when it comes to graphics and chipsets.
I don't think it's wise to buy either of them... But, if you had to pick one, nVidia is way too expensive for what you get.
I own a nikon D70, a low end Digital-SLR and that can take around 4 photos a second continuously for a good 10 seconds before the buffer gets full and thats with and 80x Compact Flash card. Consumer cameras arent designed for that, even the higher end ones have buffers which hold at most 3 photos at top quality and resolution. And thats JPEGs not raw data...
Although that is one of the limitation, it's not a particularly hard one to solve (increase the buffer size and there you go). The main reason why the bigger buffer wouldn't help point and shoots is because one sensor is used for auto-focus, exposure metering, white balance, taking pictures, and previewing the pictures on the screen! And, going from one mode to another takes a while and that's why you have such a long button-press to shutter delay. The preview-to-capture delay is the longest one there.
On a digital SLR like your D70, you have a specialized sensor doing the metering, and also 5 (or more) auto-focus sensors that are on all the time... The preview is done through the lens, so the main sensor is in standby, ready to be activated. So, when you press the button, the camera is ready to take the picture right away, and it takes only a little bit of time to adjust the exposure/focus between shots.
Now, if this new sensor delivers much shorter times in switching from preview to capture, then you could have a point-and-shoot camera taking shots fast (i.e. short press to capture delay). But, taking a series of shots fast isn't as much of a challenge for current point-and-shoots -- after all, they can take videos at 30 frames per second.
If you don't like overclocking, don't do it. However, stop whining about the chip frying. If it works, and you keep it cooled, it will probably work for a long time to come.
In fact, if you keep it cooled properly, you will not shorten its lifespan in any way. Just running the clock faster doesn't affect the CPU negatively in any way (other than possibly increasing the electron migration effect on some wires, which is still too small to matter). If it works, great. If you see some errors from time to time, it's not because you have damaged the cpu, but because the marginal paths in the chip will fail a certain percentage of the time when the clock runs faster than their total delay. Downclocking the chip back will fix that kind of a problem.
Note that increasing the voltage doesn't always help, if you run into the opposite problem where things run too fast because of the increased voltage (the "hold time" problem), then overvoltaging will just make things worse. The easy way to spot this problem is that changing the clock frequency will have no effect on it.
The bus connection between my CPU and the RAM is, indeed, the Hypertransport. Northbridge, CPU, and RAM are all connected by it.
Well, whoever marked you as informative was fooled by the same info that fooled you into thinking this. Hypertransport, as the poster you are replying to explained, is *only* used to acces non-memory I/O in single-CPU systems. In those systems, like yours, it is used as a link between the CPU and the northbridge (as the wikipedia article indicates), but, unlike Intel systems, the RAM is *not* located at the northbridge. The AMD CPUs have a memory controller in the same package as the CPU core -- that's why you can achieve those low latencies you measured.
On Intel systems, though, the FSB is the link that ultimately leads to RAM. Its bandwidth only needs to be hihgher (or equal) to the bandwidth of the RAM for it not to be the bottleneck. Faster FSB doesn't mean lower latency (on most chipsets, anyway), but it does mean higher bandwidth.
Oh, and one nitpick -- the Intel FSB (used on new Intel Macs) is quad-pumped, not double-pumped (i.e. not DDR). So, the clock speed is 166MHz, and data transfer is 4x166 = 666MHz, like you said.
Nobody doubts your data. It's your understanding of the system architecture that needed some updating, that's all. It's a common mistake, anyway, AMD kinda turned things around with their on-die memory controller:).
What makes the PS3 worth the wait?
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The 360 Is Too Cheap?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I've been noticing many tech writers talking about how the 360 is "taking the nation by storm" and "everyone has to have one," but I don't know anyone who has one, I've never actually seen one in any store, Everyone is waiting for the PS3, which will give three generations of Playstation gaming in one console and will probably be my very first Playstation purchase.
Well, I don't know anybody who is waiting for PS3 other than an occasional Slashdot post:). I have to ask -- what is it that makes you say that it will be your first Playstation purchase? So far, you know nothing about how the games will play on it, what kinds of games will be made, except that it will have Blu-Ray support, and Cell chips in it. Oh, and that it will probably cost a lot. What has the Sony marketing done to so thoroughly convince you that not only you should wait for it (instead of buying Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, or Xbox 360, all much cheaper and available *now*), but that you should also buy it when it comes out, without even seeing one?!
This isn't meant to be a flamebait, I really want to know -- I must be missing some information about PS3!
An FPGA does not make a very good DSP for the price. I suppose if it's one of the nicer ones from the Virtex series, you can get it to do DSP, but it won't be as good as the processor already in the PC.
That's not true, at all. An FPGA will not be as good of a general-prupose DSP as a custom-made DSP, but it will still be better than a CPU -- even the low-cost Cyclone II comes with 150 dedicated multiplers coupled with embedded memory, so they can do parallel multiply/accumulate at 700+ MHz. And these are the low-end FPGAs...
Now, if you're actually programming the FPGA using custom-designed circuitry optimized for the task you're workin on, the FPGA will work a lot better than a general-purpose DSP, and be way ahead of an even more general purpose CPU. That's why you don't see generic DSPs being used in heavy DSP work (say, in telcos), but custom and semi-custom ASICs, and FPGAs in smaller environments.
next year we will have "startrek kids" and then Startrek babies" Spock,Kirk and Kaahn ride their hover-tricycles around the neighborhood going where "no 4 year old has gone before"
I was thinking of "Ender's Game", featuring baby Kirk as Ender, and Kaahn as Peter. That would be a great way to ruin two things in one shot. Hell, you can thrown in Archer as Mazer Rackham if you really want to go all the way.
And you're saying in your own smug, elitist way that you're an asshole. The average person on the street could care less if they satisfy your desire to hear the idiom the way that you believe it should be used.
I'm pretty sure that the average person is still not that ignorant to think that using correct words to express their thoughts is elitist. Things are definitely going that way, but my experience is that you're still the minority.
Re:Not until the moon dust problem is solved.
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US Plans Lunar Motel
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· Score: 3, Funny
...But when quartz is freshly ground into dust particles smaller than 10 m...
I think you don't have to be scientist to realize that eating 10 meter wide chunks of rock is dangerous.;)
That's not true at all, especially if you get into higher ranks... You could argue that 20k is always going to destroy a 30k, no matter what the handicap -- but that's only because 30k has very little knowledge of the game.
A 5k and 10k can play a fairly even game with a 5 stone handicap, while the 10k will always win an 8-9 handicap game.
I have to agree that "no matter how wide the difference" statement is reaching.. but some fairly wide differences can be evened out with handicap stones.
It is simply not in their nature to pay royalties to another company - especially Apple who've been a thorn in their side all these years.
They are paying royalties to ATI to use the graphics processor in Xbox 360. They also pay nVidia royalties for making Xbox 360 compatible with some Xbox games. They'll pay when they have to, and they'll do it themselves when they can't. I don't think they'd be that stubborn to not pay Apple to reach the huge iPod audience, but, then, who knows..
What's with these bit arrays? I'd think that any system small enough to worry about the amount of space a byte array takes up would either be more concerned with the additional time it takes to access a single bit or would not be processing large enough amounts of data for the array size to be a problem.
The one use I'd have for it is writing hardware simulation tests in C++... Right now, it's a bit of a pain to handle individual bits which is absolutely necessary when accessing hardware registers, signals, and forcing/poking into the design. I'm sure the grandparent had another use in mind, though.
Didja ever think that you may have air conditioning/live in a colder climate and THAT may be a contributing factor to your success? Nah, couldn't be that.. I mean everyone has the exact same setup and situation as you... stupid people... ugh.
Err... I'd say the most of the people that can afford an Xbox 360 probably have some kind of air conditioning in their house/appartment, and are not living in hellish temperatures that are actually going to make a difference in this case.
It's not the massive leap in performance I was hoping for.
What kind of a "performance" were you looking for? Faster image processing in Photoshop, quicker unraring, faster loading of Firefox? Seriously, if the console has better graphics and highest resolution available on TVs, that's all the "performance" you need. I haven't seen any serious game developers complaining that the Xbox 360 is not able to handle the game they were trying to design, so they had to dumb it down, have you?
Slashdot Mirror
In that case, why is the first security measure the airports in the UK introduced to ban hand luggage? If we're worried about bombs, why does it matter whether the bomb is hand luggage or cargo?
Because the plan was to bring in two non-explosive substances and mix them in the washroom, creating an explosive on board. Checking them in makes them harmless, since you can't get to them to mix them up...
I think he was joking, aluding to the poker bots which are often thought, by laymen, to be able to clean out the online players. It should be clear to any programmer that programming bots for this kind of a contest are unlikely to be even attempted in the near future.
HTX based ATI video cards are a better idea then one in the cpu
Well, that's pretty much what a Radeon Xpress chipset for AMD is, if you don't plug in an external card into its PCIE slot -- an HT video card. You still have all that latency up and down HT to deal with, though, vs. a solution in the CPU itself.
Seems highly unlikely to me that they'd stick a GPU into the CPU. Modern GPUs are a similar size to CPUs (if not larger) and need much higher memory bandwidth... so you'd be doubling the size of your CPU and you'd need a 256-bit 1GHz+ memory interface. And then the 'high end' users would just go and buy a PCI-Express card when the next generation came out, making the whole thing a total waste.
GPU/CPU combination wouldn't be meant for high-end graphics systems, but the low-end ones. It's just the next step after integrating graphics into the chipset, which has already proven to be a huge (financial) success. Low-end graphics are already sharing the system memory bandwidth with the CPU, in both integrated graphics and low-end discrete cards (TurboCache, and whatever ATI's similar solution is called)...
Why ATI? I think there are two major reasons... First, ATI dominates the mobile market, and AMD is very weak in it. Creating a solution to compete with Intel's mobile offerings requires you to offer all the parts at a good price, and it's much harder to do that as 2 companies instead of one. ("Buy our CPU, we'll toss in a cheaper ATI chipset/card in" doesn't work if you don't own ATI :) ). Second, nVidia, even with its recent dismal stock performance, is worth over $6B, making it a lot more expensive then ATI. And, really, when you look past the Linux driver issue that irks so many here, they have very similar offerings.
Nobody will ever get to align with Intel. Intel already makes their own graphics, and, sucky as they are, they sell more of them than either ATI or nVidia. Their chipsets are already rock-solid and well-enough performing. They have all the pieces of the puzzle to sell a good "all-in-one" platform -- they've already taken over the mobile market with the Centrino platform, because they had the best mobile CPUs on top of the other things. Now they seem to be ready to attempt the same on the desktop, with the new Conroe CPUs... The only way AMD can fight that kind of a platform is to offer one of their own, and they are currently missing both graphics and chipset expertise -- which both ATI and nVidia have. I think the only reason they went with ATI is because it's cheaper :).
It could be just the circles you're moving in... A lot of people I know have some sort of an HDTV (little LCD, a cheap CRT, and some, but not many, have the big-screen kind). Here in Canada, you can get a 27" CRT for $379 (name brand, like Toshiba/Sony), and a 27" wide-screen HDTV for $499. That's a pretty small price difference, and if you're getting this to be your primary TV, I imagine a non-significant number of people select the HD option.
And, if you need space and want to go with LCD, it's almost impossible to buy an LCD that's not HD!
Decoding is actually not the most difficult task, processing wise, so you're almost correct. Where you really need the processing power is in de-interlacing, scaling, blending between multiple surfaces that these standards define, handling the 2d effects (yes, the menus, but you can also run a full-screen game in one of the surfaces if the DVD author so desired, and you need the processing power to run the Java or iHD software)... Even the high-end graphics cards can't handle all of this load yet.
It's not fair to compare CDRs to Blu-Ray DVDs.. Comparing to DVD-Rs is much more realistic. Blank DVDs are 4.7GB, and they cost $22.99 for 100 on newegg, or 4.89c per GB. Blu-Ray costs $20 per 25GB disk, or 8c per GB. So, they do cost almost twice as much as DVDs, and you also have to spend a lot of money on getting a burner for Blu-Ray.
Obviously, a spindle of 100 for $10 is unrealistic, as even CDs are not there yet. The parent still has a point, though -- they are still too overpriced to be seriously considered, unless you have to burn files larger than 4.7GB.
Neither AMD nor ATI have been known for their ability to make chipsets that don't Totally Suck, and being the leader in a particular market isn't something that a company will just let go of because of a grudge.
ATI's RD580 chipset has been getting glowing reviews pretty much across the board as being the fastest dual x16 performance you can get. You can agree with that or not, but that definitely qualifies it for "doesn't Totally Suck".
And, Intel making Intel-brand boards with ATI chipsets is also a strong suggestion that there's some value to them.
Because nVidia's market cap is more than half of AMD's, while ATI's is smaller than a third of it. ATI is cheaper, and you get more-or-less the same thing when it comes to graphics and chipsets.
I don't think it's wise to buy either of them... But, if you had to pick one, nVidia is way too expensive for what you get.
Although that is one of the limitation, it's not a particularly hard one to solve (increase the buffer size and there you go). The main reason why the bigger buffer wouldn't help point and shoots is because one sensor is used for auto-focus, exposure metering, white balance, taking pictures, and previewing the pictures on the screen! And, going from one mode to another takes a while and that's why you have such a long button-press to shutter delay. The preview-to-capture delay is the longest one there.
On a digital SLR like your D70, you have a specialized sensor doing the metering, and also 5 (or more) auto-focus sensors that are on all the time... The preview is done through the lens, so the main sensor is in standby, ready to be activated. So, when you press the button, the camera is ready to take the picture right away, and it takes only a little bit of time to adjust the exposure/focus between shots.
Now, if this new sensor delivers much shorter times in switching from preview to capture, then you could have a point-and-shoot camera taking shots fast (i.e. short press to capture delay). But, taking a series of shots fast isn't as much of a challenge for current point-and-shoots -- after all, they can take videos at 30 frames per second.
If you don't like overclocking, don't do it. However, stop whining about the chip frying. If it works, and you keep it cooled, it will probably work for a long time to come.
In fact, if you keep it cooled properly, you will not shorten its lifespan in any way. Just running the clock faster doesn't affect the CPU negatively in any way (other than possibly increasing the electron migration effect on some wires, which is still too small to matter). If it works, great. If you see some errors from time to time, it's not because you have damaged the cpu, but because the marginal paths in the chip will fail a certain percentage of the time when the clock runs faster than their total delay. Downclocking the chip back will fix that kind of a problem.
Note that increasing the voltage doesn't always help, if you run into the opposite problem where things run too fast because of the increased voltage (the "hold time" problem), then overvoltaging will just make things worse. The easy way to spot this problem is that changing the clock frequency will have no effect on it.
The bus connection between my CPU and the RAM is, indeed, the Hypertransport. Northbridge, CPU, and RAM are all connected by it.
:).
Well, whoever marked you as informative was fooled by the same info that fooled you into thinking this. Hypertransport, as the poster you are replying to explained, is *only* used to acces non-memory I/O in single-CPU systems. In those systems, like yours, it is used as a link between the CPU and the northbridge (as the wikipedia article indicates), but, unlike Intel systems, the RAM is *not* located at the northbridge. The AMD CPUs have a memory controller in the same package as the CPU core -- that's why you can achieve those low latencies you measured.
On Intel systems, though, the FSB is the link that ultimately leads to RAM. Its bandwidth only needs to be hihgher (or equal) to the bandwidth of the RAM for it not to be the bottleneck. Faster FSB doesn't mean lower latency (on most chipsets, anyway), but it does mean higher bandwidth.
Oh, and one nitpick -- the Intel FSB (used on new Intel Macs) is quad-pumped, not double-pumped (i.e. not DDR). So, the clock speed is 166MHz, and data transfer is 4x166 = 666MHz, like you said.
Nobody doubts your data. It's your understanding of the system architecture that needed some updating, that's all. It's a common mistake, anyway, AMD kinda turned things around with their on-die memory controller
I've been noticing many tech writers talking about how the 360 is "taking the nation by storm" and "everyone has to have one," but I don't know anyone who has one, I've never actually seen one in any store, Everyone is waiting for the PS3, which will give three generations of Playstation gaming in one console and will probably be my very first Playstation purchase.
:). I have to ask -- what is it that makes you say that it will be your first Playstation purchase? So far, you know nothing about how the games will play on it, what kinds of games will be made, except that it will have Blu-Ray support, and Cell chips in it. Oh, and that it will probably cost a lot. What has the Sony marketing done to so thoroughly convince you that not only you should wait for it (instead of buying Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, or Xbox 360, all much cheaper and available *now*), but that you should also buy it when it comes out, without even seeing one?!
Well, I don't know anybody who is waiting for PS3 other than an occasional Slashdot post
This isn't meant to be a flamebait, I really want to know -- I must be missing some information about PS3!
An FPGA does not make a very good DSP for the price. I suppose if it's one of the nicer ones from the Virtex series, you can get it to do DSP, but it won't be as good as the processor already in the PC.
That's not true, at all. An FPGA will not be as good of a general-prupose DSP as a custom-made DSP, but it will still be better than a CPU -- even the low-cost Cyclone II comes with 150 dedicated multiplers coupled with embedded memory, so they can do parallel multiply/accumulate at 700+ MHz. And these are the low-end FPGAs...
Now, if you're actually programming the FPGA using custom-designed circuitry optimized for the task you're workin on, the FPGA will work a lot better than a general-purpose DSP, and be way ahead of an even more general purpose CPU. That's why you don't see generic DSPs being used in heavy DSP work (say, in telcos), but custom and semi-custom ASICs, and FPGAs in smaller environments.
next year we will have "startrek kids" and then Startrek babies"
Spock,Kirk and Kaahn ride their hover-tricycles around the neighborhood going where "no 4 year old has gone before"
I was thinking of "Ender's Game", featuring baby Kirk as Ender, and Kaahn as Peter. That would be a great way to ruin two things in one shot. Hell, you can thrown in Archer as Mazer Rackham if you really want to go all the way.
And you're saying in your own smug, elitist way that you're an asshole. The average person on the street could care less if they satisfy your desire to hear the idiom the way that you believe it should be used.
I'm pretty sure that the average person is still not that ignorant to think that using correct words to express their thoughts is elitist. Things are definitely going that way, but my experience is that you're still the minority.
...But when quartz is freshly ground into dust particles smaller than 10 m...
;)
I think you don't have to be scientist to realize that eating 10 meter wide chunks of rock is dangerous.
That's not true at all, especially if you get into higher ranks... You could argue that 20k is always going to destroy a 30k, no matter what the handicap -- but that's only because 30k has very little knowledge of the game.
A 5k and 10k can play a fairly even game with a 5 stone handicap, while the 10k will always win an 8-9 handicap game.
I have to agree that "no matter how wide the difference" statement is reaching.. but some fairly wide differences can be evened out with handicap stones.
Uh, how did one (1) warehouse suddenly become 2500 warehouses?
:).
40 years worth of waste fit into 1 warehouse... So, I think the grandparent was estimating the number of warehouses needed in 10,000 years.
Myself, I hope we don't use the same nuclear plants in 10,000 years
It is simply not in their nature to pay royalties to another company - especially Apple who've been a thorn in their side all these years.
They are paying royalties to ATI to use the graphics processor in Xbox 360. They also pay nVidia royalties for making Xbox 360 compatible with some Xbox games. They'll pay when they have to, and they'll do it themselves when they can't. I don't think they'd be that stubborn to not pay Apple to reach the huge iPod audience, but, then, who knows..
What's with these bit arrays? I'd think that any system small enough to worry about the amount of space a byte array takes up would either be more concerned with the additional time it takes to access a single bit or would not be processing large enough amounts of data for the array size to be a problem.
The one use I'd have for it is writing hardware simulation tests in C++... Right now, it's a bit of a pain to handle individual bits which is absolutely necessary when accessing hardware registers, signals, and forcing/poking into the design. I'm sure the grandparent had another use in mind, though.
Didja ever think that you may have air conditioning/live in a colder climate and THAT may be a contributing factor to your success? Nah, couldn't be that.. I mean everyone has the exact same setup and situation as you... stupid people... ugh.
Err... I'd say the most of the people that can afford an Xbox 360 probably have some kind of air conditioning in their house/appartment, and are not living in hellish temperatures that are actually going to make a difference in this case.
It's not the massive leap in performance I was hoping for.
What kind of a "performance" were you looking for? Faster image processing in Photoshop, quicker unraring, faster loading of Firefox? Seriously, if the console has better graphics and highest resolution available on TVs, that's all the "performance" you need. I haven't seen any serious game developers complaining that the Xbox 360 is not able to handle the game they were trying to design, so they had to dumb it down, have you?